>>4260053Its been a minute since I watched through it, but IIRC at the time, SEELE was aware that something was up with unit 01 and was looking for a way to cut Gendo out of the deal, so I interpreted unit 03's appearance to be their doing. How exactly they planned to go about this im not sure since unit 03 was destroyed right after, but I think the whole thing reeks of their involvement.
>>4260196I think they rationalized it with the fact that this was the only way to save humanity from the angels. Ritsuko was much colder than Misato, in this reguard. Ritsuko was seemingly okay with letting the children suffer what they must as long as the mission was accomplished, almost like a less morally twisted version of Gendo. Misato however, seemed to aknowladge that they have to use Shinji and the others for this, but still did her best to aknowladge that they weren't just tools and tried to care for them as best she could.
>>4260201Personally i wish there was more work (official or otherise) on what could have happened had Kaji and Shinji pieced everything together and made some effort to stop it rather than just accepting his fate and becoming suicidal, respectively.
