Ancient beings, Seele and the Dead Sea Scrolls

Discussion of the new series of Evangelion movies ( "Evangelion Shin Gekijōban", meaning "Evangelion: New Theatrical Edition"). The final instalment made its debut in Japan on March 8, 2021.

Moderators: Rebuild/OT Moderators, Board Staff

Forum rules
By visiting this forum, you agree to read the rules for discussion.
Raikyu
Tunniel
Tunniel
User avatar
Age: 25
Posts: 191
Joined: Dec 07, 2020
Location: Portugal
Gender: Male

Re: Ancient beings, Seele and the Dead Sea Scrolls

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby Raikyu » Thu Aug 26, 2021 2:10 pm

I agree. In Anno's works, every single detail is important. I think that in that sequence, in particular, the details could help us infer more about Asuka's background, especially about the clone stuff.

Akko
Adam
User avatar
Age: 21
Posts: 59
Joined: Jul 27, 2018
Location: Chile
Gender: Female

Re: Ancient beings, Seele and the Dead Sea Scrolls

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby Akko » Thu Aug 26, 2021 2:28 pm

View Original PostBlockio wrote:Yes, and the 9th angel in turn more likely than not is the Shikinami series; the giggling in the background during the 9th, the fact that it "infected" Asuka (or rather, that Asuka absorbed the angel into herself) in the same way that Shiki Prime absorbed Asuka into 13, the excessively large amount of mini-crosses during inside the entry plug indicating the presence of a lot of souls, all add up to paint a picture about the nature of the 9th; not to mention that the Ha storyboards had the angel materialize in the shape of Asuka's disembodied face


What kind of macabre experiments would Nerv/SEELE be running on these poor clones for them to end up like that? :cringe:
Evangelion is like a black hole. Just as you thought you got away, it sucks you right back in.

Blockio
Former Moderator
Former Moderator
User avatar
Age: 24
Posts: 3840
Joined: Dec 03, 2017
Location: vtuber hell
Gender: Male

Re: Ancient beings, Seele and the Dead Sea Scrolls

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby Blockio » Thu Aug 26, 2021 2:58 pm

this is a bit speculative, so grain of salt, but the theory I personally subscribe to is that the 9th was deliberately engineered by Seele, as a sort of test run for the 12th (and also some other impact shenanigans, but I don't feel confident in explaining that part)
The broad strokes of it are that the was the 12th behaves in Q doesn't really make sense unless it was explicitly running a (Seele) program in a similar fashion to how Mk.09 does; at first, it was a massive issue that could not be defeated and instead had to be sealed into 06 (or alternatively, was loaded into 06 to modify it into being autonomous by Kaworu's words, which would also point towards the programmable angel stuff), and when 09 chopped its head off, the scythe carried new instructions for it (I think there was a note on a production sketch somewhere, although I'm really not sure about that, I'll edit this if/when I know for certain), so it just let itself be killed off by 13.

The connection to the 9th becomes a lot... I don't want to say "more obvious", it's more a matter of "less obscure", when you consider that pretty much everything else in Ha that other Nerv branches were involved in was in some fashion a test run for things we later see in Q:
The entire thing of 05 was ultimately to test out the mechanical arms and wireless charging we'd go on to see in Wille's Evas, with the experiments done to the 3rd being an outright first attempt at controlling an angel, looking at the entry plug and all.
The Mk.04 Series is also probably constructed from a mix of dummy plug tech and the coreified wasteland that Unit 04 left behind, and serves as a sort of precursor to the 07 series and Failures of Infinity in a sense (I wish I could explain this part better, I hope it still makes some sense).

