>>2971043>In NGE2 I think Kaworu's mindset is implied to be kind of warped for choosing the Lilin over his own kind based on just meeting Shinji.I don't remember that. I mean, while you may be right, an angel isn't severely affected if another angel dies. They're not attacking simultaneously. They lose one less chance to reclaim the world, but overall each of them is doing their own thing (which is another point I think NGE 2 stated).
A human losing their life, however, is a completely different situation. They're connected. Everyone who knows that person is affected, psychologically and emotionally, like Misato with Kaji, and Gendo with Yui. It's a huge theme in Eva.
That’s heavily implied to be a big part of the reason Kaworu is so taken by Shinji in the first place: through him he realized how fascinating/beautiful human intimacy is and all the complex feelings involved. Humans live for a short time (vs. the angels, who are immortal) but their lives take on meaning through others. They even identify themselves through the existence of an other. Some parallels can be made between angels and lilin, but angels still communicate in alien ways that might be even alien to each other. They’re lonely beings as a result of this constant isolation (i.e. Armisael) and so that’s probably the key motivation behind their need to merge with another physical being. The only reason Kaworu was able to successfully communicate with Shinji is because he was born into a lilin form. He wants to protect Shinji’s life because a human’s life is fleeting but impactful on the world and to each other, in contrast to how HE views his (and perhaps by extension, the angels) - “life and death are the same to me”. Because of all this Kaworu kind of viewed Shinji and his company in the same way Shinji did Kaworu.
I could possibly be overthinking some of this, but yeah, I doubt we'll ever get a clear confirmation.
