/lit/ - Literature

>>18904863
Try /x/

>>18904863
As far as I can tell the kabbalistic symbolism in Eva is mostly aesthetic but I'm no expert
However you can make a case for Eva borrowing from gnostic symbolism and themes, look it up on the archive, there was a discussion about this not too long ago

>>18904885
I've seen smatterings and it all makes sense, the problem is there are mountains of shitposters who keep posting an image where Anno says he chose the name ''Evangelion'' because it sounded cool and take that as ''none of the symbolism means anything'' so I'm looking for a counter shitpost image. I'll look in the archive though, thanks.

>>18904911
You should also look in the /a/ archive for the post from march or so (back when the 3.0+1.0 leaks happened and /a/ was going apeshit) that detail Anno's relationship to the CIA's financial backing of French postmodernist philosophers, it's interesting.

>>18904923
Never heard about that, I'll check it out.

"Interpreting" pop culture for vague allusions is retarded and the vast majority of pseuds like Anno and Lynch are just playing with surface level shit they got from skim reading a few new age books or taking half a philosophy 101 course in their youth

Breaking Bad is still just a shitty soap opera for men even if it has ALLUSIONS to Hamlet or the DUALITY OF MAN. You know what else has allusions to Hamlet? Hamlet

>>18904923
>the CIA's financial backing of French postmodernist philosophers
How stupid do you have to be to fall for that shitty bait?

>>18904935
good goy

>>18904863
Is there actually some kind of artistic merit to this show? Is it worth watching

>>18904929
filtered

>>18904863
Eva has more in common with tantric buddhism than western occultism

>>18904863
Anno had a phenomenological approach to his work. Stop being stupid and stop placing obsucre references to his shit. Art talks. Now stop being a faggot.

>>18904942
Explain. I see no vajrayana references in Eva at all

>>18904937
literally weeb GR

>>18904937
It is a hikki shitposting his Freudian harem fantasies (Gendou is Shinji) using a papering over of Freud (entering his mother’s vagina as/against his fathers will).

The show’s redeeming features are the gay sex and Ramiel (best girl). He ran out of budget so substituted art for giant robot fucking.

>>18904863
The symbolism in Evangelion was supposed to be cool, nothing more.

>>18904954
>>18904969
So why is it such a big deal on this site?

>>18904987
No, the religious symbolism is primarily used for its esotericism to give flavor to the events later on, but that doesn't mean there's no symbolism

>>18904998
Because it's literally weeb GR

>>18905003
>weeb GR
kek disturbingly on point

>>18904863
>explaining the eva religious references
hate to break it to you but that show basically did the equivalent of searching the Christianity wiki page and picking out names that sound the coolest. The references have next to no thematic content at all. There were several times in this last movie where I burst out laughing because of how stupid and out of place the references were.
If you want to actually watch a show that builds on religious themes and motiffs watch lost or the leftovers

>>18905064
>watch lost or the leftovers
gross do people literally think this?

>>18905089
Lost is absolute kino
Not because it is smart or deep, it's retarded, it's just kino setting and characters and le mystery

>>18904949
A lot of what happens just has a sort of buddhist feel to it even with the relatively speaking "exotic" use of western exoteric and esoteric terms. The "Angels" that get fought during the monster of the week phase of the show aren't actually representatives of an omnipotent creator god at all (God curiously doesn't exist at all, even with all the other references that should implicate him, e.g. Lilith, Adam, Dead Sea Scrolls; just never shows up), but are attracted to whatever NERV has in their basement. They are entirely controlled by desires and left as these sort of enigmatic abstract beings, but later revealed to be alternate evolutions of humanity, so cosmologically speaking they are like devas or asuras. The Angels are effectively wrathful deities coming to devour humanity, but humanity, by wielding the less abstract but demonic-looking Eva series as super-bodies is able to manifest AT fields in order to dissolve the Angels (and in some cases literally integrate them instead of being the other way around, being destroyed by them). After each deity is vanquished or conquered by the pilot, who is fulfilling a ritual manual he is not aware of, he is able to complete the Tree of Sephiroth (which functions as a kind of mandala) and thereafter enters into a sort of bodhisattva state of being able to manifest reality at will. But Shinji doesn't have any use for these godlike powers to rewrite the universe because he is too emotionally disturbed, lacks compassion, etc. He nihilistically tangs everyone because that's what he thought he wanted for himself and then applies it to everyone (In rebuild 4 he makes everyone into the cast and crew of his personal fantasy, which is a similar sort of selfish use of godlike powers attained through tantra). And so having reached the ability to end cyclical existence he decides to reside within it after all and rather than obliterate everyone returns them to the world to pursue their lives as he will be free to pursue his, because one is not liberated by fear; nirvana=samsara

