Why didn't Misato (or anyone) tell Shinji anything in 3.0?

[Derantor]

Oh, sorry, I should have made it more clear. At that point I am arguing against the "There was no time" argument. I agree, it would be stupid to tell him something as long as they don't know who he is, and I happily concede that in that instance, they weren't acting stupidly. "Time" was not the thing forcing their hand, though, which was the whole point of that first section.

Edited for clarity.

[pwhodges]

As for the conversation with Kaworu, your presentation of it completely ignores deliberately supresses the heat-of-the-moment aspect of what's going on. Desperation is not in itself the same as stupidity.

And the argument about time is not solid either, because it ignores the sheer amount of things going on and needing to be attended to in the running of a large ship being brought into service. The film doesn't spend time on those because they are not relevant in detail.

[Derantor]

No, but desperation leads you to doing stupid things. "Stop and think before you do something stupid/desperate" carries the same meaning, in that you are doing something which you would not have done if you had thought about it clearly. If you act stupid you are stupid in that instance, no matter your intrinsic IQ. I already conceded that there are many reasons for them to act the way they do; emotional distress being one of them, so supressing the fact that everything is stressful was not my intention. That doesn't make their actions any more intelligent, though. So at this point, it becomes a semantic argument. They are not stupid, they are just acting like it for whatever reason, which amounts to almost the same thing in my mind, as the results are the same.

Ok, if there indeed was no time, that still leaves the question as to why they chose to spend it the way they did, with a seemingly counterproductive approach to handling Shinji. Maybe they have good reasons for everything, at which point they aren't stupid, just misguided, if you prefer that term. But I feel like I am starting to argue for arguments sake, so I think I'll just stop.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

Here you go, Detantor. I fixed the script for you. Now its the best movie since Citizen Kane.

(No wait!... it’s now better than Citizen Kane!)

SPOILER: Show

Misato: *gears up to fight attacking Nerv units*

Shinji: Let me Pilot Unit 01!!!

Misato: Okay, hold up.

Ritsuko: *wheels in a giant chalk board from the back and starts diagraming things on it*

Misato: *pulls a pointer stick out of her bad ass jacket and points to the diagrams Ritsuko is drawing on the chalkboard*

Misato: This is the year 20XX, 14 years after you last piloted Eva Unit 01...

Asuka: *banging Eva 02’s fists on a window from outside as she passes* ALSO, THE CURSE OF EVA, YOU BRAT!

[Derantor]

I envisioned something more like this:

*After Misato confirms that Shinji truly is who he seems to be, without Shinji himself attending, as that would only confuse and alienate him even more, he is brought to the bridge*
Shinji: Misato, what's going on?
Misato: ... That is a question I can not answer right now. Just know that we do not trust you. We might trust you again, but if you want to have any chance at all, you will have to sit tight and do what we say.
Shinji: But ... I don't understand.
Misato: I know. That is why I am giving you orders, until you can understand. So for now, do nothing.
Shinji: But I want to help, I want to -
Misato: I already told you what you can do if you truly want to help.
*Ritsuko then activates the choker, handing the remote to Misato.*
Shinji: What is this thing? *He reaches for the choker* Can't you take it off?
Misato: No, we can not do that. Just know that your father is still out there, trying to use you. He want's you to pilot, which is why you mustn't do it. We can not risk that you make any rash decisions, as your decisions cost us dearly. That device around your neck is there to make sure of that.
(If the above line is overdoing it, this would be an acceptable alternative: "No, we can not do that. We can not risk that you pilot ever again. The device around your neck is there to make sure of that.")
Shinji: But Misato!
*The attack happens*
Misato: Bring him to the holding cells. (technobabble)
Shinji: But! No! I want to! I need to! etc.
Misato: I already told you everything you need to know right now. It is up to you what you make of this opportunity, Shinji.
*Movie then continues as is*

