How is Shinji responsible for 3rd Impact? [Split]

[ElMariachi]

@ Veefy :
Kaworu was seeing getting prepared just before Zeruel attacks, and the terminator line(the sun setting) was seen to be very near Japan,
[wkimg]File:Eva2-22 C1401.jpg[/wkimg]
(Earth is seen upside-down, Japan and the Terminator line is on the left)
The sun sets very quickly in Japan, between five and ten minutes.

When Shinji started N3I, it was dusk,
[wkimg]File:Eva2-22 C1844 A wisps.jpg[/wkimg]

Since when Kaworu speared EVA-01 it was night(which fell extremely quickly in Japan I recall) and that Misato and cie was still here instead of trying to take shelter, I think we can assume that no more than a few minutes happened between the end of 2.0 and the additional scene.

Also, it could be that Mark.06 was in orbit since almost the beginning of Zeruel attack, waiting that Big Z destroy all of NERV's Evas by SEELE's orders(remember that Gendo and SEELE are in a state of cold war since what happened at Bethany base)

The nameplate, well, that can be kind of shot down by speculating it may not have been affixed to an exterior wall, and thus wasn't splashed with blood/core. There are parts of NERV that aren't covered in blood/core. But it's a pretty thin excuse, and I like the theory anyway.

The nameplate was affixed above Rei's door on the outer side of her apartment, since even hanging laundry has been core-ified by 3I, it's impossible that the nameplate may have been spared if it was still affixed when it happened.




Now about the theory of Shinji having become part of EVA-01's control system and why he didn't do anything to stop 3I yet intervened 14 years ago to save Asuka, it could be that since Yui became EVA-01's control system first and that Rei became herself a giant core absorbed by EVA-01, becoming then the now godlike Eva's second core, both of them had priority of control over EVA-01, while Shinji, either sharing the core with Yui or Rei or being tanged inside the entry plug, was the last one in the list of EVA-01's masters.

So when 3I happened, either Yui, Rei or an external force(Gendo, SEELE, 12th Angel) was in control, but 14 years later when Asuka called for help, Yui and Rei weren't interested and thus were in a dormant state, leaving Shinji free to take control of EVA-01 and save Asuka, even if unconsciously.
That would explain why his synch-rate is at 0.00% : Yui and Rei are EVA-01's true masters, and Shinji was only a "squatter" only able to do something when the two others are dormant.

[thegoodson]

I've brought this up before and think its worth bringing up again. I'm wondering if different cultural conceptions may play into Shinji's treatment in Q. If anyone more familiar with the Japanese value system and thier attitudes regarding responsibility could chime in it would be quite informative I'm sure.

Since (as I've assumed since first watching) Near Third Impact and Third Impact were different events, what do we know that Shinji actually did? He busted up a lot of Tokyo-3, he entered his core effectively removing himself from helping in future situations, some may feel he abdicated responsibility, and he also cleared the way for 3rd Impact to happen by setting specific events in motion. I'm not sure if he could hear Ritsuko or Misato, but he acted selfishly without regard for his social/hierarchal obligations, and also possibly ignored orders.

Now I'm not saying that Shinji deserves or doesn't deserve his punishment. I'm simply asking given the culture he is living within, is it reasonable for Wille to assign him responsibility for not "fulfilling his duties"?

Googling "Japanese conceptions of Responsibility" leads to a lot on "Giri" and various other inherently Japanese attitudes towards duty and obligation. I'm by no means read up on this sort of thing, but I have to believe its an internal societal dynamic that leads to Shinji's "punishment". Regardless if his actions can be chalked up to a lack of information as well as being put into a position he was ill-fitted for, would this seemingly unreasonable (to other cultures I mean) assigned responsibility make sense? Is the backlash to Wille's assignment of responsibility less about how reasonable it is and more due to outsider/western perspective?

Perhaps Shinji's relationship with Wille is emphasising the clash between the overly collectivist previous generations with the individualistic younger generation, a generation that focuses too much on self as a reaction to the previous one, with the ideal end goal being a sort of balance between the two.

[Jinroh]

Uh, not for me.

You were the only one to agree with me, but I couldn't remember your nickname, so I didn't mention you, sorry : )

[Conspicuous]

I'm inclined to dismiss any theory that doesn't involve Shinji as the primary cause of Actual Third Impact. Mostly because as far as I can tell, that would pretty much mean invalidating the entire narrative.

Really, the entire film all seems to be about showing Shinji the consequences for his reckless and selfish action in 2.0. If it turns out that his actions didn't actually have any consequences, and the real problems were caused by Kaworu/Gendo/SEELE/whoever, then how is Shinji supposed to grow from it? It sounds a wee bit silly to have an entire film centring on this guy and then it turns out he didn't really mess things up and doesn't really have anything he should be making up for.

