Role Reversal: If this character was in anothers shoes

[Ray]

This is the happiest thing. . .ever!



Hey, I might look like Rei but my name is Ray, hows it hanging?

Anyway recently I've been reading a lot about gender bending fanfics, but most of them tend to fall flat since they fail to take into account the changes the characters gender would affect how they would act in their situations. Due to the gender roles being reversed. Then I saw a piece of fanart that really sparked my mind.

What if somewhere in the Eva multiverse, there was a world where characters lived out another characters life but still be themselves? If that makes sense?

The whole concept of "Role Reversal is this" take a character in Eva, and put them in the others position.

So Misato would be the teenaged pilot of unit 01, Shinji would be her guardian, Kaji would be the pilot of Unit 02, and Asuka would be a double agent, The Bridge bunnies would be High School Students and so on and so forth. But allow them to keep their Canon personalities and history, with slight changes made to fit the plot of the story/their new ages and roles. Kaji's still a playboy, Misato's still upbeat, Shinji still has issues with depression and the pressure placed upon him, Rei is still emotionless, etc.

Shinji swaps roles with Misato.

Asuka swaps roles with Kaji.

Rei swaps roles with Ritsuko.

Toji, Kensuke, and Hikari swap roles with Aoba, Makoto, and Ibuki.

Yui swaps roles with Gendo

Kaworu with Fuyutsuki

How would the characters personalities be affected by a role reversal? Their histories? Is this all a bad idea? Comment below!

[Atropos]

The thing is that characters are formed by their experiences. If enough changes were made to their backstories that all the reversals you describe occurred, they simply wouldn't be the same characters anymore.

[Ray]

Just think of it as an interesting writing exercise. A world that could've been. . . like the photo.

[NemZ]

The thing is that characters are formed by their experiences. If enough changes were made to their backstories that all the reversals you describe occurred, they simply wouldn't be the same characters anymore.

Indeed.

For example, just consider our new star, Misato. For starters, she can't have the whole 'only survivor of 2nd impact' thing going, which means she never went catatonic for a few years then invented a super bubbly personality 'mask' to try and make up for lost time. This Misato is basically a total stranger; she'd actually be the sullen little thing that was pissed off about her parent's divorce and having to be 'good' all the time for mommy.

But wait, doesn't that mean Gendo needs to be replaced with Misato's mom, who we know basically nothing about (and who apparently did raise her), while her workaholic dad is the one in eva01 now? That completely changes the charecter dynamic, so now the bigshot pilot resents the commander, is more likely to act out then to seek respect, and wants to avenge the loss of her dad on... who, exactly? Oh yeah, probably mom again. So yeah, no way she gets put into an eva without her own bomb collar or something to keep her in line because she's likely as not to pull a ep18 Shinji "I'll attack nerv myself!" stunt every time she's in the eva.

And if she lives with Shinji it's because she was ordered to, not because he volunteered (Shinji, putting himself on the spot? not likely), on account of the Katsuragi ladies being tired of each other's bullshit. Now think about this, how well do you really think a sullen, angry, rebellious little hellion Misato is going to get along with reserved, prudish (repressed), Shinji in his immaculately kept apartment? Yeah, not so well. She'd most likely HATE him... unless Shinji is also a completely different person, in which case who the hell knows?

[Bagheera]

But on the flipside Shinji would be an adult in this scenario and thus wouldn't be dealing with teenage angst, he wouldn't have Eva making his (mostly normal, by now largely dealt with) problems worse, and he wouldn't be in a position to be used and (emotionally) abused by his dad. And of course Misato might just as well develop a bubbly persona to keep her mom at bay, making everyone think she's happy so she doesn't have to deal with the drama of conflict, and at the same time turn herself into a workaholic so she doesn't turn into a miserable old hag with family issues like her mom.

These sorts of things can go any of a thousand different ways depending on the initial setup, it's just a matter of how the author tinkers with the setting and how things proceed from there.

[Ray]

Just flip the roles of a few characters if you must, not everyone has to be changed.

Also if this theoretical AU was like the original artwork indicates, Shinji and Yui would still be son and mother, and likely have major conflicts over Misato (outside of a workplace scenario mind you).

Just think of it as one of the worlds Shinji dreamed up during Instrumentality, and everything else is fair game.

Also, check out those unit 01 headphones. . . i want a pair.

[Kendrix]

Hm. I've thought about this before, but my conclusion was that EVa was particularly unsuited for such role reversals or Friday Flips, because it wouldn't lead to the characters really getting a glimpse at each other's lives or us seeing how the people we know would deal with a wholly different situations;

They would either become very unrecognizeable real quick, or just take their "problems"/"phychological cages" with them.

For example, if you swapped Shinji's and Asuka's places while keeping their personalities intact, you might undo a fair bit of their percieved problems.
Shinji gets training! And the stepmother, who's not exactly cuddly nor all that personable, but she's giving you a plushie... Also, no one will call him a wimp for crying, or punch him in the face.
Asuka would also deal very differently with Gendo. And sh gets to be the "natural"/surprise newcomer/main character. Yay. Also, she'd have way less problems with things like Bardiel or Kaworu.

