What would Shinji be like if he were raised by Gendo and Yui?

[Kendrix]

Like, actual Gendo and Yui, not the slice of life AU variety.
Say that the technobabble works slightly different and so Yui is not required to merge with EVA 01 (yet), Gendo would be as he was before she "died" & they raised their kid together in the ridiculous mansion they're implied to have in ep 21.

How do you think he would turn out?

[Derantor]

Hm - despite being pessimistic and liking to point out the possible nasty sides every chance I get, I think Shinji would actually turn out allright. Yui certainly seems like an empathetic woman in the flashbacks; since she never gets absorbed into the Eva, the only thing preventing her from focusing solely on Shinji is her work (not saying that she should focus on him, just trying to figure out what could hinder her involvement). Gendo meanwhile seems to be much better when he is around Yui. She is basically his anchor in this world. As long as she is around, he will most likely never become the "ends justify the means at all costs" guy we see in NGE. He will also never send Shinji away; Yui wouldn't allow it.

So - I don't know. I'm pretty optimistic.

[Berserker]

I believe Yui's demise choice of being the resident soul is the only reason that made Gendo what he is today. He was just a typical moody young man until he went nuts after the contact experiment. If Yui was to stay "alive", he would've been a normal yet somewhat strict father. I think they still wouldn't have a friend-like father son relationship, but definitely they would've had some wholesome moment along the way. Like, they would've been kinda distant among themselves, but if they were to be close on occasion for some reason, they would've had a moment that both of them would cherish for a long time. And Yui is as motherly as one can possibly get. She would've done an awesome job parenting Shinji. Thus Shinji would've been a typical kid growing up with a almost perfect family one can possibly get.

[dzzthink]

They may end up working for nerv, become obsessed with creating the eva and cause Shinji to have abandonment issues. I'm not sure about the effects of nature vs nurture but if they were good parents Shinji would have been more stable, probably still the nice guy he is already. I think the absence of parents could have had a huge effect on his current frame of mind, which is I guess one of the themes in the series (hedgehog dilemma and 'you must not run away').

[JoelcrNeto]

Starting from the point that Shinji developed his traumas because of a family breakdown, I believe if he raised with Yui and Gendo he would be fine.

To me, Gendo didn't seem like a bad father (with the little evidence we have in episode 21), but I believe he would be a strict father. Yui always gave me the image of being a good mother, and Gendo is very much in love with her, if Shinji is everything to Yui, surely Gendo will do everything for Shinji.

[Berserker]

They may end up working for nerv, become obsessed with creating the eva and cause Shinji to have abandonment issues.

Not to be judgemental, but that's almost exactly what happens in angelic days, the continuation of ep 26 alternate universe sequence.

[Line]

I think Shinji will still be kind of the same timide, and introverted boy. Not in the "too much", anormal way that's he is in the serie, but in the good sense of way in the spectrum of this personnality. He would smile more often, laughing, crack somes jokes and I guess...He would still stand up for himself when offended
I dunno, the same Shinji we know, but without being that's closed off and so more open,(social, for a lack of another better term...) will still remaining shy and polite.

[UrsusArctos]

To me, Gendo didn't seem like a bad father (with the little evidence we have in episode 21), but I believe he would be a strict father.

I don't think he'd have even been strict. Gendo was a man who seemed to see life as his private joke before the Contact Incident. More likely he'd have been the kind of father who tells his son little secrets about how to manipulate the world to its own end, but that would probably have made Shinji a lot more devious and less nice of a person. I see that as something Gendo and Yui would fight over.

[JoelcrNeto]

^
I confess I have difficulties assimilating how Gendo was before Yui incident, perhaps I agree with you statement:

Gendo was a man who seemed to see life as his private joke before the Contact Incident.

In this hypothetical scenario that Kendrix formulated, I think Shinji would be used for something, and as Gendo is pretty faithful to Yui, he would be strict with his son so that his beloved wife could achieve his goals. Of course, his rigidity may cause some conflicts with Shinji and even Yui.

I don’t see the possibility of Gendo teaching Shinji his megalomania, it’s very likely that he’ll teach what Yui would believe pertinent to him.
Yeah, as you can see, I believe that everything that Gendo do, would be motivated by Yui, I cannot see other possibilities.

