Q sucks and Anno hates you [split]

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

However, even if you do all that, I'm not the English-translated subs will have the Japanese honorifics. I forget what Funimation's approach to subbing was. So, if Misato says "Shinji-kun" in Eva Q, the instance in the film that Ritsuko says Misato sounded as though she was concerned for Shinji's wellbeing during the film's climax but couldn't show it to the crew, the subtitle track might still say "Shinji," even if it's not based on the English dub track. So you'll hear English Misato say "Shinji," in her tone of more angry/fed-up voice, and the Japanese-translated subs will still say "Shinji," without expressing the Japanese honorific.

Unless Funimation decided to keep the honorifics in their subs; I forget. Some translations keep the spoken honorifics in the subs, others don't.

[marumaruko]

Kawrou personally descended with a spear, and stopped 3I in its tracks after throwing it at EVA-01. So if he's not lying in what he said, he's at least leaving something critical out. A lie of omission.

I believe this is not really an indicator that Kaworu is contradicting himself or left out crucial information. From a linguistic point of view, when he explained to Shinji, what happened, while not saying directly "you are at fault for a mass extinction" (unusual in Japanese to speak directly), the fact that he immediately explained about mass extinctions being a human thing, he is asserting that Shinji did it.

I get that you think Kaworu stopped the Third Impact when he descended from the sky piercing EVA 01 with the Spear of Cassius, and while he did exactly that, we never get to know at what point the third impact was stopped. Nobody ever said it was avoided, but most likely it went on for a little while and killed enough people to consider it a mass extinction. We never got any indication that an Impact takes awfully long to start killing/purging ,etc.


Also I can't believe that Kaworu as Shinji's "only" friend would betray him or play him. He even realised he was played by Gendo, as much as Shinji and tried stopping him from beginning the Fourth Impact.


But the problem I have with Q is that really nobody ever talked much about what happened after Mark 06 halted the Third Impact. Kaworu hints at Mark 06 becoming the 12th Angel and having been stopped with the Cassius and Longinus Spears. I think it's unfair that Shinji is never explicitly told by the people who blame him what exactly happened, but then again, I'm also in the 'Anno hates his obsessive fans'-camp, so I don't expect any redemption for Shinji at this point (I hope though..).
While not about Q, can people explain about what happened fans-wise after 2.22? Because at that point Shinji's journey seemed still positive enough, and it looked like Anno would treat our hero a bit better..
Was there a fan backlash again (because of too little action, too much romance / slice of life etc.. perhaps?)

[TheFriskyIan]

I get that you think Kaworu stopped the Third Impact when he descended from the sky piercing EVA 01 with the Spear of Cassius, and while he did exactly that, we never get to know at what point the third impact was stopped. Nobody ever said it was avoided, but most likely it went on for a little while and killed enough people to consider it a mass extinction. We never got any indication that an Impact takes awfully long to start killing/purging ,etc.

Misato & company were still observing the event from the Geofront and when the spear comes down from space we still see the Impact Rings haven't escaped beyond the Tokyo area. While the fate of the population in the Central-Japan area is up to chance, it's dubious that N3I was what caused the "mass extinction" Kaworu referred to. Honestly, the big blame Shinji should be getting is not asking the right questions. Kaworu mentions that Lilith's Chamber is the epicenter for the actual Third Impact, yet Shinji doesn't deign to ask how he's responsible when him & Unit 01 were nowhere near Lilith at the end of 2.0.

[marumaruko]

Misato & company were still observing the event from the Geofront and when the spear comes down from space we still see the Impact Rings haven't escaped beyond the Tokyo area. While the fate of the population in the Central-Japan area is up to chance, it's dubious that N3I was what caused the "mass extinction" Kaworu referred to. Honestly, the big blame Shinji should be getting is not asking the right questions. Kaworu mentions that Lilith's Chamber is the epicenter for the actual Third Impact, yet Shinji doesn't deign to ask how he's responsible when him & Unit 01 were nowhere near Lilith at the end of 2.0.

This would imply that Misato and the whole Wille crew are conspiracy theorists (putting the dss choker on him, so EVA01 can't activate and restart the Third Impact) who blame Shinji truly based on what they saw, ignoring completely what happened in the aftermath, which is exactly my problem with the film.

We are clearly presented with the fact that NERV (or Gendou and Fuyutsuki) have become batshit crazy and Wille is trying to save the day (love the Nadia references here), so I doubt they would ignore what happened after EVA01 was impaled with the spear.
I agree with you that Shinji didn't ask the right questions to Kaworu, but at this point it seems likely that while EVA01 being impaled, it set off some sort of chain reaction, otherwise the reactions of Wille towards Shinji make not much sense imo.
The truth lies probably in between, but Wille's disdain should be directed at Gendo much more than Shinji at this point.