That's about 75 seconds of screentime, and contains pretty much everything I think is essential for Shinji to know. That's why I don't think the "They had no time" argument counts. They don't have to tell him anything else for the whole movie. I don't think there's anything in it that isn't implied in the movie anyways, but some things, like there being a way for Shinji to earn their trust back, are made explicit. I think that would have been important for two reasons: It directly shows to Shinji and the audience that Misato is not only full of hatred or utterly cold or whatever first impression she invokes, while making clear that Shinji actually misunderstood something when he runs off to join NERV anyway. If you'd prefer this exchange to take place when Misato decides to speak to him, after he was in his cell and minds have cooled down a little, that's fine as well.

I also think this is still vague and hostile enough to give Shinji and the audience reasons for mistrusting Misato, or WILLE as a whole, and leaves the whole backstory leading up to the movie completely in the dark, which makes it easy to take "his side" when he runs off. True, it would lessen the emotional blunt trauma caused by his treatment somewhat, but I don't think it would diminish the movie or its statements. Of course, this is just my personal opinion.

Edit: Just to clarify, the rest of the movie stays (almost) completely the same in this proposal, including Sakura not answering his question where he is, Asuka having anger issues, etc. Misato is still appropriatly cold and distant, the angry glares of everybody on the bridge are there as well.

Edit 2: To shortly address the fact that, if the above exchange is the only thing WILLE tells Shinji, there is even less information on the events leading up to the movie, and the apparent contradiction with the complaint "They don't tell him anything" and "This is all so confusing!": Well, yeah. That's kinda the point of the movie, being confusing and disorienting, so it would be pointless to complain about that (and I don't think I did in this thread), as that is the intention. Not that that knowledge makes me like the movie any better, but hey, not everything is for everybody. And no, I don't think my alteration "fixes" the movie completely and makes it perfect. It only addresses my main complaints about the WILLE/Shinji interactions, which I would find much more palatable if they played out this way. A change mostly in tone, less in content.

[Settie]

And the argument about time is not solid either, because it ignores the sheer amount of things going on and needing to be attended to in the running of a large ship being brought into service. The film doesn't spend time on those because they are not relevant in detail.

I would say that that reinforces the idea that Misato (and Asuka later on) was doing things with Shinji out of emotion rather than brains. Shinjis presence isn't necessary for the chokers controller signal to reach it nor for his identity to be verified as the latter was done through biometrics. So why exactly was Shinji brought to the bridge? I'd say it was to satisfy the selfish desires of its captain. When looking at things in hindsight, Misato comes off as a massive hypocrite, for all her mantra of the needs of the many outweights the needs of the few, she sure put her own desires first. I guess in a weird slightly convoluted way, the film does get across that Shinji is not the only one acting irrationally (except maybe Gendo), and Misatos stoic persona might only be skin deep.

[TheFriskyIan]

I would say that that reinforces the idea that Misato (and Asuka later on) was doing things with Shinji out of emotion rather than brains. Shinjis presence isn't necessary for the chokers controller signal to reach it nor for his identity to be verified as the latter was done through biometrics. So why exactly was Shinji brought to the bridge? I'd say it was to satisfy the selfish desires of its captain. When looking at things in hindsight, Misato comes off as a massive hypocrite, for all her mantra of the needs of the many outweights the needs of the few, she sure put her own desires first. I guess in a weird slightly convoluted way, the film does get across that Shinji is not the only one acting irrationally (except maybe Gendo), and Misatos stoic persona might only be skin deep.

I believe that idea is better portrayed when Shinji actually does leave The Wundar. Ritsuko begs Misato to pull the trigger yet Misato is unable to do so, I like this one more because the shot of Ritsuko afterwards shows that even she realizes it's a difficult decision and that it was easy for her to yell at Misato to kill Shinji, Ritsuko might not have been able to do it herself either.

[Shun]

@Derantor: I tell you my point of view.
You wrote "A change mostly in tone, less in content."
Consideration by Anno, 1996.

