Are Rei II and Rei III considered the same characters by fans of evangelion/Rei?

[Kendrix]

One hypothesis that ran through my mind is that Rei III's memories have been uploaded to her from the data captured by the mechanism(s) in the Dummy Plug Plant. She seems vague and distant afterwards because she doesn't actually have any memories of her own; to her the uploaded memories are like scenes from a movie she watched, rather than events that actually happened to her.

That would be my take as well. I'd liken it to seeing a movie without the BGM on, or drawing a different conclusion from the same set of facts.

She doesn't remember the battle, but she's not asking Shinji who he is. Indeed she deduces what happened from noticing she has a gap in her memory.

At the same time she doesn't act like she's simply been set back a few weeks - Look indeed at that snippet in ep 22 where we see Shinji & Rei having friendly conversation at the tram stop. I believe the script says something like "it is Rei but her eyes have gone cold" when she first showed up, there's a marked shift.

On the other hand there is the 'echo' of sorts when she cries in her apartment, like some leftover feelings left in the soul's cache. The impression of that lonely, miserable death & realization of one's own wretchedness and suffering shapes her like her predecessor was probably shaped by some echo of Naoko's cruel words.

She ends up acting based on that connection from a "past life"

Shinji doesn't really interact much with Rei III proper, the only time they properly talk is at the hospital - he doesn't know what to do or how to act around her... she's not really his friend & comerade from the last couple of months but at the same time she remembers all that stuff so he can't act like she's a stranger; Besides, he's who her donor was, which adds an extra layer of confusion. Should he treat her like his friend/ comrade /possible crush as he used to, or like a relative? Being reminded of the gory visuals from the clone tank can't be helpful either, much like Shinji's general state of despair at that point. Rei II was the last friend he had left at that point, the one comrade he's had since the beginning...
The very idea of some rando automatically knowing all the things you've told your crush or BFF is disconcerting. Especially at that age where your friends from school will be the ones who know all your secrets you wouldn't even tell your parents. In most realistic settings that would have to be a result of spying, but here, no one is more disconcerted by her sudden existence than Rei III herself.

So it's not her own connection. And I don't think the fact that she acts on it is an affirmation that is is in some ultimate way hers after all;
But real or not, "hers" or not, the memories are kinda there, the closest thing she has to remembering even the ghost of anything good. ("those [bonds] will continue to shape me from now on") At least, it's information/data. It's there, it can't not influence her

In that sense I appreciate the neat little reversal that the Rebuilds do.
In ep 23 Shinji is like "You saved me, right?"
In Q it's "I saved you, right?"
(for all that ReiQ and Rei II are very different - the former markedly doesn't piece it together right away. Though you're also reminded of the "simply cause the others call us that" line when she's thrown into confusion once someone doesn't call her that/ makes a differentiation.
Though in both cases his only contribution/ interaction there is to make them realize that they're the replacement; From that point on they each go off to ponder their own existential crisis in silence, with occasional visits from Kaworu. )

You know how at the end of PMMM, when Madoka ascends she comes to see & appreciate everything Homura did in the alternate timelines?
I kinda wish I could tell Rebuild Shinji about the OG timeline and OG Rei about the Rebuild one.

Though so far Rebuild is objectively worse even if Rei gets to die happy. Of course the final movie could flip that perception upon its head once again, so far it's flipped every movie.
1.0 comes out -> "wow its even darker, look at these extra details making Shinji look been more jaded"
2.0 comes out -> "well this is looking happier and awesomer"
Q comes out -> [upgrade/ put it back meme]
... so, anything could happen.

We could even get the "NOT" part looking optimistic and then the "ANTI" part going all bleak again

[Zusuchan]

Kendrix wrote:
In that sense I appreciate the neat little reversal that the Rebuilds do.
In ep 23 Shinji is like "You saved me, right?"
In Q it's "I saved you, right?

I don't think that's a neat reversal as much as something that happens due to the plot. In ep.23, Rei did save Shinji, so what else would he say? Quite honestly, I would even argue that NTE!Shinji is a worse human being than NGE!Shinji and you can see that in his treatment of Rei Q. When he wakes up after having been rescued from the Wunder by Rei Q, he immediately goes all "Misato is such a liar", not even talking to Rei Q, the girl he thinks he saved. NGE!Shinji cared far more about Rei, whereas for NTE!Shinji she's a way of escapism and in Q, of telling himself he did the right thing.

[Kendrix]

How are you gonna have a conversation if a giant mecha is breaking through the wall? he tries to talk as soon as he gets like 5 mins of quiet, & ask her what's going on etc.

