Starlight

"goodbye, mother."

yui ikari.

Hi, thanks for your question.

This has been a rather contentious topic for a long time in the eva fandom. The thread you linked started in 2009, but I'm sure this was being discussed before then as well.

Before I get into anything else, I want to point out that this is an evageeks thread. The evageeks wiki is somewhat useful for things like trivia, but it is not a good place to go to for in-depth analysis of the girls and women in eva, their trauma, and how that relates to gender. Evageeks is rather misogynistic and clownish.

I have to assume that by "proof" you don't mean explicit dialogue, since you're talking about Neon Genesis Evangelion and asking an analysis blog about it. Analysis is about reading between the lines, yes? But I suppose it's worth bringing up that Ritsuko does mention the abuse pretty explicitly in a draft of episode 24, if that's worth anything to you.

To me, it's obvious that Gendo was sexually abusing Rei. The fact that she's a teenaged clone of his dead wife is suspect enough, but let's dive deeper.

The scene in episode 5 where Shinji tries on Gendo's cracked glasses in Rei's apartment is pretty solid evidence. The glasses represent Gendo's worldview -- his gaze -- and the fact that the lenses are cracked, distorting the sight of the wearer, signifies that Gendo's worldview is very warped. The first thing Shinji sees after putting them on is a naked Rei, too. Shinji then falls on top of Rei, accidentally grabbing her breast. This mirrors Gendo's purposeful action in end of eva. The cherry on top of all this is that Shinji violated Rei's space -- he not only walked into her apartment when he believed she wasn't home, but was also snooping around in her room! He could've left her new ID card on her bed or dresser and left. This is interesting when you compare it to Toji's attitude towards Rei's space in episode 17 -- he's a bit weirded out by Shinji's willingness to just barge in and clean up while Rei isn't home. Also, in the scene from episode 5, you can see shoe prints on the floor in the apartment that don't look like they come from Rei or Shinji, so make of that what you will.

Another tidbit I want to mention is that there's a scene in episode 23 where a bunch of tiny Reis pop up out of Shinji's hand while the angel is attacking. In the ADV dub, what the tiny Reis are saying is "Ikari, it hurts!" I'm not sure what the Netflix dub dialogue is, and I doubt this dialogue is indicated in any subs. If anyone reading this speaks Japanese and wants to weigh in with what the tiny Reis say in Japanese, please do. Being that the later, more psychological angel attacks dredge up the pilots' past and ongoing trauma, I find this relevant to mention.

There's also the many scenes of Gendo gazing at a naked Rei throughout the series. Most notably in episode 15, which also shows Ritsuko glaring angrily at Gendo in jealousy while he does so. Later, in episode 23, Ritsuko says that she lost to "these dolls," meaning Rei and the clones. Lost in what respect? In what ways are Ritsuko and Rei different? Well, Rei is younger -- the same as Ritsuko was when she first met Gendo. Also, even though Ritsuko is thoroughly traumatized, she still retains some semblance of an ability to say no, and conceptualize the consequences of saying no. She had a life before Gendo. Rei has not experienced a version of life without Gendo. In episode 5, Rei asks Shinji why he doesn't have faith in Gendo, to which Shinji replies that he doesn't trust him. The "faith" vs. "trust" distinction is pretty consistent throughout English translations, and Rei's usage of "faith" indicates the god-like power that Gendo holds over her.

Ritsuko inherited the tripartite division that plagued her mother: that of woman, mother, and scientist. She views Rei as sexual competition (I hope it's not controversial to state here that Ritsuko and Gendo had a sexual relationship? Also there's that part in episode 24 where she basically says that he's raped her), which is "woman." She's one of Rei's caretakers, arguably spending more time around her than Gendo, which is the "mother" part of it. Finally there's the "scientist" part -- Ritsuko is a scientist and Rei is her test subject. There's a scene early on in the show that's rather striking. Rei is bandaged up in her underwear undergoing a full-body scan. This procedure is supervised by Ritsuko, who coolly converses with Misato as if none of this stuff with Rei is happening. Despite the fact that Ritsuko's the one supervising it! Not an ounce of concern or compassion. Because that's what abusers do, they divide, conquer, and pit their victims against each other.

