Teasers from "Drunkard's Walk: Angel Baby"

[Bob Schroeck]

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I suppose, before I speak, which Rei are we talking about here, Rei II or Rei III?

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Well, by the very fact that Doug's coming into the story more or less in the middle of the Seventh Angel affair, this is by necessity Rei II.

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Is Rei's closed-mouth and strange outlook on life the fact that she's had a very f**cked up childhood
Or that she is very much aware of what she is and why she's here and as well as having a very *alien* outlook on life?

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That's a very good question, and important for characterization. I'm still studying the show to learn more, but it seems to me that it's a bit of both. By the time of epsiodes 25/26, D&R and EoE (if not earlier), Rei certainly seems aware that she's something other than a simple human being, and is informed enough that she can (at least in some interpretations) thwart Gendo by choosing a different path through the process of Third Impact. She has to know that she's different in some fundamental way earlier, too, simply by virtue of the fact that she's frequently in the presence of the tanked clones. But I also think that XenoP is right that she's "functionally autistic", and that it was intentionally induced (as Nathan says) as a matter of control. Certainly a Rei like the one in Shinji's ep 26 alternate universe would never have let herself be used as she was.

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So is there, with Rei, anything TO fix? Is she one of the walking broken, as the others are?

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I've spent a while trying to figure out how to reply to this without giving things away. I'll have to risk this answer: Within the context of the Drunkard's Walk, yes -- Rei is (intentionally) deprived of her social and emotional heritage on both sides of her ancestry.
Hmm. That didn't come out quite the way I wanted, but I'm out of time and have to start work (8:30 am here). I'll think about it and see if I can revise it at lunch. (And answer the other posts.)
-- Bob
(Edit: When I came back at lunch, what I wrote looked more or less OK after all. I did add some qualifiers to the early part of the big paragraph on Rei, just to clarify some obscure phrasing.)
-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.