I know that a ton has been written over the years (decades?) on the nature of Shinji/Misato's relationship, and it seems to be commonly accepted that a certain well-known scene in Episode 23/23' depicts Shinji mourning the apparent death of Rei and rejecting Misato's offer of sex. I have read a lot of the theory that's been written on this and generally accept this interpretation.

But because the implications of this exchange are more implied than stated outright, I sometimes wonder: could a case be made that Misato was not, in fact, offering sex to Shinji in this scene? Is there any particular piece of evidence suggesting that this must be the case? must be canon? or is it a conclusion drawn from (admittedly, a lot) of background information and character profiles for Shinji and Misato throughout the series?

I have to confess that the first time I saw this scene, the offer of sex was completely lost on me. I thought she was trying to console a despondent Shinji in a way that a mother figure would. I.e. reaching for his hand and possibly intending to hold him / literally offer a shoulder for him to cry on (despite the fact that, yes, he had just stated that the tears wouldn't come).

Then, as mentioned above, I read into a lot of the theory surrounding this, and was convinced that I must have missed something. So I went back and rewatched it, this time actively looking for it . . . and still, while I can see how this conclusion is reached, the impression I most naturally take from this scene is one of motherly consolation, not trying to cope via sex.

Is this scene really as open to interpretation as I seem to believe? Or am I just not looking closely enough? Would Asuka be right to ask me: "Are you stupid?"?

I have always been on your side in this one - the scene just doesn't have that implication very strongly. Its absolutely the case that this is the intent behind the creators, but I think you can just say they failed at it. Given that through the show there really is just no Shinji/Misato romantic connection or intention, they both have canonical other love interests, there is not enough context to make that implication work at all. So for me, death of the author reigns here - the scene doesn't have enough going on to give it that meaning, 'all i can do is comfort you (platonically)' is the dominant meaning.

I think End of Eva essentially is admitting this mistake, so the proposal is made way more explicit. You can contrast the two scenes to really showcase what a Misato proposal would actually look like.

Parkagirl wrote:I have to confess that the first time I saw this scene, the offer of sex was completely lost on me. I thought she was trying to console a despondent Shinji in a way that a mother figure would. I.e. reaching for his hand and possibly intending to hold him / literally offer a shoulder for him to cry on (despite the fact that, yes, he had just stated that the tears wouldn't come).

This was my reading, too, on first viewing; the "adult kiss" scene also works better when it doesn't look like making an offer already once refused. The scene next episode with Kaworu doing the same hand holding doesn't really change that.

The scene has always read to me as a more unspoken, for lack of a better term vibes kind of thing; the two options here aren't as mutually exclusive as they seem at first glance.

I think this scene cannot be made sense of with anime as the medium, but would make more sense in a live action adult-ish drama.

Anime can't really display that Shinji betrays his attraction to women by trying to avoid them because he feels too emberrased about himself. Or show how he has learned to play it cool and stifle even puberty-level emotions of attraction women. Plus he has a whole anger thing going on to keep him preoccupied.

I don't think the scene was an offer for sex. It was an offer for perhaps something like a more benign form of intimacy like hugging in bed (clothed). In short, Misato was giving Shinji permission to be in the arms of someone who is smokin' hot (canon).

Misato generally projects onto Shinji that a major reason for his depression and glass feelings is his clumsiness with women. She's inspired by her own growing up experience of being traumatized by the 3rd impact to becoming a social butterfly and actively dating. What she doesn't understand is that Shinji's scars go deeper than just an isolated growing up experience.

There also may be a disconnect between Shinji and Misato about what was being offered. This disconnect may also be the cause of varying opinions about which fan-based interpretation is correct. Misato in her experience, hugging Shinji would be pretty tame for her but understands that Shinji being a teenager may overreact to the experience. Shinji being a teenager may have pulled the trigger and interpreted it to mean an offer for sex, so he rejects it as disgusting. I think Misato sees a problem with Shinji's point-of-view about intimacy and would like to gently help Shinji learn about it and not see it as the boogyman, even if she has to be a little bit deceptive about how to nudge Shinji in the right direction. It's riskee, but she's determined to care about his well being.

Also keep in mind this anime's ideas about sexuality come from the 90's and modern Japan, and are a little more liberal than they are today in the west, after the Me Too movement. The types of interactions between people facing end-of-the world scenerios may break established social norms if greater society isn't around enforce them.

There’s a lot of stuff in the Eva fandom (and especially on this forum) that are basically repeated as factual declarations when they are at best well-founded speculations or interpretations. I believe this is mostly a result of the fact that most viewers don’t feel like thinking for themselves and coming up with their own interpretations, and so latch onto and propagate other people’s existing interpretations as if they’re canonical fact.

While there can be a solid, evidence-based argument made in favor of the idea that Misato was offering him sex, it is not a fact, merely a widely-propagated interpretation. If you disagree with it, it doesn’t mean you’re wrong, just that you’ve made your own interpretation that is equally based on textual evidence.

Archer wrote:There’s a lot of stuff in the Eva fandom (and especially on this forum) that are basically repeated as factual declarations when they are at best well-founded speculations or interpretations. I believe this is mostly a result of the fact that most viewers don’t feel like thinking for themselves and coming up with their own interpretations, and so latch onto and propagate other people’s existing interpretations

Abso-fucking-lutely.

About soooo many things. And a lot of that crap unfortunately ends up on the Wiki.

Maybe we need Jordan Peterson to do a 10-minute speech review of this scene