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Beefstew posted:One thing I can't wrap my head around is how certain folks' problem with the ending is specifically that Eren dies. Like, literally any trajectory or any framing they could've gone with (Eren wins and dies of the curse, Eren loses and he's vindicated and self-sacrificing, or he's pure evil and put down) all end with him dying. As far back as season one, I saw the violent kid who could turn into a Titan saying "I will not stop until all Titans are dead," and I remember thinking "you're nuts if you think this character is still gonna be alive at the end." I guess I can step in on this one. I don't think Eren dying is bad, unlike the handling of Historia, or Mikasa's 139 pre bonus pages. I think that it's a perfectly acceptable close to his arc. But I also think it's easy. Eren did this monstrous thing, and he doesn't have to live with the consequences. His friends (to varying degrees) forgive him, and that's it. He's done. The ending I wanted (and I understand that others differ) is basically what we got on the global scale (including the 'things fall apart again eventually'), but Eren lives... and his surviving friends don't forgive him. Eren's the greatest monster in history everywhere except Paradis, and the praise from fascist pieces of poo poo like Floch only makes it worse for him. He and Historia are, to paraphrase Kamille, dogs licking each other's wounds, miserable people who know that they couldn't do the hard but moral thing. The one bright spot is that their daughter is going to be free, unlike her parents, trapped forever by the weight of their own sins. The flipside, of course, is that it weakens Mikasa's arc. Her ending scene in 138 is messed up, but perfect, and her loving Eren despite his request, but managing to move on and have a full and happy life anyway squares the circle really well. I think the anime's doing the best it can with a difficult position by removing most of the focus on the Historia subplot and giving Mikasa a bit more focus, but I am still curious how it's going to play out Eren's death.
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Mar 8, 2023 10:18
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Eren is simply a shonen protagonist. He MUST save his friends, he MUST never give up, no matter what. He is not free. In some situations such constraints can result in a very negative outcome for everyone else. 
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Mar 8, 2023 11:31
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Spatial posted:Eren is simply a shonen protagonist. He MUST save his friends, he MUST never give up, no matter what. He is not free. True. Eren being stubborn and stupid and loving up and getting everyone killed is actually extremely on brand.
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Mar 8, 2023 11:34
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chiasaur11 posted:I guess I can step in on this one. Death is never really treated as an easy way out in AoT, it's pretty consistent throughout the story that death is really loving scary and Eren himself breaks down in tears because he doesn't want to die but he knows it's what he deserves for what he's done. The titan curse cutting your remaining lifespan to 13 years is treated as this awful, cruel thing to be avoided at all costs. I'm curious what 139 looked like before the bonus pages.
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Mar 8, 2023 14:14
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MJeff posted:The titan curse cutting your remaining lifespan to 13 years is treated as this awful, cruel thing to be avoided at all costs. The interesting trade off is that for the average Paradis citizens post Wall breach, getting a potentially guaranteed 13 years of life was probably like 10 years more than many of them could expect otherwise and even then the quality of life to be expected was pretty dull at best and horrifyingly cruel at worst.
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Mar 8, 2023 20:59
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MJeff posted:
Remove the page where Mikasa acknowledges Ymir, and where Ymir allows her husband to die in order to break the curse. In other words, remove the entire conclusion to their character arcs, and inadvertently pervert the intended message of "breaking away from abuse while accepting the love and longing you had as valid" to "some people like abuse, actually." Then remove every page after the bird and the scarf, so the ending's implication is now "Mikasa never gets over Eren, but that's okay because he saved the world and ushered in lasting peace as a true hero." I 100% believe the extra pages were intended to be there from the start, and were cut either to fit magazine length standards or because the editors didn't like the downer ending. Isayama even said in an interview prior to the ending that one of the images he was working on was a kid looking at a gargantuan tree, so these ideas were definitely there before the backlash. And honestly, the extra pages came out only a couple months later in the physical volume, so they were likely planned in advance. I'm pretty okay with the ending post-expansion, but the original release was rough. I'm imagining the anime will tighten the screws a bit more (as it has done consistently), and things will go over smoother for general audiences.
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Mar 8, 2023 23:16
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Wait. So it was just the "Ymir loved Karl Fritz" stuff without the Mikasa/Ymir stuff?  Also, man, just ending on Mikasa and Bird Eren, yeah, that's kinda rough too. Although I can only imagine for a very specific subsection of the fandom, seeing Mikasa married to Probably Jean made the ending even worse for them. 
