Hi. I recently rewatched Evangelion NTE 3.333 after watching TUAT and didn't find the answer as to why neither of the two lances shapeshifted into a Cassius-type. Kaworu says something like he understands something is going on, but I couldn't find the answer as to what's the reason he felt treasoned by Gendoh. Even after watching Shinji transform a Longinus-type into a Cassius-type in TUAT, I still don't get how the lances change between one type to another and why Kaworu couldn't do anything about it. Could you share your thoughts on what could be the trigger to change the lances?

The topic is complicated, because there are information we don't know.

The trigger for the Fourth Impact in 3.333 was Kaworu becoming the Thirteenth Angel, which was totally unexpected for Kaworu. At the end, Kaworu realizes Gendo planned and caused his transformation into the Thirteenth Angel.

I assume that Kaworu being demoted to the Thirteenth Angel made it impossible for him to transform the spears into Cassius.

@Konja7 Kaworu explicitly said those weren't the lances they were looking for way before he was demoted to the thirteenth angel, so it means he didn't even knew the lances could change between one or another type to begin with.

I still don't get why Anno said wey would better understands 3.333 after watching TUAT (It raised more questions than answers, at least to me).

AsukaShikinami10 wrote:@Konja7 Kaworu explicitly said those weren't the lances they were looking for way before he was demoted to the thirteenth angel, so it means he didn't even knew the lances could change between one or another type to begin with.

The Spears being different was the first hint for Kaworu that the situation was going in a bad direction. Kaworu doesn't exactly know what will happen when Eva-13 takes that Spears, but he knows it wouldn't be good.

Even if Kaworu knew the Spears could change, he would know the Spears being different is a bad sign and it is too risky to take those spears.


Kaworu explicitly said that he becoming the Thirteenth Angel (which he never expected) was the trigger for that Fourth Impact in 3.333. So, even although the Spears of Longinus have a role in that Fourth Impact, it wouldn't be enough without the Thirteenth Angel's appearance.

In Shin, Unit 01 grabs hold of a lance it snatched from Eva 13 and it morphs into a Cassius spear. Gendo then immediately says that Cassius was the spear of Hope (in contrast to Longinus being the lance of despair) and later states that Unit 01 was the Eva of Hope (in contrast to Eva 13 being of despair). Basic theory is that only Unit 01 has the power to morph despair into hope and as such Eva 13 couldn't have changed a Longinus spear around. As for the Mark 06 wielding Cassius at the end of 2.0, that's all up in the air still.

TheFriskyIan wrote:In Shin, Unit 01 grabs hold of a lance it snatched from Eva 13 and it morphs into a Cassius spear. Gendo then immediately says that Cassius was the spear of Hope (in contrast to Longinus being the lance of despair) and later states that Unit 01 was the Eva of Hope (in contrast to Eva 13 being of despair). Basic theory is that only Unit 01 has the power to morph despair into hope and as such Eva 13 couldn't have changed a Longinus spear around. As for the Mark 06 wielding Cassius at the end of 2.0, that's all up in the air still.

I don't really buy that theory, because I feel the positions of Eva-01 as the Unit of Hope and Eva-13 as the Unit of Despair are only reached in Shin (when Eva-01 wields the Spear of Cassius, while Eva-13 wields the Spear of Longinus).

After all, in 3.0, Kaworu wanted to use Eva-13 to bring hope to the Lilins since he planned to use Eva-13 with the Spears of Longinus and Cassius to restore the Earth, so it doesn't seem Eva-13 was considered the Unit of Despair at that point.

I also doubt Eva-01 would normally be considered the Unit of Hope after the events of 2.0.


Honestly, the Spear of Longinus morphing into the Spear of Cassius by Eva-01 in Shin seems to be related to Shinji who has reached an infinite synch with Eva-01.

Konja7 wrote:The Spears being different was the first hint for Kaworu that the situation was going in a bad direction. Kaworu doesn't exactly know what will happen when Eva-13 takes that Spears, but he knows it wouldn't be good.

I never really understood what Kaworu expected in 3.33.

Did he think Gendo was at his service and would just give him eva 13 without an afterthought to do whatever he and Shinji want? We're talking about a guy who went through multiple loops in which Gendo's objectives were certainly known and always the same.

This whole ordeal doesn't really seem to make any sense.

Jinroh wrote:I never really understood what Kaworu expected in 3.33.

Did he think Gendo was at his service and would just give him eva 13 without an afterthought to do whatever he and Shinji want? We're talking about a guy who went through multiple loops in which Gendo's objectives were certainly known and always the same.

This whole ordeal doesn't really seem to make any sense.

Well, we don't know how much knowledge Kaworu inherited from the multiple loops (he seems to have some memories, but we don't know if he remembers everything). Also, the events in each life seem to be pretty different, so we don't know if Gendo's objectives were always the same.

