Pre-Episode 1 timeline headaches - Gendo & Rei's injuries

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Pre-Episode 1 timeline headaches - Gendo & Rei's injuries

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Postby ASW_Canuck » Mon Dec 28, 2020 4:30 pm

If you look at the events leading up to episode 1, there seems to be some timeline inconsistencies:

  1. Rei has very recently been seriously injured (implicitly, during EVA-00's activation test). She's still in her plug suit, is in severe pain, and when she topples off the gurney some of her wounds open up and start bleeding again.
  2. Gendo was injured during EVA-00's activation test, suffering full-thickness burns on his hands that resulted in severe scarring. However, these injuries are several weeks old, since he's almost always seen wearing his iconic white gloves right from the start of the series.
  3. Some time between EVA-00's activation test and episode 5, Rei has managed to retrieve the broken glasses that Gendo left sitting on the floor of the test cell.
  4. In the flashback in episode 5, Rei does not appear to be seriously injured when Gendo opens the ejected entry plug. She's still sitting in the seat, with both hands gripping the control handles.

Point 1 suggests that EVA-00's activation test occurred very recently (days, if not hours prior to the start of episode 1), whereas points 2 & 3 suggest that it occurred several weeks prior to the start of episode 1. Point 4 contradicts points 1-3 because it appears to show that Rei wasn't seriously injured during the activation test.

Any thoughts on this? In the manga Rei could have exacerbated her pre-existing injuries when she tried to fight Sachiel in EVA-01, but this event does not happen in the anime.

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Re: Pre-Episode 1 timeline headaches - Gendo & Rei's injuries

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Postby Kendrix » Mon Dec 28, 2020 4:54 pm

View Original PostASW_Canuck wrote:[*]In the flashback in episode 5, Rei does not appear to be seriously injured when Gendo opens the ejected entry plug. She's still sitting in the seat, with both hands gripping the control handles.


It could just be the adrenaline, it's common for ppl to move normally & not even notice their previous injuries right after an accident.
For all we knows she could've been covered in bruises under that plugsuit & full of internal injuries.

As for the plug suit, they probably put her in it the moment Sachiel arrived to keep her on standby in case recruiting Shinji didn't work out.

As for the glasses, she could just have asked to have them, or found them in Gendo's seldom-emptied office trash can sometime between eps 3 and 5, when she could walk around again
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Re: Pre-Episode 1 timeline headaches - Gendo & Rei's injuries

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Postby BusterMachine4 » Mon Dec 28, 2020 5:00 pm

I mean, the Episode 5 flashback literally says "22 days earlier" before it starts. Given the time frame established in the first few episodes, that must mean that Rei was injured just a few days before Episode 1 began. Maybe Gendo's burn wounds were just able to be treated relatively easily? I don't know. Either way, there's your answer.

By the way, who changed the background on the wiki's commentary pages to blue? I went to check them for reference, and it looked really weird.

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Re: Pre-Episode 1 timeline headaches - Gendo & Rei's injuries

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Postby Kendrix » Mon Dec 28, 2020 6:58 pm

but werent there 3 weeks between episodes 1 and 3? (Misato says it when Shamshel shows up)

I always assumed that it was supposed to be 22 days before episode 1 :chinscratch:
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Re: Pre-Episode 1 timeline headaches - Gendo & Rei's injuries

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Postby BusterMachine4 » Mon Dec 28, 2020 8:10 pm

View Original PostKendrix wrote:but werent there 3 weeks between episodes 1 and 3? (Misato says it when Shamshel shows up)

I always assumed that it was supposed to be 22 days before episode 1 :chinscratch:

Writers Cannot Do Math, my friend. It's one of those things you just have to accept.

But in all seriousness, that might be possible. However, there's still the issue of Rei's wounds being fresh in Episode 1. And given that Episode 5 just says "22 days earlier," not "22 days before the 3rd Angel attacked," I'm inclined to think that it's supposed to be 22 days before Episode 5. So either Misato was rounding up big time, or Anno just made a mistake.

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Re: Pre-Episode 1 timeline headaches - Gendo & Rei's injuries

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Postby orcot » Tue Dec 29, 2020 1:06 am

Given that the first manga chapters where written before the show. We can assume that their would have been a fight between (a already injured) Rei and sachiel.
The best argument would be that they simply put her in a plugsuit to force Shinji to pilot it. (By giving Gendo options). The blood might have come because when Rei fell of her bed she ript a IV out of her veins.

Rei might not have actualy have stolen the glasses. The Emergency medical technician tasked with extracting Rei from her entry plug and bringing her to the hospital might have put it with her personal possesions. He doesn't know her and the glasses where right next to her. No need to steal stuff. (We never see Rei steal random stuff so give her that).

