The philosophy of NTE

[Axx°N N.]

Enough months after NTE's conclusion, I find myself thinking about it in totality and have kicked some cans down the road recently in terms of what there might still be to discover or rediscover in terms of meaning, purpose, and coherence. These tend toward the more abstract elements of the storytelling, and fittingly will be rather loosely put, as I mostly want to see how everyone else currently views these things.

Ambiguity of the tangible and intangible:

One of the more interesting things about the Instrumentality sequences this time around is how they're simultaneously tight-lipped and long-winded. Revelatory flashes are a convenient tool to account for pretty much anything that's been kept from light of day, especially anything that would be difficult to unearth with strictly real bodies and means. Although much here functions as exposition, there's a big question of what might or might not be overlap; ie, since there are indications Rei combines into a gestalt of her cloned selves, this leaves an open question as to whether Asuka remembers her own childhood, or if she's reconnecting to the memory of a prior clone through a gestalt. How much of these flashes is Shinji privy to? When Kensuke speaks, can a case be made that it's Shinji speaking through his mouth? In fact, how much are these images we see altered by psyche combos or even just warped like how memories or dreams sometimes get away from the initial, unrecorded truth? Are we to take the full drawings of Asuka's tanks as indications that that's exactly how they looked in reality, but the rough pencil sketches of Gendo's flashbacks as more subjective, more liable to be touched by artistic liberty? Furthermore, does this distinction between the real, the remembered and the modulated actually constitute an important difference?

Contrast between matters of duty and matters of liberation:

The crux of the narrative through the tetrology revolves around how Shinji's perspective on his responsibilities changes over time, the long road to embracing his status as a pilot, the resultant failures, and the respective righting of wrongs. The method by which wrongs are righted seem to split into two poles: those that are material and must be atoned for and those that are fundamentally questions of identity. Misato opts to right the wrongs of her father through sacrifice, and Shinji intends to do the same before Gendo and Yui decide to atone in his stead. The past in these circumstances is drawn with a thick brush and resolved climactically, and are both cases of man's vain attempts to alter the material and ephemeral essence of things, requiring technological means and bloody, sacrificial ends. On the other hand, the horrors being atoned for are treated differently and indirectly, and in being reconciled seem to almost dismiss the past as irrelevant in favor of purely intangible reassurances: Rei and Asuka are each acknowledged as full and legitimate selves by Shinji without even discussion or allusion to their existence as clones--I might be wrong, but I'm not aware of a moment where Shinji, Rei or Asuka speak openly about being cloned, plus Mari's potential clone nature isn't even acknowledged by the narrative lens. Matters of control and inequity give way to resolution and outright existential rejection, sometimes only the latter.

Continuity and discontinuity of the self:

The consequences that stem from what happens in the intangible realm of Instrumentality are reliably abstract, given the inscrutable implications of the train station, of 2D characters running through 3D-modified real life, something that seems to render out into self-canceling imagery; Shinji is older and has a future ahead of him, but in a brechtian maneuver we're unable to place ourselves in a firm actual reality or suggestion of the future, as Shinji's fictional self is highlighted by remaining animated--unless the tonal impression is a change from fiction to reality, of immaturity into the adult, escapism into the real-- a read nevertheless complicated by the BTS fact that it's a modern day Ube digitally altered to resemble Anno's past. Pasts and presents have been resolved (destroyed, created) in the symmetry of an equation. For the likes of Asuka and Rei, it involves a seeming combination of selves, perhaps into consciousnesses not far off from what Kaworu has experienced after his cycles. But, at least from Shinji (and the audience's) POV, this also equates to the undoing of their arcs, the coup de grace of the peristence of their characters; they ascend into figments and fittingly vanish. Either way, in a world where the plot has been so heavily obligated by inevitable storytelling elements (enemies, secrets, organizations, motivations, repetitions of behavior) acting as a kind of imprisonment, the future is open for the first time and the perception of the present is fluid.

