Theory about Kaworu's intentions.

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[SPOILERS]Theory about Kaworu's intentions.

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Postby ElMariachi » Wed May 22, 2013 4:30 pm

Here goes a theory that I came upon after analyzing Kaworu's behavior thorough 3.33 : what if Kaworu was actually loyal to SEELE to the end? What if Kaworu was working to bring forth Instrumentality?

Bear with me, here come the explanation of how I came to this theory :

Firstly, there is something I always tough odd during the fight between Asuka and Shinji : why Kaworu never tried to help Shinji in trying to reason Asuka?
I understand that he was deep in thoughts because he felt something was wrong... but right in front of him there was a German fury hellbent on skewering them with a giant glaive, and his partner had all the difficulties on the world to keep her at bay because he didn't wanted to harm her, and their magical drones were being destroyed one behind the other!

Basically during that battle Shinji wanted to make understand to Asuka that he didn't wanted to destroy the world with the spears, but to actually save it, and her answers where interesting :

Firstly when Shinji tells her that he's indeed piloting and that will change the world by doing it, she responds :
01:09:15 {Asuka} If that's how it is, don't pilot!


Secondly, when Asuka asks if Shinji wants to cause 3I again, Shinji responds that no, he don't want to finish the world, but to save it with the spears, then Asuka leans back, scowls at him and deliver that line :
01:10:16 {Asuka} You really *are* a little brat.


The way these two lines are said, it looks like Asuka don't see Shinji as an enemy, but as someone who said something really wrong and/or stupid, and can't believe he actually said that. It looks like Asuka knows, or think she knows what will happen if Shinji pull out the spears.

Now let's go back in time, when Kaworu explained his plan to Shinji in his room :
01:02:34 {Kaworu} Ikari Shinji-kun, your only hope lies with the two Spears left at the Impact epicenter in Dogma.
01:02:41 {Kaworu} They are the keys to invoking the Instrumentality Project.
01:02:45 {Kaworu} We should take those Spears for ourselves.
01:02:48 {Kaworu} That way, Nerv can no longer trigger the Fourth Impact,
01:02:52 {Kaworu} And if we use them together with Eva-13, we can even repair the world.


By NERV, Kaworu was probably designing SEELE, as he though that Gendo, and thus neo-NERV, came back to following SEELE's scenario, if not he wouldn't have been so much surprised by Gendo's little trick with the spears. Anyway, what's important is that apparently the two spears a essential to trigger Instrumentality.

Now back to WILLE and the fight in Lilith's chamber : WILLE seems to have learned a lot of things about SEELE's plans, and indeed when the DSS Choker detected a unknown until then pattern blue(Kaworu's), Mari looked very surprised :
01:16:13 {Mari} Blood type blue from the DSS Choker?
01:16:15 {Mari} But there shouldn't *be* a Thirteenth!



The number and order of apparition of the Angel are consigned in the Secret Dead Sea Scrolls. The fact that Mari, a member of WILLE, know at least that there should be only twelve Angel is a sign that she must know about the SDSS, indeed if someone wants to fight SEELE knowing about these scrolls is of vital importance since all of SEELE's scenario is based on them.
Added to Asuka's behavior toward Shinji, that could imply that WILLE knows how SEELE wants to launch Instrumentality, by using the two spears and a awakened Evangelion.

So the logical conclusion is that Asuka and Mari didn't saw Shinji as an enemy willingly working for neo-NERV and SEELE, but as a "neutral party" being manipulated by the bad guys, who made him think that he can be an hero and save the world if he retrieve the two magical spears.
Except that Shinji already knows what NERV intends to do with the spears, and he's actually trying with Kaworu to double-cross them... so then, why did Kaworu said nothing? Why didn't he at least tried to corroborate Shinji's claims that they aren't trying to finish 3I's job? The guy is obsessed by Shinji, he must be one of the people who knows the most how Shinji works, even if he was deep in thoughts, he should have seen how much having to defend against Asuka was putting him dangerously close to the edge, and should have at least tried something to defuse the situation before it ends up completely out of control.
Instead of that, he kept talking only to Shinji via the internal communication system, as if he absolutely wanted to make Shinji stop without having to interact with anyone else.



I'm not saying that Kaworu outright lied to Shinji about his intentions, he loves him too much to do that, but he could have manipulated him with half-truths and omissions, so lets look back at Kaworu's info-dumps :


1/ Half-truths :
First when he told Shinji his responsibility in triggering N3I, his words were at the very least fairly ambiguous :
00:51:48 {Kaworu} Ikari Shinji-kun,
00:51:50 {Kaworu} once Awakened, Eva-01 opened the Door of Guf
00:51:55 {Kaworu} and became the trigger for Third Impact.
00:51:58 {Kaworu} Lilin call it Near Third Impact.
00:52:02 {Kaworu} It was all initiated by you.

Many people noted that Kaworu's explanations could have two meanings, even the 3.33 FAQ acknowledged this :
Evageek 3.33 FAQ wrote:* Is there a difference between "Near Third Impact" and "Third Impact"? Did a separate thing called "Third Impact" ever happen?

