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Pththya-lyi posted:I mean, if you want to criticize the pro-military stance AoT appears to be taking, why can't you just say "militarism?' "Militarism" would actually describe what you seem to be complaining about! Can even easily counter that with the manga painstakingly shows how both pro military states broke their citizens mentally and physically. It's always been about showing the awful effects of military states and fascism. Even early on when it was just about fighting Titans, it drew attention to the fact that they were using child soldiers as fodder while the upper chain refused to engage with the situation. The only way you can argue that what it's depicting is pro military, is if you think showing any form of military or that there might be good people in those institutions is endorsing its existence, which is such an strange take to me.
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Feb 13, 2021 02:17
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Remember folks, depiction does not equal endorsement
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Feb 13, 2021 02:23
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Bleck posted:here let me use as few words as possible: Thud posted:“War, Nobby. Huh! What is it good for?" he said.
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Feb 13, 2021 02:37
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https://twitter.com/dril/status/473265809079693312
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Feb 13, 2021 03:11
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I believe that Titans are sandwiches
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Feb 13, 2021 03:30
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The real last panel is Armin and Reiner locking arms and chanting "Marley!" over and over again. Creepy jingoism.
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Feb 13, 2021 03:42
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whalestory posted:I believe that Titans are sandwiches But should we tip them?
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Feb 13, 2021 03:59
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The premise of the current conflict is that broken child soldiers are literally going against their own best interests to stop an attempted mass genocide of everyone outside their country. Not even the most anti-war material argues against the idea of fighting in self-defense or in the protection of others, even if it is incredibly anti-military. "MILITARY IS BAD" ignores the actual criticism and reasons the military is bad. A dehumanizing weapon of conquest that thrives on actual jingoism, racism, and breaks both those inside of it and those who are its victims in pursuit of imperalism or sheer bloody capitalism, where countless amounts of money that could be spent on bettering the world are instead aimed towards weapons. AoT has people acting against a literal army of uncaring dehumanized individuals who are literally slaughtering innocent people. They are acting near-universally in the protection of other people or their own self-defense. The Enemy is not presented as a mindless thing but the literal broken hosed up product of decades of military and social propaganda who views killing The Enemy as the only path to peace. The active thing that 9/10ths of the cast are fighting against isn't their own deaths but the mere idea that The Enemy must be killed at any cost. The latest chapter boils down to "everyone who would benefit from this society has chosen to reject it, even those who are already dead." The bulk of the cast has actively made a decision they know might lead to their own deaths and the deaths of everyone they love because they can't and won't accept the idea of "everyone outside of these walls is my enemy and must die." If you view this as Pro-Military or The Military Is A Good Thing then you have to be actively working extremely hard to ignore everything in the story in favor of "the protagonists fought at some point, ergo it says military is good."
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Feb 13, 2021 04:13
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I've never bought AoT as an anti-war story fwiw, it feels too much in love w the idea that violence is just that endemic to the human condition to come off to me that way. It's less anti-war and more "war is gruesome and unfortunate, but fighting is necesary to push forward and survive."
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Feb 13, 2021 05:48
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Bleck posted:here let me use as few words as possible: Bleck I legitimately have to ask this at this point because we post in a lot of the same threads, but every so often you seem to come out with a particular hot take that unifies the entire thread for dogpiling on you regardless of previous stances Are you just doing a bit when you do it? Are we being trolled, right now?
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Feb 13, 2021 06:38
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Pootybutt posted:I've never bought AoT as an anti-war story fwiw, it feels too much in love w the idea that violence is just that endemic to the human condition to come off to me that way. It's less anti-war and more "war is gruesome and unfortunate, but fighting is necesary to push forward and survive." Yeah, it's anti-war in the loose sense that it showcases how it's loving awful, but as part of its overall thematic analysis of the reasons why people fight wars it does seem to convey Isayama himself feels self-defense is a legitimate reason (or at least one he doesn't pass a value judgment on), and consequently doesn't view the military as an
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Feb 13, 2021 06:41
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Pootybutt posted:I've never bought AoT as an anti-war story fwiw, it feels too much in love w the idea that violence is just that endemic to the human condition to come off to me that way. It's less anti-war and more "war is gruesome and unfortunate, but fighting is necesary to push forward and survive." A huge portion of the last part of the story is about how circles of violence need to be broken, and war is a massive part of that particular cycle the series is trying to rail pretty hard against. It's railing against it pretty violently, mind you, but that's not inherently a point against it. Also insofar as the glorification of war goes I think Attack on Titan has made a point of brutally depicting the miserable consequences and how many people die as pawns enough that criticism along that angle is more than a little blunted by that.
