What is Neon Genesis Evangelion?

[Utsanomiko]

Archaic, when it says the EoE episodes add to the story and dramatic content, it means it adds to the story as a whole. Considering that the original episodes 25 and 26 were rushed into production and practically undermine the theme and style of the series, EoE is an inherently improved ending.

But it is obviously clear that the two endings cannot coexist. One went in one direction and the other went the opposite. It was only a matter of which was intended to be the 'true' ending, which has time and time again been made apparent both logically and through official word.

The only contradiction is your misinterpretation of the first quote. Both say that 25' and 26' replace 25 and 26, nothing more.

[Yogi]

At the risk of being flamed until my skin starts to peel, I would have to diagree.

In the TV ending Shinji chose to stay with Complementation - it isn't even clear that Shinji had a choice at all. He is treated as little more than an example of the process of Complementation - which consisted if breaking down Shinji's link to reality. In the end, Shinji looks at the world of Complementation and smiling happily says "I understand! I can exist here!" He is then congratulated for his decision, by friends living and dead (Kaji), a healthy Touji with his leg still on, and even PenPen. A surreal ending scene to say the least. This ending is similar in context and theme to the ending of George Orwell's book, 1984.

All right, you have an ending which appears to be a happy ending. This is similar to many many other happy endings that have occured in the history of fictional work. "And they lived happily ever after to the end of their days, which were exceptionally long." What, exactly, makes this particular happy ending one of an 1984 variety? It would be true if it was generally accepted fact that instrumtality was a bad thing, but that is not necessarily the case. In fact, the goodness/badness of instrumentality was hardly touched in the series. Therefore, saying that "Oh this isn't REALLY a happy ending, but an ORWELLIAN happy ending." requires substancial evidence to back such a statement up.

Conversely, the film ends in the opposite manner. Shinji does have a choice and in the last moments of the film utterly rejects Complementation precisely because it eliminates the link to reality, it establishes a false paradise. Complementation is basically a cop-out, and Shinji has matured enough to realize this. The tone at the end of the film isn't a surreal, almost drug-induced, joyful "Congratulations!" for Shinji, but the cold and harsh reality of life.

Throughout the entire movie you see Shinji rejecting one person after another. In fact, he rejects the world to the extent in which Misato had to drag him along when armed military soldiers were trying to kill him. When he is in the Acid Trip part of the movie, he spends most of the time running away from everything, rejecting everything, except when he asks Asuka to help him (and then strangles her in a fit of rage). Given that context, is his rejection of instrumentality (and the coming together of all humans) Shinji suddenly gaining some great insight, or is it more likely a continuation of his behavior for most of the movie.

Further, the Newtype Filmbook description for the scene states (literally):
"Amidst the many words of congratulations, a faint smile starts at the corners of Shinji's mouth (and spreads across his face).
A happy face -- that is the figure of the Complemented Shinji. This conclusion is also one form, one possibility among many."
(Translated by Bochan Bird)

Note, "the figure of the Complemented Shinji". Pretty cut and dry.

Which scene are they talking about, the End of Evangelion scene, or the TV scene?

Remember that the TV series ending is shown from an individual internal perspective, while EoE is shown from a generally external perspective.

The TV series ending tells Shinji "Life has too much pain. Join everyone together to end that pain, so Man can live as one, without pain." They tell Shinji that he doesn't have to continue to exist in Reality, and that he can create his own if he accepts Instrumentality. But this is actually a lie to get Shinji to accept Instumentality.*

That's not really how I saw it. In it, Shinji is given three choices. One, he gets to be Lord of his Own Domain, creating his own reality as he sees fit. Two, a variation on the above except that his father had drawn the ground for him. Three, a world similar to the one he was in, where he butts head with Rei, gets punched by Asuka, and his dad still cold and distant. The choice is, "Do you want to be with other people or not? It's not perfect, and your power is nowhere near omnipotent, but on the plus side Asuka gets to yell at you every day." He chooses to be with other people, therefore Instrumentality.

Shinji accepts this, and is treated to everyone he's known, even if they are dead (Kaji, Ritsuko, Misato, Yui, etc...). And they all congradulate him on his choice. It is a false reality. And it just ends there, as Instrumentality becomes complete and all of Man is reborn as the Single Perfect Being.

How exactly is this false? I was under the impression that Insturmenality is a gathering of all human souls, living or dead.

In EoE, Shinji is told the same thing, but rejects it. While pain doesn't feel good, it's what makes us human and separate entities. If Man is allowed to exist separate, then that pain is bearable. Thus, Shinji rejects Instrumentality, destroying Lilith, and returning the souls to the Earth, into the sea of LCL. Shinji and Asuka are also returned to Earth, and he strangles her to make sure they and their surroundings are both in reality, and to see if pain still exists. Asuka's reaction, Shinji's breaking down, and then Asuka's disgust shows that the result of the test was positive. Pain still exists, and Man remains separate beings.

In End of Evangelion Shinji gets a diffrent set of choices. The first is everybody merging with everyone else until the walls of individuality break down. The second is the breaking of Instumentalityand the return os all the souls into a desolated earth. Desrving of special mension is his own mother, who is sentenced to orbit Earth in EVA-01 for a hell of a long time. Second honorable mension goes to Rei, no telling what happens to her. Does she really die? Shinji never gives a rationilization for his action, he merely says "This is wrong" in refrence to instrumentality. As mensioned above, did Shinji suddenly gain massive amounts of wisdom in between acting like the word's biggest coward througout the movie (I say the movie, since Shinji was never like this in the TV series) or can we extrapolate from his previous activities his current sttitude and state of mind.

[Utsanomiko]

In other words, Yogi: *Whoosh!*, eh? I'm going to have to break this down, so bear with me (might have to use some diagrams and puppets to get this through to you, though)...

