Shinji Character Analysis (2.0/3.0)

[Chuckman]

Well, if the "repeat sign" of Rebuild 4.0 is any indication, we might just be getting a re-do of the entire thing throughout the movie. The past 3 movies will have existed to show the "wrong" universe, so he goes back in time to fix everything, or something like that. It'd be an interesting climax to the quadrilogy if done right. There's a very certain point about things going the "Wrong Direction" with that tape player he has.

Remember when Asuka was contemplating being a good person, and Rei was about to have her dinner with Shinji and Gendou, and it was all about to fix itself, and then everything went wrong? Probably not a terrible place to (re)-start. Shinji just has to know how to help everyone.

A universe where Misato puts a bomb collar on Shinji certainly isn't a good universe to live in.

'

This makes me wonder. What if all the strange events, like the S-DAT clicking over to a new track (Why would it even do that? Why would it surprise him? Doesn't he know what's on it?) are some kind of subconscious warning that he's sent himself from the future, like that one episode of Star Trek where the Enterprise keeps exploding until Data notices a pattern and figures out what it means.

I don't know what the hell good it would do, though. There's not much he could have done to save Asuka, and for all we know she may have been badly hurt even before the Dummy System crushed the plug. She didn't come out that badly as far as I can tell. Toji was killed or lost an arm and a leg.

[KingXanaduu]

Sorry? I like him too. Did you not see me defending Shinji for like 2-3 pages straight earlier? But let's take a step back and look at something:

2.0 ended on a high note. It was an unquestionably happy ending, even with the tint of 3I on the horizon. The law of having an interesting narrative means that wasn't going continue. You can't make two more movies where everything's going great. Well, you can, but they'd be borin.

Now we have 3.0 and it's ending on a "low" note (I'll elaborate on "low" later). With one movie left the obvious direction is up. Could Anno take us down? Yea, totally, it's fucking Anno. The guy gave us EoTV and EoE, speculating is almost entirely pointless. But the up angle is far more open at this point, and like I said, I'm feeling like Anno is going to try the opposite of EoE since EoE didn't work. Say what you want about Rebuild but it sure as hell ain't no descent arc. So far Rebuild has been "Anno when he's not clinically depressed." and it looks like 3.0 will stay that way.

Now why do I say "low" and not low?

-Shini's alive
-Asuka's alive
-Rei's sort of alive, who knows at this point
-Kaworu's dead which means that unfortunate, but inevitable, event is out of the way

They're alive, they're together, and they're alone in what appears to be a pretty desolate environment. Hell, the entire 4.0 movie could just be them walking around destroyed Japan The Road style. Think of the character development. Think of the dialogue. Think of the possibilities (because the odds of us getting that are slim to none, but damn that'd be awesome.)

Is 3.0 going to suck for Shinji? Yes. But for every descent there is an ascent, and we now have one full movie left to ascend.




Fuck me, I didn't even think of that. I need to think about this.

No, I didn't mean I was implying that you were against Shinji, I mean the comment about Anno planning to shatter all our hopeful expectations. Massive Kudos to you for defending Shinji, he needs it. :)

[Chuckman]

I feel Shinji will survive in the end and get a better life. If he does kill himself off however, I expect him to do it not because the world would be better without him, but because they need him and a suicidal tactic is the only answer left, so Shinji runs towards the danger, smiling, and knowing that as long as everybody lives, his sacrifice will be worth it.

I don't consider his sacrifice sad, Lelouch sacrificed himself, it wasn't bad. Similarly, he'd finally have the possibility to reunite with those he loved that died in the past. That's a nice ending.

That would be a total inversion of his statement in EoE and partly in 2.0; "I can die if everyone lives" is the exact opposite of "no one cares if I live, so everyone can just die" and "as long as Rei lives, everyone else can die".