Kaworu's expositional dialogue to Shinji superficially seems to treat the two terms as synonyms: "Ikari Shinji-kun, once Awakened, Eva-01 opened the Door of Guf and became the trigger for Third Impact. Lilin call it Near Third Impact."[2] In other words: "Something called Third Impact happened, and the Lilin decide to put a 'Near' in front for some reason."

However, the film visually establishes innumerable developments that could only have occurred after Eva-01 was frozen by the Spear of Cassius at the end of 2.0, very heavily suggesting that Third Impact eventually did continue. Kaworu's words, therefore, might indicate that Eva-01's Near Third Impact was the initial trigger for the Third Impact that followed.

He never specifies what exactly he meant, although that meant a big difference for Shinji : is Kaworu saying that trying to save Rei immediately brought this hellish landscape, or did he meant that what happened was the the first event in a chain that led to an actual 3I, and so that indirectly it could be considered his fault?
When Shinji respond that he never wished any of this to happen, that he was just saving Rei, nothing else(confirming that he wasn't even conscious of what was happening since the moment he tried to reach Rei, when the light turned blue), Kaworu responds were still as ambiguous :
00:52:09 {Shinji} You're wrong!
00:52:10 {Shinji} All I wanted to do was save Ayanami!
00:52:16 {Kaworu} True, but that was the catalyst.

The catalyst, not the cause, according to a dictionary(Wiktionary in this case), a catalyst is "A substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction without being consumed in the process." If we follow this definition, the EVA-01, and Shinji, didn't caused Third Impact, but "enhanced it", meaning that someone or something triggered the Impact and that by the presence in the vicinity of an awakened Evangelion, "boosted" it. That would be an explanation of how 3I could have caused so cataclysmic damages to the whole planet, while 4 ADAMs at it "only" could affect the South Pole and the oceans.

And again :
00:52:52 {Shinji} I had nothing to do with it!
00:52:54 {Kaworu} You may deny it, but humanity thinks otherwise.

Humanity thinks what : that Shinji is the direct trigger of 3I that destroyed the world(maybe they effectively thought that), or that he was the potential first piece of an apocalyptic domino fall, which could explain why WILLE tried to "protect him" from neo-NERV(that was what Misato said :"you're to be kept in our protection") instead of just putting a bullet in his brain if they thought he really didn't gave a shit about the world and knew that an Impact was starting, but didn't cared.


And that's not the only thing he's been ambiguous about, when he to convince Shinji to pilot EVA-13 with him :
01:01:26 {Shinji} You showed me it yourself, Nagisa-kun.
01:01:29 {Shinji} The blood-red world I can't do anything about...
01:01:32 {Kaworu} That which was changed by Eva can be restored by Eva in turn.

According to our great pal Reichu here, the literal translation was "changed again" instead of "restored". A change can be many things, a restoration, or a modification into something else.

And again a little later :
01:02:45 {Kaworu} We should take those Spears for ourselves.
01:02:48 {Kaworu} That way, Nerv can no longer trigger the Fourth Impact,
01:02:52 {Kaworu} And if we use them together with Eva-13, we can even repair the world.

Here again, after some clarifications by the great Reichu, what was literally said was "世界の修復も可能だ = sekai no shuufuku mo kanou da = even the repairing/mending of the world is possible".
Kaworu never said "you and me together, we're gonna to repair the world", but that "if we retrieve the spears, with the spears a lot of thing can be done, repairing the world being one of them, he said that line on a "neutral tone", stating that it's one of the things the two spears can do, but he never said that's what he intend to do with Shinji.

2/ Omissions :
Now let's come back again in time, when Kaworu explained to Shinji what happened to the world :
00:50:55 {Kaworu} Mass extinctions are not unusual on this planet.
00:50:58 {Kaworu} In fact, they help drive evolution.
00:51:02 {Kaworu} Life has always changed itself to adapt to the world around it.
00:51:08 {Kaworu} However, Lilin change not themselves, but the world.
00:51:15 {Kaworu} So they brought the rite of artificial evolution unto themselves.
00:51:21 {Kaworu} Old life is offered in sacrifice,
00:51:23 {Kaworu} so that new beings blessed with the Fruit of Life may be created.
00:51:29 {Kaworu} All this is an act of extinction that has been programmed since time immemorial.
00:51:33 {Kaworu} Nerv call it the Human Instrumentality Project.


And back to his conversation in Shinji's room :
01:02:34 {Kaworu} Ikari Shinji-kun, your only hope lies with the two Spears left at the Impact epicenter in Dogma.
01:02:41 {Kaworu} They are the keys to invoking the Instrumentality Project.
01:02:45 {Kaworu} We should take those Spears for ourselves.
01:02:48 {Kaworu} That way, Nerv can no longer trigger the Fourth Impact,
01:02:52 {Kaworu} And if we use them together with Eva-13, we can even repair the world.


Kaworu actually never, ever mentions SEELE to Shinji, not once. Why? Saying to Shinji that Gendo is working for a secret organization wouldn't have changed Shinji's resolve to stop his father. Instead of that, by always citing NERV when talking about who is trying to bring Instrumentality and who Kaworu is trying to thwart by keeping the spears for themselves, and since by that point NERV = Gendo(and Fuyutsuki), Kaworu is turning Shinji against Gendo, but not SEELE, as Shinji didn't even know they exist.


