Attack on Titan Griefing Thread - >tfw even your VA thinks that you're a loser

[Mexican_Wizard_711]

Well, Hanji died, so....no, he doesn’t have a good woman.

Was it ever confirmed Eren was the bird? All we got was Mikasa having her scarf adjusted by the bird, the bird flying away, and Mikasa thanking Eren for wrapping the scarf around her.
















Everyone here is bitching over the ending, and I’m here ready to jam the openings Linked Horizon made.

U CALM DOWN FAGGOTS LFXLDEFNMSJTHELNJHNCJKHNVNHGNHNUNEHLNVOSFSFNRSNFS;NFRS;NFRSNSFRNFRSNFSNFSNFSRSFBFBFSBbF'BOOBBS'OBSOBAFOBBOFRSOBUFSRO;USFOBUFSOEFSOBSUFOBSBOSOBSOBSFBOSFBFSBFS;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;SJRNS;RFZIHERSGBSFAI

 

[Sinner's Sandwich]

How can something lose its way this badly?

Because Isayama didn't listen to that one Kill la Kill song.

 

[Gar For Archer]

Having now read the OP and the highlights, all I can ask is how? How can something lose its way this badly? What happened to the AOT of about the first 50 chapters or so? Was this manga always doomed to go to shit when Grisha revealed that humanity existed beyond the walls once Eren reached the basement?

As I was going through the thread, I came up with an idea: have Paradis be like old Australia and just have it filled with prisoners and exiles and then just dump a bunch of Titans in there and we have the setup of the first arc of wanting to exterminate these Frankenstein’s Monsters of cannibals. And then just have it where the Titans are made to just be mindless to keep the island people from getting too uppity or asking too many questions that hit too close or make any investigations. And instead of Marley vs Paradis, it’s just a way to overthrow the regime that’s behind the Titan program and the likes of Eren and Mikasa and Levi and Hanji and Connie and Sasha can live in some kind of peace. And the Titan thing was probably some generic mad scientist shit, or Josef Mengele if you wanna go Nazi with it.

Probably has the same pitfalls and problems with genre shift as main canon, but I’d like to think this idea is simpler and doesn’t have to deal with pigs, Ymir’s views on love, paths, mind control, or whatever that kept Eren from getting into Mikasa’s pants.

It also seems that AOT looks to be at least hilariously bad. That’s the best kind of bad.

It’s really not that hard. AoT doesn’t even get top prize in this department, that easily goes to The Promised Neverland, which actually shares a similar problem with AoT.

As another user mentioned. The issue is that the author had the twist in mind (the orphanage is a child farm/there are people outside the walls) but didn’t really know what to actually do with the story after the reveal. In AoT it’s somewhat less severe because there’s a pretty logical path from “there’s people outside the walls” to “let’s fight the people outside the walls”, but it’s pretty clear Iseyama didn’t actually have a plan for how that would turn out - he probably went in with his twist in mind and figured that he’d work something out when the time came.

Generally, having a massive twist in the middle of your story that drastically changes the status quo and the protagonist’s motivations is pretty fucking hard to pull off, because once you do the twist, now you have to answer the question... now what? I think FMA is one of the few works that’s able to do it well: the reveal that philosopher’s stones are actually made from people naturally shifts the protagonists’ motivations from “let’s find the philosopher’s stone!” to “let’s uncover the government conspiracy behind the philosopher’s stone!” but in that case the story feels a lot more tightly plotted, so it just generally works a lot better.

For a non-anime example, Bioshock is the biggest fucking offender of this. When people talk about how great this game is, the discussion always stops after the twist, because what is there to even talk about after that? By the time you’ve bashed in Andrew Ryan’s skull with a golf club halfway through the runtime, the game’s already blown its load, everything after is completely uneventful in comparison. It was clear they had no fucking idea what to do AFTER you killed Andrew Ryan, and the second half of the game really suffers for it, feeling kinda arbitrary and directionless and being capped off with a really bad boss battle.

 

[Übertroon]

It’s really not that hard. AoT doesn’t even get top prize in this department, that easily goes to The Promised Neverland, which actually shares a similar problem with AoT.

As another user mentioned. The issue is that the author had the twist in mind (the orphanage is a child farm/there are people outside the walls) but didn’t really know what to actually do with the story after the reveal. In AoT it’s somewhat less severe because there’s a pretty logical path from “there’s people outside the walls” to “let’s fight the people outside the walls”, but it’s pretty clear Iseyama didn’t actually have a plan for how that would turn out - he probably went in with his twist in mind and figured that he’d work something out when the time came.