And ultimately, the Shiki series was a lot of - from the perspective of Seele - disposable souls that could be reworked into a patchwork angel to test an hypothesis. I hope that explanation makes some degree of sense; it's also how I personally understand the theory, I didn't come up with it myself; I merely found the arguments for it convincing enough that at this point I believe it.
EDIT: I found the thing about the scythe, it's in this Reichu article; the specifics are a bit out of date as I understand, but the broad strokes still hold true at least for the things relevant here. Part about 09:
It’s a meta reference to Ireul from NGE. With this connection, we can possibly reconstruct what happened. The 12th Angel attacked the MAGI, like Ireul did in NGE. Remember how defeating Ireul involved using a program to make it kill itself? Instead of an annihilation program being planted into the 12th, it was a Seele program. The Angel was basically brainwashed into being Seele’s slave — which is kind of fucked up, when you think about it. At that point, the Angel was drawn out of the MAGI somehow (as we know that the original MAGI survive onboard Wunder) and funneled into Mark.06.

Seele were forced to revise their scenario after Third Impact, which means that the 12th Angel would need its program updated somehow in order for it to conform with the changes. This is where I think Rei 6’s “orders” come in. Mark.09 is equipped with a specialized scythe, and I suspect its purpose was to update the Angel’s program. Rei waited for the Angel to merge completely with the Eva before she decapitated it. When the blade of the scythe cuts through Mark.06, it was also swiping across newly-created surface area. That’s when the data transfer happened.
I can see why Gendo hired Misato to do the actual commanding. He tried it once and did an appalling job. ~ AWinters
Your point of view is horny, and biased. ~ glitz2hard
What about titty-ten? ~ Reichu
The movies function on their own terms. If people can't accept them on those terms, and keep expecting them to be NGE, then they probably should have realized a while ago that they weren't going to have a good time. ~ Words of wisdom courtesy of Reichu

DantesInferno
Ramiel
Ramiel
User avatar
Posts: 327
Joined: Apr 23, 2020
Gender: Male

Re: Ancient beings, Seele and the Dead Sea Scrolls

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby DantesInferno » Sun Sep 05, 2021 10:34 pm

The real-life Dead See Scrolls, and likely the ones featured in NGE/EoE as well, are written mostly in hebrew. The real Dead See Scrolls are, after all, religious scripture withing Judaism (some parts canon, some parts apocrypha it seems).

In contrast, the Dead See Scrolls we are shown in 3.0+1.0 during Gendo's exposition are written entirely in cuneiform (perhaps sumerian? akkadian?).

This might be the reason why the very hebrew names of the angels from NGE are consistently and conspicuously absent from NTE.

---

Also, what can we make of the angels being depicted so accurately in the scrolls? I think there's mainly two possibilities:

1) The angels were already around by the time the scrolls were written, and not "created" later (e.g., at Second Imact like in NGE).
2) The angels were created relatively recently (perhaps at Second Impact), but whoever wrote the scrolls were so proficient in the physics/cosmology/instrumentality theory that they could predict the number and shape of all the angels in great detail.

Gendo's Glasses
Adam
Posts: 80
Joined: Mar 09, 2021
Gender: Male

Re: Ancient beings, Seele and the Dead Sea Scrolls

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby Gendo's Glasses » Mon Sep 06, 2021 7:47 pm

It's worth noting that the mythological beasts of Mesopotamia are believed to have inspired the Biblical Angels which could be why the Rebuilds went a bit further back, so to speak.

Giji Shinka
Test Subject
Test Subject
User avatar
Age: 29
Posts: 2817
Joined: Jan 26, 2013
Location: Finland
Gender: Male

Re: Ancient beings, Seele and the Dead Sea Scrolls

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby Giji Shinka » Thu Sep 09, 2021 6:15 pm

View Original PostDantesInferno wrote:1) The angels were already around by the time the scrolls were written, and not "created" later (e.g., at Second Imact like in NGE).
2) The angels were created relatively recently (perhaps at Second Impact), but whoever wrote the scrolls were so proficient in the physics/cosmology/instrumentality theory that they could predict the number and shape of all the angels in great detail.

