Quote:You've just helped me figure out one of the things that had been bugging me about Eva. A real tragedy, a well executed one, has the characters tripping over their own flaws and falling from grace because of their own weaknesses - or sometimes, strengths.
Did I like the ending of Eva? It . . . grew on me. It wasn't a happy ending, but i don't think that it's supposed to be happy nor was a happy ending "earned" ( a favorite word by my playwrighting prof. every scene and payoff and ending has to be "earned" ) by the series. Every time someone got up, they got kicked back down.
Given that, I think that the ending was as happy as could be.
Eva has massively flawed characters rising -above- those flaws on their own strengths alone... then lurks up behind them and BLUDGEONS THEM INTO A BLOODY PULP!!
That's not art. Which is sad, since it had all the ingredients and potential to be so much more.
Quote:Nod nod nod. You're right on both these counts. Anno didn't ruin Eva; he -wasted- it.
Further, since Anno was the driving force and it's his baby, I suppose if he wants to strangle it, that's his perogative. To say that he "ruined" it is to say that it took something that existed before him and tained it somehow--kind of like how you could say that, uhh, NBC ruined West Wing by getting rid of Aaron Sorkin but not that Dick Wolf ruined Law and Order.
Having said all that, it was still a pretty messed up ending, man. Yikes. Anno did not communicate what the meaning of his work was all that well. And art is supposed to be about communication.
Quote:Ah? How, then, do you explain her reaction to the realization that her mother is still around in Unit 02? It's been a while, but she seemed... happy. Relieved.
But back to the original topic of this thread, which was Asuka's personality: I think that a big part of her personality is that while she's proud of her figure, she hates the fact that she has periods--i.e. motherhood. She is, I believe, utterly terrified of having anything about mother "touch" her, which is probably why she's so hostile towards Misato and to Shinji. She doesn't want children. Her emotional abandonment and then symbolic murder/suicide by her mother f**cked up her pretty good on that score.
What I got out of that was that one of the things that she had been looking for was to be 'worthy' enough for her mother to love her again... since, obviously, the reason Mommy abandoned her for that doll was that she wasn't good enough. And if she can be replaced by a rag doll, of all things, that must mean she's now worth anything at all.
I'm not quite sure what she made of the 'suicide' part, but by that point it probably fed back into the idea that she wasn't good enough for Mommy to take with her when she 'left'.
In this version, then, her horror at the idea of becoming a mother herself could have to do with the fact that she's Not Good Enough to try and fill the same role as the mother she reveres and loves.
Of course, all or most of this is unconcious, or at least unacknowledged, hidden under the 'Perfect Asuka' facade she's built up over the intervening years.
Quote:I doubt it; I'm more inclined to think that her motivation is the classic bully syndrome - making herself feel better, more superior, by putting down those around her.
Asuka's aversion to being "puppet" also ties into this, because of her issues with control. She wants absolute freedom, which to her means controlling everybody around her.
This isn't to say that she's not well-enough adjusted to -realize- what's going on, just that the alternative is for her to allow even the possibility of someone else so much as -contemplating- that they're superior... which would mean that they'd have a chance of realizing and demonstrating how worthless she really is. And if -that- comes out, Nerv might take away the one thing that gives her worth - Eva.
Blessed be.
-n
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."