Anno: The idea of a play within a play and making it like a stage came to me at the last moment, but Shinji-kun went on looking at not only the surfaces of strangers, but their pasts… No matter what kind of person it is, is it not the case that they have filthy aspects? But I think that when you have a relationship with someone, particularly at the moment when you think that you don’t want to be hated, poof, you take on the burden of doing everything you can to keep from showing that part of yourself. You try to show as many of your good aspects as possible. It’s not that you judge while looking only at those sorts of aspects, it’s whether you can ever look at that human as a single individual at the times when you see that person’s negative aspects.

Interviewer: It’s like, can you accept them in their entirety?

Anno: Precisely. That’s Dr. Freud’s theory of a good mother and a bad mother at the oral stage of development, though. In short, a mother is someone who simultaneously protects you unconditionally and restrains you—which you could call the bad part. Additionally, it’s not the case that a mother is in a good mood every day. For example, when you cried, if she was in a good mood, she might have said something like, “Be a good child, a good child; you mustn’t cry,” but if she were irritable and in a bad mood, she might even shout, isn’t that right? From a child’s perspective, you can’t see the two as the same person. Therefore both a good mother and a bad mother exist, and when you recognize that they are contained within a single personality, you’re able to see for the first time what’s known as a stranger. I intended to do that. I was able to release all of the ideas I had.

For me, the interview is very interesting, I recommend you read it all: https://17th-angel.tumblr.com/post/6276 ... think-that

What's the point? The point is that each person thinks and behaves in a certain way rather than another because genetics, the family environment, the social environment, complexity, randomness, causality, situations, self-awareness, emotions , etc have contributed to defining their identity and ways of thinking, behaving and response. Can you change it? Yes, identity is not static, it is something dynamic.
I feel annoying for an unpleasant word, for a hard tone, for silent moments (A: what do you have? B: nothing! A: come on, explain it to me! B: nothing!), Okay, but not excessively. Otherwise life will always be lived complaining about what's wrong.

In 2.0 Misato says: "Go for it, Shinji-kun! Don't do this for someone else! Do this for your own desires!"
Probably during the 14-year of time skip Misato has continuously felt guilty for those words, and even in 3.0 she feels remorse and she cannot forgive herself for having contributed to the disaster. She lost her father because Second Impact, and now she has contributed to start Third Impact. I guess she feel very bad. Misato wears a "Captain Nemo" mask, detached and not lenient, not only with Shinji, but in general for all 3.0 screentime, however it's very likely that she is angry at herself and that she isn't able to accept and forgive herself. Asuka is jealous, it's obviously! Closed eyes. She is angry because Shinji didn't help her against the ninth angel, while he helped Rei against the tenth Angel.

Maybe you are a calm and thoughtful person, so some impulsive or detached behavior bothers you. Why, indeed, they cannot use a calm tone? Evangelion speaks about affective indulgence, I suggest you search words "amae" and "amaeru" on internet to understand what I mean.
Yet, Wille hasn't been so cruel with Shinji. They could extract him from Eva-01, put DSS, sedate and lock him in a prison without saying a word.
Instead they put him on the main bridge and in this way he saw the new situation with his own eyes. Don't consider just words important, Shinji was given the opportunity to see things, while if they locked him up in prison he would have seen nothing. They later made him sit in a room, and Sakura and Ritsuko started explaining things to him. So they didn't let Shinji rot in solitude and ignorance, like in Nerv. And Kaworu wasn't bad. Think about Shinji permanence to Nerv without Kaworu, without piano, without stars. Also, I remind you that we still don't know how much the damage of the Near 3rd Impact is caused by Shinji. In 2.0 Kaworu stop Eva-01 after the end credits ...