It's worth noting that if you look at the Gendo-Ritsuko-Rei dynamic as a warped version of a nuclear family, it aligns very well with what is known about families where the daughter is being sexually abused by the father. Typically, the mother (Ritsuko) in this situation will only tolerate the abuse of her daughter if she is also being abused or if she feels especially powerless. Both of these describe Ritsuko, who thinks of Rei in much the same way Naoko thought of her. Naoko was sleeping with Gendo and being manipulated by him, too. Also, a lot of people in that thread you linked deny that Gendo was sexually abusing Rei because "he thought of her like a daughter." They point to the line in one episode where Gendo says that if his and Yui's child is a girl, they'll name her Rei. But sadly, fathers do sexually abuse their daughters. Even ones who are biologically related.

It's horrible -- nobody wants to think of it, but it's an uncomfortable truth. For far too many men, the definitions of "daughter" and "lover" are not mutually exclusive. I believe that "incest" as a term applies to Gendo's abuse of Rei because he's in a caretaking position, Rei thinks of him as a caretaker, and carries all the baggage that comes along with having an abusive caretaker. Nobody with more than 2 braincells to rub together would say that the Nanami-Touga thing in RGU isn't incest simply because they're not biologically related. Rei's afraid of being abandoned by Gendo, works hard to figure him out, why he treats her the way he does, why she was created, and what to do with herself. Shinji and Rei's Gendo-centric angst are two sides of the same coin; the edge that separates the two is gender.

With all this in mind, the structure of Gendo and Rei's relationship heavily gestures towards the familial. The evageeks users in that thread correctly observe this, but they allow their own naive assumptions about abuse to prevent them from taking the next logical step in their analysis of the show.

Lastly, a major part of Rei's character is her relationship with her body. Any type of trauma and abuse, but especially sexual abuse, has a nasty habit of disconnecting victims from their bodies. A major theme surrounding Rei's character is her body. It's so overwhelmingly obvious that even the dullest viewer would pick up on it. Rei spends a decent chunk of her screentime naked, and her status as a warm body is relevant to Gendo's plan for 3rd impact (he needs Rei because she houses Lilith's soul in a physical form -- this was his own design), the dummy plugs (which run off her decision-making process), and Gendo's abuse of her (she is literally a clone of his dead wife, whom he spends the entire show trying to reunite with).

What’s weird about clones in science fiction is that most writers seem to have this very strange belief (which is widespread in real life too) that there seems to be a limited number of “souls” and thus a cloned being is “souless”. Not only that does not make sense in real life (are test-tube babies souless? are twins souless?) but it conflicts with my belief on human nature (and souls, I guess). Even if a clone is a 100% accurate genetic copy, the experiences, the feelings, the thoughts, are different, because those aren’t saved in DNA; they are a result of our interaction with the world and other people. I don’t know where a new individual starts or begins, but I know for sure that a clone of me wouldn’t be me; he would be a new being, and most importantly, he would be a person, a person created differently but a person nevertheless, with all that implies.

One example I’ve been thinking of is Rei from Neon Genesis Evangelion. She’s treated as a plot device by the writers (Anno himself said that he straight up forgot about Rei after the battle with Ramiel) and the fans tend to analyze her by her importance, again, as a Plot Device and her origin as a clone. She’s the clone of Yui, she has the soul of Lilith, she has a lot of clones that are involved in the esoteric projects of NERV, etc. etc. She’s somber and silent and weird because she’s a Souless Clone… or rather a powerful being with a messed-up soul, whatever: the point is, Rei is Like That because she’s a Clone and clones are “evil”.