MJeff fucked around with this message at 23:44 on Mar 8, 2023 |
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Mar 8, 2023 23:40
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So what would the ideal ending have been for most of you? Like say they stopped Eren before the rumbling decimated most of the world, what would've been the best way to resolve the bigger conflict between Paradis and the world at large without a bleak implication that all of our heroes are soon going to have their island utterly crushed?
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Mar 9, 2023 01:19
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Bleak endings are good
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Mar 9, 2023 01:22
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iamsosmrt posted:So what would the ideal ending have been for most of you? Like say they stopped Eren before the rumbling decimated most of the world, what would've been the best way to resolve the bigger conflict between Paradis and the world at large without a bleak implication that all of our heroes are soon going to have their island utterly crushed? Mikasa is louder, angrier and has access to a time machine.
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Mar 9, 2023 01:24
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Beefstew posted:Take what you've read. I still think about the panel of the father and the baby that was released long before the finale, which was talked about as the final panel. It just feels like the whole Historia subplot was going to be a bigger part of things before the final form was worked out. (Similarly, the initial last chapter feels weird, and the comments on it being from editorial instead of Isayama feels weirder. Combined with Armin's complaints, it makes me wonder about any alternates under consideration.) Still, we got what we got, and with the bonus pages, it feels like a good conclusion, even if I feel like Eren didn't quite work as well as he could have in the end. I understand why Isayama worried so much about how people felt, and am glad that the reception he got on his visit to the USA was so positive. Guy made one of the all time greats. Stumbling a bit at the finish line doesn't invalidate that. (Although, if not for the bonus pages, we would be having a very different conversation.)
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Mar 9, 2023 03:43
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MJeff posted:Wait. It's sort of incredible how much the tone and message of the ending is changed just by adding a few pages. It will be interesting to see how direction, sound design, and voice acting impacts this as well.
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Mar 9, 2023 13:19
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iamsosmrt posted:So what would the ideal ending have been for most of you? Like say they stopped Eren before the rumbling decimated most of the world, what would've been the best way to resolve the bigger conflict between Paradis and the world at large without a bleak implication that all of our heroes are soon going to have their island utterly crushed? He should have committed harder to the bleak ending, skip the worm poo poo and just let the heroes fail and have to live with the knowledge they are safe for now but couldn't save the world. Eren is awful, stomps the planet, dooms everyone, and the world is allowed to reset free from the hatred and violence of humanity. He saves his friends at the cost of everything like he wanted and is scorned for it not possibly fondly remembered.
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Mar 9, 2023 18:44
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I liked that one music video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrQ0zZArUV8
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Mar 9, 2023 20:02
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Beefstew posted:True. Eren being stubborn and stupid and loving up and getting everyone killed is actually extremely on brand. Look everyone has a coping mechanism to deal with trauma, Eren's is just to reflexively ruin the lives of everyone around him. e: I liked those initial couple pages where Mikasa was mentally grappling with the idea that Eren wasn't the kind person she thought he was, and it was weird that the original cut kinda just completely drops that afterward The Notorious ZSB posted:He should have committed harder to the bleak ending, skip the worm poo poo and just let the heroes fail and have to live with the knowledge they are safe for now but couldn't save the world. Eren is awful, stomps the planet, dooms everyone, and the world is allowed to reset free from the hatred and violence of humanity. At that point it's just misery porn, when things get too bleak they can very easily hit the comedy zone Also never a fan of just writing things off as "well that's just human nature" Yinlock fucked around with this message at 04:44 on Mar 10, 2023 |
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Mar 10, 2023 04:30
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MJeff posted:Death is never really treated as an easy way out in AoT, it's pretty consistent throughout the story that death is really loving scary and Eren himself breaks down in tears because he doesn't want to die but he knows it's what he deserves for what he's done. The titan curse cutting your remaining lifespan to 13 years is treated as this awful, cruel thing to be avoided at all costs. That reminds me. Something I found interesting in the last arc is that it was the first time where people managed to live up to the words of TheDOGS_ and "die with honor and dignity". For most of Attack on Titan, people died badly. Miche is the most dramatic example, breaking down sobbing as Zeke interrogates and kills him, but even major characters like Erwin are presented as dying unfulfilled, with him getting his most pathetic moment talking to Levi about how he just wants answers, before gritting his teeth and pulling his duty one last time. Hange, Keith, and Theo, by contrast, die well. They see that their mission through and die knowing that they succeeded in their part, satisfied with their final roles and able to finally face their lives without regret. (Then Eren returns the series to form with a temper tantrum that was apparently added pretty last minute, according to Isayama.) I don't know if there's some broader point being made, but I find it interesting even without being able to form a larger narrative around it. The series goes one way for most of its run, with even the least horrible deaths (like poor Sasha's) being shown as tragic and wasteful in a way that's more "All Quiet on the Western Front" than "A Tale of Two Cities", and then it has a brief changeup for the last act. Kind of wonder what the thought process was. I mean, I think it works, but I'm still curious.
