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beauty-and-passion · 6 months

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Attack on Titan: the eternal circle of life and war

It’s hard to talk about Attack on Titan. Not because there’s not much to say, but because there’s too much to say. And if you spend your free time watching videos about it (like I did in the past 3 days), you will hear all sorts of analyses, explanations and comments.

So, instead of talking about all the great things in this anime, I just want to give some of my thoughts on a story that accompanied me for 10 years. A story I never talked about here, not even when season 4 came and gave us some of the most wonderful episodes ever. Not even after Memories of the future, which has the most majestic plot twist in a series that has a ton of incredible plot twists already.

But If I want to talk about the finale, I have to talk about the series too and I will inevitably end up spoiling something.

So, if you never watched AOT before, just listen to this: if you want a story with fights, character growth and science-fiction/drama, trust this story. Trust the words these characters say. Trust their growth, because there will be one. Trust the plot, because it knows where it’s going. And even if seems like “urgh, that’s the typical structure of a shounen”... wait for it. This story is much more real than you think.

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Ten years together

I’ve always been an AOT anime watcher, not a manga reader. The only time I spoiled myself something from the manga, was between season 2 and 3, when I feared this story would never be fully animated and I wanted some goddamn answers, instead of waiting forever for something that would never come.

I made the mistake of not trusting the plot. And so, when I found out what was in the basement, I was a bit taken aback. Uh, that sounds forced, I thought.

Then season 3 came and, okay, maybe this plot point can go somewhere. Wait, if I look at the story in retrospect, maybe it goes somewhere. Maybe it explains Reiner’s character a lot more.

This is when I realized the story knew where it was going. There were no fillers. It was all connected.

And so, I trusted the story. I stopped looking for spoilers, I detached myself from all videos and explanations. The story had a direction, I wanted to see where it led to.

It was a… well, not completely unexpected finale. I mean, I knew Eren would die. But back then, when he took the Warhammer Titan, I thought he wanted to get all Titans inside him then kill himself - thus ending all Titans and Ymir’s curse at the same time.

Then, he started acting all alpha male gigachad I-don’t-care-about-my-friends I-want-to-destroy-the-world and I realized: oh, he will sacrifice himself. But he will play the Lelouch card and become the world’s enemy. That’s where it’s going.

And yes, this was where it was going. However, knowing where a story is going, doesn’t automatically mean the story is shit. It all depends on how you reach that ending.

And the way we reached it, was perfect.

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The inevitability of destiny and the power of friendship

The conversation between Eren and Armin is one of the most beautiful parts of this finale. I feel kinda sad for the manga readers, who got a weird conversation and Armin telling Eren stuff like “Thanks for becoming genocidal”, which sounds very questionable.

In the anime conversation, it’s very clear Eren is wrong and pathetic. He’s so pathetic, he himself says it.

And even if some people say this is the lowest point of Eren’s character, this is not. This is what Eren has always been. A child, because he is. He’s 19, not 30 or 40. He is a child.

But he’s not just a child: he’s a child soldier. He grew up surrounded by war, he fought and killed. When he looked at the sea for the first time in his life, he didn’t see a beautiful sight: he saw another barrier overcome, to reach the people on the other side and kill them. And he did all of this because Eren has always sought freedom and never reached it.

Just like he said, Eren is a slave. Of freedom, sure, but also of destiny. Eren cannot escape from the destiny he himself threaded for him. He put all the pieces in place, from the very first Attack Titan, so he would inherit that role and start the Rumbling. His destiny - and everyone else’s - is inevitable and inescapable, no matter how hard he tries to change it.

So when Eren breaks down with Armin and admits he doesn’t want to die and wants to spend his last years with Mikasa… that’s not Eren’s character assassination. This is Eren showing the most human parts of himself. The human who doesn’t want to die. The human who wants just some peace. The human who doesn’t want to follow the predetermined destiny, but has to.

I don’t really believe in the inevitability of destiny, but oh boy if it’s not fascinating in its tragedy. And in AOT is even more fascinating, because it’s Eren who wrote it for him. Because once he realizes what the future holds for him, he still keeps following it. He keeps putting pieces in place. He keeps up the façade. And only a few times, he lets that façade slip, to reveal the scared boy hidden underneath. The boy who doesn’t want to die.