[nerv bae]

Are we to take the full drawings of Asuka's tanks as indications that that's exactly how they looked in reality, but the rough pencil sketches of Gendo's flashbacks as more subjective, more liable to be touched by artistic liberty? Furthermore, does this distinction between the real, the remembered and the modulated actually constitute an important difference?

Quoting these images for reference:

SPOILER: Show

This week I noticed that the Yui-Rei cloning facility shown in Gendo's instrumentality is the same facility shown in Asuka's instrumentality:

My offhand thought about this today: maybe the distinction between these full drawings and pencil sketches relates to the level of access Shinji or the audience has to Asuka's and Gendo's memories, respectively, during instrumentality. Asuka being arguably unconscious or otherwise vulnerable and thus unable to prevent access, versus Gendo being conscious and in control of access.

[Axx°N N.]

My offhand thought about this today: maybe the distinction between these full drawings and pencil sketches relates to the level of access Shinji or the audience has to Asuka's and Gendo's memories, respectively, during instrumentality. Asuka being arguably unconscious or otherwise vulnerable and thus unable to prevent access, versus Gendo being conscious and in control of access.

I like that idea lot, so much so that I'm not sure I can see it any other way now.

[nerv bae]

Continuity and discontinuity of the self:

The consequences that stem from what happens in the intangible realm of Instrumentality are reliably abstract, given the inscrutable implications of the train station, of 2D characters running through 3D-modified real life, something that seems to render out into self-canceling imagery; Shinji is older and has a future ahead of him, but in a brechtian maneuver we're unable to place ourselves in a firm actual reality or suggestion of the future, as Shinji's fictional self is highlighted by remaining animated--unless the tonal impression is a change from fiction to reality, of immaturity into the adult, escapism into the real-- a read nevertheless complicated by the BTS fact that it's a modern day Ube digitally altered to resemble Anno's past. Pasts and presents have been resolved (destroyed, created) in the symmetry of an equation. For the likes of Asuka and Rei, it involves a seeming combination of selves, perhaps into consciousnesses not far off from what Kaworu has experienced after his cycles. But, at least from Shinji (and the audience's) POV, this also equates to the undoing of their arcs, the coup de grace of the peristence of their characters; they ascend into figments and fittingly vanish. Either way, in a world where the plot has been so heavily obligated by inevitable storytelling elements (enemies, secrets, organizations, motivations, repetitions of behavior) acting as a kind of imprisonment, the future is open for the first time and the perception of the present is fluid.

Today's idle observation: all of the people depicted in or around the Ube station are 2D, even after Shinji and Mari run up the stairs and the world changes from 2D to 3D-modified. That is, even after we begin to see Shinji and Mari running away from the station in "real life", the several dozen pedestrians visible are still 2D. I think this weighs against placing "ourselves in a firm actual reality or suggestion of the future", and instead weighs in favor of understanding that we, the audience, are still viewing an instrumentality where all fictional selves are "highlighted by remaining animated"; and further understanding that the likes of Asuka and Rei have not necessarily experienced an ascension into figments, just by virtue of being left behind in the 2D depiction of the station platform, but are merely out-of-frame while the camera follows Shinji and Mari outside -- an outside that despite being 3D-modified, is still populated by the same class of 2D person (experiencing a phase of instrumentality, IMO) that we saw inside.

[Axx°N N.]

and further understanding that the likes of Asuka and Rei have not necessarily experienced an ascension into figments, just by virtue of being left behind in the 2D depiction of the station platform, but are merely out-of-frame while the camera follows Shinji and Mari outside

Yeah, I was aligning with a view on Rei et al being figments based on the appearance of the birds and the visual parallel to the Quantum Rei of Episode 1 and 1.0. I think I recall also a post here that made a convincing screencap-based argument that they disappear from the train station before Shinji's eyes; I'll try to dig that up.

