The General Zapped an Angel, Karel Thole, Oils, 1970Submitted by Ok_Ganache_6570 t3_z4nmwp in Art
PM_YOUR_BOOBS_PLS_ t1_ixu4ihm wrote
Reply to comment by LinkBetweenGames in The General Zapped an Angel, Karel Thole, Oils, 1970 by Ok_Ganache_6570
It's only portrayed that way through the view point of an extremely mentally damaged 14 year old boy.
The end of the original series, before any of the movies or anything, shows the process of instrumentality. It's essentially all consciousness becoming one, and that oneness allowing "holes" people feel in their lives and themselves to be filled with the oneness of everyone else around them.
People obviously still have separate consciousness, while also belonging to the collective unconscious. There's a bit of a duality going on. Duality being heavily present in eastern religion, and Eva obviously being bathed in religious ideas.
Shinji just views this oneness as being wrong because, like I said before, he's just broken. Him and Asuka have known nothing but lonesomeness and separateness their entire lives. They have inherently lost the ability to feel connected to anyone else.
It's been forever since I've watched it, but at the end of End of Evengelion I think Lilith states that anyone can leave the LCL soup if they choose to. The fact that only Shinji and Asuka leave shows how they're just broken and that nearly any other person would choose to remain as the one, singular being.
DuelaDent52 t1_ixu5fq1 wrote
Or maybe they’re the ones who are whole because they have the self-awareness to define themselves after everything and everyone was turned to primordial goop.
Deathsroke t1_ixuafsv wrote
It all comes down to your personal views. Many times mainstream media shows something that many would consider heaven as "bad" and vice versa.
For many, being a digitalised ego in communion will all of humanity while residing inside what's basically a Matrioska Brain and enjoying eternity. But there is a certain fixation not to escape "reality" (the Rebuild movies are all about anti-escapism) within popular media so such developments are all presented as bad in general.
It is rare to find a differing view outside of scifi and even within sci-fi that's not the norm.
PM_YOUR_BOOBS_PLS_ t1_ixunqjj wrote
Yeah. That's definitely why Shinji immediately tries to strangle Asuka and Asuka calling Shinji disgusting when he stops. Definitely the actions of "whole", self-aware people.
jerepila t1_ixuk7e8 wrote
Human Instrumentality begins, sucking everyone up into oneness, but right afterwards Shinji says “no, this isn’t right”, and Lilith instead sets people’s souls to be, I guess, free-floating. The choice that you mentioned is during this part, and it’s whether everyone’s souls can return to human bodies. So it’s kind of like two different half-states because Shinji was indecisive. The way I interpreted the ending was that Shinji and Asuka were the first humans to return to their bodies because they sorted out their feelings and chose life (Asuka having done so in the first half of the movie, when she pilots Unit-02 again).
PM_YOUR_BOOBS_PLS_ t1_ixunjmf wrote
"Sometime later, the rematerialized Shinji and Asuka lie on a post-apocalyptic shoreline. Shinji catches a glimpse of an ethereal Rei before being startled by Asuka. Shinji begins to strangle her, but when she caresses his face, he stops. As Shinji breaks down in tears, Asuka voices disgust."
Literally the end of the movie is Shinji starting to strangle Asuka, giving up, then Asuka calling him disgusting. You can read that a lot of ways, but Shinji and Asuka 100% making the right decision is definitely not one of those ways. But again, it highlights that Shinji and Asuka are just broken.
It doesn't matter if Shinji says, "No, this isn't right." Shinji is fucked in the head. As is Asuka. Looking at any of their decisions as "correct" is very unwise.
My interpretation of Shinji immediately trying to strangle Asuka is that he realizes he made the wrong choice and just wants humanity to end. Asuka has similar feelings, and that's why she's disgusted with him not being able to strangle her.
Again, Shinji and Asuka are fucked in the head. You can NOT view their reasoning as sound.
aridan9 t1_ixuq2ay wrote
The trouble with this interpretation is that it's horribly pessimistic and the ending of Evangelion is canonically optimistic. The real ending of Evangelion is the end of the TV series with the "congratulations" given to Shinji for him realizing he can grow and be better. The whole point of the show, as Hideki Anno has said is for people to learn that they can grow to be better, and they don't have to turn to escapism (e.g. watching mecha animes for his otaku audience) to avoid their problems (he has spoken about how he did this himself and escaped depression by learning to stop being an otaku and to actually embrace reality and life). Instrumentality is the ultimate form of running away from your human problems.
The main point you seem to be missing is that Instrumentality isn't a good thing. It's inhuman, and the desire to pursue it is driven by insecurity and loss, e.g. with Gendo Ikari losing his wife. When everyone turns to goo, we see how in their last moments, Rei turns into whatever the people she was killing were pining for, but never pursuing. It's artificial, fake happiness rather than the true happiness that comes from accepting yourself, learning to be better, and pursuing your goals with real others (despite the Hedgehog's Dilemma).
Ultimately, I guess, I defer to the directorial intent of Hideki Anno in interpreting Evangelion, a show/movie that is otherwise pretty difficult to interpret, especially without a decent amount of life experience.
cmrdjn t1_ixv4jfn wrote
This is why I've never liked EoE and felt like it's contradictory & ruins the ending. The original show itself is already perfect with a perfect ending. Add EoE and then you have to have the Rebuilds to reconcile itself again.
PM_YOUR_BOOBS_PLS_ t1_ixx49qn wrote
> The real ending of Evangelion is the end of the TV series with the "congratulations" given to Shinji for him realizing he can grow and be better.
Yes. I know. But you seem to be missing the point that this ending is canonically what people all experienced (or something similar) in instrumentality. Shinji experiences that after 3rd impact is achieved and all humans are melted into LCL and experience instrumentality. Without instrumentality, Shinji NEVER could have made those conclusions on those own. He was too broken and couldn't have accepted his own worth or that not everyone will eventually hurt him without the divine help of instrumentality.
booontybox t1_ixuvfs0 wrote
I'm no authority of Eva either, but the intended takeaway of the series is the exact opposite of what you're saying.
A core lesson in evangelion is that pain, misunderstandings, confusion, insecurity, and anger are all important aspects of being human. Confronting these feelings and making peace with the fact that sorrow is as valid a human emotion as joy is what will make you content in this world.
Instrumentality was alluring specifically because it "fixed" the sources of dissatisfaction. It fixed insecurity. It fixed anger. It fixed loneliness. But in actuality, the zero sum nature of instrumentality means that, in order to remove negative emotions, you also remove the positive ones too. It means sacrificing all individual feelings for absolute contentedness.
This is what Shinji had to confront when instrumentality began. And instead of running from his problems like he and others did throughout the show, both literally and figuratively, he confronted them. He accepted what he had to do to live a fulfilling, albeit tumultuous, life. Which is why he and Asuka appear on the shore. Of all humanity, they were the first to make peace with the nature of their existence and resurface as individuals.
treyj130 t1_ixusimx wrote
and by leaving, they leave the oneness of their “new garden of eden”, tasting the fruit and embracing separateness and beginning the universe anew
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