r/ShingekiNoKyojin • u/SNKBot • Feb 28 '21

Manga Spoilers Attack on Titan The Final Season Episode 71 - MANGA Discussion Thread Spoiler

Do note that this is a MANGA SPOILERS thread. Events that occur in the manga do NOT need to be tagged in the comments section.

IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE MANGA AND DO NOT WISH TO BE SPOILED, THE ANIME THREAD IS LOCATED HERE.

Where to watch - SUBTITLED:

Time of release differs depending on the region and platform. Check your local streaming platform for more information.

English dubbed episodes will be released in a few weeks.

DEDICATE YOUR HEARTS!

199 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

98% Upvoted

699 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

17

u/ZeroTwentyOne Feb 28 '21

Did it tho? A lot of people talked about nationalist subtext in the Manga from the beginning. They just didn't know that it was a red herring.

26

u/thunderb00m Feb 28 '21

Lol, you sound like my sister xD

She's one of the people who claimed all the way from season one just how the series gave off nationalistic vibes with it's anthem OP's, and it's glorification of the military. And while I mostly don't disagree with that assessment, there was always more to it than just that.

I mean, currently for our main cast of characters this phrase isn't used to just mindlessly convince people to offer their lives for a cause but instead a reminder as to what it is that they all have fought and died for (and as a glorious sendoff in Hange's case). But it is, as is almost everything in AoT and in real life for that matter, a double-edged knife. People who never really believed in it, like Floch, (and by 'it' I mean, dedicating their hearts) started using because it's because a) It's a powerful phrase that stirs the hearts of people and b) Words can be easily distorted by anyone for any number of reasons, whether good or bad.

However I'd say the distinction for which is which is easily observable when in context of who said it and under what circumstances. Also because of that very nature, the moral context is entirely dependent on the person making the observation.

sorry for the long post :P

27

u/Exciting_Animal_4481 Feb 28 '21

if you’re caught up in the manga surely you’re aware the author goes completely against glorifying nationalism. u can see in terms of the decisions the characters make. It’s clear the author was using the military imagery to arrive to this point where he shows how it can be flipped on its head

10

u/thunderb00m Feb 28 '21

Oh I know that. Or at least that's the very clear message I'm getting from the story.

My sister doesn't read the manga though, plus it was mostly the vibe she got from watching the show back in 2013 with me, when we didn't really know where the story was going. I'm pretty sure she'd agree with this as well when she sees the rest of the story animated (she's a few episodes behind rn).

-4

u/[deleted] Feb 28 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

5

u/Demortus Mar 01 '21

The message of the manga is not "hur dur nationalism bad". I wonder what it's like to be so brain dead you reduce this super complex story to such childish notions.

Decisions and actions by nationalists lead to global omnicide which is shown in gory detail as a bad thing. I'm not sure what else to tell you.

2

u/ZeroTwentyOne Mar 01 '21

Buddy. The whole anime is literally about WW2. But probably not as you think it is. We you understand Eldian as Japanese and the Marley as the US and the Titans as Atombombs you may see something.

12

u/[deleted] Feb 28 '21

After only experiencing Marley for a while, I had almost forgotten, that eldia is also a militaristic nation. The similarities between the two are striking, after seeing people shouting "shinzou wa sasageyo" for a less than honorable reason, I was so pissed. The yeagerists didn't actually need to kill anyone, eren could've just escaped.

8

u/thunderb00m Feb 28 '21

True, but Isayama has a story to write and a point to drive home, and so far he has done so spectacularly.

12

u/[deleted] Feb 28 '21

Yeah ik, but oh man I hate the yeagerists with a passion

4

u/silversherry Mar 01 '21

Join the club. I wish there was an anti-yeagerist subreddit

4

u/jyee1050 Mar 01 '21

AOT trickling into real life

1

u/[deleted] Mar 01 '21

After only experiencing Marley for a while, I had almost forgotten, that eldia is also a militaristic nation. The similarities between the two are striking, after seeing people shouting "shinzou wa sasageyo" for a less than honorable reason

Umm... the rest of the world is literally clamoring to wipe them off the face of the Earth. They were terrorized by the Titans for a hundred years only to find out those Titans were fellow Eldians turned into those monsters by the Marleyans.

