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chiasaur11 posted:The "final panel" reveal also doesn't make a drat shred of sense with this chapter. It's not important, it's not in character, and it's not thematically fitting. It really really feels like there was another ending planned that was changed at the last minute.
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Apr 8, 2021 08:01
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It absolutely feels like this was modified very, very late. They were in the end zone, ready to score, and they whipped around and scored on their own goal with some sort of miracle shot. idk what sport this is.
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Apr 8, 2021 08:02
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mightygerm posted:Regarding Ymir/Worm Really baffled about this too. Ymir actually really loved her rapist, picked Mikasa as someone who could "free her from the pain of love" (this still barely makes any sense), smiles as Mikasa kisses Eren's disembodied head, and then dies on her way back to her home planet, I guess. Regarding the worm, I was fine with it being unexplained as it was in the original Ymir flashback, but since it randomly became a thing in the final battle, its purpose was kinda bizarre. It escapes, Reiner wrestles with it, titanizes a bunch of people but not really since that didn't end up mattering anyways, and it seems to die offscreen for some reason and all we see is the vanishing corpse. I don't see why it added anything to the story or any tension to the final battle at all, it could have just been cut completely. It exists to explain the origin of the Titan curse, and it being killed is how Ishiyama quickly ended the curse here at the end. I was kind of expecting a more conscious decision on Eren or Ymir's part for that, but this works well enough all the same. quote:Eren killing his own mom makes a lot of his motivation post-basement really bizarre too. We are really to believe that Eren killed his own Mom, killed 80% of humanity, in a really halfassed Lelouch gambit. At least there was world peace after Lelouch died, The world that Eren left them is worse than what they started with. But the world doesn't have Titans anymore. That's huge. That means no more hosed up cannibalistic brood mare or indoctrination ghetto systems to maintain control over tactical nukes. It means Eldians really are just ordinary people now just like any other race. Both of those issues made any kind of real peace in the world impossible before this resolution. It reads as a pretty standard "disarmament is a prerequisite to peace" and "we need to recognize we're all human inside" morals to me.
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Apr 8, 2021 08:03
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Maybe it'll make sense when the official translation is out? Because this just seems baffling, like we accidentally walked into the wrong comic.
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Apr 8, 2021 08:03
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chiasaur11 posted:Feels like the ending was poo poo out of nowhere. I keep thinking something has to have happened here. None of what happened makes sense, it doesn't feel like the same author who gave us amazing stuff like the basement talk, the whole PATHS section, Sasha's dad whole speech. It doesn't even fit in thematically with what comic was trying to be all about, how we have to end the cycle of violence and how it's all perpetuated by the powerful based on illogical reasons. Like what the hell was Krugers speech about finding a way to stop history from endlessly repeating itself if this was the result. Instead what I got was Eren saying in one chapter he can't gamble the future of Paradis to future retaliation and then in another being okay with that exact thing happening, The Yaegerist's actually taking over and everything being okay with their fascist regime and military expansion, a line where Armin is actually thanking him for killing 80% of the population and a whole bunch of other nonsensical stuff that doesn't fit in with the story at all. They might as well have just done the plan of use the Rumbling to keep other nations away for 50 years and catch up technologically , it would've worked out better, because Eren gave them basically the same future and took away the only thing that was really protecting them from any retaliation they had on their side before. He's basically doomed the people he cares about to conflict with almost 100% certainty based on those final scenes with the Yaegerists The more I think about the chapter, the worse it really gets, which is insane because 95% of this manga was written so well. It took every interesting thing Isayama had to say and makes you question whether he had any idea of what he was talking about or if there was some sort of meddling here, because it almost feels like it was written by a different author. Asuron fucked around with this message at 08:08 on Apr 8, 2021 |
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Apr 8, 2021 08:05
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Strawberry Pyramid posted:It exists to explain the origin of the Titan curse, and it being killed is how Ishiyama quickly ended the curse here at the end. I was kind of expecting a more conscious decision on Eren or Ymir's part for that, but this works well enough all the same. That's the problem. It doesn't really EXPLAIN anything at all, its just a mcguffin. Its pretty clear now that Ymir was the one continuing the cycle of titans, they could just have her end it and it would make more sense. quote:But the world doesn't have Titans anymore. That's huge. That means no more hosed up cannibalistic brood mare or indoctrination ghetto systems to maintain control over tactical nukes. It means Eldians really are just ordinary people now just like any other race. Both of those issues made any kind of real peace in the world impossible before this resolution. It reads as a pretty standard "disarmament is a prerequisite to peace" and "we need to recognize we're all human inside" morals to me. Zeke's plan makes much more sense in that case though (in a global sense). You get rid of Titans, the remaining Eldians get to live out their lives, and 80% of humanity doesn't have to die.