Generally, having a massive twist in the middle of your story that drastically changes the status quo and the protagonist’s motivations is pretty fucking hard to pull off, because once you do the twist, now you have to answer the question... now what? I think FMA is one of the few works that’s able to do it well: the reveal that philosopher’s stones are actually made from people naturally shifts the protagonists’ motivations from “let’s find the philosopher’s stone!” to “let’s uncover the government conspiracy behind the philosopher’s stone!” but in that case the story feels a lot more tightly plotted, so it just generally works a lot better.

For a non-anime example, Bioshock is the biggest fucking offender of this. When people talk about how great this game is, the discussion always stops after the twist, because what is there to even talk about after that? By the time you’ve bashed in Andrew Ryan’s skull with a golf club halfway through the runtime, the game’s already blown its load, everything after is completely uneventful in comparison. It was clear they had no fucking idea what to do AFTER you killed Andrew Ryan, and the second half of the game really suffers for it, feeling kinda arbitrary and directionless and being capped off with a really bad boss battle.

It's a big issue that the twist happens very late in the story. The basement reveal happens after 7 out of 9 story arcs. 90 out of 139 chapters
Had it been at the half way point then perhaps things wouldn't seem so contrived

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

You can't even fucking read can you?

If you have to say this in response to someone having a different take about some fiction then go do something else, It is on par with "You are just a Nazi" in stupid, braindead, worthless shit one can say on the internet.

Attack on Titan was always shit, stop coping about a show that you like because it had a cool Animu Opening managed to out do Bleach and Naruto in trashfire endings.

 

[DicksOutForKiwigglers]

If you have to say this in response to someone having a different take about some fiction then go do something else, It is on par with "You are just a Nazi" in stupid, braindead, worthless shit one can say on the internet.

Attack on Titan was always shit, stop coping about a show that you like because it had a cool Animu Opening managed to Out do Bleach and Naruto in trashfire endings.

No, no. You guys are literally arguing stuff that just did not happen in the ending. I'm asking if you guys can't read because there is no point in discussing things with you guys if you are just going to conjure up a different idea of what happened in the panels. I'm not calling you a Nazi for having an opinion—you're now putting words in my mouth.

If you feel Attack on Titan was always shit then good for fuckin' you! That still doesn't change what actually happened in the ending, and if we're going to argue the merits of the ending that's an important part of discussing it's quality. This isn't fucking Evangelion where shit is left to your interpretation—the fuckers straight up tell you what the fuck happened and you guys still find a way to twist that.

Then you write sperg posts that are just "lol ereh's a fag" and you expect engagement from that? What's going on is you guys clearly have your own little idea of what you want to feel in this echo chamber and now you're trying to stop discussion. Enjoy your tatacaw jokes because it's clear I'm not going to get any intelligent discussion out of this.

 

[Random Internet Person]

It's a big issue that the twist happens very late in the story. The basement reveal happens after 7 out of 9 story arcs. 90 out of 139 chapters
Had it been at the half way point then perhaps things wouldn't seem so contrived

You ever feel like that you could rework the story so the story ends after the basement reveal and the Survey Corps reach the ocean?

 

[Secret Asshole]

People aren't engaging because we've argued all this ages ago. Mostly people here are just waiting to see how the anime pulls off the shit-pile of an ending. If you want to defend that trash, feel free. But even I'm tired of re-treading this.

You ever feel like that you could rework the story so the story ends after the basement reveal and the Survey Corps reach the ocean?

Its honestly too difficult because there's just far too much that still needs to be explained. Obviously the key is to stick with its horror genre and themes, but it basically just ditches them because Isayama wanted to do something different. Which is fine and all. The problem is that he didn't start another project or do his creative juices elsewhere, he basically just went "lol and now they invented a guillotine, titans all gone" which is horrificly lazy and trash.

It’s really not that hard. AoT doesn’t even get top prize in this department, that easily goes to The Promised Neverland, which actually shares a similar problem with AoT.

As another user mentioned. The issue is that the author had the twist in mind (the orphanage is a child farm/there are people outside the walls) but didn’t really know what to actually do with the story after the reveal. In AoT it’s somewhat less severe because there’s a pretty logical path from “there’s people outside the walls” to “let’s fight the people outside the walls”, but it’s pretty clear Iseyama didn’t actually have a plan for how that would turn out - he probably went in with his twist in mind and figured that he’d work something out when the time came.

