Filling the 24' Plot Hole Once and for All

[Bagheera]

Yes, it's another of those threads. I'd bump an existing thread, but the relevant ones are locked (one because it went around in circles, another because it asked the same questions already dealt with in circular fashion).

The mother of all of these threads is here:

http://forum.evageeks.org/viewtopic.php?t=2095

An earlier thread of mine on the topic is here:

http://forum.evageeks.org/viewtopic.php?t=10682

The goal here is to hijack the good bits of that thread, cross reference them with the theory and analysis page on the topic, and produce a coherent theory that explains the actions of all the actors involved.

So, the basis of the scenario is a modified version of (I believe) Shin-Seiki's "Casablanca Theory", wherein Kaworu knew damn well that the big marshmallow in NERV's basement was Lilith all along. Given the big reveal in 24, the natural reaction to this theory is "lolwut?" So, here's how it works:

SEELE wants to trigger Third Impact. More importantly, they want to trigger a specific sort of Third Impact -- not an Angelic Reset, so much as a singularity event that turns humanity into a single, glorious being. They need two things to make this happen: the union of Adam and Lilith (they know Ikari is in possession of both) and a guiding hand in the process. So they tell Kaworu "hey, Lilith's down there, and we want you to get near her so NERV will squish you."

Kaworu's reaction: Uh...

He doesn't have to do that. If he goes and finds Lilith he can just join with her and tell SEELE to fuck off, so why not? Well, one major reason: if he does that he still has Lilith and all her damn Lilin souls floating around. He's a Seed of Life, so he can presumably deal with that, but he probably doesn't want to. It's a hassle he'd rather avoid (also, no one says he can boss Lilith around in such a scenario; she might just say "bitch, this world's mine, so what I say goes", making the whole reset deal a waste of his time). So SEELE's idea makes sense: they get to wad all of humanity into one big soul ball, stuff it into Unit 01, take Lilith along for the ride and send the whole freakin' mess somewhere else. The soul of Adam is like "dude, awesome! Sign me up for that shit right the fuck now." He does have to break the spirit of one little boy to make it happen, but eh. He's just a Lilin, so who gives a fuck?

So, Kaworu sets out on his mission. SEELE tells him his body has been reborn in Gendo, but Kaworu doesn't care about that -- it's the soul that counts, after all, and rejoining his original body won't get him bupkiss at this point. So he's bumming around NERV and runs into Rei and goes "oh hai Lilith, you got a Lilin body too! Isn't it fun?"

Rei's response: "...I don't understand."

Well, fuck. He can't do the complementation thing if she isn't in her body, and neither his plan nor SEELE's will work without it. So he says "hey, we're the same, get it?" He's trying to get her on board with the plan, which would be great except...she doesn't get it. Irksome. So he goes about breaking Shinji, all according to the scenario, but he modifies it by making a big fuss about it to draw Rei out. Then he sees her and points at Lilith and says "This is LILITH! Get it?" And she does! And then Shinji makes him go splat and his soul goes and rejoins its body (in Gendo's hand, ew) and he waits for Lilith to do her thing.

And she does.

Cut to the JSSDF invading NERV. They have orders to kill all the Children, right? Well, that sucks. That will ruin everything! Why would SEELE order such a ridiculous thing? Well, they didn't, duh. As with most of their plans the invasion was a ridiculous gamble: they had to keep NERV off-balance so they could have a shot at subverting Ikari's plan, but they couldn't exactly tell the JSSDF to spare the Children since they're piloting the machines that will trigger Third Impact. So SEELE says "invade!" and the JSSDF says "Kill the Children, right?" And SEELE says "er...yeah, sure, go to it!" All the while SEELE is saying "well, the First is just some pet project of Ikari's, so we don't give a shit about her, and the Third is the commander's son, so he'll surely keep him safe so he can put his plan into motion (ha ha, irony). And the Second...wait, who? Right, never mind." And that more or less works out as intended (they didn't know who Rei really was, but that didn't matter in the end).

So, Kaworu betrayed Shinji from the start, manipulated the fuck out of Rei, and all the ducks line up as far as SEELE, NERV, and the JSSDF are concerned. But what about 3I? Here's where it all went to hell: both Lilith and Adam decided they liked Shinji. Mind you, their idea of "like" is "we will CRUSH YOUR SOUL and put the FATE OF HUMANITY in your hands...no pressure or nothin'", but they meant well. Adam ultimately decided that humanity should get a say in the whole matter, 'cause SEELE was a bunch of crackpots and all, and Lilith was like "oh good, we don't have to fight anymore, yay!" So Adam wound up betraying everybody: Shinji initially (as Kaworu), and then SEELE and the angels when he decided he felt bad about that initial screwjob.

