Pippa Passes

[sithsauron]

New lurker here. Was this already discussed?

So "God's in his heaven. All's right with the world." from the Nerve logo is from Robert Browning's four-part poem story Pippa Passes.

In Pippa Passes, Pippa, a relatively poor and naïve hardworking silk-worker gets one day off in the whole year to do what she wants. She decides to spend it visiting who she regards as the 4 most happiest people in town while singing her song. Unbeknownst to her, she is actually the biological heir to a rich and influential local church, and also, the 4 happiest people she visits are in fact plotting and scheming to do evil things, except one who is about to be conned by his peers and taken advantage of. When Pippa strolls by them they are just about to commit unsavory acts or else something bad is about to happen. When the characters of the story hear Pippa's innocent and joyous song, their decisions and the outcomes of their actions change drastically.

Metaphorically Pippa is Rei.

The 1st happiest person Pippa visits is a wife who is convincing her secret lover to kill her husband. Metaphorically this is Maya Ibuki, as Maya's secret crush Ritsuko kills her current lover Gendo in EoE (although not because of Maya's influence but for different reasons, and the rolls of lover and wife are reversed as far as the allusion is concerned).

The 2nd happiest person Pippa visits is a young painter who is conned by his painter colleagues into believing he is about to marry his long-time fan and pen pal he has never met yet. However his pen pal is actually a prostitute payed by his colleagues write him love letters. Metaphorically this is Makoto Hyuga, who is strung along by Misato to get him to do work favors but Misato never really returns any serious affection to him the entire series.

The 3rd happiest person Pippa visits is an Italian rebel who wants to assassinate the King of Italy because the King is of Austrian decent instead of Italian and the rebel's mother tries to persuade him not to. Metaphorically this is Shigeru Aoba who is a cynical nihilist and has no problem loading up and shooting at the JSSDF during EoE in the same sense that they are like the Italian-Austrian Regime in Pippa's story. Even his scene in EoE where Maya tries to convince Aoba that killing is pointless is similar to how the mother of the Italian rebel tries to stop her son from committing assassination.

The 4th happiest person Pippa visits is a small-time priest who was once set to inherit ownership of the rich and influential local church, however a rival clergyman usurped his inheritance and took over the church. The priest is planning with an assassin to kill the current usurping church leader and his daughter who is set become the heir of the church, unaware that the identity of the daughter is Pippa. This metaphorically is Kozo Fuyutsuki, who was the first to meet young Yui (metaphorically she is the church) and develop some kind of relationship with her before Gendo stepped in and became her lover, husband, and conspirator. Fuyutsuki resents this privately and ponders ways to look down on Gendo or even keep a few secrets about Yui away from Gendo's knowledge to spite him.

Anyway, I think these literary allusions may be intentional as all 4 happiest people/evangelion characters get tanged by Rei at the same time at Central Command in Nerve HQ during EoE.

Is this a cool idea or am I reaching too much? Any thoughts?

[UrsusArctos]

Welcome to the forum, sithsauron, that's quite the intro post! (And quite a username! Sith Sauron? I thought that Sauron, fallen Maia of Aule, would utterly obliterate any Sith including wrinkly old Palpatine by virtue of being a genuine divine being and not a mere empowered mortal, but I digress like a true nerd )

While we've known for ages that the quote came from Pippa Passes, nobody ever made the particular association of Pippa with Rei or connected the story within the poem to the actual fates of Maya, Hyuga, Aoba and Fuyutsuki. That's a new and very interesting take on it, and I don't think anyone's ever tried making those connections before, at least not while I've been around!

I see your first analogy possibly applying to Naoko Akagi with some of the roles switched about - the lover wanting a husband to kill his wife. Naoko had wished for Yui to be gone from the world, and that happened during the Contact Experiment. Naoko herself failed at bringing Yui back. And even if Naoko was frustrated with Gendo (her graffiti inside the Magi in Episode 13 reads "Ikari, you jerk!") she seemed quite happy with being Gendo's lover until young Rei revealed the truth to her.