Also, we must consider the emergency situation during Wille scene, first the attack of Nemesis Series, then the unexpected arrival of the Mark.09. As FreakyFilmFan4ever rightly pointed out, there is a hectic situation and time has been short.
Could they do better? Yes. Could they have done worse? Yes. Simply: that's what happened.
But in the end we return to the Anno interview, because this is the real world. You can always do better, but you can always do worse. If Wille's tone bothers you, then Anno has done a good job, because this means that you have to work on this trait of your identity. I don't tell you this as a rebuke, I tell you this because they are things that sometimes happen to me too. But if I want to continue living without constantly complaining, then I will learn to manage these feelings better. Shinji has to do the same thing.
Also, think about Asuka's "kimochi warui" in the EoE finale. What is that? Just a line of dialogue. Everyone focuses on that because it's unpleasant, but few consider caress. How much easier is it to "say things" than to "do things"? Think about a parent who scolds his son, but then does so many concrete things for him. The story is always the same: Anno 1996.

[Derantor]

@Shun: A change in tone might have been the wrong word to describe it; it isn't required that Misato is calm at all, she can be angry or cold or however she wants to be - the important part is that certain things are made explicit. Not because there is no way I can come up with an emotional justification for why WILLE acts the way they do (you can always find justification if you think about it long enough) or because I am angry that they treat Shinji badly - I would have treated him much worse, and in Shinji's shoes, I'd just have said "fuck it" and burned the whole place to the ground at the first opportunity - so much for irrationality and stupidity. But I live a carefree life, I am not responsible for the survival of humanity. I can afford to act stupidly, as pretty much nothing of importance (beyond my personal well-being) depends on it, yet I am self-aware to a degree that I can at the very least interact with people, even those I truly despise, in a somewhat productive manner.

Show that only once: That's why I said the rest of the movie can remained unchanged. Pile on all the misunderstandings and failures and irrational decisions you want, that was the point of the movie, after all. But if you fail to show that same ability of self reflection in people like Misato after a 14 year timeskip, who very much depends on her ability to keep her own emotions in check and the people surrounding her in somewhat working condition during stressfull or emotionally taxing situations, as that is the only way she can ever hope to last for fourteen years of hell, and don't do it in a way that actually means something for the audience (hence why it must be shown in her dealings with Shinji), it just breaks my suspension of disbelief, and it did for a lot of people, apparently, as "Those people are just stupid" is one of the most common complaints. That's precicesly because contrary to what you said, this ISN'T real life - it is a movie, and has to abide by movie rules. We can only take for granted what is actually on screen, and while we can assume a great many things, that doesn't make them true at all.

[Shinji Ikari Expy]

I envisioned something more like this:

This speech doesn't work either because at this point, Shinji doesn't understand that there is a war between his old comrades. For all he knows, he is at a new NERV base, they are fighting angels, and his father is around or away on business. Your script is far more confusing than Misato's "do nothing," (which at least is a clear and decisive order), and it is still wholly inadequate. If it were written like this, fans would still complain.

As you said, Misato is acting on her emotions but thinks that she isn't. That's why this sequence, culminating in Misato's unwillingness to detonate the choker, works so well. This is a story about people who bury their true feelings, fail to communicate, misunderstand one another. (Remember that Shinji has never been adequately informed by his superiors about anything). So the movie is thematically in line with the others, and with NGE.

On a sidenote, I have a deeply unpopular opinion: this particular criticism of 3.0 (i.e. "Wille didn't tell him anything!") is fueled by fans who are upset at seeing their favorite character become an in-universe pariah. So they frame this argument as cinematic criticism.* It's cope.

Wille would not have avoided all of this if they had been more patient and charitable to Shinji in the two minutes before the battle; they probably could not have even if they kept him sedated and isolated. The measures taken by Misato were clearly meant to be hurtful, and maybe they were unnecessarily harsh. But Shinji's feelings just don't matter much anymore, which is exactly the point.

