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| “ | This world is overflowing in sorrow. Its people are drowning in emptiness. Loneliness fills their hearts. | „ |
| ~ Lilith before initiating the Third Impact. |
Lilith, also dubbed Second Angel, is one of the two overarching antagonists (alongside Adam) of the Neon Genesis Evangelion franchise.
Within the universe of Neon Genesis Evangelion, Lilith was an ancient creation of the First Ancestral Race and the creator of all humanity, as well as all non-Angelic life on Earth. After laying dormant billions of years in the GeoFront, it’s soul being trapped inside the artificial human Rei Ayanami, Lilith eventually became the target for Adam's Offspring and SEELE, both of which wanted to use Lilith to cause their own version of Third Impact.
Despite primarily being neutral and remaining dormant for a majority of the series, it eventually gains a pivotal role in The End of Evangelion after being revived by Rei Ayanami merging onto it. This resulted in the initiation of Human Instrumentality under the unwitting command of Shinji Ikari, all successfully planned out by SEELE.
Biography[]
Original Canon[]
Eoarchean Period[]
An ancient being and member of Seeds of Life created by the First Ancestral Race to generate sapient life, Lilith's ship crashed on Earth where it was brought in conflict with another member of Seeds of Life, Adam. Because two Seeds of Life were meant to be forever separated from each other, the Lance of Longinus was used to incapacitate Adam and trap him in an iceberg in Antarctica, as Lilith's own Lance of Longinus has been mysteriously lost. The Second Angel would later spread its primordial ozone across the entire planet, effectively giving birth to all modern life.
Modern times[]
Billions of years later, Lilith was discovered by SEELE and crucified in order to perform various experiments. As Second Impact was initiated by Adam after being accidentally awoken by humanity on September 13th, 2000, Lilith's lower part of the body has been removed to create Evangelion Unit-01, a monstrous bio-cybernetic weapon intended to exterminate Adam's progeny, the Angels, which desired to fuse with Lilith to attain godhood and wipe humanity from the face of the Earth.
However, the Angels' species would later fall into extinction, enabling SEELE to initiate the Human Instrumentality Project, the purpose of which was to unite all humanity into a singular creature known as Lilin. After Rei Ayanami absorbed Adam's embryo into herself and melded with Lilith, The Rei/Lilith/Adam Hybrid was born and expanded beyond the stratosphere, free from its cross restraints. Using Unit-01's pilot as its commander, Lilith gave Shinji Ikari access to his friends and relatives' memories, as well as control over Instrumentality. Already fallen deep into depression from constant battles with Angels and the deaths of those he cared about, Shinji lost all traces of his sanity and chose to embrace Instrumentality. However, while inside, Shinji found himself confronted by his feelings of insecurity and rejection at the hands of others, namely Asuka, causing him to bitterly decide he and the rest of the world should die.
Responding to his demands, Lilith cast wings of light over the entire Earth. This resulted in the manifestation of billions of Rei Ayanami's clones, which spread across the planet, killing every single human on its surface by appearing as their loved ones or those they trusted and dissolving them into primordial soup through touch. Their souls would then be merged and converted inside of the Black Moon, ascending humanity into a hive mind. As such, Evangelion Unit-01 became a Tree of Life and eternal evidence of humanity's existence. Lilith would then absorb the Lance of Longinus into itself alongside Unit-01.
Lilith's death.
However, Shinji Ikari soon realized that Instrumentality is a lonely form of existence thanks to visions of Rei Ayanami and Kaworu Nagisa and decided to return to his original state even at the risk of being betrayed and rejected by others again. Just then, Lilith's body begins to collapse and tear apart, spraying blood from its neck across the Moon. Its severed body parts then start to fall into Earth's now scarlet oceans. The Tree of Life bursts out of its eye and begins to hover in a void of space before petrifying, whereas the Black Moon starts to crumble and release billions of human souls.
Lilith's gigantic dismembered head laid over the horizon of former Tokyo-III with its eyes wide open, face split in half and perpetually frozen in an eerie smile.
Rebuild of Evangelion[]
You Are (Not) Alone[]
Lilith first appears in the first installment of the tetralogy, You Are (Not) Alone. It is shown to Shinji Ikari by Colonel Misato Katsuragi, who identifies it as the Second Angel, and explains that if any Angel touches it, Third Impact will be initiated and humanity would fall to extinction.
You Can (Not) Advance[]
The Second Angel then returns in the second installment of tetralogy, You Can (Not) Advance. After killing the Tenth Angel, Shinji Ikari forces Evangelion Unit-01 to enter an awakened state in order to salvage Rei Ayanami's soul from the Angel's core. This causes Near Third Impact event, which is shown to affect Lilith.
You Can (Not) Redo[]
Lilith's disembodied head as seen in 3.0
Lilith appears for the final time in the third installment of the Rebuild of Evangelion series, You Can (Not) Redo. Dwarfing even the largest of Evangelion Units in size, Lilith is currently an emaciated husk fused with Evangelion Mark 06, whose body also serves as a prison for the Twelfth Angel, as well as impaled by twin Lances of Longinus. Its head was severed and placed inside of Central Dogma, apparently still alive. Under Gendo Ikari's commands, Kaworu Nagisa and Shinji Ikari pilot Evangelion Unit-13 and descend to Terminal Dogma in order to retrieve Spears of Longinus, unaware doing so would cause the Fourth Impact.
Kaworu was quick to realize that something was wrong, but Shinji choose to ignore his warnings and release the spears from Lilith's body. After Rei Ayanami uses a scythe in Evangelion Mark 09 to decapitate Mark 06, the Twelfth Angel emerges from Lilith's body. However, instead of attacking, the Twelfth Angel wraps into the core before Unit-13 and allows itself to be absorbed. This triggers the awakening of Unit-13, causing Lilith to explode into a mass of blood.