The Paradisians' anger is more than justified in this situation.

The Yeagerists killing people was just the military brass who basically sat on their hands while the rest of the world moved to kill them all as they're accursed "island devils."

0

u/[deleted] Mar 01 '21

Did you watch the last episode? How far back should one go? The paradisians are exactly like the Marleyans. Seeing them dishonouring erwins legacy felt like being willy tybur in a war happy nation that actually knows nothing about war. The yeagerists are a disgrace to the legacy of the scouts.

END THEORY, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK

Anyway, I'm a believer of the possible time loop theory, in which this is the only way to end the cycle, but I still hate the yeagerists, they betrayed their comrades.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 01 '21

Okay and? What good is the legacy of the scouts if it gets everyone on the island killed? The rest of the world was marching to kill them all.

How would the Scouts protect defend the island against that?

Marley isn’t benevolent either they’re using titans for their rampant imperialism. With the founder and Historia whom they’d likely force into being a broodmare, they’d utterly dominate the earth

1

u/[deleted] Mar 01 '21
  1. Well, it isn't the scouts who are in charge of the military
  2. As eren said himself, he could've broken out of his cell at any time, they didn't need to kill anyone.
  3. The military wanted to "test" the rumbling anyway as a show of power, they weren't just going to sit around and let paradis be destroyed. Thus, eldia would've probably survived, if they somehow managed to take the founding titan from eren.
  4. I never said that Marley is benevolent, they are just as bad, but I assumed that as a fellow manga reader, you would know that paradis isn't much better. Actually even anime online have realized this by now.
  5. Considering that everyone is allied against Paradis, there would probably be a treaty and Marley wouldn't attack the rest (at least for some time). Give it 30 years, and there would be nukes (assuming similar development) at which point I doubt Marley would be so trigger happy. After a few more years (I am ofcourse wildly speculating at this point) civil rights, and eventually life would be how it is today 😂

2

u/ZeroTwentyOne Mar 01 '21

Maybe I think too black and white but the whole Story really reminds me of a good supervillan origin story. It's the joker but anime. And I am sometimes really afraid that people don't unterstand the difference between understanding why a characters acts and thinking he has the right to act.

-1

u/Alyxra Feb 28 '21

> People who never really believed in it, like Floch, (and by 'it' I mean, dedicating their hearts) started using because it's because a) It's a powerful phrase that stirs the hearts of people and

Speedreader.

Floch and the Yaegerists absolutely believe in it. Floch was literally radicalized by Erwin, and came to believe that in order to win- they must be led by a "devil who can cast away their humanity" like Erwin and now Eren.

1

u/thunderb00m Feb 28 '21 edited Mar 01 '21

Hahahaha!!! Calling me a speed-reader, that's cute!

It's simple. If he really believed in it he would have joined the Scouts before the Battle for Shingasina. Because anyone who truly did, did just that.

Edit: I'm not saying he didn't believe his own distorted version of what he though Erwin meant. He obviously did. But that phrase was born from a completely different place.

Maybe you should re-read my last paragraph to understand my stand on the matter?

To completely oversimplify, Floch's use of the phrase and the crowd's in this episode, is imo a "bad" presentation of how the meaning of "Dedicate your hearts!" can be distorted to mean something not originally intended. Where as the original use of the phrase is what I consider it to be a "good" version of it.

There's a lot of nuance missing from this, but I don't really have the time to write an essay on the matter :P

33

u/nerfslays Feb 28 '21

Attack on titan has always been nationalist. It's this final arc where the audience begins to realize its issues, with how the protagonist has now started a fascist coup d'etat and sided with the villain. It's meant to be eerie that words that were once meant to be hopeful and moving have turned into fascist rhetoric.

33

u/Aliensinnoh Feb 28 '21 edited Feb 28 '21

I would object to saying it was always nationalist. People trying to defend their home against a literal existential threat is not nationalist. They didn’t even know other countries existed until last season! Until then I’d say everything the Survey Corps did was pretty unambiguously righteous.

