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Vanderdeath posted:Keith had just been viciously beaten by agents of the new military junta and was trying to aid the few people seemingly doing the right thing. Even if he hadn't helped the alliance, he eventually would've been imprisoned or killed by the Jaegerists. I saw his and Magath's deaths as defeated people who wanted to go out on their own terms, helping others do some good to make up for their mistakes. Dying without anyone knowing what he did also parallels his early appearance as a "bystander". In addition to letting Magath redeem himself alongside a man who feels the weight of similar sins, it has Shadis end his life a "regular" person who managed to do good without ever becoming "special" like Erwin or Grisha. I know I'm getting monotonous, and I apologize for that, but right up until the end, good or bad, Attack on Titan had a particular flavor to its writing. Then the ending chapter dashed away from a ton of foreshadowing to focus on a Mikasa and Eren ending that the rest of the story had been leading away from. It's weird, and I can't believe that it's not a last minute change. (And with the editor's note, I suspect they were the ones encouraging the ending we got.)
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Apr 22, 2021 03:21
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I'm still very excited to see the rest of the series animated. i already know which scenes i'm going to have such a hard time with, specifically the one during the rumbling where the mother passes her baby off to the next person and the next in a desperate bid to save them even in the face of utter destruction  That scene made me cry like a loving baby, i just thought it was so brutal and yet so poignant and so encompassing of human nature all at once. It's things like that that make me still love this series despite the sloppy ending.edit because i also remembered the scene with falco and colt and how he will always be with him
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Apr 22, 2021 04:31
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The ending is a bit similar to GoT in that it feels rushed to get to a certain point that might have made more sense if there was a bit more space to play with. It feels like the creator(s) just get tired out and want to end their series so they can enjoy their wealth even though editorial/the network would be fine with things continuing a bit longer.
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Apr 22, 2021 04:40
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Ccs posted:I don't think AoT is fascist but its always been thematically confused. "Thematically confused" probably is the best way to describe the series' main problems overall. I've been chatting about the ending with a friend who was more into it because they're a big Dune fan, and they dig the whole time loop stuff a lot more. Looking back, I have to admit it does look like Isayama had been planning and setting that up to be part of the narrative since the beginning. But the timeloop stuff was on such a gradual trickle for so long, only to become the main focus at the end in a really rushed way. In the meantime, so many other (better) themes were getting focused on that the story as a whole really seemed to be about something else. I think the timeloop needed a lot more hinting and time spent on it all along as a theme, if it was going to turn out to be a main drive behind the ending. But really, I wish it had been the opposite approach instead. I wish none of the Attack Titian's future visions were in the story at all, so the focus could stay on the things AoT did best. Stuff like awesome dynamic fight scenes, the whole Survey Corps underdog aesthetic of carrying on while suffering constant losses, political intrigue contrasting the soldiers' comraderie against betrayal and infighting, and an ever-growing understanding of the world, beyond the initial simplistic us-vs-them fight for survival. I feel like the same story could totally work without any visions of the future ever appearing. Grisha and Eren could still have similar stories, perhaps even more compelling stories, if they convince themselves to commit awful deeds just because they can't see any other way forward. Why give them some weird justification or mental excuse by having that one way forward be a vision implied to be literally inevitable? The Titan's powers turning out to be somewhat supernatural never bothered me, since it was always grounded in the reality of how people adapted to fight against them. But the nature of time and causality itself getting hosed with distracts from AoT's other established themes. Themes like trying to make the best choices you can with what you know at the time. Or having to live with the consequences while knowing that maybe things could have turned out better. Themes like the Titans in general being this unknowable force of nature, and the Warriors in particular having incomprehensible motives to seemingly stand against humanity's survival, only for this seemingly inevitable conflict to become less so with greater understanding. Sasha's dad talking about "getting out of the forest" felt like it could've been the main theme of Attack on Titan. It felt like it fit, like the culmination of all the battle arcs before, even after all the harping on how "the world is cruel and beautiful". Maybe fighting is inevitable right now, but we should work towards a world where we no longer have to play by those rules. That would've been a nice note to end things on.