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Feb 13, 2021 06:47
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Conspiratiorist posted:Yeah, it's anti-war in the loose sense that it showcases how it's loving awful, but as part of its overall thematic analysis of the reasons why people fight wars it does seem to convey Isayama himself feels self-defense is a legitimate reason (or at least one he doesn't pass a value judgment on), and consequently doesn't view the military as an For the military the front line veterans are the people he tends to portray the most positively. The ones that actually go on the front lines and so know that war, and fighting suck.
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Feb 13, 2021 07:15
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We are at the problem that there is no such thing as an anti-war film, because the spectacle encourages war. And AoT is absolutely a show about spectacle, that was the original conceit of the story, people spidermanning around slashing megazombies. But that is a the subtext. Meanwhile, the actual, literal, text, states that cooperation across racial and national lines is the best means to stop genocidaires. No one is born evil, everyone has an inherent right to live and live free, de-escalation and dialogue and ending of cycles of recrimination are what people should strive for.
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Feb 13, 2021 08:49
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stolen from the other thread
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Feb 13, 2021 09:24
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Bleck posted:I sure did just read the past forty pages of all of the military children banding together and using their military training to kill a guy with a nuke I bet you think Starship Troopers is pro military too don't you.
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Feb 13, 2021 14:59
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-Z9Ssgb0Kg This is super cool. Has it been brought up before how the hullucigenia that inspired the wormulon design has a lot of thematic ties to the Titans and the Paths stuff?
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Feb 13, 2021 15:50
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Bleck posted:here let me use as few words as possible:
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Feb 13, 2021 16:22
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Not Keyser Soze posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-Z9Ssgb0Kg This exact video was linked earlier in the thread and it was really cool to see it basically confirmed in the latest chapter!
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Feb 13, 2021 16:25
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The story has also really gone out of its way to put the cast in a corner and make the only choices be “kill everyone in the world or everyone in the world will come kill you” so to an extent I can see the argument. “Eldia’s enemies are utterly implacable and unreasonable and as long as there’s even one of them they’ll stop at nothing to see every Eldian dead” feels like a field day for the people calling Isayama a Japanese nationalist.
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Feb 13, 2021 16:35
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I think you have a take a very intentionally narrow read on the story for that to be the take-away though. It's made clear that the actual heroes of the story fundamentally reject the conclusion that their "enemies" deserve to die for the sin of being others.
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Feb 13, 2021 17:02
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I see Niccolo's lines from this page in Chapter 124 as a kind of thesis statement for the entire series: Earlier, Sasha's dad used "the forest" as a metaphor for a world in which every living thing is forced to kill to survive. So Niccolo is saying: "Yes, the world is violent; yes, there's evil in every single one of us; yes, true peace may be impossible. But still we must strive for peace in our own, flawed way." And he's saying it to two girls from enemy nations: the people from many nations, including nations that are actively at war with each other, are the "we" that have to "keep on trying" to "get out of this forest." I cannot understand how someone could look at the above page, read and comprehend the words on it, and come away with the idea that AoT is promoting war between nations. Anyway, I wonder what other manga or anime series are jingoist. Sailor Moon? She is a Pretty Soldier, after all.
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Feb 13, 2021 19:30
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serious gaylord posted:I bet you think Starship Troopers is pro military too don't you. Starship Troopers manages to do what it does because it puts it's whole leg behind the kick of the Bad Ending - if Eren is actually defeated by Armin deciding to talk about how he likes being alive, then the story is, perhaps inadvertently, making the case that the consequences of ever-escalating fascism are avoidable as long as like believe in ourselves or whatever. I think it just kind of undercuts the whole "here's the endgame of fascism" thing to be like "unless you have a deus ex machina that you unlock by talking about how much you loved your dad."
