Shingeki no Kyojin/Attack on Titan (Manga Discussion)

You can dislike a character because they're bad characters, as is this case. I also dislike when a writer tries to erect a false equivalence for cheap emotional resonance, as is Gabi's entire reason for existing.

But they are not bad characters.

Yes. They are.

Gabi in particular is a mess of contradiction and a poorly written ball of rage who exists so Isayama can scream "look how similar she is to the main character" with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Galliard is barely a character who exists to be an idiot wrong about everything and stare in slack jawed shock when anything of import happens. There are glimmers of character in him but Isayama just ignored them.

Compare them to characters like Annie, Armin, Mikasa, Jean, Levi or Erwin. Hell, compare them to Kenny. Compare them to a wide variety of anyone with a name before this Marley stuff started.

Edited by Lightysnake on Jul 8th 2018 at 12:55:21 PM

TLDR: Lightysnake has very strong opinions about the Marley characters. It's best to accept and respect this, as minds are unlikely to change.

That's my summarizing of things, at least.

I don't think Gabi is particularly likeable, that she's meant to be, or that she'll be saved, but I think I understand why she exists. Even if she's not a perfect parallel to Eren, I still understand her motivations, and believe that her environment could lead a person to turnout the way she has so I don't think she's a bad character.

As I said, I get finding Porco not particularly compelling (I barely remember anything he's done) so I can see calling him a bad character on that basis... but calling him the worst character just seems like an exaggeration when his crime is being boring. It's not like there haven't been other boring characters in this series.

So my final thoughts is that while finding a character unlikeable can certainly be a part of why you define them as a bad character, it still comes off as if you've let that your general distaste for certain elements of the story color opinion of the characters more than they should.

Or the shorter version: I agree with sgamer82. But all that being said, likeability and quality are all inherently subjective things that can't truly be pinned down. So I thank Lightysnake for clarifying their opinions, even if I don't agree with them for the most part.

Edited by LSBK on Jul 8th 2018 at 3:26:40 AM

On a brighter note, raw scans for the Marley High School AU are out.

• FLOCH makes his appearance.
• Warriors + Ymir are tied up, after Ymir's text to Krista is discovered.
• Willy Tybur seems to be the principal of Marley Academy.
• Squad Levi wielding sticks like thunder spears.
• The group swimming through a swamp, encounter what seems to be a shark. It's Cart!Pieck wearing a shark outfit.
• Battle of the Bands: Warrior Cadets vs Eren and co.
• Eren loses, and ends up tied up with the rest of the group.
• Levi, Hange, and Levi mobilize to save the day!

Ah! Ah!

The third season opening was just announced.

"Red Swan", by X Japan and Hyde

There's a band I haven't seen in a long time.

You must remember that being seen as boring is one of the worst crimes ever for a fictional character as far as the internet is concerned.

You're practically worse than Hitler if you aren't interesting. The villain can murder a million orphans as long as they are interesting.

Kinda makes you want to be a villain. More fans.

I'll say this: the openings for this series are usually pretty damn good, so looking forward to S3's

Question: Where did you think the basement stuff might go? Because from what I've heard most of the Marley stuff took everyone by surprise.

The rare mineral described in this chapter sounds a lot like methane clathrate.

Hmmm, thinking about it for awhile I recall what my own personal theory on what I thought they'd find in the basement and how the plot would go from there.

I personally thought that the grand reveal that Grisha had was that of course yeah Grisha was from outside the walls and that yes there was humans still living outside of Paradis somewhere but it diverts from there.

My initial thought was that the Titans were an experiment gone horribly wrong. Like some mad or well-intention scientish/alchemist/whatever trying to create an cure for some disease and it just mutated horribly out of control and ended up becoming an plague that spread from human to human until the vast majority of humans on Earth were Titans, surviving pockets were for some reason immune to this disease. That idea is very fantastical but then again everything about Titans does not make logical sense via science.

Grisha would reveal that the key to the cure to the Titan plague would be in the people living in the walls, and also the people living in other survivor pockets of the world. The titan shifters would of been Titan plague further mutations. I initially thought that Bertolt was not an unique Colossal Titan due to more of them being in the walls and that he was just an genetic abnormality when he got it.

Of course this theory before the reveal had some obvious holes. It wouldn't quite explain why Reiner, Annie, and Bertolt were sent to wipe out the Walldians in the first place and Ymir would also be a big hole. The developments before that like the Walldian King also wouldn't make sense.

I don't recall if the story of Ymir and the Devil was revealed near that point either? If I recall correctly she was revealed via the Marley reveal but I know for fact that she was implied far before that by the Talking Titan that killed Illse whom looked like our Ymir.

Edited by Wispy on Jul 9th 2018 at 4:27:53 AM

Is it just me or the negative views regarding Eren have only increased even more during the time skip?

They call him names like a genocidal maniac, character regression and a guy who opposes peace for his sick revenge fantasies.

Which in my opinion is bullshit as this chapter only reinforces my support in Eren. Even his ruthlessness is justified in this chapter.

Also, in other news. Is it just me or the official translation for Ch.107 is really bad?

It makes the fan translation look good in comparison.

Edited by Auralian on Jul 9th 2018 at 9:13:00 AM

Eren might actually be the new Erwin now I look at it more. He's being the demon of Paradis to get shit done, morals and people he cares about aside.

I actually like him better these days.

