AsukaShikinami10 wrote:Both spears manifested Shinji's state of mundo, and Gendo was counting with it. So now I clearly can see that Kaworu's desynching was Gendo's doing (maybe he and Fututsuki were able to learn what was happening at the time via Evangelion 13's communication system).

Doesn't the movie clearly show Kaworu's desynching as Shinji's doing?


I get that scheming Gendo is ultimately responsible for everything, but this particular action seems unambiguously attributable to Shinji.

It might be stupidly reductive, but I think it really comes down to that there are no real-world correlatives for Shinji wishing Evangelion away. And when there's no pathway to apply the lessons learned (or rather, stated) in Instrumentality, they then also logically have to fall victim to being treated as unrealities that are best put aside.

There is a real world correlative to Shinji wishing Evangelion away, it’s Anno saying “I’m finally done with this shit after 25 years, now stop bothering me about Eva and let me make my Ultraman movie”.

I think the desire for a “pathway to apply the lessons learned” is a fundamental misunderstanding of what Anno was trying to do with Evangelion. I don’t think Eva was ever written to be “instructive” in any manner, it’s just that the ideas that Anno put on the screen in NGE happened to be deeply relatable to a lot of people. I believe that Anno wrote the Rebuilds exactly as “from the heart” as NGE, except “creator waving goodbye to his billion-dollar magnum opus” is something distinctly less relatable to… well, literally everyone except Anno and the people he worked closely on Eva with.

nerv bae wrote:I get that scheming Gendo is ultimately responsible for everything, but this particular action seems unambiguously attributable to Shinji.

Yeah but, Gendo knew he would do that ahead of time. Solved.

Archer wrote:I think the desire for a “pathway to apply the lessons learned” is a fundamental misunderstanding of what Anno was trying to do with Evangelion. I don’t think Eva was ever written to be “instructive” in any manner, it’s just that the ideas that Anno put on the screen in NGE happened to be deeply relatable to a lot of people. I believe that Anno wrote the Rebuilds exactly as “from the heart” as NGE, except “creator waving goodbye to his billion-dollar magnum opus” is something distinctly less relatable to… well, literally everyone except Anno and the people he worked closely on Eva with.

I agree, that's always seemed the least disagreeable reading to me. I guess I meant more that if you treat certain elements of your work as disposable by whim you sort of invite the audience to treat your frivolity itself as disposable or frivolous.

nerv bae wrote:

SPOILER: Show

Doesn't the movie clearly show Kaworu's desynching as Shinji's doing?

I get that scheming Gendo is ultimately responsible for everything, but this particular action seems unambiguously attributable to Shinji.

Yeah. This scene implies Shinji is responsible for Kaworu's desynching.

That said, this doesn't really affect the theory that Shinji's inmaturity or despair turns the Spears to Spears of Longinus, since Shinji taking complete control of Eva-13 was a necessary expectation from Gendo (otherwise Kaworu wouldn't allow Eva-13 to take the Spears).

Even though we see Shinji pulling the controls on his side of Eva 13, I still think that Kaworu's desynchronization was Gendo's doing (i.e. he programmed the Eva to stop taking commands from Kaworu after Shinji entered this desperate state), so that he couldn't interfere with Shinji's actions.

Another thing that makes me believe so is once Eva 13 has awakened Kaworu once again gains control on said Eva just to pierce it with both spears. We don't see Shinji doing anything else to give Kaworu control again. In fact, we see that once Eva 13 Is awakened Shinji too loses control over it.

So for me it was programmed that way by Gendo and when it was needed he gave control to Kaworu again since he was the one who knew how to "stop" an impact.

Shinji knew nothing about impact dynamics, and Gendo needed to stop Fourth Impact in order to make his Additional Impact, so for me it was all Gendo's doing all along.

AsukaShikinami10 wrote:Another thing that makes me believe so is once Eva 13 has awakened Kaworu once again gains control on said Eva just to pierce it with both spears. We don't see Shinji doing anything else to give Kaworu control again. In fact, we see that once Eva 13 Is awakened Shinji too loses control over it.

That's interesting, I never thought about how Kaworu made Unit 13 spear itself after Shinji disconnected his control system. In the screencaps below, we see that when Kaworu starts his Fourth Impact speech, the cross-connection lines between entry plug seats are still disconnected, and Kaworu's hands are off the controls resting on his seat. As both spears go in, Shinji reacts in pain but Kaworu is unfazed, indicating that he's not connected to Unit 13 in the same manner as Shinji. Finally, after the DSS choker explodes, before the view is obscured by gore we see that Kaworu's hands are still resting on his seat, as though he hadn't touched his controls at all during the spearing.


I think we're meant to believe that Kaworu was able to influence Unit 13 without using its control system (in a parallel to NGE episode 24). This seems to cut against the idea that Gendo reestablished Kaworu's connection.

