Things you didn't notice until later viewings

Discussion of the new series of Evangelion movies ( "Evangelion Shin Gekijōban", meaning "Evangelion: New Theatrical Edition"). The final instalment made its debut in Japan on March 8, 2021.

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Re: Things you didn't notice until later viewings

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Postby C.T.1290 » Fri Dec 23, 2022 12:12 pm

View Original PostBernardoCairo wrote:This is left ambiguous on purpose, I think. Did she really love him or not? Did Asuka really love him or was she programmed to like him too? Probably not, but I think it's a question that crossed her mind at some point.

The whole thing about clones being programmed just treats them more like machines instead of real people, and I think that’s the one issue I have with them. It’s like Rebuild has made Asuka into some soulless doll, just like how Rei is. So it’s like their feelings towards Shinji isn’t real, just artificially engineered, just like how they are.

I think they should have just have Asuka as a normal human being with a face and identity of very own instead of just some man made copy created as a result of a lab experiment. They really dehumanized her by making her into some sort of thing, and later as some Angel hybrid freak.
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Postby Mr. Tines » Fri Dec 23, 2022 12:14 pm

View Original Postnerv bae wrote:she seems to be departing Twitter. Wish all this material was available on Evageeks! (:|

Someone she hasn't pre-emptively blocked on twitter should point her at one or other mastodon instance, as that seems to be where all the self-exiles seem to be headed. As for hosting material at this domain - there was a lot of bridge burning went on at the time of her departure, so I doubt that it would ever be acceptable to her. It is unfortunate that some of the pages on the Wayback Machine seem to have been truncated, presumably being longer than the crawler was set up to handle.
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Postby Konja7 » Fri Dec 23, 2022 3:49 pm

View Original PostC.T.1290 wrote:The whole thing about clones being programmed just treats them more like machines instead of real people, and I think that’s the one issue I have with them. It’s like Rebuild has made Asuka into some soulless doll, just like how Rei is. So it’s like their feelings towards Shinji isn’t real, just artificially engineered, just like how they are.


Although it's said Asuka (Shikinami series) is also programmed, it's never implied that her feelings for Shinji are part of this programmation.

In fact, the way Asuka says that Ayanami series are programmed to feel attachment towards Shinji implies this is something exclusive to Ayanami series.

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Postby ElMariachi » Wed Jan 04, 2023 12:07 pm

View Original PostC.T.1290 wrote:The whole thing about clones being programmed just treats them more like machines instead of real people, and I think that’s the one issue I have with them. It’s like Rebuild has made Asuka into some soulless doll, just like how Rei is. So it’s like their feelings towards Shinji isn’t real, just artificially engineered, just like how they are.

I think they should have just have Asuka as a normal human being with a face and identity of very own instead of just some man made copy created as a result of a lab experiment. They really dehumanized her by making her into some sort of thing, and later as some Angel hybrid freak.

As said above, there are no indication that the Shikinami line was programmed with feelings for Shinji, Asuka only mentions the Ayanami line (besides the wouldn't be any interest for Gendo to have Asuka with feelings for Shinji, in his plans she's just here to fight the Angels).

But the thing that puzzles me the most is that I don't see why they added that bit for Rei II and Rei Q, what was the point?
To explain why they came to be attached to Shinji? But that already can be explained by all the time they spent together and the ordeals they got through (for Rei II), and for the fact that he was the person who first made her understood that there was a world beyond her orders and later by the Suzuharas telling her about him (Rei Q).
To say that actually those feelings are fake and thus that their relationship doesn't have any "real" worth? Rei Q immediately shot that thought down when Asuka revealed it to her, and decided that since this programing feels real to her and make her happy, then she's okay with it.

It's like the revelation in 3.0 of Ayanami being Yui's maiden's name in NTE instead of a random name, or the line "If it's a boy, Shinji. If it's a girl, Rei." repeated both in 1.0 and Thrice. I can't shake the feeling that they wanted to go somewhere with all this, but ultimately didn't (for lack of time?), and it just stays as weird trivia.


View Original PostKonja7 wrote:Rei II wanting to protect Shinji from the pain (the Eva) seems to me an aspect that is traditionally associated with motherhood. This is a wish that she mantain after the 14 years timeskip.

Also, Rei II tries to improve the relationship between Gendo and Shinji by cooking a dinner.

It's true that references to Rei representing a mother in NTE are less obvious than NGE, but NTE still always try to generate a connection with Yui (in 3.0+1.0, it's pretty clear in the Instrumentality).