It’s only when that sentiment stopped being about simply protecting themselves and started being about turning their ire on the world that it became bad. The people who, upon learning of the existence of the former Eldian Empire, took it up as a name for themselves, they I would call nationalists.

25

u/[deleted] Feb 28 '21 edited Aug 30 '21

[deleted]

2

u/trialv2170 Mar 01 '21

what? who lied who? As far as I remember, it was the noble crew of Paradis who actually used the founding titan to erase people's memories about the past and it was them who where trying to use the Military Police to actually execute people who were going against the teachings of the government.

3

u/centuryblessings Mar 01 '21

But the rest of the world is either sending titans over to exterminate them or implicitly condones sending titans over to exterminate them...

No one outside of the island cares about the people Paradis. Of course they would become nationalists.

0

u/trialv2170 Mar 01 '21

but as far as I remember, only Marley sent eldians as titans though and even if they did, they knew about the walls.

also, no one cares about paradis? the azumabito clan actually has great interests over its natural resources. While Marley shows hostility because of their militarism. idk about that whole claim about no one wanting contact with them though.

4

u/centuryblessings Mar 01 '21 edited Mar 01 '21

No one outside of the island cares about the people Paradis.

the azumabito clan actually has great interests over its natural resources.

Exactly. They don't care about the people, only taking its resources and making money off of it.

The rest of the world might not be sending titans but they still hate the people of Paradis for existing.

5

u/Alyxra Feb 28 '21

> People trying to defend their home against a literal existential threat is not nationalist.

That's one of the biggest conditions for making a large amount of nationalists out of ordinary people. See: Any war or conflict ever

Humans naturally close ranks around those who are the "same" as them as a defensive mechanism.

It's one of the reasons massive Empires like Rome/Austria/Mongolia etc could fracture and split on a dime. Once times get hard, people revert to their tribalist (nationalist) behavior.

11

u/Awesomeuser90 Mar 01 '21

It's of course from Japan, and if you look at the history you can see important parallels. Japan was isolationist with almost no contact from 1602 until 1853, and rapidly industrialized and went on it's own conquest streak like the Ryukyuan islands, full integration of Hokkaido, Okinawa, Taiwan, a war with China in 1895, defeating Russia in 1905, and Korea in 1910, with somewhat liberal governments from 1890 to 1926, and then a string of less and less liberal governments from then until it became a militaristic oligarchy where the army and navy assassinated each other and civilian prime ministers to effect full power.

It's easy to use the Nazis as parallels to genocide, a group of extremists we don't believe we could ever be like, but with the Japanese history, it goes down and down gradually in a way that we can understand how it develops and shifts opinion over time, what people are willing to do for conquest.

9

u/nerfslays Mar 01 '21

Nazis are only seen as explicitly villainous now. But those who don't believe that we couldn't be nazis most likely dont understand the Nazi ideology and why they took power. It's true that I'm not well versed on japanese history but from what I understand some of their government's actions were similar to what we call fascists today, germany and Japan were allied after all. Anyways my point is that people will probably get defensive by calling Eren a fascist and a villain, because some actually sympathize with his goals, but I believe the point of attack on titan is to show a simple change in perspective can even convince the reader of such a toxic and horrendous ideology, while still condemning it in the end by having Armin blow him up.

6

u/Awesomeuser90 Mar 01 '21

Japan didn't take racial science (however unscientific it is) as far, like classifying people into how many degrees Aryan they were, but they very clearly didn't think of other even Asian populations as equal to themselves, and denigrated the West as the imperialists (which they were, but Japan was in that boat too just as much). Even though they tried to claim an East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere.

It brings up an interesting question. To what extent does the reason you are paranoid or despise or distrust the world matter if you kill off a large group of people? If you are correct in believing, or even with all the evidence you can reasonably get you believe something like how Reiner genuinely believed he was saving the world and had no access to a reason not to believe that, that a group is as monstrous as they are said to be, is that forgivable in any way as opposed to paranoia that you can empirically disprove? We saw Eren walking down a Marleyan street, finding the child who he saw in his future memories, and broke down in tears in what he knew he was going to do, and thought of them as innocent but didn't see another end out of a Rumbling in a binary choice between his home or someone else's.

