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Viridiant
Nov 7, 2009

Big PP Energy
Glad AoT was brave enough to finally tackle the genocide question.

Turns out? It's bad.

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chiasaur11
Oct 22, 2012



Eej posted:

His editor

I can't believe the conspiracy theories are coming true before our eyes

I knew it! Insane theories, one; regular theories, a billion.

No Wave
Sep 18, 2005

HA! HA! NICE! WHAT A TOOL!
But the editor was reassuring Isayama. In the extra chapters Yams flat out says he couldnt make his ending work because he just couldnt get what he wanted to say onto the page.

Eej
Jun 17, 2007

HEAVYARMS
I mean, if he was having doubts about it and then his editor rolled up and said no way bro it's good just ink it

YF-23
Feb 17, 2011

My god, it's full of cat!


Yeah if anything it makes the editorial staff sound like yes-men who tried to justify the author's bad idea when he had doubts about it.

Bisse
Jun 26, 2005

If people encounter racism in real life, they will think, "racism is bad". But maybe, if we produce our movies in a racist way with 95% white cast and only one token black guy who isn't a gang member and who ends up dying to save the other white people, people will be like "this movie is racist. But racism is bad." And that's good actually because it starts a movement! So actually, we aren't racist, we are PRO-anti-racismts.

Asuron
Nov 27, 2012

This may be the single dumbest thing I've read in a long time.

Jesus christ Isayama, this guy was your editor???

Schwarzwald
Jul 27, 2004

Don't Blink

Eej posted:

His editor

I can't believe the conspiracy theories are coming true before our eyes

motherfucker

Edmund Lava
Sep 8, 2004

Hey, I'm from Brooklyn. I'm going to call myself Mr. Friendly.

Does anyone know what the original source of this quote was? All the links in that Twitter thread are dead. I mean the ending is dumb as rocks, but I want to know if this quote is even real.

Ccs
Feb 25, 2011


Apparently it was posted on live door and then deleted.

GimmickMan
Dec 27, 2011

Here's the Isayama interview, or at least the one I've found:

https://yaboylevi.tumblr.com/post/651352568518361088/shingeki-no-kyojins-ending-interview-may-2021

The most relevant bit is that he says he regrets not conveying Armin's disapproval of Eren's actions more firmly and that the original final page had 3 people finding the tree instead of just 1. Nothing seems to be confirming the theories here?

The Notorious ZSB
Apr 19, 2004

I SAID WE'RE NOT GONNA BE FUCKING SUCK THIS YEAR!!!

Dude just didn't know how to finish it. It's okay, a lot of writers struggle with that.

Gruckles
Mar 11, 2013

So what I'm taking away from these is that Isayama knew he had written a mess that was sending a hosed up unintended message, but his editor is a crazy person that told him to become a target for the world's genocide-haters to unite against like the end of Watchmen

TowerofOil
May 22, 2007

You don't need a doctor, I'm a christian scientist.

Bread Liar
Thus loving manga just keeps delivering incredible content

Ccs
Feb 25, 2011


I would have preferred him to take a long hiatus before the endgame to really plan out how to get his theme across. Maybe that was against his contract though and he just had to charge ahead in serialized fashion. I don’t know how much leeway they give authors. Guys like Miura got to keep their own schedule but that was only after over a decade of consistent publication and this is Isayama’s first rodeo.

Homora Gaykemi
Apr 30, 2020

by Fluffdaddy

Gruckles posted:

So what I'm taking away from these is that Isayama knew he had written a mess that was sending a hosed up unintended message, but his editor is a crazy person that told him to become a target for the world's genocide-haters to unite against like the end of Watchmen

it was all to push us away from him and make us into readers who understood genocide was bad by hating his ending

TowerofOil
May 22, 2007

You don't need a doctor, I'm a christian scientist.

Bread Liar
Looking at that interview he says armin wasn't approving of erens actions but somehow failed to simply not have him say thank you and then also had like half the cast talk about how he was such a good guy.?

Am I missing something here? That seems like an easy thing to fix.

Viridiant
Nov 7, 2009

Big PP Energy
Beginning to think all the good writing before the ending really was an extended string of happy accidents and coincidences. A stopped clock somehow being right multiple times per day, possibly because the hands are loose and someone keeps jiggling it around.

Attack on Titan was a mistake.