3/ Kaworu's motives :
In NGE, Kaworu's reason to betray SEELE was that after learning more about the Lilin, he fell in love with them, their culture, their achievements, and thought that SEELE was in the wrong path in trying to erase all of this under the unification of Instrumentality. In the manga, his betrayal comes from his will to chose his death, his "only freedom", on his own terms, so basically out of spite against SEELE, and besides he told Shinji that even if he makes contact with Lilith, the Third Impact that would follow wouldn't annihilate mankind, but make it evolve into something else.
But here in Rebuild, what is Kaworu's sole motivation? Shinji's happiness. Why is he betraying SEELE? For Shinji's happiness... but is he really betraying SEELE, after all we only saw him talking about thwarting NERV(=Gendo)'s plans, he never talks about SEELE.
And when he talked about the "rite of artificial evolution" that the Lilin brought into themselves, he said that it "has been programmed since time immemorial", like it was mankind's destiny. But not once did he said that SEELE's "rite of artificial evolution"(i.e. Instrumentality) was wrong, unlike in NGE, he only talked about NERV.

If Kaworu though that Instrumentality indeed was mankind's destiny, and that all that SEELE wanted this time was the "peaceful purification of all souls" brought by Human Instrumentality, why would SEELE's goal be incompatible with Kaworu's objective to make Shinji happy? After all we don't know what he meant by "making Shinji happy", and he was talking about that even before 3.0, where making him happy would simply be letting him fix the world. So what if Kaworu's goal was to make Shinji the center of Instrumentality so that he could temporarily become a god and shape a world to fit to his own definition of happiness. Shinji would create his own happiness, SEELE would have their purification of the soul they wanted so much, and everyone is contented!
Sounds crazy? Well remember that Yui had a similar plan for Shinji in NGE and the manga : putting him at the center of Instrumentality, so that he would be the one to decide if mankind should be saved and given the choice to return to reality, or if mankind should be shaped into something else to erase the pain brought by their existence. And Yui had only Shinji's best interests at heart(at least what was his best interests in her head), so why wouldn't Kaworu, someone literally obsessed with making Shinji happy, have a similar plan?

Under that light, the fact that Kaworu never tried to contact Asuka to confirm Shinji's claim and defuse a critical situation, and Asuka's insistence to try to stop EVA-13 by force could be explained by the fact that WILLE know that Kaworu is loyal to SEELE and that even if they manage to make Shinji see reason, Kaworu would continue with the plan(of course, they don't know that Shinji somehow has the capacity to cut Kaworu's control of the EVA)



4/ Future involvement?
Last thing, you must all have noticed how SEELE didn't really gave a shit that Gendo betrayed them and turned them off, while implying that he also had something planned to get rid from Kaworu, and their response?

01:17:21 {Seele 01} Our wishes have come to fruition.
01:17:25 {Seele 01} Good.
01:17:26 {Seele 01} All is well now.
01:17:29 {Seele 01} We wish for Human Instrumentality, the peaceful purification of all souls.



By the look of it, they already got what they wanted. You could think that it was Mark.09 about to hijack the Wunder... but frankly, how could the Wunder fit into SEELE's plan to trigger Instrumentality? Maybe they wanted to capture it to have a emergency plan by retrieving EVA-01, but betting everything on the chance that one EVA will be able to hijack a flying fortress protected by other EVAs seems a little flimsy for a bunch of guys who planned Instrumentality for thousands of years, so what could they have been talking about that basically told to Gendo "suck it, we still win little boy!"?...
01:25:41 {Kaworu} We'll meet again, Shinji-kun.


Yep, their "boy" as Gendo calls it is still in the run, and will probably act during Final, as he made it clear to Shinji that they will meet again!

So ladies and gentlemen, mark my words, maybe SEELE isn't done yet, and we could still hear from them in FINAL!





On a side note, if my(somewhat crazy, OK really crazy) theory is true, that would have the benefit to shed a new light on WILLE's actions at the end of 3.0 : that would mean that no matter how were the spears, if there where two different like Kaworu and SEELE hoped, or two of the same type like Gendo planned, WILLE were doing a good thing, preventing any kind of Impact or Instrumentality since in any cases an Impact and/or Instrumentality would have happened, and that indeed Shinji was completely manipulated since the beginning!
Last edited by ElMariachi on Fri May 24, 2013 3:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Reichu » Wed May 22, 2013 4:57 pm

About the "catalyst" thing... The original word, 原因 (gen'in), actually means "cause/origin/source". Guess the translation needs to be fixed again...
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Postby Seele00TextOnly » Wed May 22, 2013 5:13 pm

...
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Postby ElMariachi » Wed May 22, 2013 5:39 pm

Now as I said, take care : I really think that Kaworu genuinely want Shinji's happiness, he was always talking about making him happy, even when he was alone.

The thing is that we don't know "what" Kaworu meant by "his happiness". Since he was talking about it even before the cataclysmic event that turned Earth into the hellish world that it is in 3.0, he was obviously thinking of something else than fixing the world with the two spears, and I really doubt that he foresaw these apocalyptic events, if that was the case bringing happiness to Shinji would have simply been to make sure that these mysterious events leading to 3I don't happens.

