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I suppose AoT could stand to be more blatant about it message.
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Sep 2, 2017 17:34
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Schwarzwald posted:I suppose AoT could stand to be more blatant about it message. Didn't help Verhooven. AoT is already blatant enough anyway. You even get an "are we the baddies?" moment when the protagonists start using enhanced interrogation on people they know, for a fact, are monsters who regularly commit torture and murder of innocents. And then one of them loving breaks down and starts crying, confessing from the very bottom of his heart how he has been doing all this poo poo out of sheer loyalty for his nation, while loathing himself every second of it. Contrasting the scene later where Zackly is torturing that dickass noble, because while some people have noble intentions in their hearts for the ruthless decisions they make, there are also people who are just hosed up.
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Sep 2, 2017 17:53
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Conspiratiorist posted:Didn't help Verhooven. Not to mention that two of the most sympathetic characters are Reiner and Annie.
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Sep 2, 2017 17:58
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Starship Troopers was shot and cut in a comedic way, making it come off as incredibly silly meaning it's pretty obvious satire. Shingeki no Kyojin held its cards much closer, making it harder to interpret. And in spite of its critique of authoritarianism and militarism, it equates oppression past and future, obfuscating situations where one side was vastly in the wrong. So in the context of Japanese nationalism, it goes into the right wing lines, trying to equate the American occupation with the Eldian ghettos. Add the disavowal of any past responsibility (technically true, but one of the big justifications for the reinterpretation of Article 9), and Owl's line that the Marleyans were clearly not genocided because they still existed, and the story sits adjacent some big red flags. Right now, the story is at a crossroads. Will Eren and attempt retribution on the Marleyan empire? Will they use their new found knowledge to re-establish the Eldian empire? Or will they attempt to break the cycle of violence, and re-enter the world stage as good faith actors? I think the characters and themes point towards the latter, largely because that would be a good kind of story that could wrap up its themes. Like SnK isn't as bad as garbage like Gate, which is insanely ahistorical, because SnK is trying to say something about humanity and the forces of history.
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Sep 2, 2017 18:30
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Phobophilia posted:
Nah your reaching here.
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Sep 2, 2017 18:37
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Phobophilia posted:Starship Troopers was shot and cut in a comedic way, making it come off as incredibly silly meaning it's pretty obvious satire. I think this is an important point to make. AoT isn't a silly comic, and it isn't satire. It's portrayal of oppression and fascism is played straight and plain.
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Sep 2, 2017 19:05
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Schwarzwald posted:I think this is an important point to make. AoT isn't a silly comic, and it isn't satire. And oppression and keeping the truth from the populace was seen as bad.
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Sep 2, 2017 19:13
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I think a lot of the 'is AOT fascist' things were because of the author having some ill-advised opinions on Japan's history with South Korea, a general named after a war criminal (I think it was Pixis?) while Mikasa is explicitly named after a Japanese warship. With that in mind I can see people being a bit more wary of things they'd otherwise dismiss in works without that context. Plus it's super popular and current so some people will look for any excuse to be a Cool Kid who doesn't watch the edgy titan show and say that anyone who does is a bad person. I mean nobody writes essays about how Sailor Moon is fascist because the future is her establishing an eternal monarchy over earth.
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Sep 2, 2017 19:14
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It's by a Japanese author, the protagonists are in an Army, and they fight to save their country both from internal and external enemies. So people are quick to shout "fascism!" But if instead doing that super shallow analysis, we look at the plot, at the story... I would say it isn't specially fascist, no. Turin Turambar fucked around with this message at 20:12 on Sep 2, 2017 |
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Sep 2, 2017 19:21
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Pyrotoad posted:Plus it's super popular and current so some people will look for any excuse to be a Cool Kid who doesn't watch the edgy titan show and say that anyone who does is a bad person.
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Sep 2, 2017 19:57
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Fruitsnacks posted:Is this why people get so defensive every time this topic comes up? Literally no one is saying you're a bad person for liking this manga and it's OK to like problematic media (within reason, of course). As for whether or not AoT is truly problematic, who knows? I'm waiting until it's over before I decide because I've been wrong about it before. I think people's interpretations have been pretty reasonable so far though. I can only speak for myself, but this conversation tends to come up a LOT, generally in the context of people saying "Attack on Titan is bad and fascist so don't bother with it" to people who might otherwise be interested in it, which is kind of annoying.
