How Attack on Titan CHALLENGES Morality

Shonen anime easily the most recognizable genre of its medium rarely Millions across the world with strange new lands lovable characters an edge of your seed action but what makes these stories so meaningful to people artwork friendship and victory these are the three pillars have Shonen Jump together they serve as core Virtues Of The genre becoming so ubiquitous that nobody even questions their presence anymore the message they carry is a simple yet powerful one you never give up on your dreams and make friends out of enemies you'll always succeed in life that's why these narratives don't just entertain they inspire people to take action and become stronger in the face of adversity with such an empowering Foundation it's easy to see how Shonen became a global phenomenon but what do you do when your perseverance is it odds for the world that hates you what do you do when your enemies want your extermination not your friendship what do you do when these narratives turn out to be just that fiction and you have nothing left to believe [Music] [Music] [Music] Attack on Titan is a story that means a lot to me its hours of weapons contemporaries and very distinct way airing to question not just the conventions of its genre but the morality behind it as well immediately when it began airing everyone knew it wasn't your standard shonenfair that's part of the reason I think it gained traction so quickly I was in my second year of college when the anime first aired and I distinctly remember it spreading like wildfire that spring with people praising it for being so different to everything else at the time but why though on paper it uses a lot of proteins expect from the Adam Shonen story got a loner protagonist that parents teenagers and combat scenarios there's even a Legendary Power locked inside the main character which he then has to master and save the world I mean we all know how that's saving the world part turns out but nobody saw it to his coming back then and that's my point the more subversive elements of the story were not immediately obvious and yet people instantly knew there was something special about the show my opinion this is because Attack on Titan actually took its character seriously presenting a Clear Vision of what motivated them and making that its focus from the very beginning if you look back on the first episode you might be surprised to see there's not a lot of action in it especially for showing instead there's a much bigger emphasis on establishing themes a little conflict there is only emerges from Aaron's temperament and sold on to flesh out his character from these interactions we learn a lot about not only him but the world he lives in how he doesn't care if everyone thinks he's a fool he's still going to pursue Freedom he sets up a philosophical argument for the rest of the series even the climax of the episode shows his primary concern angrying on Aaron's despair when his mother is about to die where lesser stories would just make it as Glory as possible this character-driven approach stands out in an action genre where authors are typically only concerned with block slows down to pacing a little which carries the risk of people getting bored but when it works the audience ends up way more invested in the characters than in the fighting itself which makes witnessing their growth a more meaningful experience think about it for a second going on a ninja Mission or fighting evil spirits is excited to watch I know Lila but it's not something any of us have actually dealt with at least I hope not on the other hand fighting with parents that want you to conform having them mislead and use you like a tool for their own ends hearing them argue about your failures in the other room while you're trying to sleep you don't need a fox demon to empathize with this and while there's so many character development in these other stories Attack on Titan takes it to another level by making its main priority every Arc is just full of grounded moments that bring the characters to life constantly asking you to see them as people instead of caricatures this can also be seen in how the women are written on fire none of them are one-dimensional Maggie or the line abusive like another shortcut here they actually have depth personalities will vary from Individual to individuals they often play a vital role during conflicts and there's not really any fan service involving them the closest we get Is Mikasa we need sit-up switch I feel like it's because of what it says about it not because she's there to be nearby that's why even normies loves the story there's none of the usual anime weirdness like gratuitous panty shots or gravity to find boots more importantly the themes are so Universal then you can easily share it with folks who don't watch anime and odds are who are going to enjoy it I would like to argue though there's a greater message behind using this character-driven style by prioritizing people who are respectable Attack on Titan is actually performing its biggest active version and demonstrating a profound respect for life now I know that might sound crazy to see if you considering Darkness but please hear me a big criticism wanting to make a Shonen battle manga is how much they trivialize stuff like combat and death for example look at dragon people die in it all the time but it rarely leads an impact because everyone's just brought back to life Piccolo even go to Majin Buu into performing a genocide thinking he could undo it all with wish and short it worked out in the end but that logic is still messed up a few times Dev actually had some weight but with future Gohan or Android 16. you know characters who couldn't be Resurrected this isn't the case an attack on Titan though people actually die when they are killed tragedy often strikes out of nowhere and it's always uncomfortable when it happens the characters that do survive are permanently Changed by The Experience never fully getting open even when nameless soldiers are eaten there was never a point where I personally grew numb to it the scenes always linger just long enough to disturb me but it never glorified the brutality either in fact combat is always shown as a nasty Affair where even the strongest don't come out unscathed furthermore this attitude is also reflected in how we perceive each protagonist Goku and Aaron are a lot more alike than you would initially expect they're both stubborn and Reckless they're both obsessed with fighting and new to their Heritage they both transform into monstrous versions of themselves and kill their dad slash Father Figure because of it the only reason we don't see Goku as negatively as Aaron is due to the fact that these flaws are basically glossed over