Ask John: Can You Explain the Meaning of Evangelion?

Question:
I’ve seen most of the Evangelion episodes, yet I do not know what they represent or mean. Could you please explain.

Answer:
Without going into extensive detail, Evangelion, and especially the final two TV episodes (which do provide an excellent conclusion if you understand the point of the show) are not about angels or giant robots. Evangelion is a very philosophical, very Japanese show in the regard that it’s about interpersonal relationships, the boundaries of the self and the essential nature of mankind. Consider that virtually every character in the series has somehow flawed or incomplete relationships, ranging from Shinji who’s lost his mother and has no connection to his father, to secondary characters like Maya who harbors an unfulfilled attraction to Ritsuko. Especially in Japanese society, in which social relations are highly formalized and intimate relationships are considered something that should remain private and out of the public eye, the characters of Evangelion represent both imperfect Japanese social interaction, and the ultimately limited social nature of humankind.

Based on the post-structuralist linguistic theories of thinkers including Ferdinand de Saussure and Jacques Derrida, language, and by extension, life and existance, are structured by relationships to other things. From this theory comes the signifier and signified. The “signifier” is an arbitrary “sound” or “word” used to identify a “signified,” a concept or thing. The signifier is totally arbitrary, and the signified has no meaning without its signifier. Essentially, to paraphrase and expand on Shakespeare, according to Saussure, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but we wouldn’t be able to comprehend the rose or the smell without signifiers to represent the relationship we comprehend between the “rose” and the “smell” and “ourselves.” Furthermore, “signs” and “signifiers” only exist and have meaning in contrast to other “signs” and “signifiers.” A tree is only a tree because it’s not a cat. And we recognize a tree only because our minds create the “sign” for “tree” instead of the “sign” for “cat.” This means that all existance is defined by opposition and rejection and the violence of separation.

How this relates to Eva comes in the Human Instrumentality Project. Humans are by nature limited because of the boundaries of our bodies and minds. It’s impossible for a human to completely know anything beyond the self because everything beyond the self is foreign and external. By reducing everyone back to the state of essentially plasma, the boundaries between humans would be destroyed, and humans could be “completed” and literally be one with all things. There would be no “you” or “me,” but rather a single “myself.” Furthermore, at the most fundmental level, existance must define itself by its separation from the “other.” Shinji represents a fear of this through his hesitation to fight. He symbolically doesn’t want to create separation between himself and what isn’t himself. Kaoru tries to explain to Shinji at the end of the TV series that he or Shinji must die in an effort to make Shinji understand that being limited and apart from everything that’s not the self is natural. At the conclusion of the Eva TV series, Shinji comes to an understanding and recognition that he’s not alone, and that violence, the violence of refusal and separation and categorization, is a natural and necessary element of human existance. He’s human, and by definition humans are individual and can never totally unite with anything external. He finally recognizes that, and accepts it and understands it. That’s why the cast congratulates him at the end of the TV series.

Keep in mind, though, that this is merely my own interpretation of the “meaning” of Evangelion. If you’d like to discuss or share your own analysis or interpretation of Eva, visit the AnimeNation Forum.