Generally, having a massive twist in the middle of your story that drastically changes the status quo and the protagonist’s motivations is pretty fucking hard to pull off, because once you do the twist, now you have to answer the question... now what? I think FMA is one of the few works that’s able to do it well: the reveal that philosopher’s stones are actually made from people naturally shifts the protagonists’ motivations from “let’s find the philosopher’s stone!” to “let’s uncover the government conspiracy behind the philosopher’s stone!” but in that case the story feels a lot more tightly plotted, so it just generally works a lot better.

For a non-anime example, Bioshock is the biggest fucking offender of this. When people talk about how great this game is, the discussion always stops after the twist, because what is there to even talk about after that? By the time you’ve bashed in Andrew Ryan’s skull with a golf club halfway through the runtime, the game’s already blown its load, everything after is completely uneventful in comparison. It was clear they had no fucking idea what to do AFTER you killed Andrew Ryan, and the second half of the game really suffers for it, feeling kinda arbitrary and directionless and being capped off with a really bad boss battle.

It is a gigantic problem, and its not even half-way through. Its chapter 90 out of 139 which is fucking awful, its more than half-way, its two-thirds through the entire run (about 65%) and it drastically reverses itself. Which is beyond stupid. Then it becomes an incredible reliance on shit techniques such as time-skips, flash backs and just mystery box after mystery box until the whole thing just collapses in on itself when its forced to answer questions. Oh, he had no plan for the basement, which is why he dragged it out for 90 chapters. My guess is that it was in the treatment as a half-heart McGuffin and he completely forgot to flesh it out. So he just waited until he got bored with his horror story and just replaced it with his alternative history bullshit.

Eren's motivation is trash because its shrouded in mystery as to why he had to kill everyone. This still isn't explained. Why wasn't there another way? Eren said so. That's...really it. There's no real defining motivation for him to stomp the world, which is why this emptiness gets pointed out as a virgin with rage, because it is the ONLY expressed, clear, unambiguous motivation for Eren. Ymir doesn't show him that nothing else works, we don't see whatever Eren sees usually. So, why? 'The only way' is entirely unconvincing. With all this power at your disposal, you need a REAL reason for this. So without one, people are going to point to virgin with rage. Because that's the only clear thing Eren expresses in the last third of the story. Not to mention there's that 'hallucination' which, if you take at face value, basically says if Mikasa jumped on Eren's cock he would have given everything up, which is again, hysterical. So if you trust all these things at face value, Eren's motivation was literally a virgin with rage. Because there are no other satisfactory explanations other than "It was the only way" for which we get NO explanation of, and no explicit reason to believe Eren. Who himself could be under the influence of something, so we have no real reason to believe him anyway.

Ymir apparently was a child slave who loved her pedophile rapist, which is a whole other level of retarded to explain why she just left. That's....that's her entire motivation? To witness Mikasa killing her adoptive brother when they both want to bone in order to uh, free her from this? Its idiotic and creepy as fuck.

Not to mention some....worm that comes out of nowhere to conveniently serve as Eren's weak point and vanishes as soon as it appears.

The story only works when it forced people to start guessing and hinting about shit, but then just promptly throws everything out when its forced to answer the questions it posed.

 

[Random Internet Person]

Was the motivation aspect of Eren always doomed to go to shit because he did what he did for a girl, even if you get rid of the paths and the pigs and the mind control just so you could have it be “eliminate Titans to live a peaceful life”? Especially since at least Chapter 50 Mikasa made so many signals that she’s be down for some “I’m not sure how long we got, so let’s have some ‘this could be our last time together, so let’s spend this one night right here in this moment at this place on this planet’” sex.

 

[Gar For Archer]

My pitch for the basement reveal? Yes, there’s people outside the walls. Yes, there’s a Kingdom of Marley... that existed like hundreds of years ago, until it was stomped into the ground by the Titans, along with the rest of the world who didn’t have magic titan walls to protect them. Paradis literally IS the last bastion of humanity, and now the remnants of civilization outside the walls are trying to destroy it, either out of vengeance or out of the misguided hope that once Paradis falls, the titan menace will end.

The racism shit? That happened far, far in the past. The other nations of the world were afraid of the Eldians due to their titan powers, so they were slaughtered and rounded up for containment on Paradis. However, their king (or more likely, the new inheritor of the Founding Titan after their king was executed) retaliates by unleashing the titan menace on the world and walling up Paradis. Over the centuries, the history has been lost or covered up, and soon all anyone knows is life with the Titans.

After finding out about the world outside the walls, Eren would still be motivated by revenge on the Marleyan remnant. After all, far in the past, the other nations were the aggressors - and now they’re attacking yet again, and Eren’s mom died because of it. However, his methods would become more and more extreme, and our inability to really understand his motivations would be the POINT: he’s literally not making sense anymore because he’s blinded by rage and vengeance.

