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Beefstew posted:It's also worth noting that the villains who are framed in a sympathetic light Reiner, Annie, etc aren't really members of their Nazi-adjecent regime, but slave-Janissaries who have no place in the world and intense self-loathing. Well, later on... We DO get a sympathetic major character who's a high ranking officer in Marley with Captain Theo Magath. The interesting thing there isn't just that his arc focuses on him overcoming his inbuilt racism, befriending Eldians and eventually dying side by side with one of the "Devils of Paradis" to protect the children he trained, but that he gets a scene in one of his earlier appearances where he goes "The military is a bunch of morons because they're continually expanding and making more enemies, so no matter how much we win for now, we're doomed long term." Meanwhile, the character who insists on increased military might and campaigns against the other as the only path forward turns out to be a traitor plotting against Marley the whole time. Attack on Titan also has things like the "good guy" military leaders being emphasized as supporting a free press, even when it makes their lives more difficult, being willing to make friends with former enemies, and being responsive to the people. And as soon as they abandon that, everything goes to hell. It's not like Attack on Titan's subtle about some of those themes either, with the character that espouses violence as an inherent good and dehumanizing others being AOK being named "Gross" and giving a speech directly to the camera before his horrible death, and how the most morally upright character, visually based on John Boyega, gives a speech about how God made people different because the world is a better place if everyone isn't the same. As for Eren... Isayama tends to talk a lot about Breaking Bad, The Mist, a manga about a serial killer... he's clearly interested in stories where the protagonist makes wrong choices, but ones where you can totally see how they arrived at that decision, and even think you might make the same choice in the same position. And it's also really interesting how Eren is separated from his supporters narratively. Floch is kind of a fascist piece of poo poo, fully committed to the cause of national superiority, and spending a lot of time getting owned even as he does things so vile that you don't feel sorry for him. He murders anyone who doesn't bow down, talks lots about the Eldian Empire and how other countries deserve to be destroyed. Yeagerists are portrayed as a tragic group because the protagonists are forced to kill their own friends and countrymen, but they're bad guys, with none of the viewpoint characters endorsing their cause. Eren, meanwhile is shown to be cool and sympathetic, even as he does horrific things. Importantly, this comes partially through Eren's hatred for what he's doing, and his admission that what he does is wrong. Even if it is an us-or-them situation, the simple math says that he should lay down and die so more innocent people will live. But he rejects that out of love for the people closest to him, and thus knowingly becomes the worst monster in the series, equating himself to an even worse version the people who killed his mother. Unlike early Eren, he's no longer able to dehumanize his enemies, knowing that "saving his people" is mostly just murdering innocents no different from the people he saves except in that he doesn't know them as well. Also, you know. There's the whole Dune thing going on for him, where he knows he'll do horrible things in advance while being unable to stop himself without sacrifices he can't bring himself to make. So that's also a complication. Edit: Just going back to general thematics, two things stand out as not working with AoT as propaganda. 1) It's emphasized that "special" people aren't the only important ones. While Erwin, Mikasa, Historia, and other characters are highlighted as being exceptional by nature, other major characters like Jean, Reiner, and even Eren have scenes highlighting the opposite. Their only claim to greatness is the universal one, that they were born into the world, and that's treated as more than enough. 2) For all that Attack on Titan emphasizes heroic deaths and the necessity of sacrifice, pretty much everyone dies with regrets, often in pretty pathetic ways. Characters who are shown to be tough badasses die weeping in fear, people's last thoughts are emphasized to be wishing they'd been the coward instead, and even the guys calling for that sacrifice are often shown to be furthering their own agenda rather than acting for the goals they tell people to sacrifice for. It's not the hero martyr narrative. chiasaur11 fucked around with this message at 00:46 on Aug 15, 2020 |
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Aug 15, 2020 00:11
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| # ¿ Apr 20, 2024 05:09 |
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