Seele filled with a bunch of old fools?

[e]

Did seele only want to go through with the project because they were all old men? yeah those bastards! Just because their lives were ending they had to ruin Shinji and Asuka and misatos world as they knew it.

and at the end they are left with an empty world, u dont know what you have till its gone.

and was Gendo`s plan with Rei only for his personal gain?

I thought when he said to Rei "its time" I thought he was going to pull off some crazy shit and defeat seele, but all he said was " its time to ruinite me with you-e" what a useless FOOL!

also check out my Asuka and Shinji AMV that I made yesterday

[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUx46j3bVT0[/url]

[Mordicaii]

The people of Seele really don't look that old to me. Granted, Keel is old as hell, but the rest of them look like they could be in their mid fifties to early sixties. Not exactly terribly old, given that most people live to roughly seventy-five. Furthermore, Gendou was a member, and he has to be in his late thirties or early forties.

[TehDonutKing]

Gendou's 48.

[Kodaemon]

A bunch of pretentious old men playing at running the world. But the world left them behind long ago. We are the future.

[MasterRah]

Their plan is pretty much shot to hell since all humans can return back if they want to. So I guess we can say "LOL Seele". I'm also a huge Asuka/Shinji shipper. They got it on at least a hour or two after EoE.

[rhfxz1s]

I don't think the age of SEELE's members affected their motivations a whole lot, though it certainly widens the reality and perception gap between them and the rest of the world. It makes them look more like politicians or other real-world leaders who are at a disconnect with the people they are in charge of.

Also, I'm specifically talking about the Human Instrumentality Committee. I have no idea how big the rest of SEELE is, (we see the monoliths but we still don't know the actual size of the organization) and we know that both Gendo and Yui were members so age doesn't seem to be that important for simply joining.

[BlueOcean]

I think it didn't really matter that they were old. The Human Instrumentality Project was simply a divine task for them.

and at the end they are left with an empty world, u dont know what you have till its gone.

Have you considered that that was what Seele wanted? It wasn't really "empty", as such, since all of humanity was brought together and in that sense people could still interact. Granted, most people wouldn't think that this would be a right thing to do, but I can understand why it would seem as perfection (actually I would quite like Instrumentality). All barriers between humans were destroyed. Everyone understands each other perfectly, and race, religion or anything else that could separate people did not exist any more.

On an unrelated note can you not plug your AMV in posts that have nothing to do with it? I've seen you've already made a post in the Fandom Area, so just keep it there.

[Eva Yojimbo]

Seele were zealots with a lot of time and money to pursue their ultimate goals. Zealotry isn't limited to any age, although it does seem to get worse with age.

[LordEvan88]

While not physically old (At least not nescessarily), I have little doubt their policies, procedures, and way of thinking are quite outdated. Certainly the naked Ritsuko scene is proof enough of that.

I know it was never explicitly stated but I got the impression Seele had been around for centuries overseeing major world events (I just checked, and it is mentioned in the CI files). Its worth noting that the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered shortly after the end of WW2, around the beginning of the Cold War. So its possible that the entire conflict was the result of the rift in Seele over what to do with the scrolls.

Which is why it took the most powerful organization in the world 50 years to investigate the scrolls in Antarctica.

So basically you have a group that has dominated a great deal of the world up to this point getting arrogant enough to decide to steer human evolution the way that they want. Their organization has likely not evolved for a long time because they have had no reason to do so.

Basically, Anno could have gone full Metal Gear Solid with it but I am sooooo grateful he didn't.

[MasterRah]

Have you considered that that was what Seele wanted? It wasn't really "empty", as such, since all of humanity was brought together and in that sense people could still interact. Granted, most people wouldn't think that this would be a right thing to do, but I can understand why it would seem as perfection (actually I would quite like Instrumentality). All barriers between humans were destroyed. Everyone understands each other perfectly, and race, religion or anything else that could separate people did not exist any more.