Physical Appearance[]
In its primary form, Lilith is a massive humanoid with ghastly white rubbery skin, no hair, oval purple mask with seven eyes, hands with five digits impaled by nails, a large belly, and tumorous growth with hundreds of human legs instead of its own legs. Its chest is impaled by a forked crimson weapon known as the "Lance of Longinus", which prevents it from regenerating its legs. It stands at the same height as an average Evangelion Unit, between 40 and 200 metres.
After merging with Rei Ayanami and Adam, its primary forms shifts into a ginormous being with a figure akin to a human female, long white hair, black eyes with red orbs, a perpetual eerie smile, a vagina-like structure on its forehead, and multiple semi-transparent wings. Its eyes are capable of reverting back to Rei Ayanami's crimson-red ones. In addition, Lilith has grown to astronomical size, making Evangelion Units appear like flies next to it and being visible in outer space from Earth.
In Rebuild of Evangelion, Lilith initially appears in its first form from the original series, although its iconic oval purple mask has been replaced with an avian bony mask, similar to the one observed on the Fourth Angel. Its eyes are also impaled with a pair of nails to cover the rest of its face.
After fourteen years, Lilith has been mutated into a crawling headless humanoid with visible ribs, decaying skin, as well as two Lances of Longinus impaling its nape. It is now fused with an enlarged Evangelion Mark 06 standing on top of it, immobile and covered in white skin. Facial features of its disembodied head appear to be identical to those of Rei Ayanami, except its eyes are still impaled with nails.
Powers and Abilities[]
Seed of Life physiology: Lilith was originally created by First Ancestral Race well over 4.6 billion years ago, being one of the seven Seeds of Life bearing the soul of FAR individuals. After coincidentally landing on the same planet as Adam, Lilith established life on Earth as Adam was put into dormancy by the Spear of Longinus. However, in modern times, Adam and Lilith were merged together to create a forbidden union of Fruit of Knowledge and Fruit of Life, which subsequently destroyed all life on Earth.
- Soul manipulation: Lilith can unfold an eldritch energy known as Anti-A.T. Field from its body, which causes individual A.T. Fields to break down, effectively destroying their physical bodies and freeing their souls. The Second Angel can attract them to itself and then imprison inside a vessel called "the Black Moon", merging them together into a singular organism with collective consciousness. Unlike Adam, Lilith's Anti-A.T. Field is able to span all across the Earth and reduce all humanity into LCL instantly.
- Avatar creation: Lilith is able to sent out countless clones of herself across the entire planet, which most of the time manifest as the subject's loved ones. If the subject lacks anyone whom they love, such as in the case with Shigeru Aoba or Keel Lorenz, Lilith will instead manifest as a swarm of Reis Ayanamis or break down their body without warning. Upon touching them, the subjects break down into pure LCL and their soul is collected by Lilith.
- LCL generation: Lilith's blood is referred to as "LCL", an amber-colored, breathable liquid that allows EVA pilots to establish the connection with their Evangelion Units.
- Biosphere alteration: Aside from manipulating souls, Lilith's Anti-A.T. Field enables it to alter biosphere in strange ways; after triggering the Third Impact, the seas across the world have turned red, the sky became perpetually dark, and all life had been apparently sterilized. However, in Rebuild of Evangelion continuity, all land changes color to red and possesses teeth-shaped fissures, the Moon is alarmingly close to Earth and appears to be coated with splotches of blood, while Lake Aishi (which was close to Near-Third Impact) was wiped out.
- Mind manipulation: Lilith is able to read thoughts of human beings and enter their minds, usually manifesting itself as Rei Ayanami. It can induce insanity with its appearance alone, as well as alter subject's memories to show them horrifying illusions, similar to Arael or Leliel.
- Shapeshifting: Thanks to its malleable anatomy, Lilith is able to change its shape and size with great precision. After being merged with Adam, Lilith took the form of gigantic Rei Ayanami as its primary manifestation and temporarily made itself appear like Kaworu Nagisa to calm down Shinji. During the Third Impact, Lilith is seen manifesting large pair of wings, making holes in its palms, creating a vagina with an eyeball inside it, as well as appearing at one point to have exposed brain. It was also implied that Unit-01 might be Lilith's severed legs shaped into a humanoid, although this has not been confirmed.
- Biological fusion: Like all Angels, Lilith can merge with Seeds of Life on an organic level and trigger metamorphosis in entities, such as making Rei Ayanami's face appear inside Mass Production Evangelion's throats and merging Evangelion Unit-01 with Spear of Longinus, the latter of which subsequently merged with Lilith.
- Intangibility: Lilith can phase through solid material, as seen when it phased through Maya Ibuki when emerging from Terminal Dogma.
- Regeneration: Lilith can regenerate limbs, as seen when Unit-00 removed the Spear of Longinus from its torso. Varying on the version, Lilith either grows legs back instantly or finishes its regeneration process only in End of Evangelion.
- Omnipresence/Spatial-temporal lock: After its body died, Lilith has transcended laws of reality and its existence became non-linear, akin to that of subatomic particle. In theory, this allowed it to manifest as Rei Ayanami in episode 1 and in the epilogue of End of Evangelion.
Trivia[]
- While Lilith is a female given name, the exact gender of the entity is non-distinct, with seeds of life being artificial entities made by the FAR.
- Lilith's vessel, Black Moon, might be a reference to one of the Moon's apogee.
- Lilith's design was heavily inspired by crucified Jesus Christ. Also, Lance of Longinus is direct reference to Longinus, Roman Soldier who stabbed dead Christ in chest to find out if he is really dead.
 Villains
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SEELE NERV Angels Transformers x Evangelion Godzilla vs. Evangelion | ||