That's why I think that this time, maybe Kaworu's goals could coincide with SEELE's : in NGE Kaworu finally went against SEELE because he though that unifying the Lilin in a single conscience would destroy everything their individuality accomplished(their culture, music, technology, philosophy...), but here in Rebuild they want to make evolve mankind into a new specie blessed with a Fruit of Life, and Kaworu never said that he though that it wasn't good for them, quite the contrary with his speech about how mankind's only way to evolve is to "brought the rite of artificial evolution upon themselves" and that it "has been programmed since time immemorial", it looks like he think that it's mankind destiny. Beside being with both fruits should be people with who he could relate more easily, since in a way he's the same : an Angel(FoL) in an human body(FoK), that would explain his recurrent discourses about learning new thing and repeating them :
00:41:58 {Kaworu} If you want to live well, you have to change and try new things.


00:45:21 {Kaworu} Practice and more practice.
00:55:32 {Kaworu} Do the same thing over and over.
00:55:34 {Kaworu} Keep going until you're happy with it.


01:24:37 {Kaworu} Even if your soul disappears, your hopes and curses remain in this world.
01:24:43 {Kaworu} Your will roams the world as information and gradually changes.
01:24:48 {Kaworu} In time, even your very self is altered.

Learning, changing, something Angels, being with only the Fruit of Life, are unable to do, except Kaworu(I doubt SEELE created him with instinctive knowledge about playing the piano).

So in that light, granting Shinji the opportunity to be the one who trigger mankind's march toward the next step of evolution, where all the souls get their "peaceful purification"(probably meaning that somehow it will stop the pain and conflicts in the world), would grant Shinji the greatest happiness possible : no more pain, loneliness nor turmoil, and everyone will know and acknowledge Shinji as the one who brought them this divine existence(with Kaworu).
Hey, after all Yui had a similar plan in NGE and the manga : getting her son at the center of Instrumentality so that the decision of what to do with it(and mankind's future) would be his.

As for Toji's shirt, if I had to design a culprit it would be Gendo : he was the only one who had interest in seeing Shinji completely unhinged for the moment Kaworu will discover that the spears are two of the same. And Kaworu wasn't happy at all to show to Shinji the exterior landscape : when Shinji asked him to show him, Kaworu stopped smiling, and then insisted to know if Shinji was really sure about it. The only reason Kaworu showed him what happened during those 14 years is because Shinji asked him to, and he can't say no to Shinji(the same way Gendo can't say no to his wife, illustrated in 2.0 when he accepted to come to Rei's diner, because he saw the face of Yui)
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Re: [SPOILERS]Theory about Kaworu's intentions.

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Postby ObsessiveMathsFreak » Wed May 22, 2013 5:39 pm

View Original PostElMariachi wrote:Here goes a theory that I came upon after analyzing Kaworu's behavior thorough 3.33 : what if Kaworu was actually loyal to SEELE to the end? What if Kaworu was working to bring forth Instrumentality?
....
If Kaworu though that Instrumentality indeed was mankind's destiny, and that all that SEELE wanted this time was the "peaceful purification of all souls" brought by Human Instrumentality, why would SEELE's goal be incompatible with Kaworu's objective to make Shinji happy? After all we don't know what he meant by "making Shinji happy", and he was talking about that even before 3.0, where making him happy would simply be letting him fix the world. So what if Kaworu's goal was to make Shinji the center of Instrumentality so that he could temporarily become a god and shape a world to fit to his own definition of happiness. Shinji would create his own happiness, SEELE would have their purification of the soul they wanted so much, and everyone is contented!

Since my own view of Kaworu that of a consistently manipulative double/triple/(failure of infinity) agent, I have to agree with everything here. For all we know, Kaworu fully intended to bring about Instrumentality/Complementation just to make Shinji happy. In fact, this is pretty consistent with his general attitude in EoE as well. The fact that he is "Seele's boy", and seems to treat Nerv as another/optional organisation leads me to conclude that his actions are in effect in accordance with their plans. At least, in so far as where he _thinks_ his actions are going. This is where things get complicated.

What exactly Kaworu originally had planned is unclear. What is clear is what Asuka, et al believe will happen when the spears are removed.

Eva 3.33 wrote:Asuka: Stop!... looking!... for trouble!
You brat, Shinji!
Are you trying to cause Third Impact again[/b]?
...

Asuka: The Twelfth Angel is still alive!
Glasses! Container No.3!
Mari: Aye, ma'am!
Asuka: We'll take care of this before Third Impact starts up again!

What's puzzling here is that Kaworu seemingly knows that Lilith's chamber was the epicentre of Third Impact, having mentioned this twice to Shinji already. So whatever he had planned either a) presumed that the 12th Angel was dead/Third Impact was over or b) That having the Lance of Cassius there would make Third Impact a moot point.

In any event, it's pretty clear that whatever Kaworu originally intended, Gendo had played a winning gambit against those plans, and effectively hijacked Kaworu's plan to make Shinji happy and turned it into Fourth Impact, the very thing Kaworu was trying to avoid.

