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Strawberry Pyramid posted:It's a touch odd and raises a few questions when the most simple answer would have been "their ancestors were non-Eldian minorities in Paradis territory who, once persecuted, were then given elevated status in exchange for their complicity in the mindwipe scheme." As is, there's the implication there was and is a sub-group within the Eldian ethnicity that carefully avoided ever breeding with anyone of Ymir's bloodline. It's a nice touch that complicates the history of Eldia in a good way imo. For example, how many Marleyans are actually non-Subject of Ymir Eldians that just carefully switched to another national identity when the empire fell? Did they even exist at that point? We can't know and it doesn't matter at all to the plot but it feels believable. I guess what i'm trying to say is that it's nice when this stuff evolves over time and the identities don't remain static for thousands of years. Frionnel fucked around with this message at 16:31 on Apr 25, 2021 |
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Apr 25, 2021 16:02
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Elias_Maluco posted:It kinda does, really. The seemingly fascist militaristic tyranny is kinda presented as a necessary step after the rumbling, to protect the island. And now, after Paradis is invincible and the worlds only superpower, the libs, I mean, Armin and the Good Guys (the ones who thanked Eren for his well-intentioned genocide) step in to bring democracy and diplomacy back The thing is, it isn't. Yes, that's how the Yeagerists sold their policies, but the world as a whole was already willing to talk peace (if only because war is at this point literally impossible). The Yeagerist takeover is a bad thing, which is why we get a panel of Sasha's dad looking unhappy and talk about how they wanted to kill the families of Our Heroes. We also get a lot of people wondering if there can be any end to this cycle of hatred, which is an odd note if you want to say everything is fine. The ending is terrible, but it's not rooting for the fascists. They're meant to be part of the bitter to counterbalance the whole "what's left of the world is saved, almost everyone important lived, Eren and Mikasa sorta kinda got together" ultra-happy ending to make it not feel too sappy for the Japanese audience. (Or, in my more paranoid rambling, they're the crappy parts Isayama put in to indicate this wasn't how he wanted to end things. Seriously, those editorial comments were weird.)
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Apr 25, 2021 21:24
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I'm hoping animated it will show the disappointment from our named characters in the crowds a bit better and we hear some stronger disgust out of Armin during his thank you. Thats my bar for making this ending eh instead of oof.
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Apr 25, 2021 22:15
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Viridiant posted:Yeah Isayama really doesn't do enough to present fascism as something you should never turn to, and this only gets more pronounced as it gets closer to the ending. Is it presented as bad? Absolutely. Is any viable alternative ever seriously presented? No, not really. Isayama seems to present it as a necessary evil, because whenever a "good" character is asked to provide an alternative, their answer is always to either be silent, or to stutter out a half-formed idea that makes them look naive. Elias_Maluco posted:It kinda does, really. The seemingly fascist militaristic tyranny is kinda presented as a necessary step after the rumbling, to protect the island. And now, after Paradis is invincible and the worlds only superpower, the libs, I mean, Armin and the Good Guys (the ones who thanked Eren for his well-intentioned genocide) step in to bring democracy and diplomacy back Jesus christ we’ve now gone to thinking he believes in fascism Was the discussion for Starship Troopers this frustrating when it came out? I know it had the same sort of arguments levelled against it, but you’d think with Attack on Titan where it depicts how awful fascism is for every character and like, Gabi’s whole character arc would be enough to counter it. Whatever my issues with the ending, fascism was never portrayed as anything but destructive to people havig to live under it. You’d have to literally ignore all the text that came before to think Isayama supports it at all. Let’s also be clear, the fascist government forming their is not depicted as a good thing. Did we all just collectively ignore characters like Niccolo looking on in horror as the army marches down the road?
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Apr 25, 2021 23:20
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Isayama turned Floch into a cartoon character/80s movie nazi bad guy and drew the yaegerists as almost literal monsters in background panels but he didn't have a character break the 4th wall and talk about adolf hitler or drumpf so what are his REAL intentions - some faux progressive twit(ter) somewhere probably
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Apr 25, 2021 23:32
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The problem is that any alternative to a hyper-militarised nation struggling for survival is consistently portrayed as even more self-destructive. AoT tells you that to survive you need to become a monster - refusing to become a monster means resigning yourself to be a sheep destined for slaughter.