I would assume Several days up to +2 week to have passed. The must have assest the damage, contacted Shinji's guardian probably let him finish the schoolweek and only then send him over. Letting him take the train was probably to make it all seem normal remember their was no angel invasion at the time. If they would have know they would have kept him closer by and extracted him by VTOL.

Abouth Rei's injuries not looking severe again remember their was supossed to have been a fight between Rei and Sachiel (she lost) but perhaps Rei doesn't realy have broken bones but tissue damage and internal bleeding.

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Re: Pre-Episode 1 timeline headaches - Gendo & Rei's injuries

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Postby BusterMachine4 » Tue Dec 29, 2020 1:17 am

That could potentially be a good explanation. I'm now more inclined towards thinking that Rei got injured 22 days before Episode 1, rather than Episode 5. It causes the timeline to make a lot more sense. The real explanation, that Rei was originally going to fight in Unit 1 against the 3rd Angel, is obvious though.

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Re: Pre-Episode 1 timeline headaches - Gendo & Rei's injuries

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Postby Kendrix » Tue Dec 29, 2020 8:53 am

View Original Postorcot wrote:Given that the first manga chapters where written before the show.


They were published first as a promotional measure, but given that animation takes forever to make, I wouldn't conclude from that that they were written first.
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Re: Pre-Episode 1 timeline headaches - Gendo & Rei's injuries

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Postby Blockio » Tue Dec 29, 2020 8:53 am

I can saqy this much with absolute certainty: Rei was not launched against Sachiel. Nothing about that premise makes any sense.

The way the military officials act tells us beyond a doubt that this is the first time Nerv saw action. Unit 00 is frozen in bakelite, and Misato's lines quite clearly imply that 01 has never been activated, not to mention the fact that we would have been shown were it the case. This notion is complete and utter nonsense.

EDIT: Also, what Kendrix says. The manga was published first, but definitely not written first.
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Re: Pre-Episode 1 timeline headaches - Gendo & Rei's injuries

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Postby IgRAzm » Tue Dec 29, 2020 9:25 am

View Original PostASW_Canuck wrote:2. Gendo was injured during EVA-00's activation test, suffering full-thickness burns on his hands that resulted in severe scarring. However, these injuries are several weeks old, since he's almost always seen wearing his iconic white gloves right from the start of the series.

I don't know what's wrong with it anyway. I think it's reasonable that the burns were treated by that time; maybe he wore the gloves specifically because it was extra protection for his burned epitelios. Gendo is such a piece of rock, I'd think he would continue with his plans without unnecessary changes even if his palms were hurting non-stop the entire time. Hell, in time he implants an alien organism in one of those. He doesn't really give a shit, as long as his scenario goes uninterrupted.

You know what really irks me about the pre-episode 1 timeline, that comes from an episode 5's screw-up? Misato, having drank about 1k Yebisu cans and making a mess of her apartment over the course of one day.

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Re: Pre-Episode 1 timeline headaches - Gendo & Rei's injuries

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Postby BusterMachine4 » Tue Dec 29, 2020 9:44 am

View Original PostBlockio wrote:I can saqy this much with absolute certainty: Rei was not launched against Sachiel. Nothing about that premise makes any sense.

The way the military officials act tells us beyond a doubt that this is the first time Nerv saw action. Unit 00 is frozen in bakelite, and Misato's lines quite clearly imply that 01 has never been activated, not to mention the fact that we would have been shown were it the case. This notion is complete and utter nonsense.

I'm not saying that Rei fought the 3rd Angel in the actual episode, that's obviously not true. But she was supposed to fight it in a rough script draft. Not only does the manga feature that idea, but it's even shown in the original proposal document's description of Episode 1. It was originally going to happen, but for unknown reasons Anno decided to scrap it. Maybe he thought it would be better if we didn't see the Eva in combat so early? Either way, it ended up creating a bit of an inconsistency.

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Re: Pre-Episode 1 timeline headaches - Gendo & Rei's injuries

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Postby Blockio » Tue Dec 29, 2020 9:48 am

Ah, I gotchu. I wouldn't necessarily call the blood an inconsistency however, considering her general state and the fact that she was hooked up to an IV at the time, I can easily see how a fall like that would rip some wounds back open
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Re: Pre-Episode 1 timeline headaches - Gendo & Rei's injuries

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Postby IgRAzm » Tue Dec 29, 2020 9:55 am

Idk about that there is even more to the inconsistency other than the 3-week comment and 22 days before flashback title's discrepancy. It seems to me that, other than this, Anno had covered the imperfections of the prearranged script's changes well enough. Unit 01 wasn't activated, but they could've done it with Rei, it's just that she got unavailable, and this is why they had to call Shinji at the last moment for the Angel attack. I'd even call that the version they went with ends up telling a much better story as well, but I didn't read the rough draft to be able to confidently make such a judgement with certainty, wherever I could find it.