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Apr 8, 2021 08:10
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mightygerm posted:Zeke's plan makes much more sense in that case though (in a global sense). You get rid of Titans, the remaining Eldians get to live out their lives, and 80% of humanity doesn't have to die. I mean, at that point we're arguing which is the less reprehensible form of genocide to solve the problem of an entire race of people being genetic weapon slaves, which was brought up from the moment Eren made his big genocide speech from the Paths Broadcast System.
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Apr 8, 2021 08:19
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This is sooo bad, lmao
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Apr 8, 2021 09:20
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man isayama has issues with lesbians
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Apr 8, 2021 10:02
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The "Eren wakes up and it was all a dream/ High School AU" ending would have been objectively better than what we got. Heck, the "AoT is the origin story of Madagascar movie" ending would be better.
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Apr 8, 2021 10:45
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Lmao just realized Historia was written out of the story so hard we didn't even get the payoff of her baby being named Ymir... or even Eren
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Apr 8, 2021 11:31
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Last chapter thoughts Historia I have to say it: I believed the child was Eren's. It made more sense to me, because you don't make an important character like Historia pregnant by a unnamed, unseen character, that's just bad storytelling (seriously, if farmer-kun had to be the father, at least plan for it, present him a few chapters before, so we can say 'oh they got together in the timeskip!' and we could have accepted it more easily) and it's jsut treating your characters like mere plot points, and in addition, that would give a bigger personal reason for Eren to really oppose the plan of using Historia to perpetuate the cycle a few more decades and wanting to really free Paradis, for his child. People make crazy things for their children and all that. The timeloop If you are going to introduce something as mindbending as a timeloop with Eren talking to the past, or having visions of the future, and do it relatively late into the series, you need something more to cap it all. I feel we needed a dozen more pages where we witness Eren's vision and how bad it was, and also a few more pages to make the reader understand how he was trapped by a eternalism type of unchanging future, of how he was warped by it. I mean... something was needed to make us understand how Eren did what he did. We had a bit of that in chapter 130 or 131 but I feel it should have hammered more. Instead, there is a single sentence or two of how it was all inevitable. Eren's plan & the psychology of it 80% of humanity killed. That's what, almost 1 billion people, for a world of that technological level? That seems OBJECTIVELY worse than the 50 years plan or Zeke's plan. Like, it isn't something to discuss. Hitler was a innocent toddler in comparison. Eren's plan was horrible, it can't be excused or forgiven. So what the series should have focused is a more in depth inner examination of Eren, how and why he chose a path that ended up in a mindset that allowed for this. But I don't think anything like that in this last chapter, the two or three almost senseless sentences we had is not near enough. Armin thanking him seems a joke. Same as the others character remembering fondly. Oh yeah and destroying most of the forests of the world seems a really bad idea. ...and the Geopolitics of it The series focused a bit on the geopolitics of the situation, with Eldians, Marley, other countries, possible diplomacy with Hizu, etc, so let's examine what happened in the end. Realistically, if you kill 80% of the world, you are stalling or at least slowing down a lot the technological progress for a few hundred years, and the remaining 20% will be basically a country or a few small countries on the antipodes of Paradis, at the other side of the globe. With the 1920s technology we have seen, I don't see realistic that the remaining 20% to attack Parad... er... I mean, the New Eldian Empire any time soon, so the preparations they are doing are senseless. It would be like Australia doing a full invasion of France in WW1 times, way too much distance. So Eren's goal of save Paradis was successful, I guess. He says as much: 'They won't be able to go to battle'. Even if said nations want to look outside their borders, surely they will spend a pair of centuries recolonizing the now free lands (most of the world). On the other hand I don't see them forgiving what Eldians have done anytime soon, even if they paint themselves as heroes thanks to the Lelouch's ending and explain that titans are no more. Eren says 'All the remaining people in the world now owe you all a tremendous debt' but I think that's in eyes of history, who stopped the rumbling will be a mere foot's note in comparison with who started it. Eldia's ancient empire atrocities are a small thing in comparison with Eren's actions, and said