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Apr 25, 2021 23:35
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I don't think that's true.
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Apr 25, 2021 23:48
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YF-23 posted:The problem is that any alternative to a hyper-militarised nation struggling for survival is consistently portrayed as even more self-destructive. AoT tells you that to survive you need to become a monster - refusing to become a monster means resigning yourself to be a sheep destined for slaughter. So does Starship Troopers if one only sees the surface elements. Frionnel fucked around with this message at 03:31 on Apr 26, 2021 |
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Apr 25, 2021 23:59
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this is gonna be fun when the anime finale airs
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Apr 26, 2021 00:23
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One of the (many) problems with the ending is that it doesn't seem to have a clear thesis statement. Like it's clearly supposed to be a "good" ending where most of the cast lives without oppression from either Marley or the titans, but also it implies a lot of very bad things that are either not addressed at all or answered with a wishy-washy "We'll try to do better". So we're talking in circles regarding what Isayama meant because he didn't really say anything. Maybe this is something the final 5 pages will touch on. Or maybe it'll find new and exciting ways to contradict earlier chapters like the rest of 139 did. Who the gently caress knows at this point.
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Apr 26, 2021 00:32
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One of Eren's friends should have died by his hand. it seems like only nobodies got stomped and every other main character seems to be doing just fine, Except Hange of course. 80% of the world was off screened but everyone else is just sniffing letters on a boat or in fake London smiling at planes.
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Apr 26, 2021 00:51
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Asuron posted:Jesus christ we’ve now gone to thinking he believes in fascism Yes, like I said, he presents fascism as bad. Okay. What then? No poo poo fascism is bad. What's the answer? A shrug? Was that really the best he could do? I hear a lot of people talking about the negatives of capitalism but embracing it as a necessary evil anyway. Just stating that something is bad is nothing. gently caress, companies and politicians pull that poo poo all the time. "This is bad. Let's try to do better". Hange's probably the one who struggles the hardest for peace in the second half of the manga but even she never comes up with anything actionable. Armin's supposed to be the smartest character in the manga but it seems like that only extends as far as battling mindless monsters and child soldiers who are going insane with self doubt. He has nothing substantial to say in favor of peace either. I don't know if Isayama believes in fascism. Maybe he just an extremely dismal view of humanity. But if he's making a manga with these themes he needs to do better than something as half-assed as this ending was.
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Apr 26, 2021 01:09
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Viridiant posted:Yes, like I said, he presents fascism as bad. He posits that fascism is bad and shows various kinds of reasons of why nevertheless people turn to it. The series never looks to offer concrete solutions, and that's fine - it's a war story published in a monthly manga magazine, not a treatise on how to achieve world peace.
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Apr 26, 2021 02:37
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Conspiratiorist posted:He posits that fascism is bad and shows various kinds of reasons of why nevertheless people turn to it. It's a real shame if the series has so little to say that we have to resort to "the medium itself is incapable of positing an alternative to fascism to resolve big problems." Starship Troopers the film was great because it was an over the top satirical take on fascism, showing how the characters walk gleefully walk into the meat grinder and how absolutely insane that is. Starship Troopers the book is an earnest argument about how a militarized society would somehow uphold the dignity of humanity. AoT ends up at some kind of crossroads between the two. It's awful that the characters had to throw themselves into the meat grinder, but only by doing so could they achieve a semblance of peace, and now they'll try to use diplomacy despite it failing before because it would be nice to avoid further loss of life. But diplomacy has never really worked out in the series before so it doesn't do a great job of convincing the audience that it'll work this time. I thought the theme of this manga was going to be about freedom, about finally breaking the cycle. That's what the original final page seemed to suggest, with the "you are free." But what we actually got is just freedom from the conceit of the Titans, and not freedom from anything the Titans represented symbolically.
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Apr 26, 2021 03:01
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Viridiant posted:Yes, like I said, he presents fascism as bad. He gives what he thinks is the answer with Mr Braus and what he says in the restaurant. The ending depicts Eldia turning into a fascist state, with the main characters going back and trying to change that. It ends on the note of they don't know if they'll succeed but they want to try. How you can possibly take that as him believing in any of the ideals fascism literally makes no sense, even with the ending being poorly executed. Again you have to ignore the entirety of the manga to think that at all, there's no in text justification for it. Conspiratiorist posted:He posits that fascism is bad and shows various kinds of reasons of why nevertheless people turn to it. Also this. Understanding how normal, good people can turn to dangerous ideologies like this is important in understanding how to prevent it from occurring. Given the state of the world today, I think showing that is more important now than ever.