As I've said...the whole 'Eren is slipping into darkness and doing to them like they did to him' is falling flat because Marley is a cartoonishly evil caricature of Nazi Germany aiming to commit completely unprovoked genocide on a nation that didn't even know they existed.

Define cartoonishly evil in regards to Nazi Germany. Because Nazi Germany really was horrifyingly evil. And genocide is not something that is "provoked."

And a large amount of Marley characters are sympathetic. Such as Magath, the Gatekeepers (killing them is what got Sasha on Gabi's shitlist), Pieck's "Panzer Unit".

Edited by SilentColossus on Jul 10th 2018 at 10:20:26 AM

I love how these chapters feel almost nostalgic towards the times when the conflict was as black-and-white as Humanity vs Monsters. I don't have much to say, the situation is complex enough that until all cards are on the table, I can't really judge the characters' actions.

Zeke being sincere or not is really going to be the turning point of everything here...

Hence 'cartoonishly evil caricature.' Marley is just evil. They're evil to almost laughable levels, to the point it's hard to take them seriously as a functional nation.

Some characters being sympathetic does not change how utterly rotten Marley is from top to bottom.

Caricature implies that these traits are exaggerated. They're downplayed with Marley. The current leader is Magath, and we get several chapters dedicated to him considering himself a monster for his goals in committing genocide.

The Nazis, meanwhile, did it out of Antisemitism, racism, white/German supremacy, greed and malice.

Edit: It is less that Marley is "cartoonishly evil", but they're treated as sympathetic when they're not. Or they shouldn't be presented as sympathetic.

Edited by SilentColossus on Jul 10th 2018 at 12:27:11 PM

It's because Isayama thinks 'shades of gray' means presenting a hilariously evil naiton with centuries of being evil because they're just evil and throwing in a few token moments where a guy looks sad about all the evil they do and a few characters who aren't pure evil, while trying to ignore official government policy allows for apartheid domination of a minority and their punishments are to be trapped in a living hell in the form of man eating monsters as they attempt to carry out genocide against people who don't even know they exist which even most of the sympathetic people are on board with, along with feeding their own soldiers to ravenous monsters just so they don't lose Titan powers. But when Eldia strikes back against a nation that caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of there people for no sane reason, we get this "who's really the monster" plotline. You have to start looking at Zeon and Mordor before you can talk about governments worse than Marley.

Meanwhile, there's Willy "my entire purpose for being is to kill the Eldians over Eldian guilt", Sergeant Gross who is not indicated to be anything resembling an aberration in the military.

Edited by Lightysnake on Jul 10th 2018 at 12:48:58 PM

The Nazis did what they did for a plethora of reasons, like, but not limited to: fear, justice, revenge, because it is their job, efficiency, ignorance, idiocy to make a better world, fanaticism, loyalty, racism, greed, glory or sociopathy. The situation in Germany before and during the rule of Hitler was extremely complex and a powder keg. Sadly most people only know the Theme Park Version of Germany during the 20s, 30s and 40s.

Marley is actually quite accurate in its portrayal of something like Nazi Germany with all its nuances and shades of gray. Isayama did his research regarding that. The only things missing are the occult aspects of the Nazis and characters like Adolf Eichmann or a true sociopath who admits that he is doing it because he is a monster.

Edited by bandersnitch on Jul 10th 2018 at 1:05:22 AM

I have to agree with the others, Marley isn't really cartoonish or exaggerated when many of the things it does are......pretty accurate and true to how several regimes/governments have behaved. We have systematic racism, dehumanization on a large scale, military-driven imperialism, conscription of conquered peoples, secret police monitoring the populace and encouraging paranoia/betrayal of neighbors, outrageous cruelty for the sake of cruelty, and scapegoating on a massive scale for national or personal gain.

It's pretty true to many of the atrocities that Imperial Japan, America, and several European countries inflicted on their own citizens and the world.

Examples:

• Treatment of indigenous peoples in the Americas and Australia
• The Belgian Congo
• Japanese occupation of mainland Asia
• The Trans-atlantic Slave Trade
• The Sykes-Picot Agreement
• Nazi Germany
• Soviet Russia
• North Korea

I mean, there is plenty of evil going on that seems so outrageous that it's hard to imagine it isn't cartoonish or exaggerated.

Some of the things with Marley remind me of what little my grandmother would tell me about her childhood in Germany.

Fake preview is out:

It's a continuation of the High School AU with Queen Bee Historia and Loser Eren.

Eren is getting bullied, as a result of a rumor that he did something bad to Historia. Historia worries about how she caused this, and what will happen if she confesses that this whole mess is because she said nonsense.

She tries to apologize to Eren, but he has no idea who she is.

The final panel is Eren biting Historia on the head.

Evil governments and real life war crimes do not make Marley less cartoonish, less badly written or lacking in nuance. And Willy Tybur is about as ridiculous as you can get given he's meant to be a minority who decides his people deserve not only oppression but extermination. I think Willy was when I stopped giving Isayama the benefit of the doubt on anything. Imperial Japan committing war crimes on Korea and the Philippines (Isayama presumably calls it 'helping them,') doesn't mean a ficitonal nation isn't cartoonishly evil. Isayama's not writing with the skill of Margaret Atwood here. Marley is bombastically in your face evil. What's more, Nazi Germany didn't last long because it was a combination of corrupt and expansionist. Marley has been around doing the same thing for centuries.