But what makes this bizarre is that after the spears are removed, and after Kaworu realised that he has been tricked by "The King of the Lilim", that he has been demoted to 13th Angel, and that "the beginning and the end are one in the same", Seele are shown being shut down by Gendo and actually seem pretty happy about it. Needless to say, this doesn't mesh well with the idea of Kaworu working towards their plans. Unless they are ignorant of what's going on below, or they've been playing Kaworu as well... So any theory of Kaworu carrying out Seele's plans would have to explain this as well.

(Sometimes.... Evangelion is like watching ten different Revolver Ocelot playing each other and their pawns off against the other, with plot twist after plot twist. However, I'm confident that there's enough info in Q for us to fanwank a reasonable working explanation.... which will work until Final rolls around at least. )
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Postby ElMariachi » Wed May 22, 2013 5:53 pm

I think that like in NGE, Instrumentality includes an Impact to work.
I'm sure that Kaworu knew that the 12th Angel is alive, and fully intended to awaken EVA-13 with it to open the Chamber of Guf, and from here start SEELE's Instrumentality thanks the the two different spears.
Remember that once everything is over Fuyutsuki said that "nearly everything went as Seele had intended", that means that EVA-13 awakening and Fourth Impact was part of SEELEs plan.

Surely if the awakening happens with the two same spears, that must make SEELE's version of Instrumentality unable to happen, that's why Kaworu tried to stop Shinji from pulling them. But Gendo had already "prepared" the field by messing so much with his son's sanity that he still carried on and pulled the spears for the off chance that it would restore the world's ecosystem, or rewind the time, or whatever he tought would happen, which wouldn't have happened anyway.
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Postby ObsessiveMathsFreak » Wed May 22, 2013 6:03 pm

Actually, Gendo's words appear to imply that Eva-13's awakening wasn't part of Seele's plan. I think Eva-13 was simply meant to fetch the two spears and use them, not serve as a medium for the creation of the 13th angel. We still haven't considered how Eva-13 being an awakened "Adam" effects or affects everyone's plans.
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Postby ElMariachi » Wed May 22, 2013 6:10 pm

View Original PostObsessiveMathsFreak wrote:Actually, Gendo's words appear to imply that Eva-13's awakening wasn't part of Seele's plan. I think Eva-13 was simply meant to fetch the two spears and use them, not serve as a medium for the creation of the 13th angel. We still haven't considered how Eva-13 being an awakened "Adam" effects or affects everyone's plans.

SEELE wanted to create a "true god"(Mark.06 in 2.0) to launch Instrumentality. And a "true god" is obviously an awakened Evangelion. If just having the spears was enough to launch Instrumentality, they would had just to use the Cassius they have on the Moon and the Longinus impaling Lilith and get down with it since the 12th Angel is dealt with, instead of trying to awaken an Evangelion.
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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 Rei IV » Wed May 22, 2013 6:10 pm

Jeez, for some reason, I find this scenario totally plausible. Kaworu isn't exactly the bad guy, per say, but certainly played a role in the destruction of Shinji's remaining shred of sanity.....Just like in NGE.

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Postby TMBounty_Hunter » Wed May 22, 2013 6:39 pm

This all does make a lot of sense but I still can't get rid of my irrational nagging feelings about Kaworu.

I can't even decide whether it would be more interesting or more boring if it turned out that Kaworu had his own master plan (that doesn't involve Shinji's actual happiness in any way) and simply maniputed everyone from Seele to Shinji to his own ends.
Seele, humanity, blessed with one Fruit wants to claim the other for themselves.
Why couldn't the reverse be just as true?
Kaworu seems to have tasted both Fruits, what if he liked it?
The events of Q could be interpreted as him trying to get an equal footing with the Lilim by getting rid of his own Lilim form and claiming that of an awakened Eva: both fruits and keys to the Doors of Guf.

If the final battle turns out to be children of each Fruit fighting to claim both while wiping out the other......yeah again I don't really know whether that's more interesting or not....

I realize the case presented earlier in the thread is much stronger and my own might even be thematically un-Eva-ish, but this is a pretty constant nagging for me.
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Postby Warren Peace » Wed May 22, 2013 10:16 pm

View Original PostTMBounty_Hunter wrote:This all does make a lot of sense but I still can't get rid of my irrational nagging feelings about Kaworu.


I don't think it's irrational at all. The guy tells Shinji EVERYTHING Shinji wants to hear (or tells him what he doesn't want to hear in a way that furthers his goals), so there's definitely a vibe of manipulation. Plus, that almost-grin during Kaworu's last piano shot... how honest he was being is definitely an open question.

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Postby Shinoyami65 » Thu May 23, 2013 12:17 am

View Original PostTMBounty_Hunter wrote:If the final battle turns out to be children of each Fruit fighting to claim both while wiping out the other......yeah again I don't really know whether that's more interesting or not....

I realize the case presented earlier in the thread is much stronger and my own might even be thematically un-Eva-ish, but this is a pretty constant nagging for me.