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Apr 26, 2021 03:02
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Starting to think that people in this thread are upset that the comic book doesn’t depict and reflect reality
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Apr 26, 2021 03:19
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TheKingofSprings posted:Starting to think that people in this thread are upset that the comic book doesn’t depict and reflect reality Tbh my main takeaway of the thread is lots of people who think they’re immune to propaganda and it’s kinda sad.
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Apr 26, 2021 03:41
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Ccs posted:I thought the theme of this manga was going to be about freedom, about finally breaking the cycle. That's what the original final page seemed to suggest, with the "you are free." But what we actually got is just freedom from the conceit of the Titans, and not freedom from anything the Titans represented symbolically. this is the real failure of the manga, imo
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Apr 26, 2021 03:46
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Schwarzwald posted:this is the real failure of the manga, imo I can agree with that. The original final panel felt like it was the "right" conclusion to the manga, assuming it had sufficient context to justify it... but we got something worse instead.
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Apr 26, 2021 04:26
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Reminds me a lot of Dany's bigdick "I'm going to break the wheel" energy before we see what happens in GoT's final season. At least this was more concentrated in one or two chapters and not a 2-year delayed season. Anime fans might feel a bit sour about the wait.
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Apr 26, 2021 07:33
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LITERALLY MY FETISH posted:Tbh my main takeaway of the thread is lots of people who think they’re immune to propaganda and it’s kinda sad. Captain Invictus fucked around with this message at 07:42 on Apr 26, 2021 |
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Apr 26, 2021 07:39
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Apr 26, 2021 08:12
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Frionnel posted:So does Starship Troopers if one only sees the surface elements. I'd say Starship Troopers having scenes like this makes itself more explicit. AoT instead leaves itself open to Poe's Law: for every scene where someone gets brutally eaten and a starry-eyed recruit following their dreams meets instant death to remind you that war is hell, there is a scene of Mikasa or Levi or Erwin or Armin being totally badass or Eren doing titan-wrestling to remind you that war is really cool. With no clear authorial intent it is therefore hard to distinguish parody from a narrative being played straight. And this is this entire discussion; AoT is left open for interpretation in that regard, which is why it's so difficult to reach a consensus. It's how you get people pointing to certain pages and saying "see? this is clearly meant to portray a fascist worldview" with the response being "but that is clearly meant as parody". Neither side is stupid or missing cues here, the work itself has simply given fuel for both sides to reinforce their interpretation of the work and see it through that lens.
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Apr 26, 2021 10:36
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Viridiant posted:Yes, like I said, he presents fascism as bad. This goalpost didn't even move, it disappeared beyond the horizon in the span of seconds, followed by sonic boom which accompanies breaking the sound barrier. I don't know many stories that give you a viable, compelling alternative to fascism. This is because not many of them even try to analyze why people go for that ideology: in most depictions fascists are cartoon villains or brainwashed morons and the moral doesn't go beyond "bash the fash". How is it fair to hold an author of a shonen manga to such a ridiculously high standard? Besides, it's not even true. The manga presents a way to break the cycle of hate that makes fascism possible: disarm both sides. Eldians no longer being able to turn into scary titans and the rest of the world getting curb-stomped means that talking suddenly became a viable solution. If it was done better, I could see it being lauded instead of presented as a proof that Isayama was fascist all along. It's certainly more realistic than the notion both sides will magically forget years of mutual hate. It also doesn't omit the ugly truth that the oppressed could easily become the oppressors as soon as they get the upper hand, as the case of the New Eldian Empire shows. The main problem with the ending is that it's written atrociously, with a heavy dose of  . It's tied to a ridiculous deus ex machina which makes both Zeke and Karl Fritz look stupid; especially the former could have just ordered Ymir to stop making titans and solve the problem. It tries to both have its cake and eat it, by making Armin consider Rumbling evil, but also being grateful to Eren for trying to save his friends. It completely glosses over the fact that Eren treated the people close to him atrociously even before he got the entire manga spoiled for him. Last but not least, it presents the absolutely unhealthy relationship with Mikasa as romantic, destroying her last minute character growth. But it doesn't stem from Isayama's hidden fascist sympathies, just from the fact he's not such a good writer as we thought.
