What is writing? #
I believe that writing is the process of putting thoughts, ideas, and experiences into a legible and long-lasting format. Writing itself can take up any medium and can be made up of any object as long it exists and has meaning.
What do I mean by this?
Well, I think that for a lot of people, writing has take a particular form, like typed words or handwritten documents. I don’t agree with this. Writing can take the form of paintings, film reels, or music for example. Writing can also take abstract forms such as automotives, architecture, or much more broadly, inventions.
The laptop I’m typing on is writing. The desk it is on is writing. The building I am in is writing. And the chopped trees and mined stone used to make these object is writing. They were all created by humans and tell a unique story each. Imagine if ten thousand years have passed and historians discover all of the objects I’ve mentioned. What story would they make out of the writing?
Writing has meaning. #
Writing always has meaning, but this meaning isn’t always clear. An author’s experience in writing, context for writing, and overall world view dictates what this meaning is. How well an author conveys meaning depends on their experience in writing.
Let me give an example.
Neon Genesis Evangelion is a Japanese television series that originally aired between 1995 and 1996. Evangelion is about a teenage boy, Shinji Ikari, getting recruited into a shadow organization, NERV, that fights monsters known as Angels. Shinji pilots an Evangelion, which is a giant weaponized mech, to fight the Angels. It’s probably obvious from the little I’ve written about the show that there is a lot of biblical and religious references in the show. The director of the series, however, Hideaki Anno, has notably went on record to say that “There is no actual Christian meaning to the show, [he] just thought the visual symbols of Christianity look cool.”
The meaning behind the religious symbols in Evangelion is that there isn’t any meaning. That’s what it means to the creator of the show. Naming What you Know’s concept 1.4, Words Get Their Meanings from Other Words, states that “Language lies on the borderline between oneself and the other. The word in language is half someone else’s." In the predominantly Shinto-Buddhist context of Japan, Christian terminology is “half someone else’s” because it lacks the religious meaning it holds in Western countries. It is not tied down by centuries of Sunday school lessons, theology, and cultural history. For the Japanese audience, words like “Angel”, “Adam” and “Lilith” are cool and exotic sounding jargon. And because these words and concepts were unknown, Anno was free to put his own unique meanings into them.
The original 1996 Evangelion ends in a very strange way. After the 16th Angel is defeated by Shinji, NERV triggers the Human Instrumentality Project, which fuses all of humanity together. This isn’t shown on screen though. The final two episodes, “The Ending World” and “Take care of yourself,” focus on an internal dialogue and analysis of the characters’ psychological struggles with identity. Shinji is confronted by voices representing his friends and co-workers who act as his critics and therapists. There are strange cuts and a lack of tradition animation during these scenes. It really caught me off-guard when I first watched it. Then there is a segment that shows a lighthearted slice-of-life high school scenario where Shinji is a confident student and the characters live a normal life. Because of this, Shinji reaches an epiphany. He rejects the isolation that Instrumentality offers. There is one last scene that shows Shinji in a bright sunny day. All the main characters face him, applaud, and one by one exclaim, “Congratulations!”
This ending was not very well received at the time of airing. It came out of nowhere and did little to resolve the major plot points in the show. What happened to the Instrumentation Project? Why did the genre of the show change in the last episode? And what is up with the congratulations scene?
Well, if you wanted to know the answer to that, you’d need to watch the 1997 movie, The End of Evangelion.
After the defeat of the 16th Angel, NERV triggers the Human Instrumentality Project. The military attempts to stop this and starts invading the NERV headquarters. Shinji witnesses many of his close friends die before he pilots his Evangelion. Meanwhile, Shinji’s dad Gendo and a clone of his mother, Rei, are working to initiate the Third Impact by merging Rei with the primordial Angel, Lilith. Gendo wants to create a new God, which he intends to use to reunite with the soul of his deceased wife, Yui. However, Rei rejects Gendo’s plan, instead taking on the form of a gigantic, ethereal entity and merging with Lilith based on her own will. She then offers the catalyst for Instrumentality to Shinji. Shinji chooses to reject Instrumentality.
The Evangelion series is widely considered a reflection of director Anno’s struggle with depression and self-isolation. Many fans interpret the Human Instrumentality Project as a representation of the urge to escape the pain and difficulty of human interaction. Shinji’s choice to reject Instrumentality and choose a world where he will inevitably feel pain and rejection symbolizes Anno’s own breakthrough.
Writers can change. #
Although Anno wrote the original Neon Genesis Evangelion in a dark place, the same can’t be said for the Rebuild of Evangelion series. Rebuild of Evangelion was a series of four movies that rebooted the original television show. I would have given a thorough explanation about the films and how they pivoted from the original plot starting with the third movie, but I feel like I’m going in circles. I’ll give a quick summary. The first two films are somewhat faithful retellings of the first 23 episodes of the show but the third film pivots from the original plot by letting the Third Impact happen and leaving the world in an apocalyptic state. Shinji has to learn to live with the role he played in this. He goes on to confront his father and gets the ability to alter the world. Shinji then chooses to reset the world to live out a normal life.
Naming What you Know’s concept 5.4, Reflection Is Critical for Writers’ Development, states that “Writers develop and improve with practice, time, and—among other things—reflecting throughout the process.” The Rebuild films is Anno’s reflection of his previous work. There were many changes made because of the development he had as a writer and a person. For example, one of the new characters introduced in the Rebuild series, Mari, represents Anno’s wife. Mari ends up with Shinji at the end of the last film. The ending itself is much more lighthearted and fulfilling than the series it was based on.
You know, there was always one thing that I hated about writing. It’s the retcon. The retcon is a tool used in writing to change or introduce new information that challenges what was made cannon before. I don’t like writers telling the audience that the meaning is wrong, even if the writers originally meant for that to be the meaning. The most famous example is a scene in the original 1977 Star Wars that shows Han Solo sitting across from bounty hunter Greedo in a cantina. Greedo wanted to claim a bounty on Han’s head, but Han shot Greedo first. This was changed in future releases of the film. Writers edited it so that Greedo attempted to shoot Han before Han did. I don’t agree with it. It goes against what the original story was and changes the how the character was written.
I think that Evangelion gets the retcon right though. First off, the original series, the 1997 movie, and the Rebuild films are all seperate from one another. If you wanted to enjoy one interpretation of the story from another, you can. Second, the Rebuild films themselves give a reason as to why the story is different. The 16th Angel, Kaworu, is shown being reborn over and over again, every time the story of the films occur. It’s a cycle.
Anyways that’s about all I got for today! See ya
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