Medium- & Transition Guide-Rei Mechanics

[AuraTwilight]

Then we're all agreed that the green crosses are not extra Angels exploding like AWL claims in the commentary?

[Sephizim]

Alright, so I've searched through this thread and some ones similar to it, and there is something that is still bugging me. In particular, it is the nature of the Reis that appear to Misato and Ritsuko upon their deaths. Now, it makes sense that the Reis that visit the remains of Misato and Ritsuko right before the Bridge Bunnies get tanged are the same as the ones visiting the other killed NERV personnel. This is because even though they are dead, their deaths were recent enough that they can still be a part of Instrumentality. If Rei is considered a "transition guide" (a personification of Lilith's Anti-AT Field as it breaks down everyone's AT Fields either through fulfilling their desires ((in the case of Hyuga, Fuyutsuki, Maya and possibly Shinji)) or by force ((in the case of Aoba))) in these instances, then for those who have already died, these Reis are most likely some manner of transport for these recently departed souls to Lilith's doors of Guf. In this way, the appearances of Rei can be seen as a means to guide souls to Instrumentality, either by leading them from the living body, or from the dead (which means it can be assumed that the souls hangs around for a bit after death.)

Alright, so, with all that nicely established, and we all more or less agree on that. But there is still the issue of those pesky Reis that appear at Misato and Ritsuko's deaths. Alright, so, I've considered the options and will present/weigh them here, in hopes that through my ramblings I'll stumble onto something meaningful.

1. These Reis are another form of transition guides, for Pre-3II. Going with the theory that after merging with Lilith Rei goes all quantum, she can appear and affect things relating to Instrumentality before Instrumentality actually happens. Now, this also relies on the idea that during Pre-3II, the people speaking are actually the souls of those people. It so works out that all of those people are either dead or in bizarre alternate states. Holding with this idea, these two rogue Rei apparitions are likely appointed with the task of gathering up Misato and Ritsuko's souls (or something) for them to be part of Pre-3II. This would mean that even though we didn't see it, Asuka likely saw one too at some point. The only thing that detracts from this is that Rei appears before the two corpses a second time. If their souls had already been collected once, why would they need to do so again? Perhaps their souls weren't being used for Pre-3II, but it is enough a question to cast some doubt over this theory.

2. We are seeing the same Reis twice. There is no reason to believe that the Reis that Misato and Ritsuko saw before death ever "went away". It is entirely possible that these Reis hung around until it was soul-harvesting time. For Misato's Rei, we see her get engulfed in the explosion, but since it is an apparition, this likely had no effect. The next time we see Misato's corpse, it has already been tanged, Rei standing over her. There is no reason why that particular Rei ever had to go anywhere. Ritsuko's Rei is a bit more dubious, as she is kinda floating in a place we don't get much sense of. We also see Ritsuko's body once more before getting tanged, which is when we see the ripples go past her after the mask falls off Lilith. This raises and important point, which may seem obvious, but Ritsuko is still intact at this point. It is not at least until sometime after Rei merges with Lilith that Ritsuko gets tanged. This means that the Rei she sees was not doing any tanging at that point, which likely holds true for Misato's Rei. This means that the Reis were holding off for these two, which means it is likely that these Reis hang around. The only thing is that we don't see if that one Rei was still around in the ripple shot, so this can't effectively be proven.

