BernardoCairo wrote:She also mentioned some confusion among Japanese commenters on the original tweet regarding the line:

エヴァ２号機ごとアスカとアダムと同化した碇ゲンドウを殺したカヲル

People were unsure whether it meant that Kaworu killed Asuka and Eva-02, and also killed Gendo who had merged with Adam, or that Kaworu killed Gendo after he had merged with Asuka, Eva-02, and Adam all together. Even native speakers weren’t certain, but she noted that the first interpretation feels much more logical.

Honestly, I don't understand Reichu's logic.

Given that the final resolution is Shinji forgiving Kaworu, it makes the most sense that Kaworu killed Gendo because he had merged with Asuka, Eva-02 and Adam (and likely started Instrumentality). After all, the resolution wouldn't make sense if he ended up killing Asuka for any other reason.

Neat beat of trivia but honestly it doesn't reveal much on how the ending would have played out except for the fact that Asuka somehow merging with an Evangelion and Gendo was an idea from the start.

Konja7 wrote:Honestly, I don't understand Reichu's logic.

It's not really about her logic. She's just pointing out what native speakers are saying, and if they're confused, that's a valid point to bring up.
I agree that the original idea was probably for Asuka to be absorbed, but it's impossible to ignore what swapping the characters would do to the story. Without Shikinami, there's no Shikinami series, no role in Gendo's plan to use Asuka to trigger Instrumentality, no connection to the gods, and no EVA-03 incident. How is any of that supposed to make sense? I don't know if we will ever know.

While there's something thrilling about how crazy these events would have been, I'm happy they went with the direction they did. Shinji forgiving Kaworu feels like it would have been an extension of him forgiving Gendo and it's better that their reconciliation happened more directly.

BernardoCairo wrote:How is any of that supposed to make sense?

That's probably part of why that idea was abandoned, but it's not like the final product makes much sense either.

BernardoCairo wrote:It's not really about her logic. She's just pointing out what native speakers are saying, and if they're confused, that's a valid point to bring up.
I agree that the original idea was probably for Asuka to be absorbed, but it's impossible to ignore what swapping the characters would do to the story. Without Shikinami, there's no Shikinami series, no role in Gendo's plan to use Asuka to trigger Instrumentality, no connection to the gods, and no EVA-03 incident. How is any of that supposed to make sense? I don't know if we will ever know.

I've understand there's confusion in the language.

However, when I said I don't understand Reichu's logic, I mean this part: "she noted that the first interpretation feels much more logical". I don't know how Reichu could feel the first intepretation is more logical. The whole thing about Shinji forgiving Kaworu as a resolution makes much more sense in the interpretation that Shinji is forgiving Kaworu, because he killed Gendo who absorbed Asuka, Eva-02 and Adam.


PS: Although the story was going to be very similar up until the events of chapter 20, I wouldn't be surprised if they planned to add some new things from the beginning (something like Kaworu appearing sooner). Also, they could still create an event that connects Asuka to an Angel after the events change.

Konja7 wrote:However, when I said I don't understand Reichu's logic, I mean this part: "she noted that the first interpretation feels much more logical".

Well, I don't know what Reichu meant, but for me it feels logical that there's yet another difficult translation throwing off English fanbase discussion.

I guess this means that Asuka replacing Toji and being decommissioned was a sort of poetic parallel or foreshadowing ... but what it also means is that Asuka would be replacing one of Toji's plot beats, and then one of Rei's plot beats, unless we're to take it that Rei still would have merged separate from Asuka. Now that I mention it, this idea is odd because of all the mains, no mention of Rei is a strange omission. Is her 'reset' as Rei Q reflective on not knowing quite what to do with the character?

I want to say I prefer whatever this would have been because it would fit better following such intense focus on Kaworu in Q. Except, it seems this plan was already jettisoned as of Q because Kaworu doesn't survive its conclusion.

In either version, there's still the same problem for me. There's a feeling of aimlessness to mixing characters up on the gameboard and swapping them in and out as an answer to the prompt of 'rewrite Eva.' I understand the franchise at large is full of alterations and alternate scenarios; the manga is a retelling with differences, many of the Eva games have many possible endings, there's the statement Anno made of Eva being a repeating story, and Anima is a what-if.

But I feel like it's not the best way to generate material, to constantly reiterate and perform creative post-mortem forensics and recriminations of finished material. Oh well.

Just remembered I didn't give my reaction:
Well, well. : )

Konja7 wrote:However, when I said I don't understand Reichu's logic, I mean this part: "she noted that the first interpretation feels much more logical".

It's simple. We've heard several times that the plans were for the first three films to be direct retellings of the original series, not something new. The story would be even more faithful than that of JO.
Taking that into account, there is no connection between Asuka and Adam. Even if you don't believe in the theory that the pilots are gods, Asuka would never have entered EVA-03, there would be nothing under her eye, and she wouldn't be a clone that Gendo could program or prepare for his master plan. Therefore, this scenario, while closer to what we saw in the final version of the film, wouldn't have made any sense before.
It's not that the other ending makes more sense, it's that this one doesn't make any sense at all.

a rattling off of random plot points doesnt tell us much without an idea of what the meaning given to it in the narrative would have been

it does suggest that something like eva 13 was always in the plan