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Apr 22, 2021 06:33
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Bifauxnen posted:"Thematically confused" probably is the best way to describe the series' main problems overall. I've been chatting about the ending with a friend who was more into it because they're a big Dune fan, and they dig the whole time loop stuff a lot more. Looking back, I have to admit it does look like Isayama had been planning and setting that up to be part of the narrative since the beginning. Something interesting? Isayama showed the last panel years ago, the intended ending as of that point. It showed up in this chapter... but not as the ending, and in a context that made very little sense. It was going to be a man holding his child and saying "you are free. We didn't know who it was meant to be, but unlike in the current version, the baby looked nothing like Eren, suggesting that it wasn't meant to be Grisha in a flashback. Now, we might never see the previous plans, but that panel suggests that, whatever else happened, the ending had the next generation be freed of the burdens of the parents, tying the manga's ending together thematically, even if it still had some weak spots. Only instead, we got the scarf.
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Apr 22, 2021 06:53
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Bifauxnen posted:Themes like the Titans in general being this unknowable force of nature, and the Warriors in particular having incomprehensible motives to seemingly stand against humanity's survival, only for this seemingly inevitable conflict to become less so with greater understanding. I want to focus on this in particular because it's something that really bothers me: the series started going that way in the Marley arc, with Reiner and Gabi's personal arcs being consistent with this, but it's something that was ultimately rejected. The titans might no longer be a mysterious force of nature but even so conflict remains inevitable in AoT - the switch to a story about the cycle of violence does not reach a conclusion about how the cycle must be broken, but about how the cycle can't be broken, and your have the moral imperative to commit immoral acts to defend your freedom in that context. For all of Eren needing to be stopped and Armin telling him that his genocide was an oopsie, we are also presented with the suggestion that the Rumbling's crippling death toll was necessary for Paradis' self-defence against a hostile world.
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Apr 22, 2021 11:13
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DamnitGannet posted:I always thought it was super unfair that the eldians are considered dangerous monsters when the only reason they turn into dangerous monsters is because someone is jabbing them with spinal fluid. If you stop jabbing them with spinal fluid, maybe you wont have a problem?? Same. Other than the shifters, turning into monsters is something Eldians can't do by themselves, it's always done against their will and being a titan is probably a horrific experience (Ymir describes it as an "endless nightmare"). Frionnel fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Apr 22, 2021 |
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Apr 22, 2021 16:04
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I always took the pure titans as a metaphor for how oppressed people can be weaponized by their oppressors against eachother. Dunno if that's exactly what he intended but I think it's a solid read.
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Apr 22, 2021 16:05
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Also they were literally bred into existence to be used as weapons of empire by the order of King Fritz.
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Apr 22, 2021 16:08
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I have Jewish friends who are completely uncomfortable with the usage of Holocaust imagery and symbols by a Japanese author. Especially since one of them is also Korean.
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Apr 22, 2021 17:08
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skaianDestiny posted:I have Jewish friends who are completely uncomfortable with the usage of Holocaust imagery and symbols by a Japanese author. Especially since one of them is also Korean. I never really know what we're supposed to do with information like this. Like, I'm Jewish and I was fine with the manga up until literally the last chapter. Does that change anyone's mind? I doubt it.
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Apr 22, 2021 17:58
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I can understand their discomfort, but I don't think the nationality of the creator should play that big a difference in how people view the work. There are also Jewish cartoonists like Eli Valley who have been branded self-hating jews because their work covers controversial topics.
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Apr 22, 2021 18:05
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gihren's voice actor is pretty good there wtf i love zeon now
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Apr 22, 2021 20:01
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Relin posted:gihren's voice actor is pretty good there Thats how they get ya
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Apr 22, 2021 20:12
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skaianDestiny posted:I have Jewish friends who are completely uncomfortable with the usage of Holocaust imagery and symbols by a Japanese author. Especially since one of them is also Korean. It's valid to be uncomfortable with and not like AOT because of the armbands. Different media makes people uncomfortable in different ways. I'm uncomfortable with gore, other people are uncomfortable with self-harm, etc. Hell, it's okay to simply not like things even without reasons. But I think we owe it to ourselves, if we want cultural awareness to improve, to not make objective value judgments on superficial and subjective skin-deep matters. Because the media creators we gotta be wary of? Most of them don't actually use problematic imagery or symbolism. They use dogwhistles.
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Apr 22, 2021 20:58
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Relin posted:gihren's voice actor is pretty good there If you really love Zeon, I do have a message from Herfiotur. Casval still lives.