atrocities are why the world hate Eldians, now they will be hated 10x more, so I don't think going 'yeah the heroes who saved the days are also Edians' will be enough. That's pretty child-like logic from Eren. The cycle of violence In the few pages we have we see Paradis, if anything, turning into more fascist (more militarization, military rallies) than before. But honestly, I don't have a problem with them not solving the cycle of violence. It would feel forced if they magically reach world peace in a few pages. We only have the fact Historia has send the group in a peace mission. Historia, btw, was before a puppet queen from the military junta, and I can only imagine she is even more of a puppet with the new government. The happy ending For the ending being an almost suicide mission against impossible odds, things went too well for everyone. Only one indirect casualty, Hange, and none on the proper final fights. Some of the moments in the extended final fight felt indeed like a superhero movie, where the stakes doesn't feel real because you know the heroes won't be able to die. Sorry to say, but a pair of deaths more would have enhanced the drama and would have shown that the struggle was real and the consequences from Eren's plan were real. But apart from the low number of deaths, I feel the tone on the epilogue is too happy, with all titans being reverted, all of them together now, with banter, the previous shifter titans being freed from the 13 years limit, all their families having survived too (what a coincidence, all of them being in the lucky 20%!) and loving Reiner sniffing Historia's letter. It's like disrespetecting your own characters, ffs. Reiner almost off himself for what he did and his inner turmoil, so it doesn't make any sense to me to go along with the group. I'm not saying he should kill himself finally, but I think it would have made more sense for him to wanting to go somewhere else quietly and alone, to find his own peace. Instead, *sniff*. The moment with the past figures in the smoke saluting and even seen by several characters is just corny. But I have to say they way it ends with 'and we will tell our story' as their attempt for peace is a decent one. Ymir I'm not convinced by Eren's explanation of Ymir loved Fritz. Kind of gross, actually. I thought the series was aiming for it to be about the brutal nature of slavery, of how she had been conditioned after all her life as a slave, that once removed the collar, she still was behaving in the same way, she needed someone, Eren, to access the Paths with the power and personally hug and free her (chapter 122). That should have stopped the titan's power. That or separating Eren from the worm, but magically it didn't... Instead, we have the twist of 'and the person to free her was Mikasa' is just... uh. Together with Eren's no-explanation of it, it was double-combo, even more as I reread chapter 122 as it seems to contradict it. It's a very important plot point of the series and Isayama isn't able to explain or develop it properly. I can only think Mikasa killing his love and 'master', Eren, served for Ymir to have a chance to feel or see what she never was able to do in her life, and free herself finally, stopping the Titan's curse. But I feel I have to make an active effort in imagining all this, and it's more like half baked speculation and less like a good reasoning. It can be said that at least they got rid of the Titans but I don't see how it was needed to kill 80% of humanity for it. Coming back to the worm, it disappeared magically in between chapters eh? Romance in AoT For better or worse, AoT have never focused on the romance or love aspect. Isayama could have done it, he had plenty of characters to do it, but we never saw anyone dating or mentions of girlfriends, boyfriends, etc. Hell, I think the closest we have was Ymir and Historia if we squint hard enough, and possible Sasha and Niccolo's couple (and even then it isn't said clearly). This is why now, in the last chapters, to see more focus on Mikasa's decisions and if they loved each other or not and Eren shouting he wanted to be with her is weird. It's funny, because I'm reading some of the previous chapters, like 130, and some parts really reads like Eren was a furious incel, for example he proposes in secret to Historia to fight... or maybe run away together? Whe she rejects the notion, we pass to the next page where we have Eren saying 'WE WILL BRING RUIN TO THE WORLD' to Floch. Maybe it's just coincidence and a bad reading, but funny nonetheless. Same in chapter 123, were we have the moment where Mikasa says 'family' as answer to Eren and that seems to be a divergent point in the fate's story. In summary, Isayama turned this series into something super ambitious, so in a way he painted himself in a corner where he had to respond to all that ambition by successfully nailing a very complex tapestry of scifi, characterizations, politics, philosophy, psychology, relationships and more and... well, he failed at it. Turin Turambar fucked around with this message at 14:19 on Apr 8, 2021 |
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Apr 8, 2021 11:44
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The more you read it, and then read back the last 20 or so chapters it just gets worse. Did he have a week to go to the deadline and realise he hadn't actually written the ending or something?