Also, if it turned out that Shinji's Third Impact was well and truly stopped by Kaworu, Asuka's behaviour would look out of place. She accuses Shinji of being responsible for "fourteen years of grief", but if Shinji's impact was averted altogether and Actual Third Impact was because of someone else, why would she be blaming Shinji for those fourteen years and not that guy. She wasn't even there when Shinji did his thing in the first place. She would have to hear it from a second-hand source, and while she would probably be reasonably pissed off about his actions, it's hard to believe that she would really understand the scope of his mistake without witnessing all the special effects.
Also, she's implied to be familiar with what went down with Lilith in her chamber, so she'd probably know about anyone messing with her body and setting off ATI.

Personally, I'm convinced that Unit-01's awakening was a trigger itself for Lilith to do her thing and fulfil whatever covenant she struck (if it's not just SEELE's flowery language for: We're going to use Lilith for our own purposes without asking her) with SEELE, which is implied to correlate with the Awakening event. Perhaps all they had to do at that point was remove Longinus from Lilith to let her start her Impact, but without any Eva to control the process, leading to a lot of Failures of Infinity as opposed to successful ones, with the event only stopped after she and the remodelled Mark.06 containing the Twelfth Angel were impaled by both spears.
That way Shinji would still be responsible for triggering Lilith's awakening, even if he didn't trigger the event directly.

But honestly, the inconsistency between what we saw in 2.0 and 3.0 really bothers me. They pull out every stop to make us hold Shinji responsible for all the shit that went down, but then they make the event much more complex than it was and make it rather difficult to pin the blame on him without inventing entirely new theories about how it worked.
Seriously, where were they trying to go here?

[Gob Hobblin]

Well, that's the problem: we don't see his actions as reckless and selfish UNTIL 3.0. I remember watching the end of 2.0 thinking 'Freaking A, man! Save that girl! Beast mode that EVA!' and on-screen, all of Nerv was doing the same thing. It wasn't until well past the point of no-return that everyone had the 'Oh, crap!' moment. The realization that Third Impact had been initiated and was underway. No one knew that until it was well past Shinji's ability to stop, and further, in what way was Shinji supposed to know what was happening on the outside from where he was?

That's where the narrative falls apart for me: yes, it is Shinji's 'technical' fault that Third Impact began, but he and everyone involved had no way of knowing that at the time. Blaming him after the fact is senseless, and I would think after fourteen years, they would understand that. People can be bitter, but not like that. Factor in that much of what had made those fourteen years bad were, again, not Shinji's fault. This seems more about finding a scapegoat, and it beggars my mind that Misato would willingly let Shinji take the fall for that.

If it turns out she did simply to unify Wille, while still feeling sympathy for Shinji, well, that would be a twist. In the end, though...I just can't buy the whole 'It's your fault!' line of reasoning...especially when I know we, as an audience, were cheering him on when it was happening.

[Azathoth]

Well, that's the problem: we don't see his actions as reckless and selfish UNTIL 3.0. I remember watching the end of 2.0 thinking 'Freaking A, man! Save that girl! Beast mode that EVA!'

Not to toot my own horn or anything but, well, maybe I'll just toot my own horn a bit and mention that I was of the opinion that 2.0's ending is about how Shinji is an asshole long before Q came out. I mean, regardless of the obfuscations that Q introduced, 2.0 tells you in no uncertain terms that Shinji's actions are gonna destroy the world and that Shinji, whether he realized that that was an actual consequence of his actions or not, had made his peace with the fact because it didn't interfere with his pleasure. The fact that many fans took it as wrongly as they did does not constitute a failure of the narrative in the movie, but rather a failure of the narrative that fans brought to the table: that is, that Shinji is a sympathetic, nay heroic, figure who really needs nothing more than to save the day and get the girl. God knows the movies have enough failures of narrative on their own; attempting to reconcile what's actually shown on the screen to this kind of pre-decided narrative, as you note, would be a fool's errand.

Misato made your mistake too, remember? She was calling for Shinji to pilot Eva because he wanted to do it, for his own goals and his own reasons. Only she didn't take into account the fact that his goals and his reasons simply were not good. No wonder she's so cold to him. Her mistake was to think that rooting for Shinji would make Shinji do the right thing.