(alternately, Lilith said "you know what? Screw you. I'm here, my children are here, and you're just a whiny fucker who had some bad luck. Tough shit! This world is mine now, and I'm not giving it up!" and made Kaworu her little bitch. Rei can be stubborn when she wants to be!)

So, that explains the hole to my satisfaction; we have solid motives for SEELE, Kaworu, Lilith, and the JSSDF, and any crossed purposes are explained by manipulation, assumptions about the other groups, or both. Is there anything that isn't sufficiently addressed here? Is there any reason this shouldn't be the consensus theory as to why things went down as they did in 24'? Can we just edit the damn wiki and put this to bed and not worry about it anymore? Inquiring minds wanna know.

[CyberXIII]

My problem with this idea is that it paints Kaworu in as much of a manipulative, scheming light as Gendo and Seele.

None of that up there ever addresses Kaworu's initial shocked reaction to finding out that the "Adam" down there was Lillith. He honestly didn't know what was down there except that his 14 siblings all died trying to reach it. Now, why he didn't know this is up for debate, but whatever the Angels use to detect Adam isn't perfect. Remember, Gaghiel and Sandolphon both thought Eva-02 was Adam, especially Sandy. Lillith is more than likely close enough to whatever the Angels see Adam as to confuse that sense as well. That would explain why Sachiel, Shamshel and Ramiel all went to Tokyo-3 before Adam was even there; they got Lillith confused with Adam.

Kaworu may have Adam's soul, but clearly not its cognitive processes, in other words, not Adam's brain. Otherwise he would have just run rampant and slaughtered all life on the planet like Adam was trying to do.

[NemZ]

I'm not buying it, sorry. Amusing read though.

[Sailor Star Dust]

I'm starting to prefer this http://forum.evageeks.org/viewtopic.php?p=440832#440832 to the Casablanca Theory, personally.

And I can't really find myself agreeing that Lilith/Rei and or Adam/Kaworu were intentionally or otherwise trying to break Shinji's spirit. I do agree with the possibility that Seele wanted the pilots secure for their plans while they couldn't exactly relay that information to JSSDF (and probably rightfully assumed Nerv would protect the pilots).

I'm with Nemz that this was an amusing read, at any rate.

[Bagheera]

My problem with this idea is that it paints Kaworu in as much of a manipulative, scheming light as Gendo and Seele.

That doesn't mean it doesn't work. Remember, his goal is to claim the world for his progeny. It isn't reasonable to expect him to throw all that away for the sake of one little Lilim.

None of that up there ever addresses Kaworu's initial shocked reaction to finding out that the "Adam" down there was Lillith.

Of course it does -- the Casablanca theory holds that it's all an act. This was addressed in both of the threads I linked in the OP (as well as in the theory laid out above).

He honestly didn't know what was down there except that his 14 siblings all died trying to reach it. Now, why he didn't know this is up for debate, but whatever the Angels use to detect Adam isn't perfect.

Sure, but the problem with that approach is that he has no need to reunite with Adam because he is Adam. IMO this might even be the reason why the "plot hole" was created to begin with -- Kaworu isn't an angel proper, so expecting him to behave like one doesn't make sense. He needs to join with Lilith, not the remains of his former body.

Remember, Gaghiel and Sandolphon both thought Eva-02 was Adam, especially Sandy. Lillith is more than likely close enough to whatever the Angels see Adam as to confuse that sense as well. That would explain why Sachiel, Shamshel and Ramiel all went to Tokyo-3 before Adam was even there; they got Lillith confused with Adam.

Sure, but that's really neither here nor there as far as 24' is concerned. Remember, the plot hole comes about because Kaworu is told, straight up, that his reborn body is in Gendo Ikari. He can't possibly think that Lilith is anything other than what she is because he's been told that what we thought she was is somewhere else (at least, in 24'; it's obviously not a problem in 24).

Kaworu may have Adam's soul, but clearly not its cognitive processes, in other words, not Adam's brain. Otherwise he would have just run rampant and slaughtered all life on the planet like Adam was trying to do.

It's not clear what Adam was trying to do. It's entirely possible that 2I was the result of his merely existing in his basal form, and that what he wanted had nothing to do with it.