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Apr 8, 2021 12:31
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Some people say the recent chapters were bad but I honestly think it was all salvageable. IMO All Isayama was to do was commit to murdering pretty much everybody, tragically cutting incomplete plot threads short while delving into Eren's psyche as he goes "Now my family and friends can live in peace." to rationalize everything and serve as a cautionary tale. You know, "war is bad, wow cool titans", etc. I went into this expecting that to not be the case. I was ready to say "Isayama you coward" with the cheap cop out Lelouch/Leto II ending. But it wasn't even that. Instead we get that one loving page and are left to fill in the blanks for ourselves. That loving sucks. What the hell. How do you go from the meticulously plotted everything we had for the past 3-4 years to this? I can't even be properly disappointed because I'm just so baffled. This seems rushed, which is a ridiculous thing to say of a story that went on for over a decade. I can get Isayama just wanting to end the manga in whatever form it is by 139, but this "epilogue" leaves so much up in the air that I can't imagine writing it could've felt like closure. Not to someone who put so much thought and work into the characters and their world. What the hell happened? What was the logic here?
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Apr 8, 2021 12:35
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Turin Turambar posted:Last chapter thoughts I agree People are saying he didint really killed 80% of humanity but I dont know where they are getting that from. Eren says it is, and he seems almost omniscient at that point, I think he would be correct. At the end of the day, it was just a bit less worst than letting the rumbling go its full course. Is that what Grisha thought it was a good outcome? Instead of wiping all humantity but Paradis, he wiped *almost* all humanity (while also destroying most forests which should set the world for a climate/ecological collapse). hooray? And thats was enough to make him an hero again for his friends
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Apr 8, 2021 12:36
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Armin: Hey thanks for doin all that mass murderin for us bro, wouldn't want to look bad when the world nukes us. Eren: No problem friends, make sure Mikasa keeps her legs closed alright? Jaegerists: Heil Hitlersaurus Christ! There's your eleven years of buildup.
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Apr 8, 2021 12:37
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Office Pig posted:Armin: Hey thanks for doin all that mass murderin for us bro, wouldn't want to look bad when the world nukes us. Yeah theres also that: Paradis seems to end as a happy fascist nation, and everyone seems ok with that All those people who always said AoT was fascist propaganda will feel confirmed I really dont know what to think about that
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Apr 8, 2021 12:40
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Elias_Maluco posted:
Might have to apologise to Polygon at this rate
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Apr 8, 2021 12:43
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I'm going to give this a few days (the official release hasn't even happened yet) to see if Bessatsu announces a web exclusive final chapter or there's a movie in the works or something before I pass on judgment because this just doesn't feel real. I imagine this is how a lot of people felt about the end of the Evangelion TV series. Ironic, given what I've heard about Rebuild 4. 
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Apr 8, 2021 12:46
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Historia seemed to be working behind he scenes to change things and that is why Armin and crew were going back. Now it seems unlikely that outside of another coup that that would result in real change, but that is a different matter.
