Did Shinji know saving Rei would trigger 3rd impact?

[Asunji_Yuko]

I've only seen the movie once so a lot of details were unclear to me.

I've seen people compare Shinji to Hitler in that he caused the deaths of millions (or even billions) of people, and that's why they were so angry at him in the 3rd movie.

But that really seems like a stretch, because Hitler was fully aware of everything his regime was doing. It didn't seem like Shinji would've known what would happen if he saved Rei.

[Axx°N N.]

This is a pretty common point of contention on the forum. I don't have much to add but to provide some exchanges on the subject: thread/21270/Is-it-reasonable-to-believe-that-people-would-blame-Shinji-for-3I/

[Konja7]

Shinji didn't really know what was happening at that point. Not to mention that he was pretty surprised about the Third Impact destroying in 3.0

I think the story and characters recognize Shinji was unaware he was starting the Third Impact. Considering Shinji's crime would be complicity in destroying the World, WILLE is likely pretty "nice" to him (probably because they knew it was unintentional from Shinji).


That said, Shinji mentioned he doesn't care what happened to the World. I suspect that mentality wasn't supposed to be right.

[ChrisTamv]

As it's already been mentioned, he wasn't aware of the results of his actions, because these destructive capabilities of the Evas were never revealed to him or anyone else for that matter except Ritsuko, Gendo, and Fuyutsuki.

Because of his mental state and what he says about not caring about the world or himself anymore, Shinji does at least seem to have a high destrudo at this point but he still isn't aware of what's happening, and it's debatable whether he was being genuine or impulsive when he said that because of the circumstances.

However, this doesn't really matter anyway. Nowhere in 3.0 does any character say that Shinji intended to start Near Third Impact/Third Impact, and in 3.0+1.0 the feelings of multiple WILLE members are outright revealed and they all understand perfectly well that Shinji not only has saved their asses in the past, but that he's just a kid and didn't intend to cause all this mess.

He didn't intend to, but he still did it. He was the trigger of an event that resulted in the deaths of billions and the destruction of the world. Just like a real life murderer who killed by accident, the victim's families have every right to be angry at him for taking the life of a person they love forever, and he still will be punished by law. Hell, to be completely honest, for an (accidental) mass murderer, he really wasn't punished that much by WILLE in 3.0.

[Axx°N N.]

He didn't intend to, but he still did it. He was the trigger of an event that resulted in the deaths of billions and the destruction of the world. Just like a real life murderer who killed by accident, the victim's families have every right to be angry at him for taking the life of a person they love forever, and he still will be punished by law.

Given that a minor piloting an eldritch creature that is part of his father's grand conspiracy to end the world is a rather unique scenario, I'm not so sure. In the real world, collateral damage is a different categorization of homicide, and murder when not a deliberate act is on a spectrum--accidental killing if the cause didn't involve "unreasonable behavior," involuntary manslaughter otherwise. And laws apply different to military contexts, of which we can count NERV. I'm not sure we can say off-hand how a court and jury system would grant verdict, given that the process is ideally thorough and well-argued.

I'm also not sure I agree that anyone would readily be angry at the kid in said scenario. Let's use an example. Say a megacorp knowingly conceals evidence of a dangerous manufacturing default in their product, something that happens all the time, in this case a vechicle. Let's say a guy parks his vehicle next to mine and leaves it running for a second as me and my family are still inside ours. Let's say his vehicle catches fire, explodes in a short instant, and claims the life of someone who was in my car. After investigation it becomes apparent it was a manufacturing defect. Would I be mad at the guy or the people responsible for the product manufacturing? Kind of obvious. Note that it wouldn't change my mind if he happened to be in a really bad mood, had some kind of complex drama going on, and parked the car planning to then become a runaway from his troubles, saying, "I don't care what happens to my car," etc. No logical conclusion to parking the car should have meant accidental death.

Another example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contamina ... d_products

Should blame be placed on administering nurses, or the executives?

Would any scenario where someone becomes so angry at administering nurses that they plan to hunt them down, rather than the executives, seem at all plausible?

[ChrisTamv]

Would any scenario where someone becomes so angry at administering nurses that they plan to hunt them down, rather than the executives, seem at all plausible?

Your examples aren't equivalent. Only Gendo is being hunted down and waged war against, Unit 01 didn't malfunction, nor was Shinji just following orders. Out of his own accord he did something no other pilot had done before no matter the circumstances, something that was unnecessary to complete his objective, and that something directly resulted in death and destruction.

