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

[ErgoProxy]

Since you are not happy to throw your two cents

Within expectations.

and I am not happy with my behaviour in this thread

Just an opinion, but your performance in this thread was more than OK.

can I suggest that we don't start another discussion or take it elsewehre?

This line of yours is what made me unhappy in advance, so may I ask you to go to /dev/null right now? And sit there.

Seriously though, I wasn't aiming my post against you specifically. I've just shoveled kilotons of "profound" Reddit discussion on why 3.33 sucks and what Anno should do to fix it, because what he did there goes against... I don't know. Human rights of random gaijins?

I apologize again for derailing this thread and arguing in a bad manner.

Jumpin' Jack Jesus, this line is racist.

See, this is what I had learned in the vaults of Usenet: the beauty of the Internet argument is that in the end noone's happy about it, but everyone's eager to keep it going for sake of arguing with no self-imposed censorship. Because as long as such argument continues, we can express our freedom of thought and speech; and this sense of freedom makes us a little braver when coping with the real world and its challenges. So love it or leave it, but don't break the mood.

[Giji Shinka]

Combination of distrust, Mark.09 taking Shinji away too soon and the fear of telling the truth.

[C.T.1290]

They probably didn’t have the time, or was too occupied with some other matters. With the state of the world that it’s in, they didn’t have the luxury to explain some things to a kid that just came out of his 14 year coma, since they were constantly at battle with NERV. Then NERV came along to take Shinji away before they can fully explain things to him.

Maybe in final film, they’ll finally explain some things to him, maybe a bit more than what Kaworu told, but we won’t know until it comes out.

[Velorex]

It depends on how you choose to view this question; on a production basis or a in universe explanation.

The whole film's; narrative, emotional-tone and pacing revolves around Shinji exploring and discovering the the events that led to the ruined world. To be blunt Anno couldn't have had Misato or anyone tell Shinji anything. Doing so would void the whole point of the film.

Now if you want an in-universe explanation you can insert a number of different reasons; from potential emotional turmoil from Misato and crew, Shinji's existence was a surprise, or they just didn't have enough time to explain anything.

I'm curious 93rd, what facet of this question interests you?

[Melkor]

It depends on how you choose to view this question; on a production basis or a in universe explanation.

The whole film's; narrative, emotional-tone and pacing revolves around Shinji exploring and discovering the the events that led to the ruined world. To be blunt Anno couldn't have had Misato or anyone tell Shinji anything. Doing so would void the whole point of the film.

That's what I'm thinking too. Why was Misato mad at Shinji in 3.0 and didn't tell him anything? The simplest answer (from a purely out of universe storytelling perspective) is because the plot required her to be. Without Misato being mad at Shinji, it wouldn't have created the misunderstanding necessary for the chain of events that followed to be possible. Remove that one aspect from the beginning of the film, and the whole plot kind of falls apart because there would be nothing to set off that chain of events that led Shinji to where has was at the end of the movie because he would not have felt as compelled to leave the Wunder as he did if he felt that Misato still cared about him and was on his side.

[pwhodges]

The simplest answer is because the plot required her to be. Without Misato being mad at Shinji, it wouldn't have created the misunderstanding necessary for the chain of events that followed to be possible.

Sure - every story has elements like that. The issue here is whether the setup which creates this dynamic is convincing or not. I feel that it is, considering the uncertainty about Shinji's identity, the attack on the Wunder, and the sheer level of commitment required of a captain to run such a complex vessel in difficult circumstances - but clearly some people disagree, arguing that Shinji should have taken priority over all this (which equally could have been a driver for a different plot...)!

[Gendo'sPapa]

Is Misato mad at Shinji or just conflicted about knowing he’s lost 14 years of time, his childhood and any sense of innocence because he did something (piloting Eva) that she knowingly coerced him into doing?

Fans are used to is because it's such a core plot convenience of Eva but the second main character of the series, Misato, has always been pushing the children to be literal child soldiers. The show touched on it a few times and Misato openly shows her dislike of the necessity for it in 2.0 but she still pushed Shinji into piloting an Eva and it absolutely has destroyed him. At the end of 2.0 she's yelling for him to do what he wants and the consequences of that are disastrous for everyone, Shinji as well. That's a lot of guilt to carry for 14 years. If anything she's probably more angry at herself in all 2 scenes she shares with Shinji.

