An important part of being a social commentator is engaging with good-faith arguments that challenge your positions on the topics you cover. That goes double for writers, since it’s storytellers who are the new priesthood of our narrative-driven society.
That is also why literary critics play a vital if often unsung role. If they want to master their craft and make as big an impact as possible, writers must strive to understand which aspects of craft work and why.
A short bug intriguing video that manages both tasks was brought to my attention recently. It comes to us from a YouTuber calling himself Pilgrims Pass, whose knowledge of Aristotle and Aquinas – along with his avi – suggest familiarity with the classic Christian view of art.
The video in question examines a series that’s become a favorite whipping boy in dissident artist quarters. The series is Neon Genesis Evangelion, and the opinion held by many in the new counterculture is that it is a superficial deconstruction of mecha anime – a bit of nihilistic sound and fury that deformed all its successors in the genre.
Pilgrims Pass forwards a carefully constructed argument that Eva’s reputation as a self-indulgent, postmodernist mess is undeserved – at least for the most part. That’s a tough sell in certain circles, but at minimum his presentation is internally consistent. And it deserves a fair hearing.
To summarize the argument put forth in the video, I will present the charges lodged against NGE and the corresponding verdicts in the form of a trial.
Charge 1: Eva is deconstructionist
The show’s critics often claim that NGE deconstructs the mecha genre by taking its tropes and subverting them. They point out that we’ve seen the unlikely teen hero chosen to save the world using a giant robot his super-scientist father built before. Except those previous times, the teen hero showed real heroism and saved the world. But NGE’s protagonist Shinji Ikari succumbs to his personal weakness and fails.
Verdict: Guilty (TV Ending), Not Guilty (Movie Ending)
This is the main thrust of the video, and it hits home.
Deconstruction is a linguistic approach that starts from the premise that a work either has no inherent meaning, or even if it does, the intrinsic limitations of language keep us from ever accessing it.
What Eva’s detractors overlook is that a hero trying and failing to achieve his goal isn’t a de facto deconstruction.
It’s a tragedy.
As the video points out, Achilles and Macbeth are two other characters who strive for greatness, only to let their vices get the better of them.
That doesn’t make the Iliad and Macbeth deconstructive. It just makes them tragedies.
The reason everybody missed this about NGE is that we’ve all been trained to think of tragedy as a storytelling form exclusive to ancient Greek plays – or maybe art house movies.
When we hear “tragic hero”, we’re conditioned to think of larger-than-life characters like Achilles or Oedipus. Because for multiple generations, the point of schooling has been to keep students from making connections based on their observations.
Yes, Achilles faced brutal tribal warfare, and Macbeth had to contend with cutthroat dynastic intrigue. Those were problems guys of their station had to deal with for real in their respective ages.
The fact that Shinji has to navigate the dissociated and transactive relationships of atomized post-Cold War society doesn’t mean he’s not a tragic hero. It means he’s a hero facing the tragedies of this age.
Are they less overt and rather less spectacular than the Trojan War or the Scottish succession? Yes, they are. And the fact that NGE director Hideaki Anno makes those small, personal tragedies so gripping is a testament to his masterwork’s quality.
… with one important caveat: As Aristotle teaches, a necessary ingredient for a tragic story is catharsis. We have to see the hero get a deserved and satisfactory comeuppance for his failure. Oedipus’ hubris leaves him blind. Macbeth’s unchecked ambition costs him everything. And at the end, both of them realize just how they got there and why.
Eva’s TV ending does not satisfy that condition. Shinji escapes the just consequences of his weakness without learning anything. Instead he gets the other characters’ unearned acceptance.
However, the TV ending was a rushed affair necessitated by funding cuts. And the balance of the evidence shows it’s not the ending that was intended.
The Death and Rebirth and End of Evangelion movies show the whole story. And they do meet Aristotle’s criteria for a satisfying tragedy. Shinji’s inability to overcome his weakness causes him to fail, he suffers the consequences of his failure, and he’s brought face-to-face with the reason why in an inescapable manner.
It’s worth noting that Shinji’s challenges and vices are those particular to Generation Y. He’s from a broken home, was raised to have a strict transactional view of relationships, suspects what’s going on but is tractable to a fault, and is incompetent, but only to the degree that his self-pity lulls him into learned helplessness.
And it’s his failure to conquer those vices that costs him his shot at greatness. Pure, black tar Gen Y haplessness.
