MODELS OF XVI - ABOUT THREE IDEAL TYPES

ALEXANDRE HAÏOUN-PERDRIX - Writer, 3rd Year, Philosophy

"13/08, the eighth of Undecimber; a great day, since it is the position of that wonderful episode."

Warning: Although this article would hardly be considered as a real spoiler, it is precisely hard to read without having seen (or read) the 16th episode of Neon Genesis Evangelion. Watching it right before, right after or while reading it, albeit not necessary, is politely advised.

Neon Genesis Evangelion is more than often presented – sometimes sincerely, sometimes in a caricatural manner – as a series trying to make a philosophical or psychological use of its 26 episodes. One may therefore ask, why to select the 16th of them rather than any other. Which question is easy to answer: its very specific action is such that it illustrates maybe at best a crucial, albeit paradoxically also only possible, gradation between the three initial “children” – that is, our protagonists. Whereof gradation the subject is not easy to express, but might be assimilated to their main desires, or rather even the core of their ethics – the way they act, almost the way they “exist”. This gradation, it is unexpected, does not have Rei and Asuka as its extreme points with Shinji at the middle, but Rei between Asuka and Shinji. The first of them to be approached will be the last named, for being the “true” protagonist of Evangelion, he is the one with whom the series spends most of its time, and to whom more happens – especially in that 16th episode, in which he stays absolutely cut off from the rest of the characters and the whole world, in a situation of panic which rapidly (… as always in Evangelion) turns out to be an opportunity for the character to think – and especially about himself.

The Shinjian modus is at the end of this gradation because it its the most open to the “outside world” – meaning Shinji’s outside world, which is made up, above all, of persons. On the one hand, the Asukan modus is concerned with its sole person as an objective – which does not mean a Machiavellian picture in which all the others have no reason to be but to be used, but a much more complex and emotional scheme in which the instance of judgement regarding success and goals is the inner self, influenced and shaped by the outside as it may still be. It is important to remember that this Asukan modus is the way Miss Langley herself puts it, not necessarily the way she really thinks, feels and behaves – much closer to the Shinjian modus than she would willingly admit. On the other side, that instance is to be found at least partly elsewhere: for Rei, it is one person, Ikari Gendô – whose judgements and goals are almost automatically adopted by Rei; for Shinji, it is “the whole world”. That stance has two possible meanings, which fortunately happen to be here both true: he is desiring to be complimented, reassured by others as a whole or at least by one (for others are the world, or at least the part of the world which is able to approve or reject your person and actions). When he gets trapped, which occupies most of the episode, his words are not: “why am I not able to go out?” but “why does it refuse to open?”, “Open!”; not “Let me out of here”, but “Get me out of here”. Those “others” are summoned nominally (“Misato-San”, “Asuka”…), until he comes, desperate, to ask “Please, someone help me”. Shinji wants to be “one” by being one-among-the-others, one for the others. Very classically, he is because he is recognised as being – and he is what he is because he is recognised as such. Shining possibly less than Asuka does not prevent him – on the contrary! – to “belong to” the social fabric, for he shines for the others, and the others he ask to help him when he feels helpless.

On the very other end of the spectrum, the Asukan modus also deals with the will of being one, but by being One – that is, a “sufficient”, autonomous entity, not needing these others, able to solve situations on ist own – and better than the others, for the One is excellent. This modus means always chasing after that which “shines”, no matter what precisely it is; it might be more concerned with pride and superiority than with belonging and integration. As a certain Aizen put it, admiration is something utterly different from acceptance, if not its very contrary; and it is admiration that this modus seeks out. Thereby it is almost that of hybris: a permanent tension towards power or at least grandeur, and a real wrath against that which comes on ist way. Whether one “belongs” or not is interesting, however, but above all to the extent that it is a way to glitter: the logic behind is more that of a pyramid than that of a fabric, the idea to be cut off from which sometimes terrifies Shinji. Asuka on her side has already experienced the absolute severing of such bonds – much more harshly than it occurred between Shinji and his father, whose relation could at best be deemed as dampened, and cold when it does not get too hot. Having “understood” that relations are things one may too easily lose, she made her modus such that it would be looking after those things one does not share but “possesses” – that which may be grasped, she desires. Shining does not indeed only mean shining for the others, which is why Shinji does not despise at all such a possibility, but being the one who shines – a quality, an ability one acquires and demonstrates.

The Asukan modus however, in its pride and desire to grow and possess, confronts during that very sixteenth episode an hurdle much more impossible to overcome than the Shinjian modus. As our “main protagonist” is trapped, far from the sight and reach of the others, in a very Asukan moment, she expresses a bit of laughing contempt for that one who failed – but is got on her nerves by Rei, whose modus is almost impermeable to such demonstrations and who hardly agrees with the way Asuka behaves at that very moment.

The Reian modus is truly the most specific of the three, the most different from any other – while at the same time the middle point; for she does not want to exist thanks to the instance of judgement to which she refers, as Shinji almost does, and nevertheless abdicates everything on its behalf. That is why one should not be misled in understanding genuinely, almost naively these ways of being as merely quantitatively different. Qualitatively, they have almost nothin in common; and the nearest happen to be probably the two extremities. Rei does not indeed want to be “one” at all: she wants to act – that is, to abide by the orders of her instance, Ikari Gendô. Whereas Shinji and Asuka try to “be” something in their complex world, one by creating and reinforcing bonds with it, being part of it to the greatest possible extent, the other by dominating and relying as little as possible on it, Rei faces a world essentially constituted by Ikari and “gladly” – “willingly”, given how little the question of will is present in her case, would hardly be appropriate – obey its law.

These three modi are three ways to be in the world, and in multiple fashions: they deal with ethics (values, and actions – what guides them as well as how they should be performed), inclusion and identity. The Asukan modus is that of the ivory tower one builds – gleaming, solid and sufficient (one could almost say “self-being”); the Shinjian modus is that of a child who wants to help and be helped. One finds his salute in being “complete”, the other in being able to help and likely to be helped – and loved. The Reian modus is that of the devotee (or of a strange lover or very young child), whose actions have no meaning but themselves, for they do not need any further end: they are those which the instance has prescribed – the instance which loves and is loved.