You do realize there's no sex, or talking or anything like that right? Since there is no physical body after all. Your pretty much dead in Instrumentality. A physical world is always better.

[Mr. Tines]

You do realize there's no sex, or talking or anything like that right? Since there is no physical body after all. Your pretty much dead in Instrumentality. A physical world is always better.

http://www.gregegan.net/DIASPORA/01/Orphanogenesis.html

[e]

I think it didn't really matter that they were old. The Human Instrumentality Project was simply a divine task for them.


Have you considered that that was what Seele wanted? It wasn't really "empty", as such, since all of humanity was brought together and in that sense people could still interact. Granted, most people wouldn't think that this would be a right thing to do, but I can understand why it would seem as perfection (actually I would quite like Instrumentality). All barriers between humans were destroyed. Everyone understands each other perfectly, and race, religion or anything else that could separate people did not exist any more.

On an unrelated note can you not plug your AMV in posts that have nothing to do with it? I've seen you've already made a post in the Fandom Area, so just keep it there.

im gonna put my amv in my sig, thats the best way to advertise it tho

[MasterRah]

http://www.gregegan.net/DIASPORA/01/Orphanogenesis.html

TL;DR version please. I am not reading all of that right now. No.

[Mr. Tines]

TL;DR version please. I am not reading all of that right now. No.

It's a vignette about growing up as a piece of software.

[LordEvan88]

You do realize there's no sex, or talking or anything like that right? Since there is no physical body after all. Your pretty much dead in Instrumentality. A physical world is always better.

You do realize there's no pain, poverty, disease, war, or anything like that right? Since there is no physical body after all. You never die in Instrumentality. A physical world is always flawed and broken.

Just playin' a bit of the ol' devil's advocate. Sex, talking, eating, basic physical pleasures are fleeting, gone as soon as they have come and eventually one loses everything. Instrumentality removes that loss.

[Monk Ed]

You do realize there's no pain, poverty, disease, war, or anything like that right? Since there is no physical body after all. You never die in Instrumentality. A physical world is always flawed and broken.

Just playin' a bit of the ol' devil's advocate. Sex, talking, eating, basic physical pleasures are fleeting, gone as soon as they have come and eventually one loses everything. Instrumentality removes that loss.

You might be forgetting that in Instrumentality you all become one single lonely being. "You" cease to exist -- you basically die. The result of the complementation is then alone forever. Let's not forget that this is the reason why Shinji rejected Instrumentality.

[Warren Peace]

No no, Shinji embraced loneliness by rejecting instrumentality. The lack of loneliness was instrumentality's selling point. Shinji found the loneliness of being seperate, individual beings more valid than the evolution-less stupor of instrumentality. It's the culmination of the ideas in Hedgehog's Dilemma -- growing up is finding the balance between embracing people and keeping them at a distance.

[LordEvan88]

You might be forgetting that in Instrumentality you all become one single lonely being. "You" cease to exist -- you basically die. The result of the complementation is then alone forever. Let's not forget that this is the reason why Shinji rejected Instrumentality.

I'm not forgetting it, I am merely disparaging the idea that this is the best of all possible worlds.

Instrumentality brings peace, which is what Shinji sought, freedom from the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to. But when he saw what true peace and security meant, the loss of the potential to become greater than what we have become. As soon as all of humanity is united and condensed there is no cause for war or strife but there is no cause for love or compassion, so he rejected it.

I sure as hell wouldn't choose Instrumentality, but when it comes to the course of human evolution we could do far worse. So I can see precisely why Seele would want to go down that road and would view it as a positive, if autocratic action on their part.

[Monk Ed]

No no, Shinji embraced loneliness by rejecting instrumentality. The lack of loneliness was instrumentality's selling point. Shinji found the loneliness of being seperate, individual beings more valid than the evolution-less stupor of instrumentality. It's the culmination of the ideas in Hedgehog's Dilemma -- growing up is finding the balance between embracing people and keeping them at a distance.

