Pilots are clones/cyborgs theory revisited

[Sailor Star Dust]

From March 2014, Minna no Eva fan theories (in Japanese) of how maybe various pilots or all the pilots are clones. Kinda freaky the way it's described: http://neweva.blog103.fc2.com/blog-entry-2874.html

Ayanami = Ayanami Type Initial Lot
Shikinami = Ayanami Type Lot 4
Makinami = Ayanami Type Lot 7

Both Asuka and Yui have their surnames changed from NGE to NTE. And it also points out how Wille is unsure they're dealing with the real Shinji at first when he's retrieved from Eva-01.

Of real interest IMO is bullet point 6, the 2.0 CRC states Asuka was in a research institute? I...never knew that or picked up on it, in watching 2.22. I mean, I know 1.0 mentioned she trained in Germany, and 2.0 referenced something along those lines too, but it just makes me think of more sinister implications, now (maybe Shikinami really is a clone).

Translation:

*From a young age she's played with the doll.
*The doll's named "Asuka".
*She's the only one Asuka can talk to.
*Owned since leaving the research institute's town.
*Used since 10 years ago.
*It's intended for 4.5 years old.

So Eva Fan theorized maybe Asuka was born in it.

Lots of other potential weirdness is discussed (NGE naming schemes changed for the Angels/Children to their NTE formats, Gendo's 14-year plan for Rei and Shinji, ending of 1.0 showing Kaworu awakening from a coffin), but I just wanted to pass on the especially interesting parts. Since I don't have time to translate the various theories he put forth.

To be honest, I'd rather the children be normal kids (well, besides Kaworu and Rei) thrust into a difficult situation alongside the Eva and Angel hard sci-fi weirdness that NTE seems more about. I did make a discussion about NTE having a more hard sci-fi feel here* for those interested.

*The kids other than Kaworu/Rei are "normal" (air quotes because Curse of Eva and Asuka's eyepatch), the Evas are cyborgs minus special Eva-01 (Yui). Let the Evas or Angels have any weirdness related to Adams or FAR or whatever else NTE could be about, and the let the children be (mostly) normal to make NTE's overall story somewhat more relatable.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

That’s scary. Minna no Eva scares me. Eva scares me. Anno in general often scares me. Why do I watch things that scare me?

That being said, I honestly don’t know how I feel about the validity of this theory. I guess it seems plausible, and revealing Makinami and Shikinami as clones could have some neat/eerie elements to it as well. Though honestly any thematic elements I’d want to see explored with Asuka and Mari in a “Nami” clone theory is already being explored with Rei II/ReiQ.

On the other hand, it would be very intriguing to see how Asuka and Mari would react to finding out that they were clones. (Possibly both coming from the DNA of that one woman wearing glasses in the Yui photograph.) Would Asuka suddenly be suicidal? (Mari would probably just voluntarily melt into LCL at that point.) Or has she (have they?) known all this time, adding to the pissed-off attitude she already has towards a naturally-born, flesh and blood Shinji? (And even more important: Does that make MariAsuka shipping incest?)

So many questions... all for a theory that might actually be much kinder to the characters than the one Anno rolls out.

[UrsusArctos]

Right now the evidence that Shikinami and Makinami are clones is rather inconclusive - what would they need a series of Shikinami or Makinami clones for, unless they're repeats of the control systems in their respective Evas? Granted, there is plenty of weird stuff going on around them, but I have the impression that Shinji, Asuka and Mari were turned into something inhuman from the get-go. Shinji had his memories of Yui's dive experiment wiped when he was a child - maybe they had done a lot more to him to make him different from regular humans and wiped the memory of that as well? It would certainly explain the glowing red eyes in the Zeruel battle.

[Dima]

Of real interest IMO is bullet point 6, the 2.0 CRC states Asuka was in a research institute? I...never knew that or picked up on it, in watching 2.22. I mean, I know 1.0 mentioned she trained in Germany, and 2.0 referenced something along those lines too, but it just makes me think of more sinister implications, now (maybe Shikinami really is a clone).

Regarding the research institute, couldn't be the place where Asuka was tested to be a pilot? Like running some tests along with other children, training to become a pilot etc. because Asuka when she appears in the series/movies she doesn't look like an amateur, so she probably had some training or experience.

[ElMariachi]

Also Shinji too grew-up in a research institute town, since both his parents were working in Tokyo-3's Artificial Evolution Laboratory.
But yeah, as F4 noted, the whole clone thematic and their identity is already being explored with Rei II and Rei Q, adding the three other pilots as clones wouldn't bring anything new and risk to make their story less relatable.

