Why didn't Wille just kill Shinji?

[Reichu]

[Renamed from ""Why don't you just kill him?"". - Monk]

As such, Shinji's reappearance is merely a side effect of installing Wunder's engine, explaining why nobody actually at WILLE needs him or wants him. The only thing they might want him to be is no longer a part of Unit-01, if even that.

In effect, Shinji is mostly just a waste product to them, and a potential danger to boot. (Enough that clothing him seems to be an afterthought at best, and a waste of perfectly good hospital supplies at worst.)

Quite possibly tangential, but despite how he's treated, Misato regards Shinji as Wille's charge. Before he leaves with Mk.09, she even says that he should stay because they'll keep him safe.

[Catamari]

As such, Shinji's reappearance is merely a side effect of installing Wunder's engine, explaining why nobody actually at WILLE needs him or wants him. The only thing they might want him to be is no longer a part of Unit-01, if even that.

In effect, Shinji is mostly just a waste product to them, and a potential danger to boot. (Enough that clothing him seems to be an afterthought at best, and a waste of perfectly good hospital supplies at worst.)

Given that, why did they not simply execute him? It's morbid to think about, but this is a military agency, efficiency is their #1 priority. They're willing to sacrifice equipment (and probably personnel, judging from the "completing the mission is the top priority" line while Asuka is fixing her descent attitude), so why keep the stowaway? Fear of Yui retailiating?

@Reichu: Got to it before I did, that does raise an interesting point. Why bother? Everyone gives him the cold shoulder, hell, even Aoba gives him a look of abject disgust. What good would keeping Shinji do Wille?

[Stillborn]

What good would keeping Shinji do Wille?

Potential guinea pig for Ritsuko, while they get some more time to spare?

[Reichu]

What good would keeping Shinji do Wille?

It would keep him out of trouble!

Oh, crap, this thread is quickly turning into another one we already had! Quickly, backpedal!

[ElMariachi]

Well, for me they want to keep Shinji in custody because :
1/ they want to put him on a public trial and not make justice for themselves, Shinji is accountable to the whole mankind, not just WILLE,
2/ some wanted to execute him, but Misato refused, because deep down she feels sorry for the guy, and endorsing his summary execution would make her no better than Gendo,
3/ he's an "invaluable specimen" as Ritsuko would put it, and want to test the hell out of him to see what being fused with a god for 14 years do to a human being,
4/ the god they are using as their flagship battery is the kids' mother, and even if they don't know that part, Rei, said kid's love interest, is also inside. If I was them, I wouldn't try to see what would happen if Shinji is executed, things could turn really nasty!

[Jornophelanthas]

Given that, why did they not simply execute him? It's morbid to think about, but this is a military agency, efficiency is their #1 priority. They're willing to sacrifice equipment (and probably personnel, judging from the "completing the mission is the top priority" line while Asuka is fixing her descent attitude), so why keep the stowaway? Fear of Yui retailiating?

@Reichu: Got to it before I did, that does raise an interesting point. Why bother? Everyone gives him the cold shoulder, hell, even Aoba gives him a look of abject disgust. What good would keeping Shinji do Wille?

I would say probably a combination of some or all of the below:
- Their first priority involving Shinji appeared to be if he was indeed himself. They were ready to shoot him if he gave the least indication that he was not. (Aside: WILLE clearly thinks of Rei as less than human, and quite expendable, so they would probably have shot anything resembling Rei on sight. Any animalistic or god-like Evangelion avatar in Shinji-like shape would have been destroyed with extreme prejudice.)
- The DSS choker is literally a kill switch. Putting it on Shinji and handing the controls exclusively to their commanding officer (Misato) already implies that executing him is a very real possibility, and not executing him is little more than giving him the benefit of the doubt.
- Another reason to keep Shinji around is to question him about his experiences, in order to learn as much as possible about Near-Third Impact (or to confirm any knowledge they already possess). They never got around to doing this, though.
- WILLE (and specifically Ritsuko) could have kept him around as a test subject or a guinea pig, similar to how Asuka was treated after the Ninth Angel ("Bardiel") battle.
- Shinji might also have potential bargaining / hostage value when dealing with NERV, even though Misato was surprised that NERV apparently gave retrieving Shinji greater priority than retrieving Unit-01.
- Misato might have wanted to keep Shinji around out of a sense of guilt/responsibility, which might eventually have led to her regaining some of her humanity/warmth/emotion.

