Ritsuko, the cold, intellectual cynic who is “very mature for her age,” has a cat, interested in punk rock, and is, funnily, into bonsai trees. i googled “what is the appeal of bonsai trees?” and got a range of results, mostly from bonsai webpages + forums. some highlights:
The ultimate goal of growing a Bonsai is to create a miniaturized but realistic representation of nature in the form of a tree. Bonsai are not genetically dwarfed plants, in fact, any tree species can be used to grow one. [x]
From a gentleman named Zach, somewhere in Ontario:
Who doesn’t love a miniature tree that produces the impression of a full-grown mature tree in nature? […] but the point is that creating a miniaturized version of a full-grown tree is a unique art, hobby, pastime, pursuit, passion. It’s deceptively simple and complex all at once. You can take a plant and, with appropriate and judicious pruning and potting, make it look like a hundred-foot-tall tree in minutes. You can make that same tree look even more mature and stately in a year and two years and ten years and a hundred years. […] There’s really no other pursuit that requires more of someone than maintaining a small living organism in a captive space for an extended period of time. What else could feed the soul like bonsai?
Ofc, this perfectly encapsulates Ritsuko’s relationship to Rei: one that must be meticulously managed, an image of a more mature woman (Yui) in miniature, a small living organism in captive space.
This scene is striking. Ritsuko talks about Rei dispassionately, lays bare the extent of Rei’s emotional neglect and Ritsuko’s callous disregard for Rei’s well being outside of ensuring Rei can keep her shape. All to precipitate the destruction and “murder” of the Rei dummies! (Funnily, what Ritsuko perceives as an instantiation of her loathing for Rei actually inaugurates Rei’s humanity more fully, allowing Rei the full breadth of life: she is born, she is alive, she can now die without the threat of reproduction, just like the humans around her.)
Taking the translation as it is, I interpret “water and light that form Rei’s consciousness” as 1) highlighting that Ritsuko regards Rei as Other, not made of the same matter as humans, as Angels are similarly talked about in terms of light; 2) reminding the audience of how Ritsuko regards the world around her. Think of the other time gardening appears narratively: for Ritsuko, tending to the world is predicated on control, shaping it into what you want, a clinical practice done in containment with exacting attention to detail from the background. In other words, in direct contradiction to Kaji’s gardening, who is notably Ritsuko’s only true friend.
Ritsuko’s ~maternal malaise~ is unsurprising. Ritsuko consistently disparages Misato for taking Shinji in—yes, because Ritsuko (rightfully) doubts Misato’s ability to caregive, but the entire idea of caring for the pilots is anathema to Ritsuko’s ethos. It pulls into light the practiced dehumanization of Rei Ayanami. It’s been said before, but Ritsuko is a failed mother, a false mother, an unwilling mother (per epi13), tending to the representation of the woman she is in emotional conflict with. The pilots are data points, a means to an end, things to control and shape into what you need them for… much like Ritsuko is to Gendo.
Rei cannot be perceived as a child, certainly not her child (though she plays a major role in Rei’s caregiving, what little of it exists). Ritsuko intellectualizes Rei back into a thing, constructs and retranslates her as an object, a science experiment, an unspeaking and unfeeling organism who is “not very adept at living.” Indeed, and whose fault is that, I have to wonder.
Everything about Ritsuko is artifice. For all the lipservice paid to not speaking about herself, for all the deceit, lies, and betrayal, her actions are shockingly transparent.
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