Honorable mention to Asuka, who decides she’d rather stay home and play Sega Saturn than try to save the world. Because she’s not guaranteed she can win, so why try?
Charge 2: Eva is nihilistic
This charge often goes hand-in-hand with the prior accusation of deconstructionism. And indeed, sharper readers will discern right away that deconstruction is grounded in nihilism – either soft or hard, depending on whether texts have meaning we just can’t get to, or they have no meaning at all.
The criticism here goes that Shinji fails to make meaningful connections with his family, friends, classmates, and co-workers while also failing to stop Instrumentality. So the whole business turns out to be pointless in the end.
Verdict: Not Guilty
Because they proceed from the same foundational premise, acquitting Eva on charge 1 dictates acquittal on charge 2.
And the exoneration sticks even if we consider the TV run only. Because a nihilistic world is a place without truth. But the series’ clear critique of Shinji’s – and the other characters’ – faults presupposes a moral standard they’re not living up to.
Think about it. NGE would be altogether incoherent if Shinji was justified in despairing of ever being loved. Or if Gendo was right to neglect his son. Or if Asuka, Misato, and Ritsuko were vindicated for being careerist strivers.
“Shinji’s failure has a bad outcome” does not equal “Shinji’s efforts had no point.” Quite the contrary. The fact that his conflict had moral stakes disqualifies Eva as nihilistic.
Instead, Eva portrays an implicit but necessary standard of positive good, which presupposes truth.
And beauty.
Which brings us to …
Charge 3: Eva’s Christian symbolism is just superficial with no deeper significance
NGE’s critics allege that it’s no different than other anime which use crosses, angels, and halos as shorthand for “weird gaijin stuff” with no spiritual overtones. Think of dullards who get Chinee characters tattooed on their calves despite having no idea what they mean. That’s tantamount to how Anno depicted Christian imagery in Eva.
Verdict: Guilty (Sentence Satisfied by Time Served)
Yeah, it’s a matter of record that Anno didn’t read too deeply into Christian theology when directing Eva.
But he did study psychology, with its Oedipus and Elektra complexes and narcissism. Understanding those disorders requires at least some knowledge of Greek storytelling.
And as classical theists will point out, the Greek myths helped pave the way for the fulness of Christian revelation. Think of them as fragmentary jigsaw puzzles that Christianity provided the missing pieces to complete.
Even St. Paul suggested as much.
We must also consider the nature of symbolism. Late Moderns are conditioned to dismiss symbols as superficial signs. But by doing that, some of the same folks who accuse NGE of being deconstructionist use deconstructionism to discount its symbolism as just skin deep.
Christian theology holds that symbols are more than mere signs. A symbol does more than point to the higher reality it’s associated with. In some mysterious way, it makes that reality manifest.
That might sound like a stretch, but if you’ve been following my posts on diabolical influence and Satanism in the modern world, you know that the enemy puts stock in the power of symbols. Enough to liberally salt their narratives with Luciferian symbols.
Now consider how much more powerful Christian symbols that manifest Truth, Goodness, and Beauty are.
Sure, Anno may have adorned Eva with Christian symbols as an aesthetic choice. It’s likely that he did.
But his intent – at least to the extent it wasn’t to reject those symbols’ meaning – didn’t obscure or thwart that meaning.
Pilgrims Pass cites Eva’s accidental Christian influence as one reason for its enduring popularity. And I think he’s onto something.
If we, as writers, think the Cross can turn vampires in fiction – not due to the faith of the one holding it, but due to its inherent symbolic power – we should believe it can turn hearts in real life.
In hoc signo vinces …
Its superficial but honest embrace of Christian symbolism is one reason Eva has stood the test of time while so many of its imitators lie forgotten.
Addendum: Discernment of Nihilism
Here’s the surefire way to tell nihilism from tragedy: closed character arcs.
- Unhappy ending, but the character completes his arc? Tragedy
- Unhappy ending, but the character’s arc is left unclosed? Nihilism
The above is why stories like A Game of Thrones, Lost, and Attack on Titan are so unsatisfying. They open a character arc, tease you with the promise of closure, then kill off the character in question or just stop his story without cathartic resolution. And like trashy soap operas, they switch to another open character arc which will itself never be fulfilled. Wash, rinse, repeat.
For a thrilling mech saga built on Christian morality with relatable characters who get complete arcs, read my hit military thriller.
