I saw Spiderman: No Way Home recently and upon thinking about the message of that movie I feel like Isayama was trying to do a similar thing here, a message of "you do the right thing because it's the right thing, not because everything is guaranteed to work out".
Now that message isn't really that unique, plenty of stories go with it but, like, we're used to things actually working out or a happy ending or whatever.
I think what gets lost is the part about, no, that actually isn't guaranteed. Isayama made a lot of missteps and there were definitely some Unfortunate Implications woven in, but it does feel like that's a point a lot of people tend to miss and, like, I don't think it's actually fair.
Edited by LSBK on Jan 12th 2022 at 7:57:57 AM
The whole Unfortunate Implications definitely wears it down so people aren’t likely to see that yes.
Especially since the gang radicalized and made their nation into a fascist state starting by making the Survey Corp a cult that said sacrificing anything is worth the price for the cause.
Every accusation by the GOP is ALWAYS a confession.The issue is that the entirety of the moral dilemma in the last part hinged on the notion that Eren and Zeke were right and there was no possible coexistence for Paradis and Marley (and the world, by proxy), at least not post-Declaration of War. The Alliance could do the right thing, from a utilitarian perspective, and stop Eren, but that meant Paradis would be destroyed and all Eldians slaughtered. Zeke's plan would have much the same effect, though maybe the slaughter would be staved off for a couple decades. And Floch and the Yeagerists, instead, chose to commit genocide in order to protect their homeland and people. But instead the ending tried to have its cake and eat it too, by having the Alliance keep the moral high ground by stopping Eren, but also reaping the rewards for the Rumbling by having enough of the world destroyed that Paradis is safe from retaliation. It feels like the story betrayed its own themes and narrative setup in order to shoehorn a sort-of traditionally bittersweet ending for the heroes.
And then the bonus pages were even more wishy washy by indicating that yeah, the Eldian vs non-Eldian conflict didn't stop and the cycle of violence wasn't broken after all, but it was decades after the main cast got their happy endings so it feels shallow. And then, the last page heavily implies the Spine is rediscovered and everything starts up again. Honestly, it's a mess in like five different dimensions.
But the point is, "do the right thing even if it'll come at horrible personal cost because the alternative is unconscionable" loses its luster as a theme when the story then goes "lol jk, the cost was no biggie after all, here have a lollipop because yure epic". (I'm exaggerating, obviously, but the point is there.)
Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.I agree about the story trying to have its cake and eat it too, but whether you think the message is weaker than it could have been is a separate, I think, from whether people just didn't acknowledge that's what the story is trying to do at all.
And I feel like that came up a lot, with people acting like the anti-Eren faction just didn't, like, realize that there was still danger, or even Kazuya Prota on the last couple of pages.
I don't really think that was a point the story was actually trying to make? In the last part of the story Eren is definitely framed as a villain (a tragic one, but a villain nonetheless) and Armin and the gang are the heroes saving world we are supposed to be rooting for. I don't recall a lot of the characters talking about what the future may hold after they stop Eren, at least not in any significant way. Pretty much all the characters agree that they have to stop Eren. If anything the lesson here is more one of mortal enemies being able to put aside their differences to stop the greater threat. Which is obviously the guy trying to wipe out humanity.
I don't think the story was trying to present any sort of moral dilemma at that point. It's basically treated as axiomatic that stopping Eren is the right thing to do, because obviously wiping out humanity is always going to be bad, no matter the context, it doesn't really need more elaboration. The fact that many readers somehow disagree with that notion says a lot about the way Isayama set everything up, but imo that's a purely meta debate and not something the series is actually inviting the reader to think about intentionally.
Edited by WashTheLaundryHero on Jan 13th 2022 at 8:57:17 AM
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Honestly the Alliance wins ending with the extra pages feels it should've been instead them convincing Ymir to retcon the timeline so Grisha didn't kill Frieda and everyone was killed by RBA due to the First King's Will. Make it more honest in how pointless everything was and what the end result was.
Edited by doineedaname on Jan 13th 2022 at 3:27:12 PM
There's been talk going around how the story builds on how Eren was always a slave to his obsession with freedom and the rumbling makes sense for his character....but then pivots by saying that he's also a selfless person for sacrificing himself to make Armin and the alliance look like heroes to the world...
If the story had stayed consistent with at least one of those interpretations, it'd be fine. But the fact that it tries to do both is why people are so fucking confused.
People generalize it as "lol Eren was never a chad" when the problem is way deeper than that and how the story ends with Eren with two entirely different characterizations. The story couldn't settle on Eren either being a Tragic Villain or a Martyr, and it spent so long spinning its wheels on his motives that by the time they were revealed, neither of them were all that satisfying regardless of which interpretation of Eren you preferred.
I think there is a theme in all of that, but its extremely muddled and depends mostly how you interpreted the ending.
