Quote:We can't really know that for sure -- as Nathan points out, the symbolism is vague, and at least one fic author has interpreted it as Shinji being "cast out" because he disagreed with his father's view of paradise. Anyway, that's irrelevant to the story I am/will be telling.
It was Shinji's very personal decision to not be a part of the gestalt humanity that was third impact that brought him and presumably asuka back to individuality and the "real" world.
Quote:The thing is, even if she does love him (albeit in a bit of a big sisterly way, the kiss and the promise in EoE aside), she pushes a whole lot of wrong buttons with him -- her casual sexuality frightens him (even as it attracts him against his will), her slovenly habits and random crudeness disgust him, her drunkenness makes him pity her. It's likely that he never even realizes that her affection for him exists; if he does, he's too repulsed by her bad attributes to consider it worthwhile. He's too close to her to get close to her, if that makes any sense.
Shinji, for instance, genuinely does not feel loved and accepted until Kaworu--even the affection given him by Misato is useless to him, really. He certainly does not feel better b/c of her loving him.
In Doug, on the other hand, he will find a patient and encouraging teacher who actively solicits and considers Shinji's opinions, who grants him the respect and control that Shinji doesn't get elsewhere in his life, and has no hidden agenda that involves using Shinji as a tool. Upon discovering their roles as the Eva pilots, Doug dedicates considerable time and effort not only to improving their performance in a way that their NERV "training" never achieves, but on helping them grow as people. (Not always successfully, but at least he tries.) Furthermore, after a critical moment when the Children deduce certain information about Doug and confront him, he is absolutely honest with them about his origins and his abilities, and uses the latter to even further enhance their training. He will be about as unlike any adult in Tokyo-3 as you can get.
And in Shinji's case, that means unintentionally becoming a surrogate father figure. This means that all the potential that Misato might have had to help Shinji grow (but squandered or ignored) gets transferred to Doug. Doug's not exactly comfortable with this, but he does his best to live up to it.
Quote:Before going any further, let me say, yes, I know, they're all walking wounded -- and that's 75% of the problem. There's no one who isn't too wrapped up in their own angst to help them through their own. (Except maybe Maya, but she's not strong enough even to help Ritsuko, let alone the rest of the cast.) For a very small subset of the cast, Doug becomes the rock against which they can steady themselves long enough to stagger back to their feet, precisely because although he's got his own issues, they don't debilitate him and numb him to the problems of the people around him.
Misato herself is a bundle of self-loathing. Her litany of being "tired of being clean" and loving Kaji because ultimately he was just like her father shows that even she's not quite all there.
Quote:Guess where most of Doug's good-intentioned bungling hits first...
And Asuka . . . good god. She is far too messed up for anything to do much good for her.
Quote:No. I can't accept that. If that were true, there would be no point in psychiatry/psychology. Everyone would be predestined after a particular point in their lives, and nothing could be done to change that. I can't believe that, and I won't write that way. Everyone must have a chance for redemption, even Gendo, goddamn him. Just as a parallel, should I have nuked the entire Madigan subplot in DW2 just because her course was supposedly set and immutable? That fallacy is what brought us to Anno's ending, after all.
So, no matter what kind of advice and support doug tries to give them, they're all set on a course that started a long time ago for them.
-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.