So much of the “Misato is Wrong” debate is just an unwillingness to look at how a scene plays out from any perspective besides Shinji’s. Every action and response Misato has makes perfect sense if the viewer actually engages and thinks about where Misato is internally having likely thought about what she’s put Shinji through every day for the last 14 years and not just superficially let the film exist on the surface. It's one of the few, if maybe first, time in Eva where a character story is played out visually and isn't expressed through on the nose dialogue or a dream sequence that allows the point to be made even more directly.

Misato has no reason to tell Shinji anything about their current predicament and she certainly doesn't serve any purpose being in that room while Ritsuko - rather generously in my eyes - gives him a lot of context** of what's going on but she's there in the room anyways. Likely because she cares. Still, she's keeping her distance and doesn't take off those reflective glasses and her body language and posture - arms crossed, shoulders tight so her coat is bunched up and partially covering her face - is that of someone trying to keep their emotions secret. A lot of people jump to "she real mad" when based on what we know about her character from the previous two films and her inability to pull that trigger a minute later the truth is more likely "she real sad".

Almost like what the movie is touching on but not openly saying is that Misato and Shinji are both experiencing a difficulty sharing warmth with each other because their lives are so entwined and full of shared tragedies that they've experienced. Kinda like spikes? I think it's sometimes referred to as a "Hedgehog's Dilemma". I'm sure I've heard it mentioned once in a film somewhere but I can't quite recall what. Oh well, maybe it'll come to me later.

Honestly I love it.

The easiest thing the filmmakers could have done after 2.0 is just repeat what they did. Have more cool Angel battles, make everyone adorable and sweet with each other, add Kaworu and Mari to the pleasant Shinji-Rei-Asuka triangle that was forming, more fan service service.

Instead they made a movie about what Eva has been about from the start.

It’s digging even deeper into the core of Evangelion being people’s inability to understand one another by literally placing the audience in that perspective.

3.0 is so entirely from Shinji’s limited POV that I’m not surprised so many viewers just jump on “its because of lazy plotting” defense.

I’m sure the final film will put a lot of what Misato was going through in 3.0 into context. The major problem here is that when all is said and done there will have been 8 (maybe 9 if the film is delayed to 2021) years between dramatic setup and emotional payoff.

**Ritsuko doesn't tell him the things that a lot of viewers say Misato should just dump on Shinji - Your Rei is gone & the world is kinda shit now because of something you kickstarted - because the characters, likely under Misato's guidance, know from experience how much this information just dumped on his lap at once would hurt him. It would be better to give him this information slowly by piecemeal over an extended period of time. Maybe even give the poor kid some therapy. Buuuuuuut those bastards at NERV know that's not good for them so they quickly take Shinji away, let him stew in a feeling of loss and anxiety for a few days and have good ole Fuyutsuki (and poor misguided love struck Kaworu) do exactly what so many people say Misato should have done which is just sit him down and say "Hey, the girl you love is actually a clone we grow in a lab. One in a series of clones. Wild huh? Kinda makes your sacrifice pointless don't it? Oh yeah AND she's a clone of your long dead Mom to just make it all the more weird and unpleasant for you. Anywho, uh have a nice day". The very movie itself renders the "Why didn't Misato just tell him all this shit straight up" argument as broken.

[Rei IV]

And let's be honest, Misato is still probably digesting the fact they left on terrible terms, encouraged Shinji to FINALLY do whatever the hell he wanted and as a result, helped pave way for near 3rd Impact, which no doubt brought painful memories of her own ordeal during 2nd Impact and has left her kicking herself all these years. All of that would be very difficult to process as well as the kid appearing out of the blue 14 years later.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

^ I don't know if Shinji actually heard anything Misato was shouting at him during 2.22's final Angel fight. The last thing Shinji probably remembers about Misato was when he left her apartment for the last time, where she confessed to wanting to live vicariously through him.

[Derantor]

as well as the kid appearing out of the blue 14 years later.

