i was just thinking about ritsuko and shinji. their relationship is one of the most overlooked ones in nge since people mainly focus on how the rest of the eva pilots + misato interact with shinji. however, the way ritsuko treats shinji actually really highlights her overall issues.
in many narratives (especially fairy tales) in which a man loses his beloved wife and later takes on a lover, the lover holds complete animosity toward the man and his late wife’s biological child. however, ritsuko doesn’t seem to really hold much in the way of animosity toward shinji. instead, she hates rei (and, by extension, herself).
ritsuko’s mixed feelings toward rei seem to stem from the fact that she is a clone, she is female, and she perceives her as a romantic rival. just as rei is a clone of yui, ritsuko deep down views herself as a clone of her mother. she has taken the exact same profession and is sleeping with the same man. (she tries to distance herself by dying her hair blonde, but that’s completely superficial). just as rei II takes over for rei I after being strangled by naoko, ritsuko fills in for naoko’s role once she commits suicide.
thus, ritsuko’s hatred for rei as a clone is mixed up in her hatred for herself, and, although she prides herself on her logic, these emotions are “illogical” so she attempts to tamp them down. ritsuko’s mixed feelings toward rei also have to do with the fact that she’s female. although she’s only a little girl, ritsuko still views her as a woman, and she transposes her complicated relationship with women and motherhood onto rei.
so why no hatred toward shinji? isn’t he the ultimate symbol of gendo and yui’s emotional and physical love as their child? on a surface level, you can say it’s because gendo outwardly treats shinji poorly, while he seems to treat rei rather tenderly. however, i think it’s deeper than that, and it can actually be traced back to ritsuko’s childhood.
when ritsuko talks about her childhood, she tells misato that naoko was a great scientist but a horrible mother. while their relationship was civil, naoko was always distant toward ritsuko and gave more attention to her work than her daughter. gendo was the exception to this. naoko loved him very deeply in a way that was passionate and illogical. when naoko murdered rei I, she knew gendo would reject her and committed suicide as a result.
thus, this suicide was evidence to ritsuko that her mother prioritized her romantic love for gendo over the platonic love she had for her daughter. thus, from a young age, ritsuko was twisted into thinking that platonic relationships were always inferior to romantic ones.
ritsuko hates rei because she is the clone of her romantic rival, the ultimate key for gendo to meet this romantic rival, and she also reminds ritsuko too much of herself. as a boy and as gendo’s son, shinji is no threat because the platonic parent-child relationship he has with gendo is inferior and will never trump a romantic once. by treating shinji poorly, gendo further cements ritsuko’s point of view.
ritsuko’s prioritization of romantic love over platonic love is what ultimately ruins her. misato is the closest friend she has, but she completely ruins this relationship by keeping NERV’s secrets from her. when gendo rejects her, she has nothing left.
that said, it would be incorrect to say that ritsuko is completely indifferent toward shinji. while it seems at times that she is willing to sacrifice him, she also seems to pity and sympathize with him, and she recognizes that the way gendo acts is wrong. this is evidenced by the fact that she tells shinji that his father is “not adept at living” when she visits him and misato at misato’s apartment at the beginning of the series. she is also pretty observant of shinji’s problems, and she is the one who brings up the “hedgehog’s dilemma’ in relation to him.
nonetheless, she keeps her distance. part of it probably has to do with the fact that she views herself as hopeless. (when she says that rei and gendo aren’t “adept at living,” i think she feels the same about herself due to the fact that she is a “clone” like rei). part of it also has to do with her childhood. when naoko killed herself, she indirectly taught her daughter that a romantic relationship always came before a platonic one. therefore, ritsuko saw no reason to act as anything more than a superior to shinji. the idea of her trying to be a guardian to him was completely alien.
it makes sense, therefore, why misato would be the one to take shinji in. misato’s father is essentially the opposite of naoko. he is the one who made the sacrifice for platonic love, saving his daughter’s life. it makes sense why misato would try to attempt to form a parent-child bond as her own form of sacrifice (even though she wasn’t all that great at it).
poor ritsuko, on the other hand, sacrifices herself to romantic love, and, well, the result is this:
