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As a WMG subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.


Gendo's Master Plan.
We have four giants of light, the Adams that triggered Second Impact with the Spears. Something happened to them, and now they're gone, or have been turned into Evangelion Units. EVA 01 is one of them, EVA 13 is another, Mark 06 was probably one more, and the Key of Nebuchadnezzar is the remains of the fourth. Gendo is trying to reawaken all of them. We've already had EVA-01 "awakened" into a giant of light. With the awakened EVA 13 having absorbed what was left of Mark 06, it counts as two in one. Gendo is more than likely going to use the Key to merge himself with EVA 13, becoming essentially three Adams in one, and then pilot it to find and merge with EVA 01, becoming a god, and forever merging his soul with Yui. This would undoubtedly kill off what life there is left on Earth, but why would he care about that?

Hideaki Anno created 3.0 as a giant FUCK YOU to all the Evangelion Fix Fics that try to reconstruct Shinji into a more assertive protagonist, (e.g. Shinji and Warhammer40k).
Even if you put a Shonen protagonist like Simon behind the helm of Evangelion, that does not change a single fact about the nature of the Evas and why they were created. They're clones of an Eldritch Abomination. They are nightmarish monstrosities that shall complete the Book of Revelations and destroy the world for the sake of whatever the mad cultists of SEELE wanted, such as their ideal of the forced evolution of humanity. If H. P. Lovecraft taught us anything, it's that anything can go wrong with meddling with an eldritch abomination, such as the complete utter destruction of your own sanity. With such an unstable superweapon at your disposal, the worst thing you can do is give it to a Shonen protagonist who will most likely abuse its powers for some "noble goal" and without thinking accidentally destroy the world.

There will be a new character in EVA: 3+1

  • Shinji and Gendou are both of them parts of Anno's personality: Shinji is the innocence and Gendou is the (First) maturity that he found working in Nadia, having to force Shingi (himself) into doing something that could look awesome (Piloting a giant robot, or creating his own anime) but in the end, it's something horrible (Being face to face with Eldritch Abominations, or working on Nadia)
But in the new century, Anno is a new man. He's happily married, and while he can have his highs and low moments, he's more mature and can come to terms with himself, and also he even has the help of his good friend Miyazaki and his loving wife.
  • A new character could appear: The Mature Anno, this Anno from the XXI Century, and would teach Shinji AND Gendou the rights AND the wrongs of their ways, and learn the true, mature and brightest way to live.
  • Then, the three parts of Anno Psyche, his innocence, his discipline, and his love, would work together and pilot their respective mechas in battle, not to fight Angels, But DEMONS: EVERY LAST ONE of Anno's inner demons.
  • Jossed, no new human character appears in 3+1.

Mari achieved the curse of EVA/immortality before the Second Impact, or she is an extra Lilith-class Angel who choose to help humans.
Read the extra for the last NGE manga album - She looks like 14 in 1998 and calls Ayanami Yui her older sister. The first manned EVA experiments took place between 2004 and 2008 and none of the pilots come out with their minds intact.
  • Confirmed in 3.0+1.0

These movies takes place before Gurren Lagann
According to Rebuild 3.0 Third Impact happened anyway, but this time not everyone died which means that there might have been enough humans to repopulate mankind at a decent levels. 1000 years later, Gurren Lagann's events happen. Simple as that.

This time, what is Kaworu's agenda?
Besides bringing Shinji happiness. He surely did not wanted the third impact to happen at the end of 2.0. That is, the version of the Third Impact that involved Unit-01 (made from the body of Lilith?), Lilith's soul, a Lilin and an Angel, which look like something Gendo would be satisfied with. He does not seem to be willing to stop the Third Impact from happening between 2.0 and 3.0 (the one with Lilith's body and an Angel), since Mark 06 needed to be automatised to do the duty. Then, in 3.0, he happily jump on a journey to use one of the Adams (Unit-13, a Lilin, an angel (himself), the Spear of Longinus (anti-Lilith weapon) and the Spear of Cassius (anti-Adam weapon, maybe?) to perform a Reverse Impact somehow. None of this is coherent, but it may be sure to assume that:
  • a) His intentions are the same as in the first series: to leave the world with the Lilins like it was before Second Impact.
  • b) He's just a regular angel who wants the angels to take over.
    • Kaworu didn't wanted the version of the Third Impact that involved Unit-01 (Near-Third Impact) because the Eva didn't had any spears to control the power of the Impact, so if not stopped it would had simply exterminated all life on Earth instead of triggering Instrumentality (converting all life into a new superior lifeform), which is SEELE's ultimate goal.

Gendo harvested Rei out of Unit-01 before locking it in the tesseract
That's the only reason she isn't inside 01's core and Lilith's face changed to hers at some point in the 14 years gap. Also, it's classic Gendo to not care on saving his own son and leaving him trapped inside the damn thing while he carries on his plan.
  • The problem is it doesn't explain how the 12th angel was involved.
  • Jossed, she is still inside Unit-01.

The "Curse of Eva" is a metaphor for Creative Sterility.
Hideaki's relationship with Evangelion is complicated. He considers it both his Magnum Opus and his Old Shame. The fact that the 3.0 timeline advanced 14 years (not unlike the amount of time that passed between the original series and Rebuild), but characters were Not Allowed to Grow Up is akin to metafictional acknowledgement that Gainax has to revive Eva over and over again due to sheer commercial success, whereas they'd rather break away from the tired plot if Executive Meddling ever allowed for Shinji Growing the Beard at last.
  • That or how Anno is tied to the series in reputation, even when making other things. Such things become secondary to Eva.

The Wunder was created for the Super Robot Wars franchise
...so that Misato could have a more prominent & important role than that of an NPC.
  • That was quite obvious. The new Evas are also good Mid-Season Upgrade machines.
  • The Rebuild Evas will appear in the upcoming Super Robot Wars Z3. They will only be represented up through 2.0, though, so the Wunder may not make an appearance in the games...yet.

SOMEBODY on the production team reads Shinji And Warhammer 40 K
Because there are just a few too many similar elements, including:
  • A giant floating fortress held aloft by A.T. fields and powered by an EVA in its core with a German sounding name.
  • Floating battleships and carriers, also held aloft by A.T. fields.
  • Maya becoming a badass.
  • Shinji achieving a 0.00% synchronization rate.
  • The scene where Eva-02 Kai blocks an energy blast looks suspiciously like a Homing Laser.
  • Shinji's Eva sprouting multiple arms.
    • If it's the case, we'll never know because Gendo would never let this information pass.

Touji, Kensuke & Hikari will appear in FINAL
As the pilots of the Mass-Production Evangelions seen in the trailer, that NERV fields to fight against EVA 8+2.
  • Comfirmed, but not as pilots.

Rebuild is only a stylized version of Hideaki Anno's Life
I only can support this with the ending of EVA 2.0 and most of 3.0: "Saving Rei" was akin to being hired to work on Nadia: A long series? With a huge budget? That's GREAT! A crowning moment, a bright, better future and untold oportunities.But everybody knows that working on Nadia did indeed break down Anno. It broke him so much that if you see the "Evangelion Proposal" document, the idea that the young and motivated Anno had, and the final thing, the Evangelion we all know, they have almost nothing in common!So, EVA 2.0 is yhe young Anno, the struggling young Hideaki Anno, and EVA 3.0 is him working on Nadia. Come on... This video could be the poster image for Shot Out! So, in this movie, Shinji/Anno, is broken, delusional, he cannot trust in the ones he used to (Young Anno trusted the Otaku community, but his older self despised them)EVA 4.0? Only Time will tell which kind of story is... but remember: after Nadia, he started to work in Evangelion, one of the most depressing stories ever told. It this end with sad note, like Eo E? or they will fight, go through hell, and give us a Gunbuster (Or Gurren Lagann) ending? only time will tell.
  • After Nadia, Hideaki worked on Evangelion. But maybe... JUST MAYBE, Hideaki uses for EVA-Final the Evangelion Proposal, instead of NGE! The TRUE Evangelion, as it always should have been!

Kaoru is Adam, at least for ROE
There is no mention of Adam anywhere.
  • What about the ADAMS that caused the 2nd Impact?
    • The Adams from the Second Impact montage appear to be the Mass-Production Evas from Eo E. Based on Kaworu's "this time" line at the end of 2.0 (implying he knows Shinji from before), it's possible he could somehow still be the original continuity's Adam.
      • Weren't the MP Evas based on Kaworu/Adam's soul though? The lack of the proper soul of Adam caused by Kaworu's death could have totally been the reason why Instrumentality/the pregnancy kept "feeling wrong" to Shinji.

"Poofy Pink" is to be watched for!
That odd girl with the poofy pink-ish hair, in the trailer, doesn't anybody else think her pink hair is unusual? I know it's anime, but back in the TV show the only people with truly unusual hair were Rei and Kaworu. Misato has purple hair, true, but its more of a stylistic black. Pink just seems too far off the normal range. So its possible she might be "something"'.
  • "Poofy"? Seriously?
  • More likely though, it's a Shout-Out, go look at the trope page for UFO (1970). Look familiar? You should see the opening credits...
  • She certainly is suspicious, considering that she appeared as Yui's 16-year-old kouhai in the last chapter of the manga when YUI WAS STILL IN COLLEGE. And now she's still 16. Furthermore, it was outright stated that she was in love with Yui, and no one who was in love with Yui has ever been NOT suspicious before.

Shinji becomes an angel during the Zeruel battle
Think about it. Shinji's eyes turned red. Now both Rei's and Kaworu's eyes are red (and are the only people to have red eyes, which shows their part angel status)and when Shinji was pulling Rei out of Zeruel's core, his eyes changed to the exact same tint of red as Rei's and Kaworu's.
  • Alternatively, Shinji already was an Angel.
    • No Shinji, you ARE the angels! And then Shinji was a zombie.
      • Actually, that makes a bit of sense, seeing as during the fight with Zeruel Shinji was pulling off stuff that only full-blown angels were supposed to be able to do such as weird crap with his AT field and shooting Eye Beams.
      • Not to mention the halo over 01's head. Particularly because in Rebuild most angel seems to have one.
      • Are we forgetting that EVAs are just jury-rigged Angel clones? All that stuff could have just been 01, triggered by Shinji's Wangst determination
      • I know the EVA 01 is a clone of Lilith, but when EVA 01 ones goes apeshit and angel mode Shinji is usually knocked out. In this, he is pissed and his eyes turn bright red. Could the EVA have turned him into something beyond human? Is he gonna start combining all the EVAs and create drills made out of AT Fields? We won't know until we get 3.0 and 4.0
      • We are warned of really awful stuff happening when Synch ratios get too high.
      • Ritsuko explicitly stated that if Shinji were to continue he wouldn't remain human, and she looked very concerned
      • But she was likely referring to the fact that Shinji would turn into LCL at too high of a sync rate.
      • Well, in the latest chapter of the manga, Unit-01's left arm turns all glowing-ish as Shinji attacks one of the MP EVAs. With just a slight amount of imagination, it looks particularly much like Unit-01's AT-Field Rocket Punch capable arm from the battle against Zeruel in Rebuild 2.22. Seriously. Just look!
      • Isn't humanity already an angel as a whole according to End of Evangelion? Maybe Shinji's the core...
  • Or if we combine this with the time loop WMG, Shinji has always been the new progenitor - Eve, of the new human kind ever since the original timeline. Only, he kept rejecting his responsibility, turning back time, and erasing everyone's memories, including his own, because he didn't want to be single mother with rejecting Instrumentality as the abortion. During the fight, he might have been desperate enough that he unconsciously tapped into his forgotten memories/powers in order to win the fight.

The rebuild characters retain some memories from NGE and EoE
Consider that in 2.0 when Mari comes crashing in to meet Shinji via the wrecked Eva 02, Shinji isn't even phased by the fact that Eva are obviously ORGANISMS, with all the blood and brains he couldn't have not seen that Eva is alive. Has no one noticed this yet?
  • ...Eva being organisms was never a secret. Shinji knows they are cyborgs.
    • And at what point during Rebuild was he told this?
      • In both Rebuild and the original series, the mechs were described as such in the first episode:note 
      Ritsuko: The artificial human, Evangelion.
      • Aww, but why was Shinji shocked when he saw that Eva 01 was alive in NGE?
      Shinji: What is Eva...?
      • Because being told something is an artificial life-form, and then seeing it for yourself in all it's eldritch glory are two entirely different things.
      • Alternatively, there is a difference between being biological and being alive.
      • This might actually be true. Think back to NGE episode 1. Misato told Shinji to just concentrate on walking, but Shinji had no clue how to do that, so she explained it to him. In Rebuild 1.0, during Shinji's first launch, Misato tells him to just concentrate on walking, and Shinji just thinks "walk", and the Evangelion begins walking. This time Misato didn't have to tell Shinji how to make the EVA move.
  • Partially confirmed. Kaworu has full memory and Shinji remembers later.

The World of Rebuild is the world of the original after the reboot at EoE
It shares a lot of similarities with the of EoE,but take another turn in the most dramatic moments,so my theory is that the are the re-incarnations and are on their way of learning from their mistakes in EoE.
  • At least according to Kaworu, this would be correct.
  • Of course, since there apparently are TWO Giants that are both Lilith is rather odd....and that Kaworu is the ONLY Character that is aware of the Alternate Universes of Eva. The differences between Life and Death is meaningless to me, indeed.
  • Also, the coffins Kaworu is seen in on the moon is the number of times Shinji has reset the world, not the number of angels released in the film. This says that there may be a limit to the amount of times Shinji can reset the world and that Kaworu is the same in ever timeline (he gets "reborn" in the next coffin), and we don't see the total number of coffins.
  • Let us also recall that Misato is indeed nicer here, and is putting a concerted effort into making the poor kid gain a sense of self-worth. Also, she seems to be slightly more reasonable in how she explains things to Shinji.
    • Further, she shows him Lilith.
  • ALL THE EVA CHARACTERS ARE TRAPPED IN AN ENDLESS CYCLE OF SAMSARA!
  • We've entered an endless recursion of time.
  • The NeverEnd of Evangelionnote 
  • Kaworu may have experienced this endless-rebirth cycle near-infinite times too, judging from his "I'll make you happy" quote.
  • In fact, maybe the Second Impact shown in the Rebuild-verse was actually the Pilots (including Kaworu) materializing there due to Shinji screwing the previous universe over by initiating Third Impact yet again. It makes sense, since we were shown the "ADAMS" in the 2I-flashback scene.
  • The loop is a result of the Angels Save Scumming. It will continue until one of them "wins."
  • Sounds sensible. Also reminds me of a popular Radiant Silvergun / Ikaruga continuity WMG
  • There is some heavy evidence of this being the case in the short trailer for Quickening. Just look under Asuka's eye patch. Comparing the collars, it is her old plug suit rather than the current one damaged to look like the original.
  • This troper thinks of this particular Wild Mass Guess as being the next step in a path to each character's "self-actualization," something he thought of after a 2-second-long segment of the scene in Rebuild 1.11 where Shinji runs away after fighting the flying alien... squid... thing. Shinji carefully walks down a "yellow line road." Let's think of the line in the middle of the road as being the "Yellow Brick Road" in The Wizard of Oz. (Let's ignore the likely intentional original symbolism, being social commentary on the state of the United States near the end of the 19 century.) Based on Joey Greene's Buddhist interpretation of the Wizard of Oz, the yellow brick road is the path to self-actualization. This quote from a page on self-actualization adds more detail: "... the concept was brought most fully to prominence in Abraham Maslow's 'hierarchy of needs' theory as the final level of psychological development that can be achieved when all basic and mental needs are fulfilled and the "actualization" of the full personal potential takes place." Since each character is based on a subject in psychology, have each fix their respective psychological problems through one unified method... in an alternate universe; and, every time they fail, turn everyone into orange tang and start all over.
    • It sounds like it could be a coincidence, but one of the battleships in the television series was called 'Over the Rainbow.' It was probably named after the song from the Wizard of Oz. Oz could also be simplified to Dorothy trying to escape from reality, which is mirrored in Shinji's desire to escape from reality.
  • More evidence supporting this theory is the inclusion of a red ocean and a blood like streak across the moon, mimicking the events in the End of Evangelion.
    • Also note the very first shot of the first Rebuild movie corresponds to one of the final shots from the End of Evangelion.

Rebuild is a separate continuity from the original
All indications that Rebuild is after EoE is just Anno having fun with our heads

Rebuild Kaworu is EoE Shinji Reborn
An extension of the above WMG, consider this. Unit-01 suffers severe facial trauma in NGE, and in Rebuild, we see the Mark 06 being (re)built on the surface of the moon, away from prying eyes, specifically Gendo's prying eyes, around an EVA whose SEELE mask has an additional bit of covering right over Unit-01's affected area. Kaworu even goes so far as to call Gendo 'Father'. This theory implies two things:

1. Everything, including NGE, EoE and Rebuild up until now has possibly all been according to SEELE's plan. This is supported by Kaworu's incredibly convenient timing at the end of You Can (Not) Advance.

2. There's a timeline from before NGE itself where Third Impact was triggered by Yui merging with Lilith and Shinji merging with Adam, spawning Rei with Lilith's soul, and Kaworu with Adam's soul into the NGE timeline. Yui, having retained her memories of this possibly original timeline willingly merges herself into Unit-01, in accordance with SEELE's wishes, so that she can later facilitate Unit-01's consumption of Zeruel in berserk mode in NGE to set up the (Second) Third Impact scenario in EoE. This explains why Lilith/Rei/Yui hands over responsibility for Instrumentality to Shinji whose personality in the NGE timeline was specifically crafted in order to precipitate the reality he would create in Rebuild. This leads us into Rebuild where Rei and Kaworu are still working as agents of SEELE, this time around to heal up Shinji's relationship with his dad and his other relationships (as evidenced by Misato also acting nicer to him, possibly under influence from SEELE) and turn him into someone both strong enough to achieve the Godlike state necessary for Instrumentality, and the happiness with his life that would allow him to abandon his AT Field and finally, ultimately complete the Human Instrumentality Project that's been in motion from before NGE.

  • Actually, apparently people call their friends' father the same word in Japan commonly. So I think that's just Kaworu acknowledging that Gendou is Shinji's father. As for how he knows that...
    • Actually, they would only use the same word for "father" when talking to the friend, not to the father. It's similar to simply saying "your father" in English, as dropping personal pronouns such as "your" is pretty common in Japanese. Now, if you were addressing the friend's father, calling him simply "father" would be just as strange as it is in English (for example, when Yotsuba&! addresses the Ayase sisters' mother as "Mom" for the first time the sisters are confused). Kaworu does exactly that (although, for all we know, he could have been addressing Fuyutsuki instead, but that's a whole other theory).
      • Kaworu says お父さん (otou-san.) This word can be used to describe any father, not only your own. Remember how Kowaru calls Gendo 'King of all lilim'?

Kaworu Nagisa is prescient
Or in other words, he can see the future. He has played out several versions of the possible yet-to-be timelines in his mind, so when he drops lines like "I shall make you happy this time", he is referring to memories of the future he already has. Of course, nothing guarantees that the future he seeks will actually happen, with destiny being as fickle as it is.
  • This one has some credence, as in damn near every extra work he's appeared in he's has some sort of greater knowledge of things. Like the manga, or his Super Robot Wars appearances. Maybe he's just replaying those continuities over in his head.

Kaworu Nagisa was created from Gendo Ikari's DNA
.A fan theory in the original series suggested that Kaworu was born from the human DNA inserted into Adam that started Second Impact. If the same thing happened in this continuity then...yeah. Of course. it's still possible he's referring to Adam in Gendo's hand...except Kaji brought him something else this time.
  • They both play piano, Shinji says Kaworu is like Gendo and Kaji calls Kaworu "commander" all the time which is Gendo's title.