The thing, personally I took her cooking of a diner as being framed as a reciprocity to Shinji taking care of her through 1.0 and (especially) 2.0, inquiring for her health when she disappeared for several days (for her secret recalibration) or preparing a meal for her everyday (and I don't think that we can say that Shinji is a father figure for Rei for that). It's also put parallel to Asuka's own attempt at cooking for him (and Asuka definitively can't be taken as a mother figure to Shinji), and Rei's invitation wasn't just for Shinji and Gendo, but she also gave to nearly everyone in NERV (Ritsuko, Misato, Asuka...) as a show of her growing desire to bond with people (already hinted when she greeted everyone in class, to everyone's surprise).

For her desire to protect Shinji from the pain of piloting (first by trying to kill Zeruel by herself, then by staying inside EVA-01), it's immediately rebuked by Shinji himself who goes back to pilot to save her when Zeruel devours her, and even after the timeskip when the first thing he asks when he sees Asuka deployed is to request to also be deployed to help her. The way Rei phrases her motivations when Shinji reaches her in Zeruel's core in 2.0, it looked more like she saw herself as a tool easily replaced with no intrinsic value to herself (thanks Gendo) and thus that the best she can do is to offer her life for the benefits of those she cares about, which Shinji vehemently denies when he rescues her.

As for the connection with Yui, there are indeed instances of them in NTE, but they all pertain to Gendo, like when he briefly sees Yui's face on top of Rei when she invites him to the diner in 2.0, or in Thrice when he admits that he always searched a trace of Yui in Rei, and gave up in her once he realized that there were none. But there are no instances that I remember of Shinji linking Rei to Yui. Even when Fuyutsuki reveals Rei's origins to him in 3.0, when his first words when seeing his mother's face for the first time (thanks Gendo) is "Ayanami?", the focus of the conversation - and source of Shinji's anguish afterwards - is that he didn't saved her rather than her origin as a clone of his mother, in fact the fact that she's a clone of Yui never enters in considerations in his later interactions with any of the Reis.
In fact, Shinji doesn't even seems to have strong feelings about her disappearance in NTE, unlike in NGE where the shadow of her absence constantly hanged above him and colored part of his interactions with Rei. He doesn't even have any contact with Yui until the last minutes of Thrice, and there wasn't even a conversation, only Yui taking his place as sacrifice to rewrite the world.
I don't know if it's a consequence of Gendo tampering with his memories when he was little or not.
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Postby Konja7 » Wed Jan 04, 2023 4:42 pm

View Original PostElMariachi wrote:But the thing that puzzles me the most is that I don't see why they added that bit for Rei II and Rei Q, what was the point?
To explain why they came to be attached to Shinji? But that already can be explained by all the time they spent together and the ordeals they got through (for Rei II), and for the fact that he was the person who first made her understood that there was a world beyond her orders and later by the Suzuharas telling her about him (Rei Q).

Honestly, I think the idea of Ayanami clones feeling attachment to Shinji exists to explain Rei Q feelings toward Shinji.

I mean, it's true that Shinji was the first one to say Rei Q wasn't Ayanami, but Asuka has more influence in Rei Q choosing to leave NERV. At the end, Rei Q forms a bond with Shinji, while she almost completely ignore Asuka.

I guess it also explains how Gendo was so sure Shinji will develop a bond with Rei II and Rei Q.



View Original PostElMariachi wrote:For her desire to protect Shinji from the pain of piloting (first by trying to kill Zeruel by herself, then by staying inside EVA-01), it's immediately rebuked by Shinji himself who goes back to pilot to save her when Zeruel devours her, and even after the timeskip when the first thing he asks when he sees Asuka deployed is to request to also be deployed to help her. The way Rei phrases her motivations when Shinji reaches her in Zeruel's core in 2.0, it looked more like she saw herself as a tool easily replaced with no intrinsic value to herself (thanks Gendo) and thus that the best she can do is to offer her life for the benefits of those she cares about, which Shinji vehemently denies when he rescues her.

To be clear, I don't think Shinji sees Rei II and Kaworu as a mother and father figure. I just feel the staff want Rei II to represent a mother and Kaworu to represent a father in a conceptual level.

In itself, Shinji rebuking Rei's desire to protect him from the pain as part of his grow in 3.0+1.0 reinforce this interpretation for me. It's similar to Kaworu who wants to guide Shinji to happiness, but Shinji needs to rebuke this desire to be able to grow independently.

That said, this is just my interpretation of the scenes in 3.0+1.0.