But the thing is, if you see Rei as what she was: a traumatized 14-years old girl, the clone thing doesn’t really matter. Rei isn’t somber, obedient and silent because she’s a clone with a messed-up soul, she’s like that because she’s been raised in a sterile, downright cruel and distressing enviroment where Gendo uses (and abuses, seriously, that isn’t even subtext) her for his own purposes. No kid raised in the kind of conditions that the show explictily tell us would turn out ‘okay’.

And yet, Rei feels. She thinks, she does things on her own. She doesn’t know how to live a normal life, but she tries. When exposed to people like Shinji, when exposed to a normal life, she slowly breaks from her abusive conditioning and realizes she could be something else. The whole “ideal fantasy world” sequence on the final episode of NGE shows us that she *could* have been a normal, happy girl if raised normally. She’s not like that in the series not because she has the soul of an ancestral alien being, she’s like that because she has endured a lifetime of abuse.

Now, that isn’t news to anybody, most NGE fans know that Gendo is an abusive asshole. And yet Rei is treated in fan-discussions, again, simply as a plot device with no mind or will of her own. The other characters have complex psychological explanations for how they act and what they do; except for Rei. She does stuff because she’s a clone made up with messed up esoteric science and that’s it. If she did or think or say something important, that was Yui, or Lilith, not her. There’s no consideration on how all the extremely distressing enviroment where she was raised would affect her as what she actually was: a person, a human being.

And that brings me to my main problem on how cloning and genetic modification are portrayed in fiction. Leaving aside for a moment that in NGE they have a very supernatural and esoteric component, cloning and genetic modification are portrayed as evil on themselves, and the results: clones, genetic modified organisms, ‘superhumans’, mutants, and so on, are portrayed as evil, uncanny or just downright wrong because of the way they were born, and little to no blame or even consideration is given to the people and society that created them, that treats human beings as tools and consider them soulless.

For many science fiction writers and fans, the clone is the evil one, not the society that brought them up and said “we made you, you are not like us, now do what we want you to do, but we’ll hate you nevertheless”. And believe it or not, that kind of thinking is quite widespread in real life. The fears of GMOs or cloning often aren’t based on real moral dilemmas and problems, but rather the ‘unnaturalness’ of it.

For all I know I could be a clone of someone. Would that matter? No, because I was raised by a family that, while flawed, cared and cares for me. Were I raised as a living weapon and abused constantly in a reclusive, horrible enviroment, and rejected by society because of it, I would be extremely traumatized, no matter if I was a clone or a “““normal”““ human.

literary references in evangelion

toji suzuhara, kensuke aida, and the last name horaki are lifted from characters within ryu murakami's novel ai to gensou no fascism / fascism of love and illusion.

nerv's motto is a quote from pippa passes, a 1841 verse drama.

"God's in his heaven— All's right with the world!

this line is also quoted in anne of the green grables.

"'God's in his heaven, all's right with the world,'" whispered Anne softly.

isao takahata's anime adaptation anne of the green gables also includes a scene similar to the ending scene of the anime series.

the name of episode 26 (the beast that shouted i at the heart of the world) is a reference to the book by harlan ellison, the beast that shouted love at the heart of the world, a collection of short stories. "i" sounds very similar to "ai", meaning love in japanese.

the greek tragedies, oedipus rex and electra which is fairly self-explanatory... i hope... with the show's use of freudian concepts (shinji's oedipus complex and misato's electra complex respectively.)

the human instrumentality project is a reference to the book series by cordwainer smith, instrumentality of mankind.

despite that, the human instrumentality bears a striking resemblance to the plot of Arthur C. Clarke's 1953 novel, childhood's end.

plot synopsis on goodreads:

The Overlords appeared suddenly over every city--intellectually, technologically, and militarily superior to humankind. Benevolent, they made few demands: unify earth, eliminate poverty, and end war. With little rebellion, humankind agreed, and a golden age began.