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Apr 22, 2021 21:05
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skaianDestiny posted:I have Jewish friends who are completely uncomfortable with the usage of Holocaust imagery and symbols by a Japanese author. Especially since one of them is also Korean. I mean I'm Jewish and I think the ending of this manga seems to blow big time and I think the specific use of Holocaust/Nazi imagery is extraordinarily poorly thought out, especially when the Eldians go on to wipe out most of the life on earth. I don't think the fact that it's "a Japanese author" has anything to do with that though. Arakawa did a good and nuanced job using Holocaust imagery in Fullmetal Alchemist. e: plus Jewish people might come at this from a different angle but it's not like we're more right than non-Jews in our manga opinions Casey Finnigan fucked around with this message at 22:14 on Apr 22, 2021 |
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Apr 22, 2021 22:01
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I finished AoT finally and I guess I'm an eren apologist because I do agree the series was better when we assumed there was nothing beyond the walls.  Bifauxnen posted:"Thematically confused" probably is the best way to describe the series' main problems overall. I've been chatting about the ending with a friend who was more into it because they're a big Dune fan, and they dig the whole time loop stuff a lot more. Looking back, I have to admit it does look like Isayama had been planning and setting that up to be part of the narrative since the beginning. genocide is bad, but it does solve the world's problems. -AoT, probably
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Apr 23, 2021 00:36
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Cant oppress anybody if there’s no one left to oppress. - Eren Yeager If Isayama was really burned out by the end of the series the ending sort of mirrors his mindset of “let’s just get this over with in the messiest way possible”
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Apr 23, 2021 00:41
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Acerbatus posted:genocide is bad, but it does solve the main character's problems.
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Apr 23, 2021 01:11
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Apr 23, 2021 01:43
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There is the uncomfortable implication in the last chapter that his friends were more pissed about how dishonest Eren was about his plan rather than the plan itself. They almost come off as if they'd be accepting of Genocide Plan if Eren had just been upfront about it all to begin with rather than go behind their backs about everything. lol if Hange was the only one in the Paradise group who actually gave a poo poo about genocide of non-paradisians Strawberry Pyramid fucked around with this message at 02:03 on Apr 23, 2021 |
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Apr 23, 2021 02:00
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Wouldn't be surprising, with how much the manga laboured the point that every non-Paradisian wants every Paradisian dead.
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Apr 23, 2021 03:01
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This isn't what he says in the actual translation but I know most of your posts in this thread and the anime thread are in bad faith anyways
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Apr 23, 2021 03:08
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JahRoo posted:This isn't what he says in the actual translation 
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Apr 23, 2021 03:30
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“Hi, I’m Eren Yeager. Y’know, sometimes I get home from a hard days works killing 80% of the planet and really need a good meal to keep my head on my shoulders. That’s when I reach for Myojo Food's Charumera. Comes packed with yams that helps me stave off existential anguish at the thought of millions crushed beneath my feet. Try Myojo Food's Charumera today.” https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2021-04-22/attack-on-titan-commemorates-manga-conclusion-with-ramen-collaboration/.171971
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Apr 23, 2021 04:08
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Flesnolk posted:Wouldn't be surprising, with how much the manga laboured the point that every non-Paradisian wants every Paradisian dead. Not every. Most of Hizuru only wanted to economically exploit Paradis. And also there was Onyankopon. Technically, Onyankopon means that there's infinitely more outsiders who want to help Paradis out of a spirit of common humanity than in your estimates! We also have the rest of the world (that isn't dead) at least trying to make a good faith effort at diplomacy at the end by sending Armin and co back, but it's pretty thinly explained how things got to the point where everybody except the Yeagerists is willing to give peace a chance. Still, technically something! Now, if you'll allow me to go back to my madman's corkbord and red strings, I think you'll find more and more evidence for this not being Isayama's original intended ending on at least a few key points. It's clear from the foreshadowing (the chapter reprinted in color in this issue alongside the final chapter, "Armin will save the world!", the emphasis on the cycle of violence not being stopped without miraculous forgiveness) that some of this was meant to happen for a very long time. I think Armin managing to broker a peace by stopping Eren was in the cards at the start of this arc. However! The previous chapters put emphasis on the idea of breaking the cycle, creating a world where children wouldn't inherit the sins of the parents. In some ways, Titans themselves even became representative of the burden of past generations, especially with Eren and Zeke. Yet here, even with the titans gone, there's an emphasis