3. This one is more or less my personal theory, the one I agree most with. To me, it explains a lot of the issues I've brought up. These Reis are "marking" Misato and Ritsuko. The issue of where the soul goes after death is never exactly broached in EVA, but it does seem weird that the soul would hang around in the body for a while afterward. So, let us assume that upon death, the soul leaves the body, for destinations unknown, which makes sense. Now, Rei appeared to both Misato and Ritsuko BEFORE they actually expired. What this says to me is that this "marked" them for Instrumentality. In effect, this kept their souls in their bodies for a while, so that when the Anti-AT Field is deployed, their souls can be harvested as well. This makes sense, because if their souls have already left their bodies, why else would they have to turn to tang? Tangification implies that the AT Field has been demolished, destroying the form of the individual. To have this happen to these two means that their souls were still giving their bodies form, and this was interrupted. In the EVA universe, when people die, they typically leave corpses, not tang. So, while Misto and Ritsuko certainly weren't alive at the start of 3I, they weren't technically "dead" either. They were in some in-between stage, so that they could be a part of Instrumentality. This seems to be an act of benevolence on the part of Rei/Lilith, but it isn't clear if this is because of her personal attachments to them, or if it is an act of kindness to all mankind (considering that she obviously did the same for all the random NERV personnel. We likely didn't see Reis appear for their deaths because they're not as important. XP) This poses two questions: How far back can this "marking" go for (I'm imagining less than a day, but it'd be nice to think that Kaji got "marked" as well ((unlikely, I know))), and does breaking down the barriers of the dead entail a similar process? I bring up this last part, because I wonder if all Rei had to do with the dead souls was will them to tangify and they did, or if they went through a similar process as the others, just detached from the living world. I say this because of Misato's dying remarks to Kaji, and that the surprise on Ritsuko's face could be translated as a reaction to a number of people (in this case, I'm saying Gendo, obviously). Or would this be a whole metaphysical hell-train thing, since they're just souls? I know this goes into personal ridiculous ideas/hopes, but I like to imagine that somehow, even if she was just a soul at that point, Asuka had her AT Field broken down by an image of Shinji, while she remarks half-bitterly, "It just had to be you, huh?" Anyway, I doubt those two questions have an answer, but the idea of there still being some sort of AT Field for the dead that leaves the tang behind makes sense, and doesn't raise too many questions (although you guys will probably raise a whole bunch of points I didn't think of).

Okay, if you read all of that and managed to make some sense out of any of it, I thank you. And I hope that out of all that rambling, I managed to bring up new ideas and not just rehash things that have already been established. I'd hat to necro this thread and not have anything new and worthwhile to say.

tl;dr version, quantum fucking hurts my head.

[thewayneiac]

Actually, the theory has alway been that in Eva souls do remain in the body after death. The Rei/Lilith soul is salvaged from Rei 2's chared remains and placed into Rei 3, and the Adam soul is salvaged from Kaworu's corpse and placed into the Adam embryo in Gendo's hand, (later absorbed by Rei). This is simpler than assuming that the souls somehow know where to go next. Your theory #1 is closest, but the assumption is that the earlier Reis are there to provide a connection for the souls that appear in Pre-Instrumentality. That is, they can't collect them yet, but they can somehow allow them to communicate with each other.

[gwern]

I noted recently on the wiki (http://wiki.evageeks.org/index.php?title=Warships_in_Evangelion&diff=prev&oldid=69933) that when the USS Langley was scuttled, apparently no one watched it go down.

[Jornophelanthas]

I noted recently on the wiki (http://wiki.evageeks.org/index.php?title=Warships_in_Evangelion&diff=prev&oldid=69933) that when the USS Langley was scuttled, apparently no one watched it go down.

Interesting detail. I didn't know about it when I wrote my own analysis on warships and character names.

This seems as good an opportunity as any to link to that again. Especially since the main part is about Asuka, and I speculate on the parallels between the warship track records and her fate in both NGE and Rebuild.
[url]http://forum.evageeks.org/viewtopic.php?t=10460[/url]
(Contrary to the wiki, it does not deal with all relevant warships - only those corresponding to the female pilots. However, I do discuss the track records of multiple ships with the same name, instead of only the WWII variants.)

[SleepS]

I was searching for an existing thread that explained this to me, and happened upon the "Does Asuka die?" thread from the ANF forums. We know that Rei appeared to character's who die shortly before 3I begins (i.e. Misato and Ritsuko) as a means of connecting them to the process of Pre-Instrumentality. This moment for Asuka is conspicuously missing, yet we see scenes of her actively taking part, so to speak. So we can assume that just as Misato and Ritsuko have been "collected" to be thrown into the whole Pre-Instrumentaility (such as Misato's sex-a-thon that Shinji becomes privy to), Asuka must have been "collected" as well. Back to the ANF thread, Shin-seiki poses this question:

I can't get away from the idea that Anno was trying to tell us something by the fact that we don't see Rei appear to Asuka as she dies, nor do we see her turn to Tang during 3I. Of the five participants in Shinji's "Pre-3I" Complementation sequence, we see Rei appear by Misato and Ritsuko as they die; apparently she is serving as a 'medium' to connect their minds to the process, while Shinji, of course, is Tangified within the entry plug, and Rei is, well, a giant white deity at this point, who is sort of making all this happen. That leaves Asuka; is she there because Rei appeared to her as she died, like Misato and Ritsuko? If so, why doesn't Anno show it? Or is her presence to be accounted for in a way somewhat like what's going on with Shinji, i.e. Tangification within her entry plug due to hyper-synchronization right at the moment that the Harpies finish EVA-02 off? I'm not trying to argue that she didn't 'die', just that she died under very unique circumstances...

