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Alan_Shore posted:Cheers! Just watched the season 2 ED and it's starting to make a lot more sense: So, we have 9 shifters, 7 of which are controlled by the Marleyans as of the telling: 1. Colossal Titan 2. Armored Titan 3. Female Titan 4. Beast Titan 5. Whatever characteristic Ymir's titan is supposed to have 6. ?? 7. ?? The remaining two are: 8. Founding/royal titan 9. The Owl As of the present, 8 and 9 have been combined, thanks to Grisha, and 1 has flipped sides.
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Jun 17, 2019 14:26
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Phobophilia posted:Honestly, the story presented as is, isn't enough to exclude the criticism of it as fascist. This recent episode at face value, sides with the Eldian Restorationist, who would gladly visit death and terror on Marley and the rest of the world once they controlled the titans once more. I don't think so. I took the episode as not siding with anyone. Grisha isn't shown to be in the right, he's shown as having good intentions but also being just as bad as what he's fighting. Two moments of the episode make this extremely clear: 1) When he's talking about Ymir to the rest of the Restorationists and he's asked if he knows the language. He doesn't, and his only justification to what he's saying is "well it's obvious". Of course he'd see it as such, it's a narrative that perfectly fits his point of view. But it's also most likely completely wrong and he's manipulating history to fit his own desires. 2) His treatment of Zeke. This one's the most blatant, since the episode itself makes the comparison between Grisha's dad forcing his own ideology on Grisha, and then Grisha doing it to his own son. In the end, it backfires horribly, and in his memoirs Grisha downright points out that he never thought of Zeke as a human being but as a tool for the restoration. There is very little in the episode that actually sides with the Eldrian Restoration so much as it sides with the people suffering, those that pursue war and violence are seen in the wrong in both sides.
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Jun 17, 2019 14:54
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Maera Sior posted:So, we have 9 shifters, 7 of which are controlled by the Marleyans as of the telling:
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Jun 17, 2019 15:13
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Maera Sior posted:So, we have 9 shifters, 7 of which are controlled by the Marleyans as of the telling: 6 is the mule titan following Zeke around. He might have eaten Ymir off-screen since her thing is running on all four, but let's give it the benefit of doubt. Ymir is too cool of a character to not get more time to shine. I don't want the Grisha titan to come from the owl guy, because I want to know more about him, but it's certainly going in that direction. He even has the same green glow in his eyes. Speaking of eye color. I'm spoiler tagging this in case I'm right, cause it would be a cool twist. There's something up with the titan eye colors. Grisha and Eren's titan along with the owl titan have green eyes. The beast and his titan army have red eyes, I think that's including the mule, but I can't remember for sure. And finally, the Reiss titan had blue eyes. This might be another tell, the way their hair styles are a tell, because Grisha had blue eyes after eating the Reiss titan, and Eren had blue eyes when going batshit insane in the season 1 finale. Lord Reiss said something to Historia about the founding titan's will taking control over the people who ate it, and you could see it in the eyes of his daughter and brother when they got a weird pattern over their normal blue color. Maybe Grisha stopped being Grisha once he ate Reiss and got blue eyes. Hell, maybe he lost his personality if/when he ate owlman. And maybe the Reiss personality thing had control over Eren when he was berserk. Eren said something like "I am free" when he was about to eat Annie, which seems nonsensical unless there's a split personality thing going on. Armin and Bert himself commented on Bert acting different in the recent episodes, so maybe Bert was influenced by the personality of the former colossal titan. Actually, as I keep writing I see more connections. Reiner has a split personality problem too. Maybe he didn't actually snap when Marco died, but he was under control by the former armored titan and temporarily broke out of it when Marco died? I'd be more sure about this theory if Zeke's entire crew didn't have red eyes in this season. It's possible they're just doing a Death Note thing where people's eye color change in dramatic moments. Attack on Princess fucked around with this message at 17:26 on Jun 17, 2019 |
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Jun 17, 2019 15:26
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Funny you should mention Death Note, literally finished my rewatch of it last night and drat what a show. The second to last episode has the greatest cliffhanger of all time and L is the greatest, also killer soundtrack
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Jun 17, 2019 17:07
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Did people know Zeke was the beast titan before this episode? cause that just dawned on me as I was watching it.
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Jun 17, 2019 17:07
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It's a... weird choice to have the og titan called Ymir, then just have another girl who's also a shifter called Ymir, right?