It's important to mention that Kaworu being demoted to the Thirteen Angel (the trigger for the Fourth Impact in 3.33) was totally unexpected for him. So, Kaworu never imagined that Gendo has the ability to cause this demotion.

Also, Kaworu didn't expect any interference, because he had tried to trick SEELE into believing that he was on their side (Gendo couldn't do much without SEELE's support at that point). Unfortunately, at some point, SEELE discovered Kaworu's plan to restore Earth, so they join forces with Gendo to stop Kaworu.

@AsukaShikinami10, there's a good spear thread here with a lot of discussion from earlier this year. I don't think it answers the question you posted in this topic, but it's still a fun read IMO.

Given that in Shin, we learn that the form the spears take depends largely on the intentions that they are to be used for, I read this as Kaworu and Shinji simply not having a plan that could ever have worked due to a fundamental misunderstanding of what they need to do to actually bring meaningful change.
Which fwiw is largely in line with what the scene (and in particular, the whole bit about "these aren't our spears") read to me as even before Shin came out

Blockio wrote:Given that in Shin, we learn that the form the spears take depends largely on the intentions that they are to be used for, I read this as Kaworu and Shinji simply not having a plan that could ever have worked due to a fundamental misunderstanding of what they need to do to actually bring meaningful change.
Which fwiw is largely in line with what the scene (and in particular, the whole bit about "these aren't our spears") read to me as even before Shin came out

Well, if it wasn't for the Spears impaling Lilith being different (which is implied to be caused by Gendo), Kaworu's plan to restore Earth could have worked.

Kaworu expected to find a Spear of Longinus and a Spear of Cassius impaling Lilith. So, his plan didn't need to change the form of the Spears (maybe he didn't even know changing the Spears was possible).


In Shin, we learn that the forms of the Spears could change, but we don't know the exact requirements for that. I always wondered if Shinji's infinity synch with Eva-01 could influence on that.

As far as we know Kaworu seemed to think one of the spears was a Cassius-type, meaning before the 14 year timeskip the spear was still in its Cassius form when it got used to seal the 12th angel or Lilith (I don't know which one was supposed to be in Cassius form, the one piercing Lilith or the other piercing Mark.06).

I hope when the CRC comes out we can get a proper explanation as to what was precisely going on and which might be the right interpretation on what happened that make one of the spears change its current form in 3.333.

I watched a Japanese video (quite sure that is the link, but not 100%) on YouTube that broadly follows what I mentioned earlier in that thread that Eva-01 is the unit of hope, and thus turns the spear into Cassius on contact (and similar to Eva-13 and Longinus).

Contrary to Konja. I don't think there's any specific reason to think the units acquire those denomintaitons only in 3.0+1.0, instead of having them from the start. Gendo's words sound (to me at least) like what Eva-01 and Eva-13 are, intrinsically.

Back to the video basically says that "Hope" comes from Lilith, which is the creator of all life on Earth (including the lilim), and Eva-01 and Eva Mark.06 are created from Lilith, thus they turns the spears into Cassius upon holding them.

The Adams, on the other hand, are once again the antagonists of Lilith (but this time collectively), and the ones thought responsible for impaling her long before 2I with one of their 6 spears. As such, they (and their clones) are the beings of Dispair.

Therefore, the Evas that are made/cloned from Adams turn the spears into the "dispair" state, a.k.a. Longinus.

Since it takes one souled eva to handle each spear, it is safe to assume that 3I was stopped by Eva-02 and Eva-08 (the only units available to Nerv/Wille at the time?). The video concludes that those evas must be are cloned from the Adams, since the two spears found in dogma are of "Longinus type".

However, I'm not so sure about that last part; the spears at dogma are in the "javelin" configuration, which for all we know could be just an intermediate state (neither Cassius nor Longinus), and not just some alternate form that the Longinus spear takes when e.g. it is impaled. This last bit is because the Longinus spear we see impaled on Lilith in 1.0 is in the fork shape, not javelin, and the Cassius spear from 2.0 also preserves its shape after impaling Eva-01 as seen in both 2.0 and the (botched) 3.0 preview.

So I think the question remains open about why the dogma spears have the javelin shape, other than as a plot device to confuse Kaworu.

AsukaShikinami10 wrote:As far as we know Kaworu seemed to think one of the spears was a Cassius-type, meaning before the 14 year timeskip the spear was still in its Cassius form when it got used to seal the 12th angel or Lilith (I don't know which one was supposed to be in Cassius form, the one piercing Lilith or the other piercing Mark.06).

We do not know when Kaworu last saw the spears to make that assumption; we don't know where he was at the time of 3I. Most certainly he was not at dogma piloting the Mark.06, since that would defeat the purpose of making it "autonomous" (and also, why would he cause 3I and how would he have gotten out?).
My point is that he was most likely commanding the operation to stop 3I from Nerv HQ, but not in the front line. He didn't see the last moments of the spears right before the "Lilith barrier" erected itself, and likely is speaking from his limited knowledge.