on peace being unlikely at best, with the island and the world only being given a temporary armistice after unimaginable carnage. I suspect that, in a previous draft, Isayama had a stronger break in the cycle (possibly even calling back to the one scene of greenery in a titan's footprint to deal with deforestation questions), thus ending on a child being "free". The long hatred is broken. So far, so good. But that leads to the question of what changed. If I'm allowed to go even further out on a limb, I think it's about Mikasa. Or, more specifically, it's about Mikasa and Eren's romantic relationship. Over the years, in interviews and side content, Isayama has never seemed very enthusiastic for the whole thing... but it's very popular all the same. Let's imagine, for a moment, that the Historia theories were meant to be true. She and Eren were meant to be the final pairing, with Mikasa moving on from Eren, one way or another. This, needless to say, would be kind of controversial, since Eren and Historia didn't even talk seriously until Uprising. It's something Isayama and his editor would probably negotiate over extensively, since it would be weighing themes against possible reader unhappiness, especially when the manga's already taking huge risks with the whole jump over the ocean and switch to more political plots. Keeping Historia offscreen would, in this theory, be partially a byproduct of those negotiations, and partially setting up more surprises in Eren's motivation. (In the version we got, by contrast, Historia's whole role post-timeskip is a confusing mess, on both a narrative level and a meta level.) By saving her relationship with Eren for the finale, Isayama gets to pay off things he planned for years (Eren was going to save Historia in the first draft of Trost, not Armin) and the damage to merch sales from people angry would be reduced. ...And then final chapter comes, and it's decided (either by external pressure, or just resigned understanding of likely reader reactions) that Eren and Mikasa has to be endgame, and that 138 isn't sufficient to settle things. The original plans for Historia's sideplot have to be scrapped, and thus, this ending. In this whole theory, Eren being presented as the most pathetic man in the world when talking about Mikasa, the Ymir parallels making the relationship look even worse, and the cycle being left unresolved were all basically the product of writing under a certain level of protest, or at least a lack of understanding of why people would want the thing being written. It's all theory now, but... that editor's note, and the final panel change? Everything about this feels wrong if it's purely Isayama's screwups.
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Apr 23, 2021 04:22
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I still say Historia was supposed to get her relationship development with Eren before Freckle Ymir came into the picture, it makes what happens to her in the timeskip make a bit more sense that way if she had been established in a love triangle with Eren and Mikasa the whole time.
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Apr 23, 2021 04:42
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The most memorable thing I've always had in my mind about Mikasa and Eren, is that she completely fails to actually communicate with him as a Titan the first time he's transformed. She cannot get him to move, not a single inch, because she doesn't actually understand Eren for who he is, she's hopelessly devoted to who she thinks he is. He hates her stepping in for him, he finds her overbearing and sometimes infuriating, it's Armin who gets him to move because it's Armin who ultimately understands Eren's desires. Which would fit in an ending where Armin is the one to defeat Eren, if Eren's goal was in part making Armin the hero. Like straight up Eren is dismissive of Mikasa's romantic affections, he sees them and finds them uncomfortable because he doesn't return them and instead wants her as a friend/sister/confidant. He very clearly wants to be his own person, not just someone relying on Mikasa's power, even if he's not against it helping him when he's actually needful.
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Apr 23, 2021 04:47
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Lord_Magmar posted:The most memorable thing I've always had in my mind about Mikasa and Eren, is that she completely fails to actually communicate with him as a Titan the first time he's transformed. She cannot get him to move, not a single inch, because she doesn't actually understand Eren for who he is, she's hopelessly devoted to who she thinks he is. He hates her stepping in for him, he finds her overbearing and sometimes infuriating, it's Armin who gets him to move because it's Armin who ultimately understands Eren's desires. Which would fit in an ending where Armin is the one to defeat Eren, if Eren's goal was in part making Armin the hero. That was another thing about this chapter, yeah. Last chapter felt like it concluded Mikasa's arc with Eren. In the last minutes, he gives her the fantasy she's wanted of an Eren who will live with her, will put her first even over the mad drive for freedom that fueled him to destroy the world. And Mikasa, in return, sees clearly that her Eren isn't the real one, that she could never have the fantasy she chased because that's not who Eren is. In the end, she's able to both love the real Eren instead of her fantasy, and to kill him, freeing herself (to an extent) from her burden without giving up the part of herself that drove her so far. It's not a total change, but it lets her conclude her post timeskip arc in a way that shows character progression. Then the last chapter messed that up, too. Mikasa abandons all her closest friends to hang out with Eren's head, then a bird comes to wrap her scarf, reinforcing her fantasy Eren even as the chapter wrecked the Eren we'd spent the whole manga getting to know. Instead of feeling like she grew, it feels like she regressed.