Ccs
Feb 25, 2011


The Isayama interview makes me a bit sad because he sounds like a nice guy who worked hard but just didn’t have the skill to make his work thematically consistent or avoid horrible implications. And if he quits manga now to go open a hot spring or retire on his profits or whatever, this malformed work will be his legacy. It’s a pity.

chiasaur11
Oct 22, 2012



Viridiant posted:

Beginning to think all the good writing before the ending really was an extended string of happy accidents and coincidences. A stopped clock somehow being right multiple times per day, possibly because the hands are loose and someone keeps jiggling it around.

Attack on Titan was a mistake.

Look. You break it down, someone either pitches multiple perfect games by accident, or there was a personal grudge when he beaned the umpire hard enough to give the guy a concussion.

I'm still leaning toward option 2 here. There being some weird explanation for the last chapter sucking so much is simpler than there being an elaborate explanation for why so many earlier chapters were so good.

Schwarzwald
Jul 27, 2004

Don't Blink
Isayama Hajime was absolutely over his head, but we're still talking about seven to ten years of "happy accidents" depending on when you think the manga went bad.

Bifauxnen
Aug 12, 2010

Curses! Foiled again!


It's not really that implausible for Isayama to be a consistently good writer pulling cool threads together when things are still going and left open ended, but then still totally whiff it when trying to tie up the whole thing in one neat bow for a satisfying ending. It's a bit of a different scenario, especially when theres so much pressure of making THE DEFINITIVE ENDING OF ATTACK ON TITAN after a freakin decade.

Assepoester
Jul 18, 2004
Probation
Can't post for 11 years!
Melman v2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6scMwNI-SAI&t=135s

TowerofOil
May 22, 2007

You don't need a doctor, I'm a christian scientist.

Bread Liar
Yeah even if I thought isayama was some kind of lucky hack it kinda sucks that he managed to ride this story all the way to the end and then it all blow up.

Conspiratiorist
Nov 12, 2015

17th Separate Kryvyi Rih Tank Brigade named after Konstantin Pestushko
Look to my coming on the first light of the fifth sixth some day
Are we still taking the fake interview at face value?

MonsterEnvy
Feb 4, 2012

Shocked I tell you

Conspiratiorist posted:

Are we still taking the fake interview at face value?

Wait what Interview is fake?

Eej
Jun 17, 2007

HEAVYARMS
There's another language source for the interview:

https://twitter.com/A0TLEVl/status/1401845531572244482?s=19

https://twitter.com/A0TLEVl/status/1401850098024259584?s=19

Ryaomon
Mar 19, 2007
Ask me about being a racist piece of shit with a racist gimmick
You know how some people saw Starship Troopers and didn't "get it"? This is like that except somehow Paul Verhoeven didn't get it either.

TowerofOil
May 22, 2007

You don't need a doctor, I'm a christian scientist.

Bread Liar
I can't parse whatever the gently caress those tweets are trying to say

Wait I think I've got it now

TowerofOil fucked around with this message at 07:17 on Jun 8, 2021

LordMune
Nov 21, 2006

Helim needed to be invisible.

Schwarzwald posted:

Isayama Hajime was absolutely over his head, but we're still talking about seven to ten years of "happy accidents" depending on when you think the manga went bad.

Just because there are several points where the parodically grimdark zombie mech story jumped off a cliff -- that doesn't mean it was all that brilliantly conceived to begin with. Some parts were certainly functional at first (but even the basic hook of the ontological mystery of the titans is eventually soured by the centipede being whatever and Ymir's story having an absolutely insane resolution. Even ignoring the whole ethnic bioweapon thing).

MonsterEnvy
Feb 4, 2012

Shocked I tell you

Eej posted:

There's another language source for the interview:

That did not answer my question. I meant which interview was fake. The one by Isayama or the one by his editor.

Gantolandon
Aug 19, 2012

chiasaur11 posted:

Look. You break it down, someone either pitches multiple perfect games by accident, or there was a personal grudge when he beaned the umpire hard enough to give the guy a concussion.

I'm still leaning toward option 2 here. There being some weird explanation for the last chapter sucking so much is simpler than there being an elaborate explanation for why so many earlier chapters were so good.

I disagree. Coming up with a satisfying ending that ties up all the dangling plot threads and gives a sense of closure to the reader is one of the hardest parts of writing a story. Each time when you introduce a new character, mystery, or a narrative, you take a loan, with the reader accepting that you can make it work as a face value. The ending is where you pay it off.