After an incident where he slaughters some of his friends for getting in the way of his plans for genocide, he finally gets a better perspective on what he’s been doing, and chooses to sacrifice himself to take out all the Titans. You can tie Ymir into all of this somehow to explain HOW this happens. The specifics aren’t that important, the main point is that Eren does something unforgivable that pushes him over the edge to seeing that violence only begets more violence, and that at his current trajectory the only possible ending is with EVERYONE dead.

Now, the story would end with the Titans gone for good and the rest of the world in a better place than before, which actually paves the way for a potentially upbeat resolution.

There’s still plenty of holes in this because I haven’t thought it through completely, but it at least justifies the rest of the world’s hatred toward Paradis as the source of the ongoing apocalypse, and creates an end state that is actually ambiguous yet hopeful, with the titan menace gone and everyone willing to start looking past their prejudice and disagreement to rebuild the world together.

 

[Secret Asshole]

Was the motivation aspect of Eren always doomed to go to shit because he did what he did for a girl, even if you get rid of the paths and the pigs and the mind control just so you could have it be “eliminate Titans to live a peaceful life”? Especially since at least Chapter 50 Mikasa made so many signals that she’s be down for some “I’m not sure how long we got, so let’s have some ‘this could be our last time together, so let’s spend this one night right here in this moment at this place on this planet’” sex.

The problem was there was some sort of idea for Eren's motivation, because way back when he was mind-fucking Grisha he talked about the future and said he saw something 'beautiful' when he was interacting with Zeke. Its always alluded that there is some big reason as to why Eren is doing the things that he's doing. Which by their very nature, even in regards to the scenario, are extreme. But we're never given anything more.

The motivation aspect was doomed to go to shit, because like with Historia, Isayama waited until the very absolute last second to produce something, ANYTHING for Eren's reasons as to what he'd done. But there's really just...nothing. And that's the problem and which is why its shit writing. There's nothing explicitly there as to why genocide, the most extreme solution, is taken at face value. Isayama is full of shit when he's 'shocked' that people thought he wasn't writing a black and white story. He knew what he was doing, whatever he had planned, its obvious he pussied out.

So you have all this foreshadowing, all of these clues. Eren isn't crazy, he knows genocide is wrong. But he doesn't explain WHY he's doing the most extreme solution and not looking for other ways. We NEVER see what he sees. Its always teased, but then it just never pays off.

So in a way, it was always doomed. Because we were never spoon-fed any information. We don't even get anything but hints. The shitty 'Lelouch Imma be a villainy to be a hero' is a last minute excuse which is NEVER hinted at. Not to mention the plan itself is fucking retarded with so many unknowns. What happened if everyone was just on board with your global genocide? What happens if it fucks up and instead unites a continent against you for all time? What happens if the rumbling, by destroying all those walls, murders a ton of paradis civilians and fucks the island over completely? Why is an incredibly risky gamble where so much of it is out of your hands the ONLY thing that works? So no shit people are going to overlook this trash motivation which was never hinted at, revealed in two panels in a 139+ chapter manga at hundreds upon hundreds of pages and are going to go with virgin with rage because that's the only thing that remotely makes any sense and is supported by previous reveals.

It sort of reminds me of Invincible with Omni-Man where you're hoping against hope that after he murders those heroes he has a good reason to do so. And it turns out....nope, he really did not. The problem was this was foreshadowed, directly SHOWN to us and made completely unambiguous. Its like the old-school show. 'The Shield' where the main character murders a cop in cold blood in the first episode. We're privy to this information. But here, we get no information. So the 'reveal', which is basically copied from another series, makes no sense in this one, and is a hated ending trope, is used extremely lazily.

These gambits rely exclusively on the behavior of other people when you're dead, which is why they're so fucking retarded. Literally anything would be better, because you have 0 control over the outcome. The Lelouch bullshit only works if you fake your death to make sure things work out in your favor, but the problem with this is, you're basically just a villain at that point, which is ok. But nobody really has the balls to do that.

Eren does his whole faggot "No one would forgive me so I may as well just fucking die" routine. And this in a manga where Jean forgives Reiner for destroying the gate and murdering hundreds upon thousands of his people, and sentencing others to starve to death. Not to mention it isn't like Mikasa wouldn't want to ride that D.

Then about the founder Ymir. The whole thing is so fucking stupid even after all this time. Its just hilariously bad.

