The Happy Prince and Other Tales and Rei and Stuff

[Zuggy]

Continuation of this thread.

Rei is reading The Happy Prince and Other Fairy Tales by Oscar Wilde, no, I'm not joking.

Take this lossless screenshot and zoom in on it by 200% and tilt your head, lean closer and further away from the screen until you recognise some words and the text isn't that hard to make out.

Then by searching on Google books everything matches up. Maybe the picture in Rei's book is an illustration from it.

[UrsusArctos]

Things are getting Wilde. Excellent. The end of the story involves Angels, too.

[AuraTwilight]

Well that explains everything. No wonder Rei never showed much interest in bo-*Gets shot for Kaworu joke allusions*

[arahij]

Zuggy, you are my new god

[Zuggy]

PIC

Huh? What's this from? Is there a better version of this available?

[NAveryW]

Split and merged the relevant posts to the beginning of NAveryW's new thread, bumping his first post up.

This seemed important enough to start a new topic, but if a mod moves it to the "Interesting little details in Rebuild" thread, I won't be mad.

Since it is now quite obvious that The Happy Prince was specifically chosen and not just random German text, I decided to look into the plot of the story. Behold:

The Happy Prince, the short tale of a metal statue who becomes friends with a migratory bird. Together they bring some happiness to others in life and in "death."

Once I saw this, I knew this book was chosen as it already appears to have specific relevance to Evangelion (metal statue ~ robot of the 1800s). Behold more:

The protagonist of the story is a gilt and bejewelled statue of a prince, who stands on a tall column overlooking a city. A swallow, who has delayed his migration to Africa for the love of a reed, rests on the statue's plinth; the Prince is crying at the injustices he can now observe, having been isolated from the realities of his society while he was alive. The Prince asks the swallow to remove the ruby that adorns his sword, and give it to a poor seamstress with a sick child; the swallow does so. The swallow stays with the Prince over the ensuing weeks, distributing the jewels and gold from the Prince to the poor of the city. When the Prince is completely denuded of gold, the swallow realises he is dying from cold; the Prince asks the swallow to kiss him on the lips. The swallow dies, and the Prince's lead heart breaks. The next day, the Mayor of the city observes the state of the statue, and orders it to be removed and melted down. The Prince's heart does not melt in the furnace, and it is discarded on to the same dust-heap where the swallow's body is lying:
"Bring me the two most precious things in the city," said God to one of His Angels; and the Angel brought Him the leaden heart and the dead bird.

"You have rightly chosen," said God, "for in my garden of Paradise this little bird shall sing for evermore, and in my city of gold the Happy Prince shall praise me."

It looks like the type of thing Rei would read, if indeed she had an interest in reading fiction. Rei doesn't strike me as the fiction-reading type, though...

[terminus]

yea, I've been wondering if the story alluded to anything in the actual plot line, though I doubt Anno expected anyone to actually find out what the book was.

[NAveryW]

yea, I've been wondering if the story alluded to anything in the actual plot line, though I doubt Anno expected anyone to actually find out what the book was.

It was made obvious to those who don't know in the film's art book. See this page for more details.

EDIT: A thought just occurred to me: since the book is in German, the text would not be read right to left. Therefore, the front cover is on the wrong side! ERROR! ERROR!

EDIT #2: Looking at the rest of the stories in this anthology, every single one ends with the death of at least one protagonist. That doesn't bode well...

EDIT #3: The prince was once human. Significant?

[Zuggy]

While originally looking for the text I came across another book on Google books search that gave a synopsis of the story which said it openly dealt with themes of sexual repression. Having read The Happy Prince (it's not very long) though I don't see where the fella got that idea from tho'.

The point of the story is obvious though I don't know how to word it. I don't see how it relates to Eva at the moment.

since the book is in German,

It's in English.

the front cover is on the wrong side! ERROR! ERROR!

No, it isn't. In the picture from that book which someone else posted the cover is on the wrong side for an English book, but it's the correct way around in the movie.

[NAveryW]

Ah, they fixed it for the film? Thank God, I was really worried.

Now, as for how it relates to Evangelion, the things that strike me as relevant are:
-Metallic human facsimile who was once a true human
-His "messenger"
-Religious elements

[IrkenEvangelion]

Ah, they fixed it for the film? Thank God, I was really worried.

Now, as for how it relates to Evangelion, the things that strike me as relevant are:
-Metallic human facsimile who was once a true human
-His "messenger"
-Religious elements

And this is just what we know thus far. Maybe it will be more relavent in the upcomming movies.

[Zuggy]

Now, as for how it relates to Evangelion, the things that strike me as relevant are:
-Metallic human facsimile who was once a true human
-His "messenger"
-Religious elements

Those points don't strike me as relevant really.

Forgotten already how it goes now but the prince asks the bird to take out his jewel eyes to benefit some folks and in the process purposely blinds himself from what he said was the ugliness of the city. Then after he is torn down God asks one of his angels to fetch the most precious things in the city and the angel picks up the corpse of the bird that helped the prince and the prince's lead heart and God says "you have chosen well".

I don't know how to explain it but I think the prince himself and his wish to die (whatever the proper word for that should be) is far more relevant to Rei than anything else.

Help me Tines... you're good at this stuff.

[Zerogoki]

I used to read these stories quite a lot when I was young, and the moment Zuggy said that's what Rei's book was, it made perfect sense to me, even in just the general sense that they use some religious imagery and/or ideas to tell their own stories.