[sephiros]

Quite possibly tangential, but despite how he's treated, Misato regards Shinji as Wille's charge. Before he leaves with Mk.09, she even says that he should stay because they'll keep him safe.

Is that how it's translated? The subs I used (not sure which ones) made it sound more like it was the other way around. It seemed like they wanted to lock him up so he couldn't' wander off and start another impact.

[Catamari]

4/ the god they are using as their flagship battery is the kids' mother, and even if they don't know that part, Rei, said kid's love interest, is also inside. If I was them, I wouldn't try to see what you happen if Shinji is executed, things could turn really nasty!

I think this is the big one, honestly. Yui-sama seems to be rather protective of her son. We know that Wille believes that Rei was destroyed, as nothing else was found in the entry plug. Whether or not Rei's the love interest doesn't seem like it would affect Wille's behaviour, though.


@Reichu: For some reason, EGF's search feature isn't working for me, and Google isn't turning much up, could you link us? I'd like to continue that tangent there.

[Psychodrake]

Surely it's obvious that Misato still loves Shinji and wants him to stay alive. The fact is that from the get-go, she refers to him as "Ikari Shinji-kun" while looking to Ritsuko for approval and the fact that she continues a streak of mercy throughout the film. It feels like a ruse she's playing in front of the crew of the Wunder. The fact of the matter is, she doesn't kill him when he's taken and the point where he should die during Eva 13's awakening, she calls out to him with an upset voice thinking that he's going to pop.

Fact of the matter is that Shinji is partly responsible for multiple unfortunate events that have affected the crew of the Wunder. He hospitalized Sakura and possibly killed her brother, he severely injured Asuka and she clearly partly blames him for that, he began the events that led to Third Impact... Misato knows he isn't the core fault, she also knows he didn't want to pilot an Eva.

This is the problem with time skips. They could be genuinely afraid that Shinji is an angel or that it's some kind of evil decoy created by Nerv that they can't get overly attached to. I think the uncertainty is highlighted very early on with the question marks on Shinji's sole. Also, just why is he "Specimen BM-03"? Did they recover previous "Versions" of Shinji?

EDIT: BM-03 might just be something to do with being the Third Child come to think about it

It's the vaguest of vague movies but I think there's meaning behind almost every little detail.

[NemZ]

Yeah, I gotta go with "because we don't want to risk giving the slumbering menace running this ship's engines any reason to indiscriminately vaporize us all with eye beams".

[Monk Ed]

Yeah, I gotta go with "because we don't want to risk giving the slumbering menace running this ship's engines any reason to indiscriminately vaporize us all with eye beams".

Do they have any reason to believe it can do anything without him in the cockpit, though? Unlike NGE, NME lacks any instances of the Eva moving on its own without a pilot.

Then again, maybe the fact that Yui was able to reject the dummy plug is sufficient evidence that it's not worth the risk.

[Stillborn]

I'm sticking to the theory, that they are not afraid of Eva, but want Shinji on lab table and under microscope, to maybe find a way for reversing Eva's Curse.

[Kendrix]

There's no indication that they wanted Shinji confined for *his* sake.
They just don't want anyone else to get a hold of him.

They probably DID have a discussion about wether to kill him or not, and I'm pretty sure they didn't exactly reach a 100% agreement (judging by the reactions to him on the bridge. Midori and Aoba were probably in favor of just shooting him...), but either they know about Yui, or, corrupted as they may have become, they simply hadn't become THAT hardened, as low as they may have sunk.

