So like one method I like to use to understand and establish theme is abstraction, the other being personification. So like, if you had to explain the narrative without the trappings of the diegetic jargon to someone who knows nothing about the work, what would you say it's about, what happens in the story? If the work was a person, what is that person's view on things? So I'm going to use that framework to say Evangelion is actually about the military complex and the emotionally abusive nature of adults in power. Strap in, bitches, we're about to get into our robot moms, and it's gonna be a long ride.
So Evangelion is about a 14 year old boy named Shinji who is estranged from his cold and distant father who emotionally blackmails him into piloting a monstrous weapon of mass destruction. This WMD operates on the principal that any damage it takes inflicts sympathetic pain onto the pilot and the better you are at piloting it, the more painful it is to use. There's a war going on between two factions with opposing loyalties and goals but ultimately they're actually cut from the same cloth. Shinji's first bout with the enemy leaves him with excruciating pain but he ultimately succeeds. But because he was untrained and underqualified, he causes some collateral damage, and this prompts one of his classmates to punch the shit out of his tiny baby boy face and he goes to live with a stranger who is his handler that plays at being his surrogate mother.
Shinji fights on and the trauma gets so bad that he attempts to run and escape the life. He doesn't get too far or even leaves for very long before the military brings him back to continue his government approved torture sessions.
Anyway he meets his fellow child soldiers and becomes something of a war hero through training and continued victories. One of the fellow child soldiers, Asuka, co-habitates with him and his handler. Asuka proceeds to badmouth and verbally abuse him at every opportunity and he takes it because while it's not validation of his inherent worth as a human being it is brutal honesty rather than obfuscation and the drip feedings of praise, which is the second closest thing Shinji feels to friendship.
As more of the enemy is defeated, and the war takes its toll on the children and cities, the WMDs get more and more out of control. One of Shinji's friends is then selected to pilot one of these WMDS and it goes so awfully that the other pilots are forced to face one of their own in armed combat. Shinji is forced into the fight and is ordered to murder his best friend to clean up the military;s mistake. He maintains that there's a better way and in response they take control of his WMD away from him and they all but murder one of only three friends he truly has.
Shinji quits for real and now that he's disposable the military allows this, so he lives as a citizen for a while. He lives out his days, convinced that being the pilot of a WMD is the only thing that gives him worth, but a disgraced member of the military tells him that it's not his ability to affect change for the better, but his willingness to do so that gives him worth. After his old comrades are defeated and wounded, he chooses to take up arms, but this time the trauma and anger causes him and his WMD to commit the unspeakable and he defiles and eats the body of his enemy.
Now so intwined, the border between him and his weapon have blurred. Shinji's friends try in vain for a long stretch of time to seperate him and the machine but their efforts are in vain. This goes on and the one thing that brings him back is the pleading of his surrogate mother.
Back in the frey, one of Shinji's comrades is murdered and replaced with an identical person, and no one notices or cares until far too late.
Finally, Shinji then meets Kaworu, the last child who will be drafted into this to use the WMDs. Kaworu displays a romantic interest in Shinji. They do a back and forth and Kaworu expresses interest only the sides of Shinji that are separate from him as a pilot. Kaworu then explicitly tells Shinji that he has inherent worth, and that his mere existence makes the world a better place. However, Kaworu has loyalties to the other side, and it is through this knowledge that Shinji finds out the enemy has only been variants of him, that they are all human, and that he has been fighting a war for survival on a world that was taken from other beings who were here first.
Kaworu begs Shinji to kill him so that Shinji and his kind may live on, but the inner turmoil of this wrecks Shinji inside. It lingers for an eternity on Shinji holding Kaworu's fate in his hands, and then finally, Shinji succumbs to Kaworu's wishes and kills the one person who told him that he has inherent worth.
Anyway, the next two episodes are various montages and frankly, it's psuedo-psychology mixed with baby's first philosophy class told over montage that gets stale and easy to tune out fast. It basically ends with Shinji learning that his self worth has to come from within and yadda yadda nothing we don't already know.
End of Evangelion is a mess that throws away the entire show's worth of character building so that there can be a dark joke at the expense of Shinji, or rather of Shinji as the audience surrogate. It kind of smacks of Serenity syndrome, and you can kind of tell that this was something made a while after the conclusion of the main story and the creators didn't really have the best handle on it the world anymore. The giveaway here is that when Shinji and Asuka fight the mass-produced Evangelions, they don't experience sympathetic pain but rather full blown injury transferrence.
End Of Evangelion is stupid.
Still fun to watch despite being psuedo-psychology and esoteric bullshit.
Major Theme 01: Adults in power are emotionally manipulative!
This is pretty easy from the start, Shinji is convinced to pilot the Eva only after being shown that his dad plans to shove a barely conscious still bleeding classmate into the cockpit and Shinji's only courses of action are to allow this woman to die or get in the robot.
On top of that, Misato *constantly* attacks his masculinity and bravery, Shinji's father drip-feeds him praise and dies a sad and ignoble death admitting that he sees himself in his son and that he keeps his distance out of fear of hurting him, because rather than working on himself and his parenting, Gendo would rather try fuck the world.
Major Theme 02: The military is patriarchal!
Misato and Ritsuko at one point go to a military conference and in more ways than one we have a display of the sexism of military leaders. Ritsuko's is talked down upon and the very idea of using Eva units is brought into question. Birthed from Lilith and literally containing the soul of a woman, the Evas are seen as inferior and incompatible with the military and the way it runs.
Major props for Misato's fuck you guys, I'm gonna get in the damn robot myself moment.
Gendo, as the resident military complex also just... Abuses women. He trivializes their pain, he treats them as disposable... Risuko's mother died and he immortalized her in computer form as something reduced literally down to roles which serve him, as a mother, woman, and scientist.
Major Theme 03: Your worth is inherent and not determined by what you are, or what you do
Self evident but the Kaworu stuff to me is the most powerful. Eva says something else here as well, and this is major theme four.
Major Theme 04: Our empathy, our sensitivity, those are our biggest strengths
Kaworu's reaffirmation that the best parts of Shinji are his sensitivity, and his large fragile heart. His final words even echo something really beautiful, "My life was made meaningful because of you." Our sensitivity, our empathy... It is our connection. And while we might have to guard our fragile hearts, what makes living meaningful is to continue to love and value each other. The pain should not drive is to isolation, only to find ways of coexisting without hurting one another.
I think that, is ultimately what Evangelion is about. I think the show speaks from the experience of a man who was very deeply depressed but I also think it isn't really about living with depression. I think it's about living past depression, living despite pain, and struggling to find a way to coexist without causing others pain.
And also, it's about knowing. Knowing that getting in the robot should ultimately be Shinji's choice, and that yelling at him to get in the robot is selfish and cruel. Man, was ultimately the most cruel angel.
And that, is my thesis.