And yet, he keeps going, because he wants this destiny. He wants to destroy the world. Because, just like when he saw the sea, he thought that if he killed everyone on the other side, his loved ones would finally be free.

That’s absolutely, terribly tragic. And I felt pity, by watching this young boy, who thinks everything could be accomplished only by killing, who knows he has to do that to ensure peace for his loved ones, who knows he has to die and doesn’t want to. He’s pathetic, he’s tragic, he’s caring, he’s human. He’s imperfect. And that makes him interesting.

But what’s even more beautiful about this part, is how friendship prevails. Because after admitting his fears and sins, Armin doesn’t leave Eren behind. He acknowledges his own sins and promises he will meet Eren in hell.

And that proves Armin is amazing. He doesn’t try to justify his actions because he’s on the right side of the story. He killed too. He took a lot of innocent lives. And if he won’t pay for them now, he will pay in the end.

And so, he reassures Eren: he is condemned, he will die, he will pay for his sins, but he won’t do it alone. Armin will be with him. Their friendship will overcome death itself and the inevitable destiny. As he said, they will be together, forever.

That’s what friendship truly is. Not to justify your friend, but to promise to be there. Not to say “but you’re good”, but to say “you’re bad, but I’m bad too. Let’s repent together”. For me, that’s way more powerful than a simple “let’s atone our sins” or “we’re besties”: it’s the sum of them both.

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Love as a chain and love as freedom

I’ve never been a fan of Eren and Mikasa as a couple. It reminded me too much of the Japanese trope of “step-parents being lovers” which is illegal and also urgh.

But the way Isayama handled this love is very clever. It’s not the typical “I love you baka” or Mikasa with heart eyes or other stuff. Sure, there are moments when she simps for him and that’s annoying. But in general, it’s very subtle and not thrown in your face.

So when we reach the end and Mikasa asks herself if she should kill Eren or not and cries and doesn’t know what to do… well, that’s realistic. That’s what every real person in love would think. That’s not Eren’s fangirl talking, that’s a real girl who is torn between doing the right thing and the guy she likes.

And in the end, Mikasa does the right thing, freeing the world, Eren and Ymir. And by doing that, she showed her that love doesn’t have to be a chain. You can love and still be your own person. You can still love and be free to do the right thing.

This is also why I like the credit scenes a lot: it wasn’t fair to let Mikasa spend her entire life sitting on Eren’s grave. It was fair to let her mourn him for as long as she wanted, then move on with her life. Again, that’s human. That’s realistic.

And that’s what Eren wanted too. Because along with the more childish idea of wanting her to think about him only forever and ever, there was also a more adult mentality - the mentality of a man who truly loves: to see Mikasa moving on with her life.

That’s true love. Not keeping someone with you, locking them with you forever because of your egoistical need. It’s letting them go. Because if they truly love and care about you, they will come back.

Like Mikasa does: she get married, has children and grandchildren, but still, she comes back to visit him. She moved on but didn’t forget. That’s one of the most beautiful, real representations of love and the reason why, in the end, I appreciate how their relationship was handled.

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The meaning of life

The conversation between Armin and Zeke is another masterpiece, especially because one of the characters involved is Zeke. You know, the man who always saw life as pain, mistakes and doing wrong things and the only happy moments he had were short and with his fatherly figure, while his real father didn’t care enough about what Zeke needed.

So when he realizes that oh, life doesn’t have to be just perpetration of life itself but also experiencing that life…that was great. Loved it. One of the few moments that almost made me shed a tear.

Personally, I also think that’s the true meaning of life. Sure, life is stubborn and loves to multiply and that’s what we keep doing from the very first bacteria that developed in the ocean. But we’re not just bacteria. We have a brain and memories and conscience. And we don’t see life just as “have more kids to pass your genes”: we search for something more.

And what could this “more” be, if not life itself? What the meaning of life could be, if not to live it?

This makes Zeke’s last scene even more beautiful because, for probably the first time in his life, he looks around, enjoys the world for what it is, takes a moment to appreciate everything. And then, he accepts to die and atone for his sins. Truly a great conclusion for his character.

Another scene that celebrates life and its importance, is the baby’s scene. A desaturated scene, where the only pop of color is the red of the baby’s cloth and the reddish pink of his face. Definitely wasn’t expecting an anime to refer to Schindler's List, but here we are.

