Born of Lilith wrote:I initially felt the same way about Shinji shrinking away when Misato was crying over Kaji's death, and then drowning her out in his room with his pillow over his head as if her crying was so bothersome... But I recently saw that scene in a different light watching it again. He felt that he was only a child and not fit to help Misato adequately, which of course ties in with his general view of himself as inadequate. He probably loathed himself so much that he thought it'd be an insult to present himself to her in what must've been one of her most despairing times. Now, I'd need to carefully examine those seemingly uncaring moments on Misato's part to stand by such a claim, buuuuuut... could there be parallels between the reason Shinji ignored Misato and why Misato didn't do more to help Shinji and Asuka in those particularly harsh moments? I mean, Misato does confess to thinking of herself as nothing more than a child (she did say that, right? in her confessions to Kaji?) and of course asserts that she's just like Shinji.
It's worse than that. Asuka was so broken and mired in self-hatred at that point that there was no way Misato could have helped her. She wasn't a child throwing a tantrum, or a moody teenager -- she was
mentally ill. Asuka needed professional help at that point, care Misato simply was not equipped to provide. Misato probably knew this, given her own teenage years, but with the angel situation being what it was and standing orders from NERV there was nothing she could do about it. She was helpless and she knew it. That's part of what contributed to her own breakdown and inability to help Shinji later on.
BornIn1142 wrote:I don't really think anything Asuka did was terrible enough to warrant what happened to her. That would be a pretty horrific miscarriage of karmic justice.
Indeed, Asuka hasn't done much of
anything that's all that awful. She hasn't even been all that nasty when you think about it -- she's just erected so many walls that others have great difficulty in getting along with her. That's self-defeating and painful to watch, yes, but it's hardly worthy of scorn.
(Hell, even in EoE her treatment of Shinji is based more on the fact that he's using her than on any sort of malicious intent on her part. There's no cruelty in those scenes; just a lot of well-deserved anger and frustration and contempt. It's really hard to blame her at that point.)