I agree with both this theory and the OP's to an extent. There are definitely implications that Kaworu is manipulating Shinji, although whether for his own ends or SEELE's isn't clear. Gendo refers to him as "SEELE's boy", although that doesn't mean he doesn't have his own goal separate from SEELE.

Possibly Kaworu, as the 1st Angel, is trying to do what his offspring have failed to do: initiate an Angel-based Impact that will wipe out humanity and usher in an era of Adam-based life. That would tie in with his comments about remaking the world. His comments about repairing the world could even be taken to mean that he wants to restore the world to the state it was in when Adam(s) was the only SoL on Earth, before Lilith turned up and Lilith-based life became dominant. In NGE Earth was originally meant to be seeded with Adam-based life blessed with the FoL, until Lilith's Black Moon crashed on Earth and Adam was rendered dormant by the Spear of Longinus. By "restoring the world" Kaworu may actually be intending to restore it to the primordial state it was in before Lilith arrived, allowing him to restore the Angel race. The Angels have tried to restore their race in the past by trying to contact Lilith, but they failed each time. Why? Because they were stopped by the Evangelions. By taking over an awakened Evangelion with two Spears of Longinus, Kaworu may have gained enough power to destroy Earth's remaining Evangelions and start Final Impact to allow his children to take over the world.
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Postby jackysee » Thu May 23, 2013 3:18 am

01:01:32 {Kaworu} That which was changed by Eva can be restored by Eva in turn.


Maybe he means to restore to the time where no EVA existed? Maybe it's the time travel thing. Do things again and again.
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Postby ElMariachi » Thu May 23, 2013 3:55 am

@ TMBounty_Hunter & Shinoyami65 :
I still think that Kaworu's desire for Shinji's happiness are genuine, we saw him still talking about how this time Shinji will be happy even when he's completely alone : at the end of 1.0, the very last line of the movie when he's on the Moon looking at the Earth, and at the end of 2.0 when he's in the cockpit of Mark.06. If his intention to bring Shinji's happiness where a façade, he wouldn't be talking about it even when alone. Besides I don't really think that SEELE gave two shit about why he would want to launch Instrumentality, as long as it's launched, so that's not a façade he put in front of SEELE either.

Besides, Kaworu seems to really enjoy having a FoK(or pseudo-one) that let him learn new things, if his objective was simply to wipe out the rest of Lilith based life, then that would mean populating Earth with creature unable to learn or change, that would be utterly boring for someone like Kaworu.
But bringing ADAM-based and Lilith-based lifeforms on an equal foot, that's more like something Kaworu would like to achieve.

And on a meta-level, given the shitton of marketing and artwork playing with Kaworu's affection for Shinji(with touches of Ho-Yay added for the flavour), revealing that he's actually an evil manipulator on the same level that Gendo would utterly destroy any hype for the character.
And not talking about the fact that HyperShinshan will probably commit suicide! :tongue:


View Original Postjackysee wrote:
01:01:32 {Kaworu} That which was changed by Eva can be restored by Eva in turn.
Maybe he means to restore to the time where no EVA existed? Maybe it's the time travel thing. Do things again and again.

According to Reichu, the literal sense of the verb Kaworu used is "changed again", not "restored".
Besides the message of 3.0 is very clear : "You can not redo". Stop looking backward and longing for a allegedly glorious past, and look forward to build the future you desire. Kaworu acknowledged Shinji's preference for a world of "brutal abyss and stillness" instead of "seeking change" when they were looking at the stars. And Fuyutsuki brought the topic too when he said that the world, time and human heart lack reversibility.
Now maybe Final will prove them ultimately wrong(at least on the "human heart" department), but for the moment the message is very clear : don't search for a Reset Button, it doesn't exist.

And that works even if Kaworu is revealed to be a time traveller/time looper/dimensional wanderer/whatever timey wimey thing you want, that would mean that he tried more than once and still failed, because he kept trying to change something that already happened instead of looking toward the future.
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Postby Jornophelanthas » Thu May 23, 2013 6:38 am

Very interesting theory, and one that I have somewhat skirted in the "Hidden Agendas" thread.

I have a few things to add.

1. Perhaps Kaworu never responded to Asuka because he never wanted anyone outside of NERV or SEELE to know of his existence. I don't recall Asuka, Mari, Misato or Ritsuko ever acknowledging that Unit-13 had a second pilot, let alone Kaworu's existence.
(Although Mari appears to grasp what is going on after the DSS Choker kills Kaworu, and she realizes Shinji is still alive and must be ejected from Unit-13.)