The impression it gives me is that it's transitional; that there's a further stage to be completed as everything renders fully into 3D. However, I wonder what the implications would be if this weren't true and 2D on 3D itself is supposed to be scrutinized as a meaningful image.

[nerv bae]

I think I recall also a post here that made a convincing screencap-based argument that they disappear from the train station before Shinji's eyes; I'll try to dig that up.

that was a brilliant post by a rare genius

[Axx°N N.]

that was a brilliant post by a rare genius

!!

I almost just went ahead and asked if it was one of your posts. That one (and many others of yours) have been instrumental in my reads and the board reads at large, I think.

So how is it that you reconcile the two reads? Are you spitballing above or do you see the two as inter-related?

[nerv bae]

I skimmed the The Last Train Station Scene topic to refresh, and saw that I wasn't the first person to comment on the quantum stuff or point out the 2D pedestrians outside the 3D station. So, credit to everyone else who's been thinking about these issues! I'll try reconciling that topic with this one.

In that topic, we were grappling with whether the train station was an actual place in Shinji's new world or instead an intermediate construct of the anti-universe or instrumentality, whether there was a time skip to explain Shinji's aging, the actual fates of all three pilots on the opposite platform, and so on. We wanted to understand the actual futures of everyone shown in the train station. In that spirit, I put forward my explanation that Rei and Kaworu vanished a la quantum Rei, rather than remaining on the platform or boarding the soul train. I think the explanation is fun, but I'm not wedded to it because it could be incorrect just because of how the animators felt like drawing the scene. Regardless of whether my explanation is correct, I believe that Rei and Kaworu (and Asuka, even though she's not part of that explanation) have actual futures in some world. They are continuous characters: If they remain on the platform, something will happen eventually; if they board the soul train, they will go somewhere interesting; if they vanish a la quantum Rei, they still exist albeit in a form we don't understand yet (recall that quantum Rei doesn't appear just once, so she has some continuity between appearances).

In this topic, you wrote in your "continuity and discontinuity of the self" section, in the context of "2D characters running through 3D-modified real life", that "for the likes of Asuka and Rei, it involves a seeming combination of selves, perhaps into consciousnesses not far off from what Kaworu has experienced after his cycles. But, at least from Shinji (and the audience's) POV, this also equates to the undoing of their arcs, the coup de grace of the peristence of their characters; they ascend into figments and fittingly vanish." I understand your meaning to be that Asuka and Rei become fundamentally discontinuous when Shinji and Mari pop out of the station into 3D life: they lose their actual futures, in some sense. In resisting this, I had the idle realization yesterday that "all of the people depicted in or around the Ube station are 2D, even after Shinji and Mari run up the stairs and the world changes from 2D to 3D-modified." I think this points towards some form of continuity of the three pilots on the platform, whether they remain there, board the train, or quantum-vanish, because the visual language of the scene is telling us in general that the continuity of 2D people hasn't ended. Because there are dozens of 2D people outside the station, there's less reason to believe the epoch of the 2D people inside the station is over and that Shinji and Mari are alone in surviving a transition to 3D life. It would be different if Shinji and Mari ran outside to join a bunch of live action, 3D people in a real world -- that would be a stronger signal of the discontinuity of the people left behind on the platform.

[Axx°N N.]

They are continuous characters: If they remain on the platform, something will happen eventually; if they board the soul train, they will go somewhere interesting; if they vanish a la quantum Rei, they still exist albeit in a form we don't understand yet (recall that quantum Rei doesn't appear just once, so she has some continuity between appearances).

Gotcha, and quoting this line for emphasis.

I now see my use of language like "undoing" is truly not accurate. I'd like to clarify then that any discontinuity is not of the self, but it's actually in relation to our (the audience's) perception as represented through Shinji's POV; in terms of visual language they (maybe) vanish, but slipping away from our/Shinji's narrative is not some kind of essential negation of their own narrative. It's more like our participation has ended and, in its own way, transformed. My original take was presenting a rather solipsistic viewpoint.