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The ending definitely seems like it was modified at some point, like maybe Isayama succumbed to pressure not to go full grimdark. I read the panel about Eren complaining about Mikasa very differently. To me, it seemed like he was lamenting the fact that he had to give up what he really wanted for his "destiny," because he did love her and hated the idea of her being with someone else, but it just wasn't in the cards. Not great but not as pathetic as the leaks seemed. The way the geopolitics were resolved was pretty weak but at least he didn't commit to trying to asspull a happy ending from there. The bit about Ymir and King Fritz is one of the most problematic things to me... I mean, I think there could be a salvageable message there about Ymir being broken by abuse and unable to escape that cycle as well, but the translation is too weak to support it strongly. So many characters just kind of got sidelined, and the whole Hallucigenia plot element was really extraneous and should have either been built into the plot better or else abandoned entirely rather than give the protagonists something to punch while Eren got killed. Overall, pretty weak, but I wouldn't say it poo poo the bed anywhere near GoT levels. I need to give the series a reread - I've been following it since like 2013 and haven't done a complete reread since chapter 70 or so, and I can barely remember a lot of the plot elements, like the details of Zeke's plan, etc. I will say that I don't think manga is a medium that lends itself well to tightly paced plots because of its serial nature, and even if Isayama didn't stick the landing, Shingeki no Kyojin remains a great example of a mostly well-executed plot without unnecessary characters and with adequate foreshadowing. I reserve comment on the fascist apologia because I really need to refresh on a lot of the background political narrative, though.
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Apr 8, 2021 16:03
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bees x1000 posted:do we even know what ‘that scenery’ is?  Tosk posted:The ending definitely seems like it was modified at some point, like maybe Isayama succumbed to pressure not to go full grimdark.
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Apr 8, 2021 16:04
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That was a seriously underwhelming finale. Not even awful per se, just really kinda sours a lot of the last 1/3rd of the series for me. There was a lot of "interesting" threads setup that it seemed like they were basically ignored to expediently finish up publication. Just like "enh gently caress it, lets get this poo poo done, I could care less about any of that". These last few chapters just reek of him having chosen the amount of time he wanted to spend on this IP and just sticking to it even if it really could have used a bit more to flesh out why anyone should buy any of what it's selling.
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Apr 8, 2021 16:08
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I'm just glad it's over.
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Apr 8, 2021 16:13
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I don't know about everyone else here but my interest honestly took a sharp dive the minute the scope of the story massively expanded beyond Paradis and I never had any confidence that the author would pull anything valuable or interesting out of this entire backdrop they were painting with an extra large brush in that last third. Eldians vs Marley? uh... sure why not. Now there's people called Asians??  Oh here's a litteral WW2 ghetto with star armbands? what in the actual gently caress, are we going Full Metal Alchemist with this? Oh also for some reason there's uranium under the island now. lol I'm happy it's over because I no longer have to check on it but to me it jumped the shark long ago. I really need to dive into what was the fan reaction at the time because I remember being instantly skeptical and turned off by it all.
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Apr 8, 2021 16:17
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Sassy Sasquatch posted:I don't know about everyone else here but my interest honestly took a sharp dive the minute the scope of the story massively expanded beyond Paradis and I never had any confidence that the author would pull anything valuable or interesting out of this entire backdrop they were painting with an extra large brush in that last third. Eldians vs Marley? uh... sure why not. Now there's people called Asians??
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Apr 8, 2021 16:19
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He had a good handle on everything until the mid 120s but then he kinda lost the plot imo
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Apr 8, 2021 16:20
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Endorph posted:man isayama has issues with lesbians Yeah this part really sucks a lot. I was hoping that like, literally anything about Historia and Ymir might be relevant again, but no, Historia just gets to suffer offscreen and be completely irrelevant after becoming queen.