2. In the end, Kaworu did betray SEELE. This was when he halted Fourth Impact for Shinji's sake.
(Please disregard the timestamps.)
Dialogue: 0,1:34:09.35,1:34:11.75,Default,,0,0,0,,{Shinji} This is all because of me...
Dialogue: 0,1:34:13.43,1:34:15.57,Default,,0,0,0,,{Shinji} I...
Dialogue: 0,1:34:18.98,1:34:20.80,Default,,0,0,0,,{Kaworu} It's not your fault.
Dialogue: 0,1:34:22.86,1:34:26.86,Default,,0,0,0,,{Kaworu} It's because I became the Thirteenth Angel.
Dialogue: 0,1:34:26.86,1:34:28.86,Default,,0,0,0,,{Kaworu} I'm the trigger.
Dialogue: 0,1:34:28.86,1:34:31.86,Default,,0,0,0,,{Shinji} What do I do?
Dialogue: 0,1:34:31.86,1:34:34.38,Default,,0,0,0,,{Shinji} Hey, what are we going to do?
Dialogue: 0,1:34:38.86,1:34:41.86,Default,,0,0,0,,{Shinji} Kaworu-kun,
Dialogue: 0,1:34:41.86,1:34:44.86,Default,,0,0,0,,{Shinji} tell me what the right thing would be.
Dialogue: 0,1:34:44.86,1:34:50.86,Default,,0,0,0,,{Kaworu} Even if souls disappear, hopes and curses will remain in this world.
Dialogue: 0,1:34:50.86,1:34:55.86,Default,,0,0,0,,{Kaworu} Intent is imparted to the world as information and goes on to change.
Dialogue: 0,1:34:55.86,1:34:58.70,Default,,0,0,0,,{Kaworu} In time, even one's very self is being rewritten.
Dialogue: 0,1:35:00.62,1:35:05.40,Default,,0,0,0,,{Kaworu} I'm sorry. This isn't the happiness you wished for.
Dialogue: 0,1:35:06.86,1:35:09.14,Default,,0,0,0,,{Kaworu} I will close the Door of Guf.
Dialogue: 0,1:35:09.22,1:35:12.86,Default,,0,0,0,,{Kaworu} You don't need to worry about it, Shinji-kun.
Dialogue: 0,1:35:12.86,1:35:15.86,Default,,0,0,0,,{Shinji} Kaworu-kun...
Dialogue: 0,1:35:15.86,1:35:17.94,Default,,0,0,0,,{Shinji} What are you saying, Kaworu-kun?
Dialogue: 0,1:35:17.96,1:35:19.60,Default,,0,0,0,,{Shinji} I don't get any of it!

Immediately after this exchange, Kaworu proceeds to impale Unit-13 on the two spears, and allows the DSS Choker to kill him.
This is certainly NOT what SEELE intended, because Gendo released their souls in order for them to become a part of Human Instrumentality. In fact, it was in Gendo's best interest that Fourth Impact would be aborted, after he killed SEELE with their full consent. (After all, Gendo expected WILLE to succeed in stopping the Impact.) Stopping the Impact (and thus staving off Instrumentality) is therefore shown to be going very much against SEELE's agenda, regardless of whether or not Kaworu could know about the monolith euthanasia scene.

3. Notice that one of the Kaworu quotes given above bears the same hint at knowledge of multiple Evangelion continuities:
00:45:21 {Kaworu} Practice and more practice.
00:55:32 {Kaworu} Do the same thing over and over.
00:55:34 {Kaworu} Keep going until you're happy with it.

This is very similar to the "This time I will give you true happiness" line from Kaworu in Rebuild 2.0.
And it still remains to be seen whether this possible meaning is actually intended to be what Kaworu says, or whether it just serves as a double entendre towards the audience. Anno's quote: "Evangelion is a story that repeats" is not helping much.

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Postby xdiesp » Thu May 23, 2013 7:23 am

I wonder what neophytes think of rebuilt Kaworu: without the series to back him up, he's really a quitter space pianist. Not so cool if you don't know him from before. Quite a long fall from the number one spot as Japanese Jesus.
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Postby Charsi » Thu May 23, 2013 7:28 am

View Original PostJornophelanthas wrote:2. In the end, Kaworu did betray SEELE. This was when he halted Fourth Impact for Shinji's sake.
(Please disregard the timestamps.)


Except that Seele had a backup. The dual entry system meant the impact event would continue until BOTH pilots were removed or killed. They (both Seele and NERV) already accounted for the possibility of a DSS choker. The Door of Guf did not close when Kaworu speared Eva-13, it didn't close when his head was blown off, it ONLY closed after Mari force-ejected Shinji's plug, removing the last remaining pilot from the Evangelion.

What seems likely to me is that Seele expected Shinji to be wearing the DSS choker. NERV was betting on Kaworu taking the choker from Shinji. So each expected a different pilot to die in the process, thereby quashing the other's plans (no doubt Shinji is absolutely essential to whatever Gendo has planned).

Come to think of it i'm beginning to doubt the necessity of spears at all, and from that the dual entry system. Really, the dual entry system is a way of putting two pilots in one eva so you can kill one of them but keep the Evangelion active. The only part of the whole rigmarole that actually seemed to need two pilots was breaking into Central Dogma. Kaworu isn't even in control when Shinji pulls the spears. The spears don't DO anything except cause Lilith to go pop and Mark.06 to be set free. Mark.06 gets beheaded, releasing the 12th Angel held captive within.

The 4th Impact ACTUALLY starts when Eva-13 sucks up the swirling core mass that surrounds it. That core mass is the 12th Angel. Eva absorbs angel core, Impact begins. Sound familiar?
Last edited by Charsi on Thu May 23, 2013 7:46 am, edited 5 times in total.