Konja7 wrote:I'm not really interested in mecha battles, but I'm pretty sure the giant robots are part of Eva's appeal.

That said, in 3.0+1.0, battles are still necessary to advance the story and get the characters to a certain point. In this case, the staff wanted to stage a confrontation between Shinji and Gendo.

When you say to get the characters to a certain point. Do you mean development-wise or event-wise? Because all the battles can be written out of the movie without majorly affecting the story.
For the Paris battle the movie can just show the crew securing the supplements without the units guarding them. It's not like they gain any intel from the battle anyway.
For the Mark 7 battle all that really needs to happen is for Mari to become unavailable when Asuka needs help which can be accomplished by her falling for a trap like being frozen with a force field or anything really. The Mark 7s don't need to even exist.
The battle between Gendo and Shinji while it is something audiences expect to happen through an Eva battle it can be visually represented in anyway(like both of them having a physical fight in their adult forms) because it is imaginary after all.
The only instance where a battle is necessary is the unit 8 vs Marks 9a, 10, 11, 12 when unit 8 awakens by consuming the other units and even then there are ways to write around it. I would even say the final version of the battle barely is one considering 9a slightly shakes itself instead of doing it more violently and could've shot Mari by just looking at her upside down, 10 attacks but doesn't defend itself, 11 charges at 8 and stays perfectly still to get eaten by that tiger attack, and 12 is eaten off-screen. Besides, prior to getting attacked why doesn't 9a react at all even if it's doing another task? Shouldn't all units have advanced radars that tells them the targets' status? To top it all off they're awakened units so they should be more aware of their surroundings.

Edit: Forgot about the ship battle. All that's needed it's for the Wunder to be incapacitated in order to be used for the impact. One way of accomplishing this is having the other ships wait on the bottom and ambush it without completely destroying it.

@nerv bae

Kaworu power is not very clear in the movie, as he doesn't even bother helping Shinji fight off Asuka. It would have been more interesting to see more action scenes with Kaworu, since he is an angel, and the concept of the angels are at least to engage in some sort of combat. I think his main role, is to serve as the an analogy to Christianity and being the sacrifice needed to save the world.

Kaworu movie powers:
- Pilot Unit 13 without touching the controls
- Fix SDAT
- Piano
- Friendship

Kaworu's power to control Eva-13 without touching the controls is interesting, because he doesn't seem to be able to do this when Shinji has taken complete control over Eva-13.

However, once Shinji lost all control over Eva-13 during the Fourth Impact, Kaworu seems to be able to use his Angel power to control Eva-13 to stab itself with the two Spears of Longinus (trying to stop the Fourth Impact).



PS: In NGE, Kaworu mentioned he could control Eva-02, because the connection with it's pilot was severed. So, this could be a similar situation.

Or maybe impaling itself with the spears was programmed into Unit 13 as part of the ritual of Fourth Impact, like how Mark.06/Lilith remains was seen impaled by spears in 3.0, how Additional Impact happened by impaling the spears in Imaginary Lilith and how the restoration of the world happened by Unit 01 impaling itself with the spear of Gaius (or back to EoE, how Third Impact started when the MP-Evas impaled themselves with their spears).

Seems more plausible to me than Kaworu somehow regaining control of EVA-13, but only its arms, out of nowhere.

nerv bae wrote:

SPOILER: Show

Doesn't the movie clearly show Kaworu's desynching as Shinji's doing?

I get that scheming Gendo is ultimately responsible for everything, but this particular action seems unambiguously attributable to Shinji.

Thing is, how does Shinji knows how to do that, or even that such a function exists? There are no indications that Shinji had any training on the piloting of EVA-13 except the piano lessons that were hidden lessons on the synchronization to break the seal.

ElMariachi wrote:Thing is, how does Shinji knows how to do that, or even that such a function exists? There are no indications that Shinji had any training on the piloting of EVA-13 except the piano lessons that were hidden lessons on the synchronization to break the seal.

In 2.22 he locked NERV out of most Unit 01 functions, which is similar in concept.

ElMariachi wrote:Or maybe impaling itself with the spears was programmed into Unit 13 as part of the ritual of Fourth Impact, like how Mark.06/Lilith remains was seen impaled by spears in 3.0, how Additional Impact happened by impaling the spears in Imaginary Lilith and how the restoration of the world happened by Unit 01 impaling itself with the spear of Gaius (or back to EoE, how Third Impact started when the MP-Evas impaled themselves with their spears).

Seems more plausible to me than Kaworu somehow regaining control of EVA-13, but only its arms, out of nowhere.

In Rebuild, the Spears dissapear when they are used as part of the ritual in an Impact. This happened in the Fourth Impact in 3.0+1.0 and the Additional Impact (it's implied to have happened in the Second Impact too), but this doesn't happened when Eva-13 was impaled by the two Spears of Longinus. Not to mention that Imaginary Lilth wasn't really impaled by the Spears, these were absorbed by Imaginary Lilith to start the Additional Impact.