DantesInferno wrote:
I don't think there's any specific reason to think the units acquire those denomintaitons only in 3.0+1.0, instead of having them from the start.

I got the same feeling, that this was all planned since the beginning by Anno, but in his original plans Unit 08 was the one supposed to be the Unit of dispair until he changed the amount of units to fit the logic of Unit 13 matching the bad luck number.

DantesInferno wrote:
the spears at dogma are in the "javelin" configuration, which for all we know could be just an intermediate state (neither Cassius nor Longinus)

I think you're into something right there. The spears Kaworu and Shinji find are in their Javelin form, not Cassius nor Longinus. I would love to know what triggers the turning of the spears into that intermediate state. Hopefully we got a full-on proper explanation in the CRC. Fingers crossed.

DantesInferno wrote:Back to the video basically says that "Hope" comes from Lilith, which is the creator of all life on Earth (including the lilim), and Eva-01 and Eva Mark.06 are created from Lilith, thus they turns the spears into Cassius upon holding them.

Except that it's strongly implied that Mark.06 is one of the four Adams of Second Impact (and according to the 2.0 CRC there was initially supposed to have a scene during 2I's flash-back showing it and the Cassius spear being ejected to orbit and crashing on the Moon), and Gendo's infodump in Thrice shows five Adams and one Lilith, not two.

DantesInferno wrote:However, I'm not so sure about that last part; the spears at dogma are in the "javelin" configuration, which for all we know could be just an intermediate state (neither Cassius nor Longinus), and not just some alternate form that the Longinus spear takes when e.g. it is impaled. This last bit is because the Longinus spear we see impaled on Lilith in 1.0 is in the fork shape, not javelin, and the Cassius spear from 2.0 also preserves its shape after impaling Eva-01 as seen in both 2.0 and the (botched) 3.0 preview.

So I think the question remains open about why the dogma spears have the javelin shape, other than as a plot device to confuse Kaworu.

If we look at NGE as a reference, the javelin seems to be the spear's "attack mode" that it takes when its wielder wants to impale something: in NGE it turns into a javelin when Rei throws it at Arael (it even has a self-propelling function to pierce a recalcitrant AT-Field), and also as its impaling Unit 01 in EoE as Instrumentality is starting. And in 3.0 the two Longinus spears turn back into a javelin again as Unit 13 impales itself during Fourth Impact.
Both in NGE and Rebuild, the only instance where the Longinus is seen impaling something in its "fork" form is on Lilith in her cross.

But in the end, the reason why the Cassius changed into a Longinus and why Kaworu couldn't simply say to Shinji "look, we need to pull one out, transform it, then pull the other or else our plan won't work" is the same as for many holes in the story: because we're missing an entire chunk of the story that's vital for understanding everything that doesn't directly pertains to Shinji.

ElMariachi wrote:Except that it's strongly implied that Mark.06 is one of the four Adams of Second Impact (and according to the 2.0 CRC there was initially supposed to have a scene during 2I's flash-back showing it and the Cassius spear being ejected to orbit and crashing on the Moon), and Gendo's infodump in Thrice shows five Adams and one Lilith, not two.

There are quite a few reasons to believe Mark.06 is not one of the Adams from 2I. One of them is that there are four standing crosses at the 2I gound zero. This suggests that the four lesser Adams actuall "died", with the half-standing fifth cross perhaps due to the central Adams (proto-Eva-13) surviving. Another one is its ability to merge with Lilith at the neck stump. The video suggests (and I agree) that Seele developed the Mark.06 from Lilith material (that's what the chest scars are), precisely for this purpose. I never said that the Mark.06 was a "second Lilith" (just a clone thereof, and likely Eva-01 too).

Of course there is the competing theory that Mark.06 is one of the Adams that got blown into the Moon, but now I think that only applies to the spear of Cassius, and Seele built the Mark.06 there so that it could bring it back to Earth.

An open question is how "the construction method is different" for the Mark.06 than from previous Evas. Clearly, being a Lilith clone can't be it if Eva-01 too is one. It must be something else.

ElMariachi wrote:If we look at NGE as a reference, the javelin seems to be the spear's "attack mode" that it takes when its wielder wants to impale something: in NGE it turns into a javelin when Rei throws it at Arael (it even has a self-propelling function to pierce a recalcitrant AT-Field), and also as its impaling Unit 01 in EoE as Instrumentality is starting. And in 3.0 the two Longinus spears turn back into a javelin again as Unit 13 impales itself during Fourth Impact.

Yes, I'm aware of the Arael battle. but there are many things in NGE that are different regarding the spears; not sure how seriosuly we should take that.

