I'd be surprised if it's not.
I'd be surprised if it's not.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
YesOriginally Posted by DarthEnderX
Until the announcement of 'The ACTUAL for real final finale plus One'
Well, that was amazing. Lots of "rule of cool", but definitely one of the better, more satisfying ends to a long-running show.
Now gimme a sequel story lol
Final Season Part 3 Episode 2 (actually the final one)
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-That was quite conclusive and meta.
A slight flare of Evangelion TV ending feel, but actually making sense mostly.
It also reminds me of Code Geass S2's ending in terms of Eren taking on the sacrificial role and close friends crying for him - but better, because that S2 was a trainwreck.
-So Historia actually banged some random dude? The baby did look a little like Eren but it seems like she isn't.
-One aspect that didn't quite make sense to me is how some "past titans" broke free from Ymir's absolute control.
Ymir loving Fritz presumably happened while she was favoured by him, but she was initially beat up as a slave, let some pigs run off deliberately because she thought they should be free, but after getting titan powers she decided to go back to Fritz as a slave instead of killing him? That logic seems strange, especially since we know now that she wasn't wronged. She actually did let the animals go.
Then she was obeying Zeke until Eren hugged her and said that she must have called him here - and we're alluded to this happening when Eren was sleeping under a tree once. But if that was the case, it'd be because she wanted freedom or something. If love was her driving force and reason to serve, she'd have no need to fight join Eren's fight against non-titans or have any qualms about Zeke (the current royal family representative as far as she's concerned) wanting to sterilise titans.
This love theme actually doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.
-The bird wrapping the tail of the scarf around Mikasa's neck (as a symbol of Eren loving her/asking her to take care of herself) was missed by me initially. I thought it tried to pull the scarf away to say "forget about me", which didn't make sense. Only after reading things online and inspecting the scarf closely did I realise that the bird flipped the scarf tail around Mikasa to go from 1.5 loops to 2 loops, effectively wrapping it around her more.
-And Ackermans were supposed to be immune to memory manipulation, so "You got your memories back too, right? Of the times Eren came to see us." couldn't have happened.
That said, she had a vision unique to her where they had eloped to a cabin. Not sure if that's the substitute..
-I thought Marley pointing guns towards Eldians immediately after Eren died was hilarious. All Eren really managed to do was just even the playing field, though it's hard to imagine that 20% of humanity is an even match for Paradise Island when the former has such a technological advantage.
Last edited by Buffalobiian; Sun, 11-05-2023 at 02:51 PM.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
What I still don't get: are we supposed to believe that Eren only acted/pretended all the stuff he did in the beginning of the show while in truth following his big plan? So when he says he sent that one titan to eat his mom inst9oc Bertholt, was young Eren's crying and wish to save her all fake? Did he pretend to be bad at using the gear during training camp? Did he pretend not to know that Annie is the female titan? And so on?
He doesn't pretend. He doesn't have a choice.
He can sit there in meta-space and think about his actions, but it's pre-determined, and regardless of what he remembers and regardless of his intentions going into the action, he'll always end up performing that action.
That's what how pre-determined futures work. You only think you have a choice, but if you saw the future happen, it will happen regardless of your intentions.
Future him also manipulates past him to arrive at the future he got to. Eren doesn't retain full memory of the future until he touched Historia's hand at that meeting. He just gets manipulated during periods of need then his memory gets wiped again once the important action is done.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
Well that certainly was a...thorough, ending. Eren going for the Code Geass resolution. Followed by one grim fucking credit sequence.
And they used the solution I'd been suggesting since they introduced the euthanasia plan. "Just cure all the titans". No idea why that required killing 80% of the world first.
I'm glad they thought up something interesting for the final battle. Past Shifter Titans was interesting and still plausible.
Well they laid the groundwork for that. The kid walking into Eren's grave tree mirrors the tree Ymir became a Titan in.
So if they want to start the cycle all over again with kid with dog as Ymir and Eren as the space worm, they've set that up.
It's basically just there so Mikasa can resolve things. Seeing Mikasa kill Eren despite still loving him allows Ymir to kill Fritz in her mind.
I'm not sure whether it was that, or killing the worm, that cured everyone's titanitis.
Last edited by DarthEnderX; Mon, 11-06-2023 at 02:30 AM.
I'm hearing that the anime ending is significantly different than the manga ending?
It's been a while. I was really hyped for this show, right?
Eren wanted to kill most of the non-Paradis population in the world and also destroy their engineering and military capabilities so that after he was dead and the power of the Titans was destroyed, there would temporarily be no capability for a global war. The Titans were already almost getting outmoded as weapons of war, if all he did was erase Titans from existence, the Marleyan Empire just conquers and enslaves the rest of the world.
A few lines were changed, most notably the omission of the infamous "Thank you, Eren, for becoming a mass murderer for our sakes" line. Instead, Armin now says he believes he and Eren will be together in hell for what they've done. The footprints Eren and Armin are sitting in were filled with water (and then blood) in the show.
The biggest change is in the credits montage. In the original manga ending, the series ends with Mikasa sitting by the tree. The stuff with the world moving on and the city being bombed was added in the volume release. Crucially, in the comic, it's unclear when the apocalyptic war is taking place - we see bombers and modern apartment buildings, but given that presumably all the engineering knowledge from the outside world survived and they were already in the 1940s or so (with exceptions like the impossibly advanced 3D Maneuvering Gear) it's entirely possible this was only a generation or two later. This maintains ambiguity over whether Eren's plan worked or not. It could be the "war of reprisal" he was worried about happened after all, or it could just be an unrelated conflict in humanity's endless cycle of war.