First of all, you're taking the same side Kojikun did in that Matrix thread a while back, IIRC. The TV series ending is considered the bad because accepting Instrumentality requires believing in false premises. In EoE, once humanity has been complemented, Shinji essentially realizes that the whole 'point' of life has been gutted out; that there are no separate individuals, that there are no true feelings, no motivations, and no reason to do anything. Humanity has become one mass of inert, uesless thought.

Shinji does not come to this conclusion in the last two episodes rushed for the TV series. I would discuss this further, but I serriously despise trying to explain the value of reality to people who hold reservations to think otherwise.

On to the rest of your post:

-Your third quote refers to the TV series ending, obviously.

-Shinji never gets a 'lord of his domain' option. Third Impact simply showed him that he could exist in a world without being an Eva pilot.

-(Concerning your 'interpretation' of Shinji's other two 'options') WTF? How do you expect me to remain civil with drivel like this? I'm not sure how the hell you came to those summarizations, but I think I'm at a loss for words at the cluelessness of them. Instrumentality isn't about 'being alone or with other people', how could you even pretend it said that? His father has nothing to do with any of that (the 'ground drawing' scene was to explain that physical limits gives us a sence of direction, but limits our ability to think uninhibitedly).

-Shinji's 'third option' with the 'similar world' is the one I mentioned before the point above. It's simply to show Shinji that the truths of the real world do not have to define him, and that they instead simply inhibit our full capacities. This is part of the false premise. Instrumentality is a state of existence where nobody feels pain or fear because everything that causes it has been removed, including our ability to perceive ourselves as separate minds. I already mentioned this, though.

-It's not gathering 'all' souls. It's been stated that it only involves people alive when Third Impact started, while their souls were still available to break down their AT fields (to destroy their most private barrier, and their ability to be separate beings, in other words).

-Shinji makes a different set of choices. EoE and the TV series' endings are more or less the same up untill right after humanity is complemented. In EoE, Shinji immediately rejects it at that point, but in the TV ending, he's been convinced (either by his own shortcomings or by false explanations from Lillith) that loosing reality and individuality was a good thing.

-Yui Ikari choose to have her soul reside within the Eva 01, that was the point. She knew, even before the E Project was even very far along that it would exist forever, as the ultimate testament that humanity existed. She knew it would be lonely, but she did it anyway.

-(Concering your inane question of Rei) Um, again, WTF? Did you even watch episode 24 or EoE? I'll assume it's still a spoiler for you, so: Rei IS Lillith!!! Lillith's soul is residing in an imperfect clone of Yui Ikari, while her body is in Terminal Dogma. Rei is NERV's equivalent of Kaoru, who is Adam's soul residing in a clone born on Second Impact. Why do you think he told Rei they were 'the same'? Good gravy, I never thought people could watch a series and not get the point.

-Shinji makes it clear why he decides to reject Instrumentality. I don't need to repeat or demonstrate his train of thought. I'm done explaining it all for now.

[Uraniun235]

EoE is the perfect ending to the series, as the first part is flashy fanservice to draw people in (tits, and later a battle that is extremely similar to the one in the first episode, among other battles and what-not) while the second part is the most confusing and irrelevant (as the plot effectively ended at Shinji screaming) assortment of garbage put together since the 2001 hyperspace sequence.

It must be hilarious to be able to throw together religious-sounding words, mutter something about souls and individuality and "AT fields", and be able to convince hordes of fanboys that it's impossibly deep material.

[Uraniun235]

EOE is also the perfect response to the fans who were displeased with the TV ending. They demanded a "proper" ending, and by god they got one: there's no way anyone could possibly continue the series in any form resembling what it once was after the movie's ending.

Truly an end to Evangelion.

[HemlockGrey]

Is it full of stars?

[Uraniun235]

Hahaha.

One thing that irritated me was the motivation. WHY does SEELE want to initiate Third Impact?

WHY does Gendo do... well... what he does?
Now, the quick answer might be "to reunify with his wife". But someone said here earlier that she had herself absorbed into Unit 1 willingly and that she knew this would happen beforehand.

So... why didn't Gendo know? And if he DID know... then why were they doing this in the first place? What was Yui's motivation?

Finally... it really irritated me that if they damaged an Eva with N2 bombs, that they didn't consider just hitting it with MORE N2 bombs.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Uranium, please refrain from commenting on something you don't understand properly.

Yes, Gainax and Anno received a lot of hate mail and even death threats for the TV series ending. But that was not the reason Anno made EoE. It was made so that the real ending could be told, which were based on his original scripts for the last two episodes of the series. These scripts were rejected by the censors at TV Tokyo, due to pressue put on them by the Japanese PTA.

As for SEELE's reason for initiating Second and Third Impact:

Q) What was SEELEs intent in initiating Human Complement Project? Gendo's?

A) SEELE believed that mankind had turned into a "colony of worthlessness" and that the only way for mankind to achieve happiness was for all life to die and become one in a single perfect being. They felt that humanity had hit a dead end in its evolution, and the only way for mankind to continue living was for it to return to the womb (quite literally).

Gendo, however, knew better than SEELE and did not want to initiate Human Complement Project to simply kill everyone in the world. In fact, all evidence says that Gendou's version of Complementation did not entail the genocide of all humanity at all. When SEELE idealizes the death of God, man and all living things, Gendo replies to them "Death gives birth to nothing." This is basically the climax of their conflict, Gendo has drawn a line in the sand and all that is left is for SEELE to react.
All Gendou seemed to want was to re-united with his beloved wife (In the face of Complementation he says, "I've been waiting for this moment for so long... To finally be with you again, Yui.")

Gendo can still reunite with Yui, of course. And Yui put her soul into the Eva 01 so that the E Project could succeed.