Gendo's Mysterious Induction, or, How I Ate My Husband

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Postby Gendocide » Mon Jul 02, 2007 6:35 pm

That line comes from a flashback talking to Fuyutsuki when Shinji was just a small child.
I think several years stuck in the Eva with the prospect of eternity looming ahead might cause her to revise the plan.
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Postby Ornette » Mon Jul 02, 2007 6:43 pm

Gendocide wrote:That line comes from a flashback talking to Fuyutsuki when Shinji was just a small child.
I think several years stuck in the Eva with the prospect of eternity looming ahead might cause her to revise the plan.

But when those lines are delivered, we're seeing Eva-01 floating away from the Earth. It even goes as far as when she says "Even if the Earth, Moon, and Sun are gone", right when we see the Earth, then the Moon, then the Sun.

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Postby Gendocide » Mon Jul 02, 2007 8:39 pm

So, other than all these counter examples and the fact that my theory really has no support other than wishful thinking and one coincidental resemblance, no one can refute it.
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Postby Eva Yojimbo » Sun Jul 15, 2007 7:02 am

I should've probably read through this entire thread before stating this idea, so someone notify me ASAP if it's been said: Can Sho "eating" Gendo be representative of Gendo being "consumed" by Yui in a metaphorical sense throughout the series?
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Postby Anonymous_Evafan » Sun Jul 15, 2007 7:19 am

Thread's too old and long to remember...

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Postby Reichu » Sun Jul 15, 2007 10:38 am

Eva Yojimbo wrote:Can Sho "eating" Gendo be representative of Gendo being "consumed" by Yui in a metaphorical sense throughout the series?

Well, that would depend on whether or not "being eaten/consumed" has a similar idiomatic usage in Japanese. I'm not going to run the various forms of the eating verbs through SpaceAlc to find out, but offhand I'll say, "probably not".
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Did Gendo participate in 3rd Impact

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Postby Blood Type: Blue » Sun Jan 06, 2013 6:08 am

I know Gendo appears in the post instrumentality congratulations scene, but in the movies he's torn to shreds and half his body is left standing, so did he get to meet Yui again or not?
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Postby Blue Monday » Sun Jan 06, 2013 8:52 am

Some recent discussion on this cropped up a month or two ago*. Basically yeah, Gendo would be involved in Instrumentality (Note; not "Third Impact" as you have in the thread title. 3I is the means to Instrumentality, but not the ritual in question itself though) as the Anti-ATF encompassed the entire world, and that would definitely include him.

A conclusion of said discussion was that the scene with the Unit-01 execution conveys Gendo being denied his wish of being reunited with Yui, as punishment for his treatment of Shinji and stuff...

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*I initially argued that Gendo wasn't involved in EOE Instrumentality but was ultimately swayed.

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Postby Nuclear Lunchbox » Sun Jan 06, 2013 11:43 am

Well, he does wind up "seeing" Yui again, along with Kaworu. Y'know, when he's lying in Heaven's Chamber with only one arm? But yes, the execution was gorey and messy and lovely.

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Postby Bread » Sun Jan 06, 2013 6:08 pm

I always imagined that "eva-01" was just Gendou's transition guide. Although instead of simply being the object of his affection (which, as Yui, it would be), it also represented the totality of his mortal sins. I'm also at least 50% sure that it wasn't actually eva-01, but Quantum Rei taking one of Yui's forms a la Fuyutsuki's transition guide.

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Postby Mr. Tines » Sun Jan 06, 2013 6:16 pm

View Original PostBread wrote:wasn't actually eva-01
Since she was making a starring role in the ritual outside at the time.
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Postby Bread » Sun Jan 06, 2013 6:36 pm

View Original PostMr. Tines wrote:Since she was making a starring role in the ritual outside at the time.


I didn't completely discount the possibility of deific omnipresence on Yui's part. If Rei could do it, maybe Yui could as well; after all, they are linked in more ways than are readily apparent (per the Rei/Eva-01 contact scene in Sadamoto's manga). Either explanation, however, is acceptable to me.

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Postby Blood Type: Blue » Sun Jan 06, 2013 7:47 pm

So, if Gendo did partake in Instrumentality does that mean he failed in his goal to reunite with Yui, as her soul would still exist within Unit 01?
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Postby Lavinius » Sun Jan 06, 2013 8:22 pm

View Original PostBlood Type: Blue wrote:So, if Gendo did partake in Instrumentality does that mean he failed in his goal to reunite with Yui, as her soul would still exist within Unit 01?


It would appear so, as Yui ditches him (and everyone else, except Shinji, who she takes care of a little more) in the puddle of juice to run away into space and be Goddess!David Bowman.
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Postby CJD » Sun Jan 06, 2013 8:39 pm

Entirely possible Gendo went with her, no?

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Postby Lavinius » Sun Jan 06, 2013 8:46 pm

View Original PostCJD wrote:Entirely possible Gendo went with her, no?


Good point, though I can't see why she would bring him, considering her unusually violent liquidation of him earlier.
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Postby Nuclear Lunchbox » Sun Jan 06, 2013 10:37 pm

I was surprised at how sorry I felt for Gendo by the end of EoE, considering the major asshole he had been during the series. Seriously. He didn't deserve the bite out of the soft, marshmallowy center of my core that he took.

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Postby Dream » Mon Jan 07, 2013 1:00 am

View Original PostCJD wrote:Entirely possible Gendo went with her, no?


