Everything is Hideaki Anno’s, and he’s more than welcome to it! :P

I needed to get Neon Genesis Evangelion out of my system more than anything else. I don’t think anyone can watch it, and emerge completely undisturbed by it. ::shudders:: I also wanted to try and sort out exactly what we learnt about Rei and her purpose in the last, few episodes, because it’s very confusing and contradictory. I don’t guarantee its accuracy, but honestly I think that’s inevitable given the nature of the show. I also should say a lot of this is interpretation, both mine and Chiaki Konaka’s (a mangaka who draws quite obviously on NGE and makes its points more explicitly in his own work).

Otherwise, please don’t judge my sanity on this! I usually don’t write this sort of stuff, and I’ve since moved onto watching Rockman.EXE. ;)

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CASE 3: REI AYANAMI

For Kaze, who also knows that Rei rocks!

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Who are you?

I am Rei Ayanami.

Who are you?

I told you. I am Rei Ayanami.

Who are you?

If I must be precise, I am the third Rei Ayanami to exist. The first Rei was killed by Dr Akari in a fit of jealous rage when she was no more than a child. The second was destroyed in the explosion of Unit 00 when the sixteenth angel, Armisael, contaminated it.

The third and the last?

No. Two Reis came before me, and I am not sure how many will follow me when I am eliminated. Yet I know they exist. I used to hear them laughing sometimes in my dreams, but last week they wept and they have been silent ever since.

. . . Are you real?

I exist.

Is that enough to be real?

I exist in the minds of others too. That is what makes me real.

How?

Once, there was a psychologist called Johari. He said that all of us have four selves - there is the public self of which everyone is aware; the private self of which only we are aware; the self that only others can know, and the darkness at our core that no-one knows, except perhaps God.

Was he right?

Only partly. There are as many selves as there are people to know them. There is the Rei that exists for Shinji, the Rei that exists for Asuka, the Rei that exists for Gendo Ikari . . . . All these Reis are different, but they are all me. I exist as all of them, multiple and one.

Gendo Ikari. . . . Did he create you?

I am created by everyone I meet. My bonds with them create me, for love always creates. That is why God’s greatest act of divine love was an act of creation.

Why did he create you?

He says that man seeks to be one with God, and so man must create in his own image too. We are created to create.

Are you only an image? A hollow shell? A wind-up doll?

I have a soul.

An artificial one made of water and light.

I only know I dream of water and light. I used to dream of the others Rei laughing in a place of water and light, but they wept once and now they are silent.

. . . . In whose image are you made?

. . .

In whose image are you made, Rei?

. . . It does not matter, because you recreate me in your own image. I am your own self reflected, like a child walking down a hall of mirrors and seeing his face distorted into strange forms.

Stop protecting him! Tell me!

Creation is an act of divine love. When Lilith left paradise, Adam grew lonely and God formed Eve from his rib, so that she might stand by his side and be his wife.

I don’t understand . . . Wait . . . . I know your face. I remember it . . . . I . . . . No, no, he couldn’t have . . . Even for him, that’d be . . . .

My creation was an act of human love. He loved her, and she was taken unjustly from him. He decided to challenge God, and bring . . . .

Shut up! You’re lying! You’re not my mother!

Yes, you are right. I am not Yui Ikari. I am merely made in her image, merely made in his image of her image. I am an imperfect copy of his perfect love.

He created you . . . to love him?

No. He created me so that he might be one with her again.

One?

Just as the beginning and end are one.

One?

I am the beginning of the end, but I am also the end of the beginning. I am the one.

No.

Know.

No, you can’t be.

Know I can. Kaoru knew. He saw my purpose in life as clearly as he saw his own. His was to make you know love; mine is to let all people know it. I was created out of love by love to let people know love, to let them know that we are all and always one. Instrumentality.

But it’ll mean an end to everything . . . .

But the end is a beginning.

Rei, you’re weeping . . . .

I only want an end.

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OWARI?

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