I don't believe the angels were created by the second impact in Rebuild.
I think opening the doors of guf permanently during the 2nd impact allowed the ancient angels predicted (?) in the dead sea scrolls to enter the human world and I think the opening scene of 2.0 supports this idea.
In 4.0, we see on Ritsuko's phone that the upper layer of the 2nd impact is called "Border of the underworld / Acheron" and there are other layers that reference Greek underworld (we see Phlegethon mentioned there too) and Bethany base from 2.0 happened to reference to Greek underworld too.
Bethany base and the 3rd angel escaping it is likely meant to parallel other angels entering the human world through the underworld / the gates of hell/ doors of guf at 2nd impact site.
Avatar: "Anime-lehti" logo

DantesInferno
Ramiel
Ramiel
User avatar
Posts: 327
Joined: Apr 23, 2020
Gender: Male

Re: Ancient beings, Seele and the Dead Sea Scrolls

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby DantesInferno » Sat Sep 11, 2021 11:00 pm

View Original PostGiji Shinka wrote:I don't believe the angels were created by the second impact in Rebuild.
I think opening the doors of guf permanently during the 2nd impact allowed the ancient angels predicted (?) in the dead sea scrolls to enter the human world and I think the opening scene of 2.0 supports this idea.
In 4.0, we see on Ritsuko's phone that the upper layer of the 2nd impact is called "Border of the underworld / Acheron" and there are other layers that reference Greek underworld (we see Phlegethon mentioned there too) and Bethany base from 2.0 happened to reference to Greek underworld too.
Bethany base and the 3rd angel escaping it is likely meant to parallel other angels entering the human world through the underworld / the gates of hell/ doors of guf at 2nd impact site.


I like this analysis. I don't remember the word "Acheron" being explicitly mentioned in 3.0+1.0, though.

Damn, you made me remember Kaji's awful English from Bethany base gain! :D

Raikyu
Tunniel
Tunniel
User avatar
Age: 25
Posts: 191
Joined: Dec 07, 2020
Location: Portugal
Gender: Male

Re: Ancient beings, Seele and the Dead Sea Scrolls

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby Raikyu » Sun Sep 12, 2021 5:09 am

I don't know if someone already noticed this, but there is an interesting detail in the scrolls showing the role of the Twelfth Angel:

Image

It seems that one of the Adams is carrying a sphere that may represent the Twelfth Angel. It's like it is offering the angel to the Fifth Adams/Eva-13. It means that the ritual seen on Q was already scripted since the beginning. That angel was always intended to be a sacrifice.

What I'm going to say now is pure speculation. What if that angel is Lilith's core (explaining her scar)? From the drawing in the scrolls, it looks like a core.

Anchorhead
Embryo
User avatar
Posts: 14
Joined: Sep 12, 2021
Gender: Female

Re: Ancient beings, Seele and the Dead Sea Scrolls

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby Anchorhead » Sun Sep 12, 2021 4:41 pm

Long time lurker, first time poster! Brand new movie; you know the drill.

I've been staring at these dead sea scrolls 'til my eyes fall out. I feel like there's a ton of meaningful imagery hidden in here, but sorting out what's factual information hidden behind symbolism and what's simple artistic license is the vexing part.

Here's a few things I've been pondering that I don't think anyone has brought up yet:

Wings
All the angelic beings in the Scrolls are depicted with prominent wings. At first blush, I think it would be easy to interpret this as artistic shorthand... until you start counting them. Who has wings, and how many do they have? There actually seems to be a pretty consistent logic behind it, and I think these wings may well represent some very literal property of the Angels and the Adams.

First things first: All Angels are depicted with one wing. The four smaller Adams (which I've been calling the Lesser Adams in my notes, for lack of a better name) have two wings each. And Eva-13 (who I've been calling the Greater Adams) appears to have three.

SPOILER: Show
Image

The second set of four Lesser Adams (yes, there's two sets!) is well-hidden behind a big leg in the blacklight section of the scrolls, but they also have two wings each. The second Greater Adams is almost completely covered up, but it does seem to have at least two, and probably three, like its counterpart on the other side.

SPOILER: Show
Image

Finally, Lilith has twelve wings:

SPOILER: Show
Image

(With much appreciation to the folks who posted this horizontal version of the Scrolls earlier in the thread!)

