Evanotes

- It seems clear that "Lilim" are synonymous with "humanity" as a whole, not just individual actors. They are referred to by Kaworu as the creators of civilization, and are the physical form assumed by Kaworu and Rei while they inhabit the Earth.
- Extensive research on the subject (glanced a wiki article lol) tells me Lilim are the daughters of Lilith in real-world mythology, and Lilith was Adam's first wife, banished from Eden for not complying with Adam's wishes. Lilith is referenced in the Dead Sea Scrolls:

"And I, the Instructor, proclaim His glorious splendour so as to frighten and to te[rrify] all the spirits of the destroying angels, spirits of the bastards, demons, Lilith, howlers, and [desert dwellers] ... and those which fall upon men without warning to lead them astray from a spirit of understanding and to make their heart and their ... desolate during the present dominion of wickedness and predetermined time of humiliations for the sons of lig[ht], by the guilt of the ages of [those] smitten by iniquity – not for eternal destruction, [bu]t for an era of humiliation for transgression."

There's way too much other shit on Lilith, but because the Dead Sea Scrolls are explicitly referenced by Seele I'm just gonna go with that and assume Lilith is believed by them to be bad news.
- Seeing some stuff about Lilith killing her children?
- "Lilith" is also the name of a fictional second moon of Earth, referenced in the show by the line, "That is Lilith, the progenitor of mankind who are the false successors from the black moon. And Adam, the progenitor of the Angels who are the true successors from the lost white moon". Does this really mean anything? Dunno! Maybe the First or Second Impacts caused a "switch" in the custodianship of humanity? Or something? I want to know about the First Impact, Anno!
- Okay, so Seele believes Gendo is attempting to obtain godlike power, to "open Pandora's Box once again". To put it in sportsball terms, Gendo is on Team Adam, right? He has taken Adam into himself ["However, his resurrected body already exists within Gendo."] and is trying to do...something. He believes his "wish" will come true once the final Angel is destroyed. But Adam is the progenitor of the Angels! Has he just "stolen" Adam? Ahh, my brain! But! He says "just a little longer, Yui" as the camera lingers on his palm. Actually, checking the episode again, he says it to Unit 01. Is Yui's soul contained in Unit 01? Is she the progenitor of all the Eva? No, later in the episode Kaworu says the Eva series were born from Adam. As far as I know, Yui only exists in/as/of the Reis? I didn't take notes on that ep so I'm not 100% what the deal with Yui/Rei/Central Dogma is. Or, was, because Ritsuko shut it down. I think Gendo was established as a weird driven fuck before Yui died, so that can't all just be some thing to get his wife back.
- The Lance of Longinus had been embedded in (what is revealed to be) Lilith, and was removed by Rei in ep22. The removal spurred a rapid growth in Lilith, who in ep24 appears pregnant. Now that I think about it, the Lance has to be what Gendo retrieved from the South Pole in ep12, which means it was present for the Second Impact. Knowing now that contact with an Angel was not the cause of the Second Impact, surely the Lance had something to do with it.
- Seele believes Gendo is trying to "open Pandora's Box", but there is also a man trying to "close the Box, before the Hope at the bottom appears". I don't know who this could be referring to. Kaji? It was never revealed who he was working for/with - cat lady in the gondola and all that. At least, I don't remember it being revealed. But wouldn't Seele know he's dead by now, though? He IS dead, right? Misato!
- Let's see, so Lilith fled from Adam, and Eve was then created from Adam's rib ["The Eva series. Born from Adam, they are an abhorrent existence for humans"]. Eve then is tempted by the serpent to eat the forbidden fruit, and then Adam as well, and all are cursed by God. It may be that the Eva were created during the Second Impact (the Eva at the beginning of ep12 has a molten, primordial appearance). The judgement by God may be the apocalyptic scenario we seem to be heading towards. What then is the analogue for the serpent and the fruit, if any? Struggling to recall any big "crossing the Rubicon" moments. Gendo the serpent, Unit 00 as Eve, the Lance the fruit? No, because the Lance didn't start there. I'm throwing stuff at the wall here!
- I think I was pretty on the money with my speculation that NERV had a "monster in the basement", but I'm wondering when and how it got there. And what "it" was. And why. Ahhhhhh I know nothing! It was Lilith, but Kaworu, apparently working under the direction of Seele, had been expecting Adam. Was this one of the ways Gendo worked against Seele? Cultivating Lilith in secret? But could Adam ever have been there? Kaji delivered Adam to Gendo as a little slug in ep8 (where'd he get that, anyway?). If the Lance was what Gendo recovered in ep12, and was such a problem that he wanted it removed from the picture entirely, what could explain the actions in the interval? Why pierce Lilith with it only to later have Rei remove it? If the removal triggered such a rapid change, what was Lilith's status before ep12?
- Not really getting anywhere with any of this, so uhhh let's see what's up with Kaworu. He was born at the time of the Second Impact (as were the Eva, I think), he was born from Adam, he houses Adam's "salvaged soul", he can freely set his sync rate with the Eva, and is identified by the Magi as an Angel only after taking control of Unit 02. Housing the salvaged soul gives me the idea that Kaworu was central to whatever happened during the Second Impact, and his his seemingly-benign designation as the Fifth Child is just cover to get him into NERV and undersells his true importance.
- So why get him into NERV, then? Seele needs both NERV and Eva in their "true forms" by the time of the "promised day", and Gendo's insubordination threatens that realization. Kaworu is the answer, then? Gendo seems to confim that with the line, "I never imagined Seele would send one directly to us. The old men intend to step up the schedule by forcing our hand". This after Kaworu is identified as an Angel. What then differentiates Kaworu (and Rei, also picked up as an Angel (why now?)) from the monstrous Angels that have been attacking? Had a thought: is the presence of Lilith in Terminal Dogma the reason the Angels (born of Adam) have been so focused on attacking NERV specifically? No, that doesn't seem correct, again, because Kaworu was surprised to find Lilith there, and Kaworu, based on his immediate, intimate knowledge of Shinji, seems to have shared, in some way, the Angels' experience in tapping Shinji's psyche. If that's the case, he should know what they know. If that's not the case, how does he know Shinji so? My brain is in pain.
- An aside: random thing I found while looking up something completely unrelated:

"The central dogma of molecular biology is an explanation of the flow of genetic information within a biological system. It is often stated as "DNA makes RNA, and RNA makes protein",[1] although this is not its original meaning. It was first stated by Francis Crick in 1957."

Not gonna bother doing any theorycrafting here, just caught my eye!
- Uhhhh okay back to Kaworu. He says that he could merge with Eva if only they didn't have souls, being that they were both born from Adam. He also says that Unit 02's soul has "shut itself away for now". That must be referring to Asuka, who is catatonic at the time. So then, the Lilim that pilot the Eva serve as their souls (Kaworu refers to Shinji as "Lilim", and I'm going to assume Asuka is as well). Throughout the show, it's appeared that the deployment and testing of the Eva with their Lilim pilots has been as important as repelling the Angels, if not more so. When Shinji merged with Unit 01 in ep19, Kaji remarks that Seele "won't stay quiet for this", so the merger of Lilim and Adam was an aim of Gendo's all along? Something I noticed when scrubbing back through that bit was Ritsuko referring to the "awakened" Unit 01 in the feminine. More evidence for the Yui/Unit 01 connection.
- Jumping ahead further to ep20 (I gotta stop doing this) it is said that Shinji's "soul" exists within the primitive water of the entry plug, and can be retrieved by "reconstructing his body and anchoring his psyche within it". If Adam's body is within Gendo, and Adam's soul within Kaworu, doesn't that mean Adam has essentially been in a state of dormancy since at least the Second Impact? And that he could be reconstituted?
- lol that sneaky background radio bit about the guy wanting a mothering gf. I'm so impressed/devastated by how accurately and comprehensively a quarter-century-old show captures the loser male experience. Death sentence for us retards bro, sorry. Hope his lady turned out to be one of those "nice girls that are pretty rare these days".
- Was Kaji trying to insert a pill into Misato? What? What is the "strange thing" he was trying to put in her? There's an empty condom wrapper on the shelf, so it can't be his dong she's talking about. Is that pill his "gift"? I'm a permanent non-sexhaver so I don't understand what's going on here. Whatever, god dude I'm still so happy he's dead, enough with ep20.
- Uhhhh okay back to Kaworu again. If Seele already told him Adam's body exists within Gendo, why does he initially believe the being held within Terminal Dogma to be Adam? Is Adam's "resurrected" body distinct from the original? Thinking about that makes me curious what the significance of Shinji's ep20 "rebirth" is. But, brain melting; gotta finish up.
- The area outside of Heaven's Gate looks very similar to the South Pole. I guess the spicy speculation would be that the First Impact took place here and the damage was somehow contained. Probably more likely that the appearance is an effect caused by the presence of Adam/Lilith.
- Ultimately, I can't make sense of Kaworu. He gives me Christ vibes, and that's about as far I can go with the knowledge I've got. Trying to divine meaning from some key lines:

"Adam, our mother. Must all who were born of Adam return to Adam? Even at the cost of destroying humanity?" - If humanity, as Lilim, were born of Lilith and not Adam, why would a return to Adam destroy humanity? Would a merging of Eva and Adam bring about an annihilation that would involve humanity as collateral damage? Would a merging of Kaworu/Rei and Adam have the same effect? What about the Angels, for whom Adam is the stated progenitor? What does it even mean to "return to Adam"? I think we've only seen Adam as lil slug dude as of yet. What if slug dude is a red herring and one of the Evas (whichever one was the molten Eva from ep12) is truly Adam in his own image? What if Shinji is actually not a virgin? Anything is possible!

"It's my destiny to continue to live even if it may result in the destruction of humanity. But I can also die here. Life and death are of equal value to me. Dying of your own will. That is the one and only absolute freedom there is. My last will and testament. Now, erase me from this world." - Yeah nevermind I've got nothing. I don't know what Kaworu is. Maybe there's something I've missed up to this point, or maybe the viewer isn't meant to know yet. He's the vessel for Adam's salvaged soul, but that means he's not Adam, right? So what is Kaworu independent of Adam's soul? He's not human, not Lilim. He's detected as an Angel, but is obviously different from all the others. He says to Rei that they both "ended up in the same form as the Lilim". This is maybe getting too deep in the weeds, but the phrasing there is odd, like they had been given that form with purpose. Why is Rei the same as Kaworu, anyway? He was born at the time of the Second Impact, whereas Rei came later as some funky Yuiclone sequence. I think. I don't feel like trawling through another episode for notes right now. Could keep going for another 2,000 words but I'd probably be better served just watching more Eva.
- Finally, to answer night bae's question from a while back as to Kaworu gay or friendly: Neither, I think? He's more like a sympathetic entity, right? My feeling is that Kaworu is so familiar with Shinji because he can access, in some way, the Angels'/Unit 01's experience of Shinji's psyche, and as whatever non-human entity he is, his manner can't be taken in a "normal" context. Some sort of collective consciousness deal going on with descendants of Adam?

- tl;dr: I'll have to rewatch this show at some point lol.
- editing in one last thing because I want to note that it bothers me: why did it take seeing Lilith's face up close for Kaworu to realize it wasn't Adam? Why couldn't he tell immediately? If Adam is the slug dude, and assuming the Eva are made in the image of Adam (to which they do bear resemblance), then Lilith looks nothing alike.
- editing in one last one last thing because I also want to note that it bothers me: Kaworu says the AT Field is "the light of the soul...the wall that everyone has in their heart", yet it's only detectable in the Angels? Do Lilim lack that wall? Is it a weakness of the Lilim to lack that wall? Or is the AT Field of the Angels a more literal manifestation of a similar function in the Lilim (that Shinji's got in spades!)
- okay I'm done!