In the show, the city advances into some kind of futuristic sci-fi cityscape. This almost certainly means that the "war of reprisal" didn't happen and that it was just an inevitable global war, as it would presumably take centuries before they were able to live in the Blade Runner society. So for my read the show leans much heavier on "Eren and the gang of Paradis Island won at a heavy cost" rather than leaving it ambiguous.
Eren can supposedly virtualize his memories, and "future memories" through the Paths, but this is not retroactive. He only obtained this ability when he touched Historia. It doesn't percolate backwards in time to earlier iterations of his consciousness.
Someone told me titanism didn't get cured in the manga?
Last edited by DarthEnderX; Tue, 11-07-2023 at 12:51 AM.
Then how did he command that titan away from Bertholt?
Also, Bertholdt didn't need to survive. That titan would have just become the colossal titan instead.
He can manipulate actions of others to an extent. Eren talked Grisha into killing the royals for example.
Bertholdt needed to survive in that he needed to carry out the mission as Bertholdt. Zeke's mum becoming the new Colossal wouldn't have acted the same way as Bertholdt.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
That is the part my question related to. Either young Eren was a masterful, sociopathic actor OR older Eren did influence his earlier consciousness.
I assume the latter, with young Eren not being aware of it happening.
Had to take a few days to process this one. This was pretty dense, lore-wise, and a lot of moving parts to reconcile if the story is to remain tight, and I think it overall did very well.
I think Zeke and Armin had to beg them to help them instead in the paths. I expect they were in the same existential daze Zeke was in.
That's part of what I love about AoT. It makes this story feel so human to me. Humans are rational actors, but sometimes they act on internal rationale that won't make sense to anyone else; just like real broken people. It would be hard to justify to myself if I hadn't seen similar Stockholm-style patterns of abuse before in life and other outlandish acts that 'made sense to them', like staying in abusive relationships or convincing yourself that any attention is just as good as affection, ect... A slave knew nothing but slavery (not sure how old she was when the village was taken) and she also seemed to value 'freedom' by letting the pigs out; or she wanted the attention of the king... or she is touched.
The lack of clear cut answer is no doubt infuriating to some, but I like it being open to interpretation as the foundation of the rest of the story is easy enough to fill in the gaps myself.
As for obeying royals, I believe it was trying to keep her love of Fritz alive by proxy until she met Eren who resonated with her desire for connection/freedom, as Zeke put it.
Fair point. I would guess that the actual founding titan's (Ymir herself) powers can overcome that limitation. This was the first time the show suggested Ackermans could not turn into Titans after the blue mist. Good thing Kenny didn't waste that syrenge, but how would they know for sure if they never tested it?
The show is fairly clear in that the transmission of commands back in time had to be done when he finally made contact with Zeke as a titan (travelling through time to send memories or interfere with Grisha). Contact with Historia seemed to work different as she was not a titan; that let him more freely receive memories, so he didn't get the memories he 'needed' to transform into Jagerest Eren until the medal ceremony at the earliest. In short, he didn't have future memories of him ending the world until the medal ceremony in season 3. From there I suspect he began trying to subverting the future he saw during the 4 year intermission until he accepted them as immutable and kind of gave up on trying and living, by the looks of it. He admitted that having time meld together (past present,future) like that essentially short circuited his mind. If he's a victim of anything, and is worthy of any sympathy, it's for that.
I was confused about this as well. Some online breakdowns suggested that it was, in reality, Ymir's satisfaction that cured the Titan affliction, and that her 'hanging on' to Fritz's command due to her misguided love or longing is what effectively trapped all of her biological offspring via the paths. In reality, that is fairly haunting as well that no one (eldian) who has died thus far has been allowed to pass on from... whatever plane of existence the paths represent until Ymir decided to let go. She had the kill switch the whole time, it seems. That's why she's in the background of Eren's broken tooth hole when Mikasa gives him the too-close haircut.
Or, it could have something to do with drawing that worm thing out of the body and killing the founding titan then?
...oops, looks like you already said what I was getting at.
Excellent point. Thanks for bringing it up. While it obviously doesn't glorify or excuse what he did, there was some reasoning behind it. How that mutual fear played out suggests this entire story is predicated on people having immense power without the means to properly gauge when and how to use it, as humans are such flawed creatures. Eren's an idiot, and he admits as much, but we wouldn't likely be much better in the same position.
____
Dense. Rich. Beautiful in themes and storytelling. Even the heavy-handed hokey bits come off as earnest and endearing. Overall, a wonderful, unique, and singular series, and anime is a richer medium with it firmly in the pantheon of greats. I wonder if I’ll ever see another series this effecting again? I’d like that very much.
I kinda loved that.
"If someone smarter had all my power, they'd probably have been able to come up with a better plan. But this is the best terrible plan I could come up with..."
At the end of the day though, he still fulfilled his childhood goal of ridding the world of Titans.
Last edited by DarthEnderX; Sat, 11-11-2023 at 02:57 PM.
Another thing i'm curious about: so does every Eldian's conscious still exist, considering we saw all the dead guys (like Erwin and Sasha) at the end? The way it was presented they couldn't have been mere hallucinations. Basically, is Eren still somewhere? Or did those truly die when the god worm died?
That was my theory.
I assume the Path disappeared when the worm died/Ymir released everyone.
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