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Apr 8, 2021 16:23
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Also lol at Levi and the ghosts from the survey corps going all "yeah mission accomplished! thats why we dedicated our hearts!" when what just happened is that they stopped the apocalipse just a tad before it was complete, only because the villain let them win, and that villain, that genocidal monster, was one of them to begin with
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Apr 8, 2021 16:31
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They don’t really look too happy especially Hange
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Apr 8, 2021 16:32
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Sassy Sasquatch posted:I don't know about everyone else here but my interest honestly took a sharp dive the minute the scope of the story massively expanded beyond Paradis and I never had any confidence that the author would pull anything valuable or interesting out of this entire backdrop they were painting with an extra large brush in that last third. Eldians vs Marley? uh... sure why not. Now there's people called Asians?? When he broke out the WW2 imagery I started reading the series more apprehensively, but was pretty charitable and assumed Isayama was at worst being clumsy with his imagery and themes. In retrospect even that was way too charitable. Now I think he's clumsy and got some weird, hosed up ideas about women and morality and what would happen if you stomped out forests across the globe.
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Apr 8, 2021 16:51
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hatty posted:They don’t really look too happy especially Hange They look, at peace/resolved but not happy to me.
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Apr 8, 2021 16:55
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Release the Snyder Cut
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Apr 8, 2021 17:01
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DamnitGannet posted:Are we even 100% sure it was necessary? Eren seems to think so but eren is a dumbass teenager who got slammed with all this god like knowledge with barely any way to fully comprehend it. It was 100% unnecessary. Even Zeke's dumbass plan would have been better and a billion people died for no reason. The aristocrats!
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Apr 8, 2021 17:02
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No Wave posted:There were two main camps. Those who lost interest quietly (as everything on Paradis had been resolved so there wasn't really anything to complain about) and those who believed in Isayama's master plan. Makes sense, I guess that puts me more in the sunk cost follower camp then. Let's see if I can dig up some retrospectively funny or interesting posts now that the ending dropped: Schwarzwald posted:X years from now when the story is finally concluded, we'll fondly look back on it all and say, "boy, the retaking Wall Maria arc was kind of a low point, huh?" Ytlaya posted:The series ends with Eren and friends dining at a table surrounded by the impaled corpses of thousands of Marleyan civilians. Saagonsa posted:It's funny. I was kind of becoming more and more apathetic about the series and dropped it for several months until I heard that they actually got to the basement, and was super surprised that it not only actually delivered a satisfying answer to pretty much everything so far in the series, but gave it an interesting way forward.
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Apr 8, 2021 17:03
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I predict the fascism discussions will fall off because nobody will care enough to bother with the argument.
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Apr 8, 2021 17:05
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So I only started reading the manga after this latest season blue-balled me with that cliffhanger, so I'm not up to date on how earlier chapters differ from the show, but what the gently caress was the point of Falco? The anime introduces him with him remembering swinging around killing titans, which had me convinced he was going to inherit the Armored Titan and get Reiner's memories, but then the manga said only the Attack Titan has non-linear memories, so I was sure he was going to get that Titan. But after all that he becomes a bird and ends the story getting supplexed? I had some real doubts watching season 4 when I noticed that Falco, Gabi, and Reiner seemed to become the main characters (I was cool with this) only to suddenly vanish for a large chunk of the later episodes. I was sure that Eren remembered meeting Falco and he was going to gift the Founding titan to him since the kid was full of empathy and might be able to bridge the gaps of understanding. And now I see that there really wasn't a point to Falco. I'm sure people have been posting their manga theories here for awhile, so sorry is this ground has already been trod. Like, I was also convinced that the whole series was a much later Attack Titan host recalling past lives as he or she contemplated a turbulent and important time in history and that the strange non-linear memories (Eren Kruger remembering Mikasa and Armin, Falco remembering being in 3D gear, Eren remembering the titan attacks the day they happen) were all an artifact of some future host not being able to fully pull apart all the lives they lived. But nope, it's just time travel and Krueger & Falco's stuff makes no sense. EDIT: I think I was really convinced that Falco was the protagonist of this later arc only for him to not really be relevant. Anonymous Zebra fucked around with this message at 17:28 on Apr 8, 2021 |
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Apr 8, 2021 17:06