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Apr 8, 2021 12:50
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serious gaylord posted:The more you read it, and then read back the last 20 or so chapters it just gets worse. Did he have a week to go to the deadline and realise he hadn't actually written the ending or something? Speaking about deadlines, I wonder if the quality of the ending could have been improved if the editor would have let him a bit more of time. Let's remember the death march that is publishing a regular manga in Japan. In fact, now that I think about, I don't think AoT skipped any month in the last years. Would we have the same ending if a year ago Isayama had made a 3 months pause? We will never know.
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Apr 8, 2021 14:08
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Better ending than darling in the franxx
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Apr 8, 2021 14:11
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I think I hate this ending? Eren's true motivations were dumb and the conversation with Armin in PATHS doing a 180 on his timeskip personality is a little too unbelievable. If we were supposed to sympathize with him in the end it shouldn't have been contained in the last chapter. Everyone that turned into titans reverting back was expected but "80% of humanity was killed" seems like a throwaway line to make this lesser than a happy ending. The world still being at war with Paradis still under the control of insurrectionists is perfect for this manga though.
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Apr 8, 2021 14:11
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Elias_Maluco posted:I agree Now that I think about it, the series started with everybody believing it was a post-apocalypse story with just a one remaining city, and now in between the genocide and the climate collapse it will really turn into one!
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Apr 8, 2021 14:11
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After re-reading the better translation, it... really seems like Isayama decided to channel the OG Mass Effect 3 ending hard in the sense that there are things that kind of happen, but it is not clear that Isayama really understands the true gravity and ramifications of what actually happened. 1. Eren noted that the rumbling killed 80% of humanity on two separate occasions. That... is absolutely insane (for a metric for our world, that would have meant that Eren killed five point six billion people). The geopolitics right now aside, Paradis is literally the only nation that probably didn't get turbo-hosed by the Rumbling. But this comes to a second point; 2. Eren noted that in the process of eliminating several billion people, he also destroyed most of the forests across the world. Someone should have told Isayama what the ramifications of losing the forests worldwide would be, because I can't really bring myself to care about.. well... any of the fallout of Marley/Paradis right now; humanity and likely the rest of the planet is irrevocably hosed within the next few generations because of this. MechaX fucked around with this message at 14:26 on Apr 8, 2021 |
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Apr 8, 2021 14:14
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It's like Isayama read that chapter in Dune Messiah where Paul is all "ever heard of Hitler? He was this dictator a couple of thousand years who killed a few million people and was seen as the epitome of evil. Anyway I killed 42 billion and everyone loves me and sees me as the saviour" and then proceeded to draw the exact opposite conclusion of what the text wanted him to. People draw comparisons to Leto II/the Leto ending but I always saw more Paul in eren tbh. Pretty incomprehensible ending for a series that had great plotting.
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Apr 8, 2021 14:24
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I was wanting to wait for the series to end before doing a proper read-through through all of it since I didn't want to wait month-to-month for new releases, but uh... Should I even bother at this point?  e: To be clear, I'm still really fascinated by the horror and spectacle of the Titans, but it sounds like the endgame of the series is really controversial for the wrong reasons. Teriyaki Koinku fucked around with this message at 14:30 on Apr 8, 2021 |
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Apr 8, 2021 14:24
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Teriyaki Koinku posted:I was wanting to wait for the series to end before doing a proper read-through through all of it since I didn't want to wait month-to-month for new releases, but uh... Should I even bother at this point? After the timeskip is where some readers' interpretation of events and characters diverge heavily from what actually ends up happening at the end of the series. Teriyaki Koinku posted:e: To be clear, I'm still really fascinated by the horror and spectacle of the Titans, but it sounds like the endgame of the series is really controversial for the wrong reasons. No Wave fucked around with this message at 14:35 on Apr 8, 2021 |
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Apr 8, 2021 14:27
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wait lol if everyone reverted back to humans, does that mean the wall titans also reverted back to regular people? And all the non-killed titans running around Paradis island? Just people from a millenia ago, running around confused. That would have been fun to explore but oh well.
