LAST EDITED ON Jan-02-14 AT 02:08 PM (EST)
 
You're right, and I like your idea about rewriting our lead in order to balance the cast out a bit more. The thing is, though, I'm not sure Shinji's supposed to be an everyman - kinda like he's not meant to be a hero. Not technically, at least. If I've read the show right (and this is all conjecture), then Shinji's kind of a meditation upon the concept of the everyman protagonist in SF&F in general.

I hate to keep dragging it up, but TTGL is kinda like the mirror of NGE in some respects - it's just that instead of being a critique of popular elements that go into conventional giant robot shows, it's a critique of the entire concept and how ridiculous it is, and it does it by being as ridiculously overblown as it's possible for a giant robot show to be. Simon, for the sake of comparison, is therefore the mirror to Shinji. The two both follow the chosen-boy narrative path quite closely (Simon finds a Special Spirally Whatever that matches his backstory to a T, Shinji gets dragged into a war for the sake of mankind by an estranged relative; tomayto, tomahto), and their message is the same: the idea of the Everyman Hero in fiction, particularly SF&F where such things are de rigeur, is at heart based on wish fulfillment.

When the Everyman Hero is the protagonist of a science fiction or fantasy work, the audience is supposed to identify with them as a means for being introduced to the world and (more importantly) the world's rules. Most of them rise to the occasion, stumbling a little but becoming the heroes they were (almost always literally, because DESTINY and FATE and so forth) born to be. TTGL and NGE, on the other hand, take issue with this premise, but do so in different ways. Simon doesn't really stumble much, becoming much like his brother in terms of temperament (while slinging galaxies around like deck quoits seriously TTGL is weird at the end) and becoming a showcase for limitless bombast and overdesigned stunts in the name of testosterone poisoning, because that is the reductio ad absurdum version of the wish-fulfillment fantasy. Shinji, on the other hand, behaves kinda how a child caught up in a pretty-much-hopeless war against malevolent non-Euclidean beings from beyond the stars would behave - by going completely to pieces but still showing up for drills because he has no choice at all. People always seem to forget that Shinji basically has no agency in the series; he's not getting in the damn robot because Gendo and Misato are telling him to, he's getting in the damn robot because he doesn't have another choice in the matter and they've already got at least one pilot, even if she looks like she's gone twelve rounds with Mike Tyson, Bruce Lee, and a speeding bus. We're seeing how an actual everyman of that age would react to the events of Evangelion; i.e., a normal fourteen-year-old forms a shell around themselves while inside they're a gibbering wreck. The Everyman Hero, just like everything else in NGE, is deconstructed in the most miserable, depressing way possible.

It's then promptly drenched in tarot and Judaeo-Christian iconography for no good reason whatsoever. The show's protagonist might get an unfair write-off as a "spineless wuss" by people who completely Do Not Get It, but I don't actually like the programme all that much. Bit bleak for me, and I have way more faith in humanity's ability to get its collective shit together than Gainax does.

Also, I can finish something off without going blargle blargle THE KING OF THE WIND LIES ON A BROKEN BED AND THE BED IS THE BED OF A DRAGON or some shit... which might be a commentary on the concept of the grand finale as viewed through the eyes of someone normal (i.e. relentlessly confusing to the point of meaninglessness), but that in turn might be giving people who make female characters' breasts move like a couple of hyperactive space hoppers a bit too much credit.

So I'm doing that.

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"She's old, she's lame, she's barren too, // "She's not worth feed or hay, // "But I'll give her this," - he blew smoke at me - // "She was something in her day." -- Garnet Rogers, Small Victory

FiMFiction.net: we might accept blatant porn involving the cast of My Little Pony but as God is my witness we have standards.

Another example of Times When Traitor Is Not Worth It.