Neon Genesis Evangelion

Yeah, I have nothing to give to that kind of message except the most gigantic middle finger possible.    Fuck that noise.   

The thing about Seele is that they represented suicide in original (once again, waste of resources and workforce), but in Rebuild they seem to represent Transhumanizm or maybe religion in general. Apparently another "wishful thinking" that Anno looks down on.

Anyway, they are selfish because they act like they are the only peaple in the right and want others to follow their directions... Hey, that's kinda like Anno's point of view of otaku and escapism :D He made a new series of movies just to hammer that down XD

In Rebuild however, Seele are pushed into the background and soon removed out of the picture. All that's remain is a clash between (obviously evil) personal desires and (noble and righthouse) needs of society/humanity.

As for Asuka telling Rei to 'forget your boss, live for yourself'... Isn't that similiar to what Misato wanted for Shinji to do? To fight for a reasons he believe in? To find something he WANT to fight for? Come 3.33 and she puts a bomb on him for doing exactly that. So does that mean that we're looking to Rei Q being punished for acting for herself and all the crimes she may have commited at Gendo's orders will now be her's to answer for in 3.0+1.0? XD

They still represent suicide. Theyve just been the Illuminati guiding humanity to suicide from the moment they were born.

That's also a false comparison. Rei Q already is having an identity crisis and her Eva is a rampaging monster she has no control over. Shinji had complete control of his Eva as he willed it INTO the rampaging monster to cause an apocalypse. Her thinking for herself to escape the monster, while Shinji throws the world into the Monsters Maw.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Jan 27th 2019 at 8:58:34 AM

The catch is that Misato was wrong about what Shinji was doing. She believed he was doing it for his own happiness, only for it to turn out that he had instead roped the rest of the world into an attempted suicide out of apocalyptic self-loathing. It's part of a pattern of her being well-intentioned but totally clueless where he's concerned (see also, literally every interaction they have). Rei Q, on the other hand, just needed to stop fighting and get out while she could, not blow up the planet, and Asuka, who knows what it is to be an Evangelion pilot, was able to figure her out and connect with her.

Edited by Iaculus on Jan 27th 2019 at 5:04:38 PM

and

So, you accuse Shinji, that he KNEW EXACTLY that his Eva was ending the world and still went with it? His reaction in Q condraticts that.

And what's more, the most prominent point I noticed is that you have double standardst for Shinji.

There is Shinji and the rest of the characters. Everyone fucks up and commits pretty much the same sins just of different flavours, but only Shinji is called guilty for what he does. Well maybe Gendo as well but that's because his and Shinji's desires are similiar.

Shinji's whole thing is that as an untreated depressive, he is a wee bit short on self-awareness. See also, the end of 3.0, where he kept claiming his top priority was to help Kaworu despite the latter going 'no, this is an extremely terrible idea and we should not do it'. You may wish to check out this review from someone looking at Rebuild through the lens of their own experiences with depression.

I also looked at it through depression lens. Q just pressed me harder into the ground in the way that Eo E never did. Let's just say I've been in Shinji's situation of being a scapegoat more than enough to understand the guy and not apreciate the art of making one kid a memetic failure.

Well, taking a step back and examining that depressive lens, 3.0 is basically one long manifestation of the underlying fear that all depressed people (heck, even just social awkward people) walk around with; namely, "What if everyone in the whole world actually harbor some antipathy towards me?"

This also why I don't really know what to think about Rebuild as a whole. In the original series, the whole point was that Shinji had to learn was that his fear that everyone secretly hated him was really just an irrational fantasy stemming from his own self-hatred that held him back socially and emotionally, and he had to free himself from it, lest he would always desperately seek the approval of others, which would just end up consuming him and everything he cared about.

3.0 instead just straight up vindicates his whole persecution complex, which seems counter-intuitive to that message.

Can someone explain the basic concept of Instrumentality to me?

Hyper-collectivisation, breaking down the barriers that give us individual identities (AT-fields) and allowing humanity to coalesce into a single entity. It's basically solving the 'hedgehog's dilemma' the series revolves around (that we crave intimacy, but are driven away by how much it hurts) by removing the hedgehogs' spines... and skin. It's also why the idea that Evangelion wants you to become some sort of cog in the machine is so incredibly strange - losing your sense of self is generally depicted as one of the worst things that can happen to you in the story. Consider the famously happy, well-adjusted character Rei Ayanami, who 'fights for the world' because, in her own words, she has nothing else.

It's an AA meeting with everyone pouring out their dirty secrets and everyone else scrutinizing them, just on planetary scale and with no option to stay silent.