I'm starting to prefer this http://forum.evageeks.org/viewtopic.php?p=440832#440832 to the Casablanca Theory, personally.

Unfortunately, that doesn't really resolve anything. There had to be something special about whatever was in NERV's basement, since otherwise any old (unsouled) Eva would suit his purposes. That obviously isn't the case.

And I can't really find myself agreeing that Lilith/Rei and or Adam/Kaworu were intentionally or otherwise trying to break Shinji's spirit.

Again, though, that doesn't mean the theory doesn't work. "I don't like it" is not a logical rebuttal!

I'm with Nemz that this was an amusing read, at any rate.

I'm glad it was entertaining, but I'd rather tie up loose ends.

[rhfxz1s]

Sure, but the problem with that approach is that he has no need to reunite with Adam because he is Adam. IMO this might even be the reason why the "plot hole" was created to begin with -- Kaworu isn't an angel proper, so expecting him to behave like one doesn't make sense. He needs to join with Lilith, not the remains of his former body.

But don't all the angels want to reunite with Adam? Presumably, doing so would eliminate all Lilith-based life and all the Adam-based life to claim the Earth as their own. Kaworu himself says "it's my destiny to continue to live even if it may result in the destruction of humanity", which I personally interpret to mean that his angelic instinct or something similar will eventually trigger some sort of contact.

It's not clear what Adam was trying to do. It's entirely possible that 2I was the result of his merely existing in his basal form, and that what he wanted had nothing to do with it.

I always saw it as a sort of instinctive, evolutionary sort of thing. The goal of Adam and Lilith is to spread their life by all means possible, similar to how any life form's goal is to spread its DNA. Thus, when it awakes, the first ting Adam tries to do is create life by any means necessary. Given the circumstances, it was probably smartest to self destruct and create new life in the process.

[Bagheera]

But don't all the angels want to reunite with Adam? Presumably, doing so would eliminate all Lilith-based life and all the Adam-based life to claim the Earth as their own. Kaworu himself says "it's my destiny to continue to live even if it may result in the destruction of humanity", which I personally interpret to mean that his angelic instinct or something similar will eventually trigger some sort of contact.

Right. That works if and only if he knows he's combining with Lilith though. See, there are actually two huge continuity changes in that conversation Kaworu has with SEELE: the second is the one that's had us chasing our tails for the last few years, but the first is that Kaworu is the reincarnated soul of Adam -- that wasn't true in the broadcast version. In fact, in the broadcast version he really was the 17th angel (or 15th, depending on how you look at it) and he really was confused by Lilith's true identity. But with the two new pieces of information -- that Kaworu has Adam's soul, and thus is not an angel after all, and that Adam's reborn body is in Gendo -- Kaworu's entire motivation for entering NERV must necessarily change. Now he must unite with Lilith, since it's the only way he can achieve angelic Complementation now that his children are all destroyed. And he had to know that going in, because he had no other reason for being there.

I always saw it as a sort of instinctive, evolutionary sort of thing. The goal of Adam and Lilith is to spread their life by all means possible, similar to how any life form's goal is to spread its DNA. Thus, when it awakes, the first ting Adam tries to do is create life by any means necessary. Given the circumstances, it was probably smartest to self destruct and create new life in the process.

Sure. And this dovetails very nicely with my theory -- in fact, my Kaworu is actually kinder than the version everyone wants him to be. In the traditional model Kaworu goes into NERV with the intent of wiping out all of humanity, but changes his mind at the last minute and screws Shinji hard in the process. My rendition of the guy wants to help SEELE kick humanity off the planet and jumpstart the next phase of its existence, using Shinji as a tool to do it. It will hurt him, of course, but he can rationalize that away with the knowledge that he would be reborn in the Adam/Lilith fusion and be able to soothe Shinji during the worst of the process (which is in fact exactly what happens).

Of course, Lilith fucks it all up when she decides to dump the decision making in Shinji's lap, which also leaves Adam holding the bag, but whatcha gonna do? Bitch is nuts, just like her mama.

[Monk Ed]

Unfortunately, that doesn't really resolve anything. There had to be something special about whatever was in NERV's basement, since otherwise any old (unsouled) Eva would suit his purposes. That obviously isn't the case.

The example in that post was just the first thing I could think of, and my opinion on the matter has evolved since I wrote it, (in light of the discussions that happened last night,) but I have to ask, why is this obviously not the case? The part that you relegated to mere parentheses -- "unsouled" -- is kind of really, really important.