Right off the bat, on a purely numerological basis, some interesting connections appear:
- Lilith has twelve wings at the scene of her resurrection in the secret portion of the Dead Sea Scrolls. We know that the Dead Sea Scrolls form the basis of the Human Instrumentality Project, and we know that that project involves a certain "covenant" with Lilith, which entails the slaying of all twelve Angels. Twelve Angels with one wing each getting traded for one Lilith with twelve wings adds up numerically. I feel like this implies pretty heavily that the wings represent some measurable property of Angels -- perhaps the Fruit of Life? Does consuming multiple Fruits bestow progressively greater power?
- The ritual used for Fifth Impact involves the four NHG-class ships projecting wings of light. The appearance of the wings is apparently required for the proceedings to take place. Each ship projects three wings, for a total of twelve. Is this the "artificial resurrection of Lilith"?! The Wings of Light are the most literal "real-world" parallel to the wings in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and their numbers adding up to exactly twelve can't be a coincidence.
- The three wings of the NHG ships would seemingly put them in a similar position of power to the Greater Adams from the Scrolls, who likewise has three. Perhaps this is why they have the "power to kill God." Also, this IMO lends more credence to the idea that Mari was speaking literally when she referred to the ships as "Adams."

The question is, what do the wings represent? I mentioned above that they might represent metaphorically the Fruit of Life, given their association with angelic beings. The thought that multiple Fruits of Life might coexist in one entity never occurred to me before -- in NGE, it seemed to be more or less a binary state, you either have it or you don't. But it could help explain some of the weirder mechanics of Evas and their "awakenings" in Rebuild.

Food for thought!

Hidden angel
Finally, given the established link between wings and angels, there seems to be a "hidden" angel at the very front of the Fruit of Life buffet line, almost totally concealed by the torn page:

SPOILER: Show
Image

I'm fairly certain that's the tip of a wing -- the iconography is super consistent in this portion of the Scrolls, and it's identical to all the other wingtips. Judging by its position so low to the ground... I think we might be looking at Kaworu here! If nothing else, it's a cute easter egg; though I wonder if there's any broader significance.
Last edited by Anchorhead on Sun Sep 12, 2021 8:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

DantesInferno
Ramiel
Ramiel
User avatar
Posts: 327
Joined: Apr 23, 2020
Gender: Male

Re: Ancient beings, Seele and the Dead Sea Scrolls

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby DantesInferno » Sun Sep 12, 2021 7:37 pm

View Original PostAnchorhead wrote:Is this the "artificial resurrection of Lilith"?!


Nice catch! The whole "artificial resurrection of Lilith" that Fuyutsuki mentions (that and the black moon "said to be central for 4th Impact") is one of the most puzzling things in this movie, in my opinion.

Minor nit: the "one wing" seen in the angels very likely is two wings (i.e., one pair) seen from the side (the same for all other entities), whereas Lilith is depicted from the front, so her 12 wings would only account for six angels?

Also, the "12 angel total" includes Lilith herself (she is specifically refered to as the 2nd angel, and there's no mention or depiction of any other "normal" angel that could compete for the slot)... perhaps the 12 wings include the ones she had from the beginning (her own), and those of the other 11 angels... if so, the wings cannot represent the FoL (Lilith isn't supposed to have one originally).

There is already talk by Seele about "resurrecting Lilith" in 2.0, at which point "the pact/covenant will be fulfilled". Does that imply that Lilith was already dead at that point (which would make sense, assuming her soul was already somewhere else, e.g. inside Rei), or were Seele planning all along to first kill her once during the third impact, and later "resurrect her" with the fourth? Why would all that be necessary? Impossible to know! I makes more sense that Lilith was already dead due to some unfortunate (to Seele) circumstance, but with how convoluted these impact dynamics are, it wouldn't surprise me if the second option was correct (kill and resurrect).

---

In the first screenshot of the Adams in your post (the one where they're facing right), the Greater Adams has a "full head", with beard, hat, etc, whereas the Lesser Adams have only skulls (a recurrent theme in the series since 3.0!). In the second screenshot (the one where they're facing left), the lesser Adams too have full heads. What do you make of this?