What the hell is Mari Illustrious Makinami?
  • A Deconstruction of the Mary Sue /Moe Girlfriend The accusations of Mari Illustrious being a Canon Sue are correct… in a way. Kazuya Tsurumaki stated, citing Anno, that "Mari is the only character who isn't somehow dervied from Anno's psyche" and also that she is "meant to be wildly different from every other character". If she’s not from ‘’Anno’s’’ psyche, couldn’t she be from ours? She’s got everything a male fanfic author would want in an imaginary girl friend, and everything a female Self-Insert writer is sure not to forget adding in: a gimmicky outfit (glasses, twintails, kneesocks), a weird Verbal Tic, little sense of personal space or social etiquette, a contrived Crash-Into Hello with the male lead… that she has a Blood Knight battle mode isn't even much of a subversion. A seemingly sweet and cuddly girl has a psychotic mode is old hat to otaku who love to make sweet characters into secret psychopaths, and the sort of otaku silliness the writers would love to poke fun at. She even acts, on occasion, like myriad fan-portrayals of a vicious, Blood Knight Shinji! She seems to shrug off any damage inflicted on her as we would expect a Mary Sue to do, but this is deconstructed by making her some sort of bloodthirsty masochist. She acts in a sueish way, taking everything lightly, but then she does poorly in both her engagements, with her EVAs badly damaged or destroyed. Her personal Eva unit 05 is "special," radically different from any of the others, but those differences cause it to be noticeably less effective in battle, not more. She talks about having plans she doesn't want adults getting in the way of, but she has so little connection to the actual main character that we still barely see her do anything. She even has what might be a Mary Sue token flaw in her glasses, though that too is deconstructed by making her completely Blind Without 'Em. But, the problem with the Mary Sue is that she, herself, is surreal. Mari lives in a Crapsack World and enjoys every minute of it; and will not acknowledge her mistakes, how is that not insane? Like other Parody Sue s before her, eventually, the toll of not being as superior as she thought she was will take its toll…
    • She didn't seem too upset about not actually doing much more than buy time against the Angels she couldn't kill, and in 3.0 she seems more than happy to play support while Asuka did the bulk of the fighting.
  • Slightly relate to above, she's at least a jab at how most fans of the main Eva girls only like them on a superficial level as unlike them, she lacks the unflattering bits that are intended to deconstruct their archetypes (often ignored by said fans). This is part of why such fans HATE her, she's like a mirror showing the ugly truth about them. The lack of such incidentally makes her more 'waifuable' by newer fans or those put off by said unflattering traits.
  • A Re/Deconstruction of the standard Super Robot protagonist As Shinji was a genderswapped inversion of the standard teenage SR pilot when it was first created, Mari is the Badass, straight ahead, 1% into 100% version. Her Blood Knight status and cheery love of battle is vaguely reminiscent of Ryoma Nagare, she gets to pilot the primarily red Unit-02, and the color palette she's presented in ZA BEASTO mode is a peculiar green and red. Her introduction song in Provisional Unit-05 sounds like something out of Gunbuster, as does her pre-Beast code quip of "Sometimes you've got to risk it all to get that special something". She's basically a chimera of Studio GAINAX's previous Super Robot heroes with glasses. She's got Noriko's guts (and tits), Nono's weirdness, and Kamina's hotheadedness. The subversion of trope is the fact that she has come dangerously close to dying in both her fights; there’s even odds that her "problem" is either she's a Death Seeker, and/or she ends up mirroring Kamina in more ways that her fans would like.
  • A replacement for Asuka Langley Soryu What if she was designed to Steal Asuka’s “spotlight”, as it were ? The But Not Too Foreign child prodigy Fiery Redheaded Tsundere with the Ace Custom Eva who showed up late seemed like she could pass for a Sue in her first few episodes, and we know what happened to her.
  • The Kid from the Future... ...or past. Something like that. Considering how too many Eva fanfics have done this, and how Rebuild seems to be pretty fanficcy, this becomes downright plausible. Bonus points if she pulls out Misato's cross that Shinji got from Eo E and announces Everything that has happened before.... Even more bonus points if they redo that official artwork which had Shinji and Asuka look at the giant Rei head to have her in it.
    • This could explain why she also has an obsolete SDAT player (assuming she swapped players with Shinji)...she got it from her father,Shinji,when she was/willbe younger.
    • Incidentally, if we also assume the Stealth Sequel theory is true, some of her personality traits could be explained by growing up in a post-Third Impact apocalyptic wasteland. LCL was the entire sea, after all.
  • Asuka's half(?)-sister. In the Eva manga, Asuka Soryu was a test-tube baby conceived by Kyoko after her husband left her because of their failure to conceive a child; the root of her competitive streak was implied to be Kyoko pushing Asuka to be better than the daughter her ex-husband fathered with another woman. (3.0 spoilers)The picture of the other woman Kyoko's husband married vaguely resembles the woman resembling Mari seen in a photo of Yui, Gendo, and baby Shinji. It's also noticed that the picture of the child Asuka was trying to compete with somewhat resembles Mari (Only Six Faces aside).
  • An antagonist. Her Evajack of Unit-02 actually foreshadowed her true identity as an Angel. (The person who Evajacked Unit-02 in the original series? Kaworu.) After the other Angels are defeated, she'll probably whack Kaworu from behind with a large heavy object and subvert our expectations by taking his place as the final Angel. Bonus points if her and Rei have a mid-air battle outside their Evangelions. Note that this doesn't preclude any of the above, and she might prove to be a Well-Intentioned Extremist or Necessarily Evil.
    • Or possibly a human antagonist. We haven't seen much of her outside of combat, It's possible that outside of the cockpit she's an Ax-Crazy Psycho for Hire or some other kind of bad person, possibly working directly for SEELE. Maybe in this continuity she's the one who kills Kajji.
  • She's literally from the Gunbuster universe and still operates as if she is in it. She was a Sizzler pilot who got sucked into the black hole created by Buster Machine 3 and weird space shit happened and she ended up in the Evangelion universe. And she totally fights under the credo of Effort and Guts! and despite the crushing cynicism of the Eva universe as a whole, it works out for her. It'd also explain why she wasn't fearful when fighting the Third Angel despite it being her "first" battle: She's fought hordes of space monsters, what's just one little teeny tiny one to her? Also, take a close look at the shape of Eva 08's head, from both the front and side. It looks suspiciously like a pink, multi-eyed Sizzler. Also, she's the only character with noticeable boob jiggle which we all know is a natural property of all women from the Gunbuster universe.
  • She's Asuka Langley Sohryu as perceived by Asuka Langley Sohryu. If Rebuild is a Stealth Sequel, it's conceivable that everyone was pulled out of the partially-complete Instrumentality to create the inhabitants of Rebuild. However, Asuka had the benefit of being more 'real' than the average person (both because she is herself an Eva pilot as well as someone important to Instrumentality's Godhead) while having failed to live up to her own perception of herself. In short, Sohryu perceived herself as the best and infallible... but events showed that Asuka was neither. So she had the option to either accept that she wasn't the perfect pilot... or that she wasn't Asuka. She chose the latter, and the rebuild incarnated her as Mari, a totally-for-real-and-for-true not Asuka who otherwise fits her. Which, of course, leaves an Asuka-shaped hole in the rebuild, helpfully filled by the Asuka-in-others-minds. By the end of the 3.0 timeskip 'Mari' has finally seen what everybody else saw in 'Asuka.'
  • A catalyst for change, particularly in Shinji. Her increasing presence seems to go in hand with the plot going further from the original plot. But with Shinji, she's a healthy influence, able to set him in the right direction as opposed to enabling his negative tendencies, ignoring them or making them worse. Unfortunately she's only really able to be such in a major way in the last movie.

Assuming that the "reset button" theory is true, Zeruel nomming Unit-00 was a twisted sort of revenge for what Unit-01 did in the original series.

Applying Fridge Logic, what is FINAL?
The Meaningful Name/Idiosyncratic Episode Naming of the movies holds the fact that each of the movies are part of a three-part stage act...but that doesn't make sense: where does FINAL fit in?

If we assume that Rebuild is an Alternate Timeline, then FINAL is...what? The original series? After Death?

If we assume Rebuild is not an Alternate Timeline, then FINAL is...After the End? If After the End equates to after EoE, then the theory that Rebuild is an Alternate Timeline is false, since Rebuild is assumed to be a...huh?

The entire continuity is a Peggy Sue orchestrated by Kaworu.
Someone needed to say it. His "this time" line is definitely suspicious, as is his last-minute intervention to halt Third Impact. The fact that he referred to Gendo (apparently) as "father" (which I took as referring to Gendo being in possession of Adam in the original series, considering that Kaworu is one of "Adam's Children) is a slightly more subtle reference.

Mari is a clone of Kyoko Zeppelin Shikinami.
...Okay, apart from eye color and her ability to sync so well with Unit-02, I got nothing supporting this.
  • Well, considering Rei's red eyes and blue hair =/= Yui's brown eyes and brown hair, why the hell not? This has some standing.
  • I know WMG's are supposed to be wild, but:
    • If the whole "mother's soul" dynamic still holds in Rebuild for EVAs aside from Unit-01 (because Yui was confirmed in 2.0 to be in there), then Asuka wouldn't have been able to sync up with Unit-03, unless Unit-02's core was transferred into 03 before the ordeal. But if that's the case, then Unit-02 wouldn't have a core by the time of the Zeruel battle (Unit-03's torso, where an EVA's core is, was completely smashed into goo by Unit-01, so it is highly improbable that 03's core survived), meaning that it could not have been piloted by anyone. So her piloting Unit-02 doesn't really support her being a clone of Kyoko.
      • Remember the "cross-synch" tests from the TV series, too. It is possible for a pilot to synch with another's EVA, it just isn't as effective and sometimes has some weird side effects (and the dummy system wouldn't work at all if cross-synch wasn't possible). Remember that Asuka offered to test Unit 03, mostly because she was bored; the NERV folks probably didn't expect her to do much more than start it up and maybe have her walk it around a bit and prove it functioned. Once they confirmed it wouldn't explode ala Unit 04, then they'd go dragoon Toji into being a pilot (unless Asuka could somehow pilot it well enough to use it as a unit). So it isn't that odd that Asuka can synch with 03, and Mari with 02; they just aren't as effective as they would be in their "proper" units.
      • Supposing that Touji was considered to be used as a pilot is an assumption that relies entirely on the original series's canon. Ritsuko did mention there being back-ups for the pilots, but it's never mentioned that any of Shinji's classmates are viable candidates in Rebuild.
      • It's also worth remembering that "synch" is partially a function of the soul inside the EVA as well; if a soul inside an EVA doesn't like the pilot, they won't boot or odd things will happen (see 01 (aka Yui) refusing to boot via dummy plug). Given that we've also seen "cross-talk" between an EVA's soul and a pilot's, it's reasonable to assume they can stay informed of a situation via the surface thoughts of a pilot. So, when Mari hops in to Unit 02, Kyoko realizes a) Asuka is injured and can't fight and b) NERV HQ, and thus her injured daughter, is in imminent danger. It isn't out there at all to think that 02's thought process is then "my daughter must be protected, very well stranger, we will fight together this one time." So Mari doesn't need to be a "Kyoko clone" to synch with Unit 02, 02 just needs to have a good reason to listen to a stranger - which she had.
    • Wouldn't that be Kyoko Zeppelin Shikinami (unless Asuka adopted the name later)?
      • Oops. My bad.
    • Yui's eyes are green. Like those of Eva-01. OH SNAP!
      • Remember that EVA-02 was the first Combat Deployment-type Evangelion built. First. Indicating that more would be made. EVA-03 was probably another Combat Deployment-type. And besides, if it's meant to be launched in emergency situations, having the soul-synch-thing in EVA-02 and EVA-03 would be one huge handicap, as it would mean only one person would be able to properly pilot them. So it is quite possible that EVA-02 and EVA-03 don't even have souls in Rebuild.

Asuka originally had the last name Soryu, she just changed it to distance herself from her mother
Which makes sense if her backstory from the series is present.

Anyone else here seen Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni Kai?
They're all trapped in an endless time loop that doesn't stop until fate is put right. Or rather, until the character conscious of the time loop gets out alive and the Big Bad is stopped. The Big Bads are anyone working towards Instrumentality and the conscious character is Kaworu. Once he figures out that he really can Screw Destiny by not dying, things will be put right and everyone can go play club games. Or not.
  • If that's so is kawaru bernkastle?

Contact Experiments are not required for EVAs.

During the scene where Lilith is revealed in the first film, there's a whole bunch of little red lights floating around. As we saw in End of Evangelion, that little red light is a soul, thus it's not necessary for someone to get munched to get a soul into an Eva: They just need to pop on down to Level EEE and pick up a random soul and shove it into an Eva. Ergo, Yui may have died another way, and Kyoko may well be still alive.

  • But if we apply the "soul needed to synch" rule, then putting a random soul into an Eva instead of the soul of someone to whom the pilot is strongly connected to in some way doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Using a total stranger's soul would actaully be an obstacle to effective synching, IMHO. Personally, i think those litle red dots are just particles from the LCL flowing out of Lilith. You know, sort of like with a waterfall.
  • Jossed in 3.0: Fuyutsuki specifically tells Shinji that Yui became Unit 01's control system.
    • That's still doesn't mean that a Contact Experiment, or even a soul is required for Evangelions : Mari, Asuka and Shinji were seen piloting other Evas than their normally assigned one without any ill effects. It's implied that the only Evangelion who's picky on its pilot is EVA-01 because of Yui being the control system and refusing any pilot who's not Shinji. (or Rei hypothetically)

Asuka will resist her mind rape this time and kick ass.
We had EVA 01 Rocket punches and eye lasers, this will just be the next step of awesome. Or maybe I am just optimistic.
  • Trick is, though, there are guesses below (based on hints in the movie, no less) that her mind rape already happened when she was inside Bardiel/Unit 03; we just weren't privy to how it went down in Rebuild 2 so we could focus on Bardiel getting ripped apart for maximum hand-over-mouth horror.

Mari is a clone of Ninamori with the same taste in glasses.
Just look at those color palettes.
  • More than likely Mari is a Expy of Ninamori. Like how all of Studio Gainiax's main characters Post-Evangelion are Shinji with a differenet upbringing.

The "mother soul" rule only applies in full to Eva Units 00 and 01.
As Asuka said, Unit-02 is the first Eva made specifically for combat. It's problematic if the Humongous Mecha syncs only with one person—what are they to do if said sole pilot is injured? In this way, both Unit-00 and 01note  could be considered "flawed". Especially 00, since it is the prototype. 02 is an upgrade; the same goes for 03. The "mother soul" probably makes it easier to sync, but the upgrade renders it no longer necessary—hence why Asuka could sync with 03, and Mari with 02.

Final will have a battle against ADAM.
Think about it. As of 2.0, we have exactly three Angels left: Arael, Armisael, and Tabris. Unless Final simply deals with Instrumentality and The End of the World as We Know It (which has not only [[The End of Evangelion been done before]] but also seems to be a far cry from where the series is going), there is hardly enough material to make two more movies. Also, it would be f___ing awesome to say the least.

Mari is Evangelion Unit-07
Mari is able to Pilot Unit-02 when It's core had been removed. How did she do this? The answer is that Mari herself is an Evangelion, one that was made at human size. An apparently weird supposition, if not for that fact it was the plot to one of the spinoff games.
  • The entire point of the silo scene was to imply that everything is being taken out of storage, though. Presumably Unit 02 had its core reinserted quick-smart once Mari (and/or whoever is helping her) authorized Unit 02's removal from cryostasis.
  • A DieBuster reference, I see.

The pilots are the "Adams".
Quoth the preview for 3.0: "The reunion of children whose destinies were determined by fate." The corresponding image shows four shadows. These are likely Shinji, Asuka, Rei, and Mari. This is the reason why they can sync with the EVAs and do spiffy things such as those shown in the "GIVE AYANAMI BACK" scene.
  • But then, that brings the question: What's up with Rei, and why is she so different from the other three?
    • She's Lilith like she was in the original.
      • actually, I disagree. I think the fourth ADAM was, in fact, Kaworu. Think about it, he's a pretty important character from the TV series as well as some other continuities, so it would only make sense for him to be one of the ADA Ms. Not to mention, he gets his day in the limelight in Rebuild too.
  • The picture above is from 2.0.
    • Jossed. 3.0 reveals that Eva 09 was built on one of the Adams. It's likely Mk 06 was another.

Asuka, after the incident with the EVA-03, learned about the past timeline of Evangelion.
During the infection, the song Les Betes of Rebuild of Evangelion 2.0 has the chorus of Halelujah, the same one that had been sung during Asuka's Mind Rape in the original series. Ritsuko mentioned that the Angel Bardiel had probably polluted Asuka's mind... but could it also mean that the angel let her know what happened before the first Third Impact?
  • Using an old theory as a reference, the Reis that had appeared throughout the course of the series were suspected to be the ghosts of Rei-Lilith that she had sent to gather the souls of humanity, and that she even managed to go through the past... and perhaps even the future. If Lilith is the most powerful being in all creation, with the power to bend time and space, then does it mean that the world of Rebuild, and the things that have been happening, are the result of her actions? And are her angels influenced by her, now wanting to turn Bardiel and Asuka into her literal messengers?
  • After Bardiel chokes EVA-01, he grows another pair of arms... and they have the same colour as Asuka's plugsuit, with her forearms with a normal skin colour. Bardiel wasn't the only one that wanted to end Shinji. He let Asuka know about what had happened, prior to pressing the reset button.
    • She probably knew that Shinji masturbated in front of her, that he left her to die, that he let the world end, and that in the end, he tried to kill her by choking her... but he was too much of a coward to even finish the act.
    • As a result, she wanted vengeance. She wanted retribution. After going through the same Mind Rape, and knowing not only about her past, but about her potential future, she wanted to kill him for what he had done to her. After she wanted love from him, and knowing he was the reason she had lost, she felt rage.
      • And then, for a little cherry on top of the Nightmare Fuel sundae? Since she's in Unit 03, she gets to feel like she's been strangled to death anyway. Remember, she was (probably) synched to 03 and/or Bardiel while it was being choked and ripped apart (and "her" arms were the ones that kept trying to fight the longest), so...
    • I like it. The only thing I see wrong is that Unit-03's second set of arms are obviously male, with a thickened, heavier lower arm and hair on the top. However, it's not unlikely that the arms are a combined thing - the rage of Asuka, the strength of Bardiel, given form in Unit-03's attack.
  • The eyepatch at the trailer of Rebuild 3.0. It is the same eye Asuka had gotten injured in her last stand during End of Evangelion. Her damage post-battle is far too specific to be a coincidence.
  • The smile at the trailer of Rebuild 3.0, what does it mean? Does it mean that Asuka manages to overcome these problems, and comes out as an even stronger person, or is it a facade to avoid showing weakness, the thing she has always tried to do? Or... is it a "I'm going to murder all you motherfuckers" kind of smile? The rest of her facial expression, after all...
  • There's also the fact that what we see of her experience in Unit 03 looks and sounds a hell of a lot like Shinji's experience in the "River of Souls" in EoE, giggling and all. The imagery can't just be coincidence; longtime fans are supposed to see the similarities.
    • As an aside, the last we see of Asuka's face in 2.0? She looks horrified, but she's "horrified" looking right into the blue glow that seems to represent Bardiel's consciousness. Is she just freaked out at something weird happening... or was that the moment at which she began to see? Symbolically, at least, Bardiel's "cross of feathers" were fully reflected in, and even dominating, her eyes... before her face got eaten by the blue staple stuff, anyway.
  • As a final note, the doll and the changing of her last name was most likely deliberate. I get the feeling they will be Chekov's Guns for the last movies... Could they be hints to the demented theory that, indeed, she IS a different Asuka, or a reincarnation of her from the past events, now linked to Rei Ayanami and to Mari Illustrious Makinami? (“children whose destinies were determined by fate.”)
  • And what about the FUCKING REI GHOST APPEARING WHEN ASUKA IS BEING MIND RAPED?!?!
    • Hm... I'll get back to you on that one. The only idea I have about that one is the "Lilith during Third Impact in Eo E sending Reis to the past and the future" theory. -D 21 Jaydee
  • As a pure total aside, for the record... what the hell is up with the staples. Seriously. Augh.
  • As far as the Hallelujah chorus goes, this troper doesn't really hear it. The pitch and syllabic quality of the vocal in Les Betes are similar to a couple of bits here and there in the Hallelujah recording used in episode 23 of NGE (found on the Evangelion: Addition CD), but other similarity is not heard by this one. So, some sort of connection or reference to Asuka's Mind Rape? Sure. But this troper doesn't think "has the chorus of Halelujah" is a proper way to put it.