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Jun 17, 2019 17:08
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Not really if you consider how their society came to be. It would be like running into a guy named Adam. There's probably a ton of Ymirs, and this one happens to also be a shifter.
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Jun 17, 2019 17:10
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Alan_Shore posted:It's a... weird choice to have the og titan called Ymir, then just have another girl who's also a shifter called Ymir, right? I'm pretty sure she was named Ymir in an effort to create some sort of Restorationist cult. That she happened to become a shifter later was pure luck.
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Jun 17, 2019 17:16
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Janitor Prime posted:Did people know Zeke was the beast titan before this episode? cause that just dawned on me as I was watching it.
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Jun 17, 2019 17:18
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Yeah someone pointed out that Ymir was being used as a placeholder for the legendary Ymir. So I guess Ymir from the recruits was some nameless orphan and then named "Ymir Fritz" when she was picked up by the cultists. I need to rewatch season 2. I'm liking the eye color/split personality theory. That's cool! The quadruped titan definitely has red eyes. They showed this in the shot of the preview at the end of the episode where Zeke was defeated and Armin got roasted. I don't remember if it actually made it into the next episode though. E. Here it is. 
Cory Parsnipson fucked around with this message at 17:29 on Jun 17, 2019 |
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Jun 17, 2019 17:19
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Sindai posted:Reiner or Bert addressed him as "war chief Zeke" or something like that a few episodes ago. I missed that, I deduced it on what Zeke said about "We are both victims of that man".
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Jun 17, 2019 17:37
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I'm really curious to find out how the Morley nation defeated 9 titan shifters and an army of regular titans without the use of 3DMG. Guns and cannons have been shown to be wholly ineffective, and while airships are cool and probably help escape I don't see them as being a game changer when on the attack.
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Jun 17, 2019 17:43
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Maera Sior posted:Edit: This isn't a quote that I'm finding. Well, the second part is a joke, the first part is what Eren said after Grisha asked him if he realized what he’d done after killing the bandits. I’ve seen it translated as “those weren’t people, they were animals that looked like people” and “those weren’t people, they’re dogs that needed to be put down.”
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Jun 17, 2019 17:53
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Maera Sior posted:I'm pretty sure she was named Ymir in an effort to create some sort of Restorationist cult. That she happened to become a shifter later was pure luck. Yeah, in the flashback the guy leading the cult explicitly renamed her.
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Jun 17, 2019 18:03
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SpartanIvy posted:I'm really curious to find out how the Morley nation defeated 9 titan shifters and an army of regular titans without the use of 3DMG. Guns and cannons have been shown to be wholly ineffective, and while airships are cool and probably help escape I don't see them as being a game changer when on the attack. Attrition? Subterfuge? Shifters have limited uptime, so once they've used their powers once or twice there's a window of time where they're only men. And once you capture a couple in this fashion, you could snowball from there since the Titans weren't presenting a unified front.
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Jun 17, 2019 18:05
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Good catch on the eye thing...I had noticed the colors but hadn't made the connection. So, now the question for me is: where does Zeke's loyalty actually lie. Is he an ultra-deep-cover Restorationist, like the parents he had exiled, or is he a ture Marlian, working to steal the Titan powers back from the King. Definitely R/B/A are natives of Marley, especially since Reiner and Bert made comments about ~exterminating~ everyone inside the walls. But Zeke's motives are still clouded: did he buy into Grisha's ideology or reject it? Gantolandon posted:Yeah, in the flashback the guy leading the cult explicitly renamed her. She also specifically says taking the name "Ymir" was her "first lie." Also, anecdotally, every royal we've seen so far has been blonde with blue eyes: it'd be more likely that Erwin was royalty than Ymir...
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Jun 17, 2019 18:09
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They did establish that only Eldinians can become titans, so R/B/A would still have to be part of that group. I think they might be restorationists - I vaguely remember them talking about how the mindless titans are their people rather than the people inside (who they presumably regard as cowards for refusing to fight or help the rest of them). i assume Zeke is still pro-Marley due to his line to Eren about Grisha, but they may be working together for now because they both want to retrieve the coordinate.SpartanIvy posted:I'm really curious to find out how the Morley nation defeated 9 titan shifters and an army of regular titans without the use of 3DMG. Guns and cannons have been shown to be wholly ineffective, and while airships are cool and probably help escape I don't see them as being a game changer when on the attack.