Also, days ago I read an article on the Wiki about Gendo to better understand your past, and there is a reference “6. See Theory and Analysis: Gendo’s Agenda for more details”, but that article doesn’t exist

[UrsusArctos]

Gendo's agenda post-CI, in a nutshell, is dominated by a desire to bring Yui back and perhaps bring back the ability to love that died with her. "Ai wo torimodose" as Fist of the North Star would have it. Gendo's liaisons with the Akagi women don't come off as the work of an unfaithful lover but rather a broken man looking to love again and desperately going up the same erotic flagpole with no success at being able to feel anything like he did when he was younger; a man haunted by the shadow of a happier past and seeking desperately to head back to it in the future. Young Gendo doesn't act like a megalomaniac but rather as someone "in the know about things" early on, and his later personality seems to show no signs of megalomania either. If there's a real megalomaniac, it's Chairman Keel, not to mention the other old men of Seele.

^
Also, days ago I read an article on the Wiki about Gendo to better understand your past, and there is a reference “6. See Theory and Analysis: Gendo’s Agenda for more details”, but that article doesn’t exist

This sounds like one of the many, many Theory and Analysis articles that were meant to be written in Ye Olde Days but which never came to fruition, alas.

[Kendrix]

Personally I saw the thing with the Akagis as locking down a useful asset only -
As in, he used the fact that they had the hots for him to buy their loyalty with Sex, because controlling the number one scientist around is very useful for his plan.
Hence this line from ep 24 "You never had any hopes and expectations from me to begin with. You wanted nothing from me!"

That said, I don't think Gendo merely saw instrumentality as a means to an end; He does seem to genuinely believe in it (ep 25: "Because it's the only way to survive") Yui's "death" caused both his wanting her back & his more cynical disposition that makes him think it's necessary, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't genuinely believe the latter.

As for his younger self, it seems that he was 100% on board with Yui's plan at the time.

As for Shinji... "some parents" isn't always better than "no parents", in an extreme case, you'd probably have a better life with just a loving single mother than with a father who beats & terrorizes you.
Yui would be a soft & fluffy person he can hug which would probably already represent a significant advantage over only paid caretakers on a very basic bonding/attention level but the only difference between her and Gendo is that she will use you nicely and politely. She still abandoned Shinji, she still wants him to play his role in her scenario, a role which requires him to go through painful crappy stuff... Gendo almost seems less self-deluded.
Neither of them comes up to Misato's level (she at least tries not to tax Shinji more than strictly necessary for the survival of mankind & to mitigate it where she can) and that's not a high bar.
I'm not sure it would be exactly the same, because a small kid would be unable to 'get' the difference and would just see her as nice and friendly (whereas even a baby will cry if you act coldly towards it) but then later on it might be painful in its own, different way because the person doing questionable stuff would be your mom who you love very much.
Also, he might've been sent to a rich people school, idk how that would influence things...If I try to picture it my mind immediately goes to him meeting Mari there since she's from a "distinguished English family" in one draft. XDD It's hard to picture him all arrogant. Perhaps we'd get a more well-informed, Kaworu-like character.
Or, G & Y would still completely keep him in the dark because that's what they already did with less control over the outcome.

[JoelcrNeto]

Ursus, thank you for the explanations!
CI means Classified Information, right? I don't read yet, I need to do this ASAP!

This sounds like one of the many, many Theory and Analysis articles that were meant to be written in Ye Olde Days but which never came to fruition, alas.

What a pity, I was curious to read...

[UrsusArctos]

I think my brain mixed up "Contact Experiment" with "Classified Information" - I actually meant the former! But the Classified Information is a great source and you hear little tidbits like Yui being the daughter of a Seele member, or outright spelling out Gendo's motivations. Please read it, it's awesome!

[ASW_Canuck]

My $0.02 is that the Ikari family dynamics would be dysfunctional, with Gendo being emotionally detached from his son, and resentful of him for stealing Yui's love from him. In Ep 15 his reply to Shinji's accusation that he destroyed every picture of Yui was just to calmly state "I keep everything in my heart. That is enough for now.", which to me suggests that:

1. he deliberately destroyed all physical tokens of Yui's existence, so that nothing of her would be left for others, and
2. the possibility that leaving nothing for Shinji to remember his mother by might not be enough for Shinji was totally irrelevant to him.

Even when it's in his personal interest to feign emotional attachment to someone, he doesn't seem to be particularly good at it. Both Akagis find their "lover" to be emotionally detached from them, and even Rei admits to Shinji that she has no sense of who Gendo is as a person.

My thought is by the time 2015 rolls around Shinji would have grown up in an emotionally strained household, with a detached and resentful father and a mother who is struggling to deal with that dysfunctional relationship.