[Mr. Tines]

If there isn't anything to it, why change just part of Asuka's name? Brand recognition precluding having a ginger called, say, Akane Cabot Shikinami just to say "this is not the same character"?

[ElMariachi]

^
Didn't Anno said in an interview that Asuka's name change was to show that she's different than Soryu, namely that she's not as terminally broken as her NGE counterpart? (for example, after Sahaquiel in NTE Soryu wouldn't had had the same epiphany as Shikinami as started to want to change herself, she would had started her self-destructive spiral that led her half-dead in a bathtub)

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

Oh, I do think that there’s something to the whole “Nami” surname thing. (The Japanese voice cast, even for Asuka, have hinted about this several times.) It could support a clone/cyborg/artificial life form theory, or it could be eluding to something entirely different that’s been hinted to in the past few movies that we’ve been missing so far. Maybe it’s something beyond mere cloning that links the “Nami” characters together. I don’t know just yet, and neither does any other audience member. But it is fun and exciting to theorize and place bets as to what it may be revealed as in Eva Shin.

Also, I don’t think that making Asuka or Mari artificial lifeforms of some sort would suddenly make them un-relatable characters. If simply assuming that almost every character in most movies is born of natural birth automatically makes someone a relatable character, then I should be able to relate to just about every frigging character that’s ever been put to screen, including Bella Swan of The Twilight Saga and Sam Witwicky of the Transformers movies. But I don’t relate to those characters at all, regardless of the fact that, like me, they also escaped a dilating vagina when they were very young. Rather, Shikinami is a relatable character simply because we were given some time to relate to her in Eva Ha. (Mostly it was that phone conversation with Misato in the context of the rest of the film that got to me to think that Shikinami is a likable, relatable character.) And Mari is a likable character simply because she’s the only happy, bouncy character in Eva that isn’t deterred by all of the active deviation around her.

I just simply don’t know what other themes Anno could explore with Asuka and Mari as artificial life forms that he isn’t already exploring with the NTE Ayanamis, if that’s indeed what he’s doing, and that could just be a sign of my limited imagination in the Eva-verse when it comes to predicting and exploring things that Anno hasn’t clued me in about just yet. Anno might have some crazy cool thematics to explore with Asuka and Mari as artificial life forms that I haven’t even begun to think about yet. It could be that he wants to throw the entire cast (Shinji included?) into a psychological pondering that’s unique to themselves about what it means to be human, and making the “Nami” girls clones was just one way of doing that. Or, it could simply be that he only wants to emotionally bring me down a peg with those characters by telling me that they’re artificial life forms. And since I’ve already grown to liking those characters, that would be quite a devastating blow.

[ElMariachi]

I just simply don’t know what other themes Anno could explore with Asuka and Mari as artificial life forms that he isn’t already exploring with the NTE Ayanamis

This. I really don't see what making Asuka and Mari clones/artificial life forms/whatever could thematically add that isn't already explorer with Rei II and Rei Q.
The only way I could see something like that adding something to the story is if Asuka and Mari uses their experience as knowing they are clones to help Rei Q in finding her identity, since they can relate to her.
But wouldn't that make the character development again be monopolized by an Ayanami?

It could be that he wants to throw the entire cast (Shinji included?) into a psychological pondering that’s unique to themselves about what it means to be human.

Personally, I think that Anno is already doing that with the Curse of Eva, as well as Asuka's angelic infection and Shinji's Impact Trigger powers.

[Dima]

Oh, I do think that there’s something to the whole “Nami” surname thing. (The Japanese voice cast, even for Asuka, have hinted about this several times.

The only thing Asuka's actor said regarding the name was that when she asked Anno why did he change the name, he didn't give her a straight response and he only said ''it's a secret''.

[Shinoyami65]

Clones? Maybe.

But not cyborgs, the last thing we need is Shinji Robocop.

I mean, I seriously can't see any real advantage that they could gain by grafting mechanical bits into the girls, and none of them really show any cybernetic enhancements at all in the series.

[TMBounty_Hunter]

I seriously can't see any real advantage that they could gain by grafting mechanical bits into the girls

I have a folder full of pictures to explain that


But on a more serious note, the Evas (with a few fresh ENT exceptions) still seem to be just girls with mechanical bits grafted into/onto them.

[Jäeger]

The "every girl is a clone" theory is so cheap, so "syfy channel movie", that Anno would hear my rage from antarctica.

