Masterful shitpost, Felipe.
Unpacking that will take some time.
FelipeFritschF#895914 wrote:3.0 is such a mess of unbridled sexual energy.
I suppose I'll use that prompt to randomly inject a couple more GIFs I recently made, which further expose this pulsating, perverse underbelly of
Eva:Q.
"Hold still and let me fuck you", indeed.
Okay, now back to our main thread.
Derantor#895907 wrote:@Reichu: I didn't intend to argue against your interpretation, rather augment it.^^
Crap. I was careless there.
Apologies!
ShinjiStranglesAsuka#895904 wrote:I'm still trying to figure out what the Kaworu's are supposed to be from a thematical viewpoint. I'd like to hear you thoughts on both versions of him if you don't mind.
Sure. My take on NGE!Kaworu is abnormally strange, and it tends to focus on an element that is generally ignored, which is that Kaworu represents yet another maternal figure in Shinji's life, albeit one cloaked in the skin of a boy.
Trying to explain exactly why I think this is... complicated, and I've been putting off a full analysis for quite a long time because, as you too are aware, stances regarding Kaworu that go against the narrative of authoritarian KawoShin stans is an invitation for trouble. Though, really, that's all the better reason to put out an analysis that fearlessly challenges all that... Sigh, someday. But anyway... From Shinji's perspective, I do think that this element only registers in his unconscious, but it still matters because of NGE's thematic stance toward the process of growing up. It acknowledges that people often seek out partners who can be surrogate parents, but due to the psychoanalytical angle, I suppose it's also arguing that such people only want a mommy/daddy they can fuck because they have some deep and unresolved issue. Optimally, then, the child should grow beyond childish desires, and seek out a partner who challenges and complements them, as this will prevent stagnancy and encourage growth under conditions of mutual emotional support. But then Shinji ends up with the broken and bitter Asuka at the very end, so I don't even know anymore. "Become someone apart from your mom" is a very important theme, in any case. Fucking your mom, or someone you see as your mom, does not achieve this, so it should not be desired.
I'm not sure I really understand the "idealized version of Shinji" thing either. Maybe it just has to do with how Kaworu is presented as such a warm and accommodating cypher that he could be all things to an incredibly desperate Shinji at once. Note how Shinji says things like "Kaworu-kun was a much better person than me". Shinji doesn't really know anything about Kaworu at all, so what he's really saying is that the Kaworu in his mind is a better person than he is, ergo, Shinji is projecting his own thoughts of "a me that isn't complete trash" onto Kaworu. By destroying Kaworu, Shinji has also symbolically destroyed all hope for becoming a person that his own mind would consider worthy. We all know what happens next...
The NTE version of Kaworu is hard to work with because we still have an entire movie (and all the post-
Shin analysis) missing. I'm glad I finally found a way to explain him that doesn't require resorting to stuff like "Kaworu is stalking Shinji through four dimensions and will continue to do so until he makes Shinji happy OR ELSE" (there's this really weird, strong desire for NTE to be
Madoka with Eva characters swapped in, and I have no idea why), but while many questions have been addressed and the entire NTE universe has been blown open in a way I couldn't have imagined, I still have the rather big problem that Kaworu's singular obsession with Shinji (or Adam's singular obsession with Luvah, or however the fuck this all started) still has no good explanation. Then, it doesn't have an explanation in NGE either, so maybe it just is what it is. To be Kaworu is to inexplicably obsess over a bland Japanese boy.
BUT, the NTE character in one important respect provides signs that his inner world is slightly more expansive than SHINJISHINJISHINJI, and that is through the undercurrent of guilt he gives off. Like, listen again to Kaworu talking to Shinji about the Third Impact. Look at his expression and body language. Is Kaworu
really talking about Shinji here? Kaworu taking the DSS Choker later and saying he'd been planning to do it for a while makes it even more apparent. People have wondered why in the world he would do such a stupid thing -- why not simply get rid of the collar? -- and explanations have never felt entirely complete. But if Kaworu is doing it because he believes that the truly guilty one is HIM, then maybe it could all start to make sense. Assuming this is on the right track, then Kaworu guilt-tripping Shinji is, at least in part... Like, what's the word for when you really regret and hate a flaw in yourself, so you are super harsh on others (especially people you care about) when they make the same sort of mistake? It's
that.
To take this further, consider things on a meta level to start with. In NGE, Kaworu was Adam, right? And Adam was, intentionally or not, responsible for three billion people being killed. NGE sadly doesn't take the Kaworu-Adam connection to all its logical conclusions, leaving all sorts of delicious characterization opportunities completely untouched. But suppose NTE is picking up some of those dangling threads and reviving them in this altered context. NTE!Kaworu in his previous incarnation was almost certainly one of the beings present at Second Impact, and he's clearly the only incarnated Adams who actually remembers anything. This Kaworu seems to have no ill will toward Lilin that we can see. His plan involving Shinji is to repair the world, and
suppose he is sincere, and he wants the Earth to be a place where Lilin can live again. Suppose he never actually wanted Second Impact to happen, or alternatively that his current incarnation's values are slightly different from those he possessed before. Kaworu, as the only one who remembers the past, gets to bear the guilt of Second Impact all by himself.
This guilt complex could possibly play a role in Kaworu's obsession with making Shinji happy. I've speculated that Second Impact happened because the four-part fused being at the South Pole was induced into fissioning with the introduction of Lilith's core. Shinji's former incarnation ("Luvah") broke off to merge with that core. What if Kaworu blamed himself for this happening? "Shinji left because of a failing on my part. And him leaving set off the chain of events resulting in the impact. So this is all my fault and I have to fix it by bringing Shinji back to the contentment that existed before Lilith came along." Or something to that effect -- the possibilities are pretty open-ended at this point.
This could be like Kaworu's version of Shinji's failings in 2.22. Shinji through inaction gets Asuka traumatized (more than she already was) and placed in containment; he compensates for this disaster by breaking reality to save Rei even after she's been devoured. But, well, he went about fixing his first mistake the entirely wrong way, and it only resulted in greater disaster. Same for Kaworu. He didn't approach the matter of correcting Shinji's happiness the right way. Was it mere overconfidence? Was it that Kaworu was afraid of finding out the real reason Luvah left the Unity in the first place -- maybe he blamed it on Lilith so he wouldn't have to think about it further -- and because he never accounted for this, he never actually understood Shinji at all and his plans were doomed to failure?
I'm just rambling at this point. But hopefully all that madness at least conveys some basis upon which to investigate Kaworu's character further.
I've tried searching around the forums for a bit but obviously typing "Kaworu" in the search bar results in the site basically telling me to go fuck myself so
.
With forums dying out the way they are, getting the additional help we need to fix stuff like feels impossible. I feel grateful the current group of volunteers is able to keep place online at all. But yeah, the broken search index is irritating, and basically have to use Google to get around it. A query like
this one should bring up some relevant Kaworu stuff.