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Feb 13, 2021 19:33
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Eustace posted:Remember folks, depiction does not equal endorsement
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Feb 13, 2021 19:39
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Indeed. Eren successfully genociding the world wouldn't be an endorsement of his method, but a portrayal of the tragic consequence (in this story enabled by the supernatural elements introduced in its mythology) of the ever escalating cycles of hatred and violence. The world failed to reach an understanding and so a desperate man, product of that same violence, who found himself with the ability to take action decided to put an end to it all the only way he knew how. Similarly, any positive outcomes that might result in the aftermath of this aren't endorsement either, but simply a consequence of Eren being a nuanced character with reasonable and believable motivations rather than some cartoonishly evil Captain Planet-style villain.
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Feb 13, 2021 19:57
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Bleck posted:Starship Troopers manages to do what it does because it puts it's whole leg behind the kick of the Bad Ending - if Eren is actually defeated by Armin deciding to talk about how he likes being alive, then the story is, perhaps inadvertently, making the case that the consequences of ever-escalating fascism are avoidable as long as like believe in ourselves or whatever. Im trying to understand your argument. First you said the story is jingoistic because characters with military training are the heroes and now youre saying that the anti war message is weak because the conflict is being resolved with dialogue? What are you trying to say?
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Feb 13, 2021 20:15
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Eustace posted:Im trying to understand your argument. First you said the story is jingoistic because characters with military training are the heroes and now youre saying that the anti war message is weak because the conflict is being resolved with dialogue? What are you trying to say? "I'm a huge troll!"
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Feb 13, 2021 20:16
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Eustace posted:Im trying to understand your argument. First you said the story is jingoistic because characters with military training are the heroes and now youre saying that the anti war message is weak because the conflict is being resolved with dialogue? It's both - the conflict being "resolved" with "dialogue" is to mask the fact that the conflict is [apparently! There are still chapters left!] actually resolved via a show of force from military children. If Eren is the end result of fascism, what does it say that one of the things we needed to defeat him was A Twelve Year Old Girl With A Really Big Gun? What is the story trying to say by having what was by all accounts an unstoppable force be toppled this way? My stance here is that the story's anti-war theme is severely undercut if Eren actually loses, especially in these circumstances.
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Feb 13, 2021 20:27
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Historically, fascism usually gets defeated by groups of people with really big guns. I get what youre saying though, but as others in this thread have said, the series isnt against violence for the sake of protecting yourself or others. Also whats "defeating" eren is a group of former enemies in an ethnic conflict putting their differences aside, embracing their common humanity and putting a stop to genocide.
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Feb 13, 2021 20:37
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Conspiratiorist posted:Indeed. Eren successfully genociding the world wouldn't be an endorsement of his method, but a portrayal of the tragic consequence (in this story enabled by the supernatural elements introduced in its mythology) of the ever escalating cycles of hatred and violence. The world failed to reach an understanding and so a desperate man, product of that same violence, who found himself with the ability to take action decided to put an end to it all the only way he knew how. If Eren loses and we get a positive end to the international politics problem the story is going to have to try real hard to not have the message that “total genocides are bad, targeted genocides are good.” Eren, the supposed bad guy, wiping out 90% of Marleyans and making the world a better place has some real strong “Actually the truth was in the middle” energy.
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Feb 13, 2021 20:39
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Particularly that with Marley being repeatedly stated to be the non-Paradisian Eldian's greatest ally.
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Feb 13, 2021 20:44
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Ethiser posted:If Eren loses and we get a positive end to the international politics problem the story is going to have to try real hard to not have the message that “total genocides are bad, targeted genocides are good.” Eren, the supposed bad guy, wiping out 90% of Marleyans and making the world a better place has some real strong “Actually the truth was in the middle” energy. That's the point I was trying to make earlier in the thread. In fact almost any ending from here could be used as a justification for genocide. The world was already heavily anti-Eldian before Eren attacked Marley, and within months wiping out Paradis when the Rumbling started. If the post-final-battle world is better than that alternative, one could argue that the rumbling helped achieve peace when it was not possible before. A positive outcome does not equal endorsement, like Conspiratiorist was saying, but especially in light of Eren's future sight, it would be easy for him to go 'the ends justify the means'. Isayama is walking a fine line here. edit: the absolute worst culprit here would be a Lelouch ending, and I'm more and more beginning to think that is where the ending is headed. mightygerm fucked around with this message at 20:52 on Feb 13, 2021 |
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Feb 13, 2021 20:49
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I bet the ending is going to be vague about the consequences of the rumbling. Like "wow that was scary but whatever comes after we're going to be ok as long as we have each other" and then bam the end
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Feb 13, 2021 20:55
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An older question in the thread, but Erin might have waited to start the rumbling with zeke until Marley invaded paradis again. I suspect he could have tried to start it at any time. This could be to give himself a mental justification and/or to more likely convince whatever was in Paths to side with him.