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Postby AlphaZero » Wed Jan 11, 2023 6:19 am

Remember the cubes with triple six that were with 01 while it was inside the Wunder's engine(when Ritsuko shows Shinji what happened to it)? After going back and forth frame by frame with version 3.333 I could make out it says: "Magi Achiral Cannot be Analyzed".

Edit: I think it's a reference to episode 5 of NGE with the number 601 instead when Ritsuko explains what it means to Misato at the beginning of the episode. It's the same line/message

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Postby Registration2 » Wed Jan 11, 2023 11:38 pm

The full detail experience is only achieved when they release the damn complete records.

Where is the 3.0 fucking groundworks?

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Postby dzzthink » Sat Jan 28, 2023 4:15 pm

A Chinese YouTuber did a video about the game Asuka plays on her Gameboy in thrice (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=69mhgB0BNek). It doesn't matter if you can't understand Chinese, the basic message is that Anno was making a reference to some games back in his time.
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Postby ElMariachi » Sat Jan 28, 2023 4:30 pm

View Original Postdzzthink wrote:A Chinese YouTuber did a video about the game Asuka plays on her Gameboy in thrice (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=69mhgB0BNek). It doesn't matter if you can't understand Chinese, the basic message is that Anno was making a reference to some games back in his time.

I remember that it was mentioned here a long time ago: the game in question is a puzzle game that really exists, and the fact that Asuka is at level 999 with the maximum possible score of 9999999 and that the red cartridge seems to be the same as in 2.0 implies that she constantly plays the same game, which serves as a parallel to how Shinji keeps listening to the same songs of the same tape, and how it's both characters' way to cut themselves from the rest of the world.
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Postby dzzthink » Sat Jan 28, 2023 6:05 pm

Wow she really overplayed that game! Perhaps she should get out more. It all ties back to unhealthy addictions or the need to hide emotions.
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Postby ElMariachi » Sat Jan 28, 2023 7:53 pm

View Original Postdzzthink wrote:Wow she really overplayed that game! Perhaps she should get out more. It all ties back to unhealthy addictions or the need to hide emotions.

That was what Mari was telling her in the prequel manga and also in their room in Thrice, which is part of the foil between both characters that I mention in other threads: Mari sees her curse as something awesome that grants her a longer lifespan to collect and read more books, while Asuka hates it and wasted her extra-time brooding and playing the same game on repeat to isolate herself from the world and avoid thinking about her life.

You could even think that it's difference of mindset also reflects on their body at the end of Thrice: Asuka got the 28 years old body that she should had have had the Angel contamination never happened (so no extra-lifespan for her), while Mari is in a body at least a decade and half younger than her true age, so she still got to "game the system" so to speak.
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Seriously, that is the most fananked theory I've ever heard, more than Mari being Marty McFly travelling through time to keep her parents (Asushin) together. -- Jäeger

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Postby BernardoCairo » Wed Feb 08, 2023 12:40 pm

View Original PostKonja7 wrote:Although it's said Asuka (Shikinami series) is also programmed, it's never implied that her feelings for Shinji are part of this programmation.

In fact, the way Asuka says that Ayanami series are programmed to feel attachment towards Shinji implies this is something exclusive to Ayanami series.

I forgot to reply to all of you who asked me about this. It's not something that's said in the movie and I'm not suggesting that's the case. But it's something I believe was left minimally ambiguous on purpose. This is an idea that was actually suggested by Miss Kendrix, almost two years ago I think.
The way Shikinami talks about Ayanami in these movies can be interpreted as her talking about herself (as if she sees a mirror when looking at Rei). So I personally disagree with Konja here. An argument could be made for Gendo not needing Asuka to like Shinji and that's totally valid, but I don't know. We must remember that this is the guy who planned everything so that Asuka could unleash her true powers within Unit 03, 14 years before the time he would need them. Evangelion Q is all about him tricking Kaworu into starting a new impact, not because he wanted an impact to happen right then, but because he wanted Kaworu to sacrifice himself, so that his body and soul would be trapped inside Unit 13. My man is playing 5D chess here, he knows everything that's going on and what's going to happen too. Shikinami's affection for Shinji, unlike Soryu's, always felt a little "unnatural" to me. I mean, it all happened a little too quickly and without any real meat behind it. Yeah, yeah, she never had a family and Shinji was the first to reach out to her. But even then... Food contest? 14 years of feelings for a guy you spent a few weeks with?
The difference between Shikinami and Ayanami is that Ayanami is better resolved with its own nature as something created by men (programmable, replaceable, etc). Maybe she wasn't programmed to like him, but then again, I think that's left ambiguous. I think it's probably something that Asuka herself might not have an answer for and I strongly believe that she questioned herself about these feelings over the 14 years she spent away from Shinji. She seems to me to be a very methodical person, who reflects and knows a lot about her own condition as a living and sentient being.
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Postby ChrisTamv » Thu Feb 09, 2023 3:33 am

View Original PostKonja7 wrote:Although it's said Asuka (Shikinami series) is also programmed, it's never implied that her feelings for Shinji are part of this programmation.


