Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Attack on Titan The Final Season
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tee2330
Posts: 64 |
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The last review I read of episode 6 kind of missed the whole point of this story, everyone thinks their side is right they'll do whatever horrible thing they do and justify it by saying "the other guys are the bad guys" well it's easy to point out periods in history where we were apparently unquestionably the good guys, we don't really know the other side and history is painted by the victors in a way that makes the victors look good.
I can see many parallels with real world history but that's because humans themselves will naturally continue the cycle of hatred that's just our nature, especially nowadays when there's 2 sides and both of them see diffrent realities it's more polarizing than ever and neither side will ever consider if they're wrong, I can have an augment with one side and we can agree to disagree but the other will adamantly believe they're right no matter what, I'm not gonna name what sides I'm talking about because it's a bad idea to choose a side. I think AoT's message though maybe not intended by the author) is "there's no good guys or bad guys no black or white just people on both sides who believe that they're right and will do anything in the name of their cause well condemning the other side as evil to justify their actions, there's no good or bad guys there's just people. |
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JesterThomas
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It's important to realize Isayama is pointing out facism is evil and self defeating. I dont think the reviewer understands that both sides can be bad is true. What Eren did was cold blooded murder. No getting around that. Eren had a choice and his choice led to a lot of civilians dying. Isayama is not saying the Eldians are evil. But, he is saying the road to hell is always paved with good intentions.
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Yuvelir
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The world was against them... and for over 100 years nobody ever touched Paradis. It was Marley what did, and they did so not out of fear or hatred of Eldians, but to secure their own hegemony. Willy and Marley calling for war agains Paradis is bad news, indeed, but what Eren did was LITERALLY give them all the justification they were seeking! He sided with them, he knowingly played to their plans, he lit the flames of war, Eren grabbed the world's largest megaphone and yelled "these guys are right, I am a threat and as long as we exist you won't be safe". In the rally to arms against Paradis, Will gave the world conviction that their cause was necessary, Eren gave them confirmation. |
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killjoy_the
 Posts: 2459 |
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^ Can you clarify what you're assuming Eren's intentions are, at this point? Sure, Eren played right into Wily's plan, but he did so absolutely knowingly.
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Yuvelir
Posts: 1543 |
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I don't know, that's my point! He doesn't care for revenge anymore, it does no good for his country (at least with the information we have right now) and it's causing a lot of innocent deaths exactly the same way as when he lost his home. And he's completely aware of all that. He just says "he has no other choice" (with a hint of irony as both Reiner and him DID have a chocie) with no hint as to why or how. That's why I'm disputing that his objectives and motivations are clear, because they're actually an enigma. |
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NeverConvex
 Subscriber Posts: 2285 |
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Dang, the Warhammer Titan is pretty ridiculously OP. Being able to freely materialize crystalline structures in arbitrary shapes is kind of an absurd power.
Also curious what the end-game of Eren's politicking is, but mostly I was just distracted by how strong the Warhammer was. Sort of surprised it only took Eren and Mikasa to take it down. |
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Everlasting Coconut
 Posts: 290 |
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Oh, yeah, what Eren did was one hell of a risky and dangerous move, all the more so seeing how his own allies seem to be saddened by and disappointed in his actions. In that respect, I agree with you. To both the characters and the audience, Eren and his plans are an enigma. But his motivation is clear. It's just like he told Reiner last week: they're both the same. they both wanted to protect their world, they both felt like they had no other choice, and they both keep moving forward until their enemies are destroyed. Eren's world is Paradis, and his enemies are everyone outside of it. So there's only one choice for him to make. |
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Gem-Bug
 Posts: 1199 |
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Agreed! Folks were really ripping into this episode online, and it all seems rather needless. It looks fine, and so do the new character designs(everyone looked really different at this point in the manga, as well). I think there's going to be people tearing into this season for the duration of it just because it's different in a lot of ways. |
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Doodleboy
Posts: 296 |
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Floch was the only survivor of the baseball match, who tried and failed to save Erwin. He also had a conversation with Armin, Eren and Miksasa which established him as a kind of everyman. For all out warfare. Well there's a difference between beating one or two ships and fighting a navy of them, some of them being battleships capable of taking down the Armored Titan from a distance. Even if they can eliminate Marley, they're not just fighting against Marley anymore after killing all those dignitaries. Also Artillery has been historically pretty good at flattening forests and cities. Plus Eldia doesn't really have the population necessary to make trench warfare feasible even if they come up with that. So far they don't really have a hard counter to it. If the world manages to figure out the logistics of bringing enough shells to do the job, they can just camp out far away on flat-land and use artillery's fire to eliminate any obstacles before moving in. Realistically there will be issues with timelines and the amount of shells needed, but well... they're fighting against everyone now. Also another note, Willy and Margath's paranoia about spies and infiltrators is a nice parallel to Eren and Erwin's similar paranoia during the first two seasons. |