What troubles me about that is that both of those moments are born of desperation, not a deep seated philisophical conviction. Shinji isn't a nihlist who cares only for his own happiness, he's a confused and terrified teenager who's just witnessed everyone he's ever cared about suffer a horrible fate (Misato and Asuka in EoE; some might disagree with me but it's clear, from rewatching it, if you focus on the background in their interactions, that Shinji desperately needs Asuka) or was trapped, right in the tool he uses to save the wold, and forced to watch it stolen from him by his asshole father and used to murder (from his perspective; as far as I can tell no one bothered to tell him she was alive, even Misato) his friend who is also a hot girl who crawls into bed with him. Then, because he took a stand and held to his principles, his maybe kinda girlfriend type person that he cares about a lot gets bitten in half in front of him.

Happiness is the opposite of despair, he should reach a happy ending.

[amitakartok]

It was mentioned earlier that team Katsuragi picked up mari so yeah they're alive. Asuka and company are probably moving to a pick up zone.

Man, if Misato gave Shinji shit for an accidental Third Impact, I can't imagine what she's going to do to him for WILLINGLY going ahead with the Fourth...

[Xard]

Man, if Misato gave Shinji shit for an accidental Third Impact, I can't imagine what she's going to do to him for WILLINGLY going ahead with the Fourth...

You got the two mixed up. Shinji intends to reverse effects of Third Impact in 3.0 because, y'know, he ain't complete dickhead and feels bad about it. Third Impact on the other hand came as a result of his willful Rei monomania

[CJD]

You got the two mixed up. Shinji intends to reverse effects of Third Impact in 3.0 because, y'know, he ain't complete dickhead and feels bad about it. Third Impact on the other hand came as a result of his willful Rei monomania

Unfortunately the movies have already established that the cast gives zero shits about intent. If Misato forgives Shinji for inadvertently causing 4I that'd be retarded. And not "Flying Battleships powered by Eva's" retarded, but rather "This is stupid and contradictory retarded."

[amitakartok]

Third Impact on the other hand came as a result of his willful Rei monomania

That's what I'm talking about. He did the Fourth because he wanted to fix things, not knowing that what he's doing is actually Fourth Impact. The two Impacts both happened for the same reason: good intentions with wrong methods. If you look at it that way, there's no difference between them whatsoever and since we're talking about Evangelion, no one in-universe will think otherwise.

I can totally see Misato at least thinking about drugging Shinji into a coma or similarly incapacitating him to make him unable to pilot without actually killing him (something she already knows she's unable to do).

[Xard]

Unfortunately the movies have already established that the cast gives two shits about intent. If Misato forgives Shinji for inadvertently causing 4I that'd be retarded. And not "Flying Battleships powered by Eva's" retarded, but rather "This is stupid and contradictory retarded."

Sorry what? 2.0 has Shinji pull EoE levels of insular selfish dependence on his hug object and is ready to fuck the world as long as he gets to hang with teh Rei in the incestual blue world. Here intention and end result meet niftly.

In 3.0 Shinji is trying to make up for being huge selfish rugrat cunt and his emotions get better of his sense in pursue of this end (which of course is nothing new for Shinji, NGE or Rebuild).

Shinji deserve a slap for being undisciplined, emotion driven broken sod endangering the world with Fourth Impact but it wasn't intentional fuck the world thing - like Third Impact was.

If someone is making a big mixup here it's you.

The two Impacts both happened for the same reason: good intentions with wrong methods.

This has been point of endless debate here ever since 2.0 came out and before 3.0 came out we couldn't be sure about this. Yesterday I prematurely ended up declaring victory for "no bad intentions" camp but going by 3.0 it's the opposite. We're ment to detest what Shinji does in end of 2.0 under the superficial dawww Rei shipping faggotry and storytelling conventions.

In other words Anno was

SPOILER: Show

deconstructing

this type of narrative piece after all in 2.0

[Hyper Shinchan]

Sorry what? 2.0 has Shinji pull EoE levels of insular selfish dependence on his hug object and is ready to fuck the world as long as he gets to hang with teh Rei in the incestual blue world. Here intention and end result meet niftly.

Here we go again, saying "I don't care about what happens to the world" doesn't mean that he was either expecting or desiring a similar result...

[CJD]

Yeah, it'd be stupid if they forgive him because he tried to fix the world but they hated him because he tried to save Rei.

His circumstance was the same in both. In each case he was either misinformed or uninformed about the full consequences of his actions, but his intent was pure.