[Gob Hobblin]

But the narrative of the movie led us to that conclusion. What Misato said or did not say is part of the entire framework of trying to show us Shinji growing as a character. Him throwing himself into a situation that was clearly painful, agonizing, and terrifying demonstrated his growth from 'running away' to 'staying and fighting.' There was very little in the buildup to indicate that what he was doing had world-ending consequences. To come around with hindsight and say, 'Shinji was a jackass' is simply cheating the established storytelling.

If you got a different interpretation of the plot, that's fine, but a lot of us got the above established story. All I can say is that's my beef with the 'Shinji caused Third Impact' scenario. There's no winning for the protagonist, in which case it becomes harder to invest in caring.

[Azathoth]

But the narrative of the movie led us to that conclusion. What Misato said or did not say is part of the entire framework of trying to show us Shinji growing as a character. Him throwing himself into a situation that was clearly painful, agonizing, and terrifying demonstrated his growth from 'running away' to 'staying and fighting.' There was very little in the buildup to indicate that what he was doing had world-ending consequences. To come around with hindsight and say, 'Shinji was a jackass' is simply cheating the established storytelling.

The established storytelling doesn't tell you that Shinji is off his damn rocker? In the previous scenes of the movie he was having a violent temper tantrum in a giant robot until he was forcibly incapacitated, jailed, turned out on his own, and then forced to return to a place he loathes to do something he doesn't want to do for a man he hates or else face the death of everyone else he knows, starting with one of his few friends who has already been gruesomely consumed by a horrifying monster before his eyes. Then, finally piloting Eva with a will, he fails anyway and is wounded. This is the worst day of his god damn life basically. It's not as if bright red eyes are demonstrating a healthy growth of his person when, reeling from the shock of the Asuka battle and everything that happened as a result of it, and finding himself in a robot that happens to have godlike powers, he uses it not to kill the Angel, which it is his ostensible intent in piloting Eva to kill, but to bring himself to where Rei is. He doesn't stay and fight, remain in the world and keep living on, but instead he secludes himself, he runs away so hard his body disintegrates. His actions aren't a step in the right direction for his character. He is having a total fucking meltdown while semi-consciously wielding infinite power and making severe errors of judgment with a deliberate desire to ignore the consequences whatever they may be. In other words, Shinji is a jackass. I don't see any evidence at all for Shinji's "sin" being a retcon.

[Gob Hobblin]

Damn it, Azathoth, I will fight you on this!

To be fair, though, I wasn't saying it was a retcon: I agree that the setup to 3.0 was probably in the pudding well before 2.0 was concluded (essentially, I believe they had 3.0 written before 2.0 was finished with production). His being locked away in the Eva doesn't indicate him 'running away:' if anything, it's implied that was beyond his control, and no one made an attempt to reverse it.

And Shinji's behavior is not 'off his rocker,' it is his attempt to respond to and actively engage in a world that is simply too flawed for him to succeed. His parental figures are all uncaring or broken, his purpose is continually commandeered, and let's not forget his temper tantrum was in response to being forced to (to the best of his knowledge) kill a friend. I can't BUT have sympathy for Shinji throughout this, and I struggle to find how else he could have reacted or behaved.

In the end though, the original context is 'Did Shinji knowingly cause 3I?' He did not, and the support given to him (and bewilderment of the observing characters) indicate no one else suspected it was happening until too late.

[TMBounty_Hunter]

Are we still doing this?

Shinji is a jackass? Really?

A 14 year old, emotionally under-developed kid who for the first time in his life has people around him that he actually cares about and somehow he's a jackass for wanting to protect them?

Gendo is the jackass for dummy stomping Asuka. Is Shinji's attempted revenge a rational and adult response? No. But he's not a rational adult.

So now Shinji lost one person he care about. How does it make him a jackass for not wanting to lose another?

EDIT:
Actually, fuck Gendo. He's jackass supreme. He probably very deliberately stomped Asuka out of the way to make the next thing happen.

Remember his conversation with Fuyu as everything is going to shit at the end of 2.0?
Fuyu: So those two were enough to awaken Eva-01
Gendo: Yep, all according to keikaku.

Hell they probabaly high-fives eachother after the camera went elsewhere.

[Gob Hobblin]

Thank you, TMBounty_Hunter! Thank you!

[Azathoth]

His being locked away in the Eva doesn't indicate him 'running away:' if anything, it's implied that was beyond his control, and no one made an attempt to reverse it.

This is the opposite of what is implied; Shinji is portrayed as the agent of pretty much everything that happens after Unit 01 goes red. And at the end of it, "it's all right like this". His actions and he finds their results acceptable. He consciously chooses not to leave - not with the intent of staying inside for fourteen years, certainly, but consciously chooses not to leave all the same.

