Ritsuko and the Rei Clones

[NIkkolas]

So are the Rei clones "conscious" before they replace the "active Rei"? I fully admit I didn't grasp a good deal of Eva's plot and I was never sure on this.

It's just some people treat her offing the clones like it was super-heinous. Given the horrible life that could potentially await any of them once they were "activated" killing them now is almost a mercy, especially if they have no real minds or feelings of their own at present.

But like I said, I'm not sure about that hence the thread.

[Kendrix]

It's just some people treat her offing the clones like it was super-heinous.

That would be more because of her intentions to do it as a means to "destroy Rei" who really has no faut for being the clone of Ritsuko's love rival, the way she keeps talking about her like she's an object, and her obvious desire to psych Shinji out with this (her talk about Yui, and how she basically reacts to any sighn of discomfort on his part with an evil grin), perhaps to "destroy" another of Yui's offspring, than because of the clones themselves;

They're clearly stated to be pretty much empty meat shells and we're given no reason to doubt this, especially given the mockery that resulted when one of them was used to simulate human behavior (the dumy plug) - Some have argued that they have some primitive thinking going on, like that we're supposed to understand the way/moment they turn to face our protagonists as them recognizing Shinji/ him saying their assigned name, but ultimately, all they do is grin vacantly, and the explicit reason they can only have a limited amount of Reis running around at the same time (only one in the original continuity, although both ANIMA and Rebuild have more later on, and according to some Theories, unit Zero counts as a separate avatar), and thus needed human pilots like Asuka or Shinji at all, is that the metaphysical components ("soul" - more specifically, Lillith's) are limited.

Without the soul, you just don't have a complete Rei assembled - hence Ritsuko's comparision to "spare parts", although it is conceivable that they'd grab a spare liver or arm from one of the clones if the active one became "permanently damaged".

[Nuclear Lunchbox]

I don't think I've ever seen somebody angry at Ritsuko for killing the Rei clones because they thought the Reis were sentient. My opinion, like Kendrix's, is that they're just empty shells. It's a vegetable that looks like Rei.

[Bagheera]

I've always thought the horror people feel over her killing the clones was a bit odd. It was spiteful, yes, but they clearly weren't people. I don't get the fuss.

[Nuclear Lunchbox]

The people that were shocked by that scene are probably the same people that hate the idea of taking a brain-dead person off of life support. They can't grasp the idea that there's nobody in there anymore.

[NemZ]

It's shocking because these are nearly human living creatures with some rudimentary awareness being slaughtered for no good reason. It may not be an act of mass murder, but it's at least mass animal cruelty. Further, if this has the secondary effect on the current Rei of causing her to fall apart as some speculate then it absolutely is also attempted murder.

If Misato wasn't there it's possible Shinji was going to end up dead as well, or perhaps be manipulated into killing Ritsuko.

[Sorrow]

I'd liken it to abortion, personally.

They're yet to live. They exist in some form, but not in a way that's alive. The clones are different to animals in that: though animals may not be able to articulate their their own existence they're still living and surviving. They're still sentient.

The Rei clones are yet to be given life (the soul) and so it would be highly unlikely that they could suffer. Is it cruel to burn a dead body? I don't think it would be shocking to us (the viewer) in the least; but to Shinji, it's certainly something.

Perhaps it gets to people because it's essentially removing all chance of Rei coming back again should something happen to her? Ritsuko has taken away 8 of the cat's 9 lives. In a way she has given value to the living Rei by devaluing her existence more than everyone else.

[Bagheera]

It's shocking because these are nearly human living creatures with some rudimentary awareness being slaughtered for no good reason. It may not be an act of mass murder, but it's at least mass animal cruelty. Further, if this has the secondary effect on the current Rei of causing her to fall apart as some speculate then it absolutely is also attempted murder.

I don't see how it'd have any effect on Rei, and the rest doesn't make sense because they don't have souls. They aren't coma patients, they aren't fetuses, they aren't even animals -- they're just hunks of meat that don't have souls.

[ElMariachi]

I don't see how it'd have any effect on Rei, and the rest doesn't make sense because they don't have souls. They aren't coma patients, they aren't fetuses, they aren't even animals -- they're just hunks of meat that don't have souls.

They still look exactly like humans, hell, on a biological level they are humans, and seeing them dissolving like they were thrown into a vat of acid is shocking, even more for Shinji since they all have Rei's face.

It would be as if expecting Shinji (or the audience) to not freak out in front of the shelf of dozen of severed Rei heads in 3.0 because they weren't Rei II, people don't have that level of detachment.

[xPearse]

I agree with it being similar to abortion, I can't believe anyone can agree with Ritsuko's decision. All life is sacred, I don't care what people say. No matter how you were brought into this world, through a womb or as an in vitro your alive and should have a chance at life. I see them as unborn babies, you can hatch and then teach them as you would a child. I know they don't have souls and possibly it couldn't work that way if you hatched them, especially in the world of Evangelion since souls and stuff.

I really don't like the thought of that, steming from my own beliefs because artificial life is still life. I also don't see how anyone wouldn't make a fuss about this, would you throw a petri dish of test tube babies into the bin because in your definition they aren't alive. I'm Irish, go figure.