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Feb 13, 2021 21:05
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My thing w it is it feels weird describing a series so uniquely uninterested in peace as anti-war. It's never been a narrative about striving to find peace, or the effort that would take. It's a narrative about people who fight, why they fight, as they wonder, while fighting, if peace will ever be possible for them, Bc of the fighting, you see. Peaceful options or tactics are never seriously explored or offered. Armin's attempts to negotiate for it grow increasingly desperate and unsuccesful, to the point that he fails to reach the empathy of loving Connie at one point. The biggest named pacifist of the series is this bizarro self-hating parody of isolationism who would just let his people get rolled over. The conflict is always "everyone wants to fight us" and the solution is always to fight back, no matter how bloody or how much you have to compromise your humanity, to survive and it's those who choose to fight who are the heroes and who get to move forward and survive. You have to fight for freedom, but not too hard. And that hits disconcertingly if you happen to not agree w the narrative about how violent people are(or have to be) or how dificult it is to reconcile differences bw people. From about where the anime is onward, there's a weird way the zero-sum stakes of the drama fit exactly with the zero-sum ways weirdo deep-in-the-poo poo nationalists like Eren tend to think about conflict between the races and in general. Just an observation. Pootybutt fucked around with this message at 21:18 on Feb 13, 2021 |
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Feb 13, 2021 21:15
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Eustace posted:I bet the ending is going to be vague about the consequences of the rumbling. Like "wow that was scary but whatever comes after we're going to be ok as long as we have each other" and then bam the end Yeah, not sure why people are sure this could wrap up perfectly in 2 chapters. Maybe nothing will be resolved and we'll launch into Attacks on Titans
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Feb 13, 2021 21:24
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Pootybutt posted:It's never been a narrative about striving to find peace, or the effort that would take. But it does explore paths towards peace - and categorically rejects them if it comes from perpetuating the powerful exploiting the powerless. Like the king of the walls brainwashing his subjects, or Tybur and Magath scapegoating Paradis. The story condemns humanity in general for not trying hard enough; the fact that Falco exists and achieves small victories even if the world is too much large for him, a child, to change, is to me proof enough that Isayama isn't a full blown cynic. Conspiratiorist fucked around with this message at 21:36 on Feb 13, 2021 |
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Feb 13, 2021 21:34
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Bleck posted:If Eren is the end result of fascism, what does it say that one of the things we needed to defeat him was A Twelve Year Old Girl With A Really Big Gun? What is the story trying to say by having what was by all accounts an unstoppable force be toppled this way? It says that a valid way to combat fascism is with anti-fascist violence.
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Feb 13, 2021 22:51
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It feels also like a valuable point that there are no *nations* striving for peace in this situation, at least not without geopolitical reservations and exceptions. There’s no nation that seems capable or even interested in peace. That’s not particularly hard to swallow. The people of those nations, though, are the same people as those across the water, and many of them have commented on this. One rejection of nationalism would be to say all these concepts of people and borders meshed into nationalities is flawed from the outset and doomed to fail.
Peacoffee fucked around with this message at 23:26 on Feb 13, 2021 |
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Feb 13, 2021 23:24
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Bleck posted:It's both - the conflict being "resolved" with "dialogue" is to mask the fact that the conflict is [apparently! There are still chapters left!] actually resolved via a show of force from military children. Eren was not defeated by a really big gun. Assuming he is actually defected he was defeated by people actively rejecting his call to genocide and the fear of the other. The bulk of your complaint seems to boil down to "the protagonists of this manga are teenagers" while ignoring the fact that the fact that they are teenage soldiers is presented as an unambiguously bad and awful thing. Eren is a broken teenage soldier who has taken "all my enemies must die" to heart and the rest of the cast is actively rejecting him and the violence they have engaged in is to protect innocent people. Viewing this as an endorsement of child soldiering involves ignoring the entire rest of the context of the story. Whatever violence is endorsed in the story is almost universally "You can not accept people committing genocidal atrocities, even against people who are your theoretical enemies." You have to stretch really goddamn far to reach the viewpoint of "Actually fighting against genocide is just fascism." ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 00:38 on Feb 14, 2021 |
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Feb 14, 2021 00:30
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