This section attempts to answer questions about Kaworu's
identity, actions and his role in Evangelion. |
Where did Kaworu come from?
Kaworu was sent and apparently raised by SEELE. He believes
that he is working together with them so that he can merge
with Adam, as is the desire of all Angels. They have also
made clones of him which are later used as the dummy plugs
in the Evangelion Production Units.
Kaworu is not the first Angel to be under the control of
an organization, as NERV has both Adam and Lilith. It is not
clear exactly where SEELE got him from originally. It could
be that they found him, or that he was created by them from
some mixture of human and Angel DNA. The Red Cross Book, a
program sold in theaters when the End
of Evangelion was released, speculates that Kaworu may
have been an Angel captured by SEELE when he was still an
embryo.
Why does Kaworu tell Rei that he and she
are "the same?"
There are a number of ways that Kaworu and Rei are the same.
The one that Kaworu is probably referring to is that Rei is
also at least partially constructed from Angel DNA and are
in human form. That's far from the only link that they have
with each other, though. They both have also been used by
the organizations that have raised them - Kaworu by SEELE,
Rei by NERV.
They also both have clones, if they are not clones themselves.
At the time that Kaworu meets Rei, it is the third Rei clone.
As for Kaworu, it is not clear whether he is a clone or an
"original," but he definitely does have clones, as they are
later used as the basis of the dummy plugs in the Evangelion
production units (shown in Death & Rebirth and End of
Evangelion). One other thing that they also have in common
is the fact that they both love Shinji, although they definitely
feel very different kinds of love for him.
One last, very important similarity between them is that
Kaworu contains the soul of Adam and Rei presumably contains
the soul of Lilith. This was not presented in the TV episodes
or the movies, but was explained in the extended version of
episode 24, which
is available on the Japanese home video release, and the Red
Cross Book, which was a program sold at screenings of the
End of Evangelion movie
in Japan. According to the extended episode 24, Kaworu contains
the "salvaged soul" of Adam inside of him, while
Ikari Gendo has Adam's body. In the Red Cross Book, Rei's
is described as seemingly being derived from Lilith.
Why did Kaworu let
Shinji kill him?
When Kaworu entered Terminal Dogma in NERV headquarters,
he expected to find Adam there, as SEELE must have told him
would be the case. All Angels have the overwhelming desire
(or destiny, as Kaworu puts it) to return to Adam, even if
it would mean the destruction of humanity. However, he realized
that it was not Adam, but Lilith who was contained in Terminal
Dogma.
Since he had no desire to return to Lilith, at this point
he decided to sacrifice himself so that Shinji and the rest
of humanity could survive. His survival would have meant the
destruction of humanity because he would have continued in
his quest to rejoin with Adam. To him, he explained, life
and death were the same, so it did not really matter whether
he lived or died.
It is unclear whether, at this point, he thought that Adam
was within NERV headquarters or not, or what his actions would
have been if he would have known that Adam was actually nearby.
Whatever his knowledge was, at the point that he decided to
let Shinji kill him, he was living up to his namesake, Tabris,
the angel of free will. He made the choice to go against the
"programming" that directed him to try to rejoin
with Adam at any cost, and decided that the lives of Shinji
and the rest of humanity were worth more than his life.
What's the big deal
with Kaworu and Shinji calling each other by their first names
when they first meet?
This one's fairly easy. First of all, let's clarify some
terminology here. Let's call Kaworu and Shinji their given
names (what we would usually call "first names,"
and Nagisa and Ikari their surnames (what we would usually
call "last names.")
When they first meet, Shinji calls Kaworu by his family name,
which is pretty usual in Japanese with someone that you don't
know very well or at all. Well, Kaworu tells Shinji that he
can call him Kaworu, his given name, which causes Shinji to
blush and tell Kaworu that he can call him by his given name
as well.
Well, calling people by their given names is clearly a more
intimate level than calling them by their family names. It
is usually reserved for people that you know a little better.
However, this forwardness alone was probably not enough to
make Shinji blush. Take a look at The
Controversy for more thoughts on Shinji's blushing.
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