Sorry to barge into the convo but I just wanted to say that while I agree with your post it's not the first time I've seen people also refer to Asuka's feelings as "programmed". IIRC that was strictly the case with Rei, and regarding Asuka her feelings towards Shinji actually make quite a bit of sense. She was traumatized, without a family, trying to convince herself for decades that she doesn't fulfill her raison d'etre that is Eva piloting for herself, but to survived and be liked by others. Fast - forward 14 years and suddenly she finds a family of her own in Tokyo - 3 with Shinji and Misato and gets especially close to Shinji who for one filled some childhood gaps inside her via simple gestures such as making a bento box for her which traditionally is something Japanese parents prepare for their children. And most importantly by being upfront with her and revealing what the reason why he pilots is also to impress others. People are attracted to people they're similar to, and this is an oddly specific and important similarity, so I think Asuka's feelings towards Shinji from a natural standpoint are justified.

So is what happened later, that is, how her crush towards Shinji devolved to an unhealthy obsession as Asuka jealously and selfishly antagonized Rei and then when Shinji was unable to save her only to then be successful in saving another girl, Rei, while flattening Asuka's only home and nearly damning humanity in the process, Asuka was unable to rationalize this chain of events because of how many tragedies had piled up at that point: her still - lingering childhood traumas, hate and jealousy harbored towards Shinji from a very young age, her loss of humanity, Shinji's disappearance and at large N3I and its consequences were all enough to break her.

And so she spends the next 14 years obsessed over Shinji, mostly hating but still harboring feelings of love towards him, but ultimately unable to move on and experiencing arrested mental development as a result.

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Postby BernardoCairo » Thu Feb 09, 2023 10:22 am

I didn't say that her feelings are "programmed". I said that it's a valid interpretation and I think that the movie left this ambiguous for the audience, much like her relationship with Kensuke and other things.
To think that there's only one correct way to perceive these movies is a mistake, as Anno said again and again that he rather create an opened ended story for everyone to interpret in their own way rather than something inflexible, per say. It's as if the movies are a puzzle we can solve in many unique and personal ways. Nothing makes that clearer than the ending.
That's how I see it, at least.
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Postby ChrisTamv » Fri Feb 10, 2023 4:28 am

View Original PostBernardoCairo wrote:I didn't say that her feelings are "programmed". I said that it's a valid interpretation and I think that the movie left this ambiguous for the audience, much like her relationship with Kensuke and other things.
To think that there's only one correct way to perceive these movies is a mistake


I agree completely, even though I think the nature of Asuka's and Kensuke 's relationship was made very clear in the movies. I was just asking if there's any line in the film or on the storyboards or something that explicitly includes Asuka with Rei when the concept of "programmed feelings" is brought up.

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Postby nerv bae » Fri Feb 10, 2023 8:10 am

View Original PostChrisTamv wrote:I agree completely, even though I think the nature of Asuka's and Kensuke 's relationship was made very clear in the movies. I was just asking if there's any line in the film or on the storyboards or something that explicitly includes Asuka with Rei when the concept of "programmed feelings" is brought up.

None that I can find or recall.

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Postby BernardoCairo » Fri Feb 10, 2023 4:11 pm

I don't think there's any. But the only scene in which this is brought up is an Asuka-Rei moment. It clearly depicts how Rei is fine with her own nature, while Asuka has some reservations with hers.
It does look like Asuka is trying to shut Rei down, show her the crude reality she has to face everyday as an EVA pilot and a men made weapon, basically. Like the elevator scene in HA, we can interpret that entire exchange as Asuka projecting herself into Rei.
As I said before, perhaps she was not programmed to like Shinji at all. But that's left ambiguous even in universe and I can see her questioning herself about that.

