Hi.
Once upon a time, a man named Daedalus created a wonderful contraption
that allowed himself and his son to escape imprisonment by the evil
(and perverted) King Minos of Crete. Everything went fine until his
son, Icarus, flew too high and the wings melted. The concept was good,
and most of it worked, but in the end, a crucial problem caused the
whole thing to go crashing unhappily into the ocean.
Much the same thing happens with this fic.
Let me make this clear at the outset: this is a *great* idea. I've
been looking for a good Eva-Matrix crossover, and this is certainly
the best offering along those lines. The fusion elements are mostly
(more about this later) seamless, and characterization for Shinji,
Gendo, Ritsuko, and Maya is all right on. What kills this story for me
are a couple of plot holes and one massive mischaracterization.
Let's start with the plot holes.
The first thing which struck me was the odd composition of the
still-human complement. Aoba is present, but Hyuga is not. No
explanation is given: this is just accepted as normal. The fact that
Makoto reappears in the final scene makes this even more confusing. Of
course, that's not the main problem.
My principal problem is the inclusion of Rei. No reason is given why
she is considered important enough to be de-LCL'd. This is troubling
because of all the reasons she shouldn't be. First of all, it's hard
to figure how she would have survived third impact. Second, her
existence can be nothing but a source of tension between Gendo,
Ritsuko, and Yui. Third, I'm not certain I'd trust her at all if I
were one of these people, given the fact that she *became* an angel
and the surviving humans seem to be aware that the angels are still
behind all the trouble. The only rational explanation is that there's
some need to have Eva pilots for this.
The obvious problem with such an explanation is that Asuka is (for no
apparent reason) not included in the survivor crew. In fact, she's not
really included in the story at all. She receives nothing in the way
of characterization, and we have no idea what she's been doing in the
sea o' goo for five years. This despite the fact that there are some
good reasons for pulling her out, especially from Gendo's point of
view. Though her attitude might be somewhat disruptive, it would
probably be on a comparable level with Misato. Also, Shinji would
probably trust her more than anyone else. Finally, Gendo has to be
aware of Shinji's feelings for Asuka, so it seems to me likely that
he'd pull her out of the sea o' goo in order to stabilize Shinji. In
the rewrite, I would definitely include her in the surviving crew. Of
course, this ruins the motivation for returning to the LCL. I'll get
to how you should fix that later.
Of course, the most glaring hole is this: just how the hell did these
people get out of the LCL in the first place? While Gendo would be a
sour grape for mankind to swallow, I doubt he's any less palatable to
the sea o' goo than Keel or your average neighborhood child molester.
So how'd he do it. Or was Ritsuko the first one out? This *needs* some
detailed explaining.
Minor notes:
I can't figure how Kaji's still alive at the end. He died a
significant period of time before Third Impact. So how did he end up
in the sea o' goo?
People now know that God has forsaken them. Christmas hardly seems the
most rational holiday to celebrate right after such a revelation.
So exactly how did everyone get de-LCL'd?
Exactly *why* is Nerv still around at the end?
What happened to SEELE?
How did the population of Japan drop?
Why does Shinji turn into a humpy-jungle engine of love?
Now I'm going to move on to my main point: the poor characterization
of Tabris/Kaoru, and how it hurts the fic. Now with the first you may
be tempted to just dismiss this as the rant of a Kaoru fan, but I
think you should hold on that thought until I've gotten through the
latter point.
Frankly, the idea of Kaoru now wanting to just kill Shinji makes no
sense. None. The obvious first complaint is that this characterization
is completely incongruous with Kaoru's behavior in the series. Perhaps
you believe that Kaoru was only acting in episode 24. I'd like to hear
some good evidence for that standpoint: I've never been able to come
by any. The bottom line is that in the end of episode 24 Kaoru admits
that he would prefer death to a life without Shinji, and so requests
that Shinji kill him. In other words, Kaoru loves Shinji. It really
doesn't matter whether you think it's a sexual matter or not; the
import of the situation is rather clear.
That doesn't rule out a change in character. If you put some strong
motivating force for him to change his mind about Shinji, then I'm
sure you could convince me that Kaoru now hates Shinji. But you don't.
Kaoru's main motivation for trying to destroy all of mankind appears
to be that he wants to do something more interesting than destroying
mankind. This is really too thin of a justification, especially given
the power of the emotion that Kaoru showed. You might point out that
this seemed to work as a justification for "Smith" in the Matrix.
That's true, but part of the reason it worked then was that it was so
*surprising* for a computer program to show an emotion (disgust).
Also, Smith's loathing of humans was actually developed, whereas in
this story Kaoru's is displayed as vague ramblings of racial
superiority--which is an extremely odd justification given that he
says (episode 24 again) that humanity should inherit the future and
not his kind, implying that mankind is superior.