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Sep 2, 2017 20:51
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Fruitsnacks posted:Is this why people get so defensive every time this topic comes up? Literally no one is saying you're a bad person for liking this manga and it's OK to like problematic media (within reason, of course). As for whether or not AoT is truly problematic, who knows? I'm waiting until it's over before I decide because I've been wrong about it before. I think people's interpretations have been pretty reasonable so far though. I actually was called out, albeit not in this thread, for liking AoT by someone who was accusing it of being racist right-wing propaganda. I'm mainly just baffled by how so much of the stuff, especially regarding Eren's unstable psychology, goes completely over people's heads. And the people who argue that it is fascist are constantly moving goalposts as the story takes new turns. First it was fascist because it was glorifying the military standing against the monstrous foreign herds. Then it's fascist because it's showing sympathy for Marleyan characters who are putting the people from the previous category in concentration camps. Then its fascist because the people in concentration camps are angry about that. There's so many mixed metaphors in these arguments that it really highlights how little they actually engage with the text.
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Sep 2, 2017 20:54
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Beefstew posted:This, and every single person in the military is batshit insane and amoral. Aren't the military dudes in this series also almost completely ineffectual too? Like they all die all the time. They get kids hyped about joining the military then just send them all out to get eaten by monsters while at the same time being rendered completely redundant by mild technological progress. It doesn't seem very pro-military. It seems like it's making GBS threads on the military almost non-stop really.
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Sep 2, 2017 22:59
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The very first chapter has the survey corps return with 20 injured men out of 100 and Keith breaking down in tears that they accomplished nothing and died in vain due to his ineptitude. Then we get drunken useless garrison troops. Eren idolized the military; but no one else did and decried them as a pointless waste of lives and resources.
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Sep 2, 2017 23:12
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MonsterEnvy posted:I don't even agree with this and feel like a lot of people are reaching. I mean I like AoT but this is the most pseudo-patriotic pathos filled manga I've read. It got a lot better about it when the full picture of the world was revealed.
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Sep 2, 2017 23:14
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Nuebot posted:Aren't the military dudes in this series also almost completely ineffectual too? Like they all die all the time. They get kids hyped about joining the military then just send them all out to get eaten by monsters while at the same time being rendered completely redundant by mild technological progress. It doesn't seem very pro-military. It seems like it's making GBS threads on the military almost non-stop really. This just hit me. Imagine watching your friends and family all sent off to die failing to take the land back from the titans, and then someone ties a log to a pulley and winch and the titans are eradicated in a couple years.
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Sep 2, 2017 23:16
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Nuebot posted:Aren't the military dudes in this series also almost completely ineffectual too? Like they all die all the time. They get kids hyped about joining the military then just send them all out to get eaten by monsters while at the same time being rendered completely redundant by mild technological progress. It doesn't seem very pro-military. It seems like it's making GBS threads on the military almost non-stop really. So just like starship troopers
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Sep 2, 2017 23:16
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Turin Turambar posted:But if instead doing that super shallow analysis, we look at the plot, at the story... I would say it isn't specially fascist, no. I think that there was a stretch where one could definitely interpret AoT in a fascist way (basically the part where it focused on how corrupt the civilian government was compared with the honorable military) but subsequent events have basically changed that interpretation and made it less clear. Generally speaking I have faith that the ending will be something reasonable, though a "Eldians reclaim their rightful place in the world" would definitely retroactively justify the fascist apologia claims (though I don't think that's going to happen).
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Sep 3, 2017 00:52
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The problem with the people trying to denounce AoT as fascist is that they never even try to analyse the story as a whole, rather than fixating on elements that fit their theory. One of the core tenets of fascism is that conflict is good, as it purified the people. The weak are weeded out, dying pitiful deaths, the strong either get to live, or at least become heroes. This doesn't happen in AoT. War with Titans is never portrayed as an opportunity for the exemplars of the nation to prove themselves. Brave, capable characters die pitiful deaths, begging for mercy. Cowards get to survive and live in relative comfort. No one really wants to be fight Titans, even for the people that are out there it's just a fight for survival. Heroism mostly means to accept your death and hope it won't be entirely hopeless. Then we have the Survey Corps, our Ubermenschen, the special people who are meant to be the heroes - and they turn out to be either not special at all, or broken in many ways. Mikasa is a sociopath that only cares about her brother, who is a mindless idiot ready to endanger his entire squad whenever his emotions get better on him. Krista's selflessness turns out to be a death wish. Erwin, instead of sacrificing his people for the good of humanity, does that to confirm his pet theory and atone for his father's death. None of them is special. In fact, there is a character that thinks only special, heroic people matter and is chastised by two separate people. Fascism usually doesn't care for enemies at all, they just need to be monstrous enough to give the soldier an opportunity to shine. Humanizing their enemies was the opposite of what they did - in fact, they took great pains to make even human opponents look as monsters. No such thing here - Titans turn out to be humans transformed into living weapons and suffering horribly. The infiltrator trio are just kids, brainwashed by their regime to hate the people behind the wall and trying to prevent their families from constant abuse. Even Marley is not entirely in the wrong - as Eren Krueger points out, it's unlikely their claims about Eldian oppression in the past are completely unfounded. AoT doesn't really work as a fascist story. In fact, it deconstructs most fascist tropes as much as it can.