I have previously mentioned that the head seems to be the seat of the "Fruit of Knowledge", and that explains why the head/skull is lost when the infinities are formed (whether the "failures" of 3I or the ones seen at antarctica pouring from the gates of Guf). Perhaps this is consistent with Eva-13 being deemed godly/God-like/God's Eva etc.: it has its head intact all along, whereas the lesser ones are depicted with bare skulls at least once, perhaps in the middle of the porocess of renouncing the Fruit of Knowledge?

Anchorhead
Embryo
User avatar
Posts: 14
Joined: Sep 12, 2021
Gender: Female

Re: Ancient beings, Seele and the Dead Sea Scrolls

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby Anchorhead » Sun Sep 12, 2021 8:15 pm

View Original PostDantesInferno wrote:Minor nit: the "one wing" seen in the angels very likely is two wings (i.e., one pair) seen from the side (the same for all other entities), whereas Lilith is depicted from the front, so her 12 wings would only account for six angels?

My reasoning here might just be nothing, but I'm like 80% confident when I say that the angels have one wing! It *would* make sense, if this was a purely orthographic projection, that it might just be a pair of overlapping wings. Except...! The scrolls do depict one entity in side view with an unambiguous pair of raised wings -- the Greater Adams. And the depiction is very distinct from the wings of the angels or from the single raised wing of the Lesser Adams -- they go out of their way to make the presence of the extra wing quite clear:

SPOILER: Show
Image

This is actually the exact detail that got me on this train of thought. The usage and positioning of wings is so oddly specific in the Scrolls. Like, the Lesser Adams' second wings are highly asymmetrical, while the Greater Adams' third wing forms a nice symmetrical pair with its first. They could have gone with the same symmetrical form everywhere else if they wanted. There definitely seems to be space for it -- in fact, having those asymmetrical lowered wings is a less efficient use of space in the drawing. It makes me wonder if the Angels and the Lesser Adams are meant to feel "incomplete?"

View Original PostDantesInferno wrote:Also, the "12 angel total" includes Lilith herself (she is specifically refered to as the 2nd angel, and there's no mention or depiction of any other "normal" angel that could compete for the slot)... perhaps the 12 wings include the ones she had from the beginning (her own), and those of the other 11 angels... if so, the wings cannot represent the FoL (Lilith isn't supposed to have one originally).

It makes sense that she would have "started" with one wing (or one pair, depending on whether you buy my analysis). Lilith being one of the canonical twelve is one of the things that vexes me the most about NTE's cosmology -- she's so distinct in so many ways, and we know even less about her than we know about most other angels, or even the Adams. Is it confirmed that Lilith never had the FoL in NTE?

Re: the skull heads, I think we can pretty much take it as gospel at this point that full head = Fruit of Knowledge. It's definitely a juicy detail that the "secret" Adams have heads. If I had to guess, I'd say they might represent the Evas, since those are likewise Adams-adjacent beings with confirmed brains (splattered judiciously for all to see). That would jive with this document being a forward-looking, predictive text more than one recording things that have already happened.

DantesInferno
Ramiel
Ramiel
User avatar
Posts: 327
Joined: Apr 23, 2020
Gender: Male

Re: Ancient beings, Seele and the Dead Sea Scrolls

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby DantesInferno » Sun Sep 12, 2021 10:26 pm

View Original PostAnchorhead wrote:Except...! The scrolls do depict one entity in side view with an unambiguous pair of raised wings -- the Greater Adams. And the depiction is very distinct from the wings of the angels or from the single raised wing of the Lesser Adams -- they go out of their way to make the presence of the extra wing quite clear:


Indeed, you're right.

View Original PostAnchorhead wrote:Lilith being one of the canonical twelve is one of the things that vexes me the most about NTE's cosmology -- she's so distinct in so many ways, and we know even less about her than we know about most other angels, or even the Adams. Is it confirmed that Lilith never had the FoL in NTE?


To be fair, she was the second angel already in NGE, despite being so different form the others. And Adam was the first, despite clearly being on a different level than his offspring 3-16 (17?).
But she is distinct in the lack of a visible core. I think it's fair to say that she might have the Fruit of Knowledge too, given how Seele seem to consider it their "god". But at the same time, she only confers the Fruit of Knowledge to her offspring, why?