You hint at another reason, of course: Kaoru now hates Shinji because
Kaoru has shed his human body and with it human emotions. Frankly,
this is even less convincing. Given that your fic is designed around
the primacy of soul over body, it seems obvious to me that Tabris'
body shouldn't matter. Additionally, the residence of all emotion
(especially love/hate) is supposed to be the soul, so again the body
is irrelevant. You might argue that Kaoru's affection for Shinji was
sexual in nature and therefore not resident in the soul. For my
refutation on this point, you can click on the picture of Tabris on
the front page of my website--suffice it to say I'll by that bridge
before I buy this (based on the series). Also, you've got Tabris
walking around in a human body the whole time, which flushes this
explanation down the toilet anyway.
The bottom line: this character resembles Kaoru/Tabris in that he has
pale skin, red eyes, and grey hair. Aside from that: jack. You may as
well call him Bobiel, angel of overused names.
How does this hurt your fic? Well, having an unconvincing villain is
always a problem. In this case, I find myself incapable of believing
that Kaoru would do any of the things he does. It hardly helps that
most of the lines he uses to try and sound evil or ominous are
hackneyed B-movie script, which makes him about as threating as a
Jigglypuff plushie. So he's psychologically unconvincing. This could
be saved if he were convincing on a physical level, but sadly that
cannot be. The reason "Smith" and his ilk in the Matrix could
convincingly act as villains was that they *looked* like the sort of
people you actually see at high-profile crime scenes directing the
action. In other words, the agents played off our own natural fears of
government workers in dark suits and glasses. Kaoru can't do that.
Also, he never had the kind of ominous screen presence that would make
him psychologically believable in that kind of role. He's not imposing
enough to make me believe that UN soldiers would obey his orders, or
that he could stare down SEELE.
So the gist of the problem is this: Kaoru's badly mischaracterized as
a villain, and not effective in that role either.
I would recommend that you change his position in the story. To do
this, use him as a kind of subversive force: an angel that has turned
against the forces creating the sea o' goo. Give him a role not unlike
that of the oracle in The Matrix--a kind of information-gatherer from
the inside. This suggests an obvious nexus for you to answer many of
the questions I mentioned up in plot holes:
Kaoru found himself imprisoned with humanity following Third
Impact--his punishment for betraying the angelic cause. Aware that
mankind would slowly vanish unless he did something, Kaoru went to
awaken the most resourceful person he knew of--Gendo Ikari--and expel
him from the LCL. By careful experimentation, the two of them figured
out how to withdraw others from the LCL. Kaoru resisted the idea of
removing Shinji (other Eva pilots were used to try and achieve the
same end without him, justifying the extraction of Asuka and Rei), not
wanting his friend to face more pain, but all projects came to a dead
end without the younger Ikari there to help. Once Shinji was removed,
Kaoru had a chance to study him (ulterior motive for LCL exercises).
Since the science of god is part spiritual and part hard science,
Kaoru had to figure out the former end before Gendo (using the latter)
could finalize plans to remove everyone from the LCL. When Kaoru
figured it out, it was necessary for Shinji to go in and see him
(instead of the Asuka visit). Delay was impossible because Kaoru
realized that some souls had already faded away and disappeared
entirely, becoming untretrievable (decreased population at end). Yui
(possibly Asuka too) is kidnapped via Rei's betrayal, and the story
proceeds from there.
For added poignancy, you could add to this plot angle the idea that
Kaoru's fate following Shinji's correction of Third Impact is
uncertain. Shinji therefore must consider killing his friend
again--permanently, and without any feelings of betrayal to salve his
conscience. Kaoru's ultimate fate could go either way, however you
choose to make the story go. Kaoru's death would help the story in
that Shinji and Asuka could grow closer in the aftermath as she helps
him grieve. Kaoru's survival offers less to the story, but might be
conducive to a happy ending.
But who is the villain? I think it would not be unreasonable to use
Keel in this case. First of all, End of Eva strongly implies that he
is an angel, and so it's fitting. Second, he already has the equipment
to become a psychologically believable villain--there's no problem in
suspending your disbelief if he orders UN soldiers around or beats up
on SEELE. As an added bonus, he already has his motivation for seeing
Third Impact through to completion in place, so you have only a little
development to do. Give him his youth back to improve his physical
believability, and you've got ready-made Villain (TM).
So that's how I feel about this story. Like I said, the concept is
great, and so (for the most part) is the execution. In a few critical
areas, however, characterization and plotting are too patchy for me to
really like this story as it stands.
Sparky
*********
"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."--Isaac Asimov
For Evangelion fanfiction and links visit Heaven's Gate
http://members.tripod.com/Sage_Ohlmin/evafic.htm
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