I think that more than one of the stories in the book might have a little to do with Evangelion, even if it's merely on a superficial, psudo-religious basis.

For the first story - 'The Happy Prince' - the first thing that springs to mind is that the Prince is not real, but made artificially from gold. However, he is still able to make a difference to the people around him by giving all of himself for them, even if in the end he is blind and gets torn down and melted (read 'dies'). I don't think it's too much of a stretch to see why Rei, the girl 'made of straw', would be reading this book. She also wishes to do things (i.e. Eva-piloting) for the people around her (in order to maintain her bond with them), saying it doesn't matter if she dies doing so.
I think that's what you were getting at, wasn't it Zuggy?

The next story is The Nightingale and the Rose. In this story, there is again a story of sacrifice, this time by the nightingale who impales itself on a rose-bush in order to stain the rose red, so that the student may give the rose to the girl he likes. I don't think the connection to Rei is much more than again the act of sacrifice though.

The Selfish Giant is the next one (and arguably the most famous).

The Selfish Giant of the title owns a beautiful garden, in which children love to play. On the giant's return from visiting an ogre, he takes offence at the children, and builds a wall to keep them out. As a consequence of this, the garden is condemned to perpetual winter. One day, the giant is awakened by a linnet, and discovers that spring has returned to the garden, as the children have found a way in through a gap in the wall. He sees the error of his ways, and resolves to destroy the wall - however, when he emerges from his castle, all the children run away, except for one boy, who is crying so much that he does not notice the giant. The giant helps this boy into a tree that he wants to climb; the boy kisses him in return. The giant announces: "It is your garden now, little children," and knocks down the wall; the children once more play in the garden, and spring returns. Many years later, the giant is close to death, and awakes, one winter morning, to see the trees in one part of his garden in full blossom. He descends from the castle, to discover the boy lying beneath the trees - the boy bears the stigmata.
“ "Who hath dared to wound thee?" cried the Giant; "tell me, that I may take my big sword and slay him."

"Nay!" answered the child; "but these are the wounds of Love." ”

Finally seeing the long lost child the happy giant dies; his body is found lying under the tree, covered in blossoms."

To me, this one screams 'Kaworu', and it wouldn't surprise me if Anno had this in mind when he conjured up Kaworu's death scene (Giant holds fragile little angel boy in his hand and has an in-depth pseudo-religious conversation...) However, I once also had a discussion with someone who pointed out the clear Garden of Eden alagory that the story has; i.e. the children (man) are cast out of the garden by powerful ruler for not behaving themselves, but thanks to actions of Chibi-Jesus are able to come back and enjoy the garden again. Couple this with the Instrumentality attempts and we have ourselves a parallel (or a fanwank - your choice!)

I can't really see any links to the last two stories in the collection - The Devoted Friend (which again has a general idea of sacrifice for the sake of another, but not particularly relevant) and The Remarkable Rocket. However, as a whole the stories have a religious air while not always being consistant with actual religious thought. Sound familiar? ;)

[NAveryW]

O_O Holy crap, it's just like RahXephon!

[terminus]

Now, as for how it relates to Evangelion, the things that strike me as relevant are:
-Metallic human facsimile who was once a true human
-His "messenger"
-Religious elements

Those points don't strike me as relevant really.

Forgotten already how it goes now but the prince asks the bird to take out his jewel eyes to benefit some folks and in the process purposely blinds himself from what he said was the ugliness of the city. Then after he is torn down God asks one of his angels to fetch the most precious things in the city and the angel picks up the corpse of the bird that helped the prince and the prince's lead heart and God says "you have chosen well".

I don't know how to explain it but I think the prince himself and his wish to die (whatever the proper word for that should be) is far more relevant to Rei than anything else.

Help me Tines... you're good at this stuff.

yea, I agree, there's millions of books that refer to religion, but I think Anno chose this particular book because of "you have chosen well" possibly alluding to Shenji's choice in the end? and how it relates to Rei, and even Shenji.

[Xard]

This topic reminds me why I love Evangelion. Thanks Zuggy and all

[Zuggy]

For the first story - 'The Happy Prince' - the first thing that springs to mind is that the Prince is not real, but made artificially from gold. However, he is still able to make a difference to the people around him by giving all of himself for them, even if in the end he is blind and gets torn down and melted (read 'dies'). I don't think it's too much of a stretch to see why Rei, the girl 'made of straw', would be reading this book. She also wishes to do things (i.e. Eva-piloting) for the people around her (in order to maintain her bond with them), saying it doesn't matter if she dies doing so.
I think that's what you were getting at, wasn't it Zuggy?

Sort of, I dunno how to put it as explaining these things is hard for me.

another book on Google books search that gave a synopsis of the story

Here it is - goes up to page 300. Maybe it'll be useful to someone here.

[NAveryW]

Erm, why not read the actual book itself on Google Books? That's what I did yesterday.

Also, to Zuggy: it says that page is unavailable.

[Zuggy]

Erm, did you miss this in my first post in this thread?

Having read The Happy Prince (it's not very long) yadda yadda.

I read the story online here before making this post around 2 weeks ago.

it says that page is unavailable.

Pages 295 to 297, then 299 to 301, are available. There's one page missing but you can't complain.

[Iron Rooster]

Wow, all that talk of TEH BOOK!!!! in the other thread and there's only this much in here? Still, I can't believe it's a real genuine book and that the staff of Eva actually took the time to do this. Well, the fact that they did it really tells me that they really are into every little detail, which is a good thing for geeks like us who look at everything.