Forum - View topicPrimacy of Consciousness in the Ends of Evangelion
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DrizzlingEnthalpy
 Posts: 255 |
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ARRR, MASSIVE SPOILERS AHOY, MATEYS! [/pirate talk]
First, let me define "primacy of consciousness" as I will be using it in this post: the assertion that your mind is what ultimately affects reality, there are as many realities as there are people, and if you strongly believe something, then it is true (at least for you.) I had always thought of the Human Instrumentality Project as being the ultimate embodiment of primacy of consciousness; whatever you wanted reality to be actually was your reality, and everyone has their own (false) "reality" of their own creation. Now, in the movie End of Evangelion, I had always thought it was rather obvious that Shinji rejected Instrumentality because he was rejecting primacy of consciousness; that it was better to live in a hurtful reality because it was real than live in a false "reality" that wouldn't be hurtful. Choosing Instrumentality would just be running away again, which he pretty well established throughout the series that he mustn't. Thus, Shinji returned to reality outside Instrumentality, as well as Asuka, and depending on interpretation others may follow. However, in the series ending, at the end of episode 26, The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World, it is uncertain whether Shinji returns to reality or whether he is still inside the Human Instrumentality Project. At the end of that episode, he is told by his friends and family that he doesn't have to hate himself, that he can be happy if he chooses to be, and that, in a character's own words (can't remember which character exactly), "there are as many realities as there are people." What I got from that was that as Shinji was in a "reality" of his own creation, he was hearing what he wanted to hear, and that he was still choosing primacy of consciousness/Instrumentality even if he didn't realize it. Ergo, everyone's still inside Instrumentality at the end, ergo, as said in the commentary for one of the episodes, "everybody dies." In my opinion, primacy of consciousness applies, up to a point, to consciousness; that is, you don't have to hate yourself if you don't want to, but believing something about reality doesn't make it true. Thus I interpreted that in the series ending, Shinji believes he is going back to reality, thinking he's rejecting primacy of consciousness and not running away again, but is still inside the Instrumentality Project, whereas in the movie End of Evangelion, he and Asuka are truly back in reality, and though it still has pain and suffering, it is real; Shinji has finally made his decision that he mustn't run away. So, for those of you who for some reason made it through my whole post, would you say I got it right? |
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Vortextk
 Posts: 892 Location: Orlando, Fl |
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As I just finished the last like 8 episodes and End of Eva last night(well, very early this morning), my mind is still spinning. As I see it, you could very well be said to "be right", but I'm sure there are other interpretations as well. You seem to take no religion into your account of things and hardly being an expert myself on that subject, I can't say too much on it either. What I do know, is that you can(and I'm sure a bunch of people have), make a very strong case that EoE resembles religion.
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DrizzlingEnthalpy
Posts: 255 |
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I don't take religion into account because, as though Eva clearly has many Judeo-Christian elements, none of the writers/creators of Eva were Christian and Anno has stated that there is no religious meaning to the series; another said that they wanted a religion that wasn't very common in Japan to invoke a sense of mystery, and that they chose Christian symbols because they "looked cool."
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NeonGEvangelion
 Posts: 141 Location: El Paso TX |
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Instrumentality is a way for humans to fill the gap within themselves, to become one with everyone else. EoTV Shinji finds himself running away from his own reality (Primacy). But as the series nears an End he is left to deal with his own suffering. He fills in his gap by accepting others around him.
In EoE, Instrumentality fails because Shinji doesnt accept his own reality. He wants everyone to die around him, those who have hurt him. He does not fill his gap, hence him living in a world of false dreams. As the movie comes to an end, Shinji realizes that reality is unavoidable and that he has to live a world of suffering. He shoves off Instrumentality to live in a world of his own with the people whom he cares for (Hence Asuka by his side). Its been a while since I have seen the series, but all is relevent none the less. PS: I read all of your post  .
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NeonGEvangelion
Posts: 141 Location: El Paso TX |
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You are right about the writers/creators not being Christian. But with the use of these allegorical religious symbols, there is obviously a connection between them. Simply saying the creators thought they looked cool, is blatent. Its understanble that they thought this, but there is religious meaning behind them. |
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DrizzlingEnthalpy
Posts: 255 |
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Nope. According to evaotaku.com, "at the Otakon anime convention held in 2001, assistant director Kazuya Tsurumaki (who was the director of The End of Evangelion: Episode 25' Air - while Anno personally undetook The End of Evangelion: Episode 26' Sincerely Yours and acted as Chief Director) was asked directly what relvance Christianity had to Evangelion. This was his reply: Tsurumaki: There are a lot of giant robot shows in Japan, and we did want our story to have a religious theme to help distinguish us. Because Christianity is an uncommon religion in Japan we thought it would be mysterious. None of the staff who worked on Eva are Christians. There is no actual Christian meaning to the show, we just thought the visual symbols of Christianity look cool. If we had known the show would get distributed in the US and Europe we might have rethought that choice." |
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Vortextk
Posts: 892 Location: Orlando, Fl |
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Well saying that, I very much doubt the writers or directors could make a better case of "what eva means" than any big eva fan. I believe the show is what it is, whether something was intentional or not.