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Jun 17, 2019 18:14
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Irony Be My Shield posted:They did establish that only Eldinians can become titans, so R/B/A would still have to be part of that group. I think they might be restorationists - I vaguely remember them talking about how the mindless titans are their people rather than the people inside (who they presumably regard as cowards for refusing to fight or help the rest of them). i assume Zeke is still pro-Marley due to his line to Eren about Grisha, but they may be working together for now because they both want to retrieve the coordinate. If Marley stole Titan powers, they either can use them or converted certain people with shifter abilities...I guess Fascist Cop said that only Eldians turn into Titans when injected, but that could be more propaganda. Really can't trust anything that isn't explicitly shown, anymore.  And I just remembered this timeline has to somehow connect back to ~real history~ because "Japan" existed at some point in the past. I would go so far as to say "Paradise Island" may be the former Japanese islands... So is this an alternate history or is humanity just regaining technology after almost 2000 years of dominance by the titans?
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Jun 17, 2019 18:20
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Irony Be My Shield posted:They did establish that only Eldinians can become titans, so R/B/A would still have to be part of that group. I think they might be restorationists - I vaguely remember them talking about how the mindless titans are their people rather than the people inside (who they presumably regard as cowards for refusing to fight or help the rest of them). i assume Zeke is still pro-Marley due to his line to Eren about Grisha, but they may be working together for now because they both want to retrieve the coordinate. The flashback mentioned that the Eldian empire was weakened after descending into a civil war where 7 of the 9 titans defected. I'm assuming the marleyans took over after the winning side was too weak to fight back.
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Jun 17, 2019 18:22
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Incidentally back in season 2 we learnt that the Coordinate Titan can mass manipulate memories, and in retrospect I think it can specifically manipulate the memories of Eldians (the "Asian clan" is immune). That might be the real reason the outsiders want it - with its power you could immediately rouse the Eldians into revolution or completely subjugate them by making your version of history the "correct" one.
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Jun 17, 2019 18:24
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Loving this development! So this means that the reason all the "kings and queens" of the kingdom kept silent and did not kill all the titans is that they are the only thing keeping them from being proper genocided by the Morleys and that they are most likely their "kinsmen"... in some regard. Noooooow i understand. But what do the Morleys gain by creating a ton of wild titans onto the island? Also upcoming existential crisis for Eren now that he figures out HE is the titan faction.
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Jun 17, 2019 18:30
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Irony Be My Shield posted:They did establish that only Eldinians can become titans, so R/B/A would still have to be part of that group. I think they might be restorationists - I vaguely remember them talking about how the mindless titans are their people rather than the people inside (who they presumably regard as cowards for refusing to fight or help the rest of them). i assume Zeke is still pro-Marley due to his line to Eren about Grisha, but they may be working together for now because they both want to retrieve the coordinate. Remember how Marley was publicly recruiting Eldians from the ghettos to become holders for the Titans they have available, and according to The Owl then use them to infiltrate the Walls? There's your R/B/A + Marcel, and Zeke too. They aren't Eldian loyalists because Zeke acted as their leader and even threatened Reiner with having him getting eaten by another Warrior to pass on the Armored Titan, and if the surviving Restorationists had somehow managed to get their hands on 6 out of the 7 Titans that Marley has, they wouldn't even need the Founding Titan.
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Jun 17, 2019 18:31
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White Rock posted:Loving this development! The King and many/most Eldians seem to have gone into a voluntary exile on the island, within the three walls. Any Eldians found breaking the truce on the continent are exiled to the island: thrown off that wall after being made into mindless titans which wander the island, outside of Maria (like the Ymir flashback in S2). I guess water/ocean is an effective barrier to titans unless they have some means of transportation or agency? Conspiratiorist posted:Remember how Marley was publicly recruiting Eldians from the ghettos to become holders for the Titans they have available, and according to The Owl then use them to infiltrate the Walls? There's your R/B/A + Marcel, and Zeke too. Yeah, unless Zeke needed the resources and help of the Marley loyalists to recover the coordinate. That could be why The Owl silenced Grisha: the Marlians don't know Zeke is royalty and will be able to effectively use the Titan powers...