>>18905107
a mystery they don't even competently try to resolve. Whereas the plot in Eva is tight as fuck lost on idiots who try to apply grade school analysis on its themes and symbolism

>>18905108
>God curiously doesn't exist at all
Well, there's https://evangelion.fandom.com/wiki/First_Ancestral_Race from which both Angels and humans originate.
The overarching themes of Eva go against some buddhist principles, namely that avoiding suffering is not good (nirvana = samsara is only a common view in Dzogchen and Mahamudra if I'm not mistaken)

>>18904863
What's your discord. I can message you my notes. I refuse to let /lit/ read my theology notes though. Limiting evangelion to Kabbalah when it includes esoteric Judaism with Christian theology is not fair.

>>18904944
Dubs. Also, best response on the whole thread.

>>18904863
My knowledge is limited but as far as I know, SEELE’s philosophy seems inspired by Gnosticism and different esoteric traditions: they reject the material realm and want to annihilate their ego to reach a state of Divine Unity. I know that the symbolism is definitely meaningful and useful to explain some elements of the lore but unfortunately, I don’t understand much of the Kabbalistic esoteric tradition. I know that according to Kabbalah, Adam Kadmon is basically a giant being of light and that’s exactly how Adam appears to be during the second impact.

>>18905154
You WILL post your theology notes here

>>18905162
Another point: according to some Jewish folk tale, Adam rejected Lilith because she would insist on riding him cowgirl style. Adam complained to God and He expelled her. God then created Eve for Adam. During Instrumentality, Rei - who’s supposed to be the vessel for Lilith’s soul - appears on top of Shinji. Shinji eventually “rejects” her and ends up with Asuka (who’s Eve, symbolically). Shinji and Asuka rejected instrumentality and thus, acquired a higher level of consciousness just like Adam and Eve when they bit the forbidden fruit.

>>18905162
>gnostics
>wanting to annihilate their ego
Please read about gnosticism. SEELE are the archetypal archontic slaves. Instrumentality is the exact opposite of what gnosticism stands for.

If you're a goy Kabbalah is inaccessible to you. The $10 books at Barnes and Noble are products for the consumption of wine aunts not the real thing. If you actually want to study Kabbalah you have to go study under a rabbi.

>>18905219
Just read the Sefer Yetzirah, primary sources aren't inaccessible. Kabbalah also isn't exclusively jewish, sources on Hermetic Qabalah have existed since the Renaissance
The only additional thing you're going to get from a rabbi is the whole "only jews have a divine spark, goyim have a spark of darkness that draws them to the Qliphoth instead" shit, so who cares

>>18905215
Oops, looks like I made a mistake. But please, tell us more.

>>18905145
>first ancestral race
That's more theosophy than western theology, but that fits with the overall mishmash of exotic sounding (to a Japanese) terminology used throughout the series
>Dzogchen and Mahamudra
Japan has its own indigenous tantra school (Shingon) that is not by way of Tibetan Vajrayana but India>China>Japan. But moreover all of these are Mahayana and the formulation samsara=nirvana is found in many of its foundational Indian works, e.g. Nagarjuna, Asanga, Vasubandhu. I think if Eva were a serious engagement with western occultism and not merely an appropriation of it by the pop culture of a Buddhist country it would have made sense for God to be encountered somewhere in the series, perhaps even antagonistically. But Shinji or the other pilots never meet the western God, they only enter into a womb or matrix realm which manifests their mothers, or whatever else they can load from their minds into it.

>>18905269
The goal of gnosticism is pure individuation (not in the jungian sense), separation of the individual from the world, there's no merging with anything, much less with any kind of monistic entity. Ego death and instrumentality is about the drop returning to the ocean, gnosticism is about the ocean getting swallowed by the drop.
iirc SEELE's instrumentality was about them becoming gods on Earth and ruling over the mass of undifferentiated souls in instrumentality, that's archontic. Gendo's instrumentality is harder to analyze because he didn't give a shit about anything else than meeting Yui. I don't know if a comparison with Sophia can be made here

>>18905133
>Deus ex Evangelion 3.0+1.0
right very tight plot

>>18905299
>deus ex purgatory

woaaaaaaah bro

>>18904936
Stick to /pol/ buddy

>>18905318
not your buddy, redditor golem

>>18905308
i never claim losts plot was tight retard

>>18904935
/pol/ stupid

>>18905339
yes you did

>>18905343
The CIA funding Foucault is widely documented, retard

>>18905351
youre talking to different people you brain dead eva fanboy

>>18905363
no, I'm talking to the guy who brought up lost

>>18904885
This. Anno admitted in several interviews that he never properly researched any of his references, took most of them for face value and just crammed everything into an anime. I have no problem with this because he's free to do what he wants, as an artist, but fans shouldn't get too invested in the philosophical or esoteric references of the series. Eva is good because it is a visual masterpiece. If you are interested in deep thoughts, read books.