in Dragon Ball it's just not that type of story there's nothing wrong with this but as a consequence The Narrative kind of tricks you into seeing these shortcomings AS Global reports because there's never really any repercussions to them what makes Attack on Titan so unique is that it's fully aware of this phenomenon it uses it to its advantage we're so used to siding with the underdog that we don't really question their flaws until it's too late that's why it's so easy to root for iron at the beginning to the point where later on characters themselves comment on this wondering if they ever really knew him unfortunately some people can't wrap their heads around this idea thinking that if the story shows its main character doing something horrible then obviously it's promoting this act can possibly be trying to get the audience to reflect them so that would be stupid ironically enough this criticism doesn't just apply to the sanctimonious people who call the story fascists it also applies to the edge Lord to defend Aaron calling him a badass despite the fact that he's a monster and if you feel attacked by any of this good that's the point your morals are supposed to be challenged by the story that's what makes it so special to me it doesn't support Trump's shock value does it get you to question their meaning and the role narrative plays in our lives how easy it is to get swept up in a story because everyone else is doing it and how things go wrong when they're proven false which leads me to me foreign is a story about the death of God okay that's a bit of a bold statement so let me elaborate I first think it's important to note the setting of The Story which is basically 19th century Germany in our reality this is the age when western civilization began transitioning from a mythological understanding of the world to more scientifically one of the first people who noticed this change was a 19th century German philosopher called Friedrich Nietzsche he actually lived through the time period of attack on time which makes his observations very relevant to its message many people know him because of his famous quote God is dead God remains dead and we have killed him but what did he mean by this when most people hear the word god they think of a judgmental figure like Yahweh and omnipotent Sky father that sees and knows all but in that statement Nietzsche wasn't talking about the death of a sentient being like you and me he was actively referring to a worrying Trend that loomed on the horizon for Europe a great disillusionment in any ideals beyond the material in hedonistic even had a word for it called nihilism this is why I think it's important to see God as less like a person and more like an abstract concept something aching to truth and Fullmetal Alchemist which is also an anime set in a vaguely German country in a similar time period they even share the same message but for our discussion we'll be focusing on their General skepticism narrative more specifically the danger of cynical ideologies that arise when the truth isn't valued anymore you see since Donna time humans have used storytelling as a way to codify what they learn and pass it on to Future Generations so they don't repeat the same mistakes as these narratives accumulate you end up with a mythology full of triumphs and warnings from which cultures Define their morality this is because like I alluded to in the beginning of this video these stories weren't told just for entertainment's sake their lessons were implicitly telling people how to live and distinguish right from wrong eventually after centuries of refinement the values they have helped solidified into a system of belief from which religion emerged in essence God was the ultimate story we invented a myth people told each other to navigate the world and Find meaning their existence wasn't perfect obviously but the idea of God was vital to the development of many fields like Art and Science also having this one thing in common enabled a lot more diplomacy between cultures would have otherwise destroyed each other seriously think of how much the Europeans have waged War among themselves and then imagine how much worse it could have been if they all followed a different religion in many ways the idea of God provided structure to society Sheltering it from the tyranny of chaos almost like a giant wall see where I'm going with this just like in our reality the people of Paradis depended on narratives to make sense of their lives they told themselves they would be safe from Titans as long as they stayed inside the walls making it the basis of their entire religion anyone who disagreed was treated with contempt because it attacked their most important value this is Jones right from the start and it's not very subtle either armin's introduction is him saying that Humanity should one day go outside the walls but he gets punched in the face and called the heretic for it this immediately tells us something important about the setting questioning anything about the walls is the same as questioning God the monarchy also discouraged any discussion about this using religion as a tool to control the population and watch critical thinking the story even goes out of its way to show that Armin and Aaron are in the minority here most people including Mikasa were okay with following the narrative because it made them feel safe with all this in mind it's easy to see the walls and therefore God is less like a useful idea and more like a fence for a domesticated cattle and then well you know what happens later the metaphor writes itself from their perspective the physical manifestation of God's will is crumbling right before their eyes Society is forever changed and denying it will only make things worse that didn't stop people from deluding themselves though many still kept believing in the narrative long after while Maria fell thinking that if they joined the military police and stay inside the inner District they'll be comfortable for the rest of their lives and that isn't true at all fact nobody's safe that realization has what drove Aaron in the beginning he liked any talent but outward most of his fears because he actually understood the gravity of their situation this tension between people who create their own values versus those who let society decide for them sets the stage for the rest of the series showing how humans cope when the narratives that hold our world together are proven false some grow stronger creating a better story for themselves while others just spiral into nihilism look at Reiner he became a warrior because his mother always told him it would get him a father Gabby turned into a solid because she needed to believe she was different from the Devils of paradise in both cases these