View Original PostAnchorhead wrote:Re: the skull heads, I think we can pretty much take it as gospel at this point that full head = Fruit of Knowledge.


I would go ine further and say: to renounce the Fruit of Knowledge, the skull too must go (see the Failures of Infinity). Not sure how the Mark.07 fits in all of this to be honest...

View Original PostAnchorhead wrote: It's definitely a juicy detail that the "secret" Adams have heads. If I had to guess, I'd say they might represent the Evas, since those are likewise Adams-adjacent beings with confirmed brains (splattered judiciously for all to see). That would jive with this document being a forward-looking, predictive text more than one recording things that have already happened.


So they're a "separate" set of four lesser Adams, not a different stage of the same? I like where this line is going... We clearly see four anthropomorhpic Adams at second impact flashback/2.0 preview. Maybe some of these are Mark.06, Eva-01, etc. as has been long hypothesized... and there was four more, which are the Wunder-type ships?

By the way, Eva-01 clearly has three wings at the moment of N3I...

Anchorhead
Embryo
User avatar
Posts: 14
Joined: Sep 12, 2021
Gender: Female

Re: Ancient beings, Seele and the Dead Sea Scrolls

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby Anchorhead » Mon Sep 13, 2021 12:20 am

View Original PostDantesInferno wrote:So they're a "separate" set of four lesser Adams, not a different stage of the same? I like where this line is going... We clearly see four anthropomorhpic Adams at second impact flashback/2.0 preview. Maybe some of these are Mark.06, Eva-01, etc. as has been long hypothesized... and there was four more, which are the Wunder-type ships?

I'm not confident enough to say that the two sets of Adams in the Scrolls are definitively different entities rather than merely being the same Adams at different times (i.e., after being harnessed by Lilin to create the Evas). It is something I've been toying with though. And the fact that they are drawn differently, with proper heads, means that as incredibly eldritch knowledge levels of hidden as this detail is, it's definitely intentional. They're trying to tip us off to something!

The difficulty with the "(at least some) Evas are Adams" theory (even now that it's all but confirmed true, at least for Eva-13) is that it always comes back around to getting the numbers to match up. Why stop at one, right? But there's technically fourteen numbered Evas. So no matter how you slice it, there's not enough Adams.

Although... this thought is occurring to me literally as I type this, but assuming the "secret Adams" are in fact separate entities, that would give us 10 Adams to play with, plus the four Vessels for a total of 14.

View Original PostDantesInferno wrote:By the way, Eva-01 clearly has three wings at the moment of N3I...

I've spent a lot of time poring over that scene, but it's hard to count the wings -- they're sketchy and hazy and the number seems to change from shot to shot. It's more than three, though; usually around eight in the shots where they're clearly distinguishable. I've mulled this one over quite a bit, but I suspect either:

1. These aren't "true" wings of light, given the very different way they're rendered compared to the ones the NHG ships project in 3.0+1.0. It's more like a kind of Super Saiyan power aura with no significance beyond that.
2. The whole wings thing was a bit of a last-minute retcon in 3.0+1.0, and prior to that it wasn't set in stone exactly what metaphysical role they play in the story.

It could easily be both, too. There's other details of Eva's cosmology that seem to have changed a bit in the decade+ between 1.0 and 3.0+1.0, so it wouldn't be the first time. From certain angles, if you stare at them long enough, these Dead Sea Scrolls start to feel a bit like the duct tape they drafted up to fit everything together. That doesn't make it any less fun to puzzle out, though.

DantesInferno
Ramiel
Ramiel
User avatar
Posts: 327
Joined: Apr 23, 2020
Gender: Male

Re: Ancient beings, Seele and the Dead Sea Scrolls

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby DantesInferno » Mon Sep 13, 2021 5:24 am

View Original PostAnchorhead wrote:The difficulty with the "(at least some) Evas are Adams" theory (even now that it's all but confirmed true, at least for Eva-13) is that it always comes back around to getting the numbers to match up. Why stop at one, right? But there's technically fourteen numbered Evas. So no matter how you slice it, there's not enough Adams.