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Postby ElMariachi » Thu May 23, 2013 7:35 am

@ Jornophelanthas :

1. I doubt that WILLE don't know about Kaworu's existence : this is the guy who descended from the sky and stopped N3I with a never seen before weapon and Evangelion, I really doubt that after that he just flew back to the Moon like the masked guy in Sailor Moon! Besides if the trailer in 2.0 actually show events of the time skip, then stayed at NERV(we see him wearing a NERV uniform during the meeting with the "four children chosen by fate")

2. The fact that Kaworu participated in the closing of the Door of Guf don't mean that he betrayed SEELE, since this version of 4I with two Longinus spears isn't what SEELE had planed to begin with. Kaworu was very adamant about the fact that they needed a Cassius and a Longinus type, and when explaining his plan to Shinji before, he said that the two lances were vital for NERV(meaning SEELE) to launch Instrumentality.
That's why he tried to stop Shinji for pulling out the spears : from the moment he noticed that the spears were the same, he understood that his and SEELE's version of instrumentality was doomed to failure.
Had Shinji listened to Kaworu, he probably wouldn't had asked him to surrender to WILLE, but to climb back to neo-NERV HQ to interrogate Gendo.(they probably would have to break Asuka's teeth before, but something tells me that if Kaworu joins Shinji in piloting, that would have ended in a curb-stomb battle, even if Shinji refuses to fight against her)

3. That's a possibility, after al the laws of reality seems to apply more loosely to him than for others. Still if that's true, the fact he seems to continuously fail should be an hint that his method isn't the correct one.
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Postby riffraff11235 » Thu May 23, 2013 8:49 am

But if Kaworu royally fucked up Seele's plans, why would Fuyutsuki say:

01:27:35 {Fuyutsuki} Nearly everything went as Seele had intended.
01:27:38 {Gendo} Even so, we eliminated Seele's boy and guided Eva-13 to its Awakening.

Is Gendou's line meant to give the specific things that didn't go according to Seele's scenario?

Still wondering why UTW decided to translate Mari's line as "The anomalous Thirteenth?" when the meaning in the original Japanese seems a lot simpler....
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Postby Jornophelanthas » Thu May 23, 2013 9:02 am

View Original PostCharsi wrote:Except that Seele had a backup. The dual entry system meant the impact event would continue until BOTH pilots were removed or killed. They (both Seele and NERV) already accounted for the possibility of a DSS choker. The Door of Guf did not close when Kaworu speared Eva-13, it didn't close when his head was blown off, it ONLY closed after Mari force-ejected Shinji's plug, removing the last remaining pilot from the Evangelion.

What seems likely to me is that Seele expected Shinji to be wearing the DSS choker. NERV was betting on Kaworu taking the choker from Shinji. So each expected a different pilot to die in the process, thereby quashing the other's plans (no doubt Shinji is absolutely essential to whatever Gendo has planned).

Whatever is the case, Gendo intended the Impact to stop, while SEELE intended the impact to continue. Kaworu incapactiating Unit-13 and allowing himself to be killed should be seen as giving Shinji the option to abort the Impact (by ejecting), because he believes that Shinji does not want to continue the Impact.
(That Shinji is too shell-shocked to make a decision about anything is not something that apparently occurred to Kaworu.)
Perhaps Kaworu is bound to the Covenant with Lilith, and unable to directly act against SEELE's will. However, he does give Shinji the freedom and opportunity to go against SEELE's will on more than one occasion (specifically also when he is pondering the "wrong" spear). This gives me the impression that Kaworu's allegiance to SEELE is subordinate to his allegiance to Shinji, even though he may never act directly against the explicit wishes of either.

View Original PostElMariachi wrote:@ Jornophelanthas :
2. The fact that Kaworu participated in the closing of the Door of Guf don't mean that he betrayed SEELE, since this version of 4I with two Longinus spears isn't what SEELE had planed to begin with. Kaworu was very adamant about the fact that they needed a Cassius and a Longinus type, and when explaining his plan to Shinji before, he said that the two lances were vital for NERV(meaning SEELE) to launch Instrumentality.
That's why he tried to stop Shinji for pulling out the spears : from the moment he noticed that the spears were the same, he understood that his and SEELE's version of instrumentality was doomed to failure.
Had Shinji listened to Kaworu, he probably wouldn't had asked him to surrender to WILLE, but to climb back to neo-NERV HQ to interrogate Gendo.(they probably would have to break Asuka's teeth before, but something tells me that if Kaworu joins Shinji in piloting, that would have ended in a curb-stomb battle, even if Shinji refuses to fight against her)

Fuyutsuki comments that nearly everything that happened (with the explicit exception of Unit-13 awakening) happened as SEELE wanted it to. Implicitly, aborting the Impact is also not what SEELE wanted, because the monolith euthanasia was done under the explicit assumption that Human Instrumentality would be taking place (which it did not in the end).
What SEELE intended probably involved Mark-06 digesting the 12th Angel ("Iruel?"), and Mark-06 acquiring godhood. The headless Mark-09 beheading Mark-06 and freeing the 12th Angel is the most definitive action on Gendo's part that clearly derailed SEELE's plan, and that made the deification of Unit-13 possible. Gendo must have wanted to kill SEELE before they found out that the trigger was not the one they had expected.


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