But at what cost? With the advent of peace, man ceases to strive for creative greatness, and a malaise settles over the human race. To those who resist, it becomes evident that the Overlords have an agenda of their own. As civilization approaches the crossroads, will the Overlords spell the end for humankind . . . or the beginning?

in asuka and kaji's introductory episode asuka strikes, there are four battleships in the UN convoy named after the shakespeare plays titus andronicus, cymbeline, othello and tempest.

in 2.22, kaji says he feels like urashima taro, referencing the japanese legend named after it's titular character, a fisherman named urashima taro. the legend goes that the fisherman rescues a turtle and is rewarded by a visit to the dragon palace where he is entertained for several days but when he returns to the human world, he finds that he had been gone for at least a century and everything around him has now changed. this is a metaphor for how kaji left tokyo-03 for only two years yet feels as though everything around him has now changed.

episode sixteen being titled (there are alternate titles to several evangelion episodes) sickness unto death after the philosopher soren kierkegaard's book of the same name exploring christian existentialism.

speaking of episodes being titled after philosophical works from the victorian era, is the hedgehog's dilemma. originally described in arthur schopenhauer's collection of philosophical reflections, parerga und paralipomena. the hedgehogs dilemma is a theme seen over and over again in evangelion with episode 4 being titled after it.

the title of evangelion 3.0 + 1.0: thrice upon a time references the book with the same title, thrice upon a time by james p. hogan.

It's amazing enough when Murdoch Ross's brilliant grandfather invents a machine that can send messages to itself in the past or the future. But when signals begin to arrive without being sent, Murdoch realizes that every action he takes changes the future that would have been...and that the world he lives in has already been altered!

Then a new message arrives from the future: The world is doomed!

rei reads the happy prince by oscar wilde. thank you sisterreisaid for bringing that to my attention.

anno had this to say about ai to gensou no fascism/ fascism of love and illusion:

There was this replacement by a robot, so the original mother is the robot, but then there is a mother of the same age, Rei Ayanami, by [Shinji's] side.

[She is] also by the side of the real father. There is also another father there, Adam, who governs the overall course of events. An Oedipus Complex within these multiple structures; that's what I wanted to do.

Ai to Genso no Fascism. I think there are ideological elements that are the same as those in the novel. [...] The thing that most moved me was [the fact that] when the protagonist, Toji Suzuhara, attempted to kill the current Prime Minister, he felt [the Prime Minister] was very much like a father.

No, I think that's a great observation!

In eva you have the contrast between machinery and meat and at its most extreme being reduced to a warm body (Rei), then in Utena it's as if everyone is a paper thin apparition, the realities of the human body are not given any attention, despite all the very suggestive imagery and outright sexual nudity.

Anthy exists at the most extreme end here just as Rei does in eva. Both Anthy and Rei are vessels, mere symbols, yet Rei's existence as a body is emphasized whereas Anthy having a body is more like it's almost a mere coincidence.

I conceive of them as separate endings, even though that's pretty solidly textually not the case. How else would instrumentality happen if not through the events in eoe? Not to mention in the director's cut we see images of Misato bleeding out and Ritsuko floating in the LCL pool, which is also how they die in eoe. Also, the characterization in eoe is very consistent with what comes prior.

I think this is mostly informed by my experience in watching the show for the first time. In March 2019 I binge watched all 26 episodes in 5 days and didn't watch eoe until July of that year because I naively assumed the eva fandom was full of super smart people to complement this super smart show and found braindead discussions on r/evangelion and evageeks about the hospital scene, which triggered me real bad and gave me an 8 hour anxiety attack and so I was put off of eoe for a good few months.

It's my favorite movie now, though, and I defended it as being the better ending on a podcast in 2021 (scroll this blog for long enough and you'll see the post where I shared the link).

Part of the reason I prefer eoe to the last two episodes now has less to do with what literally happens in it and more to do with the fact that it's a much richer text, since there's more happening visually. It's definitely not a fun watch.

They're the same but different (sick reference to Vashti Bunyan's 2005 album Lookaftering). I've answered your question with the premise of.

I'd have to rewatch the episode to give me thoughts on the full sequence, but I can 100% speak on the part where Misato and Kaji are having sex in front of Shinji.

