When a hero becomes corrupted in his search for freedom, he becomes a monster.
When a monster arises, a former monster looking for redemption rises to meet him.
The scary thing here is that both of them thought they were heroes, both of them wanted the best, wanted peace, wanted freedom, wanted to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. At the end, heroes and monsters are not that far appart from one another, it’s just a matter of perspective.
And at the end, we don’t decide which side we are on, the side was chosen for us, we can betray it or embrace it, and that first choice will always be both the most cowardly thing and the most heroic thing we’ll ever do.
While we ponder about that, a new generation of heroes/monsters is born and their fate is sealed: To suffer in this world where they will be both heroes and monsters, cowards and soldiers.
I forgot to post this here, wrote it 4 months ago, if not more.
So a lot of the info is from that time, however, I still consider that there are some very relevant themse to the AOT/SNK fandom here.
This is a small analysis on the themes of the whole manga, and on what Reiner, Gabi and Eren represent and the reasons behind some character’s deaths.
SPOILERS AHEAD.
THEMES
So far from what I’ve seen of this manga, I’ve seen how the main themes are (mostly) four:
- Otherness/empathy and how they work at war.
- Power and corruption.
- The cycle of revenge (sins of the father/an eye for an eye).
- The “hero” and the crimes of war (duality between hero and monster).
With those themes we see how humanity works and is often redefined, the term of monster is also changed through the manga and otherness (the phenomenon where “I” and “my community” acquire identity by finding who the “Other” is, the “Other” is the person or community who is opposite of “me” or “us”. This is a very simplified definition.) and empathy (where I decide to try to see the world through the eyes of the other) are used to explain how a war works and how a “hero” of war, no matter how good his or her intentions are, will end up losing his or her humanity.
Otherness in war is how in conflict we divide upon one another, despite all of us being humans we start seeing our community as THE humans and the enemy as the monsters or the bad guys, and that division makes us give away labels all around, we judge the many for the few and put the term “evil” on them, deciding that they don’t deserve the same right as us. When the war ends there is a definition of who the “heroes” really were and a redefinition of who the “bad guys” were.
However, because of that we always forget that in any conflict there is always two sides, each side with their own heroes and their own reasons to have rationalized their actions.
This is what Attack on titan/Shingeki no Kyojin shows us through the manga.
At first the definition of humanity is easy: There are Titans and there are Humans. The traits of titans have similarity to the humans, but there’s no way for a human to consider them as something that is part of humanity. Titans are monsters; hence they are the enemy to fight in order to recover freedom.
Humanity and the definition of the enemy “other” start becoming less and less simple. In fact, it is at the very beginning, with Eren, that we see this subject.
EREN
Many people would consider this kiddo here a stupid brat who knows nothing at the beginning. However, from the very first scenes of the anime we manage to see something important: Eren is always fighting. This is something everyone and their mother knows already, what few stop to consider is: Fighting against what?
That’s where the otherness comes into play, he’s fighting against the ones he considers the “others”. We see Eren cheering for the scout regiment and then actively attacking those who wonder why the fuck there’s even a scout regiment when things are bad enough inside as to send a bunch of people out to show how, indeed, the titans are still hungry.
The scout regiment represents something very precious to Eren, and that will be seen throughout the anime and the manga: They represent hope.
Things are bad inside the walls, there’s little to no justice, the ones who deliver justice are not doing their job correctly and abuse is something very common.
Eren has lost hope in those who are supposed to keep him safe (the garrison), he does not believe in anyone to keep things as they should be, so, whenever he sees some thing he considers wrong, he reacts.
He reacts against people he considers the enemy, against the “others”: To know who are Eren’s “Others” we only have to see the first episodes of Attack on titan.
For anyone curious what they mean by the rubber duck, rubber duck debuggingis a tactic used by programmers to figure out bugs in the code. To do it, they explain the code, verbally, line by line, to the rubber duck until they find it.
It’s also very useful for writers, and I’ve used it multiple times with rubber ducks, stuffed animals, and my friends.
