Can you help me understand the ending?

[XrBob]

I just finished watching the series 1-26 then the end of evangelion. The original 25 and 26 I kinda wanna say never happened and I like to pretend that they don't exist in canon and was just him screwing with us or something.

Now at the end of the series we see unit 01 blast off into space after she jumped out of the big huge lilith thing. Shinji is with a dead or dying Asuka. What is her official last words? The one I watched she said "how disgusting", though I've seen on line it's supposed to be "I feel sick". Earlier we see the Nerv staff get absorbed into the LCL orange blood stuff (tang?). It looks like all the souls of the earth are absorbed into lilith, but does lilith die, or release the souls? I think it was said that if they choose to the souls can return to earth.

It appears the Shinji and Asuka are the last two people on earth, with the world left in ruin, flooded by LCL, which I guess came from the exploding Lilith? And didn't Asuka die earlier? I liked the series, it was interesting, had some good moments, I just have no idea what to make of the ending.

Also, I guess this is related, but what about the instrumentality project? Is it some sort of rapture into a hivemind of serene contentment that never changes?

[MeAndMyFriends]

I wish they had a "Spoiler" button that would hide text until someone clicked on it.

While the author of Shin Ski had a certain ending in mind and what it meant- with a plethora of these artsy-psychological animes, it's hard to tell. I would say self realization. That seems to be the underlying theme throughout the series. That isn't to be taken out of context though. The whole picture, I believe, is that we exist within ourselves differently from how we exist in others. As we continuously evolve and mature, who we are to others manifests creating a more whole unit. This, moksha/nirvana, shouldn't have happened for Shinji so early in my opinion.

[Aranneas]

 

The LCL which was in Lilith, and now covers the planet's surface, is a medium containing the consciousness ('souls?') of every single human being alive at that point in time. This was the intended result of the Instrumentality Project: to break down all barriers to human communication and allow a single entity with all of humanity's will and intellect behind it to be formed. NERV was trying to create God - in the context of the anime, synonymous with heaven/paradise: a planet without human conflict, without any barriers to understanding the heart of another person. The only thing that didn't go according to their plan was that Rei chose Shinji over Gendo.

Gendo was, in the original plan, supposed to be the 'I' of that being, the self-identifying figure that brought everything together. He could then utilize humanity as an instrument of his desire, basically an immortal supercomputer, to accomplish whatever his next goal was - which was never directly revealed to us, the viewers. Instead, Shinji got the opportunity - and rejected the thought of giving himself over so completely, of having his deepest emotions laid bare before Gendo, Rei, and everyone else. All the physical requisites of a human body are present in the LCL: all that's necessary to become oneself again is to remember the fact that one is an individual, that one had a physical form at some point, and to want to be that person again. All that while in the midst of several billion other souls crowding around you with no barrier to communication, nothing that lets you hold yourself as being 'apart' from anyone else.

So, in the end, we have: Asuka, who was never had the opportunity to join this 'heaven'; Shinji, who chose to live his own life; and everyone else, swimming about in free association. And the Evas. We don't know how far the breakdown of self goes, so we don't know how likely it is that people will ever form out of the 'soup'; or how many, or when. Asuka and Shinji are unlikely to overcome their emotional and psychological scarring, never mind their damaged social relationship, to find the drive to reproduce. Regardless, a self-sustaining human population in terms of genetic variation would require a number in the tens of thousands to manifest at one point in time. However, the individuals suspended in LCL are effectively speaking immortal, requiring no external source of energy to continue their existence. The most likely epilogue to humanity: over the course of however many millions of years, small segments of the population 'remember' themselves, emerge from the seas, and set out to make their existence; form societies which last for decades, centuries, or millenia; and either evolve or, more likely, die out. This continues until either the population reserve is exhausted or the sun goes out.

Barring alien intervention on recognition of the Evas.

[Ninjatroxx]

first of all, you need a lessened burden / , after you've frelled up your head enough to remember a few things at the time,
u bring a notepad and take notes of what they say.

after that, apply directly to facebook gl

[Bloodpatternblue]

I think the ending is supposed to be different for every person who watched it, which i think is really cool! and ties in with the series, my take on it is two options...

One being an Adam and Eve scenerio:
The third Impact starts and all of humantiy is taken back to the primordial soup of exsistance, where eveything in humanity began. Shinji is then given the chance (As the pilot of Eva 1 'god himself' as Nerv and Seele have made it.) to choose on the direction humanity is now going to take. Do they stay together as one and never know or feel anything, living together never knowing where one person starts and another finishes? Or do they sperate their minds and bodies and in doing so being able to feel again whether that be happy or sad feelings. Shinji ends up deciding that all though feeling hurt and pain is crap it is also nesecary to feel in order to be happy. Thus Third Impact is stopped and we are brought back into beings. Shinji and Asuka are the only two (other then a vision of Rei) that are seen, Adam and Eve??

Another idea i had is quite the same, Shinji chooses to come back and although you only see Shinji and Asuka the others will come back in there own time as they work through their own minds in the third impact.

Like i said its all up to how you decide it ends, pretty cool!

[Clayton_n]

This should explain it all

[Allan53]

I discussed this with some philosophy-studying friends of mine, and we came to the following conclusion: it means what you want it to mean, probably no inherent meaning to itself, which would be in line with the whole existentialist theme it has running through it.

[sl33pyt1m3]

Personally I loved the original last two episodes and see them as cannon, but I can understand why people would dislike them.
Anyway, from what I see in the ending, what happens is that Shinji begins to speak to himself, Rei isn't actually there, neither is Asuka in that small segment, it's all in his head. What's happening is that Shinji is reflecting about his life, and people and comes to the realization that he isn't the only one in the world with problems, that many others suffer from the same pain as he does. So he rejects the perfect world and opts for the real world because the feelings of happiness and acceptance he felt were "real" rather than just going into a nirvana state where happiness is the only feeling.
Now at the end, I believe the reason behind Shinji attacking Asuka is due to the shame he feels over what he has done, he realizes the magnitude of his decisions (both in the real world and spiritual, meaning isolating himself from people wanting to help him) and he momentarily lapses back into a state of self hate. He doesn't want Asuka to see what he is and tries to "spare" her from his mistakes. The touch is what really has me confused, why he stops because of it. I thinks it's because Shinji realizes that Asuka loves him despite his flaws, and when he learns that he almost erased the only person left willing to stay with him he is overcome with guilt and breaks down, knowing that Asuka has seen everything he is. The last line "how disgusting" probably is Asuka speaking about Shinji's behaviour, his weakness and the mistake he made, which is to kill everyone.

[rebirthoflife]

I like to look at the ending as the recreation of the world. In the ending shinji amuses the role of adem ans asuka is eve when shinji is talking rei is actually a interpretation of his mother speaking to him in the before he is borne so he choses to be borne what's why he is on the beaches with asuka and the reason liliths face is cut in half in the sea of lcl which has everyones soul in it is because Lilith cast aside her previous forms and enters unit 01 which sits above the world looking down as god from space which is represents heaven so in the end the world is reverted back to the garden of eve with god whaching over his children.