And Shinji's behavior is not 'off his rocker,' it is his attempt to respond to and actively engage in a world that is simply too flawed for him to succeed. His parental figures are all uncaring or broken, his purpose is continually commandeered, and let's not forget his temper tantrum was in response to being forced to (to the best of his knowledge) kill a friend. I can't BUT have sympathy for Shinji throughout this, and I struggle to find how else he could have reacted or behaved.

Shinji isn't sympathetic (at least not to me), he is pitiable. His mental state at this point in the movie is just awful, as I said, and as I said, this is a consequence of the succession of ridiculously bad things that have just recently happened to him. That doesn't mean that what he does while in this awful mental state is the right thing for him to do.

In the end though, the original context is 'Did Shinji knowingly cause 3I?' He did not, and the support given to him (and bewilderment of the observing characters) indicate no one else suspected it was happening until too late.

What is shown in the movie is that 3I was a necessary consequence of what Shinji wanted, and that Shinji was either actively willing it to occur or inexcusably failing to prevent it. 3I is not happening for no reason, it's happening because someone is driving it. Either Shinji is driving it, or he has ceded control of the Eva to Rei or Yui (Yui in the form of Rei?) and one or both of them is driving it. Either option makes Shinji look pretty bad to me. Misato is at first confused and, like some of the audience, misinterprets Shinji's actions as being healthy in motivation - that is, she assumes he is going to kill the Angel and save everyone - but Ritsuko quickly realizes that Shinji is not only not doing the right thing, he is doing something so wrong it is causing him to lose his humanity (whatever the fuck that means).

Shinji is a jackass? Really?

Yeah, really. Certainly Gendou is a much worse person in pretty much every way, certainly intentionally put Shinji in that situation in the first place (and fucked him up pretty badly to begin with by abandoning him), and in fact most of the other people in NME are quite nasty people as well, as far as I can tell. "All the characters are so messed up", as Anno put it. Shinji is not exempt from that. The fact that he's got reasons for being a jackass doesn't mean he is not a jackass, it just means he was written as a jackass who has reasons for being a jackass. I mean, plenty of people in real life are jackasses, and I assume they all have reasons for it. Seems like a natural thing to write into a story about jackasses.

[Na7e]

His being locked away in the Eva doesn't indicate him 'running away:' if anything, it's implied that was beyond his control, and no one made an attempt to reverse it.

Rewatch that scene again because Shinji also made no attempt to reverse it. In fact it's pretty blatant that Shinji enjoys his coming absorption into Unit-01 with Rei. His last words in the film are "It's alright like this."

[Fireball]

I'm inclined to dismiss any theory that doesn't involve Shinji as the primary cause of Actual Third Impact. Mostly because as far as I can tell, that would pretty much mean invalidating the entire narrative.

On the other hand if Shinji is indeed responsible for the millions of deaths I can't see how he can be redeemed in any narrative way.

But that's where I believe pulling the spears comes into play because that was inexcusable, yet since it was only Kawuro that got killed it can mark a believable catharsis.

[pwhodges]

We went through this at such length earlier in the year... I'm not inclined to go through it all again, beyond reminding people that causing something, and having responsibility for something are not the same, and in any humane world are not treated the same.

[Giji Shinka]

We went through this at such length earlier in the year... I'm not inclined to go through it all again, beyond reminding people that causing something, and having responsibility for something are not the same, and in any humane world are not treated the same.

Agreed.

No more this pls?

[Jinroh]

He's not directly responsible. Basic proof? What happens next for him after being speared is waking up 14 years later. There's nothing he knows we don't know.

Yep he played a role when initiating third impact. But he clearly didn't play any role afterwards, he was just the catalyst that started that whole mess in the first place.

And Misato encouraged him. Yup. So her whole "I blame you" in the third movie is just a facade for whatever motive we'll probably understand in the next movie.

[Kendrix]

However you see it - either he can't be blamed for trying to save Rei, in which case he doesn't need to be absolved, he needs to find a way to keep more 'splosions from happening, or he can be blamed, in which case he shouldn't be absolved.

I don't think we'll see anything like "NTI was really someone else's fault"- even if it was, it would be completely irrelevant because everyone percieves poor Shinji as a Genocidal maniac, and it being someone else's fault won't change the fact that the planet is barely habitable.

That sort of reveal just wouldn't make sense in the structure of the narrative

Well, that's the problem: we don't see his actions as reckless and selfish UNTIL 3.0. I remember watching the end of 2.0 thinking 'Freaking A, man! Save that girl! Beast mode that EVA!' and on-screen, all of Nerv was doing the same thing. It wasn't until well past the point of no-return that everyone had the 'Oh, crap!' moment. The realization that Third Impact had been initiated and was underway. No one knew that until it was well past Shinji's ability to stop, and further, in what way was Shinji supposed to know what was happening on the outside from where he was?