I doubt that it was that out of the blue - they had a choker prepared, they knew where he was (Asuka calling out to him), they were the ones to rescue him from orbit, they have probably met clones or other copies of him before (otherwise, why the confusion about his identity and the cryptic "Is this the real one?"), they could freely choose the time to wake him up in that coffin, they were the ones to get him out of Unit 01 (a salvage operation like the attempted one in NGE) ... He didn't just appear at their doorstep one day. They probably had that operation planned for a long time. Or not. Since nothing is known about the continuity, my fanfiction is as good as any other. :P

[ErgoProxy]

Great analysis, Gendo's Papa.

However I think there's another possibility. In EoE, succesfull 3I required active participation of Rei, Shinji and Tabris. In Rebuild continuity however, 3I apparently went off the rails. Maybe it's because one of the trio - namely Shinji - was missing or remained passive during the process. If so, he would be responsible not for what he did, but for what he didn't do.

This would perfectly fit Misato's face expression and voice tone - angry, bitter sarcasm - when she took off her glasses to tell Shinji that from now on he will do nothing. This would also explain why Shinji's told (even yelled at) to not pilot Eva: because one of the children - namely Rei - is missing again. And why is he carefully dosed with truth instead of getting elaborate infodump?

There's a bug in NGE which appparently propagated to Rebuilds, with 3.33 being a bold and brave attempt to patch it:

(1) Rei has red eyes.
(2) Rei hates color red.
(3) Thus Rei hates her eyes.

And then Rei becomes a god with enough power to impose her ideal of perfection to anyone around.

There's such saying that eyes are the mirror of soul. Even Fuyutsuki was carefull to not tell too much straight in the face of this poor, infatuated kid with father-son issues.

BTW, in the flagship of Japanese computer science, a programming language named Ruby, if you suspect a loop iteration may produce unwanted result, you can write code that detects the bug, patches erroneous values and then invokes redo command to evaluate the loop iteration again, hopefully to better outcome.

[pwhodges]

they had a choker prepared

Kaworu said it was meant for him, though; and some people speculate that Asuka and Mari also have them...

they knew where he was (Asuka calling out to him), they were the ones to rescue him from orbit,

They were getting Unit-01; they didn't know if he would be recoverable after previously going to the plug depth that supposedly renders a pilot inhuman.

they have probably met clones or other copies of him before (otherwise, why the confusion about his identity and the cryptic "Is this the real one?"),

Haven't you just given a reason to doubt him right there?

they could freely choose the time to wake him up in that coffin,

They had a time-pressure to get Unit-01 operational as the power-source for the Wunder, so no, they didn't have a free choice; not that it matters[/quote]

[Derantor]

True, the choker wasn't for him - or Kaworu is just telling Shinji that like he is telling him he caused whatever made the world how it is in Q, which Shinji didn't. Of course they doubt him; I just wanted to point out that he wasn't coming completely out of the blue. The recovery process likely took some time, and when he was in the coffin, he was already out of Unit 01. I wonder how long it took to install it as the engine of the wunder. It is just not such a sudden transition that no mental preparations were possible. But as I said, it's all just speculation and fanfiction.

[Alaska Slim]

Is Misato mad at Shinji or just conflicted about knowing he’s lost 14 years of time, his childhood and any sense of innocence because he did something (piloting Eva) that she knowingly coerced him into doing?

As BlueBasilisk suggests here, there may also be continuing projection going on.

In 2.22, she was projecting herself onto Shinji while he was practically throwing off his ties to the world to save Rei in the berserk Unit-01.

In 3.33, she knows why these beliefs of hers are dangerous, and perhaps views Shinji now as a symbol of those old beliefs.

Even in taking Unit-01's power for herself with the Wunder, she did it in a way where she shares that power with others and whisks them to safety.

That along with her guilt for having used Shinji as a child soldier, may mean she's just struggling with a large dose of cognitive dissonance, which she can't deal with right now given that she's in the middle of putting a decade's worth of planning into action.

[JonL]

First of all, why we even assume that Misato has strong interest in Shinji's well being? I would say that while she hadn't any ill intent toward him, neither she visually suffered from sending several teen-solders into fight, at least her protests was silent at best. She was cosplaying a good caretaker, when it wasn't hard to do, but when shit hit the fan with Shinji blaming himself and whole NERV in assumed Asuka death she picked a NERV side, so as Rei. By the way her goodbye monologue wasn't even about how she was sorry, it was more like she had been disappointed by the outcome. Don't forget that she hadn't mentioned that Asuka survived, unless that's a mistranslation in russian version. We know that it killed any human connections Shinji had, and probably this betrayal was primary reason for impact3 almost happening.

