Everything About NEON GENESIS EVANGELION

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Evangelion Tropes and Idioms [ B ]

GUYS : Read it of you have time .. ^^ It's interesting ..

NOTE : Tropes are devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members' minds and expectations. On the whole, tropes are not clichés. The word clichéd means "stereotyped and trite". In other words, dull and uninteresting. We are not looking for dull and uninteresting entries. We are here to recognize tropes and play with them, not to make fun of them.

[ the following bold words are clickable dude .. per click is free , no need to worry .. ^^ ]

Badass Beard (Gendou)
Badass Decay (Manga Gendou makes for a debatable case, as he's much more emo and pathetic compared to his anime version but also much more cynical, cruel and insane. The same charge has been laid over his confession that he's a pile of self-hate with a social phobia in The End. Might also count as Villain Decay. Some view Asuka's descent into madness as Badass Decay too, as she was established as an incredibly assertive and combative character but is (also) one of the show's biggest Woobies.)
Baka (Part of Asuka's catchphrase. According to her, Shinji, Kensuke and Touji are also the "stupid trio.")
Bandage Babe (Rei, to an outrageous degree. Also happens to Misato and Asuka, who suffers from similar wounds as Rei's in The End.)
Beauty Is Never Tarnished (Borderline aversion with Misato. She has serious scars, but considering their placement on her chest, most of the characters never get to see them, and the audience doesn't see them much either.)
Because Destiny Says So (According to the Dead Sea Scrolls. There is, however, an interesting interplay between destiny and human will.)
Beginners Luck (Shinji, subverted in several ways.)
Best Beer Ever (Misato.)
Berserk Button (Shinji's button is pressed in Rebuild 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance when Rei is devoured by Zeruel, and Shinji decides to take a page from Kamina and rips the angel to pieces with glowing eyes of rage to save her. A Crowning Moment of Awesome ensues but is Subverted in that it's still a desperate, universally suicidal action akin to End of Evangelion. After "killing" Asuka, Shinji had already fallen into a state of apathy where he said he longer cared about anyone else until watching what he had left, Rei be eaten in front of him. Pushes him into a state of desperation similar to EOE where he doesn’t care about dying or destroying the world if he’s going to be alone.
- Not to mention that as an ultimate act of irony, he is actually playing right into Gendou's hands.
- In the TV series in Episode 03 and 24. Then, in the End of Evangelion.
Beware The Nice Ones (When Shinji is driven over the edge, horror ensues for Angels, Asuka, and possibly for Gendou.)
Be Yourself (Played in a straight but horrifyingly cynical way.)
Big Damn Heroes (Shinji in episode 19 when the Angel Of The Week is trashing Central Dogma and suddenly Unit One crashes through the wall and Shinji kicks arse! Whatever else he does in the series, just this once he gets to be the hero.)
Bilingual Bonus (Many. For example, the last episode is titled "The Beast That Shouted "I" at the Centre of the World." The fact that "I" is pronounced the same way as "ai," the Japanese word for "love," triggers a second meaning. "The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World" is a classic science fiction story (and also the title of an anthology) by Harlan Ellison.)
Bishonen (Multiple, most notably Kaworu. Shinji's level of bishie-ness (or non-bishie-ness) is very polarizing in the fandom, although Sadamoto wrote that he designed Shinji to be a delicate/vulnerable-looking bishonen.)
Bittersweet Ending (Episode 24. The Angels are gone and mankind is safe... but Tokyo-3 has been ruined, Kaji is dead; Touji is a cripple; Kensuke, Hikari, and their families have moved away, taking Pen-Pen with them; Asuka is catatonic; Ritsuko is in prison; Misato is a nervous wreck; Rei is no longer the person everyone knew; and Shinji is utterly psychologically broken after having to kill the only person who has offered him unconditional love in the whole series.)
- Don't worry! It Gets Worse!
Black Box (The Angels are described this way by the scientists "not in the know"; they also complain about how dangerous using the S2 organ is, since they know nothing about it.)
Blood Knight (Mari in Rebuild of Evangelion 2.0. By God, Mari.)
Blue With Shock (Several instances.)
Book Ends (The bookend Reis, one in the first episode and the other in the movie.)
Body Horror (Arguably evoked by Bardiel and Armisael's infectious attacks, and by Gendou having the embryonic Adam grafted to his hand. Also, arguably the situation for the human souls attached to the Evas. This might even qualify as And I Must Scream.)
Bottle Fairy (Misato.)
Brand X (See Shout Out entry below.)
Break The Cutie (Every last character you found the faintest bit sympathetic, in End of Evangelion, and several other instances that begin much earlier. Shinji and Asuka (especially Shinji) embody this trope.)
Breaking The Fourth Wall (Both the original ending and Evangelion: Death include visual references to a theatre stage. The End of Evangelionhas a live-action sequence, which includes live-action equivalents of several of the characters. The latter is even described as being a "dream" and "not Shinji's reality," hence the postmodern overtones of the movie.)
- Before the live-action sequence, a young Shinji is shown building a sand castle of the GeoFront...and then the camera backs up and shows that he's under stage lighting.
Bridge Bunnies (Subverted; two of them are male)
But Not Too Foreign ((Asuka is part-Japanese, part-German and part-American.)
Butt Monkey (Shinji, played straight at first then subverted in that what happens to him is more horrific than funny.)
Cannot Spit It Out: A central theme of the series is that characters cannot admit their deeper feelings for one another, and / or cannot find the find the right way to comfort those they care about. So many examples, it's almost easier to list the aversions, and even the aversions tend to have a tragic cast to them.
- While Asuka has no problem letting everyone, including Kaji, know the depths of her feelings for Kaji, she often does this precisely as a way of deflecting attention from her developing feelings for Shinji. Simultantously an aversion and an example.
- Another exception: Kaworu, who is the final angel, is the only character in the whole series (and possibly the only person in-universe since the death of Yui) who expresses love to Shinji in so many words.

Labels: Tropes and Idioms : B

Posted @ [10:35 AM]