Also, we could compare the Fourth Impacts in 3.0 and 3.0+1.0. In 3.0+1.0, the Black Moon Spear was absorbed by the Gates of Guf to start the "purification" of the souls. This "purification" didn't started in 3.0, but Eva-13 with the Spears of Longinus was soaring into the sky (towards the Gates of Guf).

Another reason why I think Kaworu controled Eva-13 to impal itself is because this happened just after he says he will close the Gates of Guff. It's just after Eva-13 is stabbed by the two Spears of Longinus (and Kaworu's death) that Eva-13 started to fall, which would delay the "purification" of souls.



PS: Also, the flashback shows Mark.06/Lilith has already started the Third Impact without the Spears. So, the Spears of Cassius and Longinus were likely used to stop it (otherwise these Spears would have dissapeared).

Konja7 wrote:PS: Also, the flashback shows Mark.06/Lilith has already started the Third Impact without the Spears. So, the Spears of Cassius and Longinus were likely used to stop it (otherwise these Spears would have dissapeared).

I guess that it would help to know exactly how 3I was stopped so we could compare with 3.0. (although it's weird that seemingly no spear was necessary for Third Impact, when they were required for every other ones, what's up with that?)

I always thought no one was specifically in control of Kaworu getting shut out, that it happened as some aspect of Shinji deciding to go for the spears. Doesn't really make sense, but it doesn't seem like Shinji was cognizant enough to do something like shutting Kaworu out, and the idea that Gendo pressed some commands up in NERV HQ just didn't feel right for a scene that's so focused on Shinji's psychodrama. I always got the vibe that Evangelion 13 wasn't really operating at Shinji's behest. It always gave me the vibe of a much more self-aware, self-directed beast than the other Rebuild Evangelions.

Gendo's Glasses wrote:I always thought no one was specifically in control of Kaworu getting shut out, that it happened as some aspect of Shinji deciding to go for the spears. Doesn't really make sense, but it doesn't seem like Shinji was cognizant enough to do something like shutting Kaworu out, and the idea that Gendo pressed some commands up in NERV HQ just didn't feel right for a scene that's so focused on Shinji's psychodrama. I always got the vibe that Evangelion 13 wasn't really operating at Shinji's behest. It always gave me the vibe of a much more self-aware, self-directed beast than the other Rebuild Evangelions.

In my case, my impression was that Shinji caused Kaworu getting shut out, but he did not do it consciously.

I always thought Shinji's will to take the Spears was so strong at that point that he subconsciously took all control over Eva-13 from Kaworu (who wanted to stop Shinji).


PS: I was so sure about this interpretation that I was surprised when I read people have other interpretations of that scene.

Having been helpfully pointed here, I'll just say that the editing definitely conveyed to me that :
- Shinji disengaged Kaworu controls.
- Eva 13 impaling itself was a result of Kaworu trying to fix things.

Though both are debatable.
The first edit could be : Kaworu controls gets disengaged when Shinji decides to go all in and rack the commands forward to go for the spears, either as a result of the Eva attuning to Shinji's will and/or some preprogrammed step of the Plan™ Definitely a reflection of Shinji just refusing to listen.
The whole film is about being in Shinji's shoes and nobody explaining to him the details so...
The part about the Eva impaling itself I'm not sure still. I think the real part of Kaworu's helping is accepting to die to stop it.

I never thought about the idea that the lances might be incorrect because Shinji transformed them out of sheer desperation and acting out of the "wrong motives" so to speak. It works as a metaphor, not sure it makes sense in-universe, but it's all about Shinji reshaping his imaginary, isn't it ?
Not sure getting more lore, more rites to explain why one of the two lances shape shifted at one point would really be fulfilling.

AsuQa_PsyOp_Langley wrote:I never thought about the idea that the lances might be incorrect because Shinji transformed them out of sheer desperation and acting out of the "wrong motives" so to speak. It works as a metaphor, not sure it makes sense in-universe, but it's all about Shinji reshaping his imaginary, isn't it ?

The Spears were incorrect before Shinji takes them. That's why Kaworu was so worried, since he expected to find a Spear of Longinus and a Spear of Cassius

The Spears impaling Lilith have the Longinus handle. So, these Spears will likely become Spears of Longinus regardless the emotional state of Shinji.

The question is how Shinji could become one of these Spears on Cassius again in 3.0+1.0. This seems to be relates to his emotional growth.

Oh I know I was going full "what if Shinji bended reality even before they get in the chamber ?" with it.

With the whole "Eva 1 is hope, 13 despair" of the finale, maybe sending Eva-01 to space tampered the lance of hope somehow remotely even after the Lilith chamber was sealed.
That or fiddling with the Adams ?