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Those last few pages were really sad but beautiful. I guess if you've spent 10+ years caring for a series its not the message you were hoping for, but I agree it is executed well. Titans were only violent because that was Ymir's command, right? So the next wave of titans might be used for good instead, in theory? Although with the theme of humans always looking for ways to kill each other, I guess it's inevitable that will be how titans are used.
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May 18, 2021 22:00
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Anonymous Zebra posted:Nah, that was significantly better with the added pages. The overarching message of the story appears to be that the cycle of violence cannot really be broken, and all one can do is live their best life and not try to 11th dimensional chess plans on the effects of their actions lifetimes into the future. this is how i feel about it too. that said, i have no idea what the conversation between ymir and mikasa was supposed to be.
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May 18, 2021 22:03
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As long as no one decides that they need to eat the spine of whomever gets the worm in them the Titan thing shouldn’t get that out of control this next time.
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May 18, 2021 22:06
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Anonymous Zebra posted:Nah, that was significantly better with the added pages. The overarching message of the story appears to be that the cycle of violence cannot really be broken, and all one can do is live their best life and not try to 11th dimensional chess plans on the effects of their actions lifetimes into the future. I don't believe Eren was so idealistic as to think he'd fix things forever - he was merely looking to give the people he cared about a chance, which he appears to have succeeded at, all told. At least Mikasa lived a long life, and the events depicted that destroyed Paradis happened long after all his loved ones had passed. But yes, the message of the story is that the cycle of violence never had anything to do with the titans but with human nature, and forgetting the lessons of the past will just lead to repeating the same mistakes, the same history, over and over into the future.
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May 18, 2021 22:08
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that doggo is gonna fall down the opening in the Eren tree and we're gonna get a sequel about Dog Titans
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May 18, 2021 22:13
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The additions definitely position cycles of violence as inevitable and inextricable from the human condition, retroactively casting the holocaust imagery not as a monstrous aberration but expected and normal. Truly 仕様が無い Not that that is a point a work isn't allowed to make, but lol at claiming it's not handled poorly or doesn't represent a fundamentally fascist worldview
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May 18, 2021 22:16
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Yeah this is closer to the ending I was generally expecting. Pretty much since the story went to Marley, humans being hawkish about war and self destruction has been one of the central themes to the story and well, it still fits.
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May 18, 2021 22:17
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Conspiratiorist posted:I don't believe Eren was so idealistic as to think he'd fix things forever - he was merely looking to give the people he cared about a chance, which he appears to have succeeded at, all told. At least Mikasa lived a long life, and the events depicted that destroyed Paradis happened long after all his loved ones had passed. Yeah, I'm coming around on the extended ending, depending on how Ymir and Mikasa's conversation goes. I still think something weird was going on (especially with the Historia subplot), but the themes seem to fit. Human nature is inherently violent, peace can only be achieved by the ones with power setting aside vengeance in favor of recognizing common humanity, our failure to achieve true peace just passes the burdens to our children, hurting the very people that these cruel acts were meant to protect. (Also, Paradis "just" seems to have been hit with a heavy bombing campaign, not slaughtered to the child who was born yesterday, so that's a big improvement over the likely fates if they lost a war earlier.) It's not like Chainsaw Man part 1, or even Hinamatsuri, where the ending felt really solid, but I'm liking it a lot better than I was after 139.
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May 18, 2021 22:26
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Oh poo poo, Hinamatsuri ended? I need to catch up.
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May 18, 2021 22:30
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Kind of impressive what a few extra pages will do. I still think it's a p flawed finale, but the little bit of extra context was helpful in making it feel more coherently connected to what came before it. Armin man, stop thanking the guy for committing genocide couldn't have edited that dialogue for this reprint huh? I don't get this whole next wave of titans thing some of y'all are mentioning, where are y'all reading that from? I gathered that part remained. Eren got rid of the titans, but they weren't the reason humanity wants to murder itself so even with them gone the cycle continues. Just got paused for a moment while the bio weapons get replaced with the more familiar ones.
