Some more thoughts about Attack on Titan, this time addressing the fascism accusation (and some rambling’s about Eren supposedly behaving out of character) . The fascism accusation is what prevented me from watching it before (also AoT being insanely popular to the point of cringe).
tl;dr: I saw a YT video accusing AoT of fascist propaganda and I felt like we didn’t watch the same show.
Before I watched AoT I was given two hints about the ending:
“Things reverse” and “it’s fascist”
A part of me dreaded the ending would blow up into a disaster, and I was pleasantly proven wrong. There are a ton of YT videos about why the ending sucked, and they tend to revolve around Eren being horribly inconsistent about his motives for The Rumbling, rather than the fact he uhh did The Rumbling. For some disturbing reason in some fan endings, people insist he should have killed 100% of humanity outside of Paradis, and uhhh really, why?
In an Isayama interview, he said iicr that he felt “Eren was back” when Eren went into super whiny woobie mode. I think he meant to make Eren pathetic and knew there were chad readers rooting for him to destroy the world.
I know people wanted Eren to have a more clear, concise motive for The Rumbling rooted in protecting Paradis. What we got was Eren being a huge psychological mess. But the fact there isn’t I think is the point. As someone with obsessive compulsive disorder, I get the idea of having to go forward with something, wanting to do it, but not wanting to do it and all that headfuckery. So I think of Eren’s mindset for The Rumbling being that he has to do it the way a drug addict has to do drugs, the way someone with OCD has to do the ritual, the way someone with a phobia has to avoid the thing even if they know it’s harmless. In this type of mindset you can sound like different people talking and it can be confusing and scary to watch.
It’s basically him being a slave to the specific kind of freedom he imagined as a child, thirsting for it no matter what. He wants this but he knows it’s wrong and stupid. But he wants this so bad. Yet he is trapped in the time loop of his own desire. He knows he will die if he does this, he knows he will disappoint his friends, but he has. to. do. it. This is why I theorize The Rumbling is more than just an event, it feels much bigger as if Eren is a vessel for it. It may be the full force of Ymir’s rage, it may be something locked with King Fritz’s threat, it may be Eren having no control over himself and accepting his “nature” that makes him the perfect vessel for it.
IDK what Isayama’s experience with mental illness is, but if that was what he was trying to convey, then he did a good job but one that others would have difficulty understanding.
Now onto the main point.
At the end of season 3, I dreaded two possible endings:
- That Paradis would attack the world and prove that Marley was right about them. Eren uses the Founding Titan powers to wipe everyone’s memories in Paradis and make sure they never leave. The edict of Fritz is maintained once again.
- Paradis attacks the world. Eren and his friends and thematically the story itself would lean into Paradis going back to the brutal, tyrannical Eldian empire and this being a good thing.
Neither of them came to fruition; at the end of the Liberio raid arc I was glad that the rest of the Survey corp team didn’t agree with Eren’s actions.
One of the things that got people saying it’s fascist was the idea that wiping out the rest of the world was necessary for Paradis to live.
But The Rumbling is framed in horror, inhumanity, and brutal violence. The new cast of protagonists are against it. We are shown many innocent people including children being killed. Hange outright calls The Rumbling genocide. We see a motley group of characters who hated and wanted to kill each other eat stew from the same pot and come together. They reflect on the cycle of violence and absurdity of blaming people for the actions of their ancestors.
I think there is too much focus on Eren. Throughout the series Eren’s role seemed to have faded into being a McGuffin and many other characters took the spotlight more like Levi and Historia. However the ending of season 3 he started to get back in the spotlight more.
The Rumbling is clearly a bad thing, and never said to be the only way. Only that it was the predetermined way.
Another accusation of facism is the Jaegerists and that they continue post the Battle of Heaven and Earth. The Jaegerists are not the good guys, and they are the antagonists. Even Eren and Zeke just were using them and their loyalty. Paradis descends into nationalism at the end, but we see this isn’t a good thing. We see Sasha’s family walk by a Jaegerist/New Eldian Empire rally with disgust, showing not all Eldians agree with them. The Eldians from Paradis fear retribution from the world but we don’t know how far they go. It seems that centuries pass before war comes to Paradis, it may just be a conflict that happens for reasons countries go to war.
There are two mottos that the series brings up at the beginning that fueled some accusations of fascism: “kill or be killed” and “you must give up your humanity”, these serve as pep talks when one is prey desperate not to die. Then Eren takes these both to their extremes and becomes predator. So the series actually critiques those mindsets when the situation unfolds in complexity and an outside world exists.
I think overall it’s the confusion about whether or not a piece of media is supporting or critiquing a mindset/ideology that throws people off about it. You have to look at the context and consider that the author has a lot of counterpoints, some pretty much spoonfed to the reader.
The one I think is fuzziest is “both sides are equally bad”, which I really don’t think is the case. I can see where this comes from, especially with Eren’s “we are the same” speech to Reiner. Especially when we see the raid on Liberio scene and the scene where Bertolt is eaten. It’s morally gray, but it never got to “we’re the bad guys now”, which is what I feared. We just see how it looks from the other’s side’s perspective to remind us all we’re human and war is ugly. The sides contrasted aren’t Eldians and Marleyans, but Eldians from Paradis, and Eldians from Liberio who are both victims. Even worse, elite Eldians are complicit in their suffering; on Paradis it was the Reiss family, on Marley it was the Tybur family. They secured their own power at the cost of the rest of their people because they are elite fucks.
I think it’s a little harder to grasp the theme of “cycle of hatred” for those in the U.S. Our history of conflicts within U.S soil is often one of imperialism and conquest by groups of people in power and often is one-sided.
However, around the world we do see cycles of hate and violence that are rooted through the centuries.
So “ending the cycle of hatred” can seem to feel tone deaf to those striking back at their oppressors. Even Fullmetal Alchemist had this criticism.
Wait... wait, ..so Eren knew that the Titan curse was going to be broken by the time he gets stopped during the rumbling, right? I'm pretty sure he said that. So, like, if that's the case, what was the point of going to Historia and, apparently, being like 'hey yo go get pregnant so the military wont feed Zeke to you and I can use him to rage stomp the world. k thanks'
He could've just had Historia turn into a titan shifter and then they could start the rumbling.
I mean I guess its so that their friends don't kill Historia to stop the rumbling but like Eren had full control of the founding titan he could have prevented that; actually they wouldn't even need to kill her they just need to separate her from Eren.
I guess Eren just wanted to manipulate her into having a baby for shits and giggles
To satisfy his growing breeding fetish?
So he could watch her fuck after he turns into a bird like in that one youtube video by i dont remember and im too lazy to look it up fuck you?
The ending is not great on a first read-through but does have significant improvements in subsequent read-throughs and with the additions made in the volume release and anime adaptation
It is kind of fucked that the fascists manage to get a short term victory with most of the worlds population decimated.
But there is an undercurrent of growing resistance to the Yaegerists in the final pages with some of the notable characters still left alive. And there's an indication that a greater period of peace is still on the horizon that will at least last for the duration of the main cast's remaining lifetime. The overall pessimistic outlook of the series implies even that will eventually come to an end with even greater wars for resources to come. But for the time being, one can think the people left alive can still strive for something better for the future.
I'm not the biggest fan of that final shot of an Eren like kid heading towards the Titan tree. But I read an interpretation of it that made me come around a little bit, where that child has a different outlook on life than the fearful one Ymir had, so maybe he'll be able to create something better with the power of all life than Titans.
