Why only Children?

[Olin of Xephon]

I do agree with the idea that Anno is making a statement about children being our only real hope for the future, wether he was trying to make this statement or not is not important, it's there.

Also, for sure, Evangelion simply would not be that interesting with out some screwed up teenagers along for the ride.
It a kind of a staple in anime to have a younger hero, but look at it. It makes for some amazing story telling.

Not only do the children in these shows have to overcome the usual trials of growing up they do so with so much more expected of them. Frankly, younger characters seem to make better or at least more engaging lead roles.

And as far as a actual answer to why only children can pilot the Evas I think the Theory that it's because their mental state has them relying on the evas that allows a higher synchronization.

Rei synchronizes becasue Eva is all she has.

Asuka because it defines her existance.

Shinji becasue he's told to, and in the end, feels liked because he does it.
(re-read that sentance in a freudian mind set)

Touji should have been able to synchronize because he was doing this to help his sister.

Anyone who enters a Eva is forced to rely on it completely thus the snychronization.

But that still does not quite answer the question as to why Yui and Seyoko were absorbed. (in their own special ways)
Also, isn't it because a Mother's Soul is in there they are able to rely on it so fully and synchronize?

Did it have to be a mother? Or does anyone who first sits within a Eva becom absorbed and the following pilot have to be able to synchronize only with that person? The Soul within Eva?

Oh! And no more fapping Fuyutski Jokes!
IT BURNS!! IT BURNS!!!

[belial11737]

After the second impact occured God emptied the chamber of Guff, where all the soul exits before they are brouth to Earth......therefore All the children don't posses a soul, this is ofcourse excepting Rei and Kaworu.....The Evas have souls....Unit 1 has the soul of Yui Unit 2 has the soul of Kyoko.....but Unit 00 has no soul.......it is the complementation of body and soul that allow the children to synchronize with the evas........
Ritsuko herself said that the Chamber of Guff was empty som im not making this out of the the blue.....
Will anyone read this?? 8)

[NeonZ]

After the second impact occured God emptied the chamber of Guff, where all the soul exits before they are brouth to Earth......therefore All the children don't posses a soul, this is ofcourse excepting Rei and Kaworu.....The Evas have souls....Unit 1 has the soul of Yui Unit 2 has the soul of Kyoko.....but Unit 00 has no soul.......it is the complementation of body and soul that allow the children to synchronize with the evas........
Ritsuko herself said that the Chamber of Guff was empty som im not making this out of the the blue.....
Will anyone read this?? 8)

1-There's no God acting in Eva's story.

2-The chamber of Guff(I'm sure this is spelled wrong) is almost empty, and that is in 2015.

3-Children simple stop being born with the lack of souls. It's stated somewhere that since the second impact the number of children being born has been decreasing.

4-The children do have a soul. They wouldn't be able to act like normal people(see the clone Reis) and project AT fields(Shinji reforming his body from the LCL), if they didn't have souls.

[Nuclear Lunchbox]

I have the same question too.

By this point, Kyoko's soul had already been absorbed into the Evangelion unit. What was left of her was a pathetic, sorely damaged mind inside of a healthy body. Hence the delightful scene where she hangs herself.

[Lavinius]

I have always assumed Second Impact changed the natures of children born after it.

[jimmiel]

By this point, Kyoko's soul had already been absorbed into the Evangelion unit. What was left of her was a pathetic, sorely damaged mind inside of a healthy body. Hence the delightful scene where she hangs herself.

Specifically, the maternal part of Kyoko's soul was trapped inside Eva-02 after the imperfect Contact Experiment (conversely, Yui's went beautifully and she was perfectly absorbed into Eva-01). This was why she was unable to recognise Asuka as her daughter and why in End of Evangelion Asuka was able to fight with her mother and unlock shiny new AT-field manipulation powers, because her maternal spirit was still inside her Eva.
And they say "children born after Second Impact", but that's only a correlation: as has been said, it's a ploy like the Marduk Institute's selection of pilots and the reason is to synchronise better with the souls of their mothers that inhabit their Evas. If Yui had been a slut in high school and conceived Shini when she was sixteen, the twenty-three year-old Shinji would conceivably be able to pilot.

[Lavinius]

And they say "children born after Second Impact", but that's only a correlation: as has been said, it's a ploy like the Marduk Institute's selection of pilots and the reason is to synchronise better with the souls of their mothers that inhabit their Evas. If Yui had been a slut in high school and conceived Shini when she was sixteen, the twenty-three year-old Shinji would conceivably be able to pilot.

Is this from the video game?

[ProbsT]

I know that the children pilot the Evas because of the souls inside them, but why? I couldn't understand this either. I don't remember of anybody saying that only children around 14 could pilot the Evas because of their mental state. If there's somone who talks about this in the whole series, please recall me.

Maybe the children post-2I are somewhat different in their nature. But this is a little implausible too, because maybe then we would have even younger pilots, and I don't remember of anyone piloting Evas having less than 14 years old.

3.0  SPOILER: Show

Thinking about it, there's Toji's imouto (?) as a pilot in 3.0..

[CJD]

Probs, you might want to mark your spoiler as a 3.0 spoiler. You can do this by putting an ="TextYouWant" between the "r" in the first spoiler bracket and the ]. So it looks like this

[spoiler="3.0"]

[jimmiel]

Is this from the video game?

No, from the show and this site's wiki. Unless you mean Shinji being twenty-three, in which case no, that hasn't happened in any continuity I'm aware of.