“when i say it out loud i realize where the stupid was”
Imagine being Gideon the First. The Saint of Duty, the Emperor’s Fist, Hand and Gestures of God, the King Undying. You’ve been alive for 10,000 years, and hey, you’ve done some things you aren’t proud of. So what?
And then this 5-foot-nothing lobotomized 12 year old suddenly appears on your space station, carting around the soul of what may or may not be your kid. And they’re going to kill God. So you try and stop it a few (dozen) times, each unsuccessful because that tit Mercymorn keeps saving her life. You’ve tried everything, even busting through her freshly reapplied blood wards (which, although aren’t much for you, are kinda impressive) and stabbing her in the bath. You two are graduating to full-on warfare at this point. She feeds you soup made from her own fucking bone marrow to form a fully-articulated skeleton like the osseo she is, right in your stomach like some horrible calcified xenomorph.
I just told my dad and brother about this and my dad said “But you do control your own motivation?” and my brother recoiled in horror so you can probably guess which one of them has ADHD
Motivation is a rare and passing favour granted by the stars. An elusive wind that comes and goes in its own time
Who…who controls their own motivation??
Neurotypicals, allegedly.
Wait.. people can control their motivation???
Allegedly.
Wack.
@ neurotypicals: IS THIS TRUE???????? CAN YOU JUST LIKE…. TURN IT ON AND OFF?????????????????
WAIT SOME PEOPLE CAN CONTROL THEIR MOTIVATION?!?!?!
I almost cry every time I get told “YOU CONTROL YOURSELF, DON’T BE LIKE THAT”
people misunderstand what ‘gifted kid’ actually means but it’s ok it’s fine it’s cool it’s good
it’s not about actually being gifted, it’s about an initial higher scoring on standardized testing that means little to nothing or being good at learning in the way elementary and middle school wants you to, so you get marked as ‘advanced’. in reality, maybe you had faster development in certain areas, but the issue with being a gifted kid isn’t that “everyone told me I was so cool and special for reading and then I actually wasn’t :(” it’s “I wasn’t properly taught to handle things not coming easily to me, but the adults around me were counting on me not being a ‘difficult’ child in school.”
people who use it as some weird bragging method or interpret it that way are ignoring the way a lot of school systems force certain roles on students to simplify the learning process. If your kid doesn’t need to take notes to understand a science concept bc they get it naturally, well that’s good, but now you’re not teaching them how to take notes and they’re not learning that important soft skill. but because ‘gifted’ kids are easy and don’t show that they’re falling behind in learning in other categories that are harder to quantify, they eventually fall behind after that catches up to them. It’s about the failures of a one size fits all school system trying to compensate in the worst way possible.
And also the thing where ‘gifted’ kids are super likely to also be neuroatypical, which they don’t get screened for because they appear to be doing well in school. Or “You can’t be ADHD/autistic/etc, because you’re doing so well in school!”. Or being shamed for developing mental health issues/generally not being able to keep up with school work later, because you USED TO BE able to do it just fine.
Or the assumption that just because you can read well or you like math class, you’re somehow more EMOTIONALLY mature than your little kid brain is actually capable of being.
Or gifted kids whose parents and teachers put immense pressure on them to Do Great Things and Save The World and you’re like. “I’m 10 and I have no idea how to do that, but everyone is saying that’s my job?”.
while everyone else was learning how to complete assignments and do homework and study for tests and make friends, I was off learning advanced math and english and all about quipus. and by the time I was like “wait SHIT how the fuck do I study and how do I make friends” I was an adult and I was already expected to know those things and no one was teaching “social skills you should have learned in kindergarten”
okay… this was a fucking punch to the gut…
I don’t even know what I WANT out of life, but I know maths and have papers with good grades… and no, I didn’t dare taking anything math-related as a career.
I’m stuck in life, not even understanding where I’m going.
The way I make friends is via fandoms, but I know that “normal people” don’t do that.