[Chuckman]

Asuka and Mari are clones of women who were killed to create artificial, copyable souls that synch perfectly with the clone pilots because they're the same person. Hence the souls being disposable- if Mari's Eva had her mother's soul in it and a core containing Asuka's mother's soul was moved to Bardiel, both of their mothers have been destroyed and they should be incapable of piloting, yet they do.

It doesn't matter if their Eva cores are destroyed, they just create new ones.

Both Asuka and Mari in Q are new clones. The ones from Ha are dead. Asuka died in Bardiel, the coffin contained the remains that were contaminated with angelic matter and used for experimentation. There is no 'curse of eva' and the clone pilots are told they don't age as part of their conditioning.

Sometime during the timeskip when the new Asuka clone was created by somebody, they experimented on her with the Bardiel-contaminated remains to alter her into a better impact trigger. She's an unknowing sleeper agent and during Final she'll be activated by somebody (Mari's backers?) and Shinji will have to kill her.

[Dataprime]

You just blew my mind, Chuck

[Rosenakahara]

eh something about this entire theory just doesn't FEEL right, i cant quite put my finger on it but something about this just doesn't feel very.........anno if that makes any sense.

Im not denying the possibility of it being true but if something like what chuckman describes actually happens i will be kinda dissapointed.
i think this is the first time i will ever say this but..........i agree with Jäeger

[airman4]

That’s scary. Minna no Eva scares me. Eva scares me. Anno in general often scares me. Why do I watch things that scare me?

That being said, I honestly don’t know how I feel about the validity of this theory. I guess it seems plausible, and revealing Makinami and Shikinami as clones could have some neat/eerie elements to it as well. Though honestly any thematic elements I’d want to see explored with Asuka and Mari in a “Nami” clone theory is already being explored with Rei II/ReiQ.

On the other hand, it would be very intriguing to see how Asuka and Mari would react to finding out that they were clones. (Possibly both coming from the DNA of that one woman wearing glasses in the Yui photograph.) Would Asuka suddenly be suicidal? (Mari would probably just voluntarily melt into LCL at that point.) Or has she (have they?) known all this time, adding to the pissed-off attitude she already has towards a naturally-born, flesh and blood Shinji? (And even more important: Does that make MariAsuka shipping incest?)

So many questions... all for a theory that might actually be much kinder to the characters than the one Anno rolls out.

What ??

come on LOL

anyway , the whole theory things are insane , it seems even bigger than when NGE aired the first time in the 90'
wow , Final will change everything in the anime industry

[Bagheera]

I can't say the theory has nothing to it -- the naming convention is telling -- but the thought of all the pilots being clones is something I deeply dislike. And really, I don't agree that it would give the show more of a hard SF feel; quite the opposite, in fact. Broadcast NGE never really had it, but with the CI (the FAR, seeding worlds with life, etc) the setting became a great example of SF in the classical sense (Clarke, Brin, Asimov, etc). But in NTE, what with the coffins on the moon, the Adams, the timeskip, "Impact Boy", the crazy black moon and post-3I imagery, and the like it's just crazy and surreal. The grandiose scope of NGE is gone, and what's in its place is a barely coherent mess that just gets more and more bizarre the deeper you go. I mean, hell, freakin' Anima feels more internally consistent than NTE, and that's saying something.

So yeah, not digging the theory. The characters are the only thing holding my interest in NTE, and if they all turn out to be clones deluded into thinking they're people that will be the final nail in the coffin for me. I'm just glad none of it's infected NGE (Sadamoto's efforts notwithstanding).

[Shinoyami65]

Both Asuka and Mari in Q are new clones. The ones from Ha are dead. Asuka died in Bardiel, the coffin contained the remains that were contaminated with angelic matter and used for experimentation. There is no 'curse of eva' and the clone pilots are told they don't age as part of their conditioning.

Sometime during the timeskip when the new Asuka clone was created by somebody, they experimented on her with the Bardiel-contaminated remains to alter her into a better impact trigger. She's an unknowing sleeper agent and during Final she'll be activated by somebody (Mari's backers?) and Shinji will have to kill her.

Welll I doubt that part because we saw what appeared to be Asuka after the Bardiel attack with that weird helmet thing over her eyes but otherwise unharmed. Everything else seems plausible enough though.

[Chuckman]

Note that the names Shikinami and Makinami come from vessels of the Ayanami class.

Also, the nautical names are just random. They mean things on multiple thematic levels.

"Ikari" can mean both anger and anchor and in NTE, Yui is no longer the anchor/anger, she's the spreading waves (Ayanami) and Gendo has become the anchor/anger. These changes carry significant in and of themselves.