If you're optimistic, you could say that they didn't want to kill him if confining him would also do the job (these were once fundamentally the good guys, and they're adults, they're acting somewhat irrational, but that doesn't mean they've thrown out ALL reason & moderation - Asuka punches him because she's Asuka, but the others express their disdain in a refrained, cold fashion - and they WERE very willing to off him at the slightest provocation, mind you), if you're not, well... there's simply no revenge value in shooting an unconcious teenager without letting him feel your hatred.

---


Here's also a factor that occurred to me recently: Shinji's state after 4I. Misato herself was reduced to a very similar state after witnessing a very similar event, complete with someone sacrificing themselves for her.

This may or may not influence her reaction to the sight of him.
The fact that she couldn't kill him proves that some part of her still sees him as her son, so she will probably have *some* pity, but she will also have hared and feeling of responsibility for 4I... it certainly promises to be interesting. *sigh*

Misato's situation is that she's having diametrically opposite emotions of nearly identical intensity, instead of lots of one and none at all of the other left (Like Asuka or the ppl who just plain didn't know Shinji before).

[Bagheera]

They probably DID have a discussion about wether to kill him or not, and I'm pretty sure they didn't exactly reach a 100% agreement (judging by the reactions to him on the bridge. Midori and Aoba were probably in favor of just shooting him...), but either they know about Yui, or, corrupted as they may have become, they simply hadn't become THAT hardened, as low as they may have sunk.

Apart from their treatment of Shinji (which you seem to think is much worse than most) I don't see much evidence that they've sunk "low" at all; they're still fighting Nerv, still trying to keep humanity around. They are, as Seele noted, the good guys.

Apart from that, executing unarmed combatants is something civilized societies just don't do. Hell, even Iran and North Korea don't execute people willy-nilly, and more democratic nations (including modern Japan) don't do it is a matter of principle. The real question here is "why would the notion of executing the kid even occur to them?" It's pretty obvious the bomb collar alone stuck in their collective craw, so the notion of going even farther than that is pretty outlandish.

[moonwolf2024]

Yeah, I gotta go with "because we don't want to risk giving the slumbering menace running this ship's engines any reason to indiscriminately vaporize us all with eye beams".

I'm somewhere around here as well. And the already stated fact that Misato still had a soft spot for him.

[Paranoid]

Well, for me they want to keep Shinji in custody because :
1/ they want to put him on a public trial and not make justice for themselves, Shinji is accountable to the whole mankind, not just WILLE,
2/ some wanted to execute him, but Misato refused, because deep down she feels sorry for the guy, and endorsing his summary execution would make her no better than Gendo,
3/ he's an "invaluable specimen" as Ritsuko would put it, and want to test the hell out of him to see what being fused with a god for 14 years do a human being,
4/ the god they are using as their flagship battery is the kids' mother, and even if they don't know that part, Rei, said kid's love interest, is also inside. If I was them, I wouldn't try to see what would happen if Shinji is executed, things could turn really nasty!

Point #2 seems fairly obvious, but #4 was the first one that occurred to me while watching the film. The whole point of their operation was to retrieve unit-01 from lunar orbit. They're very much aware that she's fully sentient, and after the operation itself they also know that she's at least partially awake (what with the laser beams). Would they risk all of their plans and have 01 possibly refuse to work, or worse - annihilate them all, simply for the satisfaction of executing Shinji?
Quite frankly, I don't think the question is "why didn't they simply kill him" but rather "why WOULD they simply kill him"? If they had faith that they could keep him from causing any more harm with the choker, then I simply see no compelling reason to.

[Cookie H Wilson]

Here's also a factor that occurred to me recently: Shinji's state after 4I. Misato herself was reduced to a very similar state after witnessing a very similar event, complete with someone sacrificing themselves for her. [...] Misato's situation is that she's having diametrically opposite emotions of nearly identical intensity, instead of lots of one and none at all of the other left (Like Asuka or the ppl who just plain didn't know Shinji before).