Asuka, Mari and Kaworu will form an another Power Trio

The preview seems to imply that Rei and Shinji are out cold for a while in the next movie. So, Nerv is forced to assemble another team of three children, which'll include Kaworu, Mari and (because they haven't an alternative) Asuka. And this is the reason, why Asuka's character was toned down!Because in the old team she represented the Id, but now Mari fulfills this position (ZA BEASTO everyone?). So the roles in the new team will be like this:

Ego = Asuka
Superego = Kaworu
Id = Mari

The question now is: How will this turn out? (And will it be awesome?)

  • Somewhat jossed: the Asuka-Mari duo are contrasted against the Shinji-Kaworu duo. Rei-Q is aligned with the latter but she barely shows up outside fights.

Shinji and Rei have been permanently fused into one being.
Shinji doesn't appear at all in the 3.0 preview. Not even for a split second. He and Rei have gone through a small-scale Instrumentality, and neither has the will to break from it. The combined soul will be restored into one of the empty Rei bodies, much of the time not spent fighting Angels will be spent attempting to seperate the two of them.
  • Might not be jossed: Shinji is extracted from Unit 01 and is told afterwards that no one else was found inside.

Shinji and Rei are trapped in Unit-01 permanently.
They spend the whole third movie impaled outside the Geofront; at the climax (either vs. Kaworu or vs. Unit-08, depending on what Unit-08's "quickening" actually is), they'll be released as a last-ditch attempt to save everything. Rei, Shinji and Yui will have a long talk, and then they will proceed to kick everything's ass. Alternatively, they aren't released until the fourth movie and they fight Adam or Lillith or something.
  • There will be a touching moment where Yui calls Rei her daughter. Followed by Eva-01 rebirthing them as twins. It will also answer the "who was in Unit-00" question
    • This may well have some teeth, given that Dream-Rei in 1.0 explicitly brings up the idea that a "Rei Ikari" could've existed if one chromosome had been different. And of course, given the series' predilection for Theme Naming, "Rei Ikari" has some interesting undertones...note 
    • Jossed: Shinji is recovered from Unit-01's core at the start of 3.0.

Rei is still in Uni 01
The way I saw it, Shinji and Rei were dissolved in the EVA like he was in the original series. However, only Shinji got out. Since Rei is cloned from his mother, and his mother is Unit 01, the WILLE staff didnt notice her presence.

The blue version of Unit-00 will show up next movie
Rei will spontaneously form it nowhere, now as a Lillth-based EVA like 01 rather than an Adam based Eva...assuming how the EVAs were created from the series is still present in the movie. And she will kick ass. Waaagh!.
  • Similarly, Unit-04 will show up from nowhere. Mari will probably pilot it.
    • Unit-04 was destroyed along with Nerv's Nevada Branch when it was activated. Mari could be the pilot of Unit-08, or 07 if there is such an Eva.

In the end, Everyone Lives
Yes, the perfect subversion to the expected Mind Screw Downer Ending would be an unambiguous happy ending. Misato, Kaji, Shinji, Asuka, Rei, and much to his own surprise Kaworu will look out as the sun rises upon a deep blue sea. Shinji will briefly see the bookend Rei who smiles and vanishes (or turns into Mari and vanishes), thus providing a Happy End of Evangelionnote .

Oh, and Ritsuko and Maya get together.

  • Jossed in 3.0: Kaworu died for our sins this time too.
    • Or not, as Shinji reboots the world with everyone alive but without EVA and the angels im 3.0+1.0.

During the Final Battle the Tone Compleatly Shifts To Old School Super Robot
All the Pilots will be Hotblooded, and everyone will scream out the names of their attacks, as the Eva's suddenly gain weapons and powers we've never seen before. This will be due to the Spiraling power of their couragious hearts or something.
  • And then Gendo joins Master Asia style and start owning Angels on foot,or alternately...
  • SUPER COMBINING EVANGELION.
    • JUST WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK WE ARE?
      • And it will be called NEON GENESIS EVANGELION!!!

The SDAT player that switches to Track 27 in Rebuild is actually Mari's SDAT
She swapped them with Shinji after running into him. That's why he seems surprised when it changes to Track 27- his only had 26.
  • Jossed, 3.0+1.0 reveals it was Gendo's SDAT all along. And it goes all the way to Track 29..

After get infected by Bardiel, Asuka will return as a Newtype in 3.0
Probably during the Angel Infection to the Unit 03 and it's pilot, Asuka could have been affected by the energy of Bardiel's S2 engine making her a Newtype (according with some WMG, the S2 engine could be related to the Spiral Energy wich is the power of evolution and by Word of God the Newtypes are the next step of human evolution). Then in 3.0 she will appear with her new EVA (a reconstructed/regenerated/repaired Unit 02 or the Unit 08 or maybe the not revealed yet Unit 07) with it's own Fin Funnels and then she will be fighting against Kaworu à la Char v.s. Amuro in Char's Counterattack in front of Lilith and then she will be owning him while yelling "Fin Funnel!!!!!". Don't deny it, it will be AWESOME!.

Cores will be switched around
Yui's core will be transferred to Unit-08, while Zeruel's core (containing Rei) will remain in Unit-01. The remnants of the soul in Unit-00's core is transferred into Unit-07, giving no useful information as to who it is, and introducing even more questions. Things become unbelievably more awkward for Shinji.
  • Unit-00's core is now obviously Rei-I. Since Zeruel ate Unit-00 core and all. Rei is now complete.
  • Jossed: Unit 08 was already operational before Unit 01's recovery operation.

Third Angel Speculation
Notice how Sachiel is now the 4th angel instead of the 3rd? That brings to question, who is this missing third angel that came after Adam and Lilith? I don't know, but my bet's on the evil guy downstairs....
  • The Third Angel showed up in the opening scenes of Rebuild 2.0; NERV had managed to capture it before it activated. Mari then kills it.
    • Oh crap right. Dammit.
  • Actually, you're kind of right. The Third Angel is frozen in the Cocytus section of Bethany Base; Cocytus is the ninth circle of Hell, where Satan was frozen.

Mari will have some kind of psychological problems.
Self Explanitory, really. This is E V A after all. She's a Blood Knight, implying psychopathy or psychosis, possibly a detatchment from reality. She is rather nonchalant about the whole Eldritch Abomination mecha thing, which means that she might see everything as a game, pointing to the psychosis mentioned earlier. In classic EVA style, things will go horribly, horribly, wrong.

Shinji doesn't need mommy anymore.
In the series, Shinji often "won" battles by the skin of his teeth by Unit 01 going berserk. As we know, this is actually Yui doing the fighting. In the movies, however, this has only ever happened once - admittedly, it doesn't have a chance to, but one of the more significant berserk episodes is indeed the battle with Zeruel. This time around, Shinji was in full control. This could mean that Shinji, in addition to involving himself in the world by trying to rescue Rei, is taking control of his life.

His entire life at this point pretty much revolves around Unit 01, and in turn shows his dependence on his mother. Besides that, he shuts out everything else. One of the main features of Shinji's character is that he doesn't involve himself in the world due to his feelings of worthlessness. Then he becomes the pilot of a giant robot and saves the world - big, big change. Shinji then leaves NERV temporarily after the Unit 03 incident, but comes running back to fight Zeruel, even outright declaring that he is the pilot of Unit 01, embracing his role in the world, and then fighting for something he truly cares about... not the fate of the world, but for someone he holds dear, Rei Ayanami. Pretty big step forward from "waaah I'm worthless and only hurt others - fuck the world, fuck me." Even if his rescue of Rei triggers Third Impact, this is a show of personal growth.

Now, the fact that he was in full control of Unit 01 - his "life", so to speak - during this fight hammers in the idea. He didn't need Yui to help him - or, alternatively, didn't rely on her as much, depending on how you connect Unit 01 itself to her, as well as its powers (which, it should be noted, never showed up when Unit 01 berserked in the movies or in the series... only when Shinji took over).

So yeah, Shinji is still saying "fuck the world", but he cares about something (Rei), and is willing to put himself forward and involve himself in life.

Everything is still going to go to hell.
2.0 ends on a pretty optimistic note (Kaworu not withstanding), but everyone is forgetting an important fact: There are two more movies after this. Proportionally, we're approaching the halfway mark. In Eva Classic, when we were approaching the halfway mark, we were doing a funny awkward love comedy thing, and we were trashing guys like Israfel and Sandalphon and Matariel like they weren't actually a serious threat to all human life. Sounds an awful lot like what 2.0 was about.

More than that perhaps is the fact that after all of that moe moe, things went down in flames. I was Sahaquiel all along, it's not different at all, is it Steve? You guys are still getting Bardiel, and this time he kills Asuka, and also Zeruel kills Rei. But afterwards, it seems like we're gonna be allll right. Rei is saved from death (or whatever), Asuka shows up in the preview with a bitchin eyepatch, and Shinji's testes grew three sizes. It's almost like we experienced the remade version of the part of Evangelion with Asuka in a bathtub, Rei is a clone now, and we made it out this time, like we can take whatever they throw at us now, we're ready for ya.

But. In Evangelion, there were three angels who came after Zeruel: Arael (destroyed Asuka), Armisael (destroyed Rei), and Tabris (destroyed Shinji). We've still got lots of time for Asuka to be crippled emotionally and for Rei to plummet into the uncanny valley. We can fit all of that into one movie and have another one left over to do End of Evangelion, in which Evangelion went to hell and then kept digging and dug some kind of new double hell. My point is that if we go by an approximation of the original timeline, we've hit the high point in the series for positive emotion, and there's a whole lotta negative left over.

  • Confirmed, as of 3.0., but not in that exact way.

  • Jossed, 3.0+1.0 gives the series an unambiguously happy ending.

To wit:

Asuka is still gonna end up in the bathtub.
Asuka Langley Shikinami is subtly but dramatically different from Asuka Langley Soryu. Sometimes, this seems like change for the better. Instead of whoring for her class's attention, she's cagey and plays DS. She doesn't have her awkward Lolita thing for Kaji anymore, and her attraction to Shinji now seems like a genuine crush and less a bizarre sexual attention thing. And in the end, she can speak of Shinji and Rei as if they're really her friends, overcoming the inability to connect with people that crippled her in the original series. Oh, and she has no problem at all with dolls anymore.

Ah. Wait right there.

It's a fair assumption that it's "Shikinami" now because her mother is not Kyoko Zeppelin Soryu. Well that's great; maybe Shikinami-san didn't hang herself and string up a doll as her daughter's surrogate. Well, Asuka's fine with Raggedy Asuka, so that seems like the case. She doesn't call Rei "doll", after all. She calls her "pet". Oh.

Asuka befriending Rei and Shinji, even if it lasts, isn't the end of her character arc by a long shot. And, if I may speculate, I don't think Asuka and Mari are going to get along one little bit.

  • Actually, she does refer to Rei as a doll in one scene. But ONLY during that scene.
  • She actually plays Wonderswan. Just sayin'.

  • Probably Jossed as of 3.33. Fourteen years of piloting EVA in a post-Third Impact wasteland have relegated her to Broken Bird status, but she appears to have come out of the ordeal psychologically stable, if not bitterly hardened as she approaches her thirties.

The final movie will be exactly the same as End of Evangelion.
We all hope for a better ending, with hot blood and manly tears. We're all expecting a worse ending, a dreadfulness to top even the inexorable miasma of EoE. So, since we're ready for all that, what's the only way left for Gainax to troll us? Make End of Evangelion again. Blood will run in the streets. People will suicide from utter Despair Event Horizon.
  • And at last, Anno's plan to usurp Kubo as "King of the Trolls" will be complete.
  • If that happens, then the fans rage will be very, very BUT VERY HUGE that Anno will be forced to change the ending, or, if the "Original" ending is leaked online and the same result would happen.
  • Jossed. 3.0+1.0 has an unambiguously happy ending.
The final movie will be episodes 25 and 26.
In the streets.
  • So...End Of Evangelion?
    • The other episodes 25 and 26, I think. From the TV series.

The final battle will feature Shinji unleashing the Wings of Light with EVA-01
Because it was in the opening animation and Hell, it's about time. The final level of Evangelion 64 has him do this, too.
  • He sort of does that in 3.0, except that the wings are more like extremely overgrown Vertical Mecha Fins.

The third Rebuild movie will be called You Will (Not) Understand.
After You Are (Not) Alone and You Can (Not) Advance, and given NGE's reputation, would anything else be more appropriate?
  • And FINAL will be "You Must (Not) Run Away". Because, Why not?
  • Jossed. It's You Can (Not) Redo.

Rebuild 3 will follow the remainder of the series AND End.

  • Sorta. While 3.0. follows an original plot, elements of it are clearly taken from Episode 24 and 26'.

Stemming from that, Final will be an original story where the world is undoubtedly saved, and Eva will finally have an undoubtably happy ending.
Because after all that mindfuck over the years, the World of Eva needs a happy ending.
It's all a Dying Dream
You know the drill, it's all Shinji hallucinatiing about a happier universe in which neither Rei, Toji or Asuka die; in which his father shows at least a little respect/love, in which he actually acts the way the pilot of a towering rage-powered war machine should act...

Rei will end up naked in the Eva-01's cockpit, during a battle in which Shinji will kick all sorts of Angel ass
Because if it works for Gainax's OTHER starting-wimp pilot...
  • Well, I guess she's already in there...and she's already naked...and the trailer implied they'd be stuck in there for a while...yeah, this could actually happen.
  • As of 3.0, Shinji is told that no one else was found inside the Eva.

Mari is Shinji's clone
Look closely to her face when she lose her glasses in the parachute's scene. Here, between the times 0:17 and 0:21. And yes, they swap their SDAT players.
  • That doesn't mean anything; Shinji was designed to have a girl's face on a guy's body. See all the "Maya looks like Shinji"-based WMGs.

A fifth pilot will show up in Final or Quickening
Along with the original trio and Mari, it'll make a Five Man Band.
  • Well Kaworu is technically a pilot, so yeah.

Unit 01 will become a Mark-class Evangelion in 3.0
After the whole "Almost cause the End of the World" fiasco, it is likely that those pesky locks they put on an Eva's true power will be gone from Unit 01, making it a True Evangelion. The court is out on whether this upgrade will include it going from purple to blue, and the shoulder fins being replaced with energy vents.
  • Nope, but Unit 13 is a Unit 01 lookalike with some crazy features.

Shinji remembers the events of the original show, and is insane and in denial because of it
He's convinced that this time he can save everyone, since he knows what is supposed to happen. Unfortunately for him, things are different this time around, which he finds infuriating. Thus why Shinji goes batshit on NERV HQ when Asuka apperantly dies, and when Rei is consumed Shinji decides he doesn't care about this timeline anymore, so he decides to initiate the Third Impact himself and try again. This probably isn't the first time he Rage Quit on the world either, odds are everytime things don't go his way he hits the Reset Button. Kaworu shows up to stop Shnji because all these resets are somehow negatively affecting the universe.

Why Kaji can't speak English
I think someone pulled a horrible prank on Kaji's voice actor. Right before that scene, somebody told him that Hideaki Anno wanted him to speak with a Russian accent but speaking English words - because they're ambiguously in Russia. It was so hilarious that they left it in

The ending of the final movie will reveal that not only Rebuild, but also the original Evangelion was all a hallucination of Jowee
.I mean, there is a character called MARI for pete's sake!
Mari is actually a rogue Angel
Admittedly I'm just kind of pulling this out of thin air, but with her personality in mind I was thinking about it. She's got no real emotional issues similar to how Kaworu has no real emotional issues and she is a total Blood Knight. My bet is that Kaworu hasn't killed her yet (I don't know why but I can see him doing this and still being IC) because he wants to make Shinji happy and that means that having someone around who's far more eager to take out Angels lifts a little of the burden off of his shoulders. As soon as Kaworu thinks that she isn't working to the benefit of Shinji's happiness, there's going to be a massive fight between the two in an EVA vs EVA clash.

Gendo knew what would happen to Unit 03. He put Asuka there deliberately.
He either remembers some of the events of the previous universes or the prophecies he is aware of are very specific. Either way, he had some idea what would happen to Unit 03. And since his plans rely on Shinji becoming closer to Rei, and Asuka could easily get in the way of that, it was as good a time as any to remove her from the equation.
  • Just after posting this, I remembered that Asuka volunteered to take Rei's place in the test. There could still be sinister goings-on going on though. Gendo assigned Rei, knowing that by putting her in danger, he could provoke Shinji into action (as had happened before against Ramiel). When Asuka stepped into her place, his plans were briefly disrupted and he decided to nip the problem in the bud by leaving the Dummy Plug active long after the threat had been neutralized, hoping to kill Asuka while leaving his hands clean.

Rei STILL is a clone of Yui

Crazy, I know, right? But while there's some speculation to the contrary, Evangelion 1.0 ports one of the very first clues about this ("If it's a boy, we'll name him Shinji. If it's a girl, Rei.") from the end of the series to it's very beginning. This seems to be a subtle clue from Anno, that this particular important detail remains true in Rebuild, despite appearances to the contrary.

And that's not even mentioning how in 2.0, Gendo outright hallucinates Yui's image superimposed over Rei's.

  • Is there seriously someone who thinks Rei isn't?
    • I've heard some interpret this to be the case based on the implied Rei/Shinji shipping from the movies, in an attempt to avoid the disgusting Parental Incest implications.
      • I'd expect such delusional thinking from shippers. I'm calling it. Frakking Jossed by goddamn precedent. Plus, who in the hell would she be a clone of otherwise? Just some random OTHER woman who happens to look exactly like Yui?
      • *sigh* Why does every discussion of Rei being a clone of Yui turn into shipping? It's unavoidable; either way she and Shinji will be torn apart by the irreversible hand of fate. That's the whole basis of her character being a clone.
      • Than again, considering that this movie series is a Reconstruction of the source material, and the fact that the Ship Tease is almost blatantly rampant, especially in 2.0, anything goes. Even if she remains as a clone of Yui, that doesn't necessarily mean that they both won't end up together. After all, Shinji says "There's no Ayanami like you." Again though, this is all a WMG so I could be wrong (the shipper in me hopes that I'm right), but who knows.

    • Confirmed: Fuyutsuki specifically says it to Shinji and Asuka refers to the current Rei as originating "from an early lot of Ayanami-types". There's also a wall-rack full of Rei heads in Fuyutsuki's room in 3.0.

Kaworu intends to cause the third impact himself at some point

If him saying "This time I'll make you happy" when talking about Shinji and assuming he somehow knows how the events of the origional series played out are anything to go by. His lack of understanding with regards to humans means that when he sees how utterly broken having to kill the one person who showed him some love left Shinji he assumed it was because he had made the wrong decision. So now he intends to cause the third impact himself and do what he thinks will make S Hinji happy. Plus it fits with his real name "Tabris" the angel of free will, he has the choice to either prevent the third impact or cause it, and this time he intends to make it happen.

