Trinity?

[DoriangRay]

Inspired by a page on the wiki mentioning the Rei/Yui/Lilith motiff that's about the place, I got thinking of the Trinity in Christianity. Taking the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and turning them on their head, could we get the Mother (Yui), Daughter (Rei) and quasi-godlike entity of unknown but biblical ability (Lilith)?

Support for this might lie in how everything merges together at the end - Rei merges with Lilith (Daughter-Spirit), then joins with Unit 01 (Mother therein - and also derived from Lilith, notably the only Eva that is), thus giving the pilot effectively godlike powers (the three forms of the one God). Additional weight is how the bodies and souls are being passed around: Rei's soul from Lilith and body from Yui, Yui's soul in Unit 01 which is derived from Lilith. Then there's the flashback scene where, when discussing the names of the child, 'if it's a girl, Rei'.

Obviously, Abrahamic motiffs are throughout the whole series, so this could have been intentional - or I may well be grasping at straws and trying to apply ideas where there's merely coincidence.

[Eva Yojimbo]

This has been an opinion I've held for a while, just because I like the parallel. I don't know if it was intended or not, and I've yet to complete my guide on the relevance of all the religious stuff. If you want even another piece to support it: Rei has to sacrifice herself in the end and in ep. 25 seems to be seriously doubting what she knows she was born to do.

[Zuggy]

Taking the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and turning them on their head, could we get the Mother (Yui), Daughter (Rei) and quasi-godlike entity of unknown but biblical ability (Lilith)?

I really don't think so.

[Xard]

lol epic fanwank

you're grasping straws I'd say

[Mr. Tines]

[Reichu]

Well, Lilith is the real Mother, since she "gave birth" to (almost) everybody, and Yui is sort of a ghost, since she abandoned her original body to live inside a giant green-eyed monster, and she's one of Lilith's "daughters" at the same time, and...

[Zerogoki]

Mr Tines wins!

Evangelion: the story of a father, a son, and a displaced human soul housed in a body grown from an extraterrestrial Seed of Life...

[slothen]

I find it difficult to concisely sum up the effect and intent of the Abrahamic/Christian/whatever imagery. Labeling yui/Rei/lilith as a parallel to the holy trinity seems a bit of a stretch and somewhat vague, but dismissing the imagery entirely as an Anno-visual-gimmick seems even more absurd when you consider the apocalyptic events of the series. Except for the cross-shaped explosions. They are awesome, but I doubt they have any particular significance.

[Reichu]

SACHIEL DYING IN A CROSS-SHAPED EXPLOSION SYMBOLIZES SELF-SACRIFICE. DISCUSS.

@slothen: Christianity IS Abrahamic.

[slothen]

of course it is.

[Incisivis]

And then, what about Maiden/Mother/Crone?

[Eva Yojimbo]

I find it difficult to concisely sum up the effect and intent of the Abrahamic/Christian/whatever imagery. Labeling yui/Rei/lilith as a parallel to the holy trinity seems a bit of a stretch and somewhat vague, but dismissing the imagery entirely as an Anno-visual-gimmick seems even more absurd when you consider the apocalyptic events of the series.

Absolutely. It's much more complex and... I hate say "meaningful", but maybe intent-ful than the "just there to look clue" blurb would suggest. I will EVENTUALLY get it all down in an essay.

Except for the cross-shaped explosions. They are awesome, but I doubt they have any particular significance.

I'm not sure about the explosions, but the cross itself does. It comes a rather economical context symbol - linking the angels together - and later a symbol for sacrifice, burden, and suffering and a way to link everything that happens in EoE together.

And then, what about Maiden/Mother/Crone?

Asuka/Yui/Lilith... or maybe Misato? lol It's funny how these mythological archetypes seem to come in triplets.

[Zerogoki]

And then, what about Maiden/Mother/Crone?

So that would be Rei, Yui....Baasan?

[iamsynch]

IMAGE

What is the origins of this piece of art?