First, this isn't a conjured scenario, it's a real memory of Misato's. This is important because it means Shinji is witnessing real events. Imo the purpose of this scene is to reveal the ugliest parts of Misato and Shinji. Coincidentally, they're both related to sex. Shinji struggles with a mother madonna whore complex, which I analyzed in great detail in 2020. It's to date the best piece on this blog, in my opinion. This scene forces Shinji to understand that Misato is more than mother, but instead, he comes to understand her as a whore.

Misato's ugliness is because you cannot convince me this is unrelated to her trying to assault him in episode 23 and actually assaulting him in eoe. She obviously has some kind of sexual entanglement with Shinji in her mind. Imo this is because of how much she projects onto Shinji -- remember that Misato spent her teenage years in a hospital. Not the best environment for having your first kiss, first relationship, first time having sex, etc. She's basically like those loser Gen X men on Facebook who comment "wow I wish that happened to me!" on news stories about a female teacher molesting a male student. That and she states outright that she wants to be "dirty" to aggravate her dead father. There's not many more things most cultures seem to despise more than sexual predation. That, and women taking the initiative in any relationship is typically viewed as a bit taboo.

How Misato thinks of her own sex life is interesting, too. She's had missionary sex with one man a handful of times. Wow, that's crazy/s. Yet she thinks of herself as the biggest most capital S Slut ever for it. This shame (because she absolutely does not view herself as a slut in a positive way) is absolutely due to cultural conditioning and the fact that she knows there's something weird about how her sexuality is entangled with her dad.

And this is where things get real complex because we know that Misato is turning into her dad and she's preying on Shinji (we can see this as early as episode 1). So, it raises questions of what Misato's dad was like...? Was he also a predator? Was he predatory towards Misato? On the one hand, there's nothing really to suggest this textually -- only a whisper of an implication. On the other hand, in eva, a whisper of an implication is often the part of the text that's most interesting and ripe for analysis. There's her preying on Shinji and the whole turning into her dad thing that constructs the implication, and then there's the parallels between Misato and Rei, both of whom are primarily traumatized by paternal figures.

Wrt gender, the show extensively critiques Shinji's misogyny, especially in end of eva. However, this can sometimes be difficult to spot for the first time viewer (especially if they're coming off of less complex media) because so much of the show is from Shinji's POV, and of course he justifies this to himself!

I'll go on record stating that I think end of eva is basically a perfect film, I wouldn't change a thing about it. You can argue it both ways wrt if Shinji's treatment of Asuka is resolved or not. I think the film would lose a lot if the most disturbing scenes (hospital scene, hell kitchen scene, and the beach scene) were removed. They're not detrimental, they're integral. Because the thing is, the show had been building up to these scenes showing us how Shinji objectified Asuka. Just go and rewatch episode 8 and 9, it's there from the start. But even before that, Shinji is making wackass misogynistic comments to Misato from episode 1. Is Shinji's treatment of Asuka resolved? Kind of? I'm erring on the side of no, because the last thing he does is collapse onto Asuka and start crying. But also I don't think that makes the ending of the film bad.

The main thing about asking if eva treats the women and girls in a misogynistic way is that, well, is this misogynistic writing or is it just writing that's true to life? I grew up in a home where my mom's life was habitually in peril, I'm no stranger to this stuff.

Asuka is repeatedly beaten down by the narrative -- the narrative allows Rei to get even with Shinji in a way that it refuses to Asuka. I wrote a post about this some time ago that you may have read. Even though Rei's situation is objectively worse than Asuka's the narrative respects her and uplifts her more.

Then there's Misato, who is complex yet also kind of sloppily written. But "complex" and "sloppy" in some ways are basically synonyms. What do I mean by this? Misato has the Electra Complex thing going on with her dad and Kaji. And then you also have her assault and weirdly seductive relationship with Shinji. So, you have two major, major flaws in her character. Then add the fact that Misato is at once attracted to her dad and becoming her dad. THEN add the thing with Shinji into the mix and things get super weird and messy. Because one thing eva excels at is that you can analyze characters through other characters (I have a post about this in the works), so it's like...was Misato's dad predatory towards her? Her seductive relationship with Shinji would suggest that. But the key word is "suggest" -- there's nothing outright in the show that states this. But there also doesn't have to be? It's A Lot, and there are lots of things in the show that are never explicitly stated yet are obvious.

