>>2086979Spoilers below, but it answers your question about Rei Q, and why this case is actually warrants different treatment:
It's probably better if you don't watch Q, but Rei Q isn't like Rei I, II or III. If she was just different, well we're used to that. Rei dying, we're used to that. Rei is used to it too. It's one of the things that make Rei interesting, you know? Makes you ponder about mortality and what makes you, you. Rei's death is never in vain. So, what can you do to make Rei's death or other mistreatment actually aggravating and perhaps worse, not interesting at all?
This is where the part where having watched it or not comes in. See, what if Rei Q.... wasn't a part of that complex system which we knew from NGE? What if, they took the Rei from 1.0 and 2.0 (NGE Rei for all intents and purposes), locked her inside EVA01 with Yui and brought out from the tank.... a new character? She looks exactly like Rei, sounds like Rei, she's called Rei, and her entire character is exactly like you described your 90's friends describing Rei in this post:
>>2086924Q then continues to compare Rei with Yui in fundamental ways, whilst all Rei Q ever says "I just wait for orders", and doesn't engage in any intellectual behaviour what-so-ever. So Rei is explicitly a clone of not Yui Ikari, but Yui Ayanami now. So Rei's last name... isn't Rei's last name, it's Yui's.
There's a reason why few if any gripe about Rei I, II and III being different, because despite their differences they're ALL Rei Ayanami, one person at different points in time. Rei Q isn't. But she's still there in the same "role" that Rei had in NGE, that is freaking out Shinji after 2.0 brought them together.
Then there's the more superficial and aesthetic sides of it, but this post has gone on for long enough.