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NeonGEvangelion
Posts: 141 Location: El Paso TX |
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Nono, your getting it wrong. They didn't want them to mean anything but they do. Even though Stigmata looks cool, there is still meaning behind no matter how you put it. They say there is no meaning but there is. And yes I have read Evaotaku, and beleive they are misled. You cant just throw out symbols and say they have no meaning, there is always meaning behind them even though it was unintentionally done.
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DrizzlingEnthalpy
Posts: 255 |
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Regardless, any religious meaning wasn't "official" and is invention of/interpretation by the fans, not the creators, and thus shouldn't affect the meaning of the show that the creators were trying to convey. The question I was asking was whether Anno was trying to convey rejection/acceptance of primacy of consciousness with the show's ending. I thought it seemed like Shinji rejected it, and I wanted to see other possibilities. There is undoubtedly a lot about Eva that is meant to be interpreted by fans, but fan interpretations shouldn't (and in some cases can't) be considered canon.
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NeonGEvangelion
Posts: 141 Location: El Paso TX |
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The two endings were total opposites. Shinji Accepted in EoTV and rejected it in EoE. |
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Vortextk
Posts: 892 Location: Orlando, Fl |
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Yes but as I'm trying to get at, I very much doubt anyone that worked on Eva could give you a straight complete answer of what Eva means. Simply, they don't know much more than anyone else. Also, art in general has a way of changing over the years; not in appearance of course, but in meaning and understanding.
Also like I said though, you can interpret it without taking religion in at all. That's your interpretation of a show with it's feet very high off of "solid ground". Yeah though, it does seem like Shinji rejected "something". I'm still trying to make my own decisions of what some of those things were. There were enough people that wanted the entire destruction of everything so that in some ways it seemed to go as planned. Personally, the show wasn't "too" confusing for me. It was just extremely odd and left a lot open. EoE though.........spoiler[I didn't get the whole Lilith/Rei thing. And then when everything went haywire; the other Eva's changed their face and then combined into that weird symbol, ultimately turning 01 into "The Tree of Life"? Argh my senses...] |
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wiz
Posts: 4 Location: hell aka carolina |
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ha if you wont a good anie riliges manga you should read crose
its all about an exersist drest up like a prest |
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-gecko-
 Posts: 285 Location: Near Seattle, WA |
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I read your whole post (I can just see the mods rolling their eyes
 ) and I like your theory for the most part. I have applied the same to some other subjects to justify how certain people could possibly believe what they do (mainly with politics).
I have to disagree with your denial of religious references within NGE as merely symbolism. It was clearly stated within the anime that prophesies written in the Dead Sea Scrolls were coming to pass as each angel appeared. Not exactly our understanding of Christianity, but certainly refering to religion in some form. I could tell you that I never laughed about your hippopotomus avatar even though I did, only because it reminded me about how my wife can never pronounce the word, 'hippopotomus'. |
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hentai4me
 Posts: 1313 Location: England. Robin is so Cute! |
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is this the whole 'your perception of reality is reality unto you' thing?
where what you make of reality is what reality is, for example if you hate yourself anything bad that happens is purely deserved and anything good is cause for self flaggelation? next, while certain people may draw conotations from things like christian imagery that is a purely personal thing, if it has no actual meaning in the creators mind then its purely up to the person themselves. For example you might draw all sorts of christian imagery from the cruciform hilt prevalent in Europe, you'd be wrong to do so but you can(the cruciform hilt was used due to its amazing utility, its far more useful than a rounded Japanese one for example) even though the wide protruding quillons desing was used by Scandanavian and Germanic tribes for years before the Roman empire even adopted christianity. Same with ships, the cross shaped sail is used because it was simple and effective, not because of christianity(again vikings who were Pagan used them for years before becoming christian after settling). So if you draw a message or something from an anime, a film a book or whatever and its not intended by the creator then its up to you to find it yourself and attatch your own feelings to it. Just like over analysis of literature...if authors reallly out so many messages into their works consciously then how do they ever write books at any kind of decent pace... |
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Pleroma
 Posts: 443 Location: Eromanga island |
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I have always seen the brilliance in EoE in the way it managed to show the utter incongruency between our logical reality-grounded minds and an event that is beyond thier sphere of comprehension. We can all to a degree "accept" wars and aliens and catastrophes, but something like a large scale manifestation of abstract religious imagery and events would throw throw everything into such chaos that it would I believe literally drive us insane. EoE portrays this like nothing else I have ever seen, one can feel the horrible terrifying wrongness of it all and its here that the religious undercurrents (intentional or not) work so well towards achieving that feeling. That is ultimately their biggest function in my mind, they are real to me even if they do not actually form a cohesive meaning (as I suspect anything so beyond reality would indeed lack if viewed from human perspective) their presence itself is all it takes.
Now, onto the more specific issue of TV vs movie ending, I don't see why the two have to separated rather than form part of the same continuity. The post-instrumentality events in EoE don't really give us a timescale, something that would see like only a minute and maybe evn be a minute objectively, could be years or centuries to a single conciousness. We know Shinji experiences instrumentality and ultimately rejects it, but the events of the TV ending could well simply be contained within his time as part of the joint conciousness. The happiness from the TV ending could easily lead to the realizations of its falseness and the eventual rejection. One thing I have always wondered, was why was Shinji able to make this decision solely by himself. Did he stop instrumentality for everyone or just gave them a way back should they reach the same decision? Perhaps he brought the resentment of others (suck as Asuka) for doing this, or was he so much a part of the whole that the decision was both his and not his? |
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