Honestly, though, starting 4I is drastically worse than starting 3I:

In 3I the only discouragement offered to him by his superiors was "Don't do it, you'll never become human again" (Essentially "Don't do it, you'll die!"). Here we have Shinji willfully risking his life to save Rei.

In 4I we have [s]Josie[/s] Misato and the Pussycats telling Shinji not to fucking do it, we have Kaworu telling Shinji not to fucking do it, and we have Shinji ignoring all of them and acting like an idiot by taking it upon himself.

Explain to me how his actions in 3.0 aren't worse than 2.0 again?

[esselfortium]

This has been point of endless debate here ever since 2.0 came out and before 3.0 came out we couldn't be sure about this. Yesterday I prematurely ended up declaring victory for "no bad intentions" camp but going by 3.0 it's the opposite. We're ment to detest what Shinji does in end of 2.0 under the superficial dawww Rei shipping faggotry and storytelling conventions.

In other words Anno was

SPOILER: Show

deconstructing

this type of narrative piece after all in 2.0

Yeah, it was a huge surprise to see 3.0 actually play that straight, particularly after the 2.0 CRCs made it seem as though there was little more thought behind it than "this'll be so awesome!". Whether it was planned that way from the beginning or was retconned during Q's production, it makes for a far more morally coherent story than the alternative.

And yeah, his actions in the finale of 3.0 certainly sound even worse based on the info we have so far. If I were Asuka I would be very fearful for my life in 4.0, given Shinji's history at this point.

[amitakartok]

Because he wasn't doing it for just one person?

[Xard]

Here we go again, saying "I don't care about what happens to the world" doesn't mean that he was either expecting or desiring a similar result...

it's funny because you wrote what I wrote 20 pages ago when it looked like this interpretation was correct.


Sorry, but 2.0 Shinji dissers were right about this and it's exactly the impression Anno apparently wanted. Too bad he was unusually subtle about this and we get majority of people dawwing and going FUCK YES Shinji GREW BALLS.

I'm now retrospectively very impressed with what Anno did with Enokido's story idea by flipping it all over in terms of theme while keeping the presentation same.

(I was undecided on this subject, personally. I was fine with both options but this "deconstruction" route fits more my taste for Eva's more, uhh, "intellectual" aspects over FUCK YEAH TROO LOVE mush)

[KingXanaduu]

So, let me ask this question: At this point, is it even possible for Shinji to have some sort of redemption at all with the world, or his he doomed for eternity to be hated and forgotten?

[Hyper Shinchan]

Okay, I guess that this is the right topic.

it's funny because you wrote what I wrote 20 pages ago when it looked like this interpretation was correct.

When? If you had this impression it was probably a misunderstanding, I always said that Shinji wasn't willingly destroying the world and that not caring about something isn't the same as actively wanting its destruction.

Sorry, but 2.0 Shinji dissers were right about this and it's exactly the impression Anno apparently wanted. Too bad he was unusually subtle about this and we get majority of people dawwing and going FUCK YES Shinji GREW BALLS.

I have the impression that Shinji is forced to accept responsibility even though he's not guilty, in the end Shinji ended up escaping from reality like usual, even when Kaworu told him to stop he still kept using the Lances causing what we already know at this point, he just became obsessed on this single idea of fixing everything at all costs. It looks worse than 2.0 to, at least no one told him "stop Shinji", safe Ritsuko, who only talked about losing his humanity, she didn't mention anything about the world until shit already hit the fan.

[Xard]

Yeah, it was a huge surprise to see 3.0 actually play that straight, particularly after the 2.0 CRCs made it seem as though there was little more thought behind it than "this'll be so awesome!".

I never got that impression - if I did I wouldn't have stayed agnostic all this time. CRC spent great deal of time explaining how they (well, Enokido for large part) came up with the new and exhilirating finale but Anno is notably tight lipped over whatever subtext or thematic elements were meant to be conveyed by the narrative.