My pitch for the basement reveal? Yes, there’s people outside the walls. Yes, there’s a Kingdom of Marley... that existed like hundreds of years ago, until it was stomped into the ground by the Titans, along with the rest of the world who didn’t have magic titan walls to protect them. Paradis literally IS the last bastion of humanity, and now the remnants of civilization outside the walls are trying to destroy it, either out of vengeance or out of the misguided hope that once Paradis falls, the titan menace will end.

The racism shit? That happened far, far in the past. The other nations of the world were afraid of the Eldians due to their titan powers, so they were slaughtered and rounded up for containment on Paradis. However, their king (or more likely, the new inheritor of the Founding Titan after their king was executed) retaliates by unleashing the titan menace on the world and walling up Paradis. Over the centuries, the history has been lost or covered up, and soon all anyone knows is life with the Titans.

After finding out about the world outside the walls, Eren would still be motivated by revenge on the Marleyan remnant. After all, far in the past, the other nations were the aggressors - and now they’re attacking yet again, and Eren’s mom died because of it. However, his methods would become more and more extreme, and our inability to really understand his motivations would be the POINT: he’s literally not making sense anymore because he’s blinded by rage and vengeance.

After an incident where he slaughters some of his friends for getting in the way of his plans for genocide, he finally gets a better perspective on what he’s been doing, and chooses to sacrifice himself to take out all the Titans. You can tie Ymir into all of this somehow to explain HOW this happens. The specifics aren’t that important, the main point is that Eren does something unforgivable that pushes him over the edge to seeing that violence only begets more violence, and that at his current trajectory the only possible ending is with EVERYONE dead.

Now, the story would end with the Titans gone for good and the rest of the world in a better place than before, which actually paves the way for a potentially upbeat resolution.

There’s still plenty of holes in this because I haven’t thought it through completely, but it at least justifies the rest of the world’s hatred toward Paradis as the source of the ongoing apocalypse, and creates an end state that is actually ambiguous yet hopeful, with the titan menace gone and everyone willing to start looking past their prejudice and disagreement to rebuild the world together.

Better than what we got.

 

[SteelPlatedHeart]

It’s always interesting to me to see someone come into a thread where they see the general consensus going on and say “you know what? I’m gone rant and argue with everyone and call them idiots because I disagree, that’ll make me look awesome to everyone!”

Just ignore the thread, man.

 

[Gar For Archer]

The problem was there was some sort of idea for Eren's motivation, because way back when he was mind-fucking Grisha he talked about the future and said he saw something 'beautiful' when he was interacting with Zeke. Its always alluded that there is some big reason as to why Eren is doing the things that he's doing. Which by their very nature, even in regards to the scenario, are extreme. But we're never given anything more.

The motivation aspect was doomed to go to shit, because like with Historia, Isayama waited until the very absolute last second to produce something, ANYTHING for Eren's reasons as to what he'd done. But there's really just...nothing. And that's the problem and which is why its shit writing. There's nothing explicitly there as to why genocide, the most extreme solution, is taken at face value. Isayama is full of shit when he's 'shocked' that people thought he wasn't writing a black and white story. He knew what he was doing, whatever he had planned, its obvious he pussied out.

So you have all this foreshadowing, all of these clues. Eren isn't crazy, he knows genocide is wrong. But he doesn't explain WHY he's doing the most extreme solution and not looking for other ways. We NEVER see what he sees. Its always teased, but then it just never pays off.

So in a way, it was always doomed. Because we were never spoon-fed any information. We don't even get anything but hints. The shitty 'Lelouch Imma be a villainy to be a hero' is a last minute excuse which is NEVER hinted at. Not to mention the plan itself is fucking retarded with so many unknowns. What happened if everyone was just on board with your global genocide? What happens if it fucks up and instead unites a continent against you for all time? What happens if the rumbling, by destroying all those walls, murders a ton of paradis civilians and fucks the island over completely? Why is an incredibly risky gamble where so much of it is out of your hands the ONLY thing that works? So no shit people are going to overlook this trash motivation which was never hinted at, revealed in two panels in a 139+ chapter manga at hundreds upon hundreds of pages and are going to go with virgin with rage because that's the only thing that remotely makes any sense and is supported by previous reveals.

It sort of reminds me of Invincible with Omni-Man where you're hoping against hope that after he murders those heroes he has a good reason to do so. And it turns out....nope, he really did not. The problem was this was foreshadowed, directly SHOWN to us and made completely unambiguous. Its like the old-school show. 'The Shield' where the main character murders a cop in cold blood in the first episode. We're privy to this information. But here, we get no information. So the 'reveal', which is basically copied from another series, makes no sense in this one, and is a hated ending trope, is used extremely lazily.