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May 18, 2021 22:35
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Look at the tree and lone child coming up on it.
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May 18, 2021 22:38
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The finale does work better with the extra pages, it’s more in line with what the closing panels should have felt like given the story. Still a lot of terrible writing in 139 though so not a full redemption. The Notorious ZSB posted:I don't get this whole next wave of titans thing some of y'all are mentioning, where are y'all reading that from? I gathered that part remained. Eren got rid of the titans, but they weren't the reason humanity wants to murder itself so even with them gone the cycle continues. Just got paused for a moment while the bio weapons get replaced with the more familiar ones. The kids about to fall into a tree identical to the one Ymir fell into when she first became a Titan. Implying Eren’s head is a Titan seed or something.
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May 18, 2021 22:42
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The Notorious ZSB posted:I don't get this whole next wave of titans thing some of y'all are mentioning, where are y'all reading that from? I gathered that part remained. Eren got rid of the titans, but they weren't the reason humanity wants to murder itself so even with them gone the cycle continues. Just got paused for a moment while the bio weapons get replaced with the more familiar ones. The last panel is a kid (presumably Mikasa's descendant from the context) walking up to the tree that grew from Eren's grave alongside his dog. The tree looks a lot like the tree Ymir fell into 2,000 years before the start of the story. Thus, there's an implication that, since the same sins still define humanity, the Titans will return as a manifestation of those sins. But it's an implication only, nothing concrete.
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May 18, 2021 22:42
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LordMune posted:Not that that is a point a work isn't allowed to make, but lol at claiming it's not handled poorly or doesn't represent a fundamentally fascist worldview Yeah, I'm not touching the Fascism argument with a 14-meter pole, because ultimately everyone arguing on either side is approaching it from a Western view while I get the sense AoT is very Japanese in its politics on race and government, which are very different than the Euro-American ideas of Fascism. That being said, I do think the people continually posting that "fascism bad!" meme are seeing a message where there isn't one. I honestly think the entire thing is a commentary on violence and tribalism generally rather than fascism or military-rule specifically.
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May 18, 2021 22:42
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The new pages also appear to have removed the 80% wiped out line.
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May 18, 2021 22:51
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This is all to set up the sequel where dogs gain the power of the titans.
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May 18, 2021 22:52
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MonsterEnvy posted:The new pages also appear to have removed the 80% wiped out line. It’s still there. I doesn’t seem any of the released pages were changed.
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May 18, 2021 22:53
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Sindai posted:This is all to set up the sequel where dogs gain the power of the titans. I will watch the gently caress out of this.
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May 18, 2021 22:58
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Edmund Lava posted:It’s still there. I doesn’t seem any of the released pages were changed. Yeah just checked I missed it. Also yeah I am not too bumed about Paradis being bombed at one point given that it appears to have happened at least 100 years later at minimum probably even longer.
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May 18, 2021 23:00
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Very Fallout-y "War. War Never Changes" vibe at the end here.
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May 18, 2021 23:06
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Sindai posted:This is all to set up the sequel where dogs gain the power of the titans. So, we're at the Alien 3 stage of the franchise then ?
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May 18, 2021 23:09
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Sassy Sasquatch posted:So, we're at the Alien 3 stage of the franchise then ? wait for the assembly cut and it’ll be a solid trilogy
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May 18, 2021 23:19
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Boy that stunk. Man could not decide what he wanted the message to be lol. Glad I only got into this in the last few months. If I were to describe this manga now I'd call it slapdash. Closest thing I can compare it to in my own experience in fiction is probably the Mass Effect series. Fun start, good worldbuilding, fun middle, shaky but still ok third act, absolutely trash ending. 