[Bagheera]

It would be as if expecting Shinji (or the audience) to not freak out in front of the shelf of dozen of severed Rei heads in 3.0 because they weren't Rei II, people don't have that level of detachment.

Wait, people freaked out about that? I didn't notice anyone giving a damn at all.

[Nuclear Lunchbox]

It's shocking because these are nearly human living creatures with some rudimentary awareness being slaughtered for no good reason... further, if this has the secondary effect on the current Rei of causing her to fall apart as some speculate then it absolutely is also attempted murder.

Grass has rudimentary awareness as well, my friend. As to the second point, though, we're told that it's due to her ATF falling apart IIRC.

[Madonna]

I don't see the clones as each having an individual life but rather all of them being an extension of one life: Rei. When one dies, it gets replaced by another Rei who is given life only when the current one dies. Ritsuko didn't murder a countless number of people by destroying them but rather stopped the potential for life. It's this contingency which differentiates it from murder.

In this sense, the abortion comparison is a fair one, and as someone who isn't ethically opposed to legal abortion; I wouldn't label what Rituslo did as anything other than merely "unfortunate".

[NemZ]

Split the Abortion stuff off to a thread of it's own in off-topic.

The Reis also aren't really unborn babies in the way I think you're thinking of them. I compared them to foetuses as such because they don't really exist as anything yet; they're just a body/organism with nothing inside. Most of the "Reis" were going to go to waste anyway; how many times did Gendo expect Rei to die or get injured? She never would have gotten through them all, so they're not waiting to be born and they wouldn't have been collected by Lilith in instrumentality because they have no souls to be released. They're completely disposable; only to be used so Rei's purpose could be fulfilled.

---

I don't see how it'd have any effect on Rei, and the rest doesn't make sense because they don't have souls. They aren't coma patients, they aren't fetuses, they aren't even animals -- they're just hunks of meat that don't have souls.

I don't really get the mechanism for it either, but some have put it forward as a theory that somehow destroying the rei-clones in the tank had the effect of eventually harming the actual Rei as well. I was just trying to put it out there that other opinions exist.

I also don't believe your idea that animals in the show have souls (Lilith-derived life, yes, but not necessarily true Lillin), so the comparison seems to work just fine to me. And even if they are just slabs of dumb meat it still feels like a pointless waste to destroy them, especially when the goal in doing so is probably to intentionally cause Shinji psychological distress.

As to the abortion comparison, I also think in real life people don't have "souls" or even truely free wills so it holds up pretty well as the intentional killing of potential persons.
No, this is not an invitation to start another tangent.

[ElMariachi]

Wait, people freaked out about that? I didn't notice anyone giving a damn at all.

Well, maybe not a full freak-out of the level of seeing GNR breaking into pieces (or when Kaworu reveals what happened to the landscape to stay in Rebuild), but people catch unaware were certainly surprised to see dozen of decapitated heads with Rei's face popping up suddenly in the middle of Fuyutsuki's speech.
(on a side, you can really admire Fuyu's sense of timing with that sight to maximize the shocking effect on Shinji and break him s much as possible, bunch of bastards)

[Bagheera]

I also don't believe your idea that animals in the show have souls (Lilith-derived life, yes, but not necessarily true Lillin), so the comparison seems to work just fine to me. And even if they are just slabs of dumb meat it still feels like a pointless waste to destroy them, especially when the goal in doing so is probably to intentionally cause Shinji psychological distress.

Wasteful, yes, but not horrifying. Forget the souls business, they aren't even sentient. A cow has more going on upstairs than they do.

As to the abortion comparison, I also think in real life people don't have "souls" or even truely free wills so it holds up pretty well as the intentional killing of potential persons.

Nah. A fetus, left to its own devices, will eventually become a person, and individual. The Rei clones are just backup copies for a person who already exists. It's not the same thing at all.

[ElMariachi]

Wasteful, yes, but not horrifying. Forget the souls business, they aren't even sentient. A cow has more going on upstairs than they do.

But they still have a human shape, one with the face of someone dear to Shinji (and a main character), so seeing them dissolving in a feast of gore is horrifying, whether they have a soul or not.

It's like a cadaver: it doesn't move, don't have a soul anymore, yet you can't just throw in a vat of acid or tear it to piece and expect people to approve or be indifferent.

[Eleven]

Funny, how the horror for me works in the exact opposite direction:
I found the scene to be disturbing, but not despite the clones being soulless, but because the fact, that they can be destroyed by pushing a button and that they don't even show the slightest reaction to it pointed out just how inhuman they really were. Is that understandable? I don't find it shocking to destroy giggling soulless meat in human-form, but somehow it shocked me, that giggling soulless meat in human form exists and can be erased like things.

[NemZ]

It is understandable, and I agree that ads to the effect.

Bags, you have no way of knowing the extent to which the Rei clones can think. At the very least they DO recognize and respond to being called by name.

[El Squibbonator]

Look at it this way: Rei wanted to be able to live a normal, finite, life-cycle. In a way, destroying the backup clone bodies actually helped her.