They might still encounter other problems (How would Shinji deal with a falling synch ratio? One the one hand, no mote terrible fighting; on the other, no more being needed. Would it even fall if he doesn't get all jelly and dissapointed at himself because he isn't the best? And what if Asuka overconfidently rushed in to save Hikari from inside EVa 03and DID get her accidentally injured/killed in the fight? She's never really been in a situation where she had to deal with a moral question. My guess is she'd act tough about how it was unavoidable (ep 16-ish), but be significantly more affected than she lets on/secretly cry her eyes out), but their different strategies and problem-solving would mingle with the surroundings to create new situations, not old characters dealin with lold situations in new ways.


And it gets even worse if you switched ages or upbringings;

14 year old Misato torn between maternal instinct and slight ahabian tendencies, and also internalized cathegorism on sexual mores? Nah.
I guess you'd still have the daddy complex, but at a much earlier stage.

And a lot of what happens to Shinji and Asuka relies on their inexperience.

Wanna switch Yui and Gendo? First make up a robot that is a suitable freudtastic represantation of fatherhood, can't use the womb metaphor any more. Testicles?

Wanna use teenaged Kaji? There's no indication he was screwed up or otherwise recognizeable/interesting before Second Impact and growing up in post-apocalypse land.

That doesn't mean it can't be done right at all; But EVA would be one source material where it's hard to "translate" the characters well into the new setting.

---

(and who apparently did raise her

I always assumed her mom died in second impact, just from the way teen!Misato was basically kept in a box.
The dudes from GEHIRN just took her with them on their ship like a lab specimen.

[Ray]

Did you click the link to the fanart? It's in the OP.

Big Macho body Builder robot for the Yui/Gendo Switch?

Okay. . . maybe something a touch more in canon then.

If Rei or Shinji got contaminated in the Bardiel incident instead of Asuka. Or if Rei or Asuka set off N3I and Shinji was the one living 14 years in hell.

Just a thought.

[Doublegee]

I would LOVE to see a teenage Misato, Ritsuko, and Gendo taking orders from adult versions of Rei, Shinji, and Asuka. The best part? Screwing with the romantic pairings. Imagine a teenage Misato throwing herself at an adult Shinji just like Asuka threw herself at Kaji, and then watching Shinji freak the hell out instead of casually brushing her off like Kaji did. Imagine adult Kaji spurning adult Asuka to perv out over teenage Misato.

So much crack to write, so little time.

[Ray]

I'd personally like to see Asuka as the adult and Kaji as the teenage pilot of Unit 02.

If you look closely at the line work of the photo you can see Adult!Asuka has an eyepatch. Makes sense In a weird way since she's filling Kaji's role in this theoretical AU.

[Doublegee]

Looking more closely at the picture... where's Gendo? And what's the deal with the adult Kaworu and the still-human Yui?

What the fuck is going on here?

[Ray]

Presumably Gendo is the one who got sucked into Unit 01 instead of Yui in this theortical AU.

[Doublegee]

I can imagine that working if Ritsuko was the pilot of Unit 01, and the Evas, instead of working on a mother-child bond, operate on some kind of Woody Allen/Soon-Yi complex.

Actually, that's a dramatic improvement over the original because of its epic fucked-up-ness.

Anyway, where did this image come from? Are there more like it?

EDIT: Electra complex. That's what it's called.

[Ray]

I found it on Reddit quite by accident which led me to the link below. I haven't seen anything else like or similar to it although I would like to see some more fanartists take this idea and run with it.

http://imgur.com/wWa4HFm

[Kendrix]

Or flip the places of Shinji and Rei - he gets raised by Gendo but gets to be a lab rat, no Gendo for Rei, but also less mad science.


I guess this does have the same recognizability issues with Rei, although i guess life with the sensei dude would still be more isolated than a nomal suburban 2 kids and one dog family.
"Shinji if he were raised by Gendo" would probably be a bit more outwardly stoic, but if Gendo was still th same/kept his distance as he does with Rei, alt!Shinji would probably still be very invested in winning/assuring himself of his aproval.


The "interestingness" in this would come from how Shinji was ocassionally a bit jealous that Rei got to spend more time with Gendo... but it's not hard to imagine how he would be jealous of her gettng a chance at a norma-ish life if the roles were reversed.

So Gendo is sort of keeping a balance between he two, intended or otherwise (or course, it would be even better if both got somewhat parented and neither got experimented on, but try telling that to Gendo.)

[Ray]

Heres another photo in the same vein.

http://i.imgur.com/4Qtgi.jpg

How do you guys pull up photos without posting links?

[Doublegee]

Or flip the places of Shinji and Rei - he gets raised by Gendo but gets to be a lab rat, no Gendo for Rei, but also less mad science.

No, a teenage Misato and Ritsuko who are allowed to pilot Evas because of their Electra Complexes would be way better.

[amitakartok]

Heres another photo in the same vein.

http://i.imgur.com/4Qtgi.jpg

How do you guys pull up photos without posting links?

Put the link inside [img] tags. Try quoting this post (which converts [img] into [timg] to produce a thumbnail for bandwidth reasons) to see how it's done:

SPOILER: Show

[Ray]

Thank you. much better.

[Atropos]

Relevant to this discussion, particularly the ageswap.