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Echoing the statement that following a bit after the timeskip, I became pretty detached from the overall story, especially compared to everything else before it. As a whole, boy some of the women in this story get treated terribly. For as cool and rad Mikasa was on paper, jesus was her character a gigantic fart as a whole. She's doomed to hang out next to Eren's dumb head for possibly forever. Historia is a complete non-presence from timeskip on, which is completely bananas considering how important of a character she was set up to be. Eren's real mom getting offed in an extra awful way, especially considering how pointless it all feels. Sasha and Hange were the the only two notable characters to get offed post timeskip. Ymir the founder's motivations being pretty gross and skeevy and really awful justification for 2000 years of titan war crimes, and her being freed from her "love" via Mikasa rings kinda fuckin' hollow considering she's spending the rest of her life next to his (incredibly thick) skull. Ymir the scout also being off-screened in a particularly brutal/tragic way. It's remarkable how poorly written I feel the main characters are. Eren, for all of his screaming about defying fate and freedom, completely gives up the second he touches Historia's hand and becomes this shambling corpse of a character. One that every poster in this thread likely saw coming anyways AND didn't really solve the overall problem. Like he ended up creating this faction of mega-fascists, which seem pretty bad! Armin had zero payoff, following his succession of Erwin. The boy did nothing of value really since eating Bert, other than become big a couple times. Like yeah it wasn't a mega-botch or anything, but it is kinda disappointing. The story became such a mess following the timeskip that I wasn't really invested in anything, so maybe that helps? On the bright side, as someone that read from near the beginning, it is really neat seeing Isayama's art improve dramatically over the years. Also, Jean and his hair rules. RuBisCO fucked around with this message at 17:09 on Apr 8, 2021 |
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Apr 8, 2021 17:07
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Where Historia ends up is so weird. Why have all these scenes hinting at some connection or plan between her and Eren only for it to be nothing? Parallels with them and Grisha and Dina? Why does Eren confide in her? Why is he involved in her decision to have a child? Why is he there when she approaches the farmer? Why is the farmer an unperson? Why does she look so miserable about the whole thing? Why is her marital status brought up? Why juxtapose scenes of her labor with the rumbling?
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Apr 8, 2021 17:09
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Still loving lol @ human society is now largely either Marley or Paradis, and the best thing people can hope for is that they don’t wipe each other out before the eco-ramifications of the Rumbling starts knocking on their door and probably even more painfully
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Apr 8, 2021 17:13
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A lot of people are arguing that the ending isn't nearly as bad as it could be and that's really damning with faint praise. I'd much rather it have been S8 GoT levels than this bland cock-up of every character and motivation that we were given. Let me watch a dumpster fire instead of some kid with a zippo and a pack of cloves thinking they're edgy.
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Apr 8, 2021 17:14
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Anonymous Zebra posted:So I only started reading the manga after this latest season blue-balled me with that cliffhanger, so I'm not up to date on how earlier chapters differ from the show, but what the gently caress was the point of Falco? I'm kinda with you. The only interesting part of the timeskip, to me, was spending time with a bunch of completely different POV characters that also happened to directly oppose the ones we were used to. However, I don't know, it feels like Isayama buckled under fan pressure or something and just went back to the oldies, sidelining both Falco and Gabi. This isn't to say they didn't do important things, but there's nothing specifically important about their existence in the story. Their roles could have been easily written into someone else's. Which meant the point of the whole beginning of the timeskip was...?
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Apr 8, 2021 17:15
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So, Eren was -a guy obsessed with eliminating all his enemies -obsessed with the idea freedom, and pushing forward -self-centered, in the sense he always valued much more the people who are dear to him over the other people -disappointed with the outside world, deep in his soul he was still a child who wanted a wild world to explore with Armin -who resists to the idea of having to die after x years -who didn't find the support of rebelling further in Historia nor could elope away with Mikasa -confused with the information coming to his head through Paths So all together I can see why he did what he did, but it doesn't all coalesce in a meaningful way, making a good story of aflawed character that we can enjoy dissect as readers or making feel empathy towards him (even if we know it would be wrong). In the end, his final arc feels somehow half baked.
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Apr 8, 2021 17:20
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When he thought Mikasa wouldn't be willing to be with him romantically I guess he figured he didn't have anything better to do with his four years.
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Apr 8, 2021 17:23
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hatty posted:He had a good handle on everything until the mid 120s but then he kinda lost the plot imo This is the camp I'm in. I started to have a bad feeling around this point, but brushed it off because I thought that everything up until then was put together really well. I didn't expect answers to every little thing, but I thought that most of the major stuff would be wrapped up nicely. I don't think that the ending is GoT level horrible, it's more like...that's it? Which is worse, in a way. It's just...not that interesting.
