Is there ever a reason given why exactly Gendo only brought Shinji into NERV on the literal day that the Angel was...

Is there ever a reason given why exactly Gendo only brought Shinji into NERV on the literal day that the Angel was attacking? Or why SEELE was okay with him having literally 0 operable pilots after Rei was injured and Unit-00 was out of commission?

>All you need to do is sit in the seat, we're not expecting anything more than that

Going by what Ritsuko said they were obviously planning on having Shinji get destroyed until his mind snapped and he went Berserk (Or maybe she really did expect someone with literally 0 training to be able to fight an Angel)... But why was that the plan exactly? Wasn't it far more likely he'd just go out there and get killed, which almost happened.

Asuka was trained most of her life to be an EVA pilot. Rei just the same. Yet Shinji was completely thrown into the role without a single word.

I'm not huge on the intricacies of the EVA lore, so I was just wondering, Is there ever a reason given?

Gendo can't really bear to be in the same room as Shinji due to being reminded of Yui, he's just good at hiding it due to being a stoic jackass.

It was Yui's soul in the Eva leading to the Synchro ratios being good and stuff . That's why they had him pilot. Which is a bit retarded but they weren't expecting the angel to be there so soon (I mean Gendo was I think but no one else)

Better chance for the eva to work if it was mother and child un the same eva

Because Gendo and Fuyutski actually counted on the Eva going berserk, what better way to get this than have the pilot completely desperate, disoriented and afraid, and 14, guaranteed panic attack.

Gendo never looks more smug than during episode 2, and as soon as unit 01 reactivates and goes berserk, Fuyutsuki basically says "k that's done, we won".

>there ever a reason given why exactly Gendo only brought Shinji into NERV on the literal day that the Angel was attacking?

Shinji would’ve said no if he tried training him before and phased out any other day, that day he had no choice.

>But why was that the plan exactly?
They knew it would work even if/ESPECIALLY if Shinji died. That’s his mom in there.

>Or why SEELE was okay with him having literally 0 operable pilots after Rei was injured and Unit-00 was out of commission?

See above. They couldn’t use anyone but Shinji for 01 and 00 obviously wasn’t viable.

>Gendo can't really bear to be in the same room as Shinji due to being reminded of Yui, he's just good at hiding it due to being a stoic jackass.

I guess, but he could have still brought Shinji around and had him train. He wouldn't have had to interact with him anymore than he did in the show. Honestly as an aside, it's ridiculous how bad Gendo is to Shinji, reminds him of his mother or not, you'd think he'd want to treasure the child he shared with the woman he loved... Obviously not.

I understand that it's Yui in 01, why she protects Shinji and why he's able to Synch well. I get all that, I'm just saying... Wouldn't every single part of the plan go better if Shinji had at least had SOME training, rather than just been thrown in wildly?

>Because Gendo and Fuyutski actually counted on the Eva going berserk, what better way to get this than have the pilot completely desperate, disoriented and afraid, and 14, guaranteed panic attack.

Yeah, that's basically my conclusion. But what I don't understand is WHY they wanted to rely on it going Berserk instead of having Shinji just beat it normally? There was a huge chance that Shinji could have simply been killed before it went Berserk and then hey, Gendo's entire plan for instrumentality falls apart.

I guess what I'm asking is, did they NEED it to go Berserk? Was there any advantage in that? Because it just seems like a pointless risk.

>Shinji would’ve said no if he tried training him before and phased out any other day, that day he had no choice.

Shinji, especially at that point of the series, is someone who just goes along with what he's told. He's especially desperate for any attention/affection from his father, there's no way he would have denied being trained. Unless the Eva rejected him like Unit-00 did with Rei, but they all knew that was incredibly unlikely to happen.

>They knew it would work even if/ESPECIALLY if Shinji died. That’s his mom in there.

And then Instrumentality fails because with Shinji dead no-one can pilot 01, and 01 is gonna throw an absolute bitch-fit at him. It'd be absolutely reckless and idiotic to throw away someone as valuable as Shinji to defeat one angel.

>See above. They couldn’t use anyone but Shinji for 01 and 00 obviously wasn’t viable.

Well yeah, but that strengthens my point about above.

But then they knew Asuka was the second child. They just hadn't found the fourth yet. So they had 0 Pilots until Shinji was onboard... Did they call for Shinji as soon as Rei was injured? That'd make sense at least, but I don't recall that being the case.

Either way, they should have brought over Asuka immediately.

> I guess what I'm asking is, did they NEED it to go Berserk? Was there any advantage in that? Because it just seems like a pointless risk.
Well before Shinji comes to NERV they only succeeded in activating unit 00 once and it went berserk.
They never successfully activated unit 01. But they knew it's easier to get a berserk Eva than a stable one. And from what they saw with unit 00, they probably (and rightly) figured that a berserk Eva would be unstoppable.
Actually everytime an eva goes berserk in the series he performs better than pilots (well not if your business is insurance) and has a seemingly unlimited amount of energy to spend even if the cable is cut.
So it's actually a pretty safe strategy to rely on the berserk as long as it happens against an angel

How do you know unit 00 went berserk before Shinji arrived?
And I think the unit/pilot going berserk is incredebly taxing to the pilot/eva, yet it's never shown in the series. If you regurarly went in fight&flee mode IRL, it would certainly affect you mentally. PTSD possibly.

I always assumed that they weren't sure when the angels would show up, and gendo didnt want shinji to participate
In the best case scenario, they would master the eva production / dummy plugs before the first angel show up, and trained pilots such as asuka or automated evas like the MPE Series would handle all angels.
But sachiel showed up, asuka was in the other side of the world, rei was hurt, so gendo had to call shinji.

when shinji arrives the streets are deserted because the angle is already on its way there, so it maybe appeared within the week and they called shinji in

they knew the robots could act independently because of the rei experiment so yes, maybe they were counting on yui and the robot to act independently to protect shinji

>How do you know unit 00 went berserk before Shinji arrived?
Well they explain it at lengths in the firstd episodes, that's how Rei was injured in the first place.
Sure berserk is probably damaging to the pilots, but their well being isn't really shown to be one of NERV's concerns, on the contrary. See how quickly they're ready to discard Asuka when her synch rate goes down. They're clearly not interested in build a cohesive team of elite pilots, they see them as quite expendable actually.

>How do you know unit 00 went berserk before Shinji arrived?

Because Rei was injured?

>But sachiel showed up, asuka was in the other side of the world, rei was hurt, so gendo had to call shinji.

Feels like they should have called Asuka immediately.

And it makes 0 sense for Shinji to not be trained, even assuming Rei didn't get injured, there's no reason not to have a backup for her.

They even show when it happened, I think in Rei I (episode 5), you basically see the whole activation sequence, then unit 00 going berserk, and finally Gendo rushing to the plug and burning his hands and leaving his glasses and whatnot.

>Feels like they should have called Asuka immediately.
But unit 02 originally belongs to the UN ir Germany iirc, not NERV, that's how they justify it.

Why exactly is Rei injured but Shinji is not? Is it because of the soul in unit 00 is from a random scientist or something?

No, because they eject the plug inside and it falls down from like 30 meters high

And the soul in unit 00 is most likely Rei I

>Is there ever a reason given?
The reason is Anno being a hack.

Imagine activating the ejection seat of a fighter jet in 2 different situations:
>Outside, in the sky
>Inside the hangar
Rei was inside when her seat ejected.
Did you even watch the entire series?

can people be extracted from an evangelion's core?

> Cropping out what's probably the best part of the pic

I did like 5 years ago or something?
Trust me I'm an evangelion fan