>>4002648We know Rei is a vegetarian but it's hard to know whether she has an ethical objection, whether she has a sense of kinship with animals from Lilith, or whether she just doesn't like it.
Rei values social harmony, but it's unclear if it's for a moral reason, or whether she values order as a product of being raised in a military institution, or because her sole bond with humanity is by piloting, leading her to reason about social order from an outside perspective through her anonymous bond with all people.
Rei makes a pet project of reconciling Shinji and Gendo (perhaps to reconcile her own feelings about them both) but not because she thinks Gendo is a good guy, but because "he's your father" (escalator scene), and Asuka should connect with her Eva (elevator scene) because "you're the pilot of Eva 02" (and also because Rei knows the secret of the Evas). The bitter irony is Rei can never take her own advice to be on good terms with your parents, because she is her own mother. As that mother Rei crashed her moon into earth (with no survivors) and took over from Adam, an act beyond good and evil to take power for herself. Rei knows about Lilith, but she doesn't want to face that side of herself because "I may not be human anymore" (episode 25). Rei exists in this state of contradiction before being able to finally free herself in the end, but it's also the end for everyone else on the planet, Rei doesn't approach this as a moral dilemma but an existential one. The only exception Rei makes are for a boy and his mother, maybe with the view they will continue life where she no longer can.