Now to third rebild.
From Shinji's point of view less than a day ago Misato has sided with his father and thrown him out of her apartment. Less than a day ago he voluntary returned to NERV to fight angel to avenge Rei's death and he killed it, also probably resurrecting Rei. Now he is held at gunpoint/mined with explosive choker. He clearly sees hate on crew faces. He is dismissed as a pilot and send to clearly cell-like room.
From Misato point of view when they armed his choker she was already sure that this is Shinji (no need to do it otherwise). But he was unwelcomed outcome of her expedition to obtain evolved eva01 to power up her fleet. That's shows how she treated person who saved their lives several times, Gendo would be proud. Then we have completely ungrateful Asuka, 14 year timetravel plot revealed, and Ritsuko (might she be a double agent working on Gendo btw?) stating that he has 0 sync chanses.

Well, I see no reason for him even believing in what Misato and others could have said after everything. They should be ungrateful traitors in his eyes, for some reason it was never addressed in rebuilds.

[Derantor]

Shinji wasn't thrown out of the apartment, he left of his own volition.

[JonL]

Shinji wasn't thrown out of the apartment, he left of his own volition.

He had no choice, he stated that he had no friends, excluding Misato out of this elite club.

[ElMariachi]

Well I'm bored out of my skull and waiting for any news about a Shin streaming or international release made me introspect of Q, about what happened and what could had been.
And lately I've come to wonder if the events of Q could had been avoided, Shinji leaving, the fight in Lilith Chamber, Fourth Impact... and I came to the conclusion that no, it actually was inevitable.

Let me elaborate: let's imagine the perfect scenario where WILLE has the time tell everything to Shinji, the time skip, Evas awakening, the fucked up world, whatever his role in it was, WILLE, neo-NERV and SEELE, Rei being a clone of his mother and how there are others... everything.
So what happens when Mark.09 arrives? Let's assume that it had the means to find Shinji inside the Wunder even if he didn't answered her... telepathic call? (what the hell was that voice in his head anyway?), and with all the knowledge he has, notices the differences between this Eva and the old EVA-00 (like the moving eye), maybe he'll try to communicate with her, to ask her if she really is Rei Ayanami, that if she actually is her, to tell him something only she would know ("what was the favorite soup I made for you?") and Rei Q, not responding (because of course she wouldn't know) confirms to him that this is not his Rei. Great! So he won't go with her, and everything will be fine, right?

Well, no. That actually wouldn't change anything, because I really doubt that Rei Q received as instructions to just give up and come back home if he refuses to come with her, she'll just snatch him and fly away. And there isn't anything that the Wunder could do to stop her, because that damned thing is literally unkillable, so Mari blows off its head, maybe Asuka has the time to reach her Eva this time and join the fray and get a couple more shots, which against wouldn't had changed anything since Mark.09 is virtually invincible, so Rei Q fly away with the this time unwilling packet.

But then, knowing everything he does, Shinji will refuse to pilot and Gendo and SEELE's plans will be screwed, eventually the Wunder will come barging in and rescue him, right? Wrong, because again Gendo and SEELE won't just give up if Shinji flatly refuse and let him have his homoerotic stargazing and piano sessions until the heat death of the universe. 1.0 revealed to us that Gendo -and by extension SEELE- have brainwashing technology, that they are perfectly willing to use it on Shinji if he strays from the path planned for him, and 3.0 revealed that they already used it on Shinji once in the past to erase his memories of Yui's contact experiment.
So even in the case that Shinji had been completely briefed, his hand (or rather, mind) would had been forced to pilot EVA-13 and take those spears. In fact, with time I've come to think that maybe Kaworu's omissions to Shinji when he revealed to him what happened and the way he presented the situation to him ("the spears are you only hope at redemption") was more or less forced on him, because he had to get Shinji's willing cooperation (and the sooner the better, else the Wunder might arrive with its entire fleet and try an all-out attack), or else Gendo and SEELE will take things into their hands and make him cooperate, then Asuka will have to fight at best a weird Shinji saying nonsense about things that never happened or who forgot things that she knows they told him, and at worst an automaton that'll go for the kill without thinking.