That's where the narrative falls apart for me: yes, it is Shinji's 'technical' fault that Third Impact began, but he and everyone involved had no way of knowing that at the time. Blaming him after the fact is senseless, and I would think after fourteen years, they would understand that. People can be bitter, but not like that. Factor in that much of what had made those fourteen years bad were, again, not Shinji's fault. This seems more about finding a scapegoat,

That's the whole point.
It was an unpredictzable screwup, not a product of any "selfishness or recklessness"

The world doesn't give a crap about the people who try to save it - if he wants to keep something in the end, he has to secure it with his own arms.

Shinji didn't know what could happen; As far as he knew, both saving the world and saving Rei required him to pwn zeruel, and so far, he's been told than Angels need to be stopped by any means necessary; Also, he has no clue that EVAs can do impacts. The EVA's done freaky stuff before, such as the 1.11 berserk, and sure, it was a horrible experience for Shinji, but the earth survived it.
The only warning Ritsuko gave Shinji was that something awful could happen to HIM, and heck, it's his life to throw away or use for whatever he wants;

I took the fact that Misato accepted that and cheered for Shinji to follow his goals as a huge sighn of respect towards him, as an emergent young man. She's not chosing what danger/risks are appropiate for him, but trusting him to do it and to judge what's important to him - It was a conclusion of that whole subplot about "motivation" that started after Shinji pulled a Holden in 1.11... or Episode 4, if you're thinking meta/frachise-wide or on a sequel-theory level.

Shinji was always like, "I'm sitting in that mecha because you all force me" - on some level he IS, if you look at it from a "political" perspective, but seeing it like this isn't particularly useful to Shinji. I'm talking in the sense that EoTv talks about perspectives, or what a methamatician would call "sensible definition" of the rules on something. You "pick" how do do multiplication on complex numbers when you define them and their axioms, but you pick them in a way that it "makes sense", ie, fulfills certain conditions or traits that are useful for, say, physics calculations.
Kinda like how "You have to listen to rules, or else you get punished", or "or else, your concience will leave you no rest." But when you look at it from another pov, you have the choice of wether to follow the rule, or chose to break it and accept the possibility of punishment.

From that second PoV, Shinji wasn't exactly kicking and screaming each time he entered the plug, and had opportunities to leave. He still didn't want to be in the EVa, he just liked the thought of the efforts of Misato & co going to waste because of his absence or Rei getting grilled by Ramiel in his stead even less. but while he still didn't want to be in the eva, he Did sort of chose it.

He's saying that he's doing it because of everyone else, or that he canÄt just let the planet explode, but the truth is that he also has motivations of his own - that is not exactly mutually exclusive, and true of nearly everyone. Sure Misato wants to save the world, but she also wants revenge for daddy. Sure Kaji wants to protect and guide future generations, but he also wants to find the "truth within himself" - come to terms with his very personal feelings about SI. Of course Gendo wants to preserve humanity, in the only way he thinks it's possible, but the prospect of getting his wife back is what keeps him going. Of course Asuka wants to pwn the Angels. But she also wants ppl to notice her.

It's no different from "kill dragon, liberate kingdom, grab captured princess" in terms of conflict between the goals. But ppl can't just live on moral victory alone, Shinji can't even grasp what "fate of the world" even means, and ultimately, our brain is designed to live in groups of 150. that doesn't mean we can't understand that with intelligence and make an effort to counteract it, but most ppl will need something concrete to motivate them.

Why does Shinji say that he's doing it because ppl tell him? Because he doesn't trust himself to do it right. He told them he was no good at it, and that was not a completely incorrect assesmernt - he's perfectly ware of his imperfection and suffers from that awareness.
So if something goes awry, he can go, "But YOU were the ones who told me to!" it certainly IS a protection mechanism, but if he keeps doing this, he'll never figure out what his own reasons are, and what conclusions he can draw from them. So, these reasons are something he's searching for for the first two movies - He investigates by asking others about their freasons, talking about reasons with others like Kaji, and the person who set him on that search is Misato, right back after his little road trip, when she asked him, "What's it what YOU want?" This would be a liberation for most ppl, but Shinjji felt terrified at first and kind of aimless as to what to do with that freedom - but then, it was already becoming apparent. Whenver ppl actually made him aware that he Has a choice (be they Rei, Misato, Kaji or Mari), he always chose to come back and take care of whatever needed to be taken care of.
He's an awesome guy, it's just that he doesn't know. But if he never aknowledges anything as the product of his own will (even bad things) how will he ever stop feeling helpless? How will he ever feel better about himself?
Yeah, so... he needs to be more honest with himself.

