Medium- & Transition Guide-Rei Mechanics

[Chuckman]

If my theory is correct (which it is, because I am wise in the ways of sorcery and ancient logics) it's not only Shinji, but actually Shinji, not Rei-As-Shinji.

Even if her discorporation was as the others were and simply not shown, I would narrow it down to Kyoko or Shinji. An individual needn't have an actual relationship for Rei to take the form of a particular person.

In fact, Maya, Hyuga, and Fuyutsuki all see a person for who they had unrequited feelings. (That is, assuming Maya's feelings for Ritsuko were romantic, which people tend to assume but we don't know for a fact. Just because she rejected Kaji doesn't mean she's gay)

The more I think about it, the more I begin to think that what we were seeing when Rei morphed into Yui or Ritsuko was the manifestation of the Anti-AT Field in the person's mind. They perceived it as their most desired person, so it's the individual that chooses the form, not Lilith.

Somebody, somewhere, was taken into communion with God by the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

[Bagheera]

If my theory is correct (which it is, because I am wise in the ways of sorcery and ancient logics) it's not only Shinji, but actually Shinji, not Rei-As-Shinji.

You still haven't explained how Shinji's supposed to do this without Rei's assistance, or why he would be pressed into that role if she's already involved. It's just a just-so story contrived after the fact with no eye toward why it would be done that way or how it's supposed to happen in-universe.

Even if her discorporation was as the others were and simply not shown, I would narrow it down to Kyoko or Shinji. An individual needn't have an actual relationship for Rei to take the form of a particular person.

Shinji's a nonsense choice. Kyoko's possible, but Kaji's much more likely IMO. And of course Rei's an outside possibility (c.f. Aoba) -- if she feels abandoned by Kaji and betrayed by/disgust for Shinji Rei might just have to force the issue.

In fact, Maya, Hyuga, and Fuyutsuki all see a person for who they had unrequited feelings. (That is, assuming Maya's feelings for Ritsuko were romantic, which people tend to assume but we don't know for a fact. Just because she rejected Kaji doesn't mean she's gay)

I think her fangasming over "Sempei! Sempei! SEMPEI!" pretty much speaks for itself.

Somebody, somewhere, was taken into communion with God by the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

Undoubtedly, along with everything else Rule 34 can cover.

[Mr. Tines]

That is, assuming Maya's feelings for Ritsuko were romantic, which people tend to assume but we don't know for a fact.

Not only do we see Maya humping Ritz' knee most enthusiastically, but the screenplay reads like this

Ibuki, full of happiness.
Ibuki “SEMPAI ♥ SEMPAI ♥ SEMPAI ♥”
Her face fills with delight.
Ibuki “(being filled with ecstacy) Ah!”

with the ♥s being there in the original.

[Chuckman]

You still haven't explained how Shinji's supposed to do this without Rei's assistance, or why he would be pressed into that role if she's already involved. It's just a just-so story contrived after the fact with no eye toward why it would be done that way or how it's supposed to happen in-universe.

Magic.

Seriously, the fabric of reality has fallen apart. It doesn't really matter, anyway. The psuedoscience technobabble in Eva is there to justify the images and themes and trying to worry about how something "works" is a fool's errand. Need I remind you that the giant robots are officially variable in size?

It's based on the images I see on the screen and the significance that's been built for them by other images.

It fits thematically that everyone else is drawn into Instrumentality by an unrequited love and Shinji just strangles Asuka into it.

[Bagheera]

Magic.

So much for deep symbolism.

[Chuckman]

I'm not being flippant. The series does it to a degree, but EoE slaps the viewer in the face repeatedly with the message that the (psuedo)science is window dressing and what's happening on screen is literally magic. It produces an entirely different reading on the film. "Science is the true power of man" is just hubris.

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

EoE is so meticulously constructed and detailed that any omission is in and of itself a statement.

You should do a few searches for threads discussing Eva-02's lack of a core in EoE. This has been a big problem on several occasions.

It fits thematically that everyone else is drawn into Instrumentality by an unrequited love and Shinji just strangles Asuka into it.