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Apr 26, 2021 11:09
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YF-23 posted:I'd say Starship Troopers having scenes like this makes itself more explicit. AoT instead leaves itself open to Poe's Law: for every scene where someone gets brutally eaten and a starry-eyed recruit following their dreams meets instant death to remind you that war is hell, there is a scene of Mikasa or Levi or Erwin or Armin being totally badass or Eren doing titan-wrestling to remind you that war is really cool. With no clear authorial intent it is therefore hard to distinguish parody from a narrative being played straight. And this is this entire discussion; AoT is left open for interpretation in that regard, which is why it's so difficult to reach a consensus. It's how you get people pointing to certain pages and saying "see? this is clearly meant to portray a fascist worldview" with the response being "but that is clearly meant as parody". Neither side is stupid or missing cues here, the work itself has simply given fuel for both sides to reinforce their interpretation of the work and see it through that lens. Not really. A common fascist trope is you, the everyday man, can become a decorated war hero just by the virtue of having inner strength, conviction and determination. This is not the case in AoT. Most of the brave, heroic soldiers die in an extremely cruel and painful way. Mikasa and Levi survive by the virtue of being genetically engineered supersoldiers. Both Erwin and Armin manage to cheat fate by being extremely clever, than get grievously injured when the odds are stacked against them so much that the sacrifice is the only option. It's being made clear that war is not the crucible where heroes are made; in fact, the only person who survives the suicidal charge is the fuckup Floch, who later becomes the world's youngest fascist dictator.
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Apr 26, 2021 11:18
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Her relationship to Eren is certainly romantic in the most technical sense of the word but it's definitely still portrayed as unhealthy to the end.
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Apr 26, 2021 11:21
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Gantolandon posted:The main problem with the ending is that it's written atrociously, with a heavy dose of I don't even think it's that. 138 chapters worth of interesting, thoughtful writing don't cease to have existed because of one amazing storm of crap. It's just that the one chapter crapstorm is really bad, sometimes in ways that fly directly in the face of every single one of the chapters before. Bowling 3 perfect games in a row means you're a good bowler. Having your final shot of a world tournament somehow destroy the salad bar instead of hitting the lane after that doesn't change the fact you bowled multiple perfect games. It just means that you also ruined everyone's day in a way that should have been impossible, and that a lot of people will spend a lot of time looking for an explanation.
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Apr 26, 2021 11:25
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YF-23 posted:And this is this entire discussion; AoT is left open for interpretation in that regard, which is why it's so difficult to reach a consensus. It's how you get people pointing to certain pages and saying "see? this is clearly meant to portray a fascist worldview" with the response being "but that is clearly meant as parody". Neither side is stupid or missing cues here, the work itself has simply given fuel for both sides to reinforce their interpretation of the work and see it through that lens. Legitimate question: What works out there "playing fascism straight" leave things up for interpretation the way AoT does? My experience is that they don't do explorations of systemic issues because they want to present clear-cut good vs evil narratives where morality is a character trait and not a cultural construct. But I could be wrong so I'm asking instead of making the statement. edit: like the closest i can think of are some gundam sidestories where noble and proud space nazis die heroically in battle for the glory of the country but even when they're war criminals the story presents them as tragic honorable warriors from start to end GimmickMan fucked around with this message at 12:09 on Apr 26, 2021 |
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Apr 26, 2021 11:59
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Gantolandon posted:Not really. But war in AoT is the crucible where heroes are made, because AoT portrays war as the only arena in which people and ideas can come into conflict. AoT doesn't tell you that you can become a supersoldier but it has its own share of everyman characters that perform war heroism in people like characters like Jean, Connie and Sasha. You can see the alternative read on this in the title of one of the anime's first season's songs: The Reluctant Heroes. These are people fighting in the ugly and brutal arena that is war, where they might at any moment meet an inglorious end. And because they know this, and don't want to do it, but do it anyway, they are heroes.
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Apr 26, 2021 12:15
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In 1984 the Ingsoc party is so firmly entrenched in power and fascism is so ingrained into society that it is impossible to change. The story doesn't present a realistic way to change society for the better and the main character decides group-think is more important than individuality. At the end of the book, Winston Smith declares that he loves Big Brother before killing himself. Is 1984 a pro-fascist work?
