Question regarding the End of Evangelion

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Question regarding the End of Evangelion

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Postby fdjw88 » Sun Apr 26, 2020 11:29 pm

The question I have regarding that movie is at the end of the movie.

so we know that Shinji chose returning to reality after spending fun time with naked Rei. We also saw that after Shinji chose reality, the black moon fell apart, and all of the human souls were once again returned to earth. So, why is that at the very end of the scene, we only saw Shinji and Asuka? where is everyone else? where did all those souls fly to? Were Shinji and Asuka the new Adam and Eve for the next humanity? if that's the case, damn that's a lot of babies they need to make...

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Re: Question regarding the End of Evangelion

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Postby pwhodges » Mon Apr 27, 2020 3:42 am

People still need to decide to come back from intrumentality. Shinji and Asuka are probably the first, and are the only ones the story is interested in at that point. Though of course I suppose other people may already be returning to other places.
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Re: Question regarding the End of Evangelion

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Postby fdjw88 » Fri May 01, 2020 2:35 pm

View Original Postpwhodges wrote:People still need to decide to come back from intrumentality. Shinji and Asuka are probably the first, and are the only ones the story is interested in at that point. Though of course I suppose other people may already be returning to other places.

ah, this explanation makes a lot of sense. i always thought the result is immediate.

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Re: Question regarding the End of Evangelion

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Postby Reichu » Fri May 01, 2020 3:22 pm

The gods explain it, rather opaquely, here:

Kaworu:
But people must act of their own free will, or nothing will change at all.

Rei:
So you must find your lost self on your own...
Even if you lose your own words, or become lost in others' words.

Rei:
Anyone can return to human form as long as they can imagine themselves
in their own heart.

Yui (voice):
Don't worry.
All living things have the ability to return to their original form...
and the heart to go on living.
Anywhere can be heaven as long as you have the will to live.

Remember, HIP took down mental barriers and blended all minds into a whole. On Shinji's OK, A.T. Fields were restored, ending Instrumentality. However, all this does is restore the mental barriers. It does not undo the effects that Instrumentality had upon the minds that experienced it. That's something that every person has to work through on their own. So what must happen is:

1) Decision to act willfully (instead of sitting around as a disembodied soul doing nothing).*
2) Finding the "self" that had been lost in Instrumentality.
2) EnvIsioning yourself within your mind.
3) Restoration of your physical form.

* See also episode 20, which foreshadowed EoE: "Shinji, don't you want to come back?"
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Re: Question regarding the End of Evangelion

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Postby MirrorUniverseAsuka » Sat May 02, 2020 10:26 am

It does make me wonder what happens to all the people who are like "You know what? Screw that, I like it here."
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Re: Question regarding the End of Evangelion

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Postby Reichu » Sat May 02, 2020 10:41 am

View Original PostMirrorUniverseAsuka wrote:It does make me wonder what happens to all the people who are like "You know what? Screw that, I like it here."

Disclaimer, Complete Fanwank: If the NGE universe has something akin to a "psychosphere" that works alongside a planet's biosphere -- a Lifestream, if you will -- I would guess that people who refuse to reembody would eventually just get taken back into the flow of energy. The "Red Earth" conditions might possibly delay this effect a bit so that the biosphere has a chance to reestablish itself. But once Earth is going Blue/Green again, your soul has no excuse not to live out its life. If by then you still refuse to reembody, you are (for all intents and purpose) truly dead, and should be treated by the planet's systems accordingly.
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Re: Question regarding the End of Evangelion

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Postby MirrorUniverseAsuka » Sat May 02, 2020 10:46 am

Maybe because it's 1am here but I just imagined the spiritual equivalent of the sound of a toilet flushing. But yeah, if said psychospehere exists, it makes sense they'd pass on as if it were true death.
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Re: Question regarding the End of Evangelion

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Postby Derantor » Mon May 04, 2020 7:26 am

View Original PostReichu wrote:Remember, HIP took down mental barriers and blended all minds into a whole.

But this "blending" can't have been complete, right? If there is no way to tell at all what is "you" and what is "other", I see no way to restore AT-Fields, as those are completely based on that distinction. So, some kernel of self must have remained (as we see with Shinji - he remains himself throughout, and it must be the same for all other humans, as otherwise information needed for the restoration is lost).

My guess: Souls remain distinct throught the process and do not get merged. They might become "fuzzy", because AT-Fields are gone. To say it all with a picture:
SPOILER: Show
Image

If souls become fuzzy, the middle column just changes in that the red circle is gone (it doesn't really matter, though: If you contain everything within you, there is no distinction between there being an outer barrier or not, as there is nothing outside the edge) and instead of clear edges you get fuzzy edges. But that was too much of a hazzle to draw.

Edit: The "Soul" is in this case the carrier of information. After having seen the content of every other soul, you might remember some or all of it, and you yourself might not know which memory belongs to you or somebody else, but in theory, if you spend enough time on it, you could sort everything out again. My guess is that some intuitive sense of what are your own memories and those of others remains, and you start recognizing yourself at some point. So, if you see yourself in the memory of somebody else, you know that that memory was not taken from your perspective and didn't belong to you originally.
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Re: Question regarding the End of Evangelion

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Postby Reichu » Mon May 04, 2020 8:03 am

View Original PostDerantor wrote:But this "blending" can't have been complete, right? (snip)

Right. The way you explained it seems pretty spot-on. Perhaps Shinji -- as the trigger, driver, or what have you -- was allowed to experience that blending process, and then be himself again shortly before the point of no return. He gets to see how well the fantasy of a world where everybody (including himself) has been annihilated lives up to the reality. :tongue:

(Which makes me wonder about the sorts of mental gymnastics that Lilith et al. went through to interpret Shinji impulsively thinking under duress "everyone should die" as "everyone should die and be blended together into the Singular Being ADAM QADMON, ETERNALLY LONELY DESTROYER OF WORLDS, DEVOURER OF SOULS!!!".)
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Re: Question regarding the End of Evangelion

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Postby Derantor » Tue Jun 09, 2020 5:10 pm

Yeah, Shinji might very well be in a special position, to allow him to be "in control". I would imagine that as a blend of the two perspectives, so, not directly top-down, where he can see some of the stack of souls, but they overlap.