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Mar 10, 2023 05:11
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I had thought about that a bit. In a series where the idea of facing death with dignity, having "a good death", heroic sacrifices, all that kind of stuff is kind of looked down upon, Hange gets a very unironic, earnest heroic death. I had forgotten about Shadis and Magath, but they definitely count too. Even Zeke is able to face death with dignity and gain some respect for the value of life in the end. I dunno where Colt and Galliard factor into this.
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Mar 10, 2023 06:55
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Yinlock posted:Also never a fan of just writing things off as "well that's just human nature" tbh, that actually might have been the chance to buck the human nature argument by leaning more in the fact that by flattening a lot of land/forests and boiling large parts of the ocean, that 20% of humanity remaining is going to have to band together whether they like it or not, and even then the planet may still be hosed but they'll still fight. Of course, that would also require author awareness of the fact that the rumbling went too far and might have doomed Paradis eventually given the global environmental damage the rumbling would have had to have done and Eren is a loving idiot MechaX fucked around with this message at 12:43 on Mar 10, 2023 |
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Mar 10, 2023 12:39
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I finally watched the most recent episode and honestly I still think this series is extremely good, one of the best of our generation.
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Mar 10, 2023 13:26
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MechaX posted:tbh, that actually might have been the chance to buck the human nature argument by leaning more in the fact that by flattening a lot of land/forests and boiling large parts of the ocean, that 20% of humanity remaining is going to have to band together whether they like it or not, and even then the planet may still be hosed but they'll still fight. This point keeps coming back but the combined ecologic impact of the Rumbling is peanuts to what we've done in the real world over the past century. Hell, we do more damage to the ocean daily.
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Mar 10, 2023 16:13
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Sure but just think of how much damage they could do with titans AND 21st century pollution tech.
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Mar 10, 2023 16:17
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Conspiratiorist posted:This point keeps coming back but the combined ecologic impact of the Rumbling is peanuts to what we've done in the real world over the past century. Hell, we do more damage to the ocean daily. I'm not do sure about that. All forests would be wiped, most animals outside the oceans would die
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Mar 10, 2023 16:37
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Yinlock posted:At that point it's just misery porn, when things get too bleak they can very easily hit the comedy zone The final arc was basically some comedy wtf poo poo for me so yeah I would have preferred Isayama just lean in hard. The extra pages for the final chapter helped, but I don't think the way it was wrapped up will ever leave me with anything but a sour taste. I don't think my conclusion is "eren did it cause of human nature" just that if the end point of the story had been "yes eren wins, but its a hollow victory that doomed the planet and only saved his friends but left them with a new curse/have to live with their inevitiable doom" I would have liked more than "yes eren wins, but its hollow because humanity can't stop repeating its mistakes oh and the titans will return, but everyone you knew in the story got a happy ending" I think the actual ending is more representative of "well its just human nature we can't really stop it" than the purely bleak one I proposed. The Notorious ZSB fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Mar 10, 2023 |
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Mar 10, 2023 16:52
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Elias_Maluco posted:I'm not do sure about that. All forests would be wiped, most animals outside the oceans would die Take a look at historical wildlife population estimates; we're the proverbial frog in the apocalypse kettle. It seems people get confused by picturing the Rumbling as an unbroken wall of titans expanding across the world, when for practical reasons they'd behave more like marching ant columns, fanning out into subcolumns upon reaching major landmasses and prioritizing populated areas - Eren knows where cities and towns are, and titans can detect people. The final confrontation premise is itself Eren leading a column towards a military objective in the middle of a desert while other groups are busy flattening urban centers across the world.