However it was probably my fault for even bringing up the judicial system in this case, because it really isn't relevant here. Even though it was certainly involuntary what Shinji did since he didn't know what exactly he was doing nor the results of his actions, his actions did directly result in all this murder and destruction. Therefore I find it completely understandable that many, if not most people who lost relatives would be angry at him, on varying levels. This is to a large extent an emotional thing - I'm not arguing about whether these people are right or wrong, that will be judged by each of us individually based on their own personal ethical compass. What I'm interested in is how plausible this scenario is considering the context, which in my mind absolutely is.

If you or anyone else wouldn't be angry at all at Shinji in this case, I respect that a lot, but I do strongly believe you would be in the minority, and that's completely understandable.

[Axx°N N.]

Yes, but we need to factor in the total circumstance. Shinji following orders would result in death and destruction anyway. Every operation of NERV was being driven to that conclusion by Gendo. What Shinji did was an unprecedented event--to everyone but Gendo, who arranged it. To any comparable example, we would need to factor in someone using the homicide in question as part of a grand secret scheme. And then we would need to factor in the secret becoming public.

I want to agree and I'm not one to jump quickly to binary answers. But this ain't a trolley problem, so nuance feels unwarranted. The situation here is extremely unambiguous, and it's even unambiguous in-universe. Gendo did it. Gendo did it to such an extent that little, if not none of the decisions by everyone involved aren't part of his plans.

[Konja7]

Would any scenario where someone becomes so angry at administering nurses that they plan to hunt them down, rather than the executives, seem at all plausible?

People could be pretty emotional about these things.

However, WILLE doesn't hunt Shinji. WILLE crew hold a grudge and aren't nice with Shinji, but they did not try to harm him. Even Midori only tries to harm him when he wants to pilot the Eva again.

They put the DSS Choker on Shinji as punishment, but it's also a way to control him, since they also see him as a potential threat (if he is used by his father again).

Also, WILLE is enemy of NERV and Gendo. We don't see a lot about that, but NERV is their main enemy.

[ChrisTamv]

Yes, but we need to factor in the total circumstance. Shinji following orders would result in death and destruction anyway. Every operation of NERV was being driven to that conclusion by Gendo. What Shinji did was an unprecedented event--to everyone but Gendo, who arranged it. To any comparable example, we would need to factor in someone using the homicide in question as part of a grand secret scheme.

I want to agree and I'm not one to jump quickly to binary answers. But this ain't a trolley problem, so nuance feels unwarranted. The situation here is extremely unambiguous, and it's even unambiguous in-universe. Gendo did it. Gendo did it to such an extent that little, if not none of the decisions by everyone involved aren't part of his plans.

If I'm not mistaken you believe Gendo and only Gendo is 100% responsible for all the death and destruction caused by Near Third Impact/Third Impact. My problem is that Gendo's only direct involvement in this, the extent of his manipulation, was him hacking Rei's mind with this ultimate goal in mind and then betting on Shinji acting as planned. The thing is that Shinji still had agency here, the final say, and none of this would had happened if he didn't act according to Gendo's best case scenario. I do believe he therefore deserves part of the blame, even if Gendo is certainly the main person responsible.

[Axx°N N.]

If I'm not mistaken you believe Gendo and only Gendo is 100% responsible for all the death and destruction caused by Near Third Impact/Third Impact. My problem is that Gendo's only direct involvement in this, the extent of his manipulation, was him hacking Rei's mind with this ultimate goal in mind and then betting on Shinji acting as planned.

???????

This is exactly why I find these blame game discussions frustrating--the full context is always selectively omitted.

Gendo built the freaking Evas.

[Konja7]

If I'm not mistaken you believe Gendo and only Gendo is 100% responsible for all the death and destruction caused by Near Third Impact/Third Impact. My problem is that Gendo's only direct involvement in this was him hacking Rei's mind with this ultimate goal in mind and then betting on Shinji acting as planned. The thing is that Shinji still had a lot of agency here and none of this would had happened if he didn't act according to Gendo's best case scenario. I do believe he therefore deserves part of the blame, even if Gendo is certainly the main person responsible.

This is an interesting situation, because the debate used to be about the amount of destruction caused by the Near Third Impact.

Most people seemed to accept that Shinji was considered responsible for the Near Third Impact. The doubt was the amount of destruction the Near Third Impact caused, so we could exactly know the level of destruction Shinji was considered responsible.

Now, it's pretty undeniable the Near Third Impact was the trigger for the red Earth and Shinji is blamed for this.



PS: I didn't remember to read the "Shinji shouldn't be held responsible" argument when people thought that the N3I destruction wasn't so big. Maybe even at that time Axx°N N believed Shinji shouldn't be held responsible either, but most people accepted Shinji was responsible for the N3I.

[Axx°N N.]