>>18904969
bullshit

>>18905515
>Eva is good because it is a visual masterpiece
and musical and thematic
It's the way these three harmonize perfectly (the visuals, with the music, with the characters' struggles) that makes Eva special

I hadn’t watched Eva since like 2005 just watched Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0 on Amazon prime, it was okay but it just felt like End of Evangelion for commercialised consoomer pussies, I thought I’d watch EOE right after just to compare, it’s much better, ritualistic and scarier too, what happened?

>>18905753
The rebuilds were made specifically to fund Anno's new studio

>>18905285
Thanks.

>>18905515
>Anno admitted in several interviews that he never properly researched any of his references, took most of them for face value and just crammed everything into an anime.

What? No. He never did.

>>18905798
Ahh so literally just for money? Yeah I knew that, I was just wondering if there was any personal reason aside from that, because it just seems plot driven, even Shinji feels dry as fuck

>>18904863

>>18905753
FAR IN THE DISTAANCE

evangelion is for impotent trannies

>>18905941
That's why you like it ;)

>>18905162
>I can't stand people who run away, who refuse to face reality.
Retroactively refuted by Don Quixote (pbuh)

>>18905753
>it just felt like End of Evangelion for commercialised consoomer pussies
exactly my complaint with it. you can try to recreate the eoe angst and despondency, you can try to give everyone a happy end and send the audience home happy, but you can't do both. it reminded me of watching spamalot. the forms of the original are there. the ideas are missing.

>>18905843
anno shouldn't be taken completely literally when he mocks his own work like this but there's more than a little truth to it - he never cared about creating an internally consistent universe as long as it was dramatically compelling.

>>18905515
>>18905534
>Eva is good because it is a visual masterpiece
calm down is just a cartoon with deeper meanings in its storyline.

>>18905983
>Reading on the couch
>Decide to take a break and browse 4chan on my phone.
>Eva thread
>Reminds me of my youth when I impulsively read stuff
>Makes me feel bad I can't even get through Don Quixote without browsing 4chan
>Someone mentions Don Quixote
>Weird synchronicity feeling
>Take pic
>Realize random playing card bookmark I found after I started reading this book the first time a year ago is the 4 of clubs

Is this what schizophrenia feels like?

>>18904911
>chose the name ''Evangelion'' because it sounded cool
That's more or less the case, though. The religious symbolism definitely isn't random, but it's also not profound in any way. The show touches (and only touches) on some religious concepts and mythological details, but religion is not a focus of the series. It's more akin to "oh, that's a cool surface-level parallel to the religious source, neat that he chose to do it that way". Although the image is an exaggeration. Anno is very humble (in certain regards) and the names/tie-ins are way too tight at certain points to be as casually chosen as he implies. Mostly to be cool, but not just "has a nice ring to it, good enough".
>>18905064
Pretty much this, although the movies are mostly trash and are basically straw men of the original series.

>>18904937
It's one of the few "masterpiece" works I've encountered in my life. Religious symbolism is not the draw, but it's overt and sparks discussion because it's so prevalent. The show excels for its soundtrack, visual symbolism and storytelling, exceptional animation, complex characters, and captivating plot and setting. It isn't that long, go watch the 26 episodes and then the movie, The End of Evangelion. No need to bother with the recent Rebuild of Evangelion movie tetralogy.
>>18905534
Yes, it is extremely well-integrated on these fronts, which is all the more impressive given the intense production environment.

>>18904969
Cringe. It's also an untrue rumor that they ran out of budget, running out of time was more of an issue. They had to scrap an episode due to a terrorist attack, and it put them under constant crunch from then on.

>>18905753
A lot of things. Anno was a lot more hands-off and took much more of a producer role, so he was concerned primarily with the market success of the films, not with the artistic integrity. I think he also wanted them to be more "accessible", which is always a highway to hell.

