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.