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Sep 3, 2017 01:09
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I never really got the "YAY fascism" vibe from this comic. If anything, I think it's actually pretty good at showing the human side of monstrous actions in a truly hosed-up society. Not to excuse them, but to give an unflinching look at all the misery that they entail. The nazi parallels are obvious, and I think they all come from the viewpoint that fascist ideology is a cancer in almost every meaning of the word. I mean, that little story from the guy who feed Grisha's sister to his dogs with his sons watching? Could've been in full gestapo outfit. It's just tricky because the fascist overtones are also on the beginning protagonist's society, and the story had the characters spend quite some time recognizing and reflecting on it. I think the comic's problems lie elsewhere. Like that Eren is an immensely boring and frustrating protagonist, and I hope he never returns as one. Or most everything related to drawing actual humans. Or the same "perfect grid of rectangular identical houses" city. Or the little bullshit moments feeling like a nervously improvising gamemaster railroading juuuuuuust a biiiiiit to get a particular cool conclusion he thought of, without quite conveying the way to get there. Nah. If you ask me, taking a look at the human element of fascism and its monstrous acts is this series' biggest strength.
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Sep 3, 2017 14:24
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There are still some rightist elements to the story. The First King's ideology was that he was immensely guilty about the existence of the Eldian empire, and his solution was to manufacture thousands of colossal titans and set up a police state: the message being that trying to account for and atone for the crimes of empire will immediately lead to the destruction of your people.
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Sep 3, 2017 16:51
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Phobophilia posted:There are still some rightist elements to the story. The First King's ideology was that he was immensely guilty about the existence of the Eldian empire, and his solution was to manufacture thousands of colossal titans and set up a police state: the message being that trying to account for and atone for the crimes of empire will immediately lead to the destruction of your people. Given that Marleyan idea of atonement was "your descendants are exterminated except the ones we get to use as disposable slave-soldiers", his decision wasn't really out of whack (except the police state bit). Even if their claim of past abuse was sound (and it's strongly suggested it isn't), they don't get to oppress an entire nation of people for the crimes of their ancestors. It's not even unrealistic, plenty of nations used their real or imagined grievances to justify treating other people like poo poo.
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Sep 3, 2017 17:09
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See 20 new msgs to the thread and thought "Oh boy a new chapter must be out!" But nope its the fascism rant again.
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Sep 3, 2017 18:18
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I don't really know that much about the technical definition of fascism, but around the point in the story where they were trying to portray the gangster son of that one rear end in a top hat merchant whose cart was considered more valuable than people as a rightful leader to the people was where things got weird for me. The story was doing its hardest to u-turn the fact that the rear end in a top hat merchant was totally going to let people die. Story: "No, you see this person who was totally only interested in his own business over human lives? He's actually a pillar of the community! You can't get rid of pillar of the community like that! How could you? Let's just go ahead and complete his son's aristocratic claim to power, because I don't know, uh information? Idk I totally would have done this anyway tbh." Me:  And then there's the stuff about Historia being chosen as a leader of the country just because of birthright, which still doesn't really make that much sense to me. I know that 'secret heirs to royalty' is a common story trope, but it doesn't make sense to me about what exactly makes Historia more qualified than anyone to lead. I'm the type of person who believes that there's nothing intrinsically better about those in the royal class in comparison to regular people, so I kinda got weirded out again by the story's insistence on royalty being the only ones to lead. However, I think this can be explained by mere writing difficulties Isayama was facing at the time, because right now the story feels like it has regained its "the ones in charge are very lovely to people" attitude.
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Sep 3, 2017 18:57
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She gained the trust of the people when she killed Rod's titan form. The puppet monarchy is definitely not ideal, as seen by Zachary being kind of super hosed up, but it's significantly better than than the people who were previously controlling the monarchy
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Sep 3, 2017 19:30
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I think Historia was chosen because the people would be more likely to accept the true royalty rather than a military coup taking power. Plus she killed the mega titan in front of all the rich people so she had best PR.