The main thrust of that post and the ones I made preceding it, by the way, was that there is a lot of room for theorizing as to just what it was that Kaworu thought he was going to find in TD (or just what it was that he thought the "resurrected body of Adam" that Seele mentioned being in Gendo was) without us having to posit something as convoluted as a Casablanca theory.

[MugwumpHasNoLiver]

You know what I think? Kaworu wasn't paying attention, because Seele is boring.

Seele: Adam's body is in Ikari, and his soul is in you!

Kaworu: (yawning) Right, right, that gay kid's dad. Yeah, we're pretty alike, we're both totally pimp.

THE NEXT DAY

Kaworu: Adam, I'm going to rejoin with you unti you're begging for mercy . . . Wait, you're that skank from the Black Moon! what the fuck is going . . . Oh right, Gendo. Shit, I guess I'm fucked.

Seele: You kids don't respect your elders! We give nothing but good advice!

[Bagheera]

The example in that post was just the first thing I could think of, and my opinion on the matter has evolved since I wrote it, (in light of the discussions that happened last night,) but I have to ask, why is this obviously not the case? The part that you relegated to mere parentheses -- "unsouled" -- is kind of really, really important.

Except it isn't. He doesn't need a body -- he needs a complement. A child of his would work. Lilith would also work. An empty body wouldn't (or at least, we have no reason to think it would). It's easy to see why this is so given the trouble Gendo went through to set up his version of Instrumentality -- he needed Adam and Lilith both, and Lilith needed Adam to do her thing. There's no reason to think Kaworu could get away with any less just by merging with some empty shell. And since SEELE told him where all the pieces are we have to assume he wasn't an idiot and actually had some idea of what he was doing and how he was going to make his goals happen.

The main thrust of that post and the ones I made preceding it, by the way, was that there is a lot of room for theorizing as to just what it was that Kaworu thought he was going to find in TD (or just what it was that he thought the "resurrected body of Adam" that Seele mentioned being in Gendo was) without us having to posit something as convoluted as a Casablanca theory.

The reason I embrace the Casablanca theory is because it's the least contrived of the explanations I've encountered so far. All the others require much more in the way of off-panel fanwankery to make them work.

Seele: You kids don't respect your elders! We give nothing but good advice!

It works if Kaworu's an angel. Since he's not...

It is funny, though.

[Stryker]

Wait.. are you saying Kaworu isn't an angel... even though there is an entire wiki page up here about him being and angel (hell, he has his own name: Tabris).

[Bagheera]

Wait.. are you saying Kaworu isn't an angel... even though there is an entire wiki page up here about him being and angel (hell, he has his own name: Tabris).

He's an angel in the broadcast version, but not in the DC version. He's no more an angel there than Rei is.

Obviously, we can call him an angel in many ways -- pattern blue, created from Adam, etc -- but he is not the same sort of animal as the other angels, just as Adam and Lilith are not (even though they, too, are classified as angels). Tabris is Adam. Recombining won't do him any more good than recombining with Lilith would Rei (which is to say, it would do him a great deal of good if all the other pieces were in place, but they weren't and he knew it so that doesn't work as a motivation).

[Monk Ed]

Except it isn't. He doesn't need a body -- he needs a complement. A child of his would work. Lilith would also work. An empty body wouldn't (or at least, we have no reason to think it would). It's easy to see why this is so given the trouble Gendo went through to set up his version of Instrumentality -- he needed Adam and Lilith both, and Lilith needed Adam to do her thing. There's no reason to think Kaworu could get away with any less just by merging with some empty shell.

I'm not following your reasoning here. Adam was able to cause 2I just fine without Lilith. It seems to be Lilith who needs Adam to get the process started by generating an Anti AT Field... There's nothing to suggest that Adam needs Lilith to wipe out all human life and reset the planet's biosphere with an Adam base, (as described in the CI).

[Jessemon]

I'm not following your reasoning here. Adam was able to cause 2I just fine without Lilith. It seems to be Lilith who needs Adam to get the process started by generating an Anti AT Field... There's nothing to suggest that Adam needs Lilith to wipe out all human life and reset the planet's biosphere with an Adam base, (as described in the CI).

Well, sorta.

Adam didn't go about setting off 2I by itself. Gendo and Co. forced Adam to do a mini-impact. Remember, during a "real" impact, EVERYTHING on the planet dies. During 2I, only Antarctica and a large chunk of the world's population was destroyed, because Seele purposefully manipulated it. In order to cause a full scale 3I, Adam likely needed Lilith or another angel.

