Golan's Dialogues #2

Towards a Geotraumatic understanding of Neon Genesis Evangelion

Golan and Anonymous (anonimity upon request of the other party)

[[Golan]]: [sent a meme]

[[Anonymous]]: Lol yeah, all the philosophical musing about depression and meaning was just to say teens should off themselves.

[[G]]: The other hidden message is that if we all turn [in]to orange juice, we happy [sic!].

[[A]]: Precisely. Retvrn to OJ.

[[G]]: Return to the BwO.

[[A]]: [sent a GIF]

[[G]]: Now I realize that those red LCL oceans could be a reference to the sea turned to blood from the Book of Revelation.

[[A]]: Hmmm, I'm not all that familiar with the Bible to be honest; But that wouldn't at all be out of place for Evangelion.

[[G]]: Evangelion already uses a lot of Judeo-Christian-Kabbalistic symbolism.

[[A]]: Yeah, exactly. It's funny because I've heard that they used the cross imagery mainly because it looked cool. Don't know how true that is. And they're not wrong: it does look cool.

[[G]]: A wise man once said "Eva is to Judaism and Christianity what Marvel and DC are to ancient European pagan mythologies.".

[[A]]: Lol I can see it. Dare I say, they did a better job than Marvel and DC.

[[G]]: Now I am aware that Anno said Eva does not have any deeper religious meaning. This does not mean that the symbolism used is irrelevant or void of meaning.

[[A]]: I mean, I can imagine that they didn't really intend some religious takeaway, but regardless of what they say these ideas are all interrelated. Religion tends towards the existential much of the time.

[[G]]: Hell, the Bible has a whole book about that: Job.

[[A]]: Lol, true. I think this is something that people have been reckoning with since consciousness existed. It's particularly acute nowadays since we have the time and knowledge to reckon with it. Anyway, in regards to Evangelion, its discussion of meaning and depression and existence and so on are all religious themes, even if not necessarily intended as such, and the inverse is true as well. While they may not have meant it as a religious epic, I think that element is there all the same, even outside of the obvious symbolism and what have you.

[[G]]: I greatly appreciated it as an Orthodox Christian.

[[A]]: Are you still religious, or do you mean you were Christian at the time?

[[G]]: I am still an Orthodox Christian.

[[A]]: Gotcha, was just curious. I can see how Eva might resonate with someone religious for reasons discussed above.

[[G]]: And the use of archetypes in Eva is also very clever. Rei for instance embodies both the archetypes of the Mother and of the Daughter depending on the context. And she literally is the soul of Lilith, which in the lore is basically the mother of all life on earth.

[[A]]: True, and that's an obvious source of distress for herself and others. And the obvious insanity of her being a strange clone of Shinji's mother. Every time I think about the lore for that series I'm kind of confounded. It's the sort of thing where the scope and detail is hard to fully grasp at once. I really should give it a rewatch. I think at the time it didn't quite resonate because in my head, I'd already reckoned with a lot of the problems it addressed. Now things have gotten worse and it might take on new meaning...

[[G]]: I believe there is an entire Geotraumatic analysis to be made of Evangelion. I seriously consider writing something in this vein.

[[A]]: Go for it. It'd be neat to see. Geotraumatic in what way? I'm familiar with the idea but how does it connect to Eva?

[[G]]: Well, the way in which it all traces back to that Ancestral Race and the seeds of life that came upon the earth. And during the Second Impact, we see it [the Geo-Cosmic aspect] in full display as it had caused the Earth's axis to become upright again, ending the season, melting the Antarctic ice cap and so on. And [also] the nuclear war between India and Pakistan [the geopolitical aspect] from the lore.

[[A]]: True. I could also see the return to LCL (the primordial soup) as a sort of evolutionary "regression" back to more elementary particles. LCL is "conscious" to some bizarre degree, but it's arguably closer to a primordial state than individualized humans. Rise from elementary particles to individuated beings, then return to an amorphous hodge-podge.