I think we've only been working under the assumption that there are some Evas that are Adams-based (i.e., retrofitted) and others that are made from scratch, perhaps cloned from Adams material, in a similar fashion as in NGE (perhaps Eva-00, Eva-02 and Eva-03 at least). Ritsuko's dialogue an N3I seems to suggest that Eva-01 is returning to its original form... so I take it that all the "energy condensate" talk is basically the closest we'll ever get to "what actually is an Adams". Of course, there is no definitive hints one way or the other. Just wanted to point out that there is no absolute need to "match the number of Adams".

It's very possible that all Evas except 13 are man-made from scratch, based on "Adams technology" obtained by e.g. the Katsuragi expedition, and Eva-13 is the only "Adams survivor". This would explain why it and only it is so special/god-like/indestructible, but at the same time breaks the symmetry/dichotomy it has with Eva-01.

View Original PostAnchorhead wrote:I've spent a lot of time poring over that scene, but it's hard to count the wings -- they're sketchy and hazy and the number seems to change from shot to shot. It's more than three, though; usually around eight in the shots where they're clearly distinguishable. I've mulled this one over quite a bit, but I suspect either:

1. These aren't "true" wings of light, given the very different way they're rendered compared to the ones the NHG ships project in 3.0+1.0. It's more like a kind of Super Saiyan power aura with no significance beyond that.
2. The whole wings thing was a bit of a last-minute retcon in 3.0+1.0, and prior to that it wasn't set in stone exactly what metaphysical role they play in the story.


Despite the sketchy rendering, I do remember them as "three main streams" at least (must go and rewatch). They are drawn in pretty much the same visual style as the 2I flashback though... (but of course, that is apples to oranges), and Misato definitely calls them out, and again at Antarctica in 3.0+1.0. So even if they appear visually different on screen, within the narrative they can at least be recognized as "the same thing" by some of the characters.

Regarding point #2, yeah that is very likely. I don't think it's realistic to think that Anno had all the details worked out 14 yers ago, and didn't succumb even once to the temptation of making "minor updates" along the way.

View Original PostAnchorhead wrote:It could easily be both, too. There's other details of Eva's cosmology that seem to have changed a bit in the decade+ between 1.0 and 3.0+1.0, so it wouldn't be the first time. From certain angles, if you stare at them long enough, these Dead Sea Scrolls start to feel a bit like the duct tape they drafted up to fit everything together. That doesn't make it any less fun to puzzle out, though.


I think the scrolls were definitely written by ancient humans who were somehow in the know, and not by that "someone not human who left the Adams behind". This is because they're written in cuneiform, not hex glyphs.

Anchorhead
Embryo
User avatar
Posts: 14
Joined: Sep 12, 2021
Gender: Female

Re: Ancient beings, Seele and the Dead Sea Scrolls

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby Anchorhead » Tue Sep 14, 2021 3:48 am

DantesInferno wrote:It's very possible that all Evas except 13 are man-made from scratch, based on "Adams technology" obtained by e.g. the Katsuragi expedition, and Eva-13 is the only "Adams survivor". This would explain why it and only it is so special/god-like/indestructible, but at the same time breaks the symmetry/dichotomy it has with Eva-01.


I know this is literally the exact opposite of the point I was just arguing, but this comment jiggled something in my brain. What if all the Evas are artificial? As in, how sure are we that Eva-13 actually is the flesh-and-blood Big Adams?

I mean, think about it for a second. Out of all the Evas, Mark.06 and Eva-13 are the only two we ever see "under construction." And of the two, if you asked me which one was scavenged and which one was created fresh, I'd never in a million years pick 13. The brief and bizarre scene of its completion resembles nothing so much as a birth.

The reason why we take it for granted that Eva-13 is one of the original Adams is Mari's comment that a "surviving Adams" has awakened. But should we be so confident that the shockingly literal visual messaging of the "birth" scene was simply misdirection for a plot twist that occurs less than 20 minutes later? And it was a stillbirth, to boot! Eva-13's lack of an AT field implies it likewise lacks a soul of its own. In what way is that "surviving?"