*There are more legitimate criticisms 3.0 as a movie, just talking about this one aspect in particular

[Derantor]

@Shinji Ikari Expy: I think I addressed all that in the paragraphs below the quote already. To make it clear again, my complaint is not that they tell him too little, it's that they tell him the wrong things. The alterations I made are there for Misato's benefit, she isn't that irrational anymore. She gives Shinji an incentive to stay (we may trust you again) and doesn't tell him outright that they are willing to kill him, while still making sure that he understands that piloting is off the table for him, and that there are technical countermeasures to make sure of that. Seems a lot more reasonable to expect him to stay and do nothing after hearing that than before, beceause even if she spat out all those lines in utter disgust and hatred, she can at least point to the fact that she offered him something and he refused to understand and accept the fact that he doesn't understand.

[Shinji Ikari Expy]

I still think your script is far too confusing and still would have failed to inform or persuade Shinji of anything (while still eliciting groans from the fanbase). Face it, there is too much complex information to convey and revealing a piece of it just opens a whole new can of worms: “why is it bad that my father wants me to pilot?” “Why are you fighting him?” “Why don’t you trust me anymore?” etc.

Saying “at least Misato could say that she warned him” doesn’t mean a whole lot. She’s not trying to win an argument with her former subordinate-turned-prisoner, she’s trying to keep the ship afloat.

Last point: remember how shocked Ritsuko was that Nerv’s target was Shinji and not Unit 01? They didn’t think Gendo would come for him at that moment. So Wille had no reason to believe they needed to give Shinji incentive to stick around. Until the moment Mark 09 broke through Wunder’s hull, Shinji was just a prisoner; why do you need to give a prisoner incentive to stay?

Understanding that, it is best to simplify things as much as possible. At that point, it’s enough for Misato to say “just don’t do anything, dummy.” They can fill him in later!

[Derantor]

They can fill him in later!

Which I implied they would do, or at least intended to do, in the scene I wrote up ("I can not answer that right now (but I will later).")

Saying “at least Misato could say that she warned him” doesn’t mean a whole lot.

The argument was about whether she was stupid or not. Being able to point to things that clearly demonstrate some intelligent thought behind it certainly helps proving the latter.

[Blockio]

Failing to persuade Shinji is kind of the point there - there is nothing anyone could have told him in that span of time that would have convinced him; what it would have done however, is causing Shinji to realize just how badly he fucked up right as things went beyond the point of no return.

Last point: remember how shocked Ritsuko was that Nerv’s target was Shinji and not Unit 01? They didn’t think Gendo would come for him at that moment. So Wille had no reason to believe they needed to give Shinji incentive to stick around. Until the moment Mark 09 broke through Wunder’s hull, Shinji was just a prisoner; why do you need to give a prisoner incentive to stay?

Following that logic, they wouldn't have bothered to put the DSS Choker on him and instead had reserved it for the off chance that they capture Kaworu. Clearly they still saw him as a threat on some level, and they quite openly say so, too

[Shinji Ikari Expy]

Following that logic, they wouldn't have bothered to put the DSS Choker on him and instead had reserved it for the off chance that they capture Kaworu. Clearly they still saw him as a threat on some level, and they quite openly say so, too

My point is that they didn’t think they would need to persuade Shinji of anything right then and there. They believed (reasonably) that Nerv’s objective was the Eva, and that they could put off the delicate task of explaining the truth to Shinji until later. The choker was simply their last resort if for some reason, he fell into Nerv’s hands.

I agree that they would eventually want to convince him to cooperate with them, but something like that must be done slowly, methodically. For the moment, you must establish that he will not pilot anymore, and that something bad will happen to him if he tries. Save the rest for later.

[intermediateO]

Alright. So I just got done watching 3.0 for the third time in less than a week.

To put it bluntly, my main problem with 3.0 is GASLIGHTING.

It's absolutely full of it, in the metaphorical sense, and even in a meta sense when it comes to the fanbase.

It's a movie from 2012, a time where people, myself included, weren't as sensitive to these things or as knowledgeable of their insidious nature, but watching the movie 8 years later, it only validates all those awkward, unpleasant feelings I've always had. I just feel I can now communicate why more clearly.