  • Jossed: Third Impact happened anyway and Kaworu deliberately tries to stop Shinji from causing a Fourth.

Unit 06 is a regenerated Adam.

Kaworu was originally Adam's soul. This time around, however, he got himself a spanking new body.

  • Kinda implied in 3.0. Unit 06 hosts the Twelfth Angel while Units 09 and 13 are actual Adams.

Shinji is the reincarnation of James Strang, and will continue to re-incarnate until he can create a mormon kingdom on Beaver Island, Michigan
The ending of the first rebuild movie talked about how the phase of the Dead Sea Scrolls is over (a reference to the tv series) and now it is time for the book of law. The Book of Law could the Book of the Law of the Lord better known as Book of the Law. James Strang had 5 wives while Shinji has 5 love interest (Asuka, Rei, Misato, Mari, and Kaworu). James Strang failed to create the mormon Kingdom that the Book of the law prophesized so clearly it's now up to Shinji to convert Nerv to the the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Strangite) and move them all to Beaver Island, Michigan and take over.

Mari Makinami is really from the First Ancestral Race.
She's on Earth to check up on things,because they are just plain lessneglectful than other Precursors.
  • May explain, how she manages to control Unit-02 - instead of usual synchronization, she just performs master override on it, much like the Kaworu did in the original anime.

Shinji will get a new Eva.
As long as he's using Unit-01, he's still relying on his mother. In order to complete his growth into an adult, he'll have to leave Unit-01 behind, and get a new Eva.
  • Alternatively, Yui's soul is purged from Unit-01 and Shinji takes over completely, achieving 400% sync whenever he pilots and resubstantiating at will when the fight is done.

Shinji has ascended to become a Champion of Khorne.
Consider: Before counterattacking, the EVA spews out a ridiculous quantity of blood, which could only attract the Blood God's attention. He granted Shinji the rage needed to get Rei back, demanding more blood to fuel it, which was given when Shinji entered the field, stripping his arms and face of skin.

Khorne, like fanboys, believes the pilot of a Humongous Mecha should not be a cowardly little wimp, and certainly not one devoted to Slaanesh. More than happy to correct this glaring error in the universe and steal a worshipper from his hated opposite, he will ensure that Shinji continues to be the terrifying asskicker he should be.

  • Jossed; he spends most of 3.0 angsting and as of the end of the film is in a MASSIVE Heroic BSoD.

Unit 06 is the prototype or test type for the MP EVAs
Based solely on SEELE referring to it as the first true EVA.

  • Confirmed. The preview for FINAL shows Unit 8+2 fighting copies of the Mark 06 which all wear green armor.

Shinji will learn that Rei is a clone of his mother.... and stay with her anyway
The boy damned near killed the planet to save her life. After what he's been through (and what's likely to come), thinking about the Oedipal implications seems a relatively trivial thing. To be sure, there will probably be a stretch of time where he's shocked and confused, but he will get past it (in what will probably be another Heartwarming Moment).
  • Confirmed. Shinji does learn to truth about Rei in 3.0, and still wants to be with her - Of course, this being EVA, he can't because he didn't save her after all, and the person he's been fruitlessly expressing his affection to for most of the movie is a fresh clone. Turns out he also meant business when he told "his" Rei that she was irreplaceable to him. Needless to say, the whole thing is extremely tearjerking.

The third movie will be A Day in the Limelight for Mari.
With Shinji and Rei trapped in Unit-01 and Asuka heavily injured and potentially insane, Mari and Kaworu are the only pilots in any shape to actually be doing things. Mari didn't get much development in 2.0 due to the other characters getting focus, but now they're out of the picture. (This may be very obvious to everybody else, but it only occured to me today.)

  • Jossed, but she does get more screentime.

Leliel will appear in the third movie.
While this would mess up the order of Angels, it would make sense. Since Leliel is the Dirac Sea, and the Dirac Sea still exists (Unit-04 got pulled into it), Leliel must therefore exist, and therefore has to be fought before Kaworu. This could possibly explain some of the scenes in the trailer, like the one where Rei is wearing her AU clothes.
  • Sahaquiel from the second movie incorporates some of Leliel's design (specifically the striped sphere) in its first form. The second form uses an appearance similar to the original Sahaquiel. Therefore Leliel will either not appear (since it was merged with another angel) or will appear with a completely different design.
  • Jossed.

Mark 06 is Lilith.
The mask on Mark 06 before the construction starts is exactly the same as the mask on Lilith in the original series, with the seven eyes. The 'Lilith' in Terminal Dogma has the standard 'Angel Face' mask that is on most of the Angels. I think that the Mark 06 is made from Lilith's body, but without the soul (which is in Rei). The Dogma Lilith is a clone (much like the evangelions) that is a decoy placed there to fool anyone attempting Third Impact by Kaworu and SEELE, who want complete control over the process. Doesn't work too well when Unit 01 stands in pretty well for Lilith though...

  • Jossed. Mark.06 houses the Twelfth Angel and spends most of 3.0 pinned to Lilith's corpse with a lance.

The Lilith in Terminal Dogma is Adam.
This isn't very well thought out, I admit. However, it would make sense that like the "Adam" of NGE turned out to be Lilith, the "Lilith" of Rebuild, which has a mask similar to Adam's child, would actually be Adam (or one of the "Adams").

  • Units 09 and 13 are Adams; "Lilith" ends up completely liquefying when the latter pulls out the lances impaling her so whether it was the real Lilith has been rendered moot.

If Rebuild is indeed a 'sequel' to the original, then the Mark-06 is the Unit-01 from the Original Series.
(This is a little far fetched, but bear with me here)

During the last scene of 1.01/1.11, we see a Lilith lookalike on the moon, which is being converted into the Mark-06.

Now, this may not seem to be too relevant to this theory at first, but according to Anno/Gainax/The Producers, there was an unused ending for Eo E that had Unit-01 'lying on the Moon, and woman's hair flowing from its broken mask, her face remaining unseen'.

Helping this theory is the fact that:

  • Unit-01 was almost a second Lilith under the armor, if more bestial and less powerful.
  • The Lilith Lookalike has the outline of a core visible under the wraps.
    • In relation to the above, during Eo E, the core of Unit-01 becomes visible and emerges, and it stays that way for the rest of the movie. At the same time, the 'real' Lilith never has a visible core.
      • Technically, EVA-01's core becomes visible while the EVA eats Zeruel, then NERV re-covers the core, and the core is once again exposed in Eo E.

From this, it could be assumed that, if Rebuild is indeed a sequal, SEELE found the 'Original' Unit-01 on the moon, and as per it already possessing an S2 Engine, utilized it for the Mark-06, hence the 'True Evangelion' schtick. Depending on how you think, this could also 'explain' why the Mark-06 and Unit-01 have very similar armor.

Make of this what you will.

(Still a farfetched theory, but one that does make some sense.)

  • Given that growing an entire, functioning Eva in a dry vacuum is nonsensical even with copious amounts of Rule of Cool, stripping the original 01 of its petrified armor and refitting it with the Mark-06's would actually be practical on SEELE's part. The biggest evidence for this theory, however, is that the 06's head casing has battle damage corresponding to the fight with Sachiel. Being made to evoke Lilith, fitted in armor with the Eva-01's silhouette, having a noticeable core from the start, and sharing the same scars all point to it being the 01. It would even be the movie's namesake- the rebuild of Evangelion.
  • The Mark-06's spear functioned just like the Lance of Longinus, shutting down the Eva-01. There is a good chance it is also the original disguised under a new look, since they would have found them together.
  • Now revealed in the Comiket trailer for Q, the Asuka sporting an eye patch is likely Asuka Langley from End of Evangelion identifiable by her plug suit's design and damage. The scars and set pieces carry over one way or another.
    • Oh, Crap!! That's right. Only her original Plug Suit has been fixed with a healthy dose of duct-tape.

Mari and Kaworu will have to fight each other in their respective EVAs.
Whether or not you believe that Mari is an Angel, Kaworu definitely is. Mari is going to find this out and, due to her hotblooded nature, get her ass kicked. This'll put Shinji in a tough spot - avenge Mari and kill Kaworu (who's still his friend), or don't avenge Mari and hesitate to kill Kaworu.
  • HUGE SPOILERS: Partially confirmed in 3.0, only it's sort of Asuka-and-Mari versus Kaworu-and-Shinji, because what Kaworu and Shinji think they're doing is fixing the Post-Third Impact Majority-of-Humankind-Gone world, but really they're mistakenly finishing the job, so Asuka and Mari are there to stop them.
  • HUGE SPOILERS: It's Asuka and Mari versus Kaworu, Shinji, and Rei Q. Kaworu immediately realizes something is wrong and even tries to talk Shinji out of pulling the spears when he tries to pull out the last one but Shinji ignores his pleas and pulls them anyways. Making him solely responsible for what happened and Kaworu dies for Shinji's mistake.

The Rebuild Movies take place in a Potential "New World" for Shinji
The movies take place during EOE, when Shinji is basically God and trying to decide what to do with Instrumentality. While experiencing the "new" universe, Shinji has no recollection of the old one(s). But Kaworu does. He's there to guide Shinji to a happier universe, so he'll try to change things in Shinji's favor and help him.

This is EVA however, so it's all gonna end up even worse.

Rei's feelings are at least partially maternal
In the Rebuild movies, especially 2.0, there have been many hints for romanctic feelings between Shinji and Rei. Hell, Asuka even says that Rei is in love with Shinji. My guess is that at least part of these feelings from Rei's side are maternal, due to her being a clone of Yui. She still has romantic feelings, only they're competeting with the maternal ones.

The revalation of this will cause some angsting in the next two movies.

  • Most likely Jossed. Shinji finds out what she is, but it doesn't deter him - (the fact that he's no longer dealing with the same clone does.) The other clone, who should also have Yui's DNA and thus, also have those feelings if the DNA were the cause, barely reacts to him at all.
    • Not Jossed. The reasoning above has nothing to do with REI'S feeling for Shinji, which is the topic of this WMG. Furthermore, Evangelion has always been all about letting go of Shinji's Oedipus Complex/the past in order to embrace the future. Because Rei has always been and will always be a clone of Yui, in the end, for Shinji to stop imitating his father, he must let go of the aspect of Rei that was Yui's clone.

Rebuild will go the way of EOE
There's news going around that Anno is depressed again. If this is true, well, we're in for a ride....
  • OH PLEASE LET THIS BE FALSE! I DON'T WANT ANOTHER END OF EVANGELION!!

  • Not exactly confirmed, but seeing how hopeless the situation has become in Q, a happy, non-mind-screw ending seems nigh impossible.
  • No, there is always hope in Evangelion, even if EOE has the most the bleakest ending, there was still a sign of hope in the end, and Rebuild promises to the fans a new alternate ending to series, so, why do End of Evangelion all over again? Anno must have already tied up all loose ends with his fans and surely he will make a finale that will make everyone pleased.
  • Jossed, 3.0+1.0 ends on a rather happy note.

By "father" Kaworu was referring to Fuyutsuki
He's the product of an affair with Yui, and is an angel due to...reasons.
  • How 'bout this: Yui is the daughter of one of SEELE's members, right? Mabye she went to Dad for help with her illegitimate child and he promised to "take care of it"...by which he meant "splice its DNA with that of an Angel."

Asuka is an Angel.
Probably,but not certainly, the Last Angel.
  • In which case Asuka Langley Soryu, possessing Shikinami, looks to be the angel. All her familiar battle damage in the trailer is in the same spots of the angel infection display. The real question is when her plug suit itself changes. The preview shot in the BD and DVD releases show her wearing her current plug suit while the trailer shows her with her original.
Jossed. All of the Angels in 3.0 are new except for the final, which is still Kaworu. Asuka is still just Asuka, and the plugsuit is apparently the result of a major Time Skip.

All of the civilians are dead.
  • 10th Angel+Nuclear blast=No more Tokyo 3.
  • The height of the Geofront is about a kilometer.
  • The shockfront from that bomb traversed the distance in 1 second.
  • This indicates a yield of about two hundred fifty hundred kilotons.
  • The blast pressure and associated winds at that range would damage even most "hardened" structures, and direct overpressure (and temperature)is enough to directly kill any human not in an air tight structure.
    • The shelter Shinji was in was fine. Eva structures are obviously stronger than real structures, and Tokyo-3's armor and absorbers are impressive, since even Ramiel preferred to drill into Tokyo-3 instead of trying to burn through.

  • Very heavily implied in 3.0. Aside from Mount Fuji, the entire visible area around the city had been leveled by Third Impact, not even hills are left. The city's ruins are implied to be contaminated beyond human habitability and from the looks of it, the "Failures of Infinity" filling Dogma's shaft and the city ruins might actually have been the civilians.

The Adams are Ultramen

{{WMG: All of the EV As have a Beast Mode, not just Unit 02]]

  • In this continuity, the "Beast Mode" is simply an expression of the pilot's connection with their EVA going into overdrive. We know this happened to Shinji in the original series, when he lost control of Unit 01. So it's possible that the "Beast Mode" we see is actually something all EV As can do.

Pen-pen's DNA was used to grow the framework for the Wunder
  • Hence why it resembles a giant bird.

About the updated trailer for 3.0
Asuka's space/aerial battle is against Arael. But instead of the original's Mind Rape sequence, this time she'll take the fight to the Angel, showing her character development this time around through shrugging of the Hallelujah-Beam's effects.

  • Jossed: Arael doesn't appear whatsoever. She's in space to recover Unit 01.

Kaworu lives and...
  • Joins Shinji/Asuka as the One True Threesome. Think about it. If the ending mimics Eo E, Rei will still perform Instrumentality, and at the End of Eo E, only Asuka/Shinji are left. But, Instrumentality gets screwed up by Mari, who is ultimately sacrificed within Unit-01 as an "eternal testament to the existence of Mankind". Rei will still be watching over U-01, but, due to Mari's intereference, most of humanity remain, and Kaworu really does get to make Shinji happy. Because, why not?

  • Jossed: Kaworu died again.

  • Did he now? Technically he's an Angel, and Angels got cores that provide some serious regeneration. In the original series his whole body was destroyed, here he just got explosively decapitated. For example a similar flesh wound didn't stop Mark.09 from rebuilding itself, so there's still hope.

Mari will somehow give birth horribly
Okay. Mari. Mary. Rebuild. New Testament. ?????. Profit.

Kaworu will actually attempt to make Shinji happy.
And not in a weird apocalyptic way or anything. He'll just go around doing nice things for Shinji because he wants a better ending.

Mari is this universe's version of Mana Kirishima
From what this troper is aware of, Mari acts somewhat similar to Mana outside of an Eva, or at least somewhat similar to some of her fanfic portrayals. Since I don't believe Mana ever actually fought in Girlfriend of Steel, she could have been a Blood Knight and we just not known it. You know, All There in the Manual-type stuff, only without the Manual.
  • Not a perfect take, but Mana being among Mari's archetypal ancestors is believeable.

FINAL / EOE
This is similar to some of the above WMG that 3.0 will finish the rest of the Angels and FINAL will be the same as/similar to EOE. However, I don't believe that to be the case. So far, given the first two movies, the last Angel battle in the film deviates wildly from the original, moreso than the others. This tells me that the last Angel battle in 3.0, likely Kaworu/Tabris, will also be very different. As a result, either Kaworu and Shinji will become friends and Shinji will Take a Third Option, possibly by destroying the Lilith entity so that there's nothing handy for Kaworu to merge with. However, Kaworu's plan to "make Shinji happy this time" might involve a Zero-Approval Gambit on his end, so that Shinji will still kill him, but because there was no friendship, it will not be a source of angst.

Then, SEELE becomes the Big Bad of FINAL, and despite Shinji's, Asuka's, and Rei's best efforts, everything still starts going to hell a la The End of Evangelion... and at the last minute, Mari Illustrious Makinami gives them all a Get a Hold of Yourself, Woman! (or Man in Shinji's case) before going on to perform some sort of Heroic Sacrifice worthy of Kittan himself, weakening the MP EVAs/Unit-06/whatever-the-hell-SEELE's-main-anti-EVA-force-is and inspiring her friends (because given how much more sociable the big three are, it's bound to happen) to go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge, unleash their true potential, and give the Big Bad the biggest No-Holds-Barred Beatdown in recent anime history, and in the end, Everybody from the original series (except possibly Kaworu) Lives, thus compromising between both sides of the Broken Base.

  • Jossed. Gendo kills off the SEELE monoliths, who this time around are actual monoliths and not humans, in 3.0

Utada Hikaru will sing Cruel Angel's Thesis in one of the upcoming movies.
And it will accompany the single greatest beatdown in franchise history.

Rei's soul is now whole
This may seem like piling one WMG over another, but there is a theory that in the TV series, a fragment of Rei's soul was within Unit 00 and that part of her soul was reunited with the rest of it upon Unit 00's destruction. If this is the case in Rebuild, then Rei's soul may have become whole when Zeruel consumed both Rei and Unit 00.

  • Shinji is told Rei wasn't found in Unit 01 and the Rei present in the movies has a hallucination about her predecessor. So... maybe yes, maybe no.

Asuka was already Mindraped
.Remember how the version of The Beast featured "Hallelujah", not to mention the girlish giggling that didn't come from Asuka right before she sprouted wings and was forcibly pulled into the Entry Plug? Yeah... I'd say Q will feature this between Asuka's periods of not being filled with suicidal depression about it. This Time, this troper suspects Mari will be mindraped (Shinji's in the hospital, presumably Rei is too, and, well, Kaworu's an Angel...why would he suffer the effects of Mind Rape?).

  • No mindrape happens in 3.0 and Asuka doesn't show any signs of having been mindraped. Though she might have simply gotten over it in the last 14 years, time heals all wounds and all that.

Rebuild is on Post-Scratch Earth
The ocean is red from a Betty Crocker rebranding experiment.

Rei will be fully human when she get's released from Unit-01
And it will be a huge sign that Yui has her own agenda different from Gendo's.

  • Shinji is told Rei isn't in Unit 01.
  • Actually, while Ritsuko said that they didn't find any trace of Rei in Unit 01's plug, Fuyutsuki says that the Rei from the previous movies is "preserved within Unit 01, just like your mother."

Rei looking like Yui, and trying to get her and Shinji romantically involved was Yui's idea.
Turn's you Yui was a huge fan of brother/sister incest mangas.

The final Angel won't be Kaworu, but Shinji.
And after Mangsting about it for a while, he'll unleash all holy hell on all those who would see the end of his new, adopted race.

  • Jossed. Kaworu laments over having become the Thirteenth, a fact Mari shows surprise over as there wasn't supposed to be more than twelve.

Theories on what future angels may look like.
  • Arael
    • More advanced wings, and a giant needle-like body.
  • Leliel
    • A liquid blackness foaming around the "shadow", while the actual body breathes.
      • "Liquid blackness" is actually a pretty good description of the 12th Angel, though replace liquid with crystalline.
  • Armisael
    • A double helix like before, but more blatantly similar to DNA. The Angel Tower it spawns could get more of an appearance.

Gendo's ultimate plan this time around is to make a weather-controlling machine.
...It was a weird dream I had the other night, but considering this is Evangelion, I'm not counting anything out.

This time around we'll get to see the EVAs go head-to-head with the ADAMS themselves
Because it would be awesome and not fighting ADAM in the original was really disappointing.