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Apr 26, 2021 12:32
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GimmickMan posted:In 1984 the Ingsoc party is so firmly entrenched in power and fascism is so ingrained into society that it is impossible to change. The story doesn't present a realistic way to change society for the better and the main character decides group-think is more important than individuality. At the end of the book, Winston Smith declares that he loves Big Brother before killing himself. I mean, 1984 primarily deals with the struggle under, if not against, fascism (even if ultimately unsuccessful) and the tension between the fascist world and the pre-fascist world, whereas AoT's plot is a series of reinforcing fascist actions in a broadly fascist context. But I'm sure they're directly equivalent anyway.
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Apr 26, 2021 12:45
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I'll try to think of better examples, but, with the disclaimer that I have not read the original novel, Starship Troopers apparently left itself open enough to interpretation that it could be adapted as a parody on film.
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Apr 26, 2021 12:53
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LordMune posted:I mean, 1984 primarily deals with the struggle under, if not against, fascism (even if ultimately unsuccessful) and the tension between the fascist world and the pre-fascist world, whereas AoT's plot is a series of reinforcing fascist actions in a broadly fascist context. But I'm sure they're directly equivalent anyway. I mean... One of the themes of AoT is life under fascism. Fascism breeds fascism and, in the end, new fascists have replaced the old fascists. Just as written in Goldstein's manifesto. Winston's job is censorship and propaganda and his work at the Ministry of Truth very much reinforces fascism, because the fascist machine makes everyone in it play the role of a cog whether they like it or not. While information control is not such a focal point of AoT, it's still a recurring element, implicitly at first with the government murdering people who build balloons or dig under the walls and explicitly from the point a priest of the wall cult wants to keep the truth of the walls hidden. Hange even goes from being on the side fighting to reveal the truth to keeping information from the population, gets called out on it, and hates her position. 1984's final chapter is, yes, much more competently told than AoT's chapter 139. And Orwell does a much better job of showing how Winston is broken by his torturers than Isayama showing Eren reaching out to his friends at the end. But my point is that fascism defeats freedom in both endings, with main characters that end up accepting or understanding why the antagonists do what they do. I don't think either work is pro-fascist. But, much of the same logic used to say AoT is fascist, would also apply to 1984. Hell, arguably 1984 is worse because at least the surviving characters in AoT are allowed to dissent. No such luck under Ingsoc. YF-23 posted:I'll try to think of better examples, but, with the disclaimer that I have not read the original novel, Starship Troopers apparently left itself open enough to interpretation that it could be adapted as a parody on film. Oh yeah that's probably a good one. Someone who remembers all the details better than me can elaborate if they want but just going from memory, yeah, I can get this stance a lot better now that there's an example. GimmickMan fucked around with this message at 14:07 on Apr 26, 2021 |
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Apr 26, 2021 14:00
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YF-23 posted:But war in AoT is the crucible where heroes are made, because AoT portrays war as the only arena in which people and ideas can come into conflict. AoT doesn't tell you that you can become a supersoldier but it has its own share of everyman characters that perform war heroism in people like characters like Jean, Connie and Sasha. Sasha, however, dies while invading a foreign country, shot by an indoctrinated child-soldier. Her own father refuses to avenge her, stating that becoming a soldier was what got her ultimately killed. Jean and Connie ultimately get exiled as a reward for their heroism. quote:You can see the alternative read on this in the title of one of the anime's first season's songs: The Reluctant Heroes. These are people fighting in the ugly and brutal arena that is war, where they might at any moment meet an inglorious end. And because they know this, and don't want to do it, but do it anyway, they are heroes. But being heroic despite ugliness of war is not a fascist trope, otherwise we'd have to consider every single war story as fascist. Including those that portray heroic revolutionaries who bravely fight against overwhelming odds. You only enter fascist territory where the war itself is treated as something glorious that makes you a real man and even then a lot of pre-1920 ideologies considered the same.