View Original PostReichu wrote:Which makes me wonder about the sorts of mental gymnastics [...]

This is exactly what leads me to believe that Shinji had NO choice at all and was guided through the whole process, giving him the illusion of choice. His presence seemed to be a mere accident, after all, but everybody involved besides him had some form of plan.

The other option is that Rei simply misunderstood: Shinji says "I should die", and she takes that literally: The "I", the "Ego", that is Shinji Ikari should die (btw, is there any connection between Ikari and Icarus?), along with the rest. The problem is of course that Shinji never loses his Ego completely, which means that she even ignored that misunderstood wish ... and even if he lost it temporarily, he can not remember his own non-existence as that is a contradiction in itself, so restoring him later makes it pointless to give him that experience in the first place. Besides, Rei must remember his Ego if she is able to restore him, so his Ego was never lost, because, as the greatest cinematic masterpiece of the last twelve-hundred centuries put it: "Nobody is ever REALLY gone."

Edit & Repost:
My confusion, kept for continuity  SPOILER: Show
Allright, the more I think about this all, the less sense this makes. Maybe I am overlooking something very obvious, and maybe somebody has an equally obvious answer for me, but I just can't wrap my head around how Instrumentality is supposed to benefit anybody in EoE.

1.) There is no indication that anybody besides Shinji gets guided through the process by Rei.
2.) There is also no indication that EoTV-style complementation goes on for everybody.
3.) Even if either or both of the two things above happen*, Shinji cuts that process short - in fact, he seems to be the first one to want to return. But if Instrumentality, and thus complementation, ended prematurely, how can anybody else return after that? How would they even know they can? Everything Rei says to Shinji is meant for him alone, and when he makes the choice to return, he is not connected to anybody besides her and possibly Kaworu.
4.) Is Rei still guiding everybody after Instrumentality ends? In which case, is it actually accurate to say that it did?
5.) If AT fields are restored, doesn't that preclude the "You are the Shinji in my Mind" "And you are the Misato in my mind" spiel? As far as I can tell, that was one of the effects of the removal of AT-Fields.

*I wouldn't know where to fit them in, though. They don't happen in Pre-Instrumentality, after that we cut directly to the "Komm Süßer Tod" sequence which I took as a metaphor for everybody being merged together. After that, Asuka rejects Shinji one final time and he gets his own private world without anybody else (besides Rei), and then Shinji ends Instrumentality. That leaves only the time that Shinji had on his own to squeeze in everybody elses complementation (which requires A LOT of multitasking on Rei's part), but since Rei shows him the sea of LCL, it seems like while Shinji's interaction with her was going on, everybody else just lost their individuality and became one.

In short, I just can not see how losing your individuality and then having it restored partway while being flooded with a billion memories you can not tell are your own does you any good at all or enables you to make the choice to return to the real world, unless Instrumentality continues on somewhat similar to how it works in EoTV after Shinji leaves.

Edit: Nevermind, I just cought up in the logistics. Having access to other experiences of course enables you to make progress on your own. Still, those questions above remain. How exactly does Instrumentality in EoE play out?


Having had more time to think, am I correct to assume that Instrumentality in EoE is something completely different from Instrumentality in EoTV?

EoTV: Everybody is placed in their own little bubble, which is connected to everybody else, but the merger happens slowly and contact is moderated: The Therapy sessions. Everybody gets to work through their issues and can decide for themselves how they want to continue existing - alone and in a dream, or together with everybody else (wether or not that existence is still inside Instrumentality or the real world).

EoE: Everybody is violently merged together into one singular being. The merger does not include any "therapy sessions"; Shinji is in a special position and gets to talk to Rei, then he can decide whether or not he wants to return to this merger, which results in the death of the self, or return to the real world, which means that AT-Fields exist once more. When he decides the latter, Instrumentality ends: All the souls are are split apart again and continue to exist in an disembodied state in some place (Sea of LCL seems to be gone?). Their choice is to be forever alone with all the memories of Instrumentality, trying to dream up something, never interacting with anybody or the real world ever again, or return to their physical bodies by coming to terms with themselves?
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Re: Question regarding the End of Evangelion

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Postby Lavinius » Thu Jun 11, 2020 5:02 pm

I've thought that "Shinji" during Instrumentality in the later stages of EoTV isn't just Shinji, but Shinji as the primary aspect of the world-soul (everyone else having become subsidiary aspects). The same is probably the same with the Shinj in EoE that rejects Instrumentality- only, there everyone else is even more combined/strangled/silenced into him.
On the other hand, in EoE it barely feels like souls are being combined at all as far as what we see goes (I mean, we see the souls being physically combined, but there doesn't seem to be much representation of what this looks like mentally). Something weird happens, around the time of the live action sequence, but it's difficult to see whatever's going on there as a representation of a singular being. I think that EoE just takes the logic that a singular being is a dead being made of killed beings (which EoTV reasoned out) and doesn't even bother arguing for it.
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