The conclusion of this idle analysis of mine is that the chain of events that led to Fourth Impact couldn't had been prevented by WILLE, no matter how much Shinji was aware of the state of affairs of the world, at this moment:

It was already over, the die was already cast.

[ohno2100]

Honestly, my biggest question about 3.0 (and by extension 3.0+1.0) is how different would they have been if Shinji had came out of Unit 01 early. Like, much earlier. Not like a month or few like in NGE but like, let's say 1-2 years later, maybe 3 or 4. How would that have changed things? Would they not have gotten the Wunder? Would Unit 01 have been shot into space by that point? How would everyone react to Shinji in that setting? Would they be angrier and more hateful because Near Third Impact was more recent? Would they be more scared of him instead? Maybe a little bit of both like in 3.0 proper except more (I mean look at the Wille staff, they're clearly weary of them) Would Wille have been formed by then or would we be treated to the beginnings of Wille? Would Mark 6 not be dead yet, and would we actually see it at least like, I don't know, slap something in self defense, what do you want? I have so many questions for how things would have gone. Either way though, I still can't see things going well for Shinji in the Q section of the story. Poor kid. If only you didn't have to get red eyes (and "balls" as many people would say, go figure) and break the world.

[ElMariachi]

Honestly, my biggest question about 3.0 (and by extension 3.0+1.0) is how different would they have been if Shinji had came out of Unit 01 early. Like, much earlier. Not like a month or few like in NGE but like, let's say 1-2 years later, maybe 3 or 4. How would that have changed things? Would they not have gotten the Wunder? Would Unit 01 have been shot into space by that point? How would everyone react to Shinji in that setting? Would they be angrier and more hateful because Near Third Impact was more recent? Would they be more scared of him instead? Maybe a little bit of both like in 3.0 proper except more (I mean look at the Wille staff, they're clearly weary of them) Would Wille have been formed by then or would we be treated to the beginnings of Wille? Would Mark 6 not be dead yet, and would we actually see it at least like, I don't know, slap something in self defense, what do you want? I have so many questions for how things would have gone. Either way though, I still can't see things going well for Shinji in the Q section of the story. Poor kid. If only you didn't have to get red eyes (and "balls" as many people would say, go figure) and break the world.

That's something I wondered too during the past nine years: how things would had turned different if Shinji came out earlier, like one month as it was the case in NGE?
Since the Angels attack at a rather steady pace (hell, Zeruel attacked the day after Bardiel!) and that 3.333 revealed that WILLE's rebellion happened during Third Impact that involved the 12th Angel (there's a "WILLE" painted on top of the old NERV logo on one of the crashed VTOLs in Lilith's Chamber), it's very probable that Third Impact already came to pass had he been restored a few years after N3I. In fact, I even wonder if 3I and EVA-01's yeeting on orbit didn't happened less than one month after N3I, and that's why he wasn't recovered until the tesseract crashed back on Earth 14 years later, that he should had come out after one month like in NGE, but that 01's entombment in space froze the process and that had they waited maybe a few days more, Shinji would had came back and could had helped WILLE from the beginning.

Although there's still the problem that he's an Impact Trigger, but with 01 being too explosive to use, he wouldn't pilot it again, the rest of his story will depend on the mechanism behind Impact Triggers and awakenings: can any Eva awake or only the "special" ones (surviving Adams + whatever the hell EVA-01 is in this continuity), do you need to absorb an Angel to awake an Eva? If the answer to one of those question is respectively "no" and "yes", then Shinji could had piloted a regular Eva of his own (or make a rotation with Asuka and Mari), else... well maybe he would be one of the new Bridge Bunnies on the Wunder!

What surprised me is that I've never seen a fanfiction that explored this possibility of Shinji avoiding the timeskip and being with the rest of the cast during the timeskip (it's possible that I didn't looked hard enough, I've dropped from the Eva fandom during several years), the only things I remember having seen was two old fanarts of Shinji in a WILLE officer uniform and one with EVA-01 (next to 02, 08 and the Wunder) in the Q Eva armor with a cybernetic left arm similar to 02's.

I know that the mobile game Evangelion Battlefields has several what if stories where events happen differently than in canon, I wonder if one of those stories explore this possibility.

Also, you don't need to put details from Q in spoilers, the spoiler policy for this movie was lifted a loooong time ago!