In the CR interviews, Anno discribed Shinji as someone who would not budge a finger into the direction of the mecha if he didn't want to on some level, and that everytime he was in there, it was because he ultimatevily chose to.

Another highly revelevant scene here is Misato's "farewell" in 2.0, where she admits that she, too, may not have been that huge on the big herois amd fate of the world thing. It was an admission of weakness and humanity, and honesty.
This is the same thing Shinji comes to realize, what it is that motivates him - he thought it was Gendo, but then he gets into a conflict with Gendo, so what keept Shinji Ikari in the Robot?
Well, he wants to make a little home for himself and protect it, basically. He wants a few ppl to like him and be nice to him. Just that. Isn't that what all humans want? How "selfish" of him, to be a human being. He's been getting into the Eva because he wants to stay in Tokyo-3, with everyone in there, including Rei, who is the one who's currently in mortal danger, so he goes get her.
What he's saying is, at worst, "I'm not doing it for you, suckers. I'm doing it for the one person of which I cannot possibly deny that she likes ME, and not just having a glorified extension cable to rely orders to some mecha"
When Shinji charges Zeruel in the awakened EVA, it's because he got what she meant; That's also why she cheers for him.
that line is not about selfishness, it's about honesty and acceptance.
"Yes, I'm not a big, selfless messiah who's doing this for the "greater good", but that doesn't mean I don't have *anything* important to me"

- Giving up on everything was kinda the mindset he was in right before that, after Bardiel. He snaps out of that when he sees the ravaged Geofront and Rei in danger; He doesn't want a repeat of what happened with Asuka. note obvious bloodied hand symbolism - it stains with EVA 02's blood, which is the signature Unit of Asuka, but also has an injured Mari inside, Mari being someone not affiliated with NERV, so she doesn't get any minus points because of Bardiel, but got Injured fighting an Angel that Shinji wasn't fighting. Once he sees shit, he markedly looks at his hand - symbolic of him taking responsibility for shit - and marches anwards to fetch an Evangelion.

Level one completed. This was a marked, permanent Shift, also visible when he immediately vonlunteers to grill em Nemesis series, actually asks to be told WTF happened in contrast to his earlier ignore-the-weirdness modus operandi, and also the way he acts in the Asuka battle - This Shinji's quite more in touch with his inner self.

Heck, he's actually got saving the world and thwarting the conspiracy on his actual list of goals. He kinda added to thwarting it in the original series, through befriending Rei and rejecting TI, but that was technically a side effect to him trying to get his private littl world in order, Misato and Kaji did the conspiracy hunting, and that's only an accurate display of what teenagers and adults would be concerned with, but what we see in Q is a Shinji who, as much as he's driven to the brink and partially (I say partially because he did manage to go on on his own; he's way less dependant on Kawru than his series counterpart was, but the end result doesn't make it any better, since well, that separation means it was only him who screwed up. ) holding on to Kaworu for intel and emotional support, is taking independent actuion and becoming a player on the chessboard... that doesn't mean he'll be any good at chess(just ask Fuyutsuki), the other side has been sheming since before his birth.


Even his VA discribed what happened up to the big revelation in terms of Shinji getting stronger and acting by himself - but to Anno, that just means he's ready for level two, and that's where Rebuild really begins to add to the myth.
He's up to the next challenge, and if it wasn't every bit as disproportianate and cruel as the first one, it just wouldn#t be EVA. Sure, his situation sucked, but all in all, there were plenty of opportunities for Shinji to turn shit around, and a lot of ppl at least *attempting* to Guide him and tell him reasons to get in the Robot.

So, how does Shinji fare if all that support disapears?

So, he's got that bad things might happen even if he doesn't interfere, and that if he doesn't make a choice, someone will make it for him. So he goes ahead and does things with all his might and all his determination (2.0 ending) and make hard choices (retreat and risk never having another chance, or grab spears even thought Kaworu suspects something fishy), even if this comes with the risk of doing it wrong... so what if it DOES blow up in his face and make everyone hate his guts like he always feared?

You're always most likely to fail the first time you try something. So how do you actually Deal with such a failure? yeah, that's what the second half of the tetralogy is about, or at very least Q.

Rewatch that scene again because Shinji also made no attempt to reverse it. In fact it's pretty blatant that Shinji enjoys his coming absorption into Unit-01 with Rei. His last words in the film are "It's alright like this."

