Shin-seiki wrote:I think that's partly true, but I also think that finding out about Shinji's amazing synch-ratio makes her regard him as a peer, i.e. someone she would consider worthy of her attention, and of being dealt with in a friendly, or at least civil manner (remember the "Guten Morgen" bit at the beginning of ep09); he is the only boy in the school that she rates as as higher than a slug or insect... Of course, his eventual surpassing of her synch-ratio is intolerable to her own fragile self-esteem, which is entirely bound up with her role as a pilot; she can tolerate him as a peer, but not as a superior.
Now my mind has drifted to the episode brought up earlier, 16 I believe. We do see her concerned enough to hang around Shinji's hospital room at the end, but even at the start of that episode...she chides Shinji for always apologizing and punishing himself for things that aren't necessarily his fault.
If I put that together with the last two posts, Incivis and Shin's, then perhaps her synchro ratio was the one thing Asuka was sure she was better than everyone at until Shinji came along. That can be backed up by the fact that she wears the sychnro devices all the time on her head.
So Asuka seeing Shinji weak in other ways maybe conflicts with her desire to compete with him. What reward is it to your self-esteem to beat a weakling?
Originally posted on: 14-Mar-2004, 14:09 GMT