This is the question that came to my mind too. The discussion sort of shifted into other things and was never addressed. Is Anno trying to tell us something by not showing Rei coming to retrieve Asuka for Pre-Instrumentality? And if so, what? Is there any analysis out there on this, that I just didn't plug in the correct search terms to get?

[Mr. Tines]

Two possible reasons
1) to leave open what form Rei took for her
2) not showing her in worse shape than when we last see her reaching for the sky.

[SleepS]

I thought the Rei that appeared to Misato (standing over her before the explosion by the elevator) and Ritsuko (flashing before her eyes as she falls back into the pool of LCL after being shot) right before the dies were different from the Rei's who showed up tang everyone in their most desired form at the beginning of 3I. I was under the impression that the first time we see Rei standing over the deceased was meant to illustrate that she is collecting them as participants in Pre-Instrumentality, and then second time when she is standing over Ritsuko and Misato already tanged, it is to collect their souls to become one with everyone else once Instrumentality starts to get into full swing. Please, correct me if I'm wrong! That was just the impression I was under.

Since Asuka is clearly a participant in the Pre-Instrumentality, shouldn't she get a case of the first Rei apparition (a la Ritsuko falling back into the pool of LCL) to illustrate that she is being collected for Pre-Instrumentality? And if not, is that Anno trying to tell we're supposed to be looking for something?

[Ornette]

Neither Misato nor Ritsuko were tanged when they were visited by Rei's. Misato stuck around long enough to be blown into 2 bits and Ritsuko's corpse was floating around face down (we see a shot of her later). It wasn't until third impact proper started (when everyone started turning into LCL) that we see Ritsuko and Misato's puddles of LCL.

[Blue Monday]

And just to add to that; it shows that Ritsuko and Misato are already, umm, 'tang'd', whilst it's only just beginning for everyone else. Think that's how it accounts for them being involved in P3II, before Shinji's "Everyone should just die..." which actually triggers Third Impact for everyone.

[Ornette]

And just to add to that; it shows that Ritsuko and Misato are already, umm, 'tang'd', whilst it's only just beginning for everyone else. Think that's how it accounts for them being involved in P3II, before Shinji's "Everyone should just die..." which actually triggers Third Impact for everyone.

So are all the dead Nerv people. They weren't tanged before Third Impact gets triggered, they're bodies are strewn about just like Ritsuko's and Misato's. Then when Third Impact is triggered, likewise all the dead Nerv people were "already tang'd" with a Rei hanging out next to them.

Well after this:


We see this (but not an equivalent shot of a corporeal Misato):


Before finally, the Transition Guide meets them when Third Impact is triggered:

[Blue Monday]

Hmm, I'd forgotten about the Nerv personnel. Found a screenshot too:

[Shinoyami65]

This may have been discussed already, but does Misato get a transition guide? Before she gets exploded, she seems to be talking to Kaji and Pen Pen, although that may just be because of blood loss and the realisation she's going to die.

[Mr. Tines]

She gets a school-unform Rei along with the rest of the NERV staffers who aren't in any state to see what's going on.

[Shinoyami65]

Too bad, I was kind of hoping she got a "personalised" transition guide. I guess she was just talking to herself.

[AuraTwilight]

I'm sure if Misato was conscious at the time, she'd of seen either Kaji or (perhaps more interestingly), her father.

[SleepS]

Sorry to bump an old thread, but in my perpetual lurking, I didn't realize there were responses to something I had wrote!

Neither Misato nor Ritsuko were tanged when they were visited by Rei's. Misato stuck around long enough to be blown into 2 bits and Ritsuko's corpse was floating around face down (we see a shot of her later). It wasn't until third impact proper started (when everyone started turning into LCL) that we see Ritsuko and Misato's puddles of LCL.

I think we're agreeing on the same thing. Ritsuko and Misato are the only two characters that appear to have been visited by Rei twice in the film. On the first instance, it appears to be an event that exclusively happens for these two character's only: Rei appears hovering above them moments after their death, presumably as a medium for their participation in Pre-Instrumentality. We're also left to assume that Asuka had a similar occurrence right before her death as she is present during Pre-Instrumentality, but no longer alive; we're just not shown it (which was the topic of my original post above, back sometime over the summer). The second instance in which Rei appears to Misato and Ritsuko is more of a universal experience. We are aware that 3I-proper is beginning, and we are shown the bridge bunnies, random NERV personnel all being visited by Rei, and then being reverted back into LCL. This is the second time we see Rei hovering over Misato and Ritsuko.