I'd like to know where that perception of him willingly spending a while in happyland while the rest of the world rots ever came from. He had no idea what even happened.
He has no memory of anything happeing, he was not concious (or conciously "with Rei") for a single instant, his reaction when he wakes up is pretty much, "Where's Rei? Didn't I just pull her out of that angel thing?" indicating that for him, no time passed since the screen faded to white in 2.0.
"It's fine like this" refers to the whole Gendo situation, as a direct reply to Rei's statement.
A healthy reaction, actually. "I can stop worrying about some substandart parents because I have other people who like me. You can't chose your family, but at least you CAN chose your friends."
How loathable of him, really, to enjoy a close embrace with a kind and devoted girl after YEARS of having issues with touch. Heck, there was no episode 16 hug in this. This is the first hug he got in his whole life.
Of course "It's fine like this".
His reaction when he actually SEES what's going on outside during 4I suggests that he would have been considerably less fine if he'd had a bloody clue of WTF was happening.
The sad thing is that unlike with EVA 13, he probably COULD have stopped EVA 01 if anyone had told him awakenings were dangerous. Well, unless Yui wanted the awakening; she didn't stop it either.

In any case, he had no clue he WAS being absorbed, or that the situation NEEDED reversing.
The only reason not to enjoy a good thing is if it causes bad things.
Shinji didn't know about the latter.

People can be bitter, but not like that. Factor in that much of what had made those fourteen years bad were, again, not Shinji's fault. This seems more about finding a scapegoat, and it beggars my mind that Misato would willingly let Shinji take the fall for that.


If it turns out she did simply to unify Wille, while still feeling sympathy for Shinji, well, that would be a twist. In the end, though...I just can't buy the whole 'It's your fault!' line of reasoning...especially when I know we, as an audience, were cheering him on when it was happening.

As for WILLE, Misato's crew worships her. She's the inspiring big boss lady. (See Anno telling Sakura#s VA to ramp up the huge respect)All she needs to unite them is to sucessfully destroy Nemesis series and EVas and promise hope in that empty wasteland.

14 years have passed, that's a lot longer than anyone involved had even known Shinji; All he ever did for or to them should be completely negated by 14 years od hell.
Be realistic and look at what actual war situations do to people; We ARE sucepptible to scapegoat mentality.
How did anyone ever vote for Hitler? Because huge war reparations + great depression + huge inflation = powerty and panic.
That doesn't make it anywhere close to right, but its an ugly reality.
And heck, WILLE did not immediately cut off Shinji's head or put him on trial. they contained him for (actually existant!) security risks, and were incredibly passive-agressive about it; The only one who outright vents at his face is Asuka.
Panicked humans are the worst. They'll do anything for the panic to stop; Shinji is only slightly behind wille in that regard, because they're adults and he at least tried talking, but the result was 4I.
EVERYONE was pushed past their godzilla thresgold.

Don#t get me wrong, WILLE gave a clueless kid incredibly dehumanizing, cruel treatment, and everyone who gets put behind bars should be told why, but under their circumstances, it's ONLY HUMAN. They'd have to have exceptional streght of character NOt to act that way, they saw tons of death and destruction.
It's only realistic - that's the frightening thing about Q.

And I don't see how any logic that would judge Shinji to be unjustly treated could at the same time condemn Misato for the mere act of cheering for him a bit. She didn't know any more than he did; Even Ritsuko had no clue.
You've got to allow ppl to change their oppinions, especially when they hear about impending apocalypses. I doubt Misato started loathing him immediately; 14 long years passed. Kaji and PenPen both croaked. She didn't get to marry.
the veil of time; She'd forget or at least not have it present how... Shinji used to be a complex human beings with hobbies and hopes and favorite colors.
Misato switches between love and hate rather quickly; See Kaji and her father, and how vindictive she was of the latter, as deserved as it might have beeb (she laughed at the divorce)
She always had subtle captain-ahab tendencies, and did you see how she treated Kaworu in ep 24?
Or how she acted in EoE? yeah.
She's still doing her lottery tactics, she's still this last person caring to actually save the damn planet, WILLE is probably rather cool to be in and around if you don't happen to be Shinji Ikari.

On the Subject of change and accepting it, I'd like to generate some discussion with this quote here, from shizo or prano or something...:

Anno: That's the same thing as I [myself] becoming an adult. I'm often asked if Shinji-kun [represents] an old version of myself, but that's not the case. Shinji-kun is my current self (laughing). I act like a fourteen-year-old boy; I'm still childish. No matter how you look at it, in psychological terms, I'm [still] in the Oral Stage. A melancholic oral-dependent type. Well, this is a truth I can't deny; I can't do anything about it. I wanted to move forward from there, but the result was that I ended up regressing back to myself. A dead end.