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Jun 17, 2019 18:36
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Zeke and his war band of children are absolutely trying to kill everyone inside the walls. That's why Reiner questions Annie by asking if she is a member of this evil race and why Bert admits to Armin that he knows they did nothing wrong themselves but they all still need to die. They're all kids that ate up the propaganda and believe everyone in the walls is a threat to "humanity". Rewatch the season 2 episode where they have Eren captured in the tree branches both for the Ymir flashback and the conversation Bert and Reiner have about capturing Christa, it all makes sense in hindsight. Also, that same episode Ymir tells Eren that killing those two won't change anything (because now we know that there is a planet of people that hates everyone in the walls). What I really love is that this is happening for such a banal reason as the mainland wanting fossil fuels.
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Jun 17, 2019 19:13
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Toxic Fart Syndrome posted:She also specifically says taking the name "Ymir" was her "first lie." Also, anecdotally, every royal we've seen so far has been blonde with blue eyes: it'd be more likely that Erwin was royalty than Ymir... Rod Reiss and all of his children, including Frieda, the previous holder of the Founding Titan, had black hair. Aumanor fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Jun 17, 2019 |
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Jun 17, 2019 19:16
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Anonymous Zebra posted:Zeke and his war band of children are absolutely trying to kill everyone inside the walls. That's why Reiner questions Annie by asking if she is a member of this evil race and why Bert admits to Armin that he knows they did nothing wrong themselves but they all still need to die. They're all kids that ate up the propaganda and believe everyone in the walls is a threat to "humanity". Rewatch the season 2 episode where they have Eren captured in the tree branches both for the Ymir flashback and the conversation Bert and Reiner have about capturing Christa, it all makes sense in hindsight. Also, that same episode Ymir tells Eren that killing those two won't change anything (because now we know that there is a planet of people that hates everyone in the walls). yeah, the fact that the answer to the seemingly impossible question of "why the gently caress would B/R/A want to murder millions upon millions of people" is that they were child soldiers is one hell of a big  
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Jun 17, 2019 19:21
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P-Mack posted:I totally get why someone would find Holocaust imagery in the sci-fi action cartoon tasteless or inappropriate. Also whenever a fantasy setting makes real world analogies it's easy to try to read into the parts of the analogy that don't line up 1:1 for some kind of meaning or agenda. But it seems like a real stretch to take the in-universe fascist propaganda presented by the bad guys at face value, and also to ignore that the fascists are, uh, the bad guys, on the most basic level of storytelling. I think what it comes down to is that the show is basically treating blood libel as a "maybe both sides are bad" open question instead of firmly coming down on it being bullshit; more "Japanese author who doesn't really get the history in question sticking his foot in his mouth" than being pro-fascism. I'm still very much in wait-and-see mode though, because it's kind of pointless to try to divine a specific thematic meaning from a story beat whose truth we don't know yet. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Jun 17, 2019 |
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Jun 17, 2019 19:25
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:I think what it comes down to is that the show is basically treating blood libel as a "maybe both sides are bad" open issue instead of firmly coming down on it being bullshit; more "Japanese author who doesn't really get the history in question sticking his foot in his mouth" than being pro-fascism. Yeah, that's pretty much my take on it too, I think the decision to appropriate the Holocaust aesthetics so closely doesn't fit with the more conventionally anime war-is-bad rest of the story, but I do think it's just a mistake and not any kind of malicious fascist message. Also I'm not taking any of the history presented in the last episode as guaranteed truth.
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Jun 17, 2019 19:38
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Eren should grow crystal knuckles and crack open Annie's bubble of solitude. We finally have enough information for a meaningful discussion with a shifter.
