29th October 2020
I'm changing the format a little bit. I will write a couple of sentences of episode description and the interpretation right under them.
The main point of the third episode seems to revolve around the fact that the individual who has discovered hers/ his potential for evil (but hasn't integrated it yet) might distance themselves from other people, because he knows that he might hurt them and they might hurt him. He might be terrified at the things he's capable of doing and a partial integration of his interest in evil and his non-acceptance of violence might help him act.
Shinji sits in the cockpit of the Eva. His stare is blank. He says he's getting used to the robot, but he sounds worn out. Ristuko explains him how the Eva works – electricity is provided by an umbilical chord.
The individual has taken upon himself the burden of existence, but it wasn't fully voluntary – his integration is not complete yet. The umbilical chords means Shinji is still a foetus, he's not an independent, individual being, his potential is still to be developed. The individual relies on his parents to function. Without the connection, he cannot function for long.
Shinji is training to be a destructive beast, he shoots the angel. He is completely soulless and blindly obeys orders. Someone is surprised that Shinji agreed to continue to pilot the Eva, after all that has happened to him.
The individual does what he is told to do, but he still doesn't understand its purpose. The confrontation with the chaos within has made him numb.
A happy morning in Misato's home. She is a strong woman and a captain at work, but a complete mess at home. She sleeps late. Ritsuko has been working since the morning. She's busy. She asks how is her boyfriend.
Misato and Ritsuko seem to function as the mother of Shinji. Misato is the emotional, chaotic element and Ritsuko is the intellect. There's two of them – they're not integrated into one being, that's why they're struggling to properly take care of Shinji.
No one ever calls Shinji. The two women discuss the hedgehog dillema. Two hedgehog's can't be intimate without risking taking damage, that's why they have to keep some distance.
The individual is scared to death by his own chaotic tendencies that he's just discovered. He doesn't want to be intimate with people, because he knows he could really hurt them – just like he killed the angel. He also knows that other people could hurt him too. The people in Shinji's class are naive and innocent. They don't know what kind of monsters they are and that makes it easier for them to socialize. It's easier for them than for Shinji, becasue they don't have to pilot Enola Gay...
Rei seems to be having the same problem. She's alone too. Shinji doesn't approach Rei, even though they have something they share.
Rei has been also touched by her capability for evil – it has wrecked her and she doesn't know that to do with it. Although she and Shinji share their fate, they don't socialize too.
Shinji's classmates talk about the damage he has caused during the fight with the Angel. Toji speaks about his little sister being hurt – that's another reason for Shinji to be afraid of his own shadow and of other people's too. Everyone fled Tokyo because of the fight. Only the one boy stayed, because he's like a fan of chaos and destruction. Toji stays to help his sister. He's furious at the robot's pilot.
Kensuke (the camera boy) symbolizes the human need to experience chaos and destruction. He wants to film the brutal fight between the robot and the Angel. He is human proclivity to watch bestgore.com or the ISIS executions.
Now, some important exposition comes in. The history of the second impact (it's a lie of course). In year 2000 a meteor struck the Antarctic and melted the ice caps. It was an apocalypse. The ocean level rose, Earth was thrown off its axis, climate changed, half of the worlds population was killed – the propaganda says it was a natural disaster.
Someone asks Shinji whether he's the pilot of the robot. He says yes and all his classmates go crazy.
Oversocialized, overprotected people are deeply fascinated by chaos, death, destruction, violence. That's why Western boys (while living in one of the most peaceful episodes in human history) love to play with guns, swords and toy soldiers. Why would kids play with these things? Why toy soldiers and not toy musicians or toy philosophers? Why monsters and dinosaurs? They clearly lack something, which they're trying to complement with these tools.
The class rep doesn't care. She is the strict parent, that deeply opposes the chaos that fascinates everyone.
Living under a very strict structure we're fascinated by any form of chaos. Revolution, promiscuity, war, school shootings, terror attacks, blood and death. We have been living in some of the most peaceful times of history, and yet most of our movies and games are terribly violent – that's our longing to the chaos that we repressed and hidden from ourselves. Just think about it – I've never been in a fight for my whole life; it was never necessary. I never had to run away from a danger. Actually, when I see danger, I run towards it, because I'm so bored and hungry for the element that has been taken from us.
We worship chaos, violence, death and destruction. We long for it. We watch brutal, violent movies, we worship serial killers, gang leaders, mafia bosses, cultists. Just think about the fame people like Charlie Manson, Ted Kaczynski or Paul Bernardo enjoy.
Kensuke pretends he's not interested, but he writes down everything what Shinji says. The girls go insane. The destructor is the pride of the school.
Obviously, war heroes have a lot of fans. But so do the Columbine boys, Anders Breivik or Brenton Tarrant.
Toji beats Shinji up, Shinji doesn't even fight back, having internalized the fact that he's evil. He tries to justify himself instead of having any dignity and accepting what he's done. So Toji beats him up again.
Shinji seems to be believing that having violent tendencies makes him an evil person, which is not true. That's why he doesn't retaliate.
An alarm sounds and everyone is evacuated. Another Angel comes. He's not humanoid – very werid. The city of Babel evacuates underground. Civillians are tightly protected by the state structers from the Angel – they can't even see it. They're safely put underground.
The Angel attacks become more and more frequent. The traditional attack is useless, so an Eva is dispatched.
The powerful states overprotects their citizens, thus making them weak and vulnerable. However, it weaponizes some other citizens to achieve their military goals. Sound like the US.
Very feminine Shinji kind of accepted his fate, and is calm. He doesn't know why he's piloting this thing, he says father, why have you forsaken me?
The individual doesn't really know why he's accepting this suffering yet. He's doing it out of inertia.
Kensuke really wants to see the robot fight the enemy – well the guys below don't even know what is happening. Shinji is given instructions and he flies to the fight. Kensuke is excited to see the monster. Shinji follows Misato's orders mindlessly and is beaten up.
The previous Angel was like the lance that Jesus was pierced with, this one is like the whips. Shinji is too messed up to put up a fight and he runs away. The umbilical cord has been cut.
Shinji notices the guys that beat him up. He tries to protect them, he almost loses because he doesn't want to hurt them.
Running away from one's capacity for violence won't let you win the important fights you have to win.
Shinji lets Toji and Kensuke into the cockpit. Eva desynchronizes.
Kensuke is the human fascination with evil, Toji is the non-acceptance of the fact, that justified violence may lead to civilian deaths. The two of them entering Eva is a symbol of an attempt to integrate these facts within Shinji's psyche. It doesn't work yet.
The Beasts hand is starting to show. Shinji doesn't retreat. He goes berserk and grabs the knife with the wounded hand. Misato orders the retreat, but Shinji doesn't listen. The Eva is severely wounded but it manages to kill the Angel.
The unintegrated individual cannot control himself fully. He behaves emotionally and ignores his rational mind. He manages to deal with the catastrophe with pure rage, but is severely wounded and traumatized as an effect.
Toji wants to apologize. He understood that violence and brutality is necessary in order to be able to protect others.
The episode details Shinji's struggle to come to terms with his own shadow. He saw what it's capable of and that has made him deeply afraid of human nature. Some attempts of integration have been made, but the process still goes on.
dd
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