These gambits rely exclusively on the behavior of other people when you're dead, which is why they're so fucking retarded. Literally anything would be better, because you have 0 control over the outcome. The Lelouch bullshit only works if you fake your death to make sure things work out in your favor, but the problem with this is, you're basically just a villain at that point, which is ok. But nobody really has the balls to do that.

Eren does his whole faggot "No one would forgive me so I may as well just fucking die" routine. And this in a manga where Jean forgives Reiner for destroying the gate and murdering hundreds upon thousands of his people, and sentencing others to starve to death. Not to mention it isn't like Mikasa wouldn't want to ride that D.

Then about the founder Ymir. The whole thing is so fucking stupid even after all this time. Its just hilariously bad.

Better than what we got.

That’s why I’m saying just make him a straight up violent, traumatized psychopath who was failed by his superiors and failed by his friends, who all failed to see the very obvious signs that he was mentally unwell. Hell, just turn him into a subversion of the typical hot-headed shonen protagonist. Write it so that his superiors care only about his utility as a human weapon - his value to them begins and ends at his ability to turn into a Titan, and when those abilities not needed he’s treated as an extreme liability who cannot be trusted, despite him showing unwavering loyalty to the cause. Write it so that someone (Hange maybe) raises some concerns about Eren being more needlessly brutal with his kills, which gets brushed off because the superiors crunched the numbers and decided this makes him a more effective weapon. Write it so he feels alienated from the other scouts, who are still fearful of him even though they know he’s on their side. Write it so that this behavior causes him to distance himself from Armin and Mikasa, who would be shown to be the only people who wholly trust in him.

At that point his motivations no longer HAVE to make sense, because them not making sense would be the entire point: he’s a fucking crazy person who truly believes that genocide is the only option and gives up everything to achieve that goal, we’re not SUPPOSED to be convinced by his arguments anymore.

He shouldn’t be portrayed as a tragic hero with a secret plan to save the world, he should be portrayed as a tragic figure whose actions were an inevitable result of everyone around him treating him like a mentally unstable human weapon, which eventually turns him INTO a mentally unstable human weapon for whom violence is the solution to every problem.

 

[Bunny Tracks]

You know, I just wanna say I absolutely fucking hate how this series makes people write novel length responses to this thread. Yeah, I know I've done the exact same thing, and I'm pissed that I did so.

It's just not worth it.

 

[Random Internet Person]

You know, I just wanna say I absolutely fucking hate how this series makes people write novel length responses to this thread. Yeah, I know I've done the exact same thing, and I'm pissed that I did so.

It's just not worth it.

If the fun is gone, you could just delete the thread.

My pitch for the basement reveal? Yes, there’s people outside the walls. Yes, there’s a Kingdom of Marley... that existed like hundreds of years ago, until it was stomped into the ground by the Titans, along with the rest of the world who didn’t have magic titan walls to protect them. Paradis literally IS the last bastion of humanity, and now the remnants of civilization outside the walls are trying to destroy it, either out of vengeance or out of the misguided hope that once Paradis falls, the titan menace will end.

The racism shit? That happened far, far in the past. The other nations of the world were afraid of the Eldians due to their titan powers, so they were slaughtered and rounded up for containment on Paradis. However, their king (or more likely, the new inheritor of the Founding Titan after their king was executed) retaliates by unleashing the titan menace on the world and walling up Paradis. Over the centuries, the history has been lost or covered up, and soon all anyone knows is life with the Titans.

After finding out about the world outside the walls, Eren would still be motivated by revenge on the Marleyan remnant. After all, far in the past, the other nations were the aggressors - and now they’re attacking yet again, and Eren’s mom died because of it. However, his methods would become more and more extreme, and our inability to really understand his motivations would be the POINT: he’s literally not making sense anymore because he’s blinded by rage and vengeance.

After an incident where he slaughters some of his friends for getting in the way of his plans for genocide, he finally gets a better perspective on what he’s been doing, and chooses to sacrifice himself to take out all the Titans. You can tie Ymir into all of this somehow to explain HOW this happens. The specifics aren’t that important, the main point is that Eren does something unforgivable that pushes him over the edge to seeing that violence only begets more violence, and that at his current trajectory the only possible ending is with EVERYONE dead.

Now, the story would end with the Titans gone for good and the rest of the world in a better place than before, which actually paves the way for a potentially upbeat resolution.

There’s still plenty of holes in this because I haven’t thought it through completely, but it at least justifies the rest of the world’s hatred toward Paradis as the source of the ongoing apocalypse, and creates an end state that is actually ambiguous yet hopeful, with the titan menace gone and everyone willing to start looking past their prejudice and disagreement to rebuild the world together.