Doesn't Shinji supreme failure in this regard negate the theory that he can be Asuka's transition guide though? If Asuka is to have a "transition guide" who fits in any way with the rest, then Shinji must either be an exception breaking the rule, or else the rules are broken here to begin with.

[Chuckman]

Aoba's transition establishes that it can be brute forced.

[Bagheera]

Aoba's transition establishes that it can be brute forced.

Yes, but there's no reason to assume that happened in this case. Why wouldn't we assume Asuka's case was just like everyone else's? A theory you can fanwank into shape isn't sufficient IMO. It needs to address a compelling need that isn't addressed by the more basic explanation, and I'm just not seeing it in this case.

[AuraTwilight]

I'm not being flippant. The series does it to a degree, but EoE slaps the viewer in the face repeatedly with the message that the (psuedo)science is window dressing and what's happening on screen is literally magic. It produces an entirely different reading on the film. "Science is the true power of man" is just hubris.

Uh...no. No it does not. That is literally the exact opposite of what is going on, if anything. It's Clarke's Third Law taken as far as it's going to go.

[Bagheera]

Uh...no. No it does not. That is literally the exact opposite of what is going on, if anything. It's Clarke's Third Law taken as far as it's going to go.

Yeah. Sorry Chuckman, but your argument reads like "I wanna do this for my fanfic, and it works because I say it does." Which is fine for a fanfic, I guess, but as far as the actual show goes it's a tough sell. As for window dressing . . . it's pretty clear at this point that Seele's "magic" is the actual window dressing here, with all of their ritual nonsense being cover for FAR hypertech that works through straight-forward, albeit mind-bogglingly advanced, principles.

IOW "It's magic" just doesn't cut it.

[Reichu]

You should do a few searches for threads discussing Eva-02's lack of a core in EoE.

Eva-02 obviously has one, since it's been mentioned. I think the problem here is that EoE has massive visual continuity problems in the mecha animation department, with the result that some animators were depicting cores as being located between the pectorals (which would explain why it isn't visible in Eva-02's evisceration scenes), while others were depicting it in the correct location, the solar plexus (cf. the close-up of Yui's core having sex with the Spear).

(Surprised to see Bagheera repeating the "Kyoko was skewered through the core" bit. I seem to recall him resisting this bit of info when I first tried to pass it on...)

[EvangelionGodMode]

You know how everyone was dieing or being put into Lilith's egg in the EoE and seeing the person they loved before they splatted, well i was wondering who you think some of the characters who died before this happened would have seen. Such as Asuka ,if had she not been kill by the MP Evas or Kaji had he not been shot. Misato and Ritsuko as well. Also if Shinji had not become God, who would he have seen.

[ChaddyManPrime]

I've always wondered if Misato saw Shinji, Kaji, or her Father.

I personally think Asuka saw someone but I think it may have been her mom.

[Guy Nacks]

Asuka's transition guide, according to the official manga, was Kaji. However, the manga universe is canon only unto itself. The rest of these is just speculation.

-Kaji's would've been Misato.
-Misato's would've been Kaji.
-Rei II's might have been Gendo, being that she flashes back to seeing him before exploding in ep 23.
-Shinji's could've been Kaworu, Yui, or Asuka based on evidence in the visuals from the ritual scene. I think Asuka is the least likely though.
-Ritsuko doesn't really have enough evidence to make a good guess at. She didn't have a terribly great relationship with her mother, so that can be thrown out.

[Wanderlust]

-Ritsuko doesn't really have enough evidence to make a good guess at. She didn't have a terribly great relationship with her mother, so that can be thrown out.

Considering that if she were to have had a transition guide, she wouldn't have been killed by Gendo, I'd say he'd be a good choice for her. Either that or she was too afraid to really love anyone and would thus get a bunch of Reis like Aoba. But that sounds like just about her worst nightmare (although it might make for a nice moment of poetic justice seeing as she destroyed all them spare Reis).

[Mike Mars]

Asuka's transition guide, according to the official manga, was Kaji. However, the manga universe is canon only unto itself.

I always thought that was a really weird transition guide for her to have. Her mother would've made a lot more sense. Asuka genuinely wanted to have her mother's affection. Her "attraction" to Kaji on the other hand was more like that of one to assert her own maturity by going for the older guy.

