How would you help the pilots if you worked at NERV?

[Katana]

Also, stop trying to be Stillborn 2.0 - It doesn't suit you.

You're mistaking me for a clown, my friend. That's a fail.

[ElMariachi]

Actually no.
Asuka already had years of training. So boot camp could have been implied to be one of them.
Rei did have some training so she would have gone too atleast, on paper.
Touji would have been the same as Shinji
Kaworu is an angel so stuff like that wouldn't matter and would be on paper.

Asuka was proposed to be a pilot and accepted(even though she was only 4 years old and did it only to impress her Mama), she voluntarily got to boot camp and had 10 years to be properly trained.
Rei too is an Angel, so her piloting is probably completely innate, like Kaworu.

It should come with the job. The world is more important than Shinji. He did get training but he wasn't hammered in to WHY he should fight. Misato was more sympathetic to his angst. Thats not how it should work. He needs it hammered in to him to protect the world. In fact, letting him live a normal life with low training is more harmful. Unlike Asuka, he is just a newcomer.

Then again, if Nerv was that competent, they would be planning Unit 01 and Unit 03 pilots ahead of time before like Asuka without the need of getting kids like Shinji or Touji

If you try to hammer to him that the world is more important than him, he will answer then why did they chose him as a pilot and forced him to do it via guilt-tripping, since he's obviously not made to be an Eva pilot?

On other circumstances I would agree that putting Shinji and later Toji in a boot camp to make them the more physically and psychologically fit to their post is a good thing to do(as long as they are warned that they will get some month of intensive train in a boot camp, so they won't feel tricked), but the problem is that NERV simply didn't had the time for that : from Shinji's arrival at Tokyo-3 to EoE, six months have passed, one of them he passed absorbed inside EVA-01, there is simply not enough time to correctly prepare them.

If NERV was competent, they would had put Shinji under the same training regimen as Asuka as soon as Yui's contact experiment happened, then 10 years later they would have a trained pilot instead of an emotional wreck prone to fits of berserk rage.
They would also had scheduled EVA-03 and 04 at the same time as 02, selected pilots and started to train them as soon as with Shinji and Asuka.

But Anno himself admitted that NERV was very amateurish, so nothing new in it. Add to that a Commander and the overseeing organization that are only interested in the preparation of their own little Singularity once the war against the Angel is over, and you got your explanation.

[SimplyMason0]

Well they did train him but at the same time let him live with Misato when he really should be in boot camp for those 2 weeks. Misato should have been more hard on him and treated him as a pilot than a kid more. Then again, we wouldn't have a show.

Though with Seele and Gendo, that could have just not care.

[Stillborn]

In short, Gendo should just go with brainwashing him. Why giving him any form of childhood anyway if all they need is a meatshield

[SimplyMason0]

Actually, that would be better but it would mess up the sync ratio

Though I'm not sure how well brainwashing is in the Eva universe. Anno didn't say it in the anime I think.

EoE proved how harmful a social life could be in a situation like this.

[Stillborn]

And from the topic how to help the pilots, you just went into how to best make them into useful tools for the collective.

[SimplyMason0]

But it dose help him not do the stuff in EoE which was where things really got ugly and he tanged the world up. So then he wouldn't that that much stress and lies as he felt in the TV ending too. Also changing his relationship with Asuka which was also something he suffered.

So I see it as helping, just in a different view.

[ElMariachi]

Without social life Shinji would have never got close to Rei and she would have never betrayed Gendo, Gendo wins, Instrumentality fall, everyone dies.

As for brainwashing... are you even serious?! You really think that transforming Shinji and Asuka into Rei-Q would help them or the world? Sure the Angels would be defeated swiftly(maybe), but in the end they would have never helped Misato, only being the pawn of their master, be it Gendo or SEELE, which in both case is a bad thing!

[SimplyMason0]

Shinji didn't really succeed to stop Seele without being screwed up mentally heavily in the first place. He could still possibly have the relationship with Rei(since it wasn't THAT social and it was due to her being mad at Gendo) but maybe not Asuka(which was the heavier part in EoE and the show).

Maybe the brainwashing was a bit too much but it was to help suppress some of the fears and social burdens when piloting the Eva which was what Shinji had trouble with. Though I didn't put Gendo and Seele in consideration.

Trying to live a normal life and just going to school with an available social life just seems more harmful cause it WAS the thing that got him messed up with the Eva and the stuff in EoE in the first place. Thats what I'm trying to say. Limiting it more would be more better so he doesn't have to worry about praise or social fears.

When you think about it, have Shinji leave in episode 4.