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Apr 8, 2021 17:26
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RuBisCO posted:As a whole, boy some of the women in this story get treated terribly. For as cool and rad Mikasa was on paper, jesus was her character a gigantic fart as a whole. She's doomed to hang out next to Eren's dumb head for possibly forever. Mikasa is a pretty cool character in my book but for the longest time the extent of her personality was limited to saying "Eren" in different tones of voice.
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Apr 8, 2021 17:33
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It's actually very hard to write a story with a protagonist that has future-vision and keep the story interesting for the reader. Frank Herbert is obviously the God of this type of writing and he managed to keep it going by putting some pretty strong conflicts in the way of the omniscient protagonist. Most people forget that the crux of Dune is that Paul is desperately trying to prevent The Jihad for most of the book, but at every point he has to pick between a path of extinction or taking another step towards Jihad. He keeps hoping for most of the novel that at a later point he can move things back off course, but at the very end he suddenly sees with clarity that even if he dies at that moment that the Jihad now cannot be prevented. End of story. Once things get set in stone there isn't more story to tell. The second Dune book is interesting because Paul does find an out from his terrible future, but that literally involves loving over his son with a worse one...which he willfully does because he chickens out and doesn't want to follow through with his atrocities. It's good storytelling because even with the power of prophecy, there is still a good conflict.
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Apr 8, 2021 17:37
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The idea that the Eren and Ymir from chapters 121 and 122 eventually ended their stories like this is... well it's not something I'd write!
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Apr 8, 2021 17:37
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The last 10 chapters should have just been Mikasa killing all the titans and then smoking a big cigar and sitting on a throne of Titan bones and calling eren a stupid nerd and flipping the bird to dweebs
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Apr 8, 2021 18:02
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Whew, 80% of humanity is dead and the environment is destroyed but finally there are no more titans. That'll teach them / me? for eating my mother. *remaining 20% of humanity dives right back into race war as Eren turns into an incel bird and flies off into the sunset* At least it was funny.
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Apr 8, 2021 18:03
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Turin Turambar posted:So, Eren was It’s because of the apologia. The goal was to make sympathetic hitler, and what you get is a loving mess.
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Apr 8, 2021 18:05
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LITERALLY MY FETISH posted:It’s because of the apologia. The goal was to make sympathetic hitler, and what you get is a loving mess. I think the most disturbing part is that his friends were convinced and even thanked him for it
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Apr 8, 2021 18:09
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LITERALLY MY FETISH posted:It’s because of the apologia. The goal was to make sympathetic hitler, and what you get is a loving mess.
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Apr 8, 2021 18:16
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It was cool when it seemed like the story wouldn't endorse it. His friends crying for him and praising how noble he was for killing 80% of all life put the kibosh on that fast.
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Apr 8, 2021 18:28
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Only Armin does that in the official scans at least
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Apr 8, 2021 18:32
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I was always expecting the story to be be of an allegory for humanity's self destructive nature moreso than any pro-fascist or other direct political agenda. I think that's roughly what we got, just with a whole lot of loose ends with the huge cast of characters and subthemes. It's still a story explicitly about space worms turning humans into magical Titans, and any interpretations about messages regarding real life societies should still have that in mind. Ymir's poo poo with Fritz can be seen as sick and lovely, which the basis is, but abusive relationships like that exist in normal life much more than most people are comfortable admitting. I don't think the author's condoning anything, but depicting a story where poo poo really happens and the survivors will do what they think they need to cope and move on/keep fighting. It's by no means a happy ending for anyone.
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Apr 8, 2021 18:32
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I'm with the folks who thought he was reading a terribly translated parody, not the actual ending, during the first few pages.
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Apr 8, 2021 18:33
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I read the final chapter out of idle curiosity and I'm not going to comment on the story because I lack context but Has the art always been this bad?
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Apr 8, 2021 18:43
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That's good art by SnK standards. Go back and look at the early issues again some time.
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Apr 8, 2021 18:46
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Spiritus Nox posted:I read the final chapter out of idle curiosity and I'm not going to comment on the story because I lack context but
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