[Monk Ed]

Well, sorta.

Adam didn't go about setting off 2I by itself. Gendo and Co. forced Adam to do a mini-impact. Remember, during a "real" impact, EVERYTHING on the planet dies. During 2I, only Antarctica and a large chunk of the world's population was destroyed, because Seele purposefully manipulated it. In order to cause a full scale 3I, Adam likely needed Lilith or another angel.

The CI very clearly states that the actions of the Katsuragi team at the last minute averted what would have been an even bigger catastrophe:

The other Seed of Life, Adam, was awakened by mankind. The Katsuragi Investigation Team frantically attempted to reseal Adam using the Spear of Longinus, but failed. Ultimately, through the phenomenon of the S² Engine apparently going into overdrive by artificial means (details are vague due to the team's complete annihilation), it became that only an absolute catastrophe — the resetting of all life due to the disappearance of A.T. Fields, and the construction of an ecosystem with an Adam base — was prevented. This is called the Second Impact. The incident blew Adam completely apart.

The construction of an Adam-based ecosystem was prevented by artificially sending the S2 into overdrive to blow Adam up and cause a more limited form of damage that luckily wiped out only half the population.

Lilith was completely unnecessary for causing the total destruction that was averted that day.

[Bagheera]

The construction of an Adam-based ecosystem was prevented by artificially sending the S2 into overdrive to blow Adam up and cause a more limited form of damage that luckily wiped out only half the population.

Lilith was completely unnecessary for causing the total destruction that was averted that day.

But we have no idea as to whether that information is accurate, nor whether Adam was truly initiating an impact event (vs. just being his badass self, which would also be bad for the planet), nor whether the destruction caused was a minimized version of an impact event vs. an altogether different sort of destructive event. Also, since the angels were still around at the time (somewhere) we have no idea how they were influencing the process.

There are too many unknowns to use this as any sort of reliable evidence. By contrast, we know exactly how 3I worked with Lilith under the circumstances seen in the show, and we have no reason to think it would work differently with Adam (we do have reason to think it would work differently under different circumstances, but those are not the circumstances at hand so they're irrelevant).

[Monk Ed]

But we have no idea as to whether that information is accurate, nor whether Adam was truly initiating an impact event (vs. just being his badass self, which would also be bad for the planet), nor whether the destruction caused was a minimized version of an impact event vs. an altogether different sort of destructive event. Also, since the angels were still around at the time (somewhere) we have no idea how they were influencing the process.

There are too many unknowns to use this as any sort of reliable evidence. By contrast, we know exactly how 3I worked with Lilith under the circumstances seen in the show, and we have no reason to think it would work differently with Adam (we do have reason to think it would work differently under different circumstances, but those are not the circumstances at hand so they're irrelevant).

I'm not even sure how to respond to this... You seem to just be completely dismissing the info from the CI out-of-hand, when there's no reason to doubt its accuracy in this case -- not only is that piece of information a part D (the deepest level of information), it corroborates what we see of the events leading up to Second Impact in the beginning of ep 21 DC. The voiceovers of the scientists clearly paint a (however hazy) picture of how the Katsuragi team did everything they could to minimize the damage of what was inevitably going to occur once Adam woke up.

[Bagheera]

I'm not even sure how to respond to this... You seem to just be completely dismissing the info from the CI out-of-hand,

No, I'm not. I'm dismissing your interpretation of it out of hand, because it's pure speculation. As I said, there are too many unknowns to take 2I as anything other than a really bad day for humanity.

The voiceovers of the scientists clearly paint a (however hazy) picture of how the Katsuragi team did everything they could to minimize the damage of what was inevitably going to occur once Adam woke up.

And as I said, that means absolutely nothing in the context of 24' because circumstances are different now. Again, stop focusing on CI in lieu of what we actually see on the screen. The latter is what's important.

Seriously, all the angels were alive back then, and now they're not. That matters.

[NAveryW]

What was the problem with my hypothesis that Adam blew up into multiple chunks, one of which became the embryo in Gendo's hand and any other of which could have conceivably been the white giant but wasn't?

[Bagheera]

What was the problem with my hypothesis that Adam blew up into multiple chunks, one of which became the embryo in Gendo's hand and any other of which could have conceivably been the white giant but wasn't?

Nothing, I suppose, but why would a chunk become an embryo? And wouldn't you expect SEELE and Kaworu to know about something that significant?