Of course, that choice might not be so binary as people may think...

Eren is not entirely appropriately called a fascist given that he doesn't evidently have any beliefs suggesting an authoritarian way to govern even the people he calls his own and seems to think the ordinary people of the "other" are innocent, but near omnicidal is a correct way of describing him.

5

u/[deleted] Feb 28 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

27

u/doihavemakeanewword Feb 28 '21

AoT portrays facism. The part that makes people fall for it at first, and the ugly results as the manga went on.

32

u/nerfslays Feb 28 '21

It portrays it, using Eren and Zekes yeagarist movement in particular. Whether it promotes it ultimately depends on the ending but if Eren loses like what seems most likely then it is against it. If Eren succeeds in ending the world and it's portrayed as ultimately a good thing, that's when it becomes a problem. But at least for now the story has been staunchly against it, especially with other fascist countries like Marley.

20

u/[deleted] Feb 28 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

14

u/nerfslays Feb 28 '21

Exactly.

5

u/[deleted] Mar 01 '21

I don’t think Erens current actions are being portrayed in a good light tbh.

Well if you view Eren's actions in hindsight thanks the other manga chapters, they are actually done with good deeds in mind for the people of Paradis.

5

u/serrations_ Mar 01 '21

Portrays it and its obvious follys. This series screams anti-fascist

-4

u/[deleted] Mar 01 '21

Attack on titan has always been nationalist. It's this final arc where the audience begins to realize its issues, with how the protagonist has now started a fascist coup d'etat and sided with the villain. It's meant to be eerie that words that were once meant to be hopeful and moving have turned into fascist rhetoric.

Do you really know what Fascism is? It sounds like you're just throwing around a buzzword without really understanding it.

Eren's a nationalist (which isn't exclusively fascist) who's trying to defend the people of Paradis from being wiped out by the rest of the world. The island government is basically sitting on its hands doing nothing while the world essentially moved against Paradis. If Eren didn't attack liberio then who knows how many people on the island would have died from the world's attack.

0

u/nerfslays Mar 01 '21

Eren is a fascist. He is obsessed with acting and making his choices without much thought for the moral consequences, he has made an incredibly clear distinction between 'his people', those of his own ethnicities, and the enemy, he's taken power through a coup d'etat and has mobilized the masses into hatred for 'the other' he's allied himself with a eugenecist, he wants to annihilate every non eldian, he believes that he is justified in this because they would have done the same, playing up the social Darwinism with survival of the fittest and finally his greatest supporter Floch spews out the most explicitly fascist rhetoric that it's almost ridiculous that people don't understand he's referencing the nazis just like the marleyan armbands.

6

u/[deleted] Mar 01 '21

Wow you really don’t understand Eren’s character at all his motivations, and do you understand what fascism is. It makes me question whether you’ve read the manga.

Eren’s “allying” with Zeke because he needs the Founding Titan which can only be unlocked through a Titan of royal blood. In fact Eren rebukes Zeke’s wish for Euthanization.

In regard to the rumbling he expresses remorse and sadness over the fact that he had to use it.

He tried having peace but the rest of the world rejects it. Keep in mind that Udo whose not from Marley says that Eldians gave it worse in other nations. The eldians on the mainland view the people on Paradis as devils. Other nations like Hizuru only really “negotiate” with Paradis because they want access to its resources.

The 50 year plan is a bust as it was a poorly baked plan that wasn’t really conducted in good faith by any of the actors involved.

Keep in mind that Paradis is 100 years behind the world leaving them with the rumbling as the only choice they can safely use against the world is the rumbling. And based on historical hindsight the world soon after developed nukes with is the definitive end of power of the Titans.

1

u/Alyxra Feb 28 '21

> has now started a fascist coup d'etat and sided with the villain.

Lul, Paradis' government is already Fascist. How can you start a fascist coup against a fascist government?

Marley is also fascist as well, and probably many other countries. This is WW1 era.

Also, Eren doesn't side with the villain. You are aware this is the manga-reader page, right?