[Reichu]

We are clearly presented with the fact that NERV (or Gendou and Fuyutsuki) have become batshit crazy

This isn't "clearly presented" at all -- it's a judgment that can be made by an audience member who cannot possibly have all the relevant facts, and not a fact in and of itself.

at this point it seems likely that while EVA01 being impaled, it set off some sort of chain reaction, otherwise the reactions of Wille towards Shinji make not much sense imo.

The Cassius was removed from Eva-01 at some point, clearly evidenced by the fact that she activates in orbit -- this would not be possible if she were still placed in stasis by the spear. Kaworu, who knows much more than most people, is also convinced that the Cassius was supposed to be in Central Dogma, to the point that he doesn't suggest it was "swapped" or anything -- rather, he says it absolutely totally WAS down there, and it somehow changed its shape. Meaning, the Spear of Cassius was removed from Eva-01 during Third Impact itself (or else the Spear of Cassius could not be one of the two spears used to stop the event). The Failures of Infinity also look like headless copies of Eva-01, making it quite evident that Eva-01 was influencing Third Impact extensively.

Liberating Eva-01 would have been, one way or another, necessary for Seele's goals, since they require Lilith's soul to resurrect Lilith and create their "True Evangelion". Gendo and Yui intentionally trapped Lilith's soul inside an awakened Evangelion to make things difficult for Seele, but they likely wouldn't proceed with Third Impact if they didn't think they had some way to get Lilith out of Eva-01. Whatever they thought, they were probably very wrong, and they simply made it possible for Gendo and Yui to set their competing version of Third Impact in motion as well.

[ShinjiStranglesAsuka]

Do we know if Yui & Gendo are in on it together in the rebuild? AFAIK in the original series Yui went off doing her own thing and Gendo was left broken, devising his own plans to try to see her again.

[Reichu]

Do we know if Yui & Gendo are in on it together in the rebuild? AFAIK in the original series Yui went off doing her own thing and Gendo was left broken, devising his own plans to try to see her again.

Gendo's plans are IMHO one of the more misconstrued aspects of NGE. My impression is that Yui and Gendo were always on the same basic page, but Yui was forced to quickly adjust her plans in response to vaguely hinted-at threats upon her life. She confided in Fuyutsuki, but not to Gendo, because Fuyutsuki had already come under threats from Seele and he was not in the process of securing Kiel Lorenz's good graces the way Gendo was. Gendo's short-term ignorance of what Yui was forced to do (quickly put herself into Eva-01) was paramount to ensuring both the safety of his person and of their long-term intentions of subverting Seele from the inside. Fuyutsuki eventually did tell him what was going on -- Gendo shows no surprise when Fuyutsuki casually alludes to "that's why she chose to remain within Eva-01" in EoE -- but that would only have been once it was safe to do so. After that, divergences would have mostly been minor squabbles, like the precise handling of Shinji, and not big-picture things like "the future of humanity as we know it".

I've been attempting to tackle the problem of how much Gendo and Yui are on the same page in NTE, and so far it seems like they mostly are? These films are so bloody dense and layered that something new could turn up at any time to change everything, though. I'm trying to slap together a bunch of observations for the Fuyutsuki thread together that will maybe, hopefully, shed a little light on the matter, or at least get us all looking at the issue in a way we didn't previously.

[Settie]

I dunno if it's so much as dense as there's just so little information. Yui was maaaybe responsible for unit 1 rejecting the dummy plug and she, as far as can be inferred, willingly became unit 1s control system. Beyond that, Yui is very much an enigma for now. So just how much in cahoots she is with Gendo is still up in the air.

[Blockio]

Yui was maaaybe responsible for unit 1 rejecting the dummy plug and she, as far as can be inferred, willingly became unit 1s control system.

Gendo outright says "Yui, why are you rejecting me?". There is no "maybe" about this, that much has been outright confirmed

[AlphaZero]

I think a lot of people were/are disappointed because the preview at the end of Ha made people think that the sequel would've been about focusing more on the other characters and especially wondered about what a world without Shinji would've been like. How would humanity survive without having to rely on him and how does it affect the life of the rest of the cast.

[ShinjiStranglesAsuka]

I don't see much point in watching Evangelion without Shinji though.

[Gendo'sPapa]

I think a lot of people were/are disappointed because the preview at the end of Ha made people think that the sequel would've been about focusing more on the other characters and especially wondered about what a world without Shinji would've been like.

Never heard that opinion. Was always under the assumption everyone figured it would be like the show, Shinji was gone a month and then story went on as per usual. There were even discussions of Shinji being gone like six months but no one though 14 years.
Evangelion without Shinji?
I mean at that point it's not even Evangelion?