Shinji is being gaslit. This is not deniable. There are several instances of him being given contradictory information in the movie, and it seems that the main perpetrators are (usually) Wille.

Ritsuko tells him he can no longer pilot Evas→He pilots 13 no problem
Misato tells him Rei no longer exists→Fuyutsuki says she is inside Unit 01 still(+Kuronami even existing too)
Kaworu says he is the cause of the world's current state→He is not. He is not. HE IS NOT. (Will come back to this.

Gaslighting anyone is harmful, and especially more so when it's only a 14 year-old boy. That doesn't mean that it isn't unintended by the creators though, and that it doesn't have a place to be used with a meaningful point in the story. Pretty much the only way I can see my opinion of Rebuild as a whole being salvaged too, is hinging on Shin Eva laying out that 3.0 was in fact a story of gaslighting.

First, what is Wille's goal?
→Destroy Nerv, Stop Impacts, Save the world
So, why would they gaslight Shinji?
→Shinji has been made the fallman for 3rd Impact, even though he didn't cause it.

We see this multiple times in the story, with both members of Wille and even Kaworu blaming 3rd impact on him, and (excluding any diverging timeline twists where the after credits scene didn't happen and 3.0 is a sequel to another timeline ir something) we know that this isn't the case.

Shinji did not cause 3rd Impact. Shinji did not cause 3rd Impact. Shinji DID NOT CAUSE 3RD IMPACT!

I feel like this is the thing that saddens me the most in fan discourse, and why I have to say it so dramatically. There are so many fans who either ignore the evidence, or take everything the characters lay on Shinji in 3.0 as fact. It makes me feel exactly like Robin Williams in that one scene of Good Will Hunting. Eva is a series that deals a lot with childhood abuse, and I really hope that the last film in someway doesn't support the idea that if an unconscious Shinji was used by grown-ups (probably his own father) to bring about the apocalypse in someway, that he should be held personally responsible and hated for it. Whatever happened to him after Kaworu pierced him with Cassius was not his fault. He was a child that was used. I do think, and hope, that Shin Eva is going give us a similar Good Will Hunting-esque moment of catharsis with characters apologizing to Shinji.

Mainly, Misato.

My theory:
Misato, Ritsuko, and the highest members of Wille are responsible for a coverstory that makes Shinji the lighting rod for the rest of Humanity's hatred of Nerv and them causing 3rd Impact.

Supporting Evidence:
Only two characters show outright contempt with Shinji, Midori and Sakura. Midori just for his existence itself even.
What do these two characters have in common?
1. They did not know Shinji before.
2. They never worked at Nerv.
3. THEY WERE CHILDREN AT THE TIME OF 3RD IMPACT.
The conclusion I would like to draw from this, is that Midori and Sakura have grown up in a post-3I world where Misato and others have used propaganda to rally other people to fight against the "evil" Nerv, despite Wille itself being built from the skeleton of Nerv personnel.

This makes a lot of things click into place.
The need of a scapegoat like Shinji, how else could they convince people to trust Misato and other high ranking officers of the very organization that ended the world without specific people to point fingers at. Basically, "Not all Nerv staff, you guys! Those guys bad! We good ones!"
This would also explain why they treat Shinji so awful (they really do), because not only does his "trigger" status make him an actual liabilty to be used again, but they also need others, like ever-present Sakura, to believe that they believe that Shinji is the "bad guy". They can't just speaky freely.

Some Nadia parallels, heavy Nadia spoilers

SPOILER: Show

Captain Nemo, who Misato takes inspiration from in 3.0, is actually responsible for the annihilation of his own homecity of Atlantis. Despite this, he gathers crew from the survivors to fight against the Neo-Atlantians. He originally caused the annihilation in order to stop their enslavement of the world.

