>>3617127I agree, Mari is an accumulation of traits/scenes taken from Kaworu, Kaji, Asuka, Rei, and even Misato. Beyond that, she really has nothing to her. The representation of being an idealized person/concept is introduced to Mari's character in the latter half of this movie and blatantly contradicts her portrayal in 2.0 which shows they really had no concrete plan for her.
While Kaworu shares that character concept of representing an ideal, he also had more to him even back in episode 24 with only 10 minutes of screentime. His identity as an angel, as Adam, his plight over whether to follow his destiny or sacrifice himself for the lilin he came to love. Mari has no such thing to fall back on, she's an idealization and that's where her character starts and ends as far as this movie is concerned. So I guess I can't help but see her as a poor man's Kaworu, but again she also has traits taken from other characters too.