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May 18, 2021 23:27
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Sindai posted:This is all to set up the sequel where dogs gain the power of the titans.  Beren and dogkasa stumble upon the power of the titans in SnK: Next Generations
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May 18, 2021 23:32
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What did people actually want the ending to be? It was never going to be happy, and Eren is shown to be thoroughly flawed and even self admittedly can't even think straight. I think the paradisian friends of his have been through so much up until this point where they're probably fairly pragmatic about everything that's unfolded. Yeah there are still things that could be fleshed out more but it's pretty clear he didn't want to drag it out very long.
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May 18, 2021 23:45
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This is the first time I've followed an active piece of fiction to its end since Harry Potter, feels weird man. I still think this is a C-ish ending to an A- story; not a total failure, just kinda 'eh'. Questions that I'm not going to get answers to. Whatever, the ride is over. edit: sorta kinda over almost completely over until the anime finishes bees x1000 fucked around with this message at 00:05 on May 19, 2021 |
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May 19, 2021 00:00
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Well, those few pages did manage do make the ending a lot better. Still not amazing, but certainly not so bad. An ok ending
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May 19, 2021 00:03
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Depths posted:
Shiba keen on Corgis
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May 19, 2021 00:04
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I dunno, I feel like the ending is better, but I'm at the Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut part of things where I'm just like "... it's mediocre, it's fine" and I'll leave it at that. I agree that Ron Perlman might as well narrate "War never changes" in every language when this hits the anime, but it's weird given that the first 3/4ths of the series was not quite about promoting this specific message. And I'm also not really too keen on pushing the eradication of 80% of humanity as something that is just... inherent to the species (and I feel like I would have liked it better if Armin verbally dragged Eren for even doing that). But I dunno, it seems like the last page in particular doesn't really try to pick between a total grim-dark washout ending like Devilman, or something more hopeful, but instead just shrugs and is like "eh, who knows what will happen now, but go home unless Attack on Titan: Road to Boruto happens" and I'm left with nothing but "well... that was a thing"
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May 19, 2021 00:18
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MechaX posted:But I dunno, it seems like the last page in particular doesn't really try to pick between a total grim-dark washout ending like Devilman, or something more hopeful, but instead just shrugs and is like "eh, who knows what will happen now, but go home unless Attack on Titan: Road to Boruto happens" and I'm left with nothing but "well... that was a thing" This is basically how I feel, and why my prevailing sentiment is "slapdash" when it comes to what the themes and message of this story were supposed to be. Truth be told the ambiguity of Armen's statement on the boat before landing at least gives voice to what a message of the series is supposed to be. This ending just...I dunno, is a thing?
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May 19, 2021 00:24
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Aurubin posted:This is basically how I feel, and why my prevailing sentiment is "slapdash" when it comes to what the themes and message of this story were supposed to be. Truth be told the ambiguity of Armen's statement on the boat before landing at least gives voice to what a message of the series is supposed to be. This ending just...I dunno, is a thing? I guess I like it since it seems like the most brutally realistic opinion about humanity's future I've seen in most fiction: "Yeah, we're gonna keep loving up and killing each other, no shonen hero or wisened old guy is going to lead us into a golden age of mutual understanding, but we're also probably not gonna completely extinct ourselves either until the expanding sun cooks the atmosphere."
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May 19, 2021 00:31
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Strawberry Pyramid posted:I guess I like it since it seems like the most brutally realistic opinion about humanity's future I've seen in most fiction: "Yeah, we're gonna keep loving up and killing each other, no shonen hero or wisened old guy is going to lead us into a golden age of mutual understanding, but we're also probably not gonna completely extinct ourselves either until the expanding sun cooks the atmosphere." With the spike in atmospheric methane last year, combined with the discovery of the Laptev Sea methane deposits not being locked in clathrates as previously thought, I'm finding such a timeframe quite idealistic, actually.
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May 19, 2021 00:42
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I mean the extra pages just amend the ending to underline the thesis statement of AoT: "The world is cruel and merciless, but it is also very beautiful." It's just very basic Taoist-derived philosophy and if you're looking for a Western style moral or message you're going to be disappointed.