But that’s what makes this scene even more impactful: because in both works, the red and the young child are a symbol of hope and desperation, of the strength of humankind and the importance of life.

The baby was condemned, just like all the people on the cliff. Moving the baby away from the edge of the cliff wouldn’t have saved them. The Titans were there, these people were destined to die.

And yet, the stubborn humanity pushed that child towards safety. Why?, Zeke would’ve asked. Why save a baby, when the end is there? What would be the point of fighting, if the final goal is to die?

Because that’s how we work. That’s how life works. Even if the end is there, even if the child will die, the goal is to keep the baby alive as long as possible. It doesn’t matter if it’s one minute or two seconds: the goal of life is living. Living for the sake of life itself. Because life encloses all the possibilities and the younger a human life is, the bigger the possibilities are. So ending one life is like ending endless possibilities. And life doesn’t like to waste anything.

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The neverending cycle of war

Isayama didn’t offer us a perfectly good ending. The “and they all lived happily ever after” ending. It gave us something real - which is, by comparison, worse than a tragic ending.

After the Rumbling, Paradis became a fascist state, while Armin and the gang turned into peace ambassadors. And, somehow, there was peace. And there was peace while Mikasa was growing old. And there was still peace for a long time after her death - 20.000 years, according to the ending song.

It’s very ironic that Eren’s genocide really managed to let his friends live in a peaceful world. But hey, I suppose that a massacre that led to the death of 80% of the world population is something humankind remembers for a very, very long time.

However, what do we see after all this time? World peace? People living all together and dancing in a circle? No, we see another war. After all this time, humanity fell for another goddamn war.

If this sounds realistic, it’s because it is. That’s the story of mankind. That’s what we are: imperfect beings who keep fighting and do horrible things, so we promise to remember, to not make the same mistake again - until enough time passes for us to forget our mistakes and repeat them all over again.

Just look at our current time period. Just look at how long peace lasts. In Europe, we managed to keep it for less than 80 years, before starting another war. And in other places all over the world, war never stopped.

AOT’s ending is darker than any tragic ending, because is real. Because it’s the real world within a fictional story. Because it’s a crude, realistic warning: war is easy to achieve, peace is hard to protect. And if enough time passes, humankind will give in to the easiness of war again.

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The neverending cycle of life

The ending of AOT tells us that this story is a neverending cycle: it starts, grows, dies and starts again, over and over.

However, the ending is open too, so it’s up to the viewers to decide how this next cycle is going to be: will it be the same? Will the boy and his dog get the power of Titans again, to start a new cycle of terror, fear and war? Or will something change this time?

This reminds me of something very specific, so please be warned: I will make a HUGE spoiler of The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. If you read it/don’t want to read it, you can keep going. Otherwise, skip the following paragraph.

In the last book of the series, once Roland enters the Dark Towers and climbs its steps, he finds out that everything is a cycle. He already climbed those steps. He already reached the end, only to start all over. And so it does: in the end, he’s back at the beginning of his journey, searching for the Tower again. But this time, he has his friend’s horn with him. This time, something is different. And maybe the outcome will be different too.

The last time, Ymir was scared, wounded, alone, chased by dogs, escaping her assailants, fearing for her life. This time, there is a young child, who is walking around, exploring the place accompanied by a dog. He doesn't look wounded, nor sad, nor scared: just a little tired.

Maybe that’s not enough to assure us everything will be fine, this time. But the elements are different. Something changed. And maybe, the different conditions will lead to a different outcome. Maybe the neverending cycle of war will keep going, but the neverending cycle of life will keep going too.

And if we think about it, between the two, in the end life always won. War destroyed, but life reclaimed everything. After the Rumbling, nature reclaimed the earth. After 20.000 years and another war, trees reclaimed the island and grew taller than ever. War may come and destroy but, in the end, the true winner is life.

And, again, this is real. This is what the world truly is. Just think about how easily nature reclaims what we made/still make. Once again, that’s our world in an anime series.

At the end of the day, this is probably what makes this story so impactful. AOT is real, despite taking place in a world of monsters and incredible powers. AOT shows us the good and the bad of our world and our nature and does it cleverly. I don’t think world peace or total annihilation would’ve been as good as this ending. This was just right. This is what it was supposed to be and, for once, I’m glad my expectations weren’t subverted with a resolution that could’ve been a lot worse.