I'm not sure if there are different names for the Rei-Medium apparition that appears to Misato, Ritsuko and presumably Asuka, than the one who appears to presumably all of mankind to tang them. But I'm referring to the first appearance of Rei in my original post. Does that make sense? I'm basically just fact checking at this point to make sure that I understand what actually happened in the scenes mentioned above and to clarify any original confusion about just which ghostly Rei apparition I was referring to.

Anyway, the point of my original post was to ask the wiser more studied EvaGeeks why they thought we are not shown Rei appearing to Asuka before her death: is Anno trying to tell us something here, what does it mean that Asuka is still present in Pre-Instrumentality regardless, etc., all of which was in reference to a post on ANF by Shin-seiki (which you can read above) which suggested that there was more meaning to Rei's absence at the time of Asuka's death. We actually PMed about the matter a while back, and I thought his response might warrant some discussion, if anyone's interested.

I'm much more inclined now to believe that the simplest (and thus best) explanation for Asuka's presence in the Pre-3I Instrumentality sequence is that she is there for the same reason and thru the same means as Misato and Ritsuko, i.e, Rei acting as a medium to allow their minds to interact with Shinji's, despite fact that the three of them are all dead at this point in the story. One reason I believe this is that I've noticed that Anno sometimes has a tendency of showing a given story element to us once, twice, but the third time he leaves it to us to 'fill in the blank', so to speak. One example of this "see it once, twice, third time it happens off-screen" trope would be when the Bridge Bunnies meet their fate: we see Rei turn into Misato for Hyuga, and turn into Yui for Fuyutsuki, then in Maya's case, when Ritsuko appears, we don't see actually see her transform, but we understand that this 'Ritsuko' is, of course, Rei as well.
For this reason, I feel we can safely extrapolate that Rei attended Asuka's demise in some fashion, and that just because we don't see it doesn't mean it didn't happen.

I'm not sure that anyone is even remotely interested in discussing this particular topic, so maybe I'll just go back to lurking...

[Chuckman]

End of Evangelion is a psuedo-Judeo-Christian eschaton. Everyone who dies resides in a limbo, trapped with only themselves, until the final sacrifice brings about the resurrection and the last judgement.

Shinji's personal hell is a train, as we all know. Asuka's is Misato's apartment. We never see any of the others, be we can infer they are there. The choking/spilled coffee fight represents Shinji going into Asuka's personal hell to drag her into Instrumentality; he symbolically "kills" her by choking her, freeing her from the residual self image she's locked into.

That's what Rei does when she appears to everyone- she breaks through their barrier either by brute force (Aoba) or by appearing as the person that they will not close themselves off to and then destroys their sense of self. This is what it means that anyone can come back who imagines themselves in their own heart. To survive, they must experience ego destruction, cross the abyss and reconstitute themselves. This is why Rei is identified with Da'at, the Sephirot in the Tree of Life configuration that is identified with the Abyss in western occultism and represents the point where all of the Sephirah become one, the unity of God and all creation, as seen here:



The only person we actually see restore their ego is Asuka. Shinji is shepherded through the process by his Goddesses and escapes his own judgement, the supreme and final hypocrisy of the Antichrist.

When Rei collects souls, she's not actually killing anyone; she's liberating them. The death of the physical form and rebirth in a perfect spiritual body is central to all sorts of end-time narratives, as it is here. It's why we see Shinji's face appearing joyful as he loses his physical form (but not his true self, which is protected from dissolution through the entire process) and we can hear the sound of people sighing and cheering as Rei reaps the world (the global tangification scene)

In short, we never saw Rei appear to Asuka, because she didn't. Shinji took her place. Exactly why is open to debate. Perhaps Rei knew that only Shinji could free her and let him do it, or she knew that appearing to Asuka, even momentarily, would trap her in limbo forever due to Asuka's distaste for her, or maybe Asuka being insulated inside an Eva when she died prevented Rei from finding her and Shinji had to instead.

The order of events becomes irrelevant, as does time, when dealing with souls and the Adam-Lilith-Rei entity. For the souls in question, they spent an eternity or however long it seemed to them before Rei came and took them, but she arrived immediately after their death, as she exists everywhere and everywhen she chooses.

