Melkor wrote:... and says that nobody told her how rough synchronizing with an Eva would be after her fight with the Third Angel, implying that that was her first time piloting an Eva, meaning she couldn't have had the Curse of the Eva (which stops her aging) yet at that point.

Oh, duh, okay. The "synchronizing is rough" line is about four minutes after the line I found ambiguity in a few posts up, and resolves it in favor of this actually being her first time piloting. Further, the line I found ambiguity in could have been a misdirect (if she were lying to Kaji) but here she's speaking only to herself so it doesn't make sense as a lie/misdirect. So, this Mari has never piloted before, and the "clone with (some) memories" theory connects her back to the original Mari Iscariot in Gendo's class.

Man, I REALLY don’t like the idea of Mari being yet another clone. Because it’s not directly implied at all, I’m inclined to believe that this isn’t the intended interpretation, and that her backstory actually just doesn’t make any sense, either intentionally or because plans changed somewhere along the line, causing her early lines to contradict later plans.

If Mari was a clone herself I feel like it would lessen the overall impact of Shikinami being one herself. Interestingly enough is how Shikinami's reveal didn't at all invalidate Rei being of a series considering we already knew, and because it was pretty out of left field, it was executed probably the best it could've been. Mari being one? I don't know if it's bias but at that point I think it would just be needless overkill and would trivialise the concept.

It would parallel the themes of the other two Rebuild clones though. Rei, a clone that eventually discovers her own purpose and a place to belong. Asuka, a clone that eventually discovers her own purpose and a place to belong. And now Mari, a clone that eventually discovers her own purpose and a place to belong. Mari being a clone can be done in an interesting way, depending on how it's written. For example, rather than just treating her like a clone, Mari's original Maria Iscariot might have actually raised her like a daughter. This would be what sets Mari apart from Rei and Asuka. Unlike them, Mari grew up feeling loved and wanted. She could have been the very first prototype of all the clones, and as a result only one was ever made, making her unique as the only Makinami series. Maybe as her end approached, Maria implanted her memories, or maybe even soul, into her clone daughter as part of her plan to live on through her, causing their two personalities to sort of meld, but not completely. Occasionally parts of her original Maria would show (like during 3.0+1.0), while other times parts of the clone Mari would show (like during 2.0), leaving Mari unsure of who she really is. Maria felt somewhat guilty for doing this to Mari though, because she basically stole away her daughter's autonomy by overwriting herself onto her. This would then lead to an interesting personal conflict for Mari, where she has discover an identity for herself. Will she always just be Maria 2.0, or is she capable of being her own unique person.

As Shinji was having his goodbye with Yui, Mari could have been simultaneously going through her own personal instrumentality journey, where she has a final meeting with the soul of Maria inside her (kind of like how Yui was "inside" Shinji all along, according to Gendo) and they part ways, finally allowing her daughter to be free and live as her own person rather than controlling her destiny. With Maria leaving, all four of the original college buddies (Gendo, Yui, Maria, and Fuyutsuki) would depart together at roughly the same time. Another possibility is that Maria could have been the soul of Unit-08. Mari seemed to have a particular attachment to Unit-08, and when she said goodbye to it, it almost felt a little personal. Fuyutsuki's words to Mari would then have a double meaning, because he wasn't just addressing Mari, but Unit-08 as a traitor as well, Unit-08 choosing to side with her child like Unit-01 did. Fuyutsuki knew Unit-08 would receive the overlapping that would allow it to eat the Opfer types, hence his words about how everything had been left in place for her. It wasn't just Yui, but the originals of all three clone girls maybe became the controls systems for Evas. Unit-01 (Yui), Unit-02 (Kyoko?), and Unit-08 (Maria).

Personally I think that they genuinely just changed their plans for Mari either between Ha and Q or between Q and Thrice, because as said above, there are too many details in Ha that only make sense if Mari is supposed to actually be 14. Remember that in the Ha making off they had a lot of ideas about Mari's backstories, several being incompatible with her being in her 40s in Ha, like her just coming from a Catholic private school, or her interacting with the other pilots, which Gendo wouldn't had tolerated if she was an adult and aware of their plans as it would be an uncontrollable element thrown in his plan.