[Reichu]

Picked up from THAT image board, I believe. Most of the stuff that's posted there is done so without any attribution to original source whatsoever (even if the one posting knows the source); and most of the people are just reposting the images that were originally posted without attribution. (Either that, or they never cared where it came from in the first place.) The image in question might have originated from Deviant Art somewhere, but who knows.

On topic, the Trinity stuff is really forcing it, IMO. Yeah, there are thematic triads, lots of them, but nothing that really fits into the Abrahamic God scheme. The actual Trinity symbol does appear during 3I, but even then it would take a lot of fanwanking to make sense of its split-second appearance.

EDIT:

Inspired by a page on the wiki mentioning the Rei/Yui/Lilith motiff that's about the place

Which page? Claiming that there is a triad here seems fallacious; the grouping is incomplete without Eva-01.

[Eva Yojimbo]

the Trinity stuff is really forcing it, IMO. Yeah, there are thematic triads, but nothing that really fits into the Abrahamic God thing. The actual Trinity symbol does appear during 3I, but even then it would take a lot of fanwanking to make sense of its split-second appearance.

I actually agree. One thing that makes NGE tricky is that in some respects (the mother theme, for instance) it's a rather rigorous allegory. But in others (the religious symbolism) it plays more like loose allusions. The ironic thing is that the strongest symbolic material is almost always overlooked (at first, anyways) in favor of all the obvious stuff whose meanings are really tenuously linked to the source.

[Sailor Star Dust]

Inspired by a page on the wiki mentioning the Rei/Yui/Lilith motiff that's about the place

Do you mean Lilith/Adam/Yui? And what page on the wiki??

[AyrYntake]

In the Kabbalistic point of view, Lilith seems not to form so much part of a Trinity as part of the ten Qliphah (singular Qliphoth), which are apparently the unbalanced, "evil" counterparts to the Sephirah in the Tree of Life. Now that in turn was a major part of the symbolism in EoE, seen in the aerial formation of the mass-produced Eva models and Unit 01.
Lilith is also portrayed as predominantly evil in the Kabbalistic view, though, so how much Anno drew from the Kabbalah in this idea I can't really say for sure.
As for the trinity of Father/Son/Holy Spirit, I'd tend to go for Yui(-sama)/Shinji/Rei. Fine, maybe you can't really force the "Father" figure on Yui, but EVA-01 (=Yui-sama) was said to have become God, wasn't it? Hence God the Father, God the Son (Shinji gets crucified in EoE), and God the Holy Spirit (Rei as the "Transition Guides" in 3I)...[/b]

[devil_eAter]

In response to DoriangRay, I had a sililar theory but somewhat different. Yes, it was a Feminine Trinity, but rather Lilith was the Mother (being responsible for life on Earth), Rei is the Daughter (being she made from both Lilith and Yui and sacrafices herself for Shinji and connects to the world by protecting it through the use of Eva, and Yui's spirit has a strong presence in the series though she is dead and hardly appears. Though it is in EVA-01, it also maintains as a spiritual inspirationf for others in the series. That is the way I looked at it. Of coures yours makes as much sense as mine. In the end it shows they all in wone way or another fit the aspects of the Mother-Daughter-Holy Ghost. It is also purely a matter of interpretation. It is not nescessarily what Anno intended, though I would not be surprised if he did intend this.

[NemZ]

EVA definately has the trinity concept going, but it constantly subverts it and offers too many possibilities for it to ever really gel into a definitive answer.

For instance, Rei is a trinity all on her own in several completely different ways involving, Rei 1-3, yui, lilith, and both units 00 and 01. It's also tempting to use her with Shinji and Gendo (the names are -perfect- for this), but following the naming motif also leads Shinji and Gendo away into a foursome with Lorenz and Kaji. Shinji and his friends form a trinity of sorts, but so does the Katsuragi 'family', the bridge bunnies, the college buddies, the stooges, the three females who want Shinji to be one with them, the three Horaki daughters, and the three people who are injured by unit 01: Toji, his sister, and Kaworu.

Go ahead, take your pick.