The problem was there was some sort of idea for Eren's motivation, because way back when he was mind-fucking Grisha he talked about the future and said he saw something 'beautiful' when he was interacting with Zeke. Its always alluded that there is some big reason as to why Eren is doing the things that he's doing. Which by their very nature, even in regards to the scenario, are extreme. But we're never given anything more.

The motivation aspect was doomed to go to shit, because like with Historia, Isayama waited until the very absolute last second to produce something, ANYTHING for Eren's reasons as to what he'd done. But there's really just...nothing. And that's the problem and which is why its shit writing. There's nothing explicitly there as to why genocide, the most extreme solution, is taken at face value. Isayama is full of shit when he's 'shocked' that people thought he wasn't writing a black and white story. He knew what he was doing, whatever he had planned, its obvious he pussied out.

So you have all this foreshadowing, all of these clues. Eren isn't crazy, he knows genocide is wrong. But he doesn't explain WHY he's doing the most extreme solution and not looking for other ways. We NEVER see what he sees. Its always teased, but then it just never pays off.

So in a way, it was always doomed. Because we were never spoon-fed any information. We don't even get anything but hints. The shitty 'Lelouch Imma be a villainy to be a hero' is a last minute excuse which is NEVER hinted at. Not to mention the plan itself is fucking retarded with so many unknowns. What happened if everyone was just on board with your global genocide? What happens if it fucks up and instead unites a continent against you for all time? What happens if the rumbling, by destroying all those walls, murders a ton of paradis civilians and fucks the island over completely? Why is an incredibly risky gamble where so much of it is out of your hands the ONLY thing that works? So no shit people are going to overlook this trash motivation which was never hinted at, revealed in two panels in a 139+ chapter manga at hundreds upon hundreds of pages and are going to go with virgin with rage because that's the only thing that remotely makes any sense and is supported by previous reveals.

It sort of reminds me of Invincible with Omni-Man where you're hoping against hope that after he murders those heroes he has a good reason to do so. And it turns out....nope, he really did not. The problem was this was foreshadowed, directly SHOWN to us and made completely unambiguous. Its like the old-school show. 'The Shield' where the main character murders a cop in cold blood in the first episode. We're privy to this information. But here, we get no information. So the 'reveal', which is basically copied from another series, makes no sense in this one, and is a hated ending trope, is used extremely lazily.

These gambits rely exclusively on the behavior of other people when you're dead, which is why they're so fucking retarded. Literally anything would be better, because you have 0 control over the outcome. The Lelouch bullshit only works if you fake your death to make sure things work out in your favor, but the problem with this is, you're basically just a villain at that point, which is ok. But nobody really has the balls to do that.

Eren does his whole faggot "No one would forgive me so I may as well just fucking die" routine. And this in a manga where Jean forgives Reiner for destroying the gate and murdering hundreds upon thousands of his people, and sentencing others to starve to death. Not to mention it isn't like Mikasa wouldn't want to ride that D.

Then about the founder Ymir. The whole thing is so fucking stupid even after all this time. Its just hilariously bad.

Better than what we got.

That’s why I’m saying just make him a straight up violent, traumatized psychopath who was failed by his superiors and failed by his friends, who all failed to see the very obvious signs that he was mentally unwell. Hell, just turn him into a subversion of the typical hot-headed shonen protagonist. Write it so that his superiors care only about his utility as a human weapon - his value to them begins and ends at his ability to turn into a Titan, and when those abilities not needed he’s treated as an extreme liability who cannot be trusted, despite him showing unwavering loyalty to the cause. Write it so that someone (Hange maybe) raises some concerns about Eren being more needlessly brutal with his kills, which gets brushed off because the superiors crunched the numbers and decided this makes him a more effective weapon. Write it so he feels alienated from the other scouts, who are still fearful of him even though they know he’s on their side. Write it so that this behavior causes him to distance himself from Armin and Mikasa, who would be shown to be the only people who wholly trust in him.

At that point his motivations no longer HAVE to make sense, because them not making sense would be the entire point: he’s a fucking crazy person who truly believes that genocide is the only option and gives up everything to achieve that goal, we’re not SUPPOSED to be convinced by his arguments anymore.

He shouldn’t be portrayed as a tragic hero with a secret plan to save the world, he should be portrayed as a tragic figure whose actions were an inevitable result of everyone around him treating him like a mentally unstable human weapon, which eventually turns him INTO a mentally unstable human weapon for whom violence is the solution to every problem.

