>>281643277
I deleted it after re-reading it and saying "you pompous pseudo-intellectual bullshit artist", but to summarise the main point I (think) I was making:
SIRP works so well as an alternate universe story because each character retains the nature of the original character. By which I mean the things that cause them to approach, react, and resolve events in the way that they do. Which is a huge challenge with spin-offs and AU's because you're placing the characters in circumstances other than that which made them.
We know in Evangelion that the characters paths can only lead them to the final scene of End of Evangelion. Like Fate or prophecy controlling characters in a Greek tragedy the very nature of who they are would inevitably lead to that, no tiny change on the part of one would alter what would happen. From the moment "Cruel Angel's Thesis" starts playing in episode 1 there was no event that ultimately would have shifted things to a different outcome.
But now we look at SIRP where so much of the universe has changed; so the characters should feel different, right? That's the thing, they don't Asuka has "The Asuka Nature", Rei has the "Ayanami Nature", etc. etc. The characters don't feel like a different characters who just happen to be wearing costumes, they feel like - well Shinji, and Rei, and Asuka. Even Gendo who is the most fundamentally changed retains at the core of his character arc in SIRP still IS Gendo Ikari: controlling, secretive, utterly devoted to Yui.
Well, that's now quite possibly the third most pretentious thing I've ever written, after the original version of this, and the time I tried to get out of writing my annual appraisal by strating that the fact that because there can be no universally agreed definition of "truth", or "competency" meant any ratings would be entirely subjective to the person reading or writing them and so therefore the entire task was pointless my manager disagreed quite strongly with me