Takekuma: Then in a certain sense the final episode of Eva is an unhappy ending.


Anno: Right, in a certain sense. If you take moving beyond that as being happy, then it's an unhappy ending. If you think it's fine, then it's a happy ending.

I think they're talking about EoTv specifically here, but EoE also had these conclusions of Shinji saying he still doesn't have the magic recipe for hapiness and that he will continue to ask himself the same questions...
The endings of the classic series, at least, have been more about acceptance or a perspective change than anything more substantial; That's ultimately all Shinji really needed.
What exactly he ended up accepting is subtly different or with different emphasis in both endings, but... yeah, what should we accept of the third.

And what's better, not being able to break out of the predetermined flow, ultimately wanting what SEELe wanted him to want, or to fail, but with a failure that is your own, that had you break your arms trying to punch destiny in the face? That's ultimately a philosophic question...

_____________

TO GET BACK TO THE MECHANICS DISCUSSION

My personal theory is that when Shinji triggered EVa 01's awakening, he was able to control and harness the EVA's full, godly power for a short while, through sheer willpower.
However, the EVA's have limiters on them for a reason: Because they're SoL copies. SoLs do Impacts.
And Shinji was tanged. No body or surface to create a barier for his conciousness; He was a separate entity only because he willed himself to be one (look how the back of his "ghostly form" looks kinda oozy and only the front is material, because he needs it to interact with Rei as a distinct entity)
The moment Shinji had Rei safe in his arms, entered a state of relief and bliss, and told Rei what he wanted to tell her, there was no longer enough willpower being inserted to mantain himself as a distinct, concrete entity.
His conciousness stopped being a factor in the equation, except maybe in a primal drive-y way, and there was still this limiter-free, completely unleashed SoL-Copy, which then "returned to its original form" as Ritsuko put it. As if it was something natural for it to do if nothing's keeping it from doing it.

So, with nothing to stop or even control it... (control being why Gendo made Rei and SEELE the mp EVAs or whatever they intended to use in Rebuild, probably the mk six) TI took place in a way that was technically an evolution of humanity (Eva 01 half-spawned creations in its image), but one that did not preserve the conciousness of the current humanity in any way, not even as merged conglomerate thing...

That, or Touji & co are somehow preserved in those core material thingies, kind of like that "ideal crystal world" from Guilty crown.
What is certain is that the FoI's must look like EVa 01 for a reason.

[Conspicuous]

On the other hand if Shinji is indeed responsible for the millions of deaths I can't see how he can be redeemed in any narrative way.

But that's where I believe pulling the spears comes into play because that was inexcusable, yet since it was only Kawuro that got killed it can mark a believable catharsis.

"No sin is beyond redemption. There is always hope. Always."

Redeeming yourself isn't about making up for all the things you did wrong in equal measure, that's just silly, and the fact that Shinji believed that and was so firmly under the impression that he could only atone by restoring the Earth in its entirety is one of the many reasons why he messed up so badly again.
He really should've gone for something smaller, if just to begin with. Mari even helpfully points it out for him (Brah, you really oughta learn how the world works and your place in it. Also, check up on your once-friend, it's a better way to help than try to hamfistedly glue the vase back together.)

But really, Shinji isn't nearly beyond redemption.
Unless he spends the final film moping and hiding behind others, I'm sure he'll do fine.

[KingXanaduu]

But really, Shinji isn't nearly beyond redemption.
Unless he spends the final film moping and hiding behind others, I'm sure he'll do fine.

Unfortunately, THIS is what I'm mostly afraid that will happen in the next movie. I know I'm the eternal optimist here, but even I'm having a hard seeing whether Shinji can be redeemed in the eyes of his peers, such as both Asuka and Misato, where the only "bittersweet" ending I can see is where if Shinji somehow miraculously helps them all in the end, he'll resort to leaving them all so they won't suffer at his hands anymore, where he starts his life anew in the ashes of the world, away from Eva or Wille.

If his behavior in the past movies tells us anything, Shinji is very obstinate when comes to his needs, and he shuns easily from interpersonal pain. And considering what he's done, TWICE in a row even though he thought he was doing the right thing, he may to feel he's physically incapable of doing the right thing at all, so just like in EoE, he'll resort to just doing nothing, feeling it's best for everyone.

Still though, I still have a small glimmer of hope that SOMETHING good will come out of this movie, cause we mostly associate Shinji with Failure and Pain....maybe Anno will help subvert that image in the next movie, just to help surprise us. :)