So after ten years, all I have to say is that it was worth it. It was worth watching this anime and enjoying the fights, foolishly thinking that what was outside the walls was the biggest mystery. It was worth it for the plot twist, the characters' growth, the devastating deaths. It was worth it for the realism and the deep themes.

AOT changed a lot of things and I’m glad I was there to witness it until the end. So thank you Isayama and thank you to all the people who made this. It has been a long journey and it has been great. I will never forget it.

#attack on titan #eren jaeger #armin arlert #mikasa ackerman #zeke jaeger #aot #shingeki no kyojin #snk #aot end

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bookbutterfly1999 · 2 months

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Zoe Hange IS. One of the best- “passionate about my specific research interest” science nerd character I have seen.

Mind we have had a couple of mad scientist tropes, some pretty much doomed for the narrative, others shelved aside as a plot moving device. But this lady, is, simply awesome.

I love her internal conflict. This lady HATES titans. Like any other person within those walls, who only knew about the dangers these creatures possessed towards her kind.

And yet… she decides to do what most would hate to: to be passionate towards learning more about the titans.

Don’t mistake the passion for compassion (but that too, she is compassionate, too, but that’s a different essay), she absolutely is fuelled by the need to save human lives and take down these giant wreckers.

But, she doesn’t let all those complications ruin her scientific zest for more information.

That’s Hange.

She simply needs more data. And has pledged her life in the hopes to get more data. And she’ll do what most wall dwellers would never do, get down to business, risk their lives, and actually get their hands on the information, even at the peril of their’s or their compatriots’ lives.

Now imagine Hange, realising there’s a whole new world beyond the walls! She would have been more than excited to know and learn more about it. New technological advancements and engineering? Sweet! No wonder she got along with Onyakapon like a house on fire. And she took the effort to know their names, learn more about their cultures and let herself be the inquisitive, vulnerable and courageous scientist she is!

And in between all this she still fought that titans and killed a lot of them. The pursuit of truth, was her life’s motto, and even when the truth was so hurtful, she refused to let genocide be how the story went. Till the bittersweet end, she stuck to her moral guns. She went down fighting.

She lost an eye, her squad, almost everyone she knew, and yet she never lost her zest for the truth, knowledge or her own life.

Even when she decided to go down, she chose to go down in flames. She chose to end her life, but she didn’t do it in “I give up now” kinda way. She went down like her compatriots she lost, knowing full well that this was the end, but pouring her heart and soul into it, one last time, even without knowing how much actual impact it may create considering everything already being set into motion by the Jaegerists and everyone.

She never let her personal ideals blind the objective morality of the situation.

And even when interrogating Eren whom she didn’t trust by that point (she totally had a guess of how it was all going to go on… poor woman)… and still treated him with the kindness and respect she had had for him from the start.

Also, one of Hange’s best scenes is her saying it was “her decision” when Reiner escapes due to Jean’s plea. When Jean blames himself, Hange makes it known that she’s partially if not wholly responsible for that, and ensures that Jean doesn’t continue blaming himself, and improving team morale and reducing guilt… and I could go on. Later on Levi takes a page from this when he chooses who gets to have the colossal Titan and bring them back from the brink of death (though that choice is much much more complicated, of course).

As someone unaware of the behind the scenes 4-D chess at play, Hange was the Eldian wisehold, at the forefront of negotiations, being the person moving the checker pieces that the world that was the actual situation. Someone had to. And Hange stepped up. Not Pixis as a more experienced commander, not Historia as queen or other Eldian authority figures. Hange, as Erwin’s replacement, shoes she knew didn’t fit her, but wore them anyways because someone had to, and she did it to the best of her capabilities.

She knew not to trust Eren or Zeke. She knew to save Levi- where any weak willed person might have given up and attempted to let Levi go, she knew what Levi clung on to, and made sure to help him survive to complete that particular destiny, years in the making (Levi killing Zeke).

She’s… just so smart. Not just in terms of scientific, or engineering acumen though she had that in plenty, it was also her ability to read humans that let her be such a successful survey corp warrior AND a commander.

She’s just so damn underrated man come on

#zoe hange #hange zoe #aot ending spoilers #aot end #aot #attack on Titan #attack on titan eren

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