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Apr 26, 2021 14:23
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Gantolandon posted:This goalpost didn't even move, it disappeared beyond the horizon in the span of seconds, followed by sonic boom which accompanies breaking the sound barrier. I don't know many stories that give you a viable, compelling alternative to fascism. This is because not many of them even try to analyze why people go for that ideology: in most depictions fascists are cartoon villains or brainwashed morons and the moral doesn't go beyond "bash the fash". How is it fair to hold an author of a shonen manga to such a ridiculously high standard? I suppose "disarmament" is an interesting if dishonest way to frame straight up genocide. That's not a viable loving alternative, jesus christ. I also think it's loving hilarious that for months we've been using the "whoa Titans cool" meme to make fun of people missing the deeper themes but now suddenly it's "you're expecting too much from this manga, man". I mean it's obvious NOW that I was but it certainly wasn't the mindset around here before the manga ended.
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Apr 26, 2021 14:53
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Viridiant posted:I suppose "disarmament" is an interesting if dishonest way to frame straight up genocide. That's not a viable loving alternative, jesus christ. It could have been possible to get this without genocide, like with limited Rumbling to destroy attacking armies. It would, however, require some other way to get Ymir to lift the curse.
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Apr 26, 2021 15:25
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Gantolandon posted:How is it fair to hold an author of a shonen manga to such a ridiculously high standard? That's what happens when the shonen manga tries to grapple with the big issues. We're gonna hold it to the standard of work that tries to grapple with the big issues. If it didn't want to grapple with the big issues it should have stayed as a "there are zombies but they're big and we gotta learn how to stab them better". Maybe have monkey trouble be an Aizen-esque comical supervillain, or have the titans orchestrated by the royal family to keep the people scared and easily manipulated and not because it's the fallout from cycles of imperialism and oppression and blood magic, etc. Instead the manga went more interesting places. It swung big and missed. Ccs fucked around with this message at 20:02 on Apr 26, 2021 |
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Apr 26, 2021 16:01
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So when are we going to see those extra pages he’s adding to the final chapter? When the volume comes out?
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Apr 26, 2021 16:09
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I agree that if you play with the big serious issues, you should get your wildly popular work taken really seriously even if you're just writing a shounen battle manga. Seriously enough to compare it with classics like 1984!GimmickMan posted:I mean... One of the themes of AoT is life under fascism. Fascism breeds fascism and, in the end, new fascists have replaced the old fascists. Just as written in Goldstein's manifesto. Winston's job is censorship and propaganda and his work at the Ministry of Truth very much reinforces fascism, because the fascist machine makes everyone in it play the role of a cog whether they like it or not. While information control is not such a focal point of AoT, it's still a recurring element, implicitly at first with the government murdering people who build balloons or dig under the walls and explicitly from the point a priest of the wall cult wants to keep the truth of the walls hidden. Hange even goes from being on the side fighting to reveal the truth to keeping information from the population, gets called out on it, and hates her position. I don't know if the same kind of logic can be easily applied to both works. Even if AoT had taken a darker approach to the ending that tried to really emulate 1984, it might not have the same kind of effect because AoT has so many more moving parts to read into. 1984 is a much shorter story, told with a tighter and better-planned point to it. In 1984, fascism fully wins and we are left with things looking utterly hopeless and no way out. But we also fully shown the horror of this. We see Winston's inability to dissent without being utterly destroyed, but this is after seeing Winston struggle so much to preserve his individuality and getting some brief glimmers of hope, really rooting for him as the everyman protagonist. When those hopes are crushed, his total loss in the end is meant to shock and disgust us, and it's quite successful at this, imo. 1984 doesn't offer any solution, but it does clearly aim to create a visceral feeling of "oh poo poo, if the world was actually like that, I'd be so hosed! This can't ever happen!" AoT also shows life under fascism, but it gets a lot more complicated as the world and the scope of the story expand. I think people expect AoT to show more of a solution because it does show a wider world where things aren't so all-encompassing as they are in 1984. We see in the individual level how even highly indoctrinated people like Reiner and Gabi have their views of their enemies challenged. And people like Onyankopon and the Azumabitos show a willingness to work with Eldians instead of wiping them out, even if it's for selfish reasons in Azumabito's case.
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Apr 27, 2021 04:14
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chiasaur11 posted:If we're talking about themes, one manga Isayama said was a major influence was "We Did It!" (AKA Fugitive Boys, the name of the TV drama adaptation), which is about a teenager who pulls a prank that gets several people killed. The ending of that manga has him unable to be punished even when he tries to confess, forcing him to live with his guilt and self-loathing. Just chiming in to say We Did It! is really good.
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Apr 27, 2021 04:21
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