[Kendrix]

The characters always saw someone who thy were not only attracted to, but also someone they relied on/ that would've been a calming influence; Maybe part of the process' purpose was to get their focus away from self-preservation (showing them somebody they 'love more than themselves', perhaps?) and to 'surrender' to the union so Rei didn't have to break their ATF by force, which is probably what happened with Aoba.

The bridge bunnies, for example, saw trusted superiors who'd often projected an aura of calmness around them, Fuyu was always halfway hoping for Yui to fix everything that was beyond his power to fix...

Based on this, I'd say for them ambiguous cases of Shinji and Asuka, that they'd have seen Kaworu and Kaji, respectively, because those would be the ones most likely to put them at ease.
Kaji makes more sense than Kyoko because he's a more unambiguos figure for her, and while the crush migh've been shallow, the underlying daughterly attachment is a different mather - see also how she calls for him after the mindrape.
For Ritsuko, the same logic would give us a brief flash of an uncharacteristically receptive Gendo, probably with Ritsuko noting/being smart enought to deduce that this must be the impact starting up, but still choosing to let TransistionGuide!Gendo take her.
Same with Misato and Kaji. Her father is old hat at this point in her life, and Shinji wouldn't look "unambigously in-ontrol/calming" enough. Any such situation involving him would eiher have Misato be the conforting one, or their would just grab each other and bawl freely to equal extents...

Then, there's the students, who, unless you go by that fanwank that they were killed in the making of the MP-EVAs, must've been gettinng tanged at some part of the planet right then.

Hikari - Touji.
Kensuke - His mom, or possibly Reis. I don't think the Misato crush was serious enough to influences this/show up here.
Touji - Little Sakura, without her wheelchair or hospital tubes. "Are you scared because of the earthquakes? [caused by TI so far] Don't worry, Onii-chan is here..." *bends forward to hug her* *splat, tanged*

As for Rei herself?
First and Third one - Kaworu. Sort of for the contrast that, if she gets to tang everyone else, she obviously gets the other SoL. Less their actual relationship, (which just consisted of a brief meeting anyway) than what seeing someone like him represented to her.
ReiQ (if Rebuild were do go with EoE like Final Impact aesthetics) - Rei II.

Rei II? Trickier case. You have to take into account that during that ep 23, Shinji was right there so no need for her to 'suddenly consider him' - it depends on how you interpret the 'flashback' and her immediate reactions, her thought in that moment could go from, "Oh shoot, he's gonna clone me again!", to "Wait, I never thanked him!"

I still say probably Gendo, for the reasons detailed above - 'clear and agreeable' reassuring quasi-parental figure, at least as far as she could tell.

Mari is harder to place, but she'd probably be a graceful loser and tell the transistion guide or person responsible for the impact to come and get her. Candidates include her parents (assuming that's who those people in the photo are) and the Aobaesque Bunch of Reis. Small chance of Shinji, for thematic reasons or speculation value.

[Mike Mars]

Shinji and Asuka, that they'd have seen Kaworu and Kaji, respectively, because those would be the ones most likely to put them at ease.
Kaji makes more sense than Kyoko because he's a more unambiguos figure for her, and while the crush migh've been shallow, the underlying daughterly attachment is a different mather - see also how she calls for him after the mindrape.

I can see your point, I really do. But the way I interpreted the transition guide thing was that the guide was supposed to be someone they held most dear to them. While Asuka did undoubtedly have a strong bond with Kaji, it was her mother who she cared about the most. Nothing would've made her happier than to be embraced in her mother's arms. But then again, you are right that Kaji is much more unambiguous, and a very easy "go-to" figure for affection.

I guess in the end none of us will ever truly know who it would be, though (unless going by the manga).

[ElMariachi]

^
I think the transition guide is more the person the most susceptible at the moment to make the "victim" drop its emotional shield. For Asuka the person she has ended to instinctively call for help when afraid was Kaji (seen when Arael was mind raping her, she called for him, not Kyoko) so it's logical that her transition guide would be Kaji, he was far more present and more recently to her than Kyoko, he's more "tangible" for Asuka, even if she just realized that her mother was inside EVA-02.