>>18906076
He's right, though. You can reduce all art the way you just did, if you're so inclined. But that doesn't change the fact that Evangelion is head-and-shoulders above most visual media produced. The craftsmanship should be apparent to anyone sensitive to quality in what they consume; even if it isn't rocking the foundations of modern psychology or philosophy - but how often does anything do that?

>>18906115
>It's one of the few "masterpiece" works I've encountered in my life.
What are the others?

>abloo bloo I'm saderino ;-;
>also here's some sexually explicit teenage girls
There, I summed up Evangelion for you.

>>18906128
I'm using a definition here of being masterfully crafted, more than the sum of its parts, and competently getting across (what I take to be) the themes and author's intent. Maybe this stuff will come off midwit on this board, but what comes to mind would be:
>Visual media
Apocalypse Now
Memento
Synecdoche, New York
Eraserhead
Dr. Strangelove
Arrested Development (no message per se)
>/lit/ - I have a harder time remembering these
Lolita
Moby Dick
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Desert Solitaire
Catch-22
Frankenstein
The Brothers Karamazov
Watchmen
1984
Brave New World
>Games
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
Dwarf Fortress (no message per se)

>>18904987
>Cringe
I can see your erection for Ramiel.

>>18906207
You are going to be mocked for this post, prepare yourself

>>18906237
Oh I know, that's how it works on every board, but the sensitive egos are at their most trigger-happy here and on /sci/. I don't doubt that I'll change my own opinions on these choices as I experience more; everyone starts somewhere. But it's worth putting yourself out there if even 1 of the 10 mocking replies has some worthwhile criticism or insight in it. One must be comfortable being vulnerable sometimes.

>>18906207
>I share a board with people who watch Arrested Development and thinks Watchmen is a "masterpiece" of literature
When do we systematically exterminate the cultural sludge that are Americans?

>>18906351
what's wrong with Arrested Development?

>>18906373
I am tired of Earth. These people. I am tired of being caught in the tangle of their lives

>>18906373
>what's wrong with jewish sitcoms

>>18906399
Go away you humorless 20166igger

>>18906076
Ya and daicon is just some convention video

>>18906399
what, you don't like Seinfeld either?

>>18906207
Nice list

>>18906516
t. sub-crypto-jew neurotic effeminate faggot
>>18906526
No.

>>18905164
If you want a slight taste:
In the recent movie, the Lance of Longinus and the Lance of Cassius are contrasted as the Lance of Despair and the Lance of Hope.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calendar_Inscription_of_Priene
Caesar is described as "lord" and "savior" who brings "good news" (evangelion in Greek). Christ is also described with these words, contrasting Him with Caesar. Cassius is a Roman name. The idea of Longinus being despair is interesting since basically Jesus is dead at the point of being stabbed, whereas killing Caesar was a hopeful venture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaius_Cassius_Longinus
This dude was one of the leading plotters against Caesar. Thus, Shinji in 3.0 + 1.0 wields the Lance of Hope, Cassius, against Lance of Longinus, his lanced being named for the plotter that toppled a dictator. Similarly, considering Evangelion's Gnostic background, the idea of toppling the Demiurgos can be viewed as a sort of "toppling" of a dictator. Ironically both lances do the opposite long term: Christ resurrects and brings hope while the Roman empire faces decline through the years. We can then understand that WILLE [German for Will], the gnostic sect, is using the Lance of Cassius (Lance of Hope against Dictator which will bring Despair) to assassinate the Demiurgos, while rebelling against SEELE [German for Soul] which wields the Lance of Longinus (Lance of Despair against Deity which will lead to Hope). Shinji is the will attempting to triumph over a dictator, while Gendo is the soul attempting to triumph over [the true] God. WILLE is Man rising against SEELE as Demiurgos who is rising against God and His Angels.
I consider the Lance of Gaius [after the Lance of Cassius fails] to be the, once again, victory over the Demiurgos hence why Shinji is able to recreate reality at the end of 3.0 + 1.0. Why are there two anti-demiurgos lances? I do not know. Both lances pull their name from the Roman plotter, so perhaps it could be connected to the fact that many plotters and many weapons were used against Caesar. In the end it holds the same meaning as the Lance of Cassius in that it brings short term hope yet future despair. It places too much value on humanity's ability to take the right course. Man's WILLE still finds itself subordinate to Man's SEELE in the real world, and our emotions overpower our reason. Perhaps 3.0 + 1.0 has a happier end, but my experience with humanism is that it gives us too much credit.

>>18906713
That’s an extremely interesting analysis, anon. Congratulations!

>>18904935
its true but not for the reasons that poltard believes

>>18906207
milquetoast redditor