Stanley Tweedle vs Arnold J. Rimmer

[BitVyper]

Pre-death Rimmer. Hand to hand combat. Bloodlust is off.

[Yeoman]

Pre-death Rimmer. Hand to hand combat. Bloodlust is off.

Rimmer has the potential to be Ace Rimmer.

Tweedle has the potential to be slightly more useful than a damp Shinji Ikari. TV Shinji.

[BitVyper]

Rimmer has the potential to be Ace Rimmer.

Tweedle has the potential to be slightly more useful than a damp Shinji Ikari. TV Shinji.

Tweedle would, very occasionally, pull off some pretty good stunts. Like tricking his captors into thinking they had the upper hand while he was transmitting to the Lexx. Also cowed the vessels of His Divine Shadow into singing this

Also TV Shinji is the only person at Nerv who ever gave Gendo an appropriate amount of ****. He actually managed to lock 01 down to the point where they almost had to kill him to stop him from destroying the Geofront. He also took his whole one session of combat training up against something that would make the Lovecraft mythos cringe, and (after briefly losing his nerve) won while protecting civilians; of course he got **** for that because Misato's emotional blackmail conflicts with Misato's orders. Got back in the Eva after being nearly boiled alive by Ramiel due to Nerv's general Angel-response policy of "just throw a child soldier in an Eva at it and see what happens" (seriously guys, throw a rock at it first or something). Jumped into a magma pit unprotected. Caught Sahaquiel. Got back in the Eva after the 03 incident and, prior to berserking, saved everyone from an angel no one else could even touch; an N2 mine inside its AT field didn't even faze it, but Shinji just threw it into a launch shaft, grinded its face on the wall all the way up, then nearly ripped its face right off. Etc etc etc etc... This is all stuff he did without berserking or getting any help from Yui otherwise, and all while working for an organization that put totally unreasonable demands on him (without even passing acknowledgement to the fact; they act like piloting Eva is equivalent to sticking with your piano practice) and continually abused him emotionally, including essentially strapping his hands to a gun and making him shoot his friend (note that Nerv never so much as discusses retrieving Toji safely once the plug ejection fails, making Shinji's hesitance to fight well founded, since his orders were clearly coming from people who didn't care), while having him live with a psychotic drunk who made him do all her cooking and cleaning like he was Cinderella. God, Nerv, did the second impact wipe out all of humanity's psychiatrists?

You don't have to like him, but implying that he's useless? He's the only useful character in the series. It's just that every time he tells his abusers off, Angels attack and no one can do anything about it because every single person in the series who isn't Shinji Ikari is useless, so he has to come back and put up with their bullshit because Gendo would literally rather let the world die in flames than admit that maybe just maybe he might have been wrong to treat his son like a weapon.