So what I’m hearing is that the problem is Eren has no clear motivations except for Mikasa which he revealed at the last moment possible. Is that right? I can understand the concept of “blinded by rage to the point where nobody can understand him”, then changing course out of guilt. I guess everything after the basement just went about in the wrong way at every moment.

Also, the thing about Mikasa is that it’s probably that pretty much every shonen title just waits until the last moments possible probably because the main shonen demographic of 13 year old Japanese boys aren’t interested in that shit and/or the creators can’t or don’t want to show that aspect of romance....or characters wanting to jump on some bones. Think about all the ships and “hey, I’m up for wax with you whenever” and whatnot that either don’t come to pass, or are held off until the last moments for whatever reason: Naruto and Hinata and Sasuke and Sakura from Naruto. Ichigo and Orihime from Bleach. Ed and Winry in FullMetal Alchemist. All the ships from Fairy Tail. Misa only having eyes for Light Yagami in Death Note. That’s off the top of my head, but I’m sure the list goes on. Even if the Eren and Mikasa aspect was poorly done and/or punted to the end, what isn’t in Shonen?

 

[6MillionCoofs]

Just a small correction-he's in a wheelchair, but doesn't seem to actually be crippled because he's seen moving his legs.

Or he actually is crippled, and Yams just couldn't keep himself from fucking up his own art, even for the final chapter of his story.

I'm in a chair, you can have movement despite being crippled.

 

[Shield Breaker]

Ichigo and Orihime from Bleach

I still say Rukia seemed like the more obvious pairing.

 

[Trombonista]

Found this on pixiv:

 

[The Fair Lady]

Also, the thing about Mikasa is that it’s probably that pretty much every shonen title just waits until the last moments possible probably because the main shonen demographic of 13 year old Japanese boys aren’t interested in that shit and/or the creators can’t or don’t want to show that aspect of romance....or characters wanting to jump on some bones. Think about all the ships and “hey, I’m up for wax with you whenever” and whatnot that either don’t come to pass, or are held off until the last moments for whatever reason: Naruto and Hinata and Sasuke and Sakura from Naruto. Ichigo and Orihime from Bleach. Ed and Winry in FullMetal Alchemist. All the ships from Fairy Tail. Misa only having eyes for Light Yagami in Death Note. That’s off the top of my head, but I’m sure the list goes on. Even if the Eren and Mikasa aspect was poorly done and/or punted to the end, what isn’t in Shonen?

I still don't understand why shounen mangaka feel the need to include romance when 99.9% of the time it's done horribly, case in point. Who are they looking to please, the shippers? Their target audience certainly doesn't give a fuck.

When the majority of your readers didn't see this shoehorned shit coming, you know that's a bad sign.

 

[Quiet Guy]

That's most likely what was going to happen originally, Linked Horizon would get insider info from Isayama and put bits of foreshadowing into his cover art and videos. The most explicit being this:

Though the difference being this Eren has a kid and the kid keeps him from killing himself out of guilt. Yes he's a fucking bird here too.

Perhaps this is what Isayama had in mind for that video:

After the Rumbling, Eren returns to Mikasa as a bird. They finally get together and a year later Mikasa lays an egg with Eren's child inside it.

Meanwhile, an upset world begins plotting to destroy Paradis. They gather their remaining forces and carpet bomb the island leaving many casualties. Bird Eren and Mikasa avoid this because they happen to be on their honeymoon in the country Mikasa's ancestor came from. All is not lost however, since all the casualties come back as birds.

The birds are angry and wage a furious bird war on the remnants of civilization. Flocks of birds swarm and caw at their enemies and eat what crops they can grow. The people fight back, but the birds' initial strike on their crops wounded them considerably.

Bird Eren and Mikasa's egg hatches. It's a little bird person like you see in the video. As the years pass tensions continue to rise, more bird people are hatched as the reincarnated Bird Eldians marry and have children with humans. Ymir the Founder sees this and tries to give the rest of humanity a way to fight back by turning them into snake people like you see in the video.

As a decade or two passes the fighting continues. Bird Eren comes to give a speech to the bird army defending the island. "If you we win we live, if we lose we die," he squawks, "We can't win if we don't fight." Both the birds and bird people understand him, since they speak bird.
"Tatacaw...TATACAW!"

The crowd erupts into a frenzy of excited squawking and cawing. There is a raucous applause as wings furiously beat the air, and feathers fly everywhere.

As generations pass, the snake people and bird people still fight with one another, but manage to create separate societies. The snakes live on the ground, but birds live in the air as birds should. The birds have cities suspended high above the ground where bird families live in giant birdhouses. Perhaps one day the snakes and birds can learn to live in peace.