The Rebuild movies take place in the RE-TAKE multiverse
Okay, so RE-TAKE takes place in a multiverse that Shinji created, filled with alternate realities where only one thing stays consistant: he gets with Asuka. I theorise that this is one of those worlds, except Kaworu's existance is messing with Shinji's world. The old and the new is clashing, and this is causing some rather problematic changes: the most notable is Asuka being in Unit 03's entry plug when crap went down. Shinji is forced into another, far more problematic situation, where he begins to transcend the boundries of humanity and starts 3rd Impact. Kaworu has to stop this, and he does. But why does he have to stop 3rd Impact on this world?

This world holds the key to birthing the original Earth anew.

Combining the object Kaji bought Gendo in this series of movies with an EVA, and then divecrashing it into Lillith, will cause a process that will result in an Earth that is an exact replica of the original series' Earth, which will then be taken over by SEELE. The entire plan from the beginning has been to get Shinji to cause 3rd Impact, create a series of worlds with one "key world" that would allow a "master world", a replica of the first and original Earth, to come into existence. Taking advantage of the young state of this earth, the SEELE men will take the role of God and rule over the original Earth. This whole process causes a "Big Bang" effect, destroying every other smaller world, along with the rest of the universe, and creating a single galaxy in the now completely empty universe consisting of the original Milky Way galaxy,with SEELE ruling over everything.

Asuka Langley Sorryu, of the old earth, knew of their plan, and followed them to this "key world". Hence, we have Asuka Langley Sorryu in 3.0 working to cause 3rd Impact so the SEELE guys can't possibly get their hands on it.

Kaworu is no longer Tabris. Mari is.
It's already an established theory that Mari is an Angel, but everywhere on this page, people seem to be assuming that Kaworu is definitely an Angel. But this is Rebuild. All the bets are off. If Mari is playing the role of and Angel, then her actions (disguised as a human, being able to sync perfectly well with any Eva) mirror Kaworu's in the original series. Given that if this is the literal 'Rebuild' that people mainly think it is, and Kaworu really is responsible for its existence (likely, as he's the only one conscious of the change), then why would be put himself in the position of Shinji's enemy, when his goal is to 'make him happy'? So he shoved the role onto a poor unsuspecting girl, who in the old world, just lived a normal life (well, as normal as you can get in post-apocalyptic world). So the people who think Mari's existence is down to self-indulgence on the part of the writing staff are right, on a meta-level. Whether or not Mari is aware of her identity at the moment, I don't know.
  • Okay, I get that. In this scenario, then, how does Kaworu Survive Unaided in the Vacuum of Space?
  • Perhaps he added that into his blueprint for the new reality as well? I mean, who wouldn't want to abuse their power a little and just add: 'Also, I can totally breathe in space' into the small print?
  • Maybe he can breathe in space do still not being human. Or, for a wild guess, what about Kaworu actually being ADAM?
  • Kaworu is the last Angel and actually goes over the count. He also laments over having been "cast down from First to Thirteenth" so that last point is true too.

Touji is the pilot of Unit 08 mentioned in the 3.0 trailer
  • In further defiance of the Downer Ending philosophy of the original series, Touji will actually become a proper Eva Pilot and fight alongside the main characters, piloting Unit 08 instead of 03. Not only will this qualify him as an Ascended Extra in the Rebuild plotline, but this will culminate in Touji going against the Mass Production Eva Units on his own... and winning
    • Jossed. Mari is the pilot of Eva 08. It even shares the same colors as her plug suit! Touji doesn't appear but a shirt labeled with his name does.

In this continuity, Humanity was born of ADAM (Or equivalent thereof), and the Angels were born from Lilith (Or equivalent thereof)
  • In this continuity, 'Lilith' (Or at least the being in Terminal Dogma) is seen with an Angel mask, which carries... certain implications, whilst the Eva-Like entity on the Moon that becomes Unit-06 is seen to wear a mask similar to Lilith's from the Original Series. In addition:
    • Second Impact is shown to have turned the oceans red in this continuity, which is similar to what happened in End Of Evangelion with the mass tanging. If it was Lilith that was awakened instead of ADAM, this could be a possible explanation.
    • In Rebuild, the Angels explode into LCL when killed. Where does that seem familiar?
    • Shinji's Feats at the end of 2.0 could be explained as some kind of ADA Mite trait, possibly activated by proximity to the EVA? It could also explain how Mari was able to control the Berserk Unit-02, to some similar degree.

But, all things considered, Anno is probably just trolling us with this little details. Or is he?

  • In 3.0 the "Lilith" in Central Dogma is still referred to as Lilith, but Kaworu seems to refer to the Angels as Lilin as he states that mark.06 was rendered useless after being exploited by the Lilin, before it is revealed that mark.06 was possessed by the 12th angel. Also at the end of the film Asuka talks about "going to where the Lilin are" as if they are something different from what she herself is. Additionally Kaworu states that Rei would be useless as his co-pilot of Unit-13 because she is a Lilin clone. At first it seems as if he means a clone would not be able to co-pilot the Unit, but this raises the question of how he can. However, when it is revealed that the purpose of Unit-13 is to initiate the 4th impact/continue the 3rd it becomes probable that the unit needs an Lilin and an "Adamin" pilot to do that, as it is shown in the original series that joining an elements of Adam and Lilith was needed to start both the 2nd and 3rd impact. And if Rei and Kaworu are Lilin while the humans in Rebuild are from Adam this would also explains why Shinji saving Rei in 2.0 initiated the 3rd impact.

Mari is The reincarnated form of the previous world's EVA-01
  • This is an alternative theory to those who suggest she's an Angel. Perhaps her ability to control (and seeming empathy towards) the EVAs is a sign of the fact that she is the soul of the 01 from the previous world. That is, assuming each EVA has its own soul - not Yui, but rather the soul of the would-be Angel that became the EVA.

Kaworu is either ADAM himself or an entirely new being.
Going by the thought that Kaworu knows what's going on and isn't Tabris anymore (from an above wmg), perhaps Kaworu is actually ADAM? It'd explain his breathing in space and his appearent knowledge of what happened in NGE. Plus, ADAM was embdeded in Gendo's hand in the original - it would explain the "father" line.

If he's not ADAM himself, he could just be a human-avatar of ADAM, created and used to watch over the human world and guide things to go the way he wants them ie: stopping Shinji/Rei/EVA-01/whatever from ending the world.

As for my second guess (still going on the thought that Kaworu =/= Tabris), maybe he's a separate entity entirely. Not from ADAM or Lilith, but a being sent from wherever it is ADAM and Lilith came from to watch over the Earth and make sure things don't go too bad or against some sort of plan.

  • Sort-of confirmed: Kaworu specifically says he used to be the First Angel.

Mari and Kaworu are both Tabris.
Based on this.

Plug depth affects synchro ratios
I'm not sure about the first Rebuild movie since I haven't seen it in some time, but the second movie makes a great number of references to an EVA pilot's "plug depth". What I'm thinking is: the higher the plug depth (the closer to an EVA's core the pilot is), the higher their synchro. Anyone who watched the original TV series knows a higher synchro rate means finer control over the EVA, but the greater chance of bodily harm the pilot risks should their EVA take damage. In Rebuild, a higher plug depth also grants better controls, but once more at the risk of bodily harm, on top of risking "contamination" from the EVA's core and subsequent loss of humanity. This would correspond with Mari having a high degree of control over EVA 02 when she activated its Beast Mode (her plug depth was said to be in the negative range, suggesting she might've actually been inside EVA 02's core), as well as Shinji's powerful control over EVA 01 when he snaps towards the end (plug depth of 180+).

Plug depth was intended to be a less fan wanky take on synchro ratios
Synchro ratios and virations of such have been used akin to power levels, something that outside of Super Robot wars games, annoyed Anno. But he neee a way to show it, hence the vague plug depth.

Anno exempts Super Robot war adaptations from his fan spite agenda
It's telling that the things he's against or deconstructs have a way playing differently in those games, such as Shinji saving Rei in 2.x's finale, or having things end on a happier note with the original series in Alpha. This suggets that as much he may loathe Eva fans, his love for mecha and the celebration of such, super robot wars is greater than that.

Ritsuko and Gendo are in a relationship
Just like in the original. They show no sign, but when questioned, a piece of Ritsuko's cigarette falls down, and Symbolism is high in this series.
  • Dear God I hope not, it was at that revelation, when the entirety of the psychological problems in the series overrode this troper. Ritsuko went from one of the least problematic characters, to just as crazy as the rest. Her dependence on Gendo and killing the Rei clones were a disturbing look into her mind, that left this troper unable to know what to feel
    • Besides, the Maya-Ritsuko ship would be a neat direction to go.
    • Honestly, I'm just hoping that they make Ritsuko more sympathetic in these movies without the need for rabid debate.

The Final movie...
Will be subtitled "You Must (Not) Runaway". Search your feelings, you know it to be true.
  • You Can (Not) Retreat
  • You Will (Not) Escape
  • You Must (Not) Lose
  • You Will (Not) Survive
  • This Is (Not) The End
    • Jossed, it's subtiled "Thrice Upon a time".

Hold on, I actually have a basis for this. In Evangelion: Death/Rebirth there was a string of scenes with Shinji, Rei, Asuka and Kaworu playing in a string quartet. It just so happens that adding a piano to a string quartet makes a piano quintet. Given that there are five pilots, and this is Evangelion, it's not surprising for a reference like this to happen.

  • Related to this theory - the piano(whether just in sound, or also as a plot device) is going to be important. The official Facebook page recently made the insides of a piano it's wall photo, and a good 20 seconds of the new video was just piano. The song was fast and energetic, but happy. I can't be the only one who thinks it's going to be used in an extremely graphic/dark/crazy scene. After all, it all happens while Anno plays unfitting music. In any case that song (or a piano) is going to be important.

  • Jossed. The one playing the piano is Kaworu.

Rebuild is the result of Anno going over the original proposal to the series and deciding to recycle some ideas.

Plot points in the Proposal:

  • Asuka gets severely injured in episode 19. The article specifically mentions that she's protecting Shinji at the time.
  • Unit 05, an "Experimental Type" is transferred to Japan during episode 20.
  • The last Angels descend from the Moon and go on a rampage that wipes America off the map.

Equivalent plot points in Rebuild:

  • Asuka gets severely injured due to being supportive of Shinji and Rei's budding relationship.
  • Unit 05 goes into battle and gets destroyed.
  • Kaworu and the Mark.06 descend from the Moon to abort Third Impact.

Coincidence? I think not.

Other noteworthy plot points from the Proposal which might appear in 3.0 and FINAL:

  • The UN annulling the Human Instrumentality Project, despite Gendo's vehement protests. As the Proposal makes no mention of SEELE, this seems unlikely.
  • Shinji and the others mentioned as staying behind at the Geofront for Rei, implying that she's incapacitated in some way.
  • Reference to "the ancient ruins of Arka, which have become key", being located in the Geofront. Possibly that weird, organic-looking landscape the Terminal Dogma elevator crosses during 1.0?

Asuka's eye patch is not for a missing eye, but is being used to hide that eye's true nature
That's true nature is the fact that during Bardiel's possession of Unit 03, it was brought up that Asuka was being pull forward into plug. Now, where does that description seems familiar, right, the same thing happen to Shinji when he unleashed Unit 01 on Zeruel at the end of the 2nd movie. Now based of the previous theories, that Shinji during these event became part or full-on angel. So simply the eye patch asuka wears in the preview for the 3rd movie, is really to hide that eye's color in now red, which occurring to similar theories is a sign of angel DNA.
  • Given that she hasn't aged since 2.0... it's highly possible that she's no longer human. During the Unit-03 test Ritsuko mentions that if the plug depth goes any deeper, Asuka would no longer be human. She could either be part Eva or part Angel.
  • In addition, she activates Beast mode in 3.0... and both eyes are glowing, including the left. Barring an animation oversight, it does give weight to the theory.
    • The "missing" eye is glowing a different colour, however.
    • the "missing" eye glows a shade of blue which curiously is the same color as bardiel.
  • Adding to this, whatever is in Asuka's left eye has a counterpart in Misato's right eye, which is kept hidden throughout the movie.
    • Misato's right eye shows up alright; it's being kept hidden most of the time as a Shout-Out to Captain Nemo.
  • This seems to be supported by the fact that in the intro Asuka puts her hand on the covered eye when she's being blinded by the light of her enemy in the orbit. It may be that the eye has in fact become hyper-sensitive and needs to be covered for her to function normally.
    • It wouldn't make more sense if she was a sniper instead of Mari if her eye had some sort of power?
  • Maybe she just trapped or encapsulated Bardiel inside of it, like Unit-13 did to the 12th Angel (that fetus-Rei thing), but after they both had their arses kicked by the Dummy System.
  • That theory is supported by the fact that when her eye is glowing just after Shinji escapes from the Wunder, we can briefly see that her eyepatch is embedded with the same runes used to to seal Angels with the Pillars or the DSS Choker.
  • Partially confirmed, in that the eye patch isn't to hide the colour of the eye but rather to hide the Angel itself, which was contained within her eye.

Asuka Shikinami and Mari Makinami are Rei clones, or similar
Theory partially composed because of Asuka Langley Shikinami's Evageeks Wiki page.

So some theorise that Asuka Shikinami and Mari Makinami's names have been created in order to form some sort of "trifecta" with Rei. The basis for this is that all 3 lastnames end with nami. This seems like a completely baseless rumor, just some sort of coincidence fans are taking too seriously. But, think back to the 3.0 preview at the end of 2.22: one frame contains 3 seperate Rei clones, close together. There are shots of Asuka and M Ari individually, though, so cloning is unlikely. But... what if they were alternate universe Reis? Reis that Rei could have been? Ego-boosted but hollow Asuka, awesome Mari, both sharing the "nami" prefix in their names. There's gotta be a reason.

This is not the second iteration of these events after End of Evangelion. It is the fourth (possibly fifth).
In the first series, we have one single Adam, whose silhouette looks rather EVA-like. In this series, we have four Adams who look much less EVA-like. Whatever the nature of the Adam/Adams is/are, it's possible that the number of Adams is indicative of how many cycles this story has gone through. The series, and End of Evangelion are the first cycle, and Rebuild is several cycles somewhere down the line. If the Adams are actually True EVAs (much like what Unit-01 almost became at the end of 2.22), then it could be that each Adam is the product of each preceeding Third Impact event. Obviously, this means that the Adams each survive their Second Impact events as well, and are likely recovered and used in the construction of each cycles' EVAs.

It should be noted that the EVAs seem to have similar, but also different and arguably more powerful abilities in Rebuild than in the show, which could mean that having more Adam samples (which, if the theory is right, would be EVAs from previous cycles) would result in marginally better EVAs each cycle, which then result in marginally more powerful Adams. Notable abilities include Unit-02's Beast Mode, as well as Unit-03's spontaneous growth of fully functional arms. Ultimately, this could mean that the Adams, and possibly Angels, are undergoing a slow evolution as a direct result of previous cycles' improvements on EVA design.

  • At least the third considering the subtitle of 3.0+1.0, "Thrice upon a time", which has a few nods to the Manga.

Rei will be pregnant in 3.0
She and Shinji were stuck in Unit-01 with nothing else to do.
  • Jossed, of at least the 2.0 Rei we knew. She wasn't saved, even after all the shit Shinji had to pull, and the "Rei" in 3.0 is a soulless clone.

Shinji won't kill Kawrou this time.
Somebody else close to him like Rei, Asuka or Misato will, leading to a whole new freakout.
  • More or less confirmed. Only Kaworu kills himself instead.

Third Impact will be Averted, and the world saved, but everyone close to Shinji will die, leaving him an even worse emotional wreck than at the end of the orginal.
Thus making a happy ending even more depressing than the depressing ending.
  • Sort of correct, sort of not. Third Impact as a whole never finished (Kaworu was a bit late), but by that point most of humanity had been wiped out. Shinji's classmates were implied to be killed, but most of the NERV staff is around still.

Just as the end of 2.0 deconstructed always save the girl, one of the upcoming films will reconstruct it.
  • Shinji will save the girl, and save the world, possibly because he saved the girl.
    • Deconstructed as of 3.0. Shinji didn't save the girl, and nearly destroyed the world. It remains to be seen how the rest plays out.

There will be a ninth Eva.
And it will be for Rei considering that unit 00 was completly destroyed.
  • Confirmed. Rei pilots Eva 09 in 3.0. It even looks like an upgraded Unit 00.

Evangelion: FINAL will end with Shinji making a Heroic Sacrifice
The main plot of Evangelion 3.0 is Shinji attempting to redeem himself for causing Third Impact but ultimately failing. This Troper's theory is that the 4th movie will climax with all the pilots fighting a seemingly invincible enemy poised to destroy humanity completely and Shinji will stop this creature and save the world by self destructing his Eva or something to that effect.
  • Friend and I came up with this: At the end 5th impact starts. Using Unit-01 Shinji will literaly wrestle control of the event, making it do what he want. This tears both the Eva and Shinji to pieces, as a burst of energy covers the earth. Then we have Misato, Asuka, Rei, whoever is left recover the entry plug. The find a mangled and dying Shinji who asks them to show him. His last words are "It's so beautiful. I'm happy." We then see that Shinji has restored life to the planet, making a beautiful natural Eden for everyone to live in, that he himself will never be able to experience.
    • Aww. So bittersweet, but I like it. Then Kaworu will embrace the dying Shinji before he finally lets go.
    • Shinji's last words before willfully going to his death: "I musn't run away", spoken firmly and calmly instead of a feverish Madness Mantra.

Evangelion: FINAL will end with only Shinji, Asuka, and a godlike Unit 01, with comments that humanity will rebuild from the ground up, even if the now-godlike Unit 01 sends out Angels eventually
All of this has happened before...

The moment someone syncs with an Eva, They cease to be fully human.
Case in point: Asuka and Mari in 3.0. Neither of them have aged in 14 years. During the Unit-03 test Ritsuko mentions that a certain plug depth will cause Asuka to cease being human. However, what if they got the depth that it happens at wrong?
  • Just might be true. at the end of Q Asuka refers humans as "Lilin", something only Kaoru did prior.

Kaworu will come back to life
Mind, he won't be the same we know i.e., he won't be an Angel but will come back in 4.0 as a human and be Shinji's best bud (perhaps more than that) in the end. Please, God, Anno, let me have this!

In Final Shinji is going to Really snap
and I don't just mean be catatonic and curl into a ball either. I'm talking something ranging from a Nihilist who just doesn't care anymore and who sees any action he takes as doomed to end in tragedy, to full on Villain Protagonist who is actively trying to destroy the world and kill everyone, while longing for his own death.

Meta:The original script for 3.0 was a bit cheerier...but then March 11,2011.
Well,bluntly a magnitude 9 earthquake killing tens of thousands of people,setting of half a dozennuclear meltdowns, thousands of fires, and turning a huge chunk of your country into an unihabitableradioactive wasteland probably has an effect on the makers outlooks.
  • That actually makes a load of sense.
The Peseudo evolved-form can only be achieved by EV As made out of the ADAMS (EVA 1(?), Eva mark.06, Eva mark.08 and Eva 13

Shinji is going to have to let Rei die
Or maybe even kill her himself in order to set things right.

Alternatively, both Shinji and Rei will have to die.
Since both are the two who are needed for the scenario to work, they both may realize that the only way to stop the next impact is to remove themselves from the equation. Quite a Bittersweet Ending, as they are both dead, but the world is saved, and the two are reunited in death.

The ultra-depression of 3.0 has something to do with the semi-optimistic endings of Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Red vs. Blue.
When it comes down to it, Gendo, Homura, and the incarnates of Church have the same motivations (in Epsilon's words, they "kept trying to get her right"), so their series may be connected in some way. (Instrumentality reincarnation, maybe?) Madoka got a happy ending (happy for Urobuchi, anyway), while Red vs. Blue got its happiest ending so far in Season 10. Going with the Madoka law of emotional Equivalent Exchange, there has to be an equivalent amount of hope and despair in the universe. So, it's likely that the optimism of those two series led to 3.0 becoming ultra-depressing.
  • So does that mean that 4.0 will be more hopeful to counter-act the depression of 3.0?
    • At a price. Homura and Church's adventures aren't over yet...
    • Considering that both Madoka and Eva have one more film to go, with both possibly being in 2013, that raises some questions...