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Sep 3, 2017 19:34
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EagerSleeper posted:And then there's the stuff about Historia being chosen as a leader of the country just because of birthright, which still doesn't really make that much sense to me. I know that 'secret heirs to royalty' is a common story trope, but it doesn't make sense to me about what exactly makes Historia more qualified than anyone to lead. I'm the type of person who believes that there's nothing intrinsically better about those in the royal class in comparison to regular people, so I kinda got weirded out again by the story's insistence on royalty being the only ones to lead. Who the gently caress else were they gonna make the nominal leader of the country? They don't exactly have the infrastructure, or culture, in place to hold an election.
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Sep 3, 2017 19:58
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ZiegeDame posted:Who the gently caress else were they gonna make the nominal leader of the country? They don't exactly have the infrastructure, or culture, in place to hold an election. IDK, but someone who wasn't a teenager? Sub Harrison posted:I think Historia was chosen because the people would be more likely to accept the true royalty rather than a military coup taking power. Plus she killed the mega titan in front of all the rich people so she had best PR. Saagonsa posted:She gained the trust of the people when she killed Rod's titan form. The puppet monarchy is definitely not ideal, as seen by Zachary being kind of super hosed up, but it's significantly better than than the people who were previously controlling the monarchy Ah yes, I had forgotten about how well they carved turkey dinner titan in front of everyone. Yeah, I can see people being pretty impressed after that.
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Sep 3, 2017 21:04
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EagerSleeper posted:IDK, but someone who wasn't a teenager? Funnily enough, she's quite a bit older than most of the monarchs were when she took power. I think Uri and Freida were both younger than History.
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Sep 3, 2017 21:13
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EagerSleeper posted:I don't really know that much about the technical definition of fascism, but around the point in the story where they were trying to portray the gangster son of that one rear end in a top hat merchant whose cart was considered more valuable than people as a rightful leader to the people was where things got weird for me. The story was doing its hardest to u-turn the fact that the rear end in a top hat merchant was totally going to let people die. lol, gangster son? The point of Reeves is that he wasn't some cartoon villain; during the battle of Trost he loving lost his poo poo, like everyone else. Because Titans. Because the last time a breach happened, they lost half of humanity's territory and millions died. Then, when he returned to Trost after it was secured, you can infer that with a cooler head he both deeply regretted his actions during the evacuation and was mortified at the devastation, because what he did was sink his assets into rebuilding and providing jobs for the people who returned to the district. And this involved shady dealings with the Garrison/MP, because in the corrupt and oppressive Police State that is Paradis, that's just how things work. Whether you personally consider his actions forgivable is your prerogative, but they make sense. And it makes sense that he'd become a pillar to his community, because people are like that. He was there, walking the streets, giving people jobs and putting food in people's mouths in their hour of need - whatever else he did, he was now a loving saint for them. People easily justify this poo poo in their heads. It's why the were about to jump on Erwin's throat when he pointed out what he did during the evacuation. As for his son, well, what else? His dad died, so he gets the company now, because that's how property works. And this is a society under aristocratic rule, so it makes even more sense for them. And what does the son do? He promises that he will follow in his father's footsteps and do his best for the community, and will not tolerate the oppressive government that took his father's life the moment he stopped playing nice with them. So what do the people of Trost tell him? "We're with you." This poo poo is not even complicated, just a nudge more complex than black and white.
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Sep 4, 2017 00:42
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Conspiratiorist posted:lol, gangster son? Gangster's not the best word, admittedly. Delinquent maybe? I tend to get those anime archetypes mixed up in my head. I'm not going to argue that much about what you wrote, because I honestly do appreciate the level of detail and thought you put behind understanding character motivations. However, it is just as you said about if that was enough to make Reeves forgivable. To me, it felt contrived, like a retcon. I remember clearly at the time reading the story and being confused by how much time was being spent trying to undo that first bad impression of Reeves what with the escape route blocking. The attempt at redemption bounced off me, so further time spent with Reeves and his "he's always been a good guy" section only continued to have the opposite intended effect. I have no doubt that what you outlined was what Isayama intended, adding nuance to characters, but how it was pulled off was a different story. I think at the time, Attack on Titan was focusing a lot on nation-building, strength of the military in government, and political shadiness. I already was feeling off by the right-leaning (jingoistic?) tone the story was taking, so the Reeves redemption section seemed like a take-back of his initial appearance as a critique of greed-before-human-lives sort of fatcats. As if the author was saying "no wait, big business is good after all!". I remember I used to be waiting on the edge of my seat for new updates of Attack on Titan, but during that time, I was happy to let go of the story until it returned back to titan action. Tl;dr maybe everything will read better on a 2nd read, but I don't begrudge anyone for feeling that Attack on Titan was getting a bit fascist (maybe they should have said right-leaning instead though) at a certain point, because I felt that way too. EagerSleeper fucked around with this message at 03:51 on Sep 4, 2017 |
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Sep 4, 2017 03:46
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I'm reading and its getting good. Chapter 51. Do I start learning mystery stuff soon?
