Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time - Characters & Cast

Initially, his motivation is simply to exist without causing more pain. This evolves into a desire to take responsibility and save everyone, not out of a need for praise, but from a place of genuine empathy and love for his friends and the world. His final motivation is to end the cycle of suffering by erasing the Evangelions from existence.

Shinji begins the film in a catatonic state, broken by the events of 3.0. Through his time in Village-3, he slowly rediscovers his will to live. His arc is a culmination of his entire journey, moving from passive victimhood and self-loathing to active agency and self-acceptance. He confronts his father not with violence, but with understanding, and ultimately makes the mature decision to create a new world for everyone's happiness, even at the cost of his own existence within it. This Shinji truly grows up.

His sole motivation is to initiate the Additional Impact to rewrite reality and be with his wife Yui again, whom he lost during the Unit-01 contact experiment. He sees Instrumentality as the only way to overcome the pain of her absence.

Gendo's character is finally given depth and explanation. The film reveals his past, showing him as a lonely, isolated man who, like Shinji, feared connecting with others until he met Yui. Her loss drove him to orchestrate the entire plot, not out of pure malice, but from a desperate, selfish desire to reunite with her. His arc concludes when Shinji confronts him with empathy, forcing Gendo to acknowledge his own weakness and fear. He finally finds peace and accepts his fate, sacrificing himself alongside Yui.

Her primary motivation is to destroy NERV and Gendo, driven by a sense of duty and a lifetime of conditioning as a pilot. Beneath that is a deep-seated need for validation and a place to belong, which she struggles to articulate.

Asuka's arc finds a quiet, bittersweet resolution. It's revealed she is a clone from the "Shikinami series," which explains her desperation to prove her individuality. She struggles with her inability to connect with the people of Village-3 and maintains her harsh exterior. In her final moments within the Anti-Universe, Shinji finally acknowledges her past feelings for him, giving her the closure she needed. She finds her own place of peace, implied to be with Kensuke, who saw her as a person, not a pilot.

Initially, she has no motivation. Her journey becomes one of finding a purpose and an identity for herself, separate from the original Rei Ayanami and her role as an Eva pilot. She wants to understand the world and her place in it.

The Rei clone who accompanies Shinji at the start has no identity beyond following orders. Her time in Village-3 is a journey of discovering what it means to be human. She learns to work, to feel, and to form bonds, particularly with the village children and Toji's family. She chooses her own name and develops a distinct personality. Her inevitable death—as her clone body cannot survive outside NERV's support systems—is tragic, but her life serves as a catalyst for Shinji, showing him the value of an ordinary existence.

Mari's motivations are clearer here: she works to undo the damage caused by Gendo and NERV and to ensure Shinji's survival and well-being. She has a promise to keep, and she fulfills it by guiding Shinji to his new beginning.

Mari remains enigmatic but is revealed to have a much deeper connection to the past than previously shown, having known Gendo and Yui when they were younger. Her role is that of a catalyst and a savior. She consistently supports and pushes the other characters, particularly Asuka and Shinji. Her arc is fulfilled in the end when she is the one to "find" Shinji and lead him out of the world of Evangelion and into the real world, symbolizing a new, healthier relationship and a future free from the past's burdens.