Yui's final monologue (specially, "It will be lonely...") Doesn't exactly lead itself to that interpretation. Then again it is pretty ambiguous and vague.
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Postby Monk Ed » Mon Jan 07, 2013 8:16 am

View Original PostDream wrote:Yui's final monologue (specially, "It will be lonely...") Doesn't exactly lead itself to that interpretation. Then again it is pretty ambiguous and vague.

I'd like to point out that Yui's famous monologue (or is it technically a dialogue?) is not something she's saying to Shinji in the moment, it's a flashback revealing the rest of the conversation she and Fuyutsuki had at that lake. More importantly, it does not explicitly say that Yui actually plans to be alone. Here's the conversation in context:

Bochan Bird's translation of EoE wrote:Shinji:
But mother... what will you do?

(Flashback to 13 years ago - Fuyutsuki, Yui and infant-Shinji)

Fuyutsuki:
Humans create Evangelion in imitation of God... Is this our true goal?

Yui:
Yes. Humans can only live on this planet, but Evangelion can live forever... together with the human soul that dwells within it.

(EVA-01 and the Lance of Longinus float in space)

Even after 5 billion years, when the Earth, the Moon, and even the Sun have disappeared, it will still exist as long as even one person still lives.
It will be very lonely, but as long as that one person still lives...

Fuyutsuki:
It will be the eternal proof that humankind has existed...

Shinji:
Good-bye, mother.

Technically, all she is describing is the potential of an Evangelion to be eternal proof of mankind. This in turn illustrates her intent, but it is far from an explicit declaration of her actual plans. It'd be like saying "I bought this Toughbook because I could even run a truck over it and it'll still work. Probably not as well anymore, but still." -- doesn't mean you actually plan to run a truck over it! Likewise she could be read as saying "Mankind built this Evangelion because you could put even one soul in it and it'll be eternal proof of mankind. It'd be lonely, but still."

Now, obviously, in the context of the surrounding scene, we are meant to take this as an explanation of what Yui plans to be doing. But must every dot and tittle of what this flashback-Yui said come to pass for it to still serve that role?

Imagine two mafiosos talking about a hit the way mafiosos do, as a "hypothetical" situation: "Yeah, you could hurt someone with that. You know they make those to put holes in concrete? Bet you could kill a guy one-handed with it, no sweat." They are obviously intending to kill someone with the thing they're talking about, but they probably aren't planning to put any holes in concrete nor actually do the hit one-handed. Likewise, we know by implication of what the Evangelion could do (be eternal proof with "even one" soul inside) that she plans to reside within the Evangelion forever, but does that mean she actually planned to be completely alone in there even if someone wanted to join her (such as Gendo)?

Even if she was describing a scenario she thought would likely happen to the letter, it doesn't mean she was dead set on it, or that she wouldn't change it if she could; perhaps she was merely describing only the most extreme scenario, in case nobody wanted to come with her or in case she had no means of taking anyone else along. For all we know, perhaps she didn't even know she could pull anyone else in with her until she did so to Shinji at the end of episode 19. The whole cast, including top-level people like Gendo and Ritsuko, were in a seemingly constant state of discovery about the Evangelions throughout the series.

Lastly, even if Yui is indeed broadcasting her full intention to remain alone inside the Eva, that is not to say she didn't still take people along for the initial ride away from Earth, just not in the central command unit with her, and with no intention of keeping them along forever. Maybe those crosses she takes with her are indeed souls she plans to use to seed new life on a new planet to help propagate the cycle the FAR started -- while still keeping herself in the Evangelion as an insurance policy so that even after the universe has become inhospitable to all normal life, one human would still remain, in the form of an Evangelion.

I admit that this is all what I want to be true. I like the idea of Gendo being in there with Yui -- even if it doesn't really make their situation much better. (Alone together for eternity? Really?) But I admit that the editing of the scene implies otherwise: Why even have her say "it would be lonely" and "one soul" if she wasn't making the journey alone? That is certainly the implication people came away from it all with. But I wanted to make the opposite case, and, hell, if those crosses aren't souls she's taking with her, what the hell are they?
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Postby Mori-kun » Sat Feb 02, 2013 3:52 pm

Monk Ed: That is a brilliant analysis, I'm of the same mind with regards to Yui's intentions for being in the Evangelion, We know she planned everything ahead, being a genius scientist to boot, so it seems likely that even all those years ago, she knew what her fate would be. And yet, there are still further matters to consider in favour of this hypothesis.

I think that there is enough to suggest that each individual's tangification is an intensely personal process. Rei appears to, presumably, every Lilith-derived organism that possesses the Fruit of Knowledge, whether alive or freshly dead. It should well be taken that Rei "sends off" humans: when people lose their humanity, she presents herself before them (as for Ritsuko and Misato, their souls get quantum magicked into the near-future). Stemming from this, it seems probable that Yui was visited by Rei because she was forfeiting her humanity forever, and she was doing it alone.

Image

Thread: As for the Dogma scene, I like to think that Gendou's glasses are symbolic of how he "extends his AT-Field", or keeps others far away from himself, so Rei II's picking them up is an extension of this metaphor in the context of ATF destruction by Lilith.

Image

Also, the flash of white upon Yui/Shinji/DU-01 biting her/his/its plat principal for the series fits in perfectly with the basic colour symbolism. White means death, red means death, blue means life etc.
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