Personally, I have analyzed the show's writing choices before in a sense of human beings sat down and decided to write these events into the show. That's necessary and valid, but looking at eva in-universe, I'm more inclined to interpret these events and traits as simply being true to life.

As far as more surface level critiques, the way the women and girls are drawn at times is just so yucky and objectifying that it really gets in the way of the show's attempts to develop these characters. Much of the nudity is unnecessary -- Utena tells a similar story focusing on abuse with only a fraction of it. However, I also really think people should quit huffing Utena and Ikuhara's farts. Utena also suffers from patriarchal entrapment, there's a good essay on ohtori.nu about it.

How do you feel Anno's misogyny actually impacts Evangelion, is the misogyny of Shinji left uncriticized in the end or not, and how does this affect your love for the series (given you still love it a lot despite whatever issues Anno has)?

I've heard about this, and I don't doubt it but also from what I know, most of this is all basically hearsay. There's no primary source that I'm aware of, just third parties saying "Miyamura said XYZ at a con in 2006" or "Miyamura said ABC in an interview in 2012," and so on. So, I care, but I don't, if that makes sense. However, I think it's equally true that where there's smoke, there's fire. In conclusion, I don't doubt that Anno is predatory and abusive, but I don't feel comfortable citing the same specific instances that people tend to, because it's mostly all second or third hand information. That, and I'm not sure that it changes anything materially speaking. You'd have to be spectacularly naive to believe that some man you've never met is respectful towards women and his subordinates.

I am involved in other fandoms where absolute bombshells of abuse allegations have dropped, and those have always had a primary source attached. Somebody coming forward to tell their story, somebody pointing out something wack that was said in an interview, and so on. There's a difference between "I heard that so and so said 123" and "Graham Coxon raped me at Leeds in 2005." And if we're talking about anime, we also have to mention that there is a primary source allegation against Ikuhara -- a woman claimed that he creeped on her at a con when she was 15. Not to mention that he also conducted interviews in Akio cosplay back in the 90s, which is very suspect.

Does Anno's misogyny impact Evangelion? I mean, duh. Asuka and Rei never reconcile, the Rebuilds are full of scholcky fanservice that make the most egregious scenes in NGE look clinical in comparison. But the thing with Asuka and Rei ties into what I was talking about in my other answer, which is that, well, this is also just true to life?

I don't really care about Anno as a person. It's kind of futile to, since there's a dearth of English language writings on him and translations of his interviews, etc.

I think there is something to be said about how few women write about misogyny in this way. Women live misogyny, so writing and making art about it tends to be more draining than cathartic. I'm one of those weirdos for which that's not that case at all. I'm constantly writing about misogyny and abuse, not just on this blog, but in my original works, too.

No. I don't read a lot of eva analysis anymore simply because most people's takes are boring, unsubstantiated, or bigoted in some way. Thank you, though. I'm happy people are still finding that post and enjoying it.

"EoE’s scenes never felt like they genuinely confronted hard truths" if that's how you feel, then that's how you feel. Despite how it may seem, I write my analysis not to convince, but to fascinate.

"Given reports of Anno's conduct, I doubt tackling misogyny was his goal with Eva." Well, duh. I don't know of anybody claiming that he set out to address misogyny. But I would caution you away from speculating on what the intention of any creator is, it's just not a very fruitful lens of analysis 99% of the time. My concern is if a claim/theory/etc. is textual -- meaning, is there evidence within the text that supports it?

"Someone aware of his flaws but unwilling to grow past them" correct, that's Shinji's mindset for the entirety of the show and eoe. It should be said that there's a difference between how the narrative views something vs. how the characters view something.