Of course whether or not the intentions between 2.0 and 3.0 changed doesn't really matter because NGE is notable for retconning itself in process of being written since 90s. Leaving aside question whether or not the whole ADAM=OMG LILITH twist was retcon or not (I think it probably was) I can just point out how the focus and main aim of NGE got completely retconned halfway through and elements of narrative build so far got completely reinterpreted in second half*



*for those who're not sure what I mean: Anno originally wanted to make Eva such a perfect piece of otaku fiction it would turn everyone into otakus and break otaku seclusion through this move. He changed his mind about this and thus the entire first half SF-mecha-spy narrative gets beaten into thousand pieces in second half with Anno getting more and more critical of otaku culture he initially intended to celebrate.

Flipping subtext for one film's climax is pretty small scale storytelling retcon in comparison

[CJD]

Sorry what? 2.0 has Shinji pull EoE levels of insular selfish dependence on his hug object and is ready to fuck the world as long as he gets to hang with teh Rei in the incestual blue world. Here intention and end result meet niftly.

Intention? You're referring to his little "The world doesn't mater"? You think he'd say that if he knew that his actions really would fuck the world? I'm doubtful. The fact is Shinji had zero knowledge of what his actions would do and basically zero discouragement from doing it. Again, though, his intent was pure: Save a life, even at the cost of his own.

On the other hand, as you yourself say, in 3.0 he lets his emotions get the better of him. He ignores Kaworu. He ignores Asuka. He ignores Misato. All in his desire to "fix the world." Honestly, if I was more cynical I'd even argue that his intent wasn't pure (probably not in 3I either, to be fair). Shinji didn't care about the world, he didn't do it to "fix the world", he did it to make himself feel better. He did it because he felt like shit for fucking the world up, because everyone hated him. So hey, if he fixes it then the world won't be fucked up so he won't have to hate himself, and if he fixes it then people won't hate him. Thinly veiled selfishness disguised as selflessness, no different than the man who donates a fiver to the salvation army at Christmas time and doesn't spare a thought to charity the rest of the year.


But then again I'm not that cynical.

Shinji deserve a slap for being undisciplined, emotion driven broken sod endangering the world with Fourth Impact but it wasn't intentional fuck the world thing - like Third Impact was.

Again, his intent wasn't to fuck up the world. I don't know where you guys are getting this. His intent was very clearly to save Rei. He claims to be willing to sacrifice the world for that goal but it's all just bluster. He has no knowledge his acts will legitimately fuck up the world, no one tells him that. Hell, he doesn't even want to fuck up the world, it's just something he's willing to sacrifice. It's not his goal or his intent, it's just a casualty he's willing to accept. Or so he claims.

Sorry, but 2.0 Shinji dissers were right about this and it's exactly the impression Anno apparently wanted.

Relevant, how? I'll argue authorial intent over individual interpretation more than the average person but authorial intent isn't going to make me reevaluate my morals to fit the authors.

So, let me ask this question: At this point, is it even possible for Shinji to have some sort of redemption at all with the world, or his he doomed for eternity to be hated and forgotten?

If he's hated for all eternity, as cliche as it sounds, it's not Shinji that's wrong, it's the world.

[Hyper Shinchan]

If he's hated for all eternity, as cliche as it sounds, it's not Shinji that's wrong, it's the world.

Amen and I don't even care if it's Anno's message or not.

If he indeed goes overboard with the implicit message in Shinji's actions at the end of 2.0, he's going to end up with another failed narrative like EoE, where the message to the audience from the creator clouds and confuses the themes that arise organically from the work.

And another amen to this.

[Xard]

CJD: if you want to know where this "camp" re:Shinji's actions in 2.0 comes from you'll find hundreds of posts arguing for this end from Rebuild subforum. No need to repeat all of that there.

I'm also working on my big post I alluded to yesterday with my "heureka" post that sets how (IMO) we're supposed to perceive Shinji and his actions in this whole second half of 2.0-3.0 time frame in the big context.

So for now I'm backing off.


Note: I don't really approve of Shinji's actions in end of 3.0 either, but that's almost beside the point

[Chuckman]

I embrace the death of the author. An awareness of what Anno intended can color the work, but in the end, it must speak for itself. If he indeed goes overboard with the implicit message in Shinji's actions at the end of 2.0, he's going to end up with another failed narrative like EoE, where the message to the audience from the creator clouds and confuses the themes that arise organically from the work.