[orcot]

I think Gendo would be resentful of the attention Shinji would get and would insist on at least a second child, So both kids could occupy each other, Gendo would also try and force the relation. I'm also under the impression that Yui is rather abusive, she certainly is manipulating Shinji, Gendo and Fuyutsuki and in the manga also Rei.
Also a death cult she has a blood relation with was planning to murder her whilst she worked on giant angelical monsters. I really doubt she was a good person. Gendo is obsessed with her, Shinji was 4 and it was his mother we don't have much reliable witnisses and what we see of her well it gives pauze to think.

[Kendrix]

this seems to assume Manga Gendo tho, that weird jealousy subplot is very manga specific (and even that was like the end state of many years of the Dark Side Will Make You Forget, not how he started out)

The anime one just didn't feel he could handle it without Yui's help but regrets it. (Best illustration of the difference: Manga Shinji was dumped off with the random uncle that basically treated him as a burden; Anime Shinji was left with a teacher, in theory a professional kid handler, also there seems to have been sporadic contact until some incident that took place when Shinji was about 11)

The photo thing was probably a grief reaction, like not wanting to be painfully reminded, or it's so no one would connect the dots regarding Rei like Naoko did
He should've considered that Shinji might want a picture someday but I'd say that's something he failed to consider rather than the intended outcome.

Gendo would probably rely on Yui to organize the family's social life & smooth things out around the edges/ serve as a bridge between the two.
I don't think Yui would be that unpleasant to live around day to day, she seems affectionate enough when we see her interacting with baby Shinji (though she should have guessed that seeing the contact experiment would be traumatizing). I think Shinji wouldn't notice anything off with her/ think she was just a normal, perfect mom until he hit puberty and grew complex critical thinking faculties & started seeing some of the discrepancies. Shinji's sort of obedient and naive ad times, I think he'd be 100% fooled at first, but then he would look back and think, "wow this was actually questionable"

Also, to be fair to her, she was planning to betray her death cult & it's in part thanks to her efforts that people got the option to detang themselves

Though I think a Shinji that actually grew up with them & actually experienced the dynamic between them would have a rather different view of them, maybe he'd sympathize with Gendo more out of the two 'cause he would be more aware of their similarities.
Being the son of a good-looking charming supergenius who widely inspired love & jealous rage would probably be daunting to someone with Shinji's basic temperament.

[orcot]

Would you assume he would have brothers and sisters?

[Berserker]

It's not entirely impossible. Anything like this would've been possible if Yui were "alive". Also since Gendo had already decided the name for their daughter if they had, that kinda suggests they would've thought of taking another child after sometime, at least Gendo maybe would've wanted. But anyways, this isn't really the point here.

[Kendrix]

Would you assume he would have brothers and sisters?

Hm.

I'm genuinely not sure.
They might be too devoted to their work.

Yui was at some point considering to quit working & become a full time parent (so that limiting the kids to a workable number would cease to be a factor), but that was before Second Impact happened, or before they even found Adam, at which point she needed to focus on the project if she wanted Shinji to have a future at all.

So I suppose it might depend on how the particular AU works.
I think Gendo would not want too many kids, he feels he can barely handle one, but his tendency would probably to yield to Yui if she tried convincing him.

A Shinji who grew up with siblings and a stay-at-home Yui would certainly be so wildly different as to be completely unrecognizeable.
He very much falls into the typical "outwardly serious, relatively self-sufficient" pattern typical of only children.
Since she would no longer have a need to work for any ominous organizations, there probably wouldn't be any issues with manipulation either, just some vague awareness that she used to be a famous researcher in the past.
What I find harder to imagine is SuburbanHusband!Gendo not in any way involved in any big higher purpose. Remember that he originally approached Yui to get intel on her organization, even if he ended up liking her for real. (He's basically the same as Mana Kirishima lol)
Maybe he'd end up as an advisor to a politician or in military research? But it's unlikely that Shinji would end up directly involved with whatever questionable stuff he gets up to, I see him headed for either a creative job or a super ordinary "it pays the bills" one.

Things would probably differ based on wether there simply is no conspiracy, or if it's not happening yet (ie, Adam isn't discovered until a hundred years later) Then maybe Shinji or one of his hypothetical siblings might be expected to carry on the conspiracy or something.

[sithsauron]

I think Yui and Gendo would do the right thing and get Shinji assessed by a professional who would then identify Shinji being on the Autism spectrum due to a partial lack of social instincts.