*Though this does reiterate my feeling that the only true huge mistake of the Rebuild films has been those damn previews at the end. They've always been the one aspect of the films I dislike. This isn't TV. They aren't releasing the following part next week and already have a script and work in progress. These are films with years in between releases and what was the plan in one year won't resemble the finished project. The previews for these films are things cobbled together at the last minute with a very loose "Yeah, I mean we MIGHT do that. I don't know. Depends on what happens when we actually write the script. Who knows. Who cares. The fans will discuss it for years to come". I wish there was a way for conversations about what might happen could ignore the previews but they exists so it's not really an option.

Ah well.

[Reichu]

The essence of Evangelion is much bigger than Shinji, IMO. He's iconic and it's well understood what he represents, but you absolutely could have an Evangelion story without him. That's a separate issue from the idea of him vanishing for a third of a series where he's already been established as the main -- of course THAT'S not going to work. If you're telling a new story entirely from scratch, though, it's not an issue at all.

[TheFriskyIan]

*Though this does reiterate my feeling that the only true huge mistake of the Rebuild films has been those damn previews at the end. They've always been the one aspect of the films I dislike. This isn't TV. They aren't releasing the following part next week and already have a script and work in progress. These are films with years in between releases and what was the plan in one year won't resemble the finished project. The previews for these films are things cobbled together at the last minute with a very loose "Yeah, I mean we MIGHT do that. I don't know. Depends on what happens when we actually write the script. Who knows. Who cares. The fans will discuss it for years to come". I wish there was a way for conversations about what might happen could ignore the previews but they exists so it's not really an option.

I really don't understand having such a disdain for a NTP when it doesn't hinder the quality of Q in the slightest. Fans are going to speculate about the time-gap regardless of whether or not that preview is there; if anything the preview gives the film far more depth since we actually have some meat to the discussion considering some of what we see adds up. This is coupled with that introduction page in the Q booklet of Anno explicitly saying this was the plan all along. The man has no reason to lie to us and he most certainly would understand leaving something irrelevant would be completely contradictory to his claims.

I'm sure we'll get a definitive answer either with Final or a 3.0 CRC when they both release in the month of Never.

[Joseki]

To be completely honest, the previews do bother me a bit. I would like to have a version of the movies with previews that are actually footage of the next movie.

[Reichu]

Making sense of the timeskip is basically impossible without the much-despised preview. Adjusting to changes like Eva-08 becoming Eva-13 is simple compared to trying to compensate for how much more information we simply wouldn't have.

[glitz2hard]

...the movie and the related media constantly portrays Kaworu as being such a selfless and loving figure to Shinji that I have a hard time believing that he was lying or trying to manipulate him. Heck, it's why he became the 2nd most popular character. Why would they want to make this guy out as a manipulative lier?

i would LOVE to see anno just completely flip our idea of kaworu on our heads, now that he's dead. then Shinji can go down ANOTHER downward spiral!
another one...

[LightDragonman]

Honestly, you guys haven't really done much to instill hope in me that the next film is gonna do much other than continue to crap all over characters like Rei in order to push the whole anti-escapism message the series is known for.

Also, you guys all seem really, really dead set on the idea that Kaworu was lying or trying to manipulate Shinji, and that's why Shinji isn't responsible for the death of millions. Again though, why would the next movie have that when everything the films have done is the exact opposite? It's implied that Kaworu has gone through more than one cycle, says that he will make Shinji happy this time, is horrified when the next Impact begins to happen in 3.33, is one of the only ones to actually show Shinji kindness and the like, and even does a heroic sacrifice at the end. Heck, both theme songs, "Beautiful World" and "Sakura Nagashi" have been interpreted by many as being reflective of how Kaworu feels about Shinji, and his love for him. Not to mention just how popular his character is in fan polls and the like.

Given all of that, why on earth would he lie about what Shinji had done? Especially since having Shinji inadvertently kill millions in his attempt to save Rei really enforces Anno's views on escapism and the like, and negating that by saying Shinji wasn't in fact responsible defeats that whole purpose. After all, we all know that Anno absolutely despises Rei due to viewing her as a symbol of escapism.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

^ Within terms of Kaworu, the argument is more “What Kaworu says doesn’t match up with what we saw after 2.22’s end credits. So either Kaworu is lying, or Anno is retconning.” And since many theories are going to take a more diegetic approach and a less meta-textual approach for a while, opinions lean more towards the diegetic theory of Kaworu’s possible lie, and less on the meta-textual theory of Anno retconning his own movie.

[Gendo'sPapa]

I mean I’m in the “Kaworu’s feelings for Shinji were genuine the whole time and he was mislead into providing Shinji with false hope because Gendo really has thought it all out”camp. I’ve personally never found the “Kaworu is evil” narrative to be compelling nor have I ever been sold on it but I’ll always listen.