FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:I haven’t read the ending to the manga yet, so I’ll judge how that concept is dealt in that ending when it gets an official States release.
But as for the concept of an amnesia/loop/went-back-in-time-and-fixed-everything ending in it of itself, I do think there can be something special gleamed when taking in a piece of media that suggests that you, the audience members, are the only ones who know what really happened in the story, and that no one else does. It’s like a secret that you and the narrator share that not even the characters within the narrative are aware of. Just that concept alone has interested me for a while now, and I believe that it can make the audience feel very special of handled properly. This isn’t to say that I agree with every ending that takes on this form. Rather, I’m only stating that there can be an argument to it being used properly in a piece of narrative fiction.
But still the audicence knows he is a different character. If the narrator wants to tell us about learning from mistakes....what's the point in erasing the memories and reborn a la Sadamanga?? It brings me memories about ALien Resurrection : no matter how she looks, no matter what she does, SHE IS NOT RIPLEY.
EoE did great : you cannot escape from reality.
And remember : its not the same a loop theory the way qu4d explained (which I could accept) than talking about a a reset after EoE, because it's just stupid and sensless : it's not the same world, not the same settings and background. A real reset goes back to the exact start point. And of course EoE ends how it ends, not the same way Sadamanga did. In the manga Rei takes control over nstrumentality and makes the human souls reborn in the samw world, without memories from theire past selves. Quite the opposite in EoE.
As I said: Endless Eight shows a loop that works (though only after 15,532 iterations). Even though Kyon is aware of it, he fails to break out until he does something different; but since he doesn't remember any previous loop he has no clue as to what might be worth trying to change. Presumably his memory of that final iteration continues, so at least he knows the right thing now, even though he may no longer remember what the wrong thing was. So how memory is handled is crucial to whether the loop can actually be said to provide any learning experience at all.
Not the same : it's a reset , quite the oposite to the loop theory qu4d explained. He starts from the same moment every time, same background, same characters, it's the same day and hour everytime. It's not a time loop, it's the groundhog day. An easy example : Endeless eight it's like erasing W7 from your computer and installing itagain. NTE's loop theory would be buying a new computer with W8. The look very similar, but there are a lot of subtle changes that make them a different experience and it has nothing to do with whatever the customer does.
They are not reincarnations in a similar but different setting the way we're talking about NTE. You could have memories from that incarnation, but you are not the same character. Those who played Xenogears know what I'm talking about, because it's the best example by far.
And I stick to AU, because wouln't be it's first time in EVA.
Do american "cool" people know that in Europe only alcoholics and homeless drink wine without food by their side???