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May 19, 2021 01:13
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Eej posted:I mean the extra pages just amend the ending to underline the thesis statement of AoT: "The world is cruel and merciless, but it is also very beautiful." It's just very basic Taoist-derived philosophy and if you're looking for a Western style moral or message you're going to be disappointed. Agreed, and I would add on, "Human beings need to be drunk off of something in this world to keep them going." It's not sane or rational, but in a cruel and beautiful world, it's what gets people to be motivated, even while facing down death. I don't know if I can put this in the best way, but it's...extremely ironic that such a very Japanese take on that part of the human condition became a worldwide hit. It has both insight and tunnel-vision, as well as a lot of commentary on contemporary Japanese society and its internal conflicts and feelings that the pressure to become more militarized is inevitable. that it's certainly a thing that cultures use stories of other cultures that are one or two connections removed from them to explore topics that would be too painful if it were directly about their own (I.E. India having quite a few movies about America's 9/11 that explore the feelings and impressions left by terrorism in their own country.) Anyway, I'd give the series an 9/10, and the last arc and the ending a 6.5/10 It's kinda hard to draw the line where I don't like it because of my cultural biases and insights, and where I don't like it because I think the writing gets mediocre towards the end.
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May 19, 2021 01:53
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Wow, those last few pages really did a lot to soften the terribleness of the last chapter. It's still a bad chapter that is character assassination and plot annihilation encapsulated in a few dozen pages, but not the Usagi Drop of shonen anymore imo.
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May 19, 2021 01:58
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Holy poo poo can maybe not orientalize the people of Japan.
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May 19, 2021 02:10
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I’m not really buying the idea that this series is steeped in some Taoist message that makes it inscrutable to me and forgives it being a bad ending. It’s your typical “hey here’s a foreboding stinger at the end of the narrative to suggest the threat isn’t over.” Media pulls that poo poo all the time. Usually it’s in trashy horror movies though and not in series that seem like they were trying to make a point about cycles of violence.
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May 19, 2021 02:30
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the ending is still poo poo nothing is different about it. it may be even more hosed up with the extra pages if its trying to say that violence and genocide are immutable aspects of humanity. loving lol. maybe eren should have used some of his ultimate god powers to attempt to change the world instead of destroy it, and all his friends could stop talking about how cool of a guy he was
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May 19, 2021 04:31
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Ccs posted:I’m not really buying the idea that this series is steeped in some Taoist message that makes it inscrutable to me and forgives it being a bad ending. It’s your typical “hey here’s a foreboding stinger at the end of the narrative to suggest the threat isn’t over.” Media pulls that poo poo all the time. Usually it’s in trashy horror movies though and not in series that seem like they were trying to make a point about cycles of violence. Ain't nobody saying it's inscrutable to you, I'm just pointing out that East Asian culture is steeped in this kind of philosophy even if it's not actively channeling the Dao and slapping taijitu everywhere. You're still allowed to say it sucks and you don't have to agree with the idea that "there's good and bad in everything and that's how it was and that's how it shall always be"
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May 19, 2021 04:34
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TowerofOil posted:the ending is still poo poo nothing is different about it. it may be even more hosed up with the extra pages if its trying to say that violence and genocide are immutable aspects of humanity. loving lol. maybe eren should have used some of his ultimate god powers to attempt to change the world instead of destroy it, That's kind of the point: Eren was never a good person. He was a dumb meathead who stumbled into way more power than anyone with his level of intelligence, wisdom, temperament and maturity could ever be reasonably be expected to use sensibly. Much like Ymir herself. This wasn't the story of how Amuro got god-like powers and ushered in a new age of peace and understanding, it was the story of Char loving up as much poo poo and people as his short-sighted rear end could before he carked it and everyone else having try to deal with the tragic consequences afterwards. quote:and all his friends could stop talking about how cool of a guy he was This is still a reasonable response, though. I don't think we in the thread have the personal attachment his friends and the Eren stans have for him compared to all the other characters in the AoT world.
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May 19, 2021 05:01
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