ROE Gendo is Shinji from the original series.
Despite their seeming dislike for each other, they do behave in relatively similar manners.

Rei will go through her own introspection sequence.
Considering that Shinji went through a similar thing in the original series when he was trapped in Unit 01, Rei II will have something similar in 4.0. It is here that she finally comes to her own conclusions about her feelings for Shinji, possibly after meeting Yui.

4.0 will loop back to the beginning, but this time, it will be the beginning of the actual series
Something will happen that will massively screw up the entire world and make it so that events that made Rebuild different from the original never existed (i.e. Mari, Asuka being in Unit-03, etc.), the major difference is that Shinji is still himself. His broken self that knows everyone hates him, despite the new universe not acknowledging his Third Impact launching. This might explain all the self-doubt he has in the original and why he calls everyone liars when they say they're nice to him. He's not thinking this, he knows this from experience. A bad experience that never really happened.

Rebuild is the story of The Apocalypse, and the four remaining Eva pilots are the Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Any guesses for the souls of the new Evas?
  • Eva-03 - It's not a new Eva, but there's no chance that it's still Toji's mother due to Toji no longer being a pilot.
  • Eva-04 - It probably doesn't have one.
  • Eva-05
    • Mari's mother is the most likely candidate.
  • Eva-06
  • Eva-07
  • Eva-08
  • Eva-09
  • Eva-13

I expect that Toji, Hikari and Kensuke may be Eva souls. After all, they were potential pilots, so it's more than likely. Plus I'd like to see some guys taking part in contact experiments.

Gendo will get a Didn't See That Coming in the final film which will cause all of his plans to fall apart
Bonus points if it comes from the universe's favorite plaything: Shinji. And it will be glorious!

Mari is as psychologically damaged as all the other pilots.
If Gainax ever gets around to fleshing out Mari's backstory, it will tell us of a girl with a painful childhood defined by loss and loneliness, just like in the case of Asuka and Shinji. But unlike them, Mari accepted her role as an outsider, forever bound to the EVA and unable to relate to others. So even though she still feels pain and frustration, Mari has successfully learned how to control it and unleash it on the battlefield.

In FINAL, Mari pilots Unit 8+2 against the MP Evas.
She ends up dying in Asuka's place, and since Mari was essentially the only person Asuka could relate to with the whole Fountain of Youth problem, they had probably become best friends or something. As a result, Asuka will either lose it or go catatonic, leaving it all up to Shinji.

  • Hell, 3.0 practically shot down every other ship except Mari X Asuka. Then again, losing someone she loved would only make Asuka's prospective breakdown even worse.

Only Lilith-based Evangelions needs the Mother-Child relationship. The Evangelions in Rebuild is Adam-based.
It is more or less confirmed by now that in the original series an Eva needs to have the soul of the mother of it's pilot. This appears to be true of unit-01, 02, 03 and even 04 (in spin-offs). But Unit-00, whoever's soul it may contain, obviously does not contain the soul of Rei's mother.

While unit 02-04's origins are unaccounted it has been stated that 00 was made from Adam and it is shown that 01 was grown from Lilith. Now; it may be that only someone close to the pilot needs to be the Eva's soul (but if that is the case why can't Gendo pilot unit-01 and why does unit-01 to 04 always use the soul of the pilot's mothers and not someone else close to them?) or that Rei can control the Eva, when it's soul is dormant, in the same way that Kaworu does with Unit-02, but it is also possible that this difference stems from unit-00 being Adam-based while unit-01 is Lilith-based. And, since they function the same way that unit-01 do, unit-02 to 04 are also Lilith-based. If this is the case it is also likely that the Mass-Production Eva's were Adam-based as they could be piloted by dummy-plugs while unit-01 rejected the dummy-plug when Shinji was not also piloting it.

Now let's look at Rebuild: here the Evas are used indiscriminately by the different pilots, a pilot can have multiple Evas without any obvious new soul-surrogates and the Evas, like the Mass-Productions units, have many angel-like qualities that they did not have in the original show. This can be chalked off to Anno changing the rules, but if this is, as so often hinted, a sequel, changing the rules of the universe like that would be weird. And once we also consider that the "Lilith" in Central Dogma now wears an angel-mask (while Mark.06 wears a Lilith mask) it is not unthinkable that said "Lilith" is actually Adam and that (most of) the Evas in Rebuild, except Mark.06, are made from Adam and not from Lilith.

  • Then again, Eva 13 is an Adam itself - and it has no AT field, as Mari says - it has tiny drones which use their own fields as a weapon. If Adam has no AT field, it stands to reason that anything created from Adam would not have AT fields themselves. I think it's just cause Mari's got a few tricks up her sleeve that she was able to sync with 02.
    • Ignoring Mari, Asuka still piloted both Unit-03 and 04 and Shinji piloted Unit-01 and Eva 13 (and Kaworu piloted Mark.06 and Eva 13). And if we are following the rules of the original series both creatures created from Adam and Lilith have AT-fields. (Seeing Kaworu's externalized AT-field was how Shinji first understood that Kaworu was an angel, remember?)

Rei Q actually is Rei II.
As it turns out, Rei will be revealed to have actually been secretly retrieved from Unit 01 by Gendo, who proceeded to blank her memories so as to make her more submissive again. Shinji's comments that she isn't "his" Ayanami is now slowly beginning to remind her of her past connections and relationships with him and the others, ala Robocop.

Alternatively, Rei II is being held by Gendo in secret, while he uses the clones to take over her original place.

Shinji will make his "Everyone can just die" speech from End of Evangelion before the climax of final
After losing Kaworu and Rei in 3.0 the constant beratings and mistrust from Asuka, Misato and the others will finally push him past breaking point until he tells them that if they hate him, he hates them as well and that he doesn't care if they die or not. After that Misato and/or Asuka will give him a Get A Hold Of Yourself Man and tell him that despite what he's done they do still care about him but he needs to grow up, realise that he can't change what he's done, accept responsibility for it and try to move on. This will probably be combined with the death of one of them (most likely Misato but it could happen to Asuka as well) to finally snap him out of it.
  • Or the death of the ones that said that they do care for him just sends him further into despair...

Kaworu is a lying liar (who lies); Shinji did not cause near-third impact.
At least three points seem to make it extremely unlikely:
  • Compare the ascension of unit 01 seen at the end of the second movie with the near-apocalypse seen here. There was no sign of any of the giant red crosses, no creation of a massive scar, no dividing the world into partitions using blood-like stuff, no pillar of red corpses with a platform on top appearing in the middle of NERV HQ, no lilith turning into a giant rei and losing her head.
  • Misato's crew seems completely inexperienced, with one of her bridge members needing to check a manual to figure out how her radar works. Plus, it seems a bit unlikely that Misato&co could get constructed such a complicated device as the enormous flying ship in post-apocalyptic conditions. Unit 02 also doesn't measure up with the timeframe, as the beginning implies that this is the first time its acted in this form. As such, their current state seems rather unlikely to be a result of events that happened fourteen years ago.
  • Evangelion unit 06 appears in the wrong location. Fourteen years ago, it stopped unit 01 from completing the third impact near the pyramid, which was on top of the facility. Now, it is at the bottom, where Lilith is stored. However, there is a barrier in-between that Kaworu says he couldn't pass without Shinji's help.
As such, it seems far more likely that the near-impact happened at some point in the intervening years (probably very close to the events of the third movie), and Kaworu telling Shinji he was at fault was a way to emotionally manipulate him into getting the two lances (a plan which fell apart due to the wrong lances being there, likely as a result of Gendo's own plan to manipulate Shinji)
  • How does this account for Misato knowing that Near-3rd Impact occurred?
  • This WMG actually seems pretty likely, and in fact there is an obvious candidate for the "true" insigator of near-impact already laid out for us in 3.0 and the preview from 2.0. Unit 06. when we see Unit 06 descend to stop 3rd impact in 2.0, the moon is shown behind it, and it is definitly NOT in the devestated form we see it in in 3.0 yet, implying that the near-impact hasn't happened yet. The preview from 2.0 tells us that Unit 06 descends into terminal dogma, and in 3.0 Kaowru says it was "modified to be Autonomous", but we later discover that this is because it has the 12th angel inside it. This suggests that possibly the 12th angel was placed in unit 06 deliberatly, and that the Angel took over the unit and attempted to contact Lilith. But most tellingly, in 3.0 Kaworu reffers to terminal dogma as "the epicenter of the 3rd impact". If Shinji was really the one that caused near-impact, wouldn't the epicenter be up on the surface next to the pyramid? All of this seems to point towards one conclusion; Unit 06's attempt to contact Lilith was the TRUE cause of near-impact, and those in the know (probably Gendo, Fuyutski, Rei III, and Kaworu) deliberatly blaimed Shinji in order to manipulate him.
Okay, in his defense, he wasn't clearly lying. He said the third impact came to pass while Shinji was fused with Unit-01. It doesn't necessarily was because of it.
  • In 3.0+1.0 how Third Impact happened was revealed. When Shinji ascended in Unit 01, he ended up destroying Tokyo-3 and NERV. Meaning, there were no longer any defences to stop Mark.06 (the 12th Angel) into waltzing in Lilith's Chamber, wherein it started the true Third Impact. In order to stop it, Kaji, Misato's lover and he who impregnated her, sacrificed himself. This became the reason why she blamed Shinji and let everyone else blame him: she was resentful over Kaji's death, and needed to project and scapegoat someone. In this context, Kaworu was right in why Shinji was blamed for everything.

Adams' Vessel(s)
When Mari refers to Rei's Eva as an "Adams' Vessel" she's saying that she's at risk of being chomped on by Eva-13 which, at this point, we know is an Adam. The 12th Angel as we know escaped from Mark.06 as a Core and was eaten...and of course later we find out the Mark.09 is also a Core (possibly the repurposed Core of the Angel who's remains were used to build the Wunder), which would also make it an "Adams' Vessel."

The scenes shown in the 3.0 trailer are what actually happened during the 14 year timeskip.
These will possibly be explored in FINAL or some sort of OVA.

The last movie's international title will be You Can (Not) Rebuild.
It has a similar ring to the previous titles and what abstract question could be more important in the last movie than this one?

Rei II will return.

And she'll be pissed Shinji tried to destroy the world to save her. Why would she be is she looked so happy to see him before? That was TI beginning and Shinji saw what he wanted to see. So why would Rei be upset?

  • Shinji risked his life when her Heroic Sacrifice was so that he wouldn't have to.

  • Rei was much happier with a Heroic Sacrifice to save the human race than to continue her existence as a clone.

  • Shinji placed himself, and her, over the human race. This would be something that might just set Rei off.

  • It's Evangelion. Anything...A...NY...THING... that could be done to twist the knife will be done.

Rei II will come to accept Shinji's actions

Adding onto the above, Shinji will eventually persuade her that her life does indeed have meaning, and that she deserved to live just as much as himself. While she will be upset at first, she will find that she is worth living after all. Bonus points if she returns in a way that doesn't start the next impact.

  • Evidence suggest this might lead to a better ending. A throwaway line from Rei at her worst in Eo E reveals that she thinks everyone has the right to life (backed up by her not willing to shoot Touji.) So even a freshly minted clone think Instrumentality is wrong. Rei II is considerably better in Rebuild. Could we see her pissed (or at least as pissed as Rei gets) at Shinji for causing TI then Gendou for wanting to cause it? Let's hope so.

No Matter What Shinji And Rei Will Not Get Together
A constant in every version of Eva is that no matter how much ship tease Shinji and Rei have they will not end up together in the end. The first two parts of Rebuild have an absurd amount of ship tease for the two, so it will definitly hold true.

Sidebar, Hideaki Anno has a side bet with Joss Whedon on who can make their fans cry the most.

Does any more need to be said?

  • God help us all if they ever decide to make a collaboration.

In the Final, Shinji is going to take responsibility for all of his actions!

He'll accept the fact that TI was due to his own selfishness. Then he's going to call out the rest of the Jerkass cast for not bothering to explain things to him.

  • I agree, in fact i think that the scene will be an awesome moment of Shinji, who spent in in 3.0 angsting and surely in 4.0, he will make one of the biggest "The Reason You Suck" Speech in the history of anime, where he will call the hell out of Asuka, Misato and the rest for not telling about he making another impact and says" It may be my fault that all of this is happening. But, this is also your fault!" and says that they are all selfish and egoistical people who never cared for him since the beggining and that if they dont change, then everything will end.

Shinji will save Rei........After taking responsibility.

Adding on to the above, it will only be after Shinji accepts what he has done and takes responsibility for his actions that he rescues Rei from Unit 01. In fact, rather than rescuing her by himself, it will come about thanks to the help of the other members of WILLE as a way for them to make it up to Shinji as well. After all, You Are Not Alone.

The significance of the 4 Adams, 13 Angels, and Nebuchadnezzar's Key

The 4 Adams are the 4 Worlds of Merkabah mysticism, they form the tetramorph throne of God...in other words the body of a Godlike entity. They're vessels were scattered and are used to create Evas Mark.06, Mark.09, Eva 13. A final one has not yet been revealed.

  • An interesting thing to notice here, is that only Unit 13 and the ones with "Mark" in their names (barring Mark.04A, Mark.04B and Mark.04C) are Adams' Vessels. Coincidence? Not likely at all. In fact, it could be that "Unit 13" is supposed to be translated as "Mark.13" instead, and that "Mark.04" is really (as implied in 3.33) a corrupted, Angel-infused "Unit 04", which is highly likely, since they all use the Japanese number followed by "-Gouki" in the Japanese version.

The 13 Angels are analogous to the 12 Apostles and Jesus. The 13 Angels begin and end with Kaworu, as he is the soul of the 1st Angel in a mortal form. Kaworu was betrayed and dies for the sins of mankind but remarks that he will meet Shinji again, implying his resurrection.

The Nebuchadnezzar's Key echoes to the story of the wicked king who betrayed the king of Judah. This is demonstrated in Gendo the King of the Lilin betraying Seele and most likely he will break the covenant they had with Lilith.

At the end of Final Shinji will save humanity and redeem himself in the eyes of Misato, Asuka and the rest but will choose to leave.

Granted that's kind of a downer but even if he were to earn his redemption it's not impossible that he would decide he doesn't deserve redemption or to see the world rebuilt or that he should punish himself for causing Third Impact and choose to live away from society. Of course it might also be possible that someone will find out and try to stop him.

At some point in Final Shinji is going to beg WILLE (or at least Asuka/Misato) to kill him.

Whether out of guilt or because he thinks he's too dangerous to keep alive Shinji will probably want to die given his current state and it logically follows that he may very well want to die at the hands of the people he wronged.

3.0 is/was a Take That! to the fanfic writers who wanted a badass Shinji and a happier EVA after EOE.

Thusly, it can't go both ways for either of them.

The Adams, the awakening of Eva-01, the Third Impact, Eva-13, etc. were all just parts of the plan to awaken the Final/Zeroth Angel aka God:
Shinji.

Notice that when Neo-NERV attacked WILLE, they didn't take Eva-01, but rather Shinji himself. Ritsuko then mentioned something along the lines of "he can still be a potential trigger" and tries to convince Misato to detonate the DSS Choker. According to Kaworu, the DSS Choker was designed to kill Angels. Also, both Eva-01 and 13 (presumably both Adams) awakened because of whose will? Shinji himself. When Shinji caused Eva-01 to awaken, he mentioned "I don't care what happens to the world but I'm bringing Rei back" thus triggering the Third Impact apocalypse. Both 01 and 13 needed him as the epicentre of both the Third and Fourth Impacts. When Kaworu was killed by the Choker, Eva-13 remained awake and the Door of Guf didn't close. Mari then realized that it was Shinji himself, again, who is keeping the Door open. The Door only closed when Mari activated the ejection system.

I think, that the various factions of the world are fighting not just to possess the Adams, but also to possess Shinji, whose subconscious is the equivalent of Haruhi Suzumiya. That is, he's the prime Reality Warper of the series, aka God himself. SEELE wants to break Shinji's ego in order to trigger his God-subconscious to accept Instrumentality and euthanize existence, hence why they are exposing him to fight against insanity-inducing Eldritch Abominations while planning more misfortunes against him in secret. Kaworu in response tries to comfort Shinji in the hopes that he can remake the world. The world is progressively becoming more worse and Lovecraftian as a reflection of Shinji's God-subconscious, as it becomes more and more convinced in its isolation, Hedgehog's Dilemma, and misunderstanding of humanity. The God-subconscious tries to remake the world in its own image, hence the Failures of Infinity Eva-01 replicas littering Tokyo-3, and the Giant Rei mutated from the Lilith underneath Central Dogma. No amount of physical or supernatural force can save humanity from Shinji's God-subconscious as it approaches Awakening; the only thing that can do so is understanding, the element that allows humans to connect to each other and build the wonders of human civilization, despite their miserable existence.

Final will feature the ULTIMATE mind screw and subversion for Eva...
After years of it being said that Shinji is a screw up, how awful he is for running away from reality, that his refusal to own up to his actions,and how it only makes things worse for others, they will do the one thing you'd never expect. It'll turn out that absolutly nothing is Shinji's fault. In fact his course of actions were the best possible ones, and everyone else is the screw up, or malicious. It will even turn out that Wille is responsible for most of the world's population being dead, but they didn't want to own up to it, and passed blame onto Shinji to run from their own guilt. Because, lets face it, who would see that coming?

The Kaworu seen in the first two movies is different from the one Shinji meets in Q.
While this can easily be chalked up to Art Evolution, the Kaworu who appears in the first two movies has very different looking hair, sharper features, and an over all more masculine design. His few lines are all also significantly more sinister than the Kaworu seen in the third movie. The fact that this Kaworu was the pilot of the Mark.06, which became infused with Lilith in an attempt to cause an impact is why we don't see him after the timeskip. The fact that Rei Q was unaware of her previous identity before being told of it may suggest that Kaworu is similarly unaware of his clones, and has instead been convinced that Mark.06 was autonomous to keep him from learning the truth.

The events of 3.33 were always in the plans. It just wasn't originally planned to happen in 3.33.
Nothing we see in the preview for the third movie is actually in the third movie, but everything that's said and shown seems like things that could have happened in between the two movies. What we got as Evangelion 3.33 may have actually been originally envisioned as the first half of the fourth movie. Hey, it would explain why, for as many whams and complete game-changers 3.33 throws the audience's way, very little actually happens in the movie itself.

Alternatively, the events of 3.33 were planned from the very beginning.
Notice the Japanese titles Jo-Ha-Kyu referring to the Japanese dramatic structure of "beginning, break, rapid". 1.11 is a shot-for-shot enhanced remake of the TV series up to Ramiel that streamlines and expands upon the action. 2.22 significantly changes and condenses many fights all the way to Kaworu, before completely breaking Off the Rails at Zeruel, prematurely jumping to the end of the original and setting off Third Impact. 3.33 takes place in a full-blown Alternate Continuity only tangentially resembling the world we've seen before. As a result of (Near-)Third Impact, Evangelion is amplified up to eleven - the world has been reduced to an uninhabitable wasteland, the warring NERV and WILLIE appear to be the last humans alive, Evangelions are awesomely mass-produced in a Lensman Arms Race with WILLIE's AT-powered airship fleet, everybody explicitly hates Shinji more than he ever imagined, Gendo has usurped even SEELE as the series' Big Bad, and Kaworu has ascended to become a full-blown messiah of Incorruptible Pure Pureness. "Evangelion on Proper Medication" was all a ruse to set up an even darker situation than the original, if such a thing were even possible.