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Mar 10, 2023 17:00
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Conspiratiorist posted:Take a look at historical wildlife population estimates; we're the proverbial frog in the apocalypse kettle. No Wave fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Mar 10, 2023 |
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Mar 10, 2023 17:04
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Yeah, the way I see it, the rumbling would have to be like carpet bombing the entire earth. And yeah, we have been making a lot of damage over the last few centuries, but still I think something like the rumbling would necessarily do s lot more. And in a lot less time too
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Mar 10, 2023 17:09
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The Notorious ZSB posted:The final arc was basically some comedy wtf poo poo for me so yeah I would have preferred Isayama just lean in hard. The extra pages for the final chapter helped, but I don't think the way it was wrapped up will ever leave me with anything but a sour taste. The actual ending is that the world is a never ending samsara but despite that you can and should fight for peace.
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Mar 10, 2023 18:20
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Eej posted:The actual ending is that the world is a never ending samsara but despite that you can and should fight for peace. The actual ending is a mess no matter what anyone tries to pull out of it. My interpretation is just as valid as that one and I don't think it did a good job communicating the one you are expressing. I can agree that was probably the goal, but it did not do that for me.
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Mar 10, 2023 18:25
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https://twitter.com/yugiohtas/status/1634237095077347329 You can go buy the basement key in fortnite right now
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Mar 10, 2023 18:37
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No Wave posted:You couldn't kill 80% of humans targeting urban centers. You'd kill 80% of humans by wiping out the area about 200km inland from the coasts + a decent stretch up major rivers.
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Mar 10, 2023 18:44
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MorningMoon posted:https://twitter.com/yugiohtas/status/1634237095077347329 The Hulk and Eren are the same character
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Mar 10, 2023 18:49
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MorningMoon posted:https://twitter.com/yugiohtas/status/1634237095077347329 SHINGEKI X KINGDOM HEARTS LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
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Mar 10, 2023 18:49
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The Notorious ZSB posted:He should have committed harder to the bleak ending, skip the worm poo poo and just let the heroes fail and have to live with the knowledge they are safe for now but couldn't save the world. Eren is awful, stomps the planet, dooms everyone, and the world is allowed to reset free from the hatred and violence of humanity. yeah, it should have been this because nothing else would have really rung true. a different ending would have been fine too, but then the story leading up to it should have been changed to make that fit.
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Mar 10, 2023 22:15
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Conspiratiorist posted:This point keeps coming back but the combined ecologic impact of the Rumbling is peanuts to what we've done in the real world over the past century. Hell, we do more damage to the ocean daily. That’s impossible because the Rumbling demonstratively turned the lands into absolute wastelands or dust, let alone combusting a lot of the general vicinity. Plus, I’m going to need a source on causing enough damage to the ocean comparable to several hundred human-shaped torpedoes emitting enough heat and steam to liquify humans that are probably several hundred meters above them Plus this isn’t even getting into how Eren did this on a global scale within days; that is an astronomically sudden shift
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Mar 10, 2023 22:17
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MechaX posted:Plus, I’m going to need a source on causing enough damage to the ocean comparable to several hundred human-shaped torpedoes emitting enough heat and steam to liquify humans that are probably several hundred meters above them. https://www.marinetraffic.com/
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Mar 10, 2023 22:24
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The Notorious ZSB posted:The actual ending is a mess no matter what anyone tries to pull out of it. My interpretation is just as valid as that one and I don't think it did a good job communicating the one you are expressing. I can agree that was probably the goal, but it did not do that for me. The more I think about it the more it makes sense to me why the Japanese audience loves the ending and the Western audience hates it. It's a cultural divide over basic storytelling structure.
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Mar 10, 2023 23:17
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Americans generally arent that bothered about the ending. The people who were really, really mad about it were the readers who bet all of their chips on EreHisu for years and years.
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Mar 10, 2023 23:25
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No Wave posted:Americans generally arent that bothered about the ending. The people who were really, really mad about it were the readers who bet all of their chips on EreHisu for years and years. Peanut brain: EreHisu and EreMika Galaxy brain: EreHisuMika Universe Brain: Polycule
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Mar 11, 2023 00:38
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No Wave posted:This is part of why I find the 80% part so bizarre, it is unfathomably more difficult to kill 80% of people compared to 40% and 40% would still leave everything completely hosed up. Like in our world killing every human in every city you've ever heard of wouldnt even hit 30%. Agreed, the numbers are ludicrous. The comparable "ecologic impact" of the rumbling isn't any human activity over any period of time, it's the Permian-Triassic extinction event.
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Mar 11, 2023 07:35
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Conspiratorist, buddy, I understand the impulse, but saying Ksaver's titan form is in the final episode is a way bigger spoiler for the final episode than just mentioning what it is.
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Mar 11, 2023 18:28
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