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DerekL1963
 Subscriber Posts: 1113 Location: Puget Sound |
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Something like this... A half formed thought I've been toying with this morning, and I'll toss out for consideration. Criticism of this arc of Titan is getting tripped up because it keeps trying to map the story onto specific real world events rather than examine more general mapping onto concepts. And in specific, it's tripping up due to decades of "Good War" propaganda - that one side is inescapably Demons and the other Pure Angels... For my part I find that it does map better than you might think, because the Allies weren't Pure Angels. Though they covered it up with euphemisms ("collateral damage") and terminology ("dehousing") that let them avoid thinking too hard about it... The Allies did in fact kill civilians almost indiscriminately. The bombing campaigns did in fact kill women and children. But we never see that, because we see pictures from the bombers far distant from the damage. Because we see pictures of shattered and ruined cities, but the fate of the former inhabitants is pretty much never discussed. (And when it is, it's rarely sympathetically.) In the West, when victims of bombing are discussed, it's pretty much never the Berliner or the Osaka-ite. It's a very familiar white with a cockney accent whose pub or working class flat was destroyed in the Blitz. The kid who went (or was sent) to live in the country either before the bombing, or subsequent to their home or school being bombed (or their parents killed). Etc... etc... Total war makes demons of us all. There are no angels. And Isayama is reminding us of that fact. Like I said this is half formed, but I think I'm on the right track. |
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Yuvelir
Posts: 1543 |
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And another point about history, paralels and ethnic groups: even if the basic aesthetics are lifted from a specific country and timeframe, empires and wars have also existed far away from Europe and North America.
Even if the Eldian irony can be dangerous when compared solely with the group most thematically close (in their present), that there have been empires torn down by their own machinations (although not as benevolent as Fritz's) to end up being repressed and enslaved by their formes serf-states is not a "what if". |
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KaidoYuji8Shinji
Posts: 118 Location: Manchester, NH |
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I’m interested in what looks like an all-out fight next week will look all CG. Staying positive! Either way, the story will shine through!
Last edited by KaidoYuji8Shinji on Mon Jan 18, 2021 3:07 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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#920168
Posts: 1 |
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Thank you James for your review and thought process. I really appreciated it. As a person of color myself, a lot of those same things came to mind for me as well. I'm glad I'm not alone with those sediments.
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Kirki
Posts: 296 |
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I don't think the series itself asks you to sympathize with Marleyans. It just shows you the human suffering caused by war and what circumstances led to that point, and as a human being, that moves you. I doubt the writer asks you to pick a side in who is "right" and "wrong", we just happened to view the story through the eyes of the people in Paradis so far. Nazis were bad, yeah duh. Would that justify waltzing into Berlin and slaughtering civilians during world war 2, or do the atrocities committed by imperialistic Japan justify the US dropping two atomic bombs on their heads? It seems to me that people feel bad about feeling bad for people who died that way. "They deserved it", "they had it coming", "they are the bad guys". Cool motive still genocide and it is natural to feel bad about people you know had nothing to do with it but still had to die for someone else to be free.
AoT's message is simple: This world is beautiful yet cruel, fight because if you don't fight you can't can win, and you have that right as much as anyone else because you were born into this world. = Everybody has the right to fight for their place in the world, but that does not always go along with our moral compass and that is the tragedy of human nature. Regular people can be pushed into committing acts of unspeakable evil because of this, if all the necessary conditions are met. It's less anti war and more into exploring war as a trait of human nature. (As I see it) |
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AmpersandsUnited
Posts: 633 |
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@Kirki
People romanticize World War 2 to a very unhealthy degree. The people who actually think America was the gallant hero riding into battle to save the world from the evil Nazis as everyone cheered around them, when in reality there was protests and riots happening all over the country and war crimes happening all the time. The amount of people I see cite literal propaganda pieces like that comic book cover of Captain America punching Hitler over the past few years has been amazing, especially since it's easy to tell when people haven't actually read those comics since Cap uses so many racial slurs and derogatory remarks about the Japanese it would make even MacArthur blush. I guess that speaks to how effective the propaganda was, I suppose. Nuances takes on war or really any kind of political conflict are hard to find when people have very strong opinions and emotional reactions to things. There has to always be a "good side' and a "bad side" to every conflict, or else people start feeling uncomfortable. As far as the criticisms of the CG, I have to agree it was pretty noticeable. I could almost forgive the CG Titans, just because most idol and mecha anime has been like that for the past decade now, but the humans just look really jarring, especially the up-close shots. I get people want to defend Mappa and maybe it's not entirely their fault, but I don't think people weren't justified in worrying back when we found out WIT wasn't going be in charge of the final season. It's serviceable, don't get me wrong, but it is most assuredly a step down from what we're used to and disappointing all the same. |
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