Quote:Not even close. Here, we have a soul that has spent billions of years immersed in Lilith's sensorium. Rei's meager ten years of life experience is not going to come even close to overwriting that. I'm spectacularly amazed that she managed to change as much as she did.
Um? 'Rei's soul is not a perfect human soul and therefore she'll always be borderline-autistic and that's just the way things are' isn't a case of determining the course of someone's entire existence based on something that they themselves had absolutely nothing to do with? Sounds like the good old Calvinist line to -me-.
Give her a couple millennia and she might be able to become happy and well adjusted. Better yet, give her fifteen minutes with whatever metaphysical psychosurgeon Doug's going to call in and she might be able to do the same in a couple years.
Quote:So, you're saying that the average lobster wouldn't find us incomprehensible? And American Heritage defines eldritch as "strange or unearthly; eerie", which, as I see it, the Angels undeniably are, as is, by extension, Rei.
Last I checked, Angels weren't any farther from human than a lobster. 98% and change similarity, just like everything else on the planet? Certainly they're not -human-, but saying that that fact means that they're somehow forever beyond mortal ken is just more Lovecraft nonsense.
Quote:When in battle, the enemy is hostile, regardless of the "why".
As to hostile, well, it's not like we know what this whole fight's -about-.
Quote:Non-issue. I have no doubt that they could manage the biology part. It's the metaphysical stuff I think they're taking potshots in the dark on.
Now, I didn't follow the whole 'Dolly' thing closely enough to know what the muttonchop's particular problem was, but I'm willing to buy that Gehirn could manage an effective clone.
As to the 'fusion' argument, I'd reccomend a google on "genetic hybrids" - most of what comes up is vegetable related, but IIRC they've been doing animal testing for years.
Quote:Think less in terms of "degenerative mental illness" and more in terms of "social learning disorder". She can learn normal human social patterns -- she just has to unlearn a couple billion years of alien emotional template first.
There's no question that her environment's, put it flatly, shit. That's not what I'm arguing - I'm just saying that there's nothing intrinsicly wrong with the girl.
Anyway, I'll grant that my argument doesn't work. And, not knowing much of anything on the subject, I can't offer a reasoned case for it -not- applying to Rei - although I'll note that the fact that she improves as time goes by (where an untreated chronic illness would presumably either worsen or maintain a steady state) doesn't seem to jive.
Quote:An AT-Field requires a soul to power it, and the Rei-bots used in the dummy plugs have none. In any case, I never saw anything to indicate that AT-Fields were ever really used when it got down to hand-to-hand combat -- they only ever brought it up when projectiles were involved.
Que? It didn't, against Bardiel?
Quote:I'd say it looks like the world's ugliest Christmas-tree ornament, but that's neither here nor there.
This assumes that the Lance is/was Lilith's only restraint. Nerv/Gehirn manages to create functional, durable, portable restraints for the Evas - why not an immobile unit for Lillith? At a guess, I'd say it looks like a cross...
"[...]Functional, durable, portable restraints for the Evas[...]"? I'll grant portable, as well as durable to a point, but functional? As far as I can see, Unit-01 did whatever it wanted from day one, when it kept the falling girder from crushing Shinji. Said restraints also did precisely jack to keep Unit-00 from spazing on first activation.
As for Lilith's cross, it looks to me more like a convenient hanger. The instant Rei returned Lilith's soul, Lilith just slid right off. Lilith was bound only by her incompleteness.
Quote:Indisputable Canon Fact: Yui Ikari's soul is in Unit-01; Kyoko Zeppelin Sohryu's soul is in Unit-02. So sayeth the Red Cross Book, so mote it be.
Is a photograph a person? IIRC, Shinji's interaction with 'the spirit of 01' takes place after he's absorbed. Strange things happen to a person's mind in sensory deprivation. Unit 02, also to my memory, never actually responds to Asuka with anything more than warm fuzzy feelings - which could just as easily be the 'wavelength' Langely Sr. was on when the system did its "ZAP!" trick.
Quote:This isn't a case of copying a source soul. They are literally moving the soul to another body/being.
For that matter, I'm not saying that a pattern copy -can't- be destructive to its source, just that it doesn't need to be.
Quote:Bah. I take this to mean you haven't seen / don't like Serial Experiments Lain, in which case you are an uneducated heathen.
All of this should be taken with a grain of salt, and filtered through the knowledge that I haven't actually -seen- the last half of the series, and also that my 1st and 2nd reactions the hearing about some symbolic revelation are that whatever its supposed to be or people think it is, is wrong
Symbolism. *retch*
Back to your cave, knuckledragger!