And it could also apply to Ritsuko like you suggested but with Ritsuko wanting to kill her lover's wife (Rei herself, who was created from Gendo's actual wife Yui) and Ritsuko does indeed destroy the dummy system and say "I've destroyed Rei", only to be proven wrong in End of Evangelion.

[sithsauron]

Welcome to the forum, sithsauron, that's quite the intro post! (And quite a username! Sith Sauron? I thought that Sauron, fallen Maia of Aule, would utterly obliterate any Sith including wrinkly old Palpatine by virtue of being a genuine divine being and not a mere empowered mortal, but I digress like a true nerd )

While we've known for ages that the quote came from Pippa Passes, nobody ever made the particular association of Pippa with Rei or connected the story within the poem to the actual fates of Maya, Hyuga, Aoba and Fuyutsuki. That's a new and very interesting take on it, and I don't think anyone's ever tried making those connections before, at least not while I've been around!

I see your first analogy possibly applying to Naoko Akagi with some of the roles switched about - the lover wanting a husband to kill his wife. Naoko had wished for Yui to be gone from the world, and that happened during the Contact Experiment. Naoko herself failed at bringing Yui back. And even if Naoko was frustrated with Gendo (her graffiti inside the Magi in Episode 13 reads "Ikari, you jerk!") she seemed quite happy with being Gendo's lover until young Rei revealed the truth to her.

And it could also apply to Ritsuko like you suggested but with Ritsuko wanting to kill her lover's wife (Rei herself, who was created from Gendo's actual wife Yui) and Ritsuko does indeed destroy the dummy system and say "I've destroyed Rei", only to be proven wrong in End of Evangelion.

Hi UrsusArctos! Nice to meet you.

Interesting choices. I'd say all 4-5 allusions/characters in Pippa's story could appear multiple times in NGE's story with multiple characters or scenes. I interpreted mine as loose characterizations or personality associations without the need to be completely similar to Pippa's characters or their backstories.

Cool.

[UrsusArctos]

Pleasure meeting you too. Feel free to introduce yourself to other folks in the Hello/Goodbye thread!

By the way, there's no need to quote an entire post when you're replying to it. Just quote the part(s) that you're responding to in detail, or if you're responding to a post that's several posts above yours. I was the last person who posted in the thread, so quoting my whole reply isn't necessary for context.

I'd say all 4-5 allusions/characters in Pippa's story could appear multiple times in NGE's story with multiple characters or scenes.

This is an interesting thought, and it's possible. None of us had ever dug deep into the reason behind using the quote from Pippa's Passes because it had come off as darkly comedic given what all the characters in Evangelion go through. As I mentioned earlier, I don't remember anyone drawing allusions (loose or otherwise) to the poem within NGE itself.

[Berserker]

That was an interesting and quite unique analogy to read. Honestly, i don't think anyone ever thought of this ever before. Though i'm quite perplexed at the moment whether to take Gendo or Naoko as the rival who wanted to kill the priest. Both of the options look promising, as they fill the gap easily. Like sith already explained the former. If Naoko's the clergyman, then she wants to kill Yui, the 4th happiest person to take over Gendo aka church.

Oh, and welcome! It's kinda ironic welcoming someone new while being a new member as well, but whatever.

[Berserk EVA-02]

Considering the scarce exposition we receive about Hyuga, Maya and Aoba until The End of Evangelion, I do think it is uncertain that such parallels were intended, though certainly still possible nonetheless. But I don't think its of much, if any importance, considering that intended or not, these are still very interesting parallels that you have noted and your interpretation of the three characters does help me gain more insight into their rather shrouded personalities.

However I must note that I certainly wouldn't consider the 4 the happiest characters in Evangelion. Fuyutski always appears quite self-repressive and very solemn, Maya's affect certainly grows more gloomy from the second half of the series onwards, Aoba seems rather escapist, only ever seeming happy when playing air guitar, with Hyuga being an exception and remaining, if not becoming more lively by the last episodes (likely because his risky escapades bring him closer to Misato), though obviously appearing quite distressed during EoE, just like every single character in the film with the possible exceptions of Rei, Yui and the Seele committee.