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Apr 23, 2021 05:17
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If the editors really forced a change to that extent, they suck. Heck, the passion generated by Eren and Mikasa not ending up together might have been good for sales, people buying merch of the two to say screw you to the actual ending, the way many fans of Avatar got more involved in the series out of their frustration that Zuko and Katara didn't end up together.
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Apr 23, 2021 16:02
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Lord_Magmar posted:Like straight up Eren is dismissive of Mikasa's romantic affections, he sees them and finds them uncomfortable because he doesn't return them and instead wants her as a friend/sister/confidant. He very clearly wants to be his own person, not just someone relying on Mikasa's power, even if he's not against it helping him when he's actually needful. I never had an inkling Eren wants her even as his friend. For the entire manga he's dismissive and sometimes outright rude to her. Even when he doesn't chide Mikasa for not letting him tatakae as much as he wants, he rarely interacts with her on friendly basis. He's less accommodating to her than pretty much everyone else. That's why claiming he had always loved her seems like bullshit to me. This guy would rather try to ineffectually punch a titan, than give her one last kiss before they are both eaten.
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Apr 23, 2021 16:20
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If the author himself says he was forced to deliver that mess of an ending, I will believe. But so far I have no idea where thats coming from Theres a interview with the author saying he decided to change the ending he had planned, and he is not even suggesting he was pressured to do that
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Apr 23, 2021 16:25
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Elias_Maluco posted:If the author himself says he was forced to deliver that mess of an ending, I will believe. But so far I have no idea where thats coming from I believe some people suspect meddling, because the last chapter seems completely off. It introduces new plot holes, retroactively ruins several characters and it seems inconsistent with their motivations. Someone in this thread went with a metaphor of a soccer player nearly getting near the goal line, suddenly turning back and miraculously scoring a goal against his own team and it perfectly sums up what happened. The plot seemed tight until the very last chapter.
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Apr 23, 2021 16:33
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I agree it seems off, but Im not convinced it wanst his decision edit: my personal theory: the author had the proper ending all planned up but for some reason he decied it was too bleak, too dark, and decided to change to something more hopeful. Except it was too late to change it much since all building up was already laid down so he just cut some stuff, changed some details, shoehorned a love story conclusion for Eren and Mikasa, and, above all, changed the tone, giving it that weird "hey man thats a cool genocide you made just for us, you are really the best! "" vibe. And thats what we got Elias_Maluco fucked around with this message at 16:47 on Apr 23, 2021 |
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Apr 23, 2021 16:40
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Elias_Maluco posted:I agree it seems off, but Im not convinced it wanst his decision Neither am I, but it's more optimistic than "the author is a hack that can't give a satisfying conclusion to his own story".
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Apr 23, 2021 16:43
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Also it seems that it was set on stone for some reason that it had to end at 139, I think that had some influence Like 5 chapters ago is was already quite obvious he had too few chapters to finish the story
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Apr 23, 2021 16:57
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https://twitter.com/shaun_vids/status/1385348058116988941Ccs posted:“Hi, I’m Eren Yeager. Y’know, sometimes I get home from a hard days works killing 80% of the planet and really need a good meal to keep my head on my shoulders. That’s when I reach for Myojo Food's Charumera. Comes packed with yams that helps me stave off existential anguish at the thought of millions crushed beneath my feet. Try Myojo Food's Charumera today.”
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Apr 23, 2021 22:45
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https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kvpj4/everyone-loves-attack-on-titan-so-why-does-everyone-hate-attack-on-titan this is a pretty solid article imo
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Apr 24, 2021 00:02
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Schwarzwald posted:https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kvpj4/everyone-loves-attack-on-titan-so-why-does-everyone-hate-attack-on-titan Considering the ending (and to be frank much of what came before it) I am willing to give Isayama the benefit of the doubt - he may simply not make good choices and have a lot of unexamined ideas that he brings into the work. Those ideas add up to a fundamentally fascist worldview that is equally insufficiently examined, when considered from any angle other than speculation about authorial intent.
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Apr 24, 2021 00:33
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