[[G]]: LCL is quite literally the Body-without-Organs.

[[A]]: The interesting part is, in Evangelion LCL was presented in a sort of negative light--the rejection of humanity for some effortless bliss devoid of meaning--but D+G talked about the BwO in a much more positive light than that. It makes me wonder about the concept. Perhaps being completely "unmarked" and "liberated" isn't all it's cracked up to be... I mean, Land and others have elaborated on that concept in more dubious ways as well.

[[G]]: AFAIK, D+G distinguished between different types of BwOs. Though I don't know enough about this...

[[A]]: I see. Are you saying that what the LCL represents might be a different type than what I was thinking of?

[[G]]: I'm not exactly sure [as I said].

[[A]]: I've only read Anti-Oedipus, not A Thousand Plateaus, so I'm sure there's more about this for me to learn. Although honestly Anti-Oedipus was brutal to get through. I'm not sure I could do it again.

[[G]]: LCL is what happens when the AT fields of beings is dissolved IIRC, right?

[[A]]: Something like that, yeah. These energy fields that render people individuated. I'm not sure how literally that was meant to be taken; it's obviously metaphorical to some degree, of the separations between beings.

[[G]]: That's what I wanted to say. The AT field is the ego. The semiotic territory that is.

[[A]]: Yeah, and LCL is egoless, which also removes individuality entirely... which arguably makes life meaningless, hence why Shinji ended up rejecting it in the end.

[[G]]: Quite literally meaningless. There is only [we can only speak of] meaning inside of signification. LCL is something pre-symbolic, a part of the Real.

[[A]]: What exactly do you mean by this?

[[G]]: LCL negates the symbolic territory of the ego, rendering consciousness in a united orange blob. It is what came before signification, before the indivifuation of each living being.

[[A]]: Right, I think I see what you're getting at. I'm curious how the Rebuilds factor into this. I never bothered with them since I didn't feel the need for more Eva after End of Evangelion.

[[G]]: Shinji and Asuka's embrace of the ego, of signification despite its limitations and incompleteness, could be seen as a life-affirming act.

[[A]]: Yeah, rather than retreating to a totally disembodied, unified state. I mean, the obvious, grim comparison would be the notion of suicide. A lot of rhetoric surrounding suicide is that a void existence (or simple nonexistence) would be better than a negative existence, which is clearly something Evangelion was grappling with--no struggling, no separation. But that's also simply rejecting the merit of living as well, despite the difficulties of doing so, for a nonexistence that isn't really worth a damn anyway.

[[G]]: It was also the movement to the post-symbolic [[ERROR]]. No longer trying to cope with it, but embracing it and forming a new way of self-situation.

[[END OF SESSION.]]
[[REALIZATION. OPENING LINE-OF-FLIGHT.]]

[[G]]: Wait a minute. Perhaps not the post-symbolic, but rather the END-OF-ANALYSIS.

[[A]]: What do you mean? TBH some of that is lost on me. I know a thing or two but I'm hardly well-versed.

[[G]]: In Lacanian psychoanalysis, the end-of-analysis represents the moment when the analysand achieves a true speech regarding their desire.

[As you can see, I am effectively collapsing the end-of-analysis with the aim-of-analysis. To me, they are one and the same.]

[[A]]: I see. So in your eyes, Shinji and Asuka moving past all of that is a greater statement of truth that terminates analysis of it.

[[G]]: And the Rebuilds also tie into this but I am not going to give spoilers for it.

[[A]]: Would you say they're worth watching?

[[G]]: Yes.

[[A]]: Maybe I'll give them a go, then.

[[THE END OF EVANGELION <---> THE END-OF-ANALYSIS]]

Epilogue

This conversation, together with my inquiry in Geotraumatics (refer to my notes on it), are meant to open up the way for a Geotraumatic analysis of Eva.