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Apr 8, 2021 14:32
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So in the end, was Attack on Titan fascist?
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Apr 8, 2021 14:37
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Wow what writing, an incredibly bold move to subvert the reader's expectation that the ending would have an allegorical point. That seems to be the real problem with these kinds of endings, they mock you for expecting the story to ever crawl out of its own rear end to have an idea. It turns out it was never a story about the evil of genocide and race war- those are still happening at the end but none of the characters give that big of a poo poo aside from "guess we better try to cool that patriotic spirit" type poo poo. This was always just a story about the characters and the adventures of those characters and it was a mistake to try to glean a philosophical point about generational trauma, human nature, and hate. The idea that pain+purpose=monster? Just nonsense plot element to limit power and create tension. Throwing German opera over meat mecha battles? 9 titan forms and a tree like trunk in the paths? Just borrowing a motif, with no deeper meaning. This whole time it was a McChicken wrapped in a Nietzsche dustjacket.
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Apr 8, 2021 14:41
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Did we ever see what happened with Yelena. She got saved because the Alliance needed her for something and then disappeared off the face of the earth.
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Apr 8, 2021 14:47
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I've re-read it with the better translations and have slept on it. I'm still O-K with Eren's flawed plans, even if he does doom the world, he basically says he's broken brained already and doesn't always know what he's doing. I'm usually more annoyed when manga/anime characters are too freaking precise in their plans and abilities. It sounds like Eren's experience from the moment he touch Historia's hand was like a crazy acid trip with all the time/space stuff destroying his ability to fully map out and understand all of his actions anyway. He even says he didn't actually know how the rumbling and their fight would turn out. Sounds like he was ready to eliminate 99.9% of the world and then miserably live out his remaining years. I agree with the sentiment that the final chapters in general were a letdown compared to the amazing writing and depth of plotting that had brought us to the final arc. Even a narrative overview or something would do a lot at this point. The anime's almost certainly going to pad this out a lot more if they want AoT to be any form of cash cow moving forward.
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Apr 8, 2021 14:57
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TheKingofSprings posted:So in the end, was Attack on Titan fascist? Yeah
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Apr 8, 2021 15:11
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Asuron posted:Did we ever see what happened with Yelena. Pretty sure she got poochied, like Ymir. I was hoping to see some sort of resolution with her as she was the only one of the people in the Yeagerists inner circle that was still with the main cast at the end. We see cameos of Onyankopon and Kiyomi but we have no actual idea what happened to their countries, I thought it would be a bigger deal in the epilogue.
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Apr 8, 2021 15:15
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mightygerm posted:Pretty sure she got poochied, like Ymir. I was hoping to see some sort of resolution with her as she was the only one of the people in the Yeagerists inner circle that was still with the main cast at the end. We see cameos of Onyankopon and Kiyomi but we have no actual idea what happened to their countries, I thought it would be a bigger deal in the epilogue. As you an guess with my long post, I don't agree with most decisions Isayama took with the end of AoT, but even then, it would have been a better ending if he would have developed / explained those decisions in a double chapter, even if I would have preferred A instead of B.
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Apr 8, 2021 15:39
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iamsosmrt posted:I've re-read it with the better translations and have slept on it. I'm still O-K with Eren's flawed plans, even if he does doom the world, he basically says he's broken brained already and doesn't always know what he's doing. I can accept that. Eren is a traumatized angry kid But than theres the fact that Grisha enabled this plan. And than theres the fact all his smarter and more humane friends end up agreeing with it too
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Apr 8, 2021 15:41
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The official release seems to be out to buy if anyone was waiting for it
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Apr 8, 2021 16:00
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do we even know what ‘that scenery’ is?
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Apr 8, 2021 16:00
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bees x1000 posted:do we even know what ‘that scenery’ is? The tree where Eren woke up crying at the start of the series?
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Apr 8, 2021 16:03
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