[ElMariachi]

If you put him in boot camp and only sortie him for Angel battles, that would erase all the occasions Shinji could bond with Rei : meeting her in her apartment, the conversations in the escalators and elevators, schooltime together, the post-battle bonding(gazing at the stars, going to eat a meal)...
In the end Rei's relationship with Shinji would be the same that her relationship with Asuka : professional. And she certainly didn't ditched Gendo in EoE for Asuka.

As for Shinji's trouble, you didn't get it : his struggles didn't come from social pressure(that's Asuka's problem), but by finding a motive for going trough all the pain that piloting an Eva and fighting the Angels entail, and no sorry but "for the sake of mankind" don't cut it : he has almost no social life so that don't really resonate with him(like Rei who pilot because it's her "destiny", she don't give a rat-ass about mankind), at first it was to gain his father's praise, then after Bardiel it was to protect the ones he cares for.
You don't have to suppress something from him, but to give : give him a true and healthy purpose to fight, protecting the ones he cares for is one of them, but for that he must come to care about them, and locking him in a boot camp won't help.

What destroyed him in EoE was to see everyone he cared for be mentally destroyed(Asuka, Misato), or outright killed(Rei II, Kaworu), should that mean that he must become an emotionless machine to protect himself from the pain that being close to others could entrains? NO! That the whole point of the franchise : making a connection will people could bring you pain, but that's also where lies true happiness, to retreat into a shell and not caring(which is what he was doing until the end) can't be called living.

[Mr. Tines]

Rei is a special case, but the other Children really lack any proper parent figures in their life. If it were me about now seconded to NERV, I'm afraid I'd only give Shinji tough love for his problems, even if I did start from the position of "call me ji-chan". He'd be sick of being told that there were kids his age who'd crawl a mile on broken glass to get a cushy lifestyle of only occasional life threatening danger.

I'd hope that my age would keep Asuka from having designs on my body; and she'd get sick of the "when I was your age, I was much like you -- and this is how I coped with the wake-up call".

[LordThaeon]

That would depend on when I got there.

If I had gotten there before Gendo swallowed Adam then I'd probably assassinate him. Seriously, he's the catalyst around which the pilot's problems rotate in regards to Rei and Shinji. I'd probably go to jail, but the best way to help those kids to remove Gendo from the equation.

But if murder is not an option or he has an AT field that would make this impossible, I'd take Shinji in as my ward. Misato let Asuka kick Shinji out of his room and constantly teases him with skimpy clothing, not to mention her mixed messages and hypocrisy. I'd have Shinji taken under my care so that Misato can better focus on "sorting" out Asuka and I'd try to encourage him.

Assuming that my rank is high enough, I'd have Rei moved to a closer apartment for security reasons and so that she's closer to friends like Shinji and the stooges. What if someone were to break into Rei's rundown apartment and kill/rape her? Gendo would be responsible for child neglect and basically putting a sign over Rei's door that says, "Criminals welcome!"

As far as helping these kids are concerned. What they really need is a genuinely encouraging and loving parental figure/guardian whose not going to let their own emotional baggage burden them.

I kind of see Asuka as a lost cause.

Rei just needs positive human interaction.

Shinji needs to not be lectured by hypocrites.

And I just sounded like some kind of Peggy Sue, didn't I? But after 3.0, I could care less.

[NemZ]

Obviously it doesn't come natural, but Gendo should just be HONEST with Shinji. If he just told the kid straight-up that he was doing all this not for the sake of the world but to try and save his mom he'd be even more loyal and driven than Rei2.

[Chuckman]

He doesn't want to share her with him.

Before people jump on me with "That's only in the manga!", it's in all incarnations, it's just explicitly stated in the manga, and merely obvious everywhere else.

[Evangelionfreak]

Well first I would keep Kaworu alive… maybe Shinji would stop trying to destroy the world and be less whiny if he was around.

[Squigsquasher]

I've cracked it.

I've finally worked out what not just the children, but all the characters need to mend their broken souls.

They NEED MOAR DAKKA.

Never enuff dakka.

[ElMariachi]

Well first I would keep Kaworu alive… maybe Shinji would stop trying to destroy the world and be less whiny if he was around.

Problem is that if you keep Kaworu alive, sooner or later his Angel instinct take over and he'll try to reach Lilith to end the world.
He told it explicitly to Shinji that he can't fight against this instinct, only keep it at bay temporarily.

[Kendrix]

Problem is that if you keep Kaworu alive, sooner or later his Angel instinct take over and he'll try to reach Lilith to end the world.
He told it explicitly to Shinji that he can't fight against this instinct, only keep it at bay temporarily.

That was only in the drafts/got explicitly removed, but due to weird deterministic magic and both SEELE and Gendo wanting his head removed pretty badly, sooner or later a disaster of Q proportion would take place,...