I’m pretty sure I’ve figured out everything that happened up until the death of the 17th angel. After that? WTH? I’m also curious about the two movies. Are they supposed to be the alternate ending. I think I have them figured out up until the end of Asuka’s fight with the other Eva’s. After that?
All reality goes pair shaped, and all fans are allowed to ignore the possibilty of Kaworu and Shinji having a relationship. (I hate this fact), since it is the end of reality, after all. To put it another way, all of mankind is now one group mind.
If the end of the TV episodes, original run, original ending, left you saying: Huh? Wha…?"
And the Director’s Cut TV epsiodes left you saying “HUH!? Say wha… !?”
And EoE left you saying "F&% me, WHAT the ever-loving HELL?!?!?"*
… then, Congratulations. You got it. 
The first part of EoE purports to show us what was going on outside in the physical world between ep 24 and eps 25/26. If you recall, in the TV show these two happen entirely inside Shinji’s head after somehow Third Impact happens offscreen, and they have to do with how the mind of Shinji deals with the Instrumentality. The later part of EoE is an alternate take on that phenomenon. These are in turn overlaid with how “reality goes pair shaped” once 3rd-I starts rolling.
…and they give us a scene in which we see that just as we suspected, Shinji is as much of a perv as he is a wuss…
(Hey, at least at the end they give back to Kaworu the words “I love you”…)
As far as I understood: Third Impact/Instrumentality was the next step in Human AND Angel Evolution. In this universe, humans and angels are the same creature, only the humans ate the fruit of knowledge and angels ate the fruit of life. Each seeks to take what the other has so they can move on to the next phase (Third Impact), in which their consciousness will be complete, and the AT field will be broken so there is complete communion between all – and the preexisting species are wiped out. Both SEELE and its visible tool NERV seek to tip this balance in favor of the humans, but they have diverged in ulterior motives: while SEELE sought the annihilation of the human condition and the self altogether, Gendo had decided that he wanted some humanity to be retained so he could reunite with Yui.
Eva-1 and Rei are key to Gendo’s game, because Eva-1 contains cloned Adam tissue plus the life-force of Yui PLUS has consumed and absorbed an Angel, and Rei is a clone of Yui infused with Lillith’s life-force. Whichever party can get Lillith, Adam, Eva, the Human and the Angel to meld succesfully, wins.
In a Dune-like twist of the cross-conspiracies, the key pawns refuse to play their assigned roles, and instead Rei-Lillith makes a connection with Shinji-Eva-Adam to execute Third Impact her way that cleanses he universe completely and gives all souls the chance to figure themselves out and become one on their own terms. And then she self-destructs so that these renewed consciousnesses can be truly free in their new existence.
Either that, or those clams were past their due date, I can’t really remember…
EoE in a great degree arises out of a reaction to the original ending, after which supposedly there was great demand that Anno Hideiki show them what the hell happened, because they did not watch 24 episodes of violent action, Illuminati conspiracies, and Kaballistic/Gnostic Christian mysticism, repeatedly foreboding a Great Cosmic Cataclysm of apocalyptic proportions… to watch an internal play on how some wimp resolves his repressed Freudian/Jungian complexes.
Well, that AND Studio Gainax realized they had struck gold, this property was the franchise, and were they ever going to squeeze every last Yen out of this puppy so help them Lillith (including themselves publishing pornographic calendars featuring Rei and Misato…).
Well that AND some people had a hard time believing that what happened was that Anno intended the ending of the series to be totally introspective all along, and not that his nervous breakdown coincided with having exhausted the budget so they were stuck painted into a corner at Ep 24.
So he went ahead and gave the public the Grand Apocalyptic version of the End.
The TV Ending, in One Minute:
Shinji - I suck!
Pretty Much Everybody Else - Yes you do.
Shinji’s Pervy Fantasies - Hey, Shinji, let’s make out!
Shinji - Wow, maybe there is meaning in life after all.
World - “Congratulations!”
The End of Evangelion, in One Minute:
Shinji - Whine whine whine angst whine! Oh, yeah, and wank.
Asuka - In a coma (Anno, you are so dead.)
SEELE - Evil Backstage Machinations!
NERV Staff - dies
Gendou - I have the hand of doom. Take me to my wife.
Rei - No. Becomes Giant Rei
Giant Rei - Woah, check out my massive chest upgrade.
World - Turns to Orange Tang
Shinji - No, wait, I changed my mind! Being forced to hear everybody else whine about themselves sucks. I just want get laid.
Giant Rei - Okay.
Shinji - No, not Asuka! strangles Asuka
Asuka - gag cough ack
Shinji - Oops, wait. If I kill her, I’ll be a virgin forever. lets go
Asuka - “I feel sick.”
The TV ending focuses more on the emotional lives of the characters, and the Movies focus more on the Christian mysticism subplot of the story. Some people prefer one, some the other. Some people just wanted a Good vs Evil story with giant robots…
Those people were disappointed.
There is no way to simply explain either ending. They are both largely left up to viewer interpretation (the TV ending much more so), but JRDelirious did an excellent job of summarizing the backstory for the movie. You can get a lot of information from the Death (True^2) movie (if it can be called a movie).
dotchan: another fan of Toastyfrog’s Thumbnail Theatre, eh?
Those people got their hands on series like Giant Robo and Mobile Suit Gundam.
I’m still trying to figure out what’s happening in that series, and it’s my favourite. I’ve brushed on my Carl Jung, my Sigmund Freud, my Physics, Biology, Kabbalah, Gnosticism, Shintoism, and read a little about Japanese culture and traditions. I’ve tracked down literary references to Mark Twain and Jonathan Swift and Robert Browning.
I’ve caught multilingual puns and bilingual puns, concocted about fifty theories, and the only thing I’ve determined is that Hideakki Anno’s mind is a complex (and scary) place to be.
And Scott_plaid, you’re a man after my own heart. My very first thread on this board was about the homophobia in fandom around Shinji and Kaworu, and the urge to deny. It was entitled (cryptically) “Where are all the gay people?” but for some reason I can never find it when I search (it wasn’t in Cafe Society because this was before there was a Cafe Society).
Does this board delete truly ancient threads?
:smack:
Once again, last post by my roommate matt_mcl is mine. I’ve been spoiled lately by boards where we can delete our own posts.
And finally a search of mine actually worked:
Incidently, I don’t know if you’ve seen the VHS version only, or the DVD. The French and Spanish dubs were very honest, but both the English dub and the English VHS subtitles were censored. The DVD subtitles in English didn’t hold anything back.
(To be fair, it may just have been botched translations – there are a lot of problems in that episode)
Hmmmm…I tried starting a similar thread, which failed, so I will attempt to revive that your long-dead thread, with my entry.
I bought the NGE box set and watched it throughout Power School.
The script for the English subtitles and the dubbing differed considerably. And there were several pretty important scenes where the emotional content of the lines in the original Japanese didn’t make it into the English delivery.
I eventually ended up ripping out the Japanese audio tracks and cuing them up in Winamp to play at low volume while I watched with English dubbing and English subtitles. Doubt it helped much, but it was fun. Especially the “Baloney Pony” part.
Watch Suicide Club, it’s got the same kind of inexplicable plot wrap up. I’m just content to say it’s some untranslatable cultural metaphor.
Thanks for all your replies. I thought the gay subtext between Kaworu and Shinji was pretty obvious even in English. The various theories presented here make sense to me. I think this series just proves my theory that it’s impossible to film stories with deep philosophical overtones.