[EVA] Concurrency tangent (WAS: Alternate Rei on DVD cover)

[Peter Svensson]

> I think multiple people will. Yui, for example, clearly would have
> returned if she didn't have other things to do. Similarly, I've long
> thought that Kaji had it all together much more than Shinji did.

Oh, totally. Which is why he had to die. Shinji couldn't have a stable factor like Kaji in his life (and I can't believe I'm calling him that) and reach the depths of depression he did in the show.

> I don't buy that all of humanity is so weak and unhappy that it
> would remain dis-embodied.

Personally, I don't either, but I worry that we're supposed to think that, that the moral of EoE is that while you can thrive as long as you live, most people don't. 

> (It's only if one *insists* on
> in-universe explanation for this that I do not know.)

Well, that's my entire thing here. If the TV ending is the exact same ending as EoE, the details should match up perfectly because Gainax would have known they'd need to make it mesh with what had previously been established. That they were willing to change things that dramatically suggests to me that they didn't consider the two endings to be one and the same. 

> You can't say we don't have evidence either way and then go right on
> and assume it. 

You can't say we don't have evidence either way and then go on denying it either. Given that souls DO exist in Evangelion, it's not the same sort of argument as "Yui could have visited the teapot." I know you're very much of the "Religion has no place in EVA!" mindset, but arguing that my evidence suggesting that immortal souls do exist is false because they don't is circular logic.

> Puzzle pieces know where they start & end.

Eh. It was a metaphor for becoming part of a greater whole and losing your identity while retaining the basic structure of yourself. Coming up with Instrumentality metaphors is rather different.
 
> I'm arguing that an ending where Shinji chooses reality and then the
> last scene is actually in reality is possibly less artistically
> satisfying and doable than Shinji simply choosing reality.

And now we're getting somewhere. 

The issue I have is that without that scene of Shinji actually in reality, it is difficult to discern whether that was the intent or not. I mean, going from your argument EoE should have just ended with Shinji's goodbye to Yui.

> That is an unsatisfactory way to end. Endings should not be gratuitous
> and random like that. So, it's no surprise that while making episode
> 26, under a massive crunch, running out of cash, with
> censorship/pressure from the network & PTA & internal, with the ending
> they want still in draft form, that they simply punted on showing the
> real world. It wasn't important.

See, the way I see it, under all that pressure they decided to make an ending that was the opposite of what they had in mind. Like a sort of twisted revenge. 

> The LTP guy obviously didn't like 25 or 26. If he sees it as Gainax's
> self-pitying, I'm not sure he is a useful datapoint.

Now you're ignoring information just because you disagree with it. Not kosher.

> The letters are very simple. They are either responses from viewers
> who were helped by Eva, who saw themselves in it and grew - or from
> viewers who looked into the abyss and became monsters. I will paste my
> mini-essay on the topic.

*snip*

Very well done. It is really important to mention that the death threats aren't the point of the sequence, that it's not "HA FANS! I HATE YOU! NOW ASUKA DIES AGAIN!" 

Peter Svensson