ElMariachi wrote:Both in NGE and Rebuild, the only instance where the Longinus is seen impaling something in its "fork" form is on Lilith in her cross.

That's right... In NGE, there's two instances of javelin-mode impaling: Lilith at 3I ground zero and Eva-13 at the end of 3.0 all the way to Operation Yamato. I wonder if it's one of those "they did it for visual/stylistic reasons, and we are over-thinking it" things. Hard to tell with Anno's attention to detail...

ElMariachi wrote:But in the end, the reason why the Cassius changed into a Longinus and why Kaworu couldn't simply say to Shinji "look, we need to pull one out, transform it, then pull the other or else our plan won't work" is the same as for many holes in the story: because we're missing an entire chunk of the story that's vital for understanding everything that doesn't directly pertains to Shinji.

That's very likely. But I don't think Kaworu was expecting they could turn one of the spears into Cassius; he is confused at them not being one of each type from the start, before pulling them out. He expected to find one spear of each type upon arrival, not to be able to turn them into a complete pair.

DantesInferno wrote:There are quite a few reasons to believe Mark.06 is not one of the Adams from 2I. One of them is that there are four standing crosses at the 2I gound zero. This suggests that the four lesser Adams actuall "died", with the half-standing fifth cross perhaps due to the central Adams (proto-Eva-13) surviving. Another one is its ability to merge with Lilith at the neck stump. The video suggests (and I agree) that Seele developed the Mark.06 from Lilith material (that's what the chest scars are), precisely for this purpose. I never said that the Mark.06 was a "second Lilith" (just a clone thereof, and likely Eva-01 too).

Of course there is the competing theory that Mark.06 is one of the Adams that got blown into the Moon, but now I think that only applies to the spear of Cassius, and Seele built the Mark.06 there so that it could bring it back to Earth.

An open question is how "the construction method is different" for the Mark.06 than from previous Evas. Clearly, being a Lilith clone can't be it if Eva-01 too is one. It must be something else.

Aren't there actually five crosses at 2I ground zero, with the fifth one (presumably representing the "Prime Adam")not visible from space because its toppled? Yet EVA-13 exists, so a cross doesn't necessarily means a pulverized Adam. (then there's the matter of the Key of Nebuchadnezzar, but we don't know if it's an Adam or not)

Also, the way things are shown in 1.0 and 2.0 (the dig site around Mark.06) suggest that they found it and the spear here instead of creating it then taking all the pain to move it to the moon.
Finally, wouldn't it be dangerous to have an Angel (Kaworu) pilot something created from Lilith?

DantesInferno wrote:That's right... In NGE, there's two instances of javelin-mode impaling: Lilith at 3I ground zero and Eva-13 at the end of 3.0 all the way to Operation Yamato. I wonder if it's one of those "they did it for visual/stylistic reasons, and we are over-thinking it" things. Hard to tell with Anno's attention to detail...

It might be a question of target solidity (Lilith is "squishy" so the fork form is enough, Mark.06 and EVA-13 were armored, so the javelin mode was needed), or maybe the function is different: the fork is the "preservation" setting where it maintains the target as it is (that would explain why Lilith is half-rotten in 3.0, since it wasn't preserved by the "fork" anymore), while the javelin mode is either to kill something or to use their function when an Impact is underway.

DantesInferno wrote:That's very likely. But I don't think Kaworu was expecting they could turn one of the spears into Cassius; he is confused at them not being one of each type from the start, before pulling them out. He expected to find one spear of each type upon arrival, not to be able to turn them into a complete pair.

We're agreeing: indeed Kaworu didn't though he would be able to turn one of the spears back despite Shinji casually doing it in Thrice, and the why is hidden behind this missing chunk of the story.

ElMariachi wrote:Except that it's strongly implied that Mark.06 is one of the four Adams of Second Impact (and according to the 2.0 CRC there was initially supposed to have a scene during 2I's flash-back showing it and the Cassius spear being ejected to orbit and crashing on the Moon), and Gendo's infodump in Thrice shows five Adams and one Lilith, not two.

Gendo's infodump in Thrice shows five Adams and one Lilith?

nerv bae wrote:Gendo's infodump in Thrice shows five Adams and one Lilith?

The Secret Dead Sea Scrolls are shown during that infodump, the "side" (top of the image) with the Adamite lifeforms has the Angel led by four winged figures and one taller and winged four-armed figure (presumably the "Prime Adam"/EVA-13), while the "side" with the Lilin lifeforms (bottom of the image) have Lilith represented as a female being with twelve wings (like GNR in EoE), and there's only one such being depicted. There are also ten humanoid figures surrounding her, but the jury is out on if it's SEELE or a representation of humanity.

Ah, gotcha. Was thinking of dialogue but forgot to think about the Scrolls. Need to really sit down and stare at those sometime.