Throughout the Rebuild of Evangelion, Gendo has been distant to others, including to the point of distancing himself from his own humanity. In this post, I want to point out how this is paralleled by the depiction of his eyes.
The main theme is: the less visible his eyes are, the more distant he is from human emotion and empathy. The best way to show this, is through illustration:
- Throughout most of the first two movies, he wears his regular orange-tinted glasses. These frequently show his eyes, but partially hidden behind a color filter.
- When he is being callous (including strategizing on his master plan in his iconic sitting pose), light reflects off his glasses, hiding his eyes completely behind the glare.
- In 1.0, when Rei's activation test fails and he burns his hands trying to open her entry plug, he breaks his glasses. (This is the pair that Rei keeps in her apartment.) Note that these glasses have clearer lenses than the orange ones. This emphasizes that he actually has an emotional bond with Rei, even if he would deny it.
- Somewhat similarly, despite wearing his orange glasses in the scene where he accepts Rei's dinner invitation in 2.0, his eyes are shown in more detail than usual when he looks at her and sees Yui.
- In his last appearance of 2.0, after Unit-01 awakens and brutally kills the 10th Angel ("Zeruel"), Gendo emerges from NERV HQ covered in Angel/Evangelion blood. It covers half his face, including one lens of his glasses, hiding his right eye. This is a premonition of him giving up his humanity into the time skip and beyond.
- In every scene of 3.0, he appears wearing his new visor, that hide his eyes (and eye sockets) completely from view. This signifies how far he has distanced and isolated himself from others.
- In 3.0+1.0, the visor gets removed, revealing his actual lack of eyes, and offering a view of a cross-shaped soul manifestation inside his skull. This is the maximum distance he has put himself from human relationships, going so far as to reject his own humanity.
This is a progressive path he took away from the rest of humanity. However, when Shinji confronts him in the Anti-Universe, a remarkable reverse path is shown. When Shinji confronts him, he is surprised to learn he has an AT-field, which apparently defines him as still human. When Shinji pierces it and they enter the "soul train" soulscape, we see:
- Gendo no longer manifests as the eyeless monster. Indeed, his appearance becomes more fluid, but he appears to revert to his NERV commander days, with the very reflective orange glasses.
- Throughout Gendo's flashbacks, his eyes remain mostly hidden behind reflective glare from his glasses, shadows, simply being depicted from the back of his head, and in one case, a sleep mask. (Although in one or two places, a suffering eye can be seen. He is affected by the Hedgehog's Dilemma, just like Shinji.)
- At one point, a teenage Gendo with clear (and non-reflective) glasses can be seen. This is Gendo at his most vulnerable, and he seems about to emotionally bond with Shinji. Unfortunately, the scene gets interrupted by Misato creating the Spear and Mari delivering it to Shinji.
- In the memory scene where Gendo hugs a young Shinji before leaving him (supposedly the moment he gave Shinji the music player), in the moment he sees Yui in Shinji, the glare retreats from his glasses, and his eyes become visible behind them. He still loves her.
- In his very last appearance, as he is transposed over Unit-13 as he and Yui sacrifice themselves for Shinji's Instrumentality, he is naked and not wearing glasses. His eyes are clearly visible. But also closed. This signifies that Yui (who is in his arms) is the only emotional bond he wants.
By engaging directly with Gendo - with the music player as a catalyst, Shinji is able to remind Gendo that he is still human. The point is not that Shinji restores Gendo's humanity. Gendo restores his own humanity, because he could never truly discard it in the first place; he only needed Shinji to point that out to him. (As for the role of the music player, that would require its own full topic.)
What I find poignant about the (rather stunted) emotional journey of Gendo is that he ultimately apologizes to Shinji for abandoning him, but he never reforges his emotional connection to Shinji. He realizes that he abandoned Yui the moment he abandoned Shinji, and that his 25 years of preparing and executing a metaphysical apocalypse were pointless and unnecessary. He is utterly defeated by that insight. His story is over at that point.
The one point where Gendo and Shinji maybe could have connected is when Shinji in his plugsuit is looking down at a Shinji-age Gendo wearing a Shinji-like outfit. (This is how Shinji perceives himself and Gendo in the Anti-Universe at that moment.) The perspective shifts, and we see Gendo as the NERV commander looking at a toddler-age Shinji - the age when Gendo abandoned him. (This is how Gendo perceives himself and Shinji at that moment!) This would be the moment where Shinji could have extended his hand to Gendo, and Gendo might have taken it. (Remember, we are explicitly told in Village 3 that holding hands forms a human bond!) But this is when the Spear of Gaius arrives, and the moment is interrupted.
So despite Gendo laying out his past, and expressing his regret over abandoning Shinji, he does not reconnect to his son. The eyes are the windows to the soul. And it is interesting to note that there is not a single instance throughout the movies where Gendo engages in unobstructed eye contact with Shinji and one of them does not immediately look away.
But the one gift Shinji was able to give his father before the end was to remind him what it was like to be happy in another person's company. If Shinji had not forcefully reminded Gendo of his humanity, Gendo could not have been at peace in Yui's arms at the very end.
