Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - *PREVIEW* Lions Led By Robots 22: On Fluids

Episode Date: December 10, 2025

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And speaking of weird angles, or in another word, weird angels, Evangelion, this episode, episode 16, is like one of my favorite episodes of the run. It opens up with the three pilots doing sync tests. Shinji does the best out of all of them. This obviously pisses off Aska. Then an angel arrives, and it's, for anyone who's Irish, this looks like the Naceball. Joe, I want you to Google the Naysball, N-A-A-A-A-A-A-A. ball.

Oh yeah, that's the nice ball. I really like that. The angels have invaded the Republic of Ireland. Yes. So this angel shows up. It's this giant floating ball

with like a shadow underneath it. They attempt to attack it and essentially the shadow widens and Shinji like sinks into it. It almost takes Aska. It swallows loads of buildings. and yeah, Shinji is trapped in the shadow realm with his shadow self. We are doing literal

like Jungian psychiatry and Jungian psychology in this episode. I really like this part because a lot of times when you have introspection, especially in anime, it's not done very well. And before this we get a little bit

you know, Unit 1 gets swallowed by the angel goop into the shadow realm, into Ireland. I guess. And Reitsko immediately comes up with a plan to nuke the living shit out of it. I think it was like a thousand nukes. 992

mines and they're going to use the 80 field of unit zero and unit two at the edges because what they figure out is that the ball is not the angel, it's actually the shadow and then like what the shadow is like a couple of

nanometers like thick and what it's using a kind of mathematics to create a void space that's connected to another reality as Ritzko says. So they're going to use the A-T field of Unit 0 and 0-0-0-0-2 to like disrupt the A-T-field.

A-T field. And Masado kind of understands like, well, that will kill Shinji almost certainly. Yep. And, you know, Ritzko tells her that this came from Gendo, that recovering the unit itself is the only priority leading to Massado really wondering why Unit 1

is so important, and she straight up asked what the angels are, what the avas are, which is the first time she's open last, because remember when we left on the cliffhanger last time, she saw Adam in the basement. Yep. And Shinji's conversation with his shadow is really interesting. Like, it eats at Shinji's fears of being hurt and his self-deprecating sarcastic nature that he uses to preemptively shit on himself to avoid other people doing the same. It examines how Shinji is taking the small example of kindness from his father, that episode where he said, you know, you did a good job and just kind of desperately clinging to it, using it to deceive himself from how non-existent at best and broken at worst that relationship is.

And also it's worth saying is that they have 16. Also, he just like me. He has 16 hours left of life support within, you know, the entry plug he gets down to 12 hours and he's you know the life support systems are starting to run low the like oxygen

circulation is running low he says that he like tastes blood in fluid and smells like blood the LCL fluid that helps him breathe or makes him breathe rather I do really like how it touches on the fact that you know he always runs away from

things and that's to save himself from suffering but it also in turn prevents him from having to confront anything that causes him pain or make any efforts to change. He's so terrified of being alone, but he's also afraid of connecting to others. He's forced to confront this self-deception he's convinced himself of in what might be his dying moments. And also, there's a really interesting, and maybe it's just like a bit like set dressing, but early on when he's in the shadow, he essentially turns on the like radar systems for the Ava and it's just blackness and he's like, oh, the radar isn't even pinging off

something. And it's like, if you were to like analyze it, it's like a really interesting point about like Shinji has such a like unexamined like interior space in his own I suppose like youngy in shadow that it's like it's impossible to see anything because he has not been introspective about his own feelings. Yeah. And I think his own shadow's understanding of him is very on point with that because, you know, he's always running away for things to escape pain and he's never connecting with anybody else. So why would he? You know, he would be too afraid to exist. He would have to be swallowed by an angel and it'd be forced fed to him. Yeah. It's also like interesting because there's an interpretation of like the the shadow self is actually Lelyal or Lelyal, the angel. And it's. it's like you can interpret it as like this is the first time an angel has actually communicated with anyone like that the the shadow shingi sitting across uh it's in the conversation is set in a train similar to you know others the scene with shingy like driving back and forth on the train

listening to music and it's like he's having a conversation with himself there is some interpretation that like that is actually the angel talking to him and it's like it you know it's really cool I think it's such a smart move that like it's a what we're seeing with the angels is that like, you know, things that necessarily can't be overcome through sheer force or destroyed in a conventional

way and it's like they're starting to evolve. This is a theme that we will come back to in the next episode of this podcast. That is correct. It does beg the question though. If this is the angel communicating with Shinji is it Shinji's actual shadow. Yes. Well, this is part of

like the Jungian shadow. is that like, you know, the self that you project out to the world is built through like people's perception of yourself and the shadow is like an internal perception of yourself formed by your own opinions of yourself, but also like the negation of other people's reflections of yourself. So it's like it's kind of both at the same time. It's like, you know, Shinji is the line that like there exists as Shinji within Ray and with in Aska and within Gendo and within Masado and that like Shinji's whole thing of like a and not wanting to disappoint anyone is that like he has internalized the Shinji that exists in other people but not acknowledge the Shinji that exists within himself. Yeah. I am still

torn though because the angels obviously we haven't gotten to the point of what their true motivation is. We will. That's definitely getting closer I can tell. But obviously their motivation is not I'm going to build this kid for a couple hours and I'm really going to sit

him down and help him out. You know what I mean? Like, I think the Shadow's opinion or examination of Shinji is very much on, on point for the character we have been shown. But it does expect the question of how much of that is the shadow and how much of that is the angel fucking with Shinji to complete whatever their goal is. And I've seen some people like, you know, interpret this as like this isn't necessarily like the angel or Shinji Shadow. like this is like Shinji's in like the throes of death in that like he's almost run out of you know any life support system and it's like

he's gone into this kind of catatonic state and like this isn't necessarily some sort of like supernatural thing a conversation being precipitated by interacting with the angel this is just like going on in Shinji's head I like that a lot better and the reason why is because

of a very stupid fan theory that I really like about one of my favorite video games of Final Fantasy that Squall is dead because I'm sure you've ever played Final Fantasy 8 but I've never played any Final Fantasy game one day we'll fix that but the main

character Squall suffers a pretty horrific injury at the end of Disc 1 and before then I'm not going to say it's grounded storyline wise but let's say it makes more sense and afterwards all sorts of crazy shit happens like they go to space there's wizards and shit

all sorts of other crazy stuff happens and fans have come up with the theory that this only makes sense if it's all happening in squall's dying brain. It became so prevalent that the creator of the writer or the creator, I can't remember which one, said that is not true. He actually

had to address it directly. But I do like the idea that Shinji's in the throes of death. Like, the oxygen systems are failing, the filtering systems failing, both things he points out. And maybe he is examining himself because his brain is dying

maybe he's lacking oxygen maybe Shinji is squall it's all connected everything ever made in Japan is connected but also there's a there's a really interesting thing in this and that

like you know Ray is like really concerned for Shinji which is like one of the very few times that like you see Ray show emotion outside of interacting with Gendo yeah Aska says something so fucked up it even makes Ray mad.

Yep. Which is the first. She's never really been, I mean, she got mad at Shinji a little bit about Gendo before. But, you know, when Aska says something a bit fucked up,

you know, Ray fires back of like, is the only reason you pilot the Avas so other people know how good you are or something like that.