You don't need to have seen the movies, or even to
have
seen the basic series all the way through, in order to
understand these, but it would help a bit.
Any spoilers are sufficiently obscure that I don't
think this merits too much of a SPOILER!!! warning. If
you think I'm saying something straight out, I'm
telling you that you're wrong.
FUYUTSUKI
I have never doubted which of them is more cruel.
Gendo may blather on about Instrumentality and Dead
Sea Scrolls and the Third Impact in rolling, grand
words that fill you with hope for the future, but only
Yui can change Shinji's diaper while calmly stating
that she will sacrifice her son in order to... what?
Leave a sign that Humanity WAS here, a brief light
shining desperately? A declaration that would last
until the suns grew dim and all worlds fall to
darkness?
Yui was the one that shaped Gendo's unforged steel
into a razor's-edge which would split the world.
Oh, she may try to cover it up in language, but the
look in her eye convinces me that she would gladly
throw herself, her son, her husband, and even the
world upon the bonfire, if it would lead to her
glorious vision. The light of a fanatic burns in her
eyes, and sometimes it's hard to face the part I had
in this. She found something to believe in, and all I
found was old age.
Later, when a certain young doctor asked me why Rei
was so cold, so... distant, when Yui, the woman Rei
had come from, had been so warm, so caring, I could
only stare mutely, the words that I wanted to say not
coming from my throat.
The truth was, Rei _was_ Yui, in so many ways that
even I only begin to comprehend. The difference was
that... well... Rei just didn't care for the mask that
Yui had to put on just to avoid being ostracized. Rei
was protected, and she knew it.
I'm not saying that Yui was insane, but rather that...
well, she could only have been seen as mad by most of
society. Being a prophet, having seen the future in a
collection of rotting scrolls, knowing that you were
fated to die just to give your only son a chance to
bring humanity true happiness, without knowing if that
chance will ever play out because that's where the
scrolls end... I could excuse a bit of madness. Hell,
I'm not certain I could have remained sane myself.
Regardless, I see the light of a true fanatic burning
in her eyes, and I wonder if it will all be worth it
in the end.
AYANAMI
Is this all?
All I was meant for?
Why am I?
Who am I?
I am I, but why?
A tool, a wedge, a prybar meant to put a boy over the
edge into the final place that he needed to be in
order to make the hardest decision that anyone, in any
time, other than God Himself, has ever had to make?
Should humanity exist? Why?
I look into Kaoru's eyes, that are also my own,
reflecting nothing onto nothing, and wonder if this
was worth it.
Was all this worth dying for?
He looks back at me blankly, and I remembered the old
aphorism that dead men tell no tales.
In that case, why am I talking?
Did Shinji suffer me to live after all?
Or am I just to stubborn to admit that I should be
dead?
Am I a ghost?
Who am I?
There is no other way to answer that other than:
I am I, and that is truth.
But why am I?
That question will never leave me unless Shinji,
boy-god, answers it. It is what I triggered
Instrumentality to find the answer to.
And it is cold...
IKARI
I've always found it amusing that everyone thinks good
always triumphs over evil. I mean, come on people,
figure it out, statistically good only wins about 50%
of the time...
And anyway, according to history, the 'good guys' were
the ones who triumphed, talked to a good PR man who
wrote up a nice story about how the other guys were
evil dudes who sacrificed perfectly useful virgins and
ate babies with tartar sauce (although I'd prefer
something a bit more sour, to counteract the sweetness
of the young meat, if you catchmy drift) when all they
were trying to do was crush some heads.
I guess all that means I'm the good guy. Which made
Ritsuko the (if you'll pardon the slight pun) bad
girl. Which made me right when I did what I had to do.
Right makes might. Or might makes right. Which came
first? Hmm. An interesting paradox, don't you think?
I run one hand through the lake of LCL idly, waiting
for the end, and try to remember when I'd first
decided that the end justifies the means.
I'm certainly thinking in cliches today. I wonder if
that's a sign of insanity, like talking to yourself?
Wouldn't surprise me one bit.
But as I look out at Ritsuko's floating corpse,
staining the LCL with her blood, an odd thought occurs
to me.
Who's going to take care of her cats after all this is
over?
For some strange reason, that question worries me a
lot more than it should.
Maybe I am going crazy.
Maybe I am crazy.
Does it matter?
AUTHOR'S NOTES
Another misguided attempt to explain Neon Genesis
Evangelion. I honestly can't understand why people
DON'T get it. It's so... so... crystalline, what it
means, what it's all for...
I personally think that if you don't get it, then
you're making it too hard.
Anyway, I'll be writing little vignettes for each
character when I get around to it, and each will
(hopefully) present a new, insightful angle onto
what NGE means.
Aaron Bergman
iamfanboy@hotmail.com
On the front: "Neon Genesis Evangelion: I get it."
On the back: "I could explain it to you, but I'd
need 26 episodes, 3 movies, and a Cruel Angel's
Thesis."
- A shirt that I had made some time ago
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger
http://phonecard.yahoo.com/
.---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----.
| Administrators - ffml-admins@anifics.com |
| Unsubscribing - ffml-request@anifics.com |
| Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject |
`---- http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'