The fundamental idea is that humans will never perfectly understand each other due to their ability to lie about and/or hide what they really know and/or think about each other without the other guy ever knowing what's truth and what's falsehood. Individuality is the source of all evils in the world. So SEELE wants to fix that by intentionally misusing Lilith and Adam to tear down the AT-fields humans maintain their individuality with, followed by smashing all human souls together into a single, massive hive mind where everyone can read everyone else's minds. Everyone can see everyone else's innermost thoughts and desires. There are no secrets, no one can ever be hurt by dishonesty because you know exactly what everyone else thinks about you without any doubt or uncertainty, allowing humanity to exist in perfect harmony.

On top of that, since humans no longer have physical bodies, they can no longer be hurt physically and can no longer hurt each other. With the mindscape they are now existing in being shaped by their thoughts and wills, everyone can create the perfect world they want to live in and be happy however they want to be happy. Inside your own little slice of Instrumentality, you are God.

At least, that's what SEELE say. But take note that the innermost circle of SEELE are all of quite advanced age and at least one of them is sustained by large amounts of cybernetics. So in my opinion, it's entirely possible that SEELE aren't going for Instrumentality because they are oh-so-altruistic, but because they are scared of death and want to be immortal.

And of course, there's also Anno's opinion that a perfect world where nothing can ever hurt you or your frail little psyche is not a world worth living in. If there's no challenge, there's no point. If there's no hardship, there's no self-improvement. If there's no sadness, there's no happiness. The bad times are what make the good times meaningful and you will never truly live if you keep running away from reality. Hence why Shinji rejects it in the end.

Metaphorically, it's escaping from the unending problems of the human condition. All the pain of life is swept away and you get to be with everyone you ever loved. It's basically death but a cool death and afterlife.

Storywise, it's a bunch of mumbojumbo Collective Consciousness where the pitiful remnants of humanity finally have a chance at a life worth living because the apocalypse came and everyone is just slowly dying anyway and there is no real hope or salvation possible.

But one must live on their own and suffer no matter what and any escape from this is bad. Even when Shinji and Asuka, alone on the beach in a world completely destroyed and devoid of hope or sustenance, start eating each other's fingers in their mad loneliness and hunger, it's better than Instrumentality.

Edited by Nikkolas on Jan 28th 2019 at 10:56:39 AM

Well, going by the Classified Information (IIRC), SEELE operates under the belief that if they play their cards right regarding Instrumentally, they can empower themselves to become gods.

Going by that, they are basically the Majestic 12 from Deus Ex.

Edited by TheAmazingBlachman on Jan 28th 2019 at 6:10:13 PM

Oh boy. Anima is getting exported.

We gettin' adult stooges, yo.

Which brings us to the related matter of Rebuild's character page listing all three as dead. Should I scratch those out or wait until we have more info? For now, I've added a Jossed sub-part to each three's Death by Adaptation with a note that production materials for the fourth movie list hint that they've survived.

Edited by amitakartok on Feb 22nd 2019 at 11:25:52 AM

~amitakartok: The link is broken.

And I'd actually prefer that we wait until the movie is out to confirm if they indeed are featured as living characters; there's always the possibility that the image comes from concept art for hypothetical adult versions of the characters, or that their planned addition ends up getting scrapped for some reason.

Edited by MarqFJA on Feb 22nd 2019 at 10:59:35 PM

Imgur link seems to have been taken down. Subsequent tweets indicate Khara released the pic by mistake, but other people have already reposted the translated version on Twitter.

And someone on Evageeks noted that Khara already did the "release character height chart to raise hype" thing with 3.0.

Edited by amitakartok on Feb 22nd 2019 at 11:30:19 AM

Does anyone know what's happening with the redub?

Nope. No clue whatsoever...

~amitakartok: That link is dead too. If you have a copy, can you upload it on Imgur, make it private it and then PM the link to me (and anyone else interested)? That should prevent it being taken down, at least not so quickly.

New source.◊ No telling how long it will be up.

Man, that is very bad image quality. Wait a minute... Shinji is as tall as Asuka? And they apparently made Rebuild!Rei taller than TV!Rei (the latter is 148 cm).

The Evageeks folks analyzed the pic a bit. Asuka, Shinji and Rei are apparently the exact same models as the ones on Q's chart, but the latter two appear to be wearing lighter-colored plugsuits, possibly white.

By the Eva Q chart, you mean this one◊? Speaking of which, if this pic is accurate... Man, Mari being visibly taller than Asuka is a bit of a surprise.