What if the Greater Adams "survived" in some way that that doesn't mean it's literally the same body? For example... if its soul was transferred into Eva-13? In the form of a certain Angel, who's ever so shocked to discover his demotion?

DantesInferno
Ramiel
Ramiel
User avatar
Posts: 327
Joined: Apr 23, 2020
Gender: Male

Re: Ancient beings, Seele and the Dead Sea Scrolls

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby DantesInferno » Tue Sep 14, 2021 8:43 am

I always assumed that the womb where Eva-13 was “built” was some sort of “maturation chamber” kind of construction process… as in, you put in an Adams and you get an Eva. Of course, this is biased by the preconception that 13 was an Adams in flesh and blood.

Maybe Eva-01 was made the same way? Gendo says that the Mark.06 process is different, but we don’t know what the “normal” process is.


Just curious: What do you make of the “crime scene chalk mark” seen on the shore at the beginning of 1.0? Eva-01? Eva-13? Wunder? Something else…?

Jinroh
Ireul
Ireul
User avatar
Age: 40
Posts: 699
Joined: May 09, 2007
Location: Lausanne, Switzerland
Gender: Male

Re: Ancient beings, Seele and the Dead Sea Scrolls

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby Jinroh » Tue Sep 14, 2021 4:01 pm

Why does Mari call the ships Adams? And what's the point of units 9-12? In the movie they don't seem related at all.

Every time I try to figure out why there are so many Adams and what the point behind them is I feel :facepalm: :???:

I wish we had a proper flashback explaining second impact, but it was probably supposed to be featured in the "2.5" movie. It'd be interesting to know if the Adams appeared before or after Yui went to the Golgotha object for the first time.

Raikyu
Tunniel
Tunniel
User avatar
Age: 25
Posts: 191
Joined: Dec 07, 2020
Location: Portugal
Gender: Male

Re: Ancient beings, Seele and the Dead Sea Scrolls

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby Raikyu » Wed Sep 15, 2021 2:24 pm

View Original PostJinroh wrote:Why does Mari call the ships Adams? And what's the point of units 9-12?

My interpretation is that the Adams are transformed into the Ships and that their cores are used to build the Opfer Type Evas (marks 9-12). We know that mark. 9 is all made of core and it's called "Adams' vessel", which could be a reference to the core's purpose (being a vessel of a soul). That's how I see the things.

View Original PostJinroh wrote:I wish we had a proper flashback explaining second impact, but it was probably supposed to be featured in the "2.5" movie. It'd be interesting to know if the Adams appeared before or after Yui went to the Golgotha object for the first time.

Well, Anno recently said that he would like to shed some light in the events of the timeskip, so let's see if anything is revealed.

DantesInferno
Ramiel
Ramiel
User avatar
Posts: 327
Joined: Apr 23, 2020
Gender: Male

Re: Ancient beings, Seele and the Dead Sea Scrolls

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby DantesInferno » Sat Sep 18, 2021 1:50 am

View Original PostRaikyu wrote:I don't know if someone already noticed this, but there is an interesting detail in the scrolls showing the role of the Twelfth Angel:

It seems that one of the Adams is carrying a sphere that may represent the Twelfth Angel. It's like it is offering the angel to the Fifth Adams/Eva-13. It means that the ritual seen on Q was already scripted since the beginning. That angel was always intended to be a sacrifice.

What I'm going to say now is pure speculation. What if that angel is Lilith's core (explaining her scar)? From the drawing in the scrolls, it looks like a core.


If that is indeed the Twelfth, we need to find out why it alone is depicted without any wings whatsoever...

nerv bae
Israfel
Israfel
User avatar
Posts: 479
Joined: Sep 06, 2021
Location: USA
Gender: Male

Re: Ancient beings, Seele and the Dead Sea Scrolls

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby nerv bae » Sun Sep 19, 2021 8:56 am

I have a random SEELE question: has anyone analyzed the white logo on the back of the SEELE monoliths? I just skimmed this thread and didn't spot such analysis.

Image

Screen capture is from 1:16:25 of 3.33.


Return to “Rebuild of Evangelion Discussion”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 61 guests