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Re: Pre-Episode 1 timeline headaches - Gendo & Rei's injuries

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Postby Blockio » Tue Dec 29, 2020 12:42 pm

I mean, on the 22 days thing - that's only one day off from being three weeks exactly, so I wouldn't read too much into that discrepancy
I can see why Gendo hired Misato to do the actual commanding. He tried it once and did an appalling job. ~ AWinters
Your point of view is horny, and biased. ~ glitz2hard
What about titty-ten? ~ Reichu
The movies function on their own terms. If people can't accept them on those terms, and keep expecting them to be NGE, then they probably should have realized a while ago that they weren't going to have a good time. ~ Words of wisdom courtesy of Reichu

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Re: Pre-Episode 1 timeline headaches - Gendo & Rei's injuries

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Postby orcot » Tue Dec 29, 2020 1:21 pm

Meh good enough.
I'm not that happy on how unit 01 protected Shinji without a pilot, we never see that sort of eva behaviour before (unit 01 lifted her arm to protect Shinji from falling lights).
I imagen they played with the idea of (a injured) Rei already being inside unit 01. To continue the theme of Rei saving Shinji (her flipping the car back on it's weels so Shinji and Misato could escape).

But it would be hard to animate because they wanted a full frontal of Unit 01 face, meaning Shinji would have to do a 5 minute walk to see the injured Rei, obscuring Gendo in the process.
So they switched back to the story board from afther Rei last her battle with the angel.

I'm guessing they wanted to increase mystery and decrease action in episode 01.

(Personal opinion the manga did it better if they wanted to keep the mystery they could have only showed Rei's fight in later episode like they did with Shinji.
Just make Shinji to scared to watch what is happening and we just see the shadow of unit 01).

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Re: Pre-Episode 1 timeline headaches - Gendo & Rei's injuries

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Postby Blockio » Tue Dec 29, 2020 1:26 pm

....what?

The whole point of that scene is to show that 01 has some sort of connection and extremely strong protective instinct towards Shinji. The whole point of the scene is that it should have been impossible, but somehow the Eva is too powerful to be restrained like that. the reason we never see behaviour like that before that point is because it's literally the first thing we see
I can see why Gendo hired Misato to do the actual commanding. He tried it once and did an appalling job. ~ AWinters
Your point of view is horny, and biased. ~ glitz2hard
What about titty-ten? ~ Reichu
The movies function on their own terms. If people can't accept them on those terms, and keep expecting them to be NGE, then they probably should have realized a while ago that they weren't going to have a good time. ~ Words of wisdom courtesy of Reichu

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Re: Pre-Episode 1 timeline headaches - Gendo & Rei's injuries

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Postby orcot » Tue Dec 29, 2020 1:36 pm

Eva's need a pilot they don't move without one. You might aswel convince unit 01 that Shinji is still alive on the planet and if the angel reaches the geofront he will die. So go out and fight on your own, without a pilot..
We do see it a second time when unit 01 breaks trough the bakelit but that is in the movie not the series (I don't know if that counts)

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Re: Pre-Episode 1 timeline headaches - Gendo & Rei's injuries

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Postby Blockio » Tue Dec 29, 2020 1:41 pm

Dude. Yui is in Unit 01. The whole point of the scene is to be the first bit of foreshadowing for that. A mother protecting her child.
I can see why Gendo hired Misato to do the actual commanding. He tried it once and did an appalling job. ~ AWinters
Your point of view is horny, and biased. ~ glitz2hard
What about titty-ten? ~ Reichu
The movies function on their own terms. If people can't accept them on those terms, and keep expecting them to be NGE, then they probably should have realized a while ago that they weren't going to have a good time. ~ Words of wisdom courtesy of Reichu

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Re: Pre-Episode 1 timeline headaches - Gendo & Rei's injuries

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Postby BusterMachine4 » Tue Dec 29, 2020 2:10 pm

View Original PostBlockio wrote:I mean, on the 22 days thing - that's only one day off from being three weeks exactly, so I wouldn't read too much into that discrepancy

But then there's 8 days in between Episode 3 and Episode 4, and the events of Episode 4 last three days long. So that doesn't really add up, which leads me to believe that "22 days earlier" actually refers to 22 days before the beginning of the show. Of course, there's always the option that Anno just messed up the dates, which is probably what actually happened.

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Re: Pre-Episode 1 timeline headaches - Gendo & Rei's injuries

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Postby ASW_Canuck » Mon Feb 01, 2021 10:27 pm

Once you start looking for the holes, you can't ever stop :tongue: "Asuka Strikes" is absolutely riddled with them, and a quick glance at a map of the Hakone region makes it obvious that the sniper's perch from "Showdown in Tokyo-3" is nowhere near where they say it is in the episode.

View Original PostBusterMachine4 wrote:Of course, there's always the option that Anno just messed up the dates, which is probably what actually happened.


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