Maybe even at that time Axx°N N believed Shinji shouldn't be held responsible either, but most people accepted Shinji was responsible for the N3I.

My memory isn't the best because it's been, what, a decade? But there has always been a rather large contingency that don't agree with the whole Wille blaming Shinji logic. I can't speak for everyone in said faction, but I personally don't see the extent of the damage as being relevant--the blame makes sense or it doesn't, whatever the body count.

[nerv bae]

This is a pretty common point of contention on the forum. I don't have much to add but to provide some exchanges on the subject: thread/21270/Is-it-reasonable-to-believe-that-people-would-blame-Shinji-for-3I/

Quoting to endorse the quoted topic. We went deep on this subject in there!

[ElMariachi]

PS: I didn't remember to read the "Shinji shouldn't be held responsible" argument when people thought that the N3I destruction wasn't so big. Maybe even at that time Axx°N N believed Shinji shouldn't be held responsible either, but most people accepted Shinji was responsible for the N3I.

I can only speak for myself, but the rationale back then was that N3I was only the events from the end of 2.0, with the events that killed Earth weeks/months later being the "proper" Third Impact.
And so, when Midori said that Shinji killed her family, we thought that it was when he opened Tokyo-3 like a ripe coconut at the end of 2.0.

But then the -46h short was released, showing that her family actually died when the Earth turned red, several weeks if not months after the events of 2.0 and Shinji's death (which makes you wonder if anyone even died at the end of 2.0), and that the reason she blames him is because Asuka told her that it was all Shinji's fault.
Which confirms that N3I is a portmanteau term under which humanity places both the events of 2.0 and whatever happened weeks/months later and that everyone decided to put the blame of the whole thing on Shinji's feet. Which raises some eyebrows, since from what little information we got, NERV was led by Kaworu and Kaji (the later even managing to hijack the Wunder and start the supplying of WILLE) and Unit 01 isn't seen anywhere in the few images of the end of the world.
Which for some give more the impression that the "proper" Third Impact happened due to rank incompetence from Kaworu, Kaji, Misato and Co and that they decided to scapegoat Shinji to keep moral high.

[Konja7]

I can only speak for myself, but the rationale back then was that N3I was only the events from the end of 2.0, with the events that killed Earth weeks/months later being the "proper" Third Impact.
And so, when Midori said that Shinji killed her family, we thought that it was when he opened Tokyo-3 like a ripe coconut at the end of 2.0.

That's the point of my disccussion with Axx°N N.

Under his "it's totally unbelievable that Shinji is blamed for the N3I when it was an accident" argument, Shinji wouldn't be blamed of killing Midori's parents even if they died by Shinji opening Tokyo-3 like a ripe coconut at the end of 2.0.

Which confirms that N3I is a portmanteau term under which humanity places both the events of 2.0 and whatever happened weeks/months later and that everyone decided to put the blame of the whole thing on Shinji's feet. Which raises some eyebrows, since from what little information we got, NERV was led by Kaworu and Kaji (the later even managing to hijack the Wunder and start the supplying of WILLE) and Unit 01 isn't seen anywhere in the few images of the end of the world.

We also know Failures of Infinity are Eva-01 copies, which implies the Third Impact is still connected to Eva-01.

The current theory is the Third Impact is just the Near Third Impact restarted (while SEELE uses Mark-06/Lilith to control it). It wouldn't so difficult to see why Shinji could be considered an accomplice, since he started the Near Third Impact.

Which for some give more the impression that the "proper" Third Impact happened due to rank incompetence from Kaworu, Kaji, Misato and Co and that they decided to scapegoat Shinji to keep moral high.

I've never understood the idea that people like Misato would want to use Shinji as a scapegoat. It's more likely Misato, Kaworu and Co. couldn't prevent humans to blame Shinji.

I mean, Hyuga mentioning the Near Third Impact was unintentional (which doesn't seem new information for the crew) doesn't dissapear Midori's grudge.


PS: Asuka is definitely blaming Shinji for everything, but I don't think she is so interested to keep the moral high (she is just really angry).

[ChrisTamv]

We also know Failures of Infinity are Eva-01 copies, which implies the Third Impact is still connected to Eva-01.

I agree with almost everything you said, allow me to also add that, the fact that Unit 01 inside the Tesseract in the 3.0 opening is core-ified further supports your interpretation.

[Kendrix]

I think its pretty obvious that he didn't.

He has no absolute clue what is happening afterward, he's extremly confused at the results, and when he sees the ruined city in Q he's absolutely horrified.

He may have thought something like "I don't care what happens so long as I get Rei out", but normally thoughts have zero consequences outside your skull. It's not like he knew what the EVAs really are or what they're capable of.