I don't see how such an obvious word for word rephrase isn't somehow deliberate, especially in explicitly parallel circumstances.

Misato is also someone he's got an important relationship with, he's very desoriented etc, and its usual for them to just be quiet together, or in general.

[Zusuchan]

When Shinji wakes up after having been rescued by Rei Q, she is literally in the same room. Then, Shinji mutters to himself the following lines:

I really did save her, after all....Misato-san's such a liar.

There might be slight differences depending on what translation you look at exactly, but the fact Shinji's first reaction is to confirm to himself that he did save Rei and Misato is a liar, but not talking to what he at this moment believes to be the same Rei he knew or really reacting to her presence with anything more than "I did save her" is not indicative of a good person who genuinely cares about Rei. Of course, Shinji still cares about Rei, but in a manner more selfish than that of the genuinely caring NGE!Shinji, I'd say.

[thewayneiac]

I quite like the theorized concept of Rei III as having the memories of Rei II, which preserves the continuity of the Rei character. However, objectively speaking the entity of Rei II was vaporized into non-existence and there is no mention of how her soul would become reconstituted into another clone body.

She was not vaporized; her charred remains are visible in the entry plug. It's a little hard to see as animated:

https://wiki.evageeks.org/File:KFR.jpg

But compare it to this production image:

https://wiki.evageeks.org/File:Kfrsb.jpg

There was plenty there to salvage. Her nickname at this point is "Kentucky Fried Rei" for a reason.

[jedi_spectre1]

When Shinji wakes up after having been rescued by Rei Q, she is literally in the same room. Then, Shinji mutters to himself the following lines:

I really did save her, after all....Misato-san's such a liar.

I personally interpreted it as a sigh of relief. I think it is more Shinji is just in shock. In the scene on the elevator to the Geofront right after, Shinji is going to attempt to speak with her, he's just awkward. I think her very cool "this way" and some other things at this point is starting to rub Shinji as off.

[Kendrix]

I personally interpreted it as a sigh of relief. I think it is more Shinji is just in shock. In the scene on the elevator to the Geofront right after, Shinji is going to attempt to speak with her, he's just awkward. I think her very cool "this way" and some other things at this point is starting to rub Shinji as off.

From his POV, one moment he was holding her and the next he's on the Wunder's deck being told a lot of confusing, disorienting information. How can that be Touji's lil sister? But Asuka looks the same! Now they say Rei wasn't in the plug with him but wasn't she right there just now? They might as well have told him the sky is green. Of course it isn't!

We don't know how much time he spent there, but note that once he gets down to NERV HQ and sees its state he has a moment where he thinks, "Wow, 14 years really have passed"

I don't think anything Misato told him had any time to sink in or be emotionally processed.

He certainly wasn't the image of maturity in this situation, certainly not in that whole situation where the Mk. nine shows up and he's like punching the glass & sort of yelling without looking Misato in the face etc. Age wise he's at the very tail end of the range where it's perfectly normal/expected for someone to fall back into fairly childlike reaction patterns if overwhelmed.

But one moment she was right there, then Misato tells him she's gone - something he was not told after he woke up but seconds before the Mk Nine showed up, so it's immediately contradicted. Wouldn't have had time to even register as real. "Of course that's nonsense, I know what just happened/ what i saw/did with my own eyes" etc. To have a "wow you're still alive!" reaction he'd have had to believe what Misato's saying made any sense to begin with.
He doesn#t fully grasp the timeskip until he saw nerv HQ.


What happens after he sees the city is a different matter. "Wait, but I wanted to do a good thing. Isn't that good?" I don't think that has anything to do with their relationship and more him reflecting on his own actions trying to hang on to any flimsy coping mechanism/ rationalization he can get... but of curse good intentions don't change what happened or the world he has to deal with now.


I don't see how she was ever shown as representing 'escapism' in either the original show or the rebuilds. She has as much "complicated other sides" for Shinji to deal with as anyone else. (and OG Shinji faceplanted in that regard often enough, as he does regarding the other characters... )


What Q is is really more the experience of trying your hardest but still failing, & having to live with that failure, as well as struggle with change (that part is spelled out quite clearly)

I mean when he talks to her he actually does ask her what's going on etc. and after that he basically had no one there he could ask until he gets to know Kaworu enough to consult him. It must've taken every fibre of courage in Shinji's body to produce that little nod after Kaworu said "Do you want to know"

[Zusuchan]

None of what you just said changes the fact that Shinji did not at first react to Rei Q's presence with anything more than an affirmation of him having "saved Rei", then immediately using that to criticize Misato. I'm not saying NTE!Shinji doesn't care about Rei, I'm saying that subconsciously he cares for her in a more narcissistic fashion.