And part of me feels Isayama did that on purpose and kept Eren's motives as vague and unknown as possible to leave it up to the reader's imagination on what he was planning and why he did what he did.
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.I think you're onto something, because I'd say that the idea that who's a monster or a hero always depends on perspective is actually one of the most prominent themes in the story.
Obviously there's the main twist that the monsters they've been fighting all along are people, but it goes beyond that.
The series starts with Eren going on a rant about how completely irrational and evil and impossible to justify what's happening is, but later we find out that Reiner and Co. did in fact have a somewhat sympathetic motivation (hardcore YMMV on this, but that's definitely how the series plays it) and not only that, but it was actually Eren himself behind it and he would even go on to do the same thing on much more massive scale.
And even smaller stuff like Gabi having a lot of parallels with Eren, pretty much showing off what he would be if he was raised on the other side. She even comes with ass-saving simp included.
I really dislike what they've done with him in the last chapter.
Excluding that, I really love him. A tragic figure torn between the desire to take back his freedom and his hatred towards the ones who took that freedom away. In the end, unable to deal with the hopelessness of the situation, he just decides to destroy everything, but a part of him keeps hoping somebody will be able to stop him.
A tragic anime villain done right, in my opinion. Except for that last "no actually it was just part of keikaku because I can see the future and shit" that almost manages to ruin everything. I say "almost" because the whole story still works with the interpretation that he was genuinely torn between opposing desires. (A couple lines in the last chapter actually seem to support this, where he states he wasn't actually sure whether his friends would manage to stop him, but he had gotten to the point where he was fine with both endings).
Edited by Cozzer on Jan 20th 2022 at 9:20:17 PM
I think Eren has a similar situation to in Dune in regards to future sight.
You can see the future but it winds up controlling you and despite attempts to use it it winds up trapping you on a rail line.
You know whats gonna happen and it happens anyway and you can't do anything about it.
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."But that doesnt really track since he can see into and influence the past as well. He intentionally created his own situation. So ultimately I dont think it matters if he could influence the future or not. He passed the point where he wanted to. He would rather make himself a slave to that terrible future, and enact that suffering on the world than try to change it and live freely in a world where people lived lives free from his own suffering.
As a main character, I always thought the way he was written was a little weird from early on. He felt like a Plot Device half the time and it's really Armin and Mikasa that carry him through everything. It kinda feels like he's only the main character because the author says he is.
For the record, it's not bad for stories to work like that, but in this case the series put a lot on emphasis on Eren as the protagonist but it doesn't feel like his actual role in the story matches that. Might be intentional, though, considering how it ends.
It's like, Eren really, really wants to be the main character here, but he couldn't, so he became the villain instead.
That's kind of the point isn't it? Eren wanted to make a change so badly, but he was stuck in a setting that actively hinders from making a change.
When Hannes got killed, he basically breaks at the realization that even after getting power himself, he still can't change anything.
Its actually a really good Protagonist Journey to Villain character arc. In any other Shonen series, Eren's determination would have been rewarded, but in this setting, it feels he's actively being persecuted for simply wanting a better life.
The Last chapter was....weird, but it doesn't (completely) ruin him.
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.I'm a bit conflicted. On one hand, he's not terribly interesting for the first 60% of the story outside of his barely-repressed instability. But then it's necessary to make his evolution post-Return to Shiganshina really land, and it that sense it's great. His post-timeskip character is fantastic and instrumental to the themes of the story and the reversal of hero and villain... but then, the last couple of chapters really left a sour taste in my mouth with regards to his character. I honestly think that if his last line in the series had been the 'FREEDOM' at the end of 131, that would've been a fitting end for his arc — giving in to his guilt and trauma and disocciating from the horrors he's committing, ending the story as just a force to be stopped. I'm not saying that's the only satisfying ending he could've gotten, just a possibility. But given what we got, the story trying to make his motivation both a Zero-Approval Gambit as well as being fine with just destroying everything if he couldn't be stopped just felt... weak. Like Isayama couldn't make his mind up on Eren's ambiguous motivations and just went "eh, let's go with both then". And while I do like the effect of his future sight in making him feel trapped in a pre-determined future, giving his whole arc is on the themes of freedom and rebellion, him deliberately having his own mother killed in order to set the Stable Time Loop felt like a complete out of left field decision that doesn't really mesh with the rest of his motivations (in contrast with him manipulating Grisha, which felt totally earned). And finally, the bit with him going incel about Mikasa, memes aside, was just stupid — he spent the entire series not showing the slightest romantic interest in her only to turn out to be desperately in love at the end. It was a mess all around.
Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.So the anime just got to 121. With all my complaints about the ending and how it retroactively devalues a lot of the good stuff that came before, goddamn this is still fantastic. What an incredibly good chapter/episode.
Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

The English was pretty good this time.