There's been many writers who created enjoyable stories and had many good ideas, but couldn't come up with a good ending and their entire masterpiece suffered for it.

Ccs
Feb 25, 2011


chiasaur11 posted:

Look. You break it down, someone either pitches multiple perfect games by accident, or there was a personal grudge when he beaned the umpire hard enough to give the guy a concussion.

I'm still leaning toward option 2 here. There being some weird explanation for the last chapter sucking so much is simpler than there being an elaborate explanation for why so many earlier chapters were so good.

I don't know if it was pitching perfect games for most of its run. It was managing to pull out some cool twists and seemed to just be keeping ahead of its weird implications with the Eldians by suggesting they never had a repressive empire and the Marleyans were lying (but then we find out they really weren't lying because in Ymir's flashbacks the Eldians do have an empire...) and then it wrote itself into a corner where the Rumbling was necessary as a big final act and somehow the guy perpetrating this genocide isn't portrayed as a total bad guy but rather a dumb kid that was in over his head and confused by magic fate visions imbued by a centipede alien...

I'll admit I was still enjoying it until the final chapter, but so much of this manga was basically creating "story debt" that had to be paid off. The bigger and more enticing the mystery, the better the manga seems, but it has to get paid off. And like in a lot of spending sprees, the manga defaulted.

Lots of well regarded epic fantasy series have this same problem. Kingkiller is a famous example of a series that has so much storytelling debt the final book literally cannot be written because there's no way to pay it off.

Assepoester
Jul 18, 2004
Probation
Can't post for 11 years!
Melman v2

Ccs posted:

I'll admit I was still enjoying it until the final chapter, but so much of this manga was basically creating "story debt" that had to be paid off. The bigger and more enticing the mystery, the better the manga seems, but it has to get paid off. And like in a lot of spending sprees, the manga defaulted.

Lots of well regarded epic fantasy series have this same problem.
https://thumbs.gfycat.com/BigheartedFaintDragonfly-mobile.mp4

Schwarzwald
Jul 27, 2004

Don't Blink

LordMune posted:

Just because there are several points where the parodically grimdark zombie mech story jumped off a cliff -- that doesn't mean it was all that brilliantly conceived to begin with. Some parts were certainly functional at first (but even the basic hook of the ontological mystery of the titans is eventually soured by the centipede being whatever and Ymir's story having an absolutely insane resolution. Even ignoring the whole ethnic bioweapon thing).

I'm saying it was a (mostly) well told story which was told consistently for more than half a decade. Being "brilliantly conceived" has nothing to do with it.

TheKingofSprings
Oct 9, 2012
If nothing else Isayama delivered on the basement and the story could’ve ended there and have been fine.

Elias_Maluco
Aug 23, 2007
I need to sleep

Ccs posted:

I'll admit I was still enjoying it until the final chapter, but so much of this manga was basically creating "story debt" that had to be paid off. The bigger and more enticing the mystery, the better the manga seems, but it has to get paid off. And like in a lot of spending sprees, the manga defaulted

Yeah, but remember the basement?

It was a huge debt, accumulated for a long time. So much I was pretty sure it wanst going to pay off. But it did, that reveal was indeed, great

What I am saying is that we had reason to believe he could deliver an ending too

edit: beaten about the basement

MechaX
Nov 19, 2011

"Let's be positive! Let's start a fire!"

MonsterEnvy posted:

That did not answer my question. I meant which interview was fake. The one by Isayama or the one by his editor.

I dunno what the other poster was talking about; all indications I’ve seen were that the interviews were real but the various accounts have some translation differences

Sindai
Jan 24, 2007
i want to achieve immortality through not dying

TheKingofSprings posted:

If nothing else Isayama delivered on the basement and the story could’ve ended there and have been fine.
I dunno, that's kind of Claymore's ending and I much prefer AoT's. Good or bad I'd rather any story end with a bang than a whimper.

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Bifauxnen
Aug 12, 2010

Curses! Foiled again!


Even before the ending, AoT had its low points... like the repeated absolute bullshit of the Cart Titan when it first appeared.

But I'd say Isayama is a pretty great storyteller overall. Especially when it comes to establishing interesting characters, seeing as he got me to end up liking even the goddamn Cart Titan.

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