I believe you have it exactly backwards:

Shinji:
I feel that there were only hateful things there.
So I'm sure it was okay to run away.
But there was nothing good in the place I ran to, either.
After all, I didn't exist there... which is the same as no one existing.

Kaworu:
Is it okay for AT Fields to hurt you and others once more?

Shinji:
I don't mind.

The hedgehog's dilemma, as you know, is between pain and loneliness. To avoid the loneliness you must risk the pain that comes with interacting with others. To avoid the pain caused by others you must accept loneliness. What Shinji accepted (briefly) in Instrumentality was the extreme end of the latter: a world with no pain because there were no people to hurt him. But the result of that is the ultimate loneliness: a state of being where nobody exists, not even himself for company.

That's what he rejected, in favor of taking the risk of being hurt by other people's "AT Fields" again.

Instrumentality brings peace, which is what Shinji sought, freedom from the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to. But when he saw what true peace and security meant, the loss of the potential to become greater than what we have become. As soon as all of humanity is united and condensed there is no cause for war or strife but there is no cause for love or compassion, so he rejected it.

What Instrumentality brings is the "peace" of death. Nothing more, nothing less. It is not some "blissful stupor" state where we can't evolve because we've already achieved perfect harmony and perfection together. It's a state where we can't evolve because we're dead.

For sure, this is not the best of all possible worlds, nor does EoE come even close to suggesting that it is. But it is still better than death. The choice is between accepting life with all its slings and arrows, versus killing yourself.

In other words, EoE is, among other things, an allegory for the last-minute decision not to commit suicide. (How come this aspect is almost never talked about?)

I am certain about that much. In Japan, suicide is such an ever-present tendency, a huge, roaring, silent undercurrent beneath all of Japanese society, that suicide has become literally a party game. (I am not making this up. Group suicide among the youth is a known and terrible problem.) What EoE is telling all those suicidal, lonely otaku is that there's hope.

That hope is found in other people -- and the only way to find it is by risking the pain.

Addendum:

As for Seele, I see them as representing Japan's political leaders, dragging Japan into what is now its second "lost decade" of depression all in pursuit of some formless ideal (regarding how a society should be "run" from the top down like a single being, as if a society needs to be directed from the top down by authoritarians) that is perfection only in their own minds. They are that combined with the attitude of Japan's older generation, who feel as if the youth have just given up on life and won't amount to anything -- in other words, that human evolution is at an end, there is no future but death for all, etc.

It's so sad it's almost funny -- what was true about what Evangelion said about the state of Japan in the 90's is even more true today.

[NemZ]

You might be forgetting that in Instrumentality you all become one single lonely being. "You" cease to exist -- you basically die. The result of the complementation is then alone forever. Let's not forget that this is the reason why Shinji rejected Instrumentality.

That's one possibility and apparantly what Seele had in mind, but it's not universally accepted as the one and only possible outcome. If it was why would they have any reason to want to stop Gendo from doing the same thing they wanted to?

On the suicide overtones, it depends on your point of view and what outcome you're moving towards. Not all of them have to end in the death of individual entities, and even if the one you're pursuing does there's still a difference between willingly dying for a cause you believe in and committing suicide.

What Shinji accepted (briefly) in Instrumentality was the extreme end of the latter: a world with no pain because there were no people to hurt him. But the result of that is the ultimate loneliness: a state of being where nobody exists, not even himself for company.

Actually it seemed like everyone but him existed, and he was still sort of there just as an observer (probably the same sort of existence outside of spacetime that Rei ends up in). What he rejected was not a world of emptiness but rather a world in which people seemed to be more or less fine without him. Thus EoE!Shinji actually ends up killing everyone in the world twice, and both times for entirely selfish reasons. What an asshole.

Interesting parallel to political/economic events though.

Also Tines' link was quite interesting, and I encourage anyone with a reasonable attention span to give it a shot.