While I agree -

-Technically speaking, her being in her 40’s isn’t mutually exclusive with her being from a Catholic boarding school… she’s probably just wearing that uniform for fun anyways, it’s not like there’s any logical reason why she’d go on a mission wearing her school uniform.

-Gendo absolutely would not tolerate her interacting with the pilots, but aside from smushing her boobs in Shinji’s face once, she never actually interacts with any of them until AFTER 3.0 (at which point Gendo’s approval is kind of a moot point anyways).

Archer wrote:-Gendo absolutely would not tolerate her interacting with the pilots, but aside from smushing her boobs in Shinji’s face once, she never actually interacts with any of them until AFTER 3.0 (at which point Gendo’s approval is kind of a moot point anyways).

I was talking about the initial ideas of scenes Khara had for her in Ha, like having a tea party with Shinji in the school roof in a later scene, being affected to NERV as a new pilot and becoming a rival-then-friend to Asuka, IIRC there was also an idea of her inviting the pilots to a ramen and even another where Asuka dies against Bardiel and Mari replaces her for good.
All those initial ideas are incompatible with the backstory of her being from Gendo and Yui's generation and part of their early cabal, because in that case that would mean that Mari was still following Gendo's plans to have him tolerate her presence.

What I wonder is when did Khara decided to make her from Gendo's generation and a much more important player in the behind-the-curtain stuff: was it just after Ha, or somewhere between Q and Thice?

ElMariachi wrote:What I wonder is when did Khara decided to make her from Gendo's generation and a much more important player in the behind-the-curtain stuff: was it just after Ha, or somewhere between Q and Thice?

Something tells me that idea probably came from Sadamoto. In his manga, Mari is also revealed to be part of Gendo and Yui's generation. The relationships may have been a bit different, but that general plot point is still true. For whatever reason, Sadamoto just really wanted to incorporate the concept from that chapter into the story somehow, resulting in some minor tweaks (Mari being college buddies with Gendo and Yui, but being the one that introduced Gendo to Yui rather than wanting Yui for herself). Sadamoto left partway through the production of 3.0+1.0, but by the time he did the stuff with Mari was probably already in there.

Melkor wrote:Something tells me that idea probably came from Sadamoto. In his manga, Mari is also revealed to be part of Gendo and Yui's generation. The relationships may have been a bit different, but that general plot point is still true. For whatever reason, Sadamoto just really wanted to incorporate the concept from that chapter into the story somehow, resulting in some minor tweaks (Mari being college buddies with Gendo and Yui, but being the one that introduced Gendo to Yui rather than wanting Yui for herself). Sadamoto left partway through the production of 3.0+1.0, but by the time he did the stuff with Mari was probably already in there.

In 3.0, Mari already called Gendo as "Gendo-kun". So, I think the staff likely planned Mari being part of Gendo and Yui's generation at that time.

Yeah… my guess would be during the development of 3.0. After all, they’re pretty open about not having much of a real plan for Mari in 2.0, and we know now that a LOT of changes must have went on as they were writing 3.0.

Hopefully the CRC’s will elucidate some of these points. They certainly weren’t shy about Mari in the 2.0 interviews so I wouldn’t be surprised if we learn about her developmental history soon.

ElMariachi wrote:I was talking about the initial ideas of scenes Khara had for her in Ha, like having a tea party with Shinji in the school roof in a later scene, being affected to NERV as a new pilot and becoming a rival-then-friend to Asuka, IIRC there was also an idea of her inviting the pilots to a ramen and even another where Asuka dies against Bardiel and Mari replaces her for good.

Would you happen to know where I could find these ideas in their original format? This sounds very interesting as a lot of the concept work on Mari seems to heavily differ from the final product, really, any background info on the Rebuilds at all is super interesting because of how stark the concepts seem to be.

@psiwashere
https://www.gwern.net/docs/eva/2010-crc
This site has most if not all of the behind the scenes interviews, which is where most of our knowledge about the changes 2.0 went through in its development comes from.

Sweet, I'll be sure to check this out soon enough, thanks!