This dark backstory is all revealed by a member of the crew, a young woman named Electra(subtle), who fell in love with Nemo, despite uncovering the secret years ago that he was responsible for the deaths of her family and all the other Atlanians.
The reason why she stayed with him?
→Because she realized that her goal would be ultimately unchanged and the same as his, defeating the truly evil Neo-Atlantis.
Why she broke down and reveals all the secrets?
→Because the sudden reappearance, 14 years later, of Nemo's own biological daughter, Nadia, makes Electra question his resolve to do the "right" thing of sacrificing himself and his daughter if it means the destruction of Neo-Atlantis.

I am not saying that Misato is directly responsible for 3rd impact, just that the idea of "a rag-tag team of freedom fighters who whitewash the history of their involvement with the current horrors of the world" is a story that Anno is intimately familiar with.

There's other stuff I really dislike about 3.0 that ties into this stuff, like Kaworu gaslighting too, but I guess I'll try and keep it on topic for this thread.

Just please be careful of unintentionally gaslighting fellow Eva fans.

[Blockio]

the inherent flaw with that theory is that
a) the entire point of Q is characters being morally grey, so "Wille is lying and literally satan" isn't really gonna cut it and
b) Nerv and especially Kaworu lied to Shinji a lot more than Wille ever had the chance to.

Also I have no idea what exactly counts as gaslighting in your book, I've seen that thrown around as a buzzword so much that it has basically lost all meaning beyond "I don't like this thing that someone may or may not be doing" at this point; please elabortate on that

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

Following that logic, they wouldn't have bothered to put the DSS Choker on him and instead had reserved it for the off chance that they capture Kaworu. Clearly they still saw him as a threat on some level, and they quite openly say so, too

The DSS choker was placed on Shinji just in case Unit 01 awoke, not because they thought he was Nerv’s target. The film goes so far as to tell us (via Misato + Ritsuko telling Shinji) that as well.

Lol, for a film where people complain that Shinji told anything, there certainly is a lot being disclosed here.

[Blockio]

The DSS choker was placed on Shinji just in case Unit 01 awoke, not because they thought he was Nerv’s target. The film goes so far as to tell us (via Misato + Ritsuko telling Shinji) that as well.

Well yes, but if they put it on him they still assumed that he himself can still be an impact trigger; hard to do that outside of an Eva, so evidently they must have at least considered the possibility of him one way or another getting back into one - and I'd say that Wille is more competent than completely disregarding the possibility that Nerv might just go for Shinji. sure, they expected them to target 01 first, but once you've got the Eva, might just snatch the pilot as well, what's gonna stop you at this point

[Shinji Ikari Expy]

Alright. So I just got done watching 3.0 for the third time in less than a week.

To put it bluntly, my main problem with 3.0 is GASLIGHTING.

I seriously think you’d be better off reflecting on it than watching it over and over. The movie is upsetting and characters don't make perfect decisions, but the events make sense in the context of Rebuild's fictional universe.

Shinji did cause N3I, but it’s not clear how much that contributed to the state of the world in 3.0. We know a lot happened since then. Regardless, he’s partially responsible for the way things are.

We don’t know what Wille has been telling its newest members about the events of N3I. Your scenario of the old Nerv staff blaming everything on Shinji is unlikely. It's pretty easy to see, even from the outside, he was manipulated by someone else. Wille is angry at Shinji for his recklessness and disregard for everyone else; they're also afraid of what he might do next.

Kaworu was likely manipulating Shinji. I won't go into it because it has been covered here numerous times, but don't take his words at face value. The world doesn't blame Shinji for everything; the world has moved on from Shinji. He has to come to terms with the fact that it doesn't revolve around him anymore.

Misato was his commanding officer at the time, so she's partly responsible for what happened. Leaders are always held accountable for their subordinates and disasters that occur on their watch. The difference is that she has had to face the consequences of her actions; he has not. Regardless, her new subordinates at Wille can see past that and have faith in her. That should give you hope for Shinji.