Well, another defeat for Shinji. What can I do? He was on the wrong side, so I couldn’t let him win.
But I might still need him in the future, and I was really worried that the constant defeats were getting to him – so I had to give him some other scenario to keep him motivated, right? Now you know what keeps him going. Don’t tell me you’re surprised.
And I didn’t want to dismiss him from the plot without any fanfare, anyway…and thought he deserved better than falling into a vat of lava, which would have been a more traditional way of dismissing a henchman. But I made sure that the shower was really hot, in order to preserve the basic premise…
Plus, it wouldn’t be a proper homage to magical-girls anime if it wouldn’t include a bit of this type of fanservice, as well.
Plusplus, today is a holiday…in some parts of the world. Happy Easter Monday!
So, I think I’ve sufficiently justified not killing this guy. XD
Back to the plot on Thursday.
Gotta admit, seeing Kaworu got a laugh out of me.
Though I will point out killing off a character doesn’t mean you can’t still use them. Heck, Gregory started off dead and gradually became alive.
Also if you killed off Shinji with lava specifically, you’d be obliged to bring him back in another movie (or later in this same movie) Vader-style. Because you simply could not pass up the opportunity of using two B-movie traditions in a single move: rehashing plot devices from more popular movies AND reusing actors for slightly but not really different characters.
Yeah, a bath in molten lava isn’t truly fatal for a villain, and they might survive it without any ill effect at all – or any level of ill effect desired/required by the plot, from a faint, star-shaped scar on the cheek to the loss of several limbs. So, definitely, I could have brought Shinji back from that without problems, I just really didn’t feel like inflicting it on him. XD
Although that Darth-Vader-idea of yours is kind of tempting…on a certain level, it would even be supremely ironic if Shinji ended up permanently stuck in a robot body…but I think I’ve just grown to fond of him to actually do that, at this point. XD