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Jun 17, 2019 19:45
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:I think what it comes down to is that the show is basically treating blood libel as a "maybe both sides are bad" open question instead of firmly coming down on it being bullshit; more "Japanese author who doesn't really get the history in question sticking his foot in his mouth" than being pro-fascism. The series' running themes deal with analyzing the weight of history, and the desire for freedom. The "truth" of the matter is inconsequential because Isayama ultimately makes the assertion that it doesn't actually matter if the Eldian Empire was as bad as Marleyan propaganda says it was, because that's no justification for oppressing the Eldians alive today. Besides not being responsible or clearly benefiting in the present from it, oppression is just wrong, period. He's very unequivocal about that, and as another poster mentioned, the power is a curse. Though naturally, if we're getting in there, from "it's wrong to burden children with the sins of their fathers" you can derive the hot take that the author is doing Japanese Empire apologia... but the other message that AoT conveys is that, while it's wrong to shackle the present to the past, it is also one of the greatest crimes to conceal and distort history - doing so means people can't learn from it, and will end up repeating the same tragic mistakes over and over. The greatest both-siding it does is acknowledge that if you give a group power, they are going to become tempted to use it. Humans are dicks; the vindictive oppressed become the oppressors, given the chance. The Ancient Eldians obtained the Power of the Titans and became a world power for nearly 2000 years, then Marley obtained it and used it to subjugate the Eldians and become a super power themselves for nearly a century and counting, and now that the people of Paradis have learned about the Wall Titans and that it might be possible to use them as a weapon against their enemies... what do you think will happen? Going back to what I said above, the way to break that cycle of violence is for people to understand each other, and understand history and how it shapes the present, without becoming a slave to it. I digress, but I believe that'll be Armin's role (that Erwin couldn't have fulfilled) if the series ultimately heads for a positive or bittersweet ending. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jun 17, 2019 20:30
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okay but you can see, I hope, how using explicitly Holocaust-inspired imagery to convey a message of "whether it's avenging past genocides or not doesn't matter" might not be inconsequential to the reader, and Isayama using it as something that doesn't matter is not a choice that is above criticism
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Jun 17, 2019 20:33
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I liked when The Owl hit the torture rack on a boat. Really hoping that Eren employs the ultimate titan combat technique on Reiner now that he's seen it in action in the memory.
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Jun 17, 2019 20:39
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A big flaming stink posted:yeah, the fact that the answer to the seemingly impossible question of "why the gently caress would B/R/A want to murder millions upon millions of people" is that they were child soldiers is one hell of a big Yeah. It’s funny to say about a series that begins with naked giants senselessly eating the main character’s mom as she holds back her cries to beg her children to not leave her alone...but these last few episodes have so much new stuff from human horrors, that it comes as a shock. Genocide. Child soldiers. Members of a race of people being brainwashed against themselves by people their ancestors once enslaved/genocided. When I went on a reading hiatus because of heavy RL poo poo, it was around this time in the manga, and I’d have anime-only friends (who were post season 2 at the time) ask me how the manga was going, why did I stop reading, was it still going to be exciting when the anime got to this part. I finally settled on making a joking thing about it, saying “It got pretty dark for me right now - who knew Attack on Titan could get dark, amirite? Ha-HA!”
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Jun 17, 2019 20:55
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:okay but you can see, I hope, how using explicitly Holocaust-inspired imagery to convey a message of "whether it's avenging past genocides or not doesn't matter" might not be inconsequential to the reader, and Isayama using it as something that doesn't matter is not a choice that is above criticism Alright, since you mentioned blood libel I was addressing it more in the general since the series does repeatedly establish that the Eldians Aren't Devils (they are just people), but if that's the specific association you're wary of then I'll say that it will get touched on some more next episode, though YMMV on how satisfactory you find The Owl's approach to it.
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Jun 17, 2019 21:04
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Hot take: If you’re a manga reader, maybe don’t argue about anime nazis with anime-only watchers using your interpretation of the theme and where you think the ending is going, even if the direct examples you are using to bolster your argument only come from what’s been shown in the anime. That’s the road I’m taking, because I realize the stuff that is analogous to real world stuff is sensitive and literally first shown just last week
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Jun 17, 2019 21:16
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to be clear, i'm currently anime-only; i read the manga first and was ahead for a while but the last time i read it the current material wasn't even published yet
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Jun 17, 2019 21:18
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I think I have a solution for the manga/anime spoiler problem. All manga readers are required to wear armbands within the walls of the anime only thread. If you're caught discussing non-anime history you'll be shipped off to Pet Island and eaten by dogs. Your spinal fluid will then be harvested for Lowtax.
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Jun 17, 2019 21:28
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:okay but you can see, I hope, how using explicitly Holocaust-inspired imagery to convey a message of "whether it's avenging past genocides or not doesn't matter" might not be inconsequential to the reader, and Isayama using it as something that doesn't matter is not a choice that is above criticism I’m sure you can also appreciate that these discussions were already had when all these reveals came out in the manga and as even of next episode, the complaints being levelled at the ideas it’s using get debunked over and over. Isayama isn’t just throwing out holocaust imagery to be edgy, he has a lot to say on the subject and I’m sure you’ll appreciate that as the series goes on. It definitely ain’t promoting facism based on where it goes next i’ll tell you that right now.
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Jun 17, 2019 21:37
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White Rock posted:Loving this development! Oh gently caress, you just made me realize that's why it's called Shingeki no Kyoujin
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Jun 17, 2019 21:39
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