[Javi2541997]

It is a pretty ambiguous/interesting topic because Rei is an iconic character. Also when she died I remember Rei III said "I guess this is the third one" meaning she rembers some of her last "life"
Yeah I consider they are different from each other. Probably this explains why Rei II starts crying because she feels lonely at Armisael's confrontation. She feels bad about herself being a different copy from the dummy plug. I guess she has in her awareness each Rei are different corpses but with a same soul.

[RussianRiz]

Rei II and Rei III are very different. Personally, I consider Rei II a more human incarnation due to longer social contact she had than Rei III. Rei III, frankly speaking, is just a placeholder of the placeholder. Gendo was no more interested in developing a personality for her as he did with Rei II. Simply because, in that point, he was SO NEAR to his main goal: to do his own instrumentality by Eva-01 and Shinji's hands.

Rei III, then, is introduced just as Lilith's soul with no affection or human feeling at all. Her memories of the time as Rei II are vague and not strong enough to shape her exactly like the old "her". Lapses of memories are good enough to awake inner feelings, though, which she does have and develops.

[Kendrix]

I'm not sure I'd agree with that -

I don't think Rei III is less emotional (numbed & burnt out maybe, from knowing she was created just so keep suffering, with this strong imprint of how the last one died unfulfilled lonely and in pain, knowing her own wretchedness...)

She just shows different feelings: The first thing she does is express anger by squeezing Gendo's glasses. The first time, maybe the echo of the last one holds her back, but eventually she finishes the job & leaves them discarded on the floor. That's some opinion/feeling unique to her - note that when we see an apparition of all three incarnation during Gendo's deathor tangification, Rei II picks up the glasses. Rei III can still sort of muster some pity for him after hearing his side of the story, but, she wouldn't go as far.

Hating Gendo is an emotion. Resenting & wanting to escape her existence is a feeling.

She's a bit like an angry ghost with a grudge against the necromancer that brought her back & in that function she's a bit scary but at the same time she's coming from a place of being ~done~ and wanting ~out~ of her shitty existence that was maybe 3 weeks or so

Maybe if she had more time, more experiences this could have become different but at this point there's no one around; Shinji won't approach her, Gendo doesn't have the energy to get attached yet again when the fulfillment of his plan is right around the corner (nor does he appear to have any idea of her inner doubts)

There's ppl who make the opposite point & call number 3 the most human one cause she gives Gendo the finger, but that's often toed to an interpretation of her as robotically following orders which isn't really the case (unless we're talking about ReiQ before the last third of the movie) she's more like a soldier or cultist, she actually believes it, she'll smack you if you badmouth Gendo & takes initiative for "the plan" all the time, usually by volunteering for the crappiest jobs.
She ran off with the other 2 pilots in ep 16, Misato had to make her retreat and then stop fighting with Asuka; and she hesitated to blast Touji in ep 18 after she sort of started talking to him a bit the past two eps.
It's not like assertiveness is the be all end all marker of humanity - though desire for freedom certainly is A human thing.

Rei III certainly doesn't have the same fear of the lillith stuff (as per ep 25) but that's because it's a convenient way to find somewhere she belongs or at least to not have to live that miserable life.

Then there's the first one - she 's not super expressive but she seems more animated than her later counterparts. Less soul-splitting, less 'copy-of-a-copy'... but also less time to be influenced by the environment and become her own thing.
She has her hair exactly like Yui (Teen Rei has it shorter and messier - she's probably maintaining it herself at this point rather than being taken to the hairdresser by Gendo or some NERV rando) and she's probably closer to what Lillith's personality would have been.

In the end I don't think trying to compare them to see who is the "most human" makes any sense. It just seems to be a means putting them down or withholding pity which anyone in that situation should deserve. It smells too much like "Oh we only feel sorry for cute, nice trauma victims" or "We only believe abuse victims that fought back". In a situation where you can't escape, both yielding & defiance break you in different ways.

[RussianRiz]

I'm not sure I can see this Rei III represented in EoE as exactly the same from EP 23-24. Rei III pass through a kind of awakening when Kaworu shows up and becomes much more Lilithesque. That said, the anger she directs to Gendo seems to me much more like the wrath of a god than a authentic rebellion of a teenager. But of course the parallels are true, that's a very good point.

Rei II and Rei III pass through absolutely different contexts of time and space in the story, and of course that shapes their positions, but, frankly speaking, I can't see Rei III's development as natural as it was for her old incarnation. And I'm not speaking of the situations and responses that they carry with them, but about the contingences in the series. The time they had and so on.