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Sep 4, 2017 03:51
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RC Cola posted:I'm reading and its getting good. Chapter 51. Do I start learning mystery stuff soon? You'll start learning a good bit about some of the stuff going on, yeah. (Kinda spoiler about how far in you are) You're still a good ways off from the basement, however.
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Sep 4, 2017 04:22
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Dias posted:I don't wanna open that particular can of worms 
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Sep 5, 2017 08:52
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Raws are out. Only Korean ones are complete though, so it looks like translations will be a tad late. As far as can be gleaned from visuals alone: More flashback at the start, this time to the military training. Meanwhile, in present, Reiner's depressed enough that he almost eats his gun. I wonder if that would even work on a shifter. Eren under cover as a cripple is back and gives Falco a letter that the latter throws into the mailbox. The Magath guy visits the Tybur family, looks like we're getting some insight into them.
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Sep 5, 2017 17:45
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Warhammer family secretly control the whole world is pretty cool. Wondering if the Teibers planned this with the 1st Fritz king or if they took advantage of the king's abandonment.  Cheer up Reiner
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Sep 6, 2017 00:43
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https://imgur.com/a/20ItI Fan translation done by some folks on reddit. The typesetting is done well and the translation isn't clunky or anything. There are some panels where some of the details are a little vague, although this may not be due to the translation at all. Flashback stuff is neat but feels like a bit of filler. Establishes more of a connection between Eren and Falco as characters in terms of their motivations and desire to do something important. Amputee guy is definitely Eren now, and he's going by Kruger. He's sending a letter to his "family" which might mean that some of the other Paradis people have infiltrated and are in a position to receive communication. He's intentionally sending it outside of Liberio so they may have infiltrated regular Marleyan society as opposed to the ghetto in the way Eren has. Seems like the Teiber family has power behind the scenes, but they've been largely hands off in direct governance. Teiber guy implies that the current state of Marleyan/Eldian relations is their fault. In the past they gave titan powers to the Marleyan government as atonement for what the nation of Eldia did, but still maintained authority over the nation. It's unclear if his intention is to reveal some or all of this information to the public and the world in order to quash the Paradis situation or if they've got something more grand planned. It's unclear who Heros is and what he actually did. It says he defeated the devil of the earth, but we know that OG Ymir was long dead and the titans had been split by then, so if there was one single "Devil" it would most likely have been one of the titans, unless the devil of the earth from the mythology is real and was still around doing stuff 100 years before the story.
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Sep 6, 2017 01:09
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well now that it's pretty much confirmed that the wounded soldier is eren, I'm really curious about his leg. either he cut it back off after it started to grow in again or they found a way to halt the titans' regeneration
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Sep 6, 2017 05:14
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Shifters can choose to halt or speed up their regeneration, as demonstrated by Reiner.
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Sep 6, 2017 05:18
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It didn't make a sense to me having Reiner trying suicide now. I mean, it would make sense for him after returning from Paradis Island, but let's remember it has passed four years. It seems a scene put because we are having his flashback of guilt now. But overall, a cool chapter. We have now four factions: -Marley -Eldians - the true King/Paradis Island -Eldians - under Marley control -Eldians - Tybur Family. What I suspect it really happened is the following: it wasn't normal humans/Marleyans the ones that defeated the Titans, that's propaganda, again. Eldians were surely divided in small kingdoms/warring factions, with each shift Titan being the leader of each one. Maybe Hisayama thought something like the Sengoku period? Wars between them were normal, and that has been going for hundreds of years. But 100 years ago, a bigger war than normal between Eldians happened, and finally it won one faction, the Tybur family. The biggest opposing faction retreated to the island (or maybe it's true they were fed up of so much war), and the smaller, defeated titan kingdoms were subjugated and given to the underlings of Tybor, the Marleyans.
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Sep 6, 2017 08:09
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