>>3071238>You don't just get that notoriety with this "Useless puppet. now defunct" clause you posit.You do, and Asuka is the proof. She was indeed a puppet, and became defunct. This comes straight from the series. Asuka's popularity is largely advertising and cute moe. You yourself are a prime example - you refuse the true Asuka for a fantasy Asuka. Asuka's popularity, the hollowness of it - is a topic for itself.
>See, it's not your claimed puppet stuff, there is a struggle going on that is deep and complex. It's her wanting to attain her goal, as well as experiencing the 16th Angel that effect her. This is a striving and fighting character, not some puppet.I do understand the character very much, and wrapping it up in roundabout sentences doesn't change what it is: a puppet. What
>>3071262 said was right. Not to say that Asuka doesn't serve a purpose in the story, she does. She is largely supposed to show the viewer how to NOT live their life, that is, vicariously through fantasies of piloting a giant robot. A clear reference to the otaku losers that attach themselves to girls like Asuka. Asuka never grew her own personality like Shinji or Rei did, the other two pilots. Hence she could only trash about like a malfunctioning puppet until she was eventually, replaced. It's ironic that people like Asuka since she's supposed to be creepy and bad, lusting after old men and whatnot. But that's another topic.
>>3071559Most of that is fanwank, as Asuka has 0 quantifiable on-screen character development. The fact that she "never takes a single step" in the movie is supposed to signify that. She never moves forward, unless moved. Unless moved by Misato, saved by Rei, or otherwise carried by the rest. Even her EVA is finally the one that reaches out to her, not vice versa. She was a true puppet till the very end.