That's a good eye-opener in terms of Misato's position and her duality of feelings toward Shinji and the Eva as an extension to that ("I hate my father/My father saved me" "I hate the Evas, my dad's killers/I need the Evas in order to keep shit from hitting the fan" "Follow your decisions Shinji, no matter what/Pilot and you'll die Ikari Shinji-kun") It will be pretty interesting to see the two facing each other in FINAL. Granted.
Shinji's state towards Kaworu's sacrifice. (Oh! If Misato's cross necklace could speak its feelings out loud.) Misato should at least consider that what happened to Shinji during 4I makes them "alike" again, the same as "You don't like your dad. You're like me." used to bind them.

[Jornophelanthas]

Point #2 seems fairly obvious, but #4 was the first one that occurred to me while watching the film. The whole point of their operation was to retrieve unit-01 from lunar orbit. They're very much aware that she's fully sentient, and after the operation itself they also know that she's at least partially awake (what with the laser beams). Would they risk all of their plans and have 01 possibly refuse to work, or worse - annihilate them all, simply for the satisfaction of executing Shinji?
Quite frankly, I don't think the question is "why didn't they simply kill him" but rather "why WOULD they simply kill him"? If they had faith that they could keep him from causing any more harm with the choker, then I simply see no compelling reason to.

I disagree. As far as WILLE is concerned, Unit-01 is only sentient as long as it has a pilot. Yes, they will probably expect it to go berserk if Shinji is killed while in the entry plug based on the Fourth Angel ("Sachiel") battle, but they attribute all of Unit-01's intelligence to Shinji. For example, Asuka calls out to Shinji when Unit-01 awakens in space.

I think WILLE sincerely believes that it is Shinji who became a god and started Near-Third Impact, simply because they are not aware that Unit-01 has any other sentient intelligence than him. They are unaware that Yui is still somewhere inside (and probably think Unit-01 without a pilot is just a savage beast, like Unit-02's beast mode), and Ritsuko even explicitly denied believing Rei is still in there.

In fact, they might even have put the DSS choker on him, because they might have feared him turning into a Giant Naked Shinji at any time, and the device is meant to suppress exactly that (quite distinctly from its detonation button) - DSS stands for "Deification Suppression System".

However, as we should be able to deduce, it is Yui who was Unit-01's driving intelligence during Near-Third Impact, and Yui who attained godhood, while Shinji was only concerned for Rei and blissfully unaware of any of the consequences. If Rebuild 3.0 tells us anything, the final time we see him in Rebuild 2.0 (hugging Rei on white) is also his last conscious moment before reawakening in the next movie.

I'll link you to another thread where I discuss this argument in more detail:
http://forum.evageeks.org/thread/14311/SPOILERS-Explaining-Unit-01s-awakening-in-Eva-20/

[Paranoid]

I disagree. As far as WILLE is concerned, Unit-01 is only sentient as long as it has a pilot. Yes, they will probably expect it to go berserk if Shinji is killed while in the entry plug based on the Fourth Angel ("Sachiel") battle, but they attribute all of Unit-01's intelligence to Shinji. For example, Asuka calls out to Shinji when Unit-01 awakens in space.

Not sure how you drew this conclusion. WILLE has Ritsuko. She should know full well about Yui being in unit 01. About the rest of your points - I'm not going to argue, because they're just not very relevant to the argument. Yeah, judging by the DSS choker they're afraid of Shinji becoming a god. Yes, it's possible that Yui had some part in this. But I don't see how that has much to do with the fact that Yui/01 would be pissed if they killed off Shinji.

And Asuka calls out to Shinji before unit 01 awakens. Taking this as evidence that no one in WILLE knows that the evas are sentient is a massive leap.

[ElMariachi]

But are we even sure that Ritsuko knows about the Contact experiment and Yui's absorption? Or even if she know that, did she know that Yui's mind is conscious inside of EVA-01 and can make it act on her own will?