FaxModem1 wrote: ↑Sat Jun 29, 2019 8:23 pmSounds crazy and stupid, but okay.
So what about throwing teenagers into the suits? I know there's a stated thing about their moms being needed for the suits or something, but there are probably thousands of qualified pilots whose moms could be made into the necessary components for a giant robot.
Eeeeaah, not quite. As I understand it, its not as simple as doing a seance and then stuffing the ghost of the mother into a phylactory when she shows up, they actually need physical access to the body either before the mother dies, or immediately after. Exactly what the grace period is we can't say, although End of Evangelion shows people whose bodies had died at least an hour earlier in the film getting pulled into The Rapture (or "Instrumentality," to use the show's own jargon, but its basically The Rapture). So there is a grace period where the soul lingers after death in Evangelion. But its not forever, death still matters in this franchise. In fact, it matters a lot.
The story is somewhat deconstructive (although this can easily be overstated, its also just trying to be a good psychological thriller) so it knows the Child Prodigy as Ace Pilot is an overused and silly idea that could go horribly wrong in a more realistic setting. So that becomes the whole point of the story. To justify it, its not just a matter of the technobabble, but also the actual plot. Shinji's mother didn't volunteer to become Unit 01, nor did she actually die like the mother of the pilot of Unit 03 (whose identity I won't spoil). It was an accident: they were poking around in the core of an angel (for science) and had no idea a human soul could be contained in one until after her disappearance in it. But Gendo knew that she was still alive, and throughout the show is seeking to get Yui back. This much is revealed slowly, of course, because the show plays out through the perspectives of the kids and Misato, none of whom are in on all the conspiracy stuff. Whats more, Gendo has to play a game of cat and mouse with his own backers, Seele, because whoever manages to cause the rapture first gets ultimate power over the results, and Gendo figures that's his ticket to reuniting with Yui. So for example, at one point Seele reveals that they have managed to actually create an autopilot system for the Evangelions, but because they aren't fully in his control like the kids are, Gendo initially keeps it in reserve as a mere override for when Shinji won't follow orders. Then when Unit 03 gets hijacked by an angel through the autopilot, Gendo has his opening to have them uninstalled completely (though not before using it to force Shinji to maim the pilot of Unit 03, of course, because Gendo is an ass).
Its subtle plotting like this that makes the original series so compelling, even if the Christian symbols are just a gaudy wallpaper that distracts from the far more significant Freudian symbolism that actually means something rather than literally nothing. Its just a shame that the company ran out of money so quickly that Anno and the rest of the staff were forced to rush everything out the door with fewer episodes than originally planned.
“If something burns your soul with purpose and desire, it’s your duty to be reduced to ashes by it. Any other form of existence will be yet another dull book in the library of life.” --- Charles Bukowski
