[EVA] Gendou - man or monster?

[RJN]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Carl Gustav Horn" <once at ix.netcom.com>
To: "The english-language evangelion mailing list." 
<evangelion at yuki.onegeek.org>
Sent: Sunday, June 08, 2008 12:30 AM
Subject: Re: [EVA] Gendou - man or monster?


> The problem with this is that Anno gives us characters like Misato  and 
> Kaji, whose childhoods were interrupted by the greatest disaster  in human 
> history. Misato was gravely wounded both physically and  emotionally; one 
> doesn't have to apply the manga backstory to the  anime Kaji, but it's 
> safe to say there was no school trip that year  for him ^_^  But both of 
> them turned out to have a fairly clear sense  of right and wrong, whereas 
> Ritsuko, say, did not.

@The manga, as you know Carl, gave Kaji a tragic episode, Post-2I, when he 
was part of a gang in the days of martial dictatorship & crackdown that 
followed.  I hope there are flashbacks in .01 but somehow think they will 
also be cut out.  The "survivors' guilt" Kaji told Shinji he (Kaji) & Misato 
had, is the mental scar both share, & what drives them.

@About Gendou & Yui. They might have loved one another, & Yui might have 
loved Shinji & children, but she was also IMO cold blooded. Not the same way 
as Naoko & Ritsuko maybe, but Yui was working with Gehrin towards its goals, 
& on the very theories & practices that would be used later.  Her cold side 
is the cold side of Rei in a less sophisticated/sullied/written on way.

@Gendou is an emotional reptile.  He basked & absorbed in what warmth he got 
from Yui.  When he lost her, he became cold & brutal again. He left Shinji 
in that desensitized state.  He is also sadistic, those smiles hidden by his 
hands when 01 beserks & Shinji screams...
>
> But the  series itself makes a martyr out of Kaji, who cared about human 
> beings as something more than children in a cosmic evolution scheme,

@Agreed

> and a heroine out of Misato, who is a badass, but who also often 
> questions what she's doing and how it affects others.

@How is Misato a badass?!  She is the only person who cares about the kids. 
True she's batchelor-womanchild, but that's her appeal.  In other animes 
she'd be the tomboy like Mao in Full Metal Panic, for example. And Sadamoto 
in his introduction to the manga says she lives lightly to cover her pain. 
One thing I liked about 1.01 is that Misato's new, more profound 
self-confession & unease after Shinji had gone to have his bath, & then 
later when she was in the bath.
RJN