Shingeki no Kyojin/Attack on Titan (Manga Discussion)

Thinking back to some omake, can't believe this one foreshadowed a lot later on, especially the talk of wine and beasts.

Edited by KZN02 on Nov 23rd 2023 at 6:42:42 AM

I watched the Attack on Titan finale a week ago since it came out dubbed.

I really liked the ending. Some things that confused me for a while but I eventually pieced together my own way. Eren is a monster for needlessly killing 80% of humanity, but he is a unique and tragic monster and his death was an event to mourn. Ymir was tragic too, bound by subconscious obsession until Mikasa released her by killing Eren.

My favorite scene: Armin yelling at Eren for how fucked up his plan and Eren admitting his own idiocy causing it all. Shame that wasn't in the manga

The main thing I didn't like was Eren's bizarre breakdown about Mikasa. It could have at least been funny if Eren was complaining about the idea of Jean getting with Mikasa. But that's only a small part.

People complained about Ellen becoming dove? Cheesy, yes, but it felt like a fitting way to cap things.

Even if the peace is solved for now, war will always be a possibility as long as humanity exists. But even if civilization collapses from war, humanity can still bounce back.

It's good to see more level-headed reactions to the ending thanks to the Anime.

The fantastic abilities of Titans (especially the Attack Titan) were powerless to stop human strife.

From what I can tell, I think a large portion of the initial vitriol for the manga ending came from fans who wanted Eren to win and kill everyone. I know that this very much doesn't account for everyone, but I do believe that those people would be the loudest. But since the anime ending was exposed to a wider audience, there was a more general positive response. I think opinion on the ending will continue to improve with time as more people ponder it.

Oh yeah the Ao T reddit has been completely taken over by the Jeagerists.

It's a pretty notable thing.

Edited by slimcoder on Jan 22nd 2024 at 8:07:54 AM

Yeah, this series was definitely just an excuse for a lot of people to just play out their worst genocide fantasy, go full Moral Myopia and Protagonist-Centered Morality, regardless of what the story was actually trying to say (and also what basic decency would tell you).

Honestly I do think it didn’t do the best job to help this situation either, as I’ve mentioned before. It went too hard in enforcing an US vs THEM that it made people want to support one side over the other when both sides advocated for genocide and the only difference was the scope of each one.

The fact that things worked out in the future Eren saw and at least lasted for one hundred fifty-two hundred years only makes it worse.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Jan 22nd 2024 at 9:27:02 AM

There was definitely a lot of clunkiness, but I still think a lot of it was people willfully ignoring obvious things to sate their need for edge and blood.

Yeah, r/titanfolk is basically a fascist hellhole. r/Shingeki No Kyojin is quite level headed, but some of the people in the containment board appear from time to time.

Some people are just deep down Protagonist-Centered Morality. Reminds me of how many people think the mass murderer with a god complex is the good guy in Death Note.

Rooting for Eren in spite of being against his ideology (irl at least) is something that I can understand (Evil Is Cool and all that). But flat out agreeing with the ideology in such a way and not seeing that Eren was written to be the villain is...well...yeah.

What is it about anti-fascist works that attracts fascists who completely miss the point?

To be anti-fascist you'll have to depict fascism in the work, and since they're fascists already, anything bad about fascism is what they love about it in the first place.

Also the entire "they betrayed their country" and "if the world wants to kill us it is right to kill everybody else" shticks.

I swear, some people forget key points about conflict from even before the basement reveal.

A problem with Attack on Titan IS that it makes the nonexistent boogeyman Fascists wave around as a threat be a real thing.

The rest of the world IS out to genocide Eldia, Eldia IS out to genocide the rest of the world. They made the threats real and legitimate, and doesn’t give the nuance to large scale populations about how they view it.

To the point all foreign Eldians are pro-genocide of Paradis when things would be way, way more complicated, just as most in Paradis are pro-genocide against the rest of the world. With the number being opposed to it being JUST the named characters, and the only way to get the rest of the world to agree to peace was MASS genocide, which is fucking disgusting.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Jan 25th 2024 at 1:12:48 AM

See, I ended up interpreting Eldians as just another group of Nazis rather than a Jewish analog, as well as the general conflict of the whole story being "fascism vs. fascism", something that I feel is very applicable in today's world. You can't fight fascism with more fascism, it just gets innocents killed.

I mean, you can have a group that was persecuted by a fascist regimen turn around and do something similar.

Yup. A Fascist group creating a Fascist group by its oppression is a real thing.

And it’s not like it came from nowhere, no matter how well intentioned it was from beginning and end Erwin’s version of the Survey Corps was a Cult, and that’s why Jaegerisrs could spawn from it so easily.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Jan 25th 2024 at 3:08:05 AM

It's not like there examples of that in history. Literally ongoing right now, even.

And that's why Armin had to live in Shingashina. Erwin had no right to keep surviving while leading people to their deaths. Of course, that's one thing the yeagerist fans fixate on, "colossal Erwin spearheading the rumbling would had been good".

Too bad the rock got Marlo instead of Floch.

Makes me wonder in the scenario if somehow both Erwin and Armin were able to survive.

This is beside your point, but considering that Erwin’s driving motivation was to discover the truth of the outside world, I’m basically convinced he would have lost all drive once he learned the truth.

Season 3 has a lot of stuff about how people need a grand lie or addiction or something to drive them and I think Erwin would have withered away once he lost that.

Edited by CheapMarzipan on Jan 27th 2024 at 7:22:03 AM

I noticed that there is a lot of misinformation about the final parts of the series littered around the site, including misinterpretations about the ending. I just removed an entry on BrokenAesop.Anime And Manga that didn't seem to realize that Eren having no freedom was a very intentional point that the story was making.