So many of the things we theorize here weren't verbally spelled out on the show anyway (like pretty much everything surrounding the very First Impact, the role of Misato's dad, etc).
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Postby Konja7 » Fri Feb 10, 2023 6:39 pm

View Original PostBernardoCairo wrote:I don't think there's any. But the only scene in which this is brought up is an Asuka-Rei moment. It clearly depicts how Rei is fine with her own nature, while Asuka has some reservations with hers.
It does look like Asuka is trying to shut Rei down, show her the crude reality she has to face everyday as an EVA pilot and a men made weapon, basically. Like the elevator scene in HA, we can interpret that entire exchange as Asuka projecting herself into Rei.
As I said before, perhaps she was not programmed to like Shinji at all. But that's left ambiguous even in universe and I can see her questioning herself about that.

Asuka is definitely projecting, since it is implied that Asuka (or Shikinami series) has also been programmed in certain aspects to follow her role. And Asuka knows this.

I just don't think Asuka's feelings toward Shinji are part of her programation. The way she talks to Rei Q implies the attachment to Shinji is an exclusive programming to Ayanami series.

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Postby MsenjaKagami » Fri Feb 10, 2023 7:00 pm

View Original PostBernardoCairo wrote:So many of the things we theorize here weren't verbally spelled out on the show anyway (like pretty much everything surrounding the very First Impact, the role of Misato's dad, etc).


Yeah at a certain point, especially when it comes to analyzing this series, physical/"hard"/diegetic evidence to back up any postulation will run out, and you'll have to either accept what you've gathered as all the ground your position can stand on, or you'll have to look at the bigger picture to consider outside elements (such as scene framing/composition as you brought up) to further draw your conclusions. And in that vein, yeah I'd agree that having this conversation about "programmed affection" take place between the two characters that are explicitly clones (and who are also, historically, the two most juxtaposed/contrasted characters in the series) is meant to suggest that what Asuka is telling Rei also in some way applies to herself.

ChrisTamv wrote: I was just asking if there's any line in the film or on the storyboards or something that explicitly includes Asuka with Rei when the concept of "programmed feelings" is brought up.


Although at the same time, despite what I just said about explicit textual evidence, there is one bit that does do this: at the start of this conversation when Asuka is explaining how they (the clone pilots) work, Asuka includes herself when describing their "built in limitations" such as their "insufficient emotions". It doesn't say specifically that Asuka was also "programmed" to like Shinji, but I think it's definitely intended to suggest that she is aware that she didn't decide her own feelings.

Which slight tangent, but on that subject, I remember also having a bit of a conflict over the whole "programmed emotions" thing, and what that would mean for the clones' actual agency as characters, and even in spite of the fact that one of the points of the scene in general was to show that just because Rei didn't choose to feel the way she does about Shinji, that a.) doesn't make it any less real and b.) doesn't change the ultimate effect those feelings give her (making her happy).
What eventually helped me reconcile that conflict though was this video I watched last year that talked about a character that was programmed to love someone, and the question it posed to suggest that that didn't make that love any less real: Do we as real life humans really have any decision over who we develop feelings for?
Sure it's not exactly a 1 to 1, and I'm not really trying to say that we don't have any power over that. But I think it did have a point in that most of the time when you develop feelings for someone, it's not because you made a rational, educated decision after weighing the various factors about that person, it's just a vibe you get. It just kinda happens. You kinda just realize you started liking them. Sometimes you develop feelings and they end up hurting you, so you try to reject them but you can't. Or it doesn't even have to be romantic feelings; many of the people you consider friends you probably became friends with because you vibed with them, it wasn't a conscious choice. And all that said, how different are we from someone who has feelings for another that they didn't (originally) choose to have? Maybe it is still a lot, but I know, for me at least, I realized that it's a more relatable trait than I did originally.
This tangent got a lot longer than it was supposed to be but hopefully I made something of a coherent point.
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nerv bae
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Re: Things you didn't notice until later viewings

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Postby nerv bae » Sat Feb 11, 2023 8:23 am

I have a tangent on Asuka's line of dialogue too:

SPOILER: Show
Image

I hadn't thought much about what she means by "inefficient emotions" but it occurred to me yesterday that there are (at least) two interpretations:

1) The limiters, preventing the pilots from transcending human limits, are implemented as inefficient emotions in the sense that those emotions are incomplete, poorly-formed, or weak: under this interpretation, Asuka is explaining that their emotions are defective and that she and Rei don't feel as much as regular people.

2) The limiters, preventing the pilots from transcending human limits, are implemented as inefficient emotions in the sense that all emotions are unnecessary, superfluous, and just get in the way: under this interpretation, Asuka is condemning emotions alltogether and implicitly wishing that she was emotionless.

I think I'd always assumed that #1 was correct but now I'm thinking #2 fits Asuka better.


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