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Anyway, the point of my original post was to ask the wiser more studied EvaGeeks why they thought we are not shown Rei appearing to Asuka before her death: is Anno trying to tell us something here, what does it mean that Asuka is still present in Pre-Instrumentality regardless, etc., all of which was in reference to a post on ANF by Shin-seiki (which you can read above) which suggested that there was more meaning to Rei's absence at the time of Asuka's death. We actually PMed about the matter a while back, and I thought his response might warrant some discussion, if anyone's interested.

Actually this is an important question, and my memory again fails me about where this has come up before. I believe that there was a strong view that Asuka did have a transition guide of some sort, but I'm not sure that solid conclusions were ever reached. There are a myriad of character centric reasons for why Rei would not appear here, or would appear as someone else, e.g. Kyoko.

Now, while there don't appear to be any plot-centric reasons for this on reading Chuckman's post, an important point caught my eye

When Rei collects souls, she's not actually killing anyone; she's liberating them.

This is an important point. Rei is gathering up souls to take to the black egg. Presumably this process is beginning here, before 3I begins outright.

However, one important soul who isn't fully liberated is Shinji. While everyone else is drawn into Lilith's egg, Shinji remains inside the entry plug. Moreover, Yui remains inside Eva-01's core. An old idea going back to to MDWigs is that Shinji is not gathered up by Rei because -- in whole or in part-- she cannot gather him up; not while he remains inside the Entry plug/inside Eva-01's core.

Recall also that the MP Evas have to explicitly shatter their own cores in order to join Complementation.
[wkimg width=200]EoE MP Evas Spearing Cores 1.png[/wkimg]
The implication here is that Cores, or entry plugs within cores, or perhaps entry plugs themselves form an explicit barrier when it comes to AT Fields/Complementation/being gathered up by Rei.

But since Asuka is inside here entry plug when she dies, then that would mean that Rei cannot collect her. For Rei to do so would break precedent needed later when Shinji is in his entry plug during Complementation. If Asuka is to be collected, then she must be collected later.

But this raises the question of when Asuka is actually gathered up by Rei. The default assumption is that this must happen before she meets with Shinji in pre 3I Instrumentality, in the kitchen scene. But then Chuckman's idea really caught my eye.

In short, we never saw Rei appear to Asuka, because she didn't. Shinji took her place. Exactly why is open to debate. Perhaps Rei knew that only Shinji could free her and let him do it, or she knew that appearing to Asuka, even momentarily, would trap her in limbo forever due to Asuka's distaste for her, or maybe Asuka being insulated inside an Eva when she died prevented Rei from finding her and Shinji had to instead.

What if this is correct? What if Rei has, deliberately or out of necessity, spared Asuka or been unable to complement her up to this moment? What if part of Shinji's role in Third Impact is actually to get rid of not only himself, but any other Eva pilots who can't be complemented for whatever reason?

In short, the problem here is: In what way was Asuka "complemented", and when did she "complement"?

[thewayneiac]

However, one important soul who isn't fully liberated is Shinji. While everyone else is drawn into Lilith's egg, Shinji remains inside the entry plug. Moreover, Yui remains inside Eva-01's core. An old idea going back to to MDWigs is that Shinji is not gathered up by Rei because -- in whole or in part-- she cannot gather him up; not while he remains inside the Entry plug/inside Eva-01's core.

Recall also that the MP Evas have to explicitly shatter their own cores in order to join Complementation.
[wkimg width=200]EoE MP Evas Spearing Cores 1.png[/wkimg]
The implication here is that Cores, or entry plugs within cores, or perhaps entry plugs themselves form an explicit barrier when it comes to AT Fields/Complementation/being gathered up by Rei.

But since Asuka is inside here entry plug when she dies, then that would mean that Rei cannot collect her. For Rei to do so would break precedent needed later when Shinji is in his entry plug during Complementation. If Asuka is to be collected, then she must be collected later.

Couldn't we just assume that the entry plug was destroyed by the M.P. Evas? That would eliminate the impediment. This does, however, remind me of an interesting old theory that Misato's escape capsule survives Second Impact because it is based upon entry plug technology. This could be considered additional evidence.

But this raises the question of when Asuka is actually gathered up by Rei. The default assumption is that this must happen before she meets with Shinji in pre 3I Instrumentality, in the kitchen scene. But then Chuckman's idea really caught my eye.

Actually, we've been assuming that only the minds were connected during pre Instrumentality. This is why Rei pays a second visit to Misato and Ritsuko after Instrumentality proper begins; their souls have yet to be collected. Asuka's was likely still uncollected at this point as well. If we've been correct, then Asuka must have received two unshown visits from Rei.