In short, 1.11 was the status quo - Evangelion as it was. 2.22 is Evangelion as the fans wished for, laden with mecha action, ship teasing across the harem, wish fulfillment, and *pleeeeeenty of fanservice* - ultimately culminating in a transcendent spectacle that would put Simon to shame. 3.33, however, throws all this positive development out the window to drive home Anno's depressive vision - Evangelion at its core, destructively purging any hopeful distractions that might cause Shinji and the otaku archetype to run away from reality, into a more pleasant fantasy. Shinji's actions at the end of 2.0 were the ultimate form of escapism, to the destruction of all else. 3.33 forces Shinji to bear the unbearable consequences of nearly ending the world to escape human suffering.

If the titles 3.0+1.0 and :|| are any indication, the Mind Screw will come full circle as Asuka and Rei Q force Shinji to reconcile with everything in an adult manner - even as his father, Gendo, attempts the ultimate escape from reality once more. What happens next is anybody's guess, but both titles imply a sense of Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end... are one in the same. Yes, all is right with the world. *melts*

Rather than being a brand-new Angel like Third or Seventh, the Twelfth Angel is Rebuild's take on Armisael.
  • Point the first: Armisael is the "Angel of the Womb". The Twelfth Angel begins to turn into a misshapen fetus after joining with Unit-13, and a baby's cry can be heard while it does.
  • Point the second: The Twelfth Angel emerges as a long snake-like entity, similar in all but color to Armisael.
  • Point the third: The Twelfth Angel is a "full-body" core. The original Armisael did not have a core organ like the other Angels.
  • Point the fourth: Trapping the Twelfth Angel in Mark-06 is extremely similar to how Armisael was defeated, except without the self-destruct at the end.
    • Looked more like the 12th Angel from the original series, honestly. Though with a more blurred design.

The cat is the mastermind behind everything that happens
Around the middle of 2.0, there is a random shot of a cat sitting on some stairs, and then he stares at the audience for a second. You know he's the one behind it all. You can tell it by his secretive eyes.

Kaji died during Third Impact.
He doesn't show up at all during 3.33, despite Shinji visiting every place Kaji would logically be if alive. Would further explain why Misato is so pissed at Shinji and why her crew is so reluctant to talk about Third Impact.
  • The same goes for Pen-Pen.
  • Confirmed. He sacrificed himself to stop Third Impact.

One of the people in the photo of Yui from 3.0 was Asuka's mother.
Note the woman in the far right of the photo. Look familiar?

Final will feature a Fifth Impact
And this time, it won't be stopped: everyone will die.

All of 3.0 is actually happening in Shinji's head
After Eva 01 was skewered by Kaworu with the Spear of Cassius and Third Impact was stopped, Shinji was trapped not only inside the robot, but inside his own psyche, possibly because of whatever power of Impact-preventing magnitude holds the Spear; an event quite probably intended by Kaworu, who fully expects Shinji to be happier in a world of his own creation, with some adjustments to make it rational and not too much dream-like (SEELE still exists but it is silent, no longer able to harm anyone, for an example). Unexpectedly, though, Shinji ends up in the ultimate bad trip: all his good actions meant nothing, most of the people he ever cared about are dead and those surviving hold only contempt for him: this is a reflection of Shinji's own astronomical guilt and abysmal self-esteem, resurfacing violently from his subconscious and imprisoning the poor guy in his own personal nightmarish hell. Kaworu somehow senses this and thus 'inserts' himself in the constructed universe, giving Shinji some relief and insight and ultimately trying to free him through the Twin Spears and Eva 13. Sadly, this world being (mostly) a product of Shinji's mind, he manages to sunbconsciously screw up his own rescue through Gendo: the personification of everything Shinji fears and hates, the very source of his insecurity and self-loathing. Kaworu is forcibly removed from this Bad Future scenario via gory death, his parting words to Shinji a hope that his intervention was not entirely made moot. By the end of the movie, a catatonic Shinji is saved by Asuka, showing that in the end, there is indeed still hope, as a tiny fragment of the boy's mind has not given up yet and may possibly finally find the strength to face his own demons and free himself by 4.0.

Events between 2.0 and 3.0
Based on the original trailer and 3.0:
  • Mark 6 descends from the moon after stopping Unit-01 from the Near-Third Impact
  • Unit-01 is sealed, Kaworu is instated as a pilot, Mari is made Unit-02's pilot, Misato becomes increasingly suspicious, but is still distraught from the disappearance of Shinji and Rei
  • NERV personell are held for questioning
  • Unit-01 is locked in the tesseract in the space, maybe by the Seele to avoid another unwanted awakening.
  • Tokyo-3 is abandoned, save for NERV and maybe some civilian families of the school kids (assuming the school was used the same way as in the TV show, as a holder for potential EVA pilots)
  • Kaji is killed in a similar way to the TV show, Misato grieves his death alone, starts investigating NERV and gaining support in her eventual rebellion
  • The 11th Angel arrives and is disposed of by Mari and Kaworu, Gendo and Fuyutsuki prepare for the final stages of their plan (this may also be the time that Unit-07 was sortied with a new pilot)
  • Mark 06 is automatised.
  • Mari interacts with Rei or the Ayanami series...somehow, and realizes that Gendo's plans differ greatly enough from hers...whatever those are, and decides to join Misato's side.
  • The 12th Angel arrives and is somehow sealed in Mark 06 (Unit-07 may have been destroyed at this point, if not during the previous Angel attack or another undisclosed reason)
  • Misato uses this opportunity to stage a coup, but they're forced to retreat because Kaworu is then instructed to descend to Central Dogma and initiate the real Third Impact, but from outside the EVA (as he did with Unit-02 in Episode 24).
    • Maybe that's not it. Kaworu seems like he would only do what makes Shinji happy this time(God knows why such obsession). It's more likely that Rei is somehow harvested from Unit 01 and used by Gendo to initiate 3rd Impact, since Lilith clearly fused with her somehow.
  • During the coup, Mari commandeers the newly made (but not completed in time for use against Angels) Unit-08 and Misato's faction, to be named WILLE later, takes a still comatose Asuka and Unit-02 and begin their fight against them.
    • Unit-08 being incomplete also explain why it is the only EVA that still needs an umbilical cord as external energy source.
  • Mark 4 (The Nemesis Series) and Units 9-12 are developed and all destroyed in the intervening 14 years.

Rebuild 4.0 will (never) be born.
  • It will languish in Development Hell, like the live adaption.
    • Well, could you think of a more heart-wrenching ending?
      • With a lawsuit against Gainax underway during the reported production of the film, it's getting closer to a fact.

Wunder is the Lance of Cassius
  • During the climax of 3.0, Kaworu mentions that the lance of cassius wasn't there and that it was different from the lance of Longinus, it is also implied that the Wunder is in some way related to the angels.
    • Not likely, but Asuka used a spear identical to the Lance of Cassius to get access to the Main Engine so Wunder could fly. The Lance of Cassius is never seen after, and this is actually the only appearance of a weapon with that design in the entire movie. In other words, WILLE is in possession of Cassius, and probably stole it when they left NERV between 2.22 and 3.33.
    • That's not the Spear of Cassius, according to the script, it's a weapon/tool called a Heat Lance, and a definitively manmade one. While it's possible that WILLE are the ones in possession of the Spear of Cassius, so far nothing confirmed that they have it.

Ritsuko is a secret agent for Gendo during the events of 3.0
  • This idea coordinates nicely with the plot of the original tv series. It's a side explanation as to how Rei Q knew exactly when and where to strike Wunder in order to reach Shinji, other than that he heard her calling to him and she heard his reply. Also, if I remember correctly, she was encouraging Misato to surrender to the incoming enemy force that was apparently something other than an angel (possibly NERV's new weapon to fight WILLE's EV As?) Neither has she revealed her relationship with Gendo, if it exists at all in this canon (possibly not).
    • If jossed in FINAL, I'd like to know how Rei Q communicated with Shinji aboard the Wunder.
      • External speakers mounted on the EVA would do the trick just nicely.
  • It's very unlikely : first, she wasn't encouraging Misato to surrender to the incoming enemy force, the Nemesis Series, but to escape from them like they always do, and second she urged Misato to detonate the DSS Choker and kill Shinji when he escaped with Rei Q, which would had completely thwarted Gendo's plans.

The "Curse of Eva" is related to mental contamination from piloting the Eva.
  • Aside from Kaworu (who is an angel) and Rei (who is a clone), the Eva pilots have not aged a day since 2.0. This may be related to contamination each one suffered over the course of 2.0: Shinji suffered severe contamination when he passed the "Great Beyond Depth" in the movie's climax and became a luminescent being before he was sealed within Unit-01, Asuka suffered contamination when an angel hijacked Unit-03 and brought her into close proximity with its angel-infested core, and Mari suffered contamination when her plug depth went into the negative values while using Unit-02's bestial form. Is it any coincidence that all three of these pilots had Glowing Eyes of Doom as a result?

The Piano-Scene is part of Gendo's plan.
At first, the entire piano-scene seems to be completely irrelevant, but remember that Shinji's Synchro-Rate in the beginning of 3.33 was shown as 0.0000%. This means he would be unable to synchronize with an EVA, and thus wouldn't be able to play his part in Gendo's big masterplan. However, in the real world, scientists have found that skilled musicians are easily able to synchronize their heart-rates and even mental activity before they even start playing. Shinji was already established as being a superb cello player in NGE, while Kaworu is shown to be a very skilled pianist, and assuming that Shinji was also a skilled cello player in Rebuild, he would have a lot less trouble learning to play a second instrument, even if the second instrument is vastly different, than if he had to start from scratch. Gendo needed Shinji to pilot Unit-13 in order to start the Instrumentality project as Gendo envisioned it, and to do that, Shinji needed to learn to synchronize again. During the piano-scene, Shinji appears to synchronize with Kaworu fairly quickly, and after the piano-scene, Shinji has no problem synchronizing with Unit-13 and Kaworu at the same time. Therefore, the seemingly pointless piano-scene is actually one of the most important scenes in the movie!
  • Not exactly : Shinji has a null synch-rate with EVA-01, it's never said how his synch-rate with other Eva units is, and WILLE's insistence that Shinji never get inside an Eva anymore imply that he still can pilot others Evas just fine. (indeed near the end of the movie, he cut Kaworu's controls of EVA-13 and was still able to pilot it without any drawbacks) The piano sessions' goal was to train Shinji to synchronize his "biological tempo" with Kaworu's so they could activate EVA-13's special ability, which is to break the seal to Lilith's Chamber. So their piano sessions were also a vital part of Kaworu's plan to use the two spears to thwart Gendo's plans, and Gendo let it happen because it also served his own plans.
Mari is actually an alternate universe version of Marisa Kirisame.
Let's see...
  • Let's get the small and obvious one out of the way first. "Mari" and "Marisa"
  • They both don't have deep backstories or relate that much to the background of their stories(Or atleast, in Mari's case, not yet).
  • Neither of them really age much.
  • Both overly optimistic and hotblooded.
  • They both seem to enjoy fighting.
  • They seem to unleash More Dakka than most other members in their cast.
  • Most of the time they don't really do things For Great Justice, but just for the lulz.
  • Both have tried to cheer up depressed people. (Marisa with Reimu in Story Of Eastern Wonderland, and also with Cirno, though that might just be to prank her. Mari does this with Shinji a few times.)

If you consider this, Asuka may be an alternate Reimu as well as Mari and Asuka seems to be on good terms with each other in 3.0.

Once you've successfully synchronized with an Eva once, it becomes possible to synch with other Evas too because of Angelic contamination.
I know that the rules I'm keeping in mind here don't necessarily apply in Rebuildverse, but let's roll with it for a sec. Think about it this way. We know that in Rebuild, achieving a certain plug depth or interacting with Angels can cause physical/mental contamination of a sort in Lilin - probably, contamination of an Angelic nature. The dub implies that even in normal circumstances, piloting causes this contamination on some level ("Psychological contamination is within the standard range" - said by Maya when Shinji is entering Eva-01 for the first time). We also know that in the original series, Kaworu's ability to achieve any synch rate he wants comes from being an Angel, despite having a Lilin-like body (it's not clear whether said body was composed of LCL, PWM, or a combination, but if it's true that he was born from the first Contact Experiment then it's probably the latter). Ergo, Angelic qualities make synchronizing with an Eva easier, even if your mother's soul is not inside it.

This would explain how Asuka was a viable candidate to test Eva-03 and how Mari's piloted three different Evas, while still allowing for Evas to carry the souls of pilot's parents - which is implied to still be true, since in 3.0 Fuyutsuki tells Shinji that Yui is inside Unit-01. In this scenario, Mrs. Shikinami was inside Eva-02, and Mrs. Illustrious/Makinami was inside Unit-05, but after the first successful synchronization, the contamination from the Evas let their children synch with other Evas. But you need that first synchronization to work for any contamination to occur, which is why they still can't just pick any child to be a pilot - without having a mother in an Eva, there's no way for the child to contract the Angelic traits.

SEELE is not a group of people in Rebuild 3.33
Rather, it's their preserved neural matter. Maybe they died in the 14-year time skip but since they still wanted to run things they turned themselves into Brains in Monoliths beforehand. But this gave Gendo the ability to just shut them down by turning off their life support when he no longer needed them. Supporting this, when Fuyutsuki turns the monoliths off, you can briefly see an image of a human brain.

Rebuild is one of the worlds created by Shinji in RE-TAKE
Quite possibly, one of the first worlds.

Shinji will strangle Asuka in Final.
Like in Eo E, but this time, Shinji will kill her.

The plot of Final.
Shinji will go berserk and hijack Unit-01, going on a rampage through Tokyo-3 Godzilla-style. NERV will declare Shinji an enemy to humanity and Misato will order his death by any means necessary. NERV deploys Asuka in one of the newer units (up to Anno to decide which), and a major battle between two former friends-turned-mortal enemies rages through the city. During the fighting, Asuka is knocked against her console, eyepatch-first, causing sparks to fly from her eyepatch. She suddenly pulls off the eyepatch and discovers her left eye is normal. No Angel Eye, no empty eye socket. A normal eye. Then her head becomes clear as she looks at the eyepatch and discovers that it's a mind-control device with Gendo's signature on it. It dawns on her what is happening: Gendo is mind-controlling NERV to turn them against Shinji, who still thinks Asuka is against him, continues the fight until Asuka informs him what is going on. Shinji just blacks out from the shock of this revelation, and Asuka takes him and Unit-01 far, far away from Tokyo-3.

Using the new teleporters in the plugsuits, Asuka parks the two Evas, extracts Shinji, and sets up camp. That night, Shinji awakens in the tent, and Asuka fills him in on all the details:

  • Gendo is working with the Angels, who didn't come from Heaven, but rather, from space; they're aliens deployed by an invading alien race
  • Using mind-control, Gendo has turned NERV against Shinji and made them feel like it's been 14 years; it's only been a week since Third Impact; also, Fourth Impact never occurred, and Germany is not a giant LCL crater; in fact, there is no LCL anymore; but the water is still artificially colored orange to seem like the seas are still uninhabitable, when marine life has begun to thrive once more
  • Asuka's eyepatch itself was the first experiment in mind-control by SEELE
  • NERV is hunting them both: Shinji for causing Third and Fourth Impact, as well as causing unparalleled death and destruction in Tokyo-3 and stealing Unit-01, and Asuka for breaking free of her mind-control and aiding and abating Shinji; they intend to present them to the aliens so they can execute them

After hearing all this, Shinji swears to kill Gendo, and Asuka then confesses her feelings to Shinji. First kiss? You bet!

The next day, they return to Tokyo-3 to destroy NERV. Coming up on Rei and Mari, the two NERV pilots defect to Shinji and Asuka's side, revealing they were never mind-controlled. Misato comes within inches of having a Villainous Breakdown and launches NERV's new trump card: the Mass-Produced Evas. A massive battle begins, and the four rogue pilots escape after Mari launches an N2 Mine at NERV HQ.

Finding the alien command center in charge of the Japanese Region, the pilots assault the command center on foot and rescue Kaji, who was captured by the aliens and declared dead via mind-control. They manage to escape, but Mari pulls a Heroic Sacrifice, and her death is greatly mourned by the survivors.

Returning to the camp Asuka set up, the pilots and Kaji contemplate their final move to bring down Gendo, NERV, SEELE, and the aliens. After giving Mari's Eva a Viking Funeral, they decide to conduct a suicide mission to destroy Tokyo-3 and NERV, kill Gendo, disband SEELE, and evict the aliens. They know there's a good chance they won't survive, and say their final prayers.

At dawn, the three Evas enter Tokyo-3 and are greeted by a massive military force, which they defeat with ease. They advance further into the city, destroying every building in sight, paying no heed to civilain deaths. For all they care, they fight for Earth, not humanity. They reach NERV HQ and a massive fight between them and the MP Evas breaks out. Like in Eo E, Asuka rips one in half and lets the blood spill over her Eva, but doesn't get killed. Rather, she is saved by Shinji before such a thing can happen. Then Misato takes control of an Eva and fights the three Evas herself. It's an epic battle that destroys the last of Tokyo-3 and kills Hikari, which Asuka takes very, very hard and proceeds to slam Misato in a Curb-Stomp Battle, ripping her out of the Eva and allowing Shinji to "finish the bitch off". Shinji thinks theres another way, namely breaking the mind control. Rei tells him that even if they break the mind-control, Misato's mind has deteriorated to the point where she is beyond the brink of insanty. Remembering that Misato was the one who strapped a bomb around his neck, Shinji crushes Misato like he crushed Kaworu in the original series.

Entering NERV HQ, they kill Makoto, Shigeru, and many soldiers, and interrogate Ritsuko for Gendo's location. With Gendo's location revealed, Asuka snaps Ritsuko's neck, leaving Maya a quivering wreck on the floor who eventually shoots herself so she can be in Heaven with her Sempai.

Arriving at the alien mothership landed at Roswell, NM, they storm the ship in their Evas, fighting many, many Angels and alien ships and walkers. Arriving in the central command center, they find Gendo and Fuyutsuki, who have Kaji's dead body. They confront Gendo, who reveals he was working with the aliens the whole time, and the aliens promised to bring Yui back from the dead in exchange for his son and daughter. Shinji angrily states he has no sister, but Gendo tells him that Rei is his sister, and she was never a clone to begin with; it was all a ploy to cover up the alien medical technologies. Rei is also shocked by this revelation, having no recollections as she had been drugged to suppress her emotions and memory. As these memories come flooding back, and her emotions overtake her, she shoots the alien emperor, as Shinji and Gendo get into a physical fight. As this is happening, Fuyutsuki is disintegrated by Asuka using a stolen alien blaster.

The fight between father and son is long, and both become battered and bloodied. Gendo manages to pin Shinji against the wall, and is about to thrust his fist clear through Shinji's skull, when Asuka and Rei pounce on Gendo. The three teens wrestle with him, and eventually, with all their might, they push him off the platform, watching as Gendo falls to his death.

Wondering what to do next, they are then visited by none other than Kaworu. Initially in disbelief, he shows he is indeed real, and offers to send them back in time with their memories. They readily accept, and go through a Doctor Who-esque time portal.

Awakening in Misato's apartment, Shinji realizes he's been sent back to just before he first piloted Unit-01. Rather than be a Shrinking Violet, he becomes an absolute badass, killing the Angels with great ease and without Unti-01 going berserk. He also exposes Gendo's association with the Angels, as well as the Instrumentality plot. He and Rei quickly reconnect and become a Brother–Sister Team. Then Asuka arrives, and she and Shinji reconnect, becoming an Official Couple and a Battle Couple. Eventually, the aliens are defeated, and life returns to normal...but there is one last legacy of the Angels: they created [[Film/Godzilla]] himself as a back-up plan. And the Adventure Continues!

NOTE: I just realized I fudged a bunch of details, such as WILLE and Tokyo-3 being abandoned. Note that because of the mind-control, WILLIE never existed, NERV still exists, and Tokyo-3 was never abandoned.

Shinji will not appear in Final.
After causing Fourth Impact, Misato will have killed him. Mari will be the main protagonist of Final.

Gendo isn't the real villain.
Despite managing to Pull the plug on SEELE and almost cause a Fourth Impact, Final would reveal he's just a Big Bad Wannabe and is killed by the real main villain. One possible scenario would be similar to Eo E, where he directly admits to Shinji how horrible he was before dying in his arms, giving him the resolve to finish this once and for all. Because the true villain must have gone too far if Shinji is actually mad about his father's death.

The Reason Final is taking so long to come out
Is the writers have no idea what they are going to do with Shinji. If they punish him for his actions then they destroy Eva's message that it's okay for you to exist and you can be happy. If they have Shinji be happy, then it trivializes that his choices and actions have caused the deaths of billions, and makes him a Karma Houdini.

  • There can be a solution to these 2 ideas: Regarding the former, that would in case if(As another theory says) that Shinji finally snaps and doesn't care for anyone anymore. Regarding the latter, maybe they would add a plot twist revealing that Shinji actions in the previous films were actually planned by someone who seeks to corrupt him (Gendo?). Nonetheless, It would require clever writing and ideals to think of something that would favour Shinji fans and normal fans of the series.

  • A more likely reason is that Anno is busy with the new Film/Godzilla film New Godzilla.

Final will release on December 31, 2015
Which, if you paid close attention, was the date of The End of Evangelion in-universe. The film is slated for release in Winter 2015. Knowing Anno, the potential for a meta-fictional synchronicity is too big to pass up.

3.0+1.0 will end with a triumphant reprise of Beautiful World
As the five Children stand together on the beach, looking out at the blue sea without a trace of the Evas, Angels or Lilith in sight.

The 3.0+1.0 choose is mainly for superstition.

  • Remember that in japanese, "Four" sounds like "Death".

  • This 3.0+1.0 will starts as depresive as the one before. But then, somehow, The "Inner, depresed Shinji" will get in contact with the "Shinjis of all the alternate worlds created in The End of Evangelion. Shinjis from Hideaki Anno's imagination... and Shinjis from a TON of Fanfics, there will be the one from Shinji and Warhammer 4000, the one from Thousand Shinji, the one from Re-Take... and even Simon! It will culmine with a scene from the theaters where everybody was looking EVA-2.0, and cheering him.

  • Shinji will know that you can live with the others, and the others with you.
The new, Ultimate Shinji will be born, as a mature self. One who knows right from wrong and have the WILL to decide for himself.
  • It won't be Utada Ikaru who will sing a Cruel Angel Thesis: It will be JAM Project.
  • Shinji's efforts will ensure the possibility for a good future for the survivors: Just like Shinji did, everybody will have to strive for what they want.

Why WILLE hate Shinji
Shinji didn't start Third Impact proper, it happened after the construction of New NERV Headquarters and the Wundar (because if things were post apoctyptic how could they of possibly been built). When WILLE opened Unit-01 to find Shinji they instead found that he had mutated into a full Angel and went on a rampage that killed a lot of friends and family to the other characters (maybe Asuka had a boyfriend and that why she hates him?) before being subdued and reverting back to human, hence why WILLE had the armed guards with him in the elevator and weren't sure that he actually Shinji

Rei is in (or is) Shinji's SDAT player.
Despite what he thinks, Shinji did not fail to save Rei at the end of 2.0. As he rightfully points out, he was not the one who had the SDAT player right before Third Impact, Rei did. The soul of Rei is now inhabiting the SDAT player and was the voice that was calling to Shinji at the beginning of 3.0, not Rei-Q. Note that the intonation of Rei when she calls to Shinji asking where he is sounds much more like the Rei Shinji has to come to know and love than that of the barely autonomous Rei-Q. She will somehow be a player in FINAL, for good or ill.

The angel Bardiel gave Asuka a power similar to Geass

And that's why she wears the eye patch in 3.0: so that said power doesn't take her over and destroy her.

  • That might explain why Asuka wasn't killed when EVA-01 tarnished EVA-03.

A high plug-depth causes the pilots to become immortal a la C.C. in Code Geass

  • Possibly jossed: Asuka seemed to be in mortal danger at the beginning of 3.0.
    • Then again, she did self-destruct her EVA and we never see her eject herself (or do we? I'm not sure.) Maybe Asuka kicked the bucket and came back to life some time later.

Hideaki Anno actually secretly still dislikes Evangelion. His actual ambition is attempting a remake of Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water.
Based on this Evageeks discussion. Hence why Anno seems to never care about completing Final which is still stuck in Development Hell, and Eva 3.0 felt more like a Darker and Edgier Nadia than a sequel from Evangelion as 2.0 promised us. Complete with the Music, the Atlantean hex glyphs all over everything (e.g. the DSS Choker), the similar purposes played by the Black Moon / Neo-Nerv with Red Noah / Neo-Atlantis and the Wunder being a Nautilus in all but name, and Misato being transformed from an alcoholic Genki Girl to an obvious female expy of Captain Nemo (with Ritsuko being an outright expy of Electra!). The original proposal, which Rebuild is being based upon, even references "ancient ruins" which perhaps are another iteration of Atlantis in the series. Then again, let's go back to why Anno became severely depressed in the first place: fights and Executive Meddling in the production of Nadia, causing its failure, and it was clear that Anno poured his all into it. When Eva was created everyone expected it to be a Springtime for Hitler... only that it became the single most successful Anime in the history of animation, so much that Psych Theses have been written about it and it has defined most Anime Tropes we are familiar today (e.g. Tsundere, Rei Ayanami Expy, Moe, a Butt-Monkey protagonist in a Harem, etc) even though he made it in the worst time of his life. Compare Eva to Nadia, which though having its drama moments was still optimistic, yet this failed while Eva, Anno's ultimate Fuck You to Otakudom, turned out to be God of Anime, and now otakus all over are fapping to pillows of Rei Ayanami, which gives Anno more reasons on why he hates the Eva fanbase so much. However, as we all know, Money talks, and to earn millions he has to keep making Evangelion even when he intended it as the ultimate "Fuck the Anime Industry!!!". Perhaps the references of 3.0 involving Nadia may indicate that he is considering to revive the series, but when he's rich from selling his angst he won't be having fights with Executive Meddling ever again.

Following above theory: If Rebuild is a Nadia remake, then the main villains will be a replica of Neo-Atlantis
AKA the First Ancestral Race, of which Seele and perhaps Gendo are indicative of. This also provides Neo (Atlantis) Nerv a reason why they survived when the entire world under Wille is against them, because they have an entire army and superweapons under their command. Shinji, as "male Nadia" (which Anno and Sadamoto always called him as in the Proposal), will discover that Eva-01 can store the numerous souls of the FAR including his own mother, but to save Wille let himself be captured by Neo (Atlantis) Nerv and shown his true heritage: he was the direct descendant of the First Ancestral Race (Atlantis), of which Yui aka Jesus was a member (or perhaps the original leader), who created the Angels and Humanity in the first place, hence why he was crucial to the start of Instrumentality; only a FAR could activate the Moons, fuse Angels and Humans into one and ascend to Godhood. Mari learned this as even Kaworu's death was unable to prevent Fourth Impact and the Moon's activation and so she had to bail Shinji out herself.

Other Nadia-related parallel Theories:

  • Seele were originally FAR aka Atlanteans who uploaded themselves into Blue Water-like devices to preserve their consciousness under numerous guises such as the Illuminati and they chose Gendo Ikari to be their equivalent of Gargoyle, someone dedicated to command of Atlantis' resurrection... until Gendo went all Paradise Lost and killed Seele.
  • Captain Nemo will of course be Misato but this time half of his traits (e.g. alien ancestry) will be shared with Mari who helped establish Wille and clearly has massive knowledge with the true nature of First Ancestral technology, perhaps making Mari a FAR herself rebelling against Seele... and perhaps like Nemo did, inevitably save Wille by sacrificing herself, after Shinji learned that she is his long-lost relative.
  • Rei will take the role of the God-Emperor Neo, an artificial replica of a True FAR (Yui) who is being mindwiped and brainwashed by Gendo (Gargoyle) to use as a figurehead to rule the world, but after being severely damaged and her identity restored will eventually regain her own consciousness and love, and sacrifice herself to save Shinji.
  • Gendo will be punished like Gargoyle was in the end. He thought he was FAR and so caused Instrumentality to exterminate mankind, and killed Seele for power. Thinking himself an immortal god he planned to bring back his FAR wife Yui from the dead... only that because he is not FAR, he fails to re-encounter her, and is ultimately "reduced to salt" i.e. utterly annihilated from existence.
  • As for the nice guy Jean, we all know how much Anno loves irony, so the role will probably fall into Asuka (who will also inherit Grandis' character.) When Yui, Rei and the rest of the remaining Atlanteans kill themselves, Shinji will sacrifice his remaining FAR powers to resurrect Asuka ala End of Evangelion, and rebuild the world. The godlike FAR will be forever extinct, but as Nadia's moral tells us, the world belongs to Humans now.
  • Also, I like to think those Mark-06 replicas that Unit 02+08 slaughtered are piloted by cone-headed Nazis.

By the time of 3.0, Seele-ism (or perhaps the Church of Instrumentality) has become a global religion equivalent to the Roman Catholic Church.
Hence why, despite Wille being a branch of the UN, Neo-Nerv still as the global wealth and power of multiple superpowers to drive them off, even capable of manufacturing legions of expensive Eva Mark 06 replicas. If there would be a prequel before the fuckup in 3.0 happened, perhaps it would show that when Shinji ascended to Godhood, somehow it leaked into the Internet globally and sent the entire world into a panic that because Angels were Real and have returned to Earth, then it is time for the Book of Revelation to come true: God will exact punishment to the Human race for their sins. Gendo will be arrested by the United Nations (as the trailer in the end of 2.0 showed us) but will escape because as it turned out, nations all over the world have been taken over by religious fanatics who started to believe that the Instrumentality, Seele and Gendo's promise to the world, is the promised Rapture to the Promised Heaven from their miserable lives wracked by poverty and war. It will be expected if the pro-Instrumentality faction will be mostly composed of regimes hostile to the America-dominated UN as well as Third World Nations, creating a scenario similar to the United Nations Global Defense Initiative vs Brotherhood of Nod in Command & Conquer. Because of the story's focus on Shinji, we haven't seen the politics explaining the reason behind the global disaster in 3.0, hence why UN tanks are everywhere littering the landscape. Perhaps this was evidence of World War III, as the UN forced Nerv defectors to create Wille, while Gendo is seen as like some kind of High Priest or God-Emperor by the Instrumentalists, hence why Kaworu denounced him as "King of the Lilin."

During the climax of 3+1, Shinji will join his EVA with the Wünder

Hideaki Anno stated that Evangelion is his very own soul, and in his earlier works, always there were giant ships called Elitrium and Exellion. Those were Hideaki Anno's dreams, his very own will.So, just like 3.0 was a retelling of Nadia, in 3+1 we (may) see a retelling of Gunbuster, with the iconic scene where Gunbuster "Fuses" with Exellion. That will be the moment when the will and the soul of the author, distant for so many years, will become one again.

Asuka will die in FINAL

  • This WMG hinges on the idea that in 3.0, characters began to become similar to other characters; Misato became like Gendo, Gendo became like Keel, blah blah blah. At the end of the movie, Asuka's shaping up to be a lot like Misato during EOE. She's absolutely livid at Shinji's inaction, but still cares about him and wants wants what's best for him. So, at some point in FINAL, Asuka will (presumably) be shot, and with her dying breath, she'll give Shinji the motivation to keep going.
    • Or she'll just turn into glowy Tang.
    • Or Shinji will finally snap from the constant physical abuse and kill her along with most of WILLE.
  • Jossed.

Rei's soul escaped from Eva-01 during the time skip...

And became the missing Eleventh Angel, forcing Wille to kill her to stop another Impact from happening. Nerv shows up and salvages her soul out of the dead Eleventh Angel into several Reis in a row, who all end up dead, until the ninth Rei, Rei Q ('kyuu' is Japanese for nine), who is the one alive during 3.0 and the one Shinji meets.

  • Jossed We get to see her soul, prisoner in the EVA-01, with long LONG hair due the years of imprisonment, before Shinji relieves her.

3.0+1.0 will involve mental time travel
Evidence:
  • The Title is Thrice Upon a Time. This is the same title as a science fiction novel by James P. Hogan. The plot revolves around the invention of a device that can send messages back in time and the ramifications of its repeated use.
  • The Japanese text of the title also features the end-repeat-bar, a symbol that indicates the repetition of a measure on a musical score.
  • Instead of 4.0, the number is specifically 3.0+1.0. The meaning to this? It signifies a plot that bridges from the end of the third movie to beginning of the first movie.
  • Character dialogue that already indicated that the events of the Rebuild series are recurring.
  • Jossed.

Thrice Upon a Time will involve three timelines
Playing off of the long-held belief that Rebuild is a sequel, the movie will take things to another level by explaining that Asuka Langely Soryu and Shinji Ikari never really left, but things that they did after the events of The End of Evangelion led to some sort of reset and history itself changing. The movie proper, picking up where 3.0 left off, will also explain what happened prior to the Time Skip between 2.0 and 3.0 and determine the fates of several characters. Ultimately, things will get worse and it will seem like a Downer Ending is inevitable, but this time, Shinji Ikari, Asuka Langely Shikinami, and Rei Q (and maybe Mari Illustrious Makinami) will get a chance to reset the timeline once more and Set Right What Once Went Wrong for a Golden Ending to the entire franchise.
  • Considering it's Thrice Upon a Time, there's a possibility that the manga continuity, notable for its far less bleak Bittersweet Ending compared to the original anime continuity, might get thrown into the mix. Considering a random shot of Asuka in winter clothing that closely echoes Shinji's encounter with Asuka in a snowy, wintry Tokyo at the end of the manga, it's not impossible.

Noriko Takaya will appear!!
At the end of 3.0 the teaser said that after losing the will to live, Shinji walked aimlessly, but something helped him to recover hope. In the story of Hideaki Anno characters, there was one who walked a similar path, failing everybody and losing the most loved ones, each one ofter another. This one was Noriko Takaya, from Gunbuster. And she didn't need a Bright Slap, or a Rousing Speech. She just became fed up of being scared, and became The Dreaded for the invaders. If anybody in the Anno-Verse can inspire this Shinji, and give him a light, it's her. It's our Noriko, The Hope Bringer.

Anno hopes for 3.0+1.0 to be the absolute finale of the franchise
Considering how Rebuild goes about deconstructing fan desires, and how he finally succeeded in making Rei creepy, he seems set to end things on a note that would kill fan's interest in the series, thus put an end to the franchise for good on his terms. There's been at least one known key thing that would do this: It's not Asuka, Rei or even Misato that Shinji ends up with but Mari, who's based on his current wife but despised by various hardcore fans and shippers for various reasons. With this and other possible final spites toward the fans, they'll lose interest and thus the series can truly die and Anno be freed from its shadow after being tied to it for over 20 years (likely the basis for the "Curse of EVA").
  • It may be just the other way around. Even if Shinji ended with Mari instead of Asuka or Rei everybody who watched the film concurs: The film ended with the happiest note, ever, in any Evangelion Media. And with Shinji saving the world, not as a designated hero or a totally badass, but as a mature being, forgiving and redeeming everybody just as Anno forgave Evangelion and the fans. He ended the "Curse of EVA" just making a story so great, and an ending which could only be loved, so fans can only accept this ending, with all the goodwill to the series, to the team, and the creator. And accept as the finale of the franchise: Nothing could be better than this!

The Anti-Universe, the realm beyond the Doors of Guf wherein Shinji and Gendo fight, is the Immaterium.
A dimension beyond space and time, wherein one's unconscious thoughts and memories are given shape? A collective unconscious wherein fiction, reality and human thought are blended together? It's definitely the Warp. Meaning the "non human beings" who left the Golgotha Object and the Adams were most likely the Old Ones.
  • The Doors of Guf (Warp portals) were also demonstrated to be able to be used a form of instantaneous (FTL) transporation. NERV used this to teleport the Black Moon to Antarctica. Maybe the technology behind Wunder and the Adams ships (NERV ships) were the precursors to the Dark Age of Technology. The Adam ships' ability to rip a hole in the Warp to use it for FTL was used to colonise the galaxy while protected by the Gellar Field, which is just a rename of the A.T. Field.
  • Alternatively, Rebuild takes place in a world in the 40k galaxy and the original 4 Adams were likely based on the Four Chaos Gods. However, after Shinji changed everything to erase everything related to Angels and Evas from history, the Rebuild world was cut off from the Warp and hence "returned to normalcy".
  • Even crazier theory inspired by Shinji and Warhammer40k: Shinji was granted immortality by his inherent connection to the Evas, but during the Dark Age of Technology, when the AT Field was used for FTL by both Humans and Eldar, he encountered numerous abuses of the energies of Guf, culminating in the largest Guf Door of all, the Eye of Terror, which eventually caused mass insanity and otherworldly eldritch horrors to spill into the galaxy. He feared that a galactic-scale Instrumentality was imminent. Thus, after the collapse of human civilization in the Age of Strife, he resolved to never repeat the mistakes of the past ever again. He assumed a new identity: The Emperor of Mankind. Unfortunately, because of this obsession, he ended up treating Horus and his sons just like how Gendo treated him before.

Mari is a clone of Maria Iscariot and is part of the Makinami series.
The Mari-Maria Iscariot connection is obvious but here are some arguments for my admittedly flimsy theory.
  • In flashbacks to Gendou's and Yui's past we see a girl who looks like Mari going to college with them but unless Mari was a teen super genius it is unlikely that the current Mari who looks like a teenager is the same person. Considering we see this girl again after Shinji is born, the age of Gendou (unless they changed it in the Rebuild series) and what the characters did since college, unless Mari had been hit with the Curse of Evangelion well before Second Impact or Evangelions were a thing it's unlikely that she had stayed a teenager the entire time. Not to mention that the girl looks older in the still showing baby Shinji.
  • While Mari shows familiarity with Gendou and Ikutsuki, when Ikutsuki calls her Maria Iscariot she doesn't respond to the name as if it were her own, simply saying that she hasn't heard that name in a while. This could admittedly be chalked up to her simply not identifying with the name anymore after living as Mari for so long but considering Asuka's parallel struggle in the movie of differentiating herself from her original it could also be Mari doing the same, rejecting the name since she is not her original.
  • Asuka and Rei are confirmed to be clones from the Shikinami and Ayanami series respectively and it's not a stretch to assume that Mari might be one too considering her -nami name. The clones being called series' also implies that there were several cloning projects with a third one not being out of question.
  • The most general, but her love for LCL could also be a hint to her being a clone. It's most noticable with Rei but clones need regular to semi-regular maintanance in a vat of LCL to stay stable with Rei needing the most likely due to being part Angel. Asuka seems a lot more stable but she also shown in a vat along with her other Shikinami clones. If Mari is a clone it's possible she finds LCL comforting because she also has to spend a lot of time in it for maintanance.

The ending of the series sets up a future for the Evangelion characters to be part of the Shin Japan Heroes Universe continuity.
Since the final scene puts the characters in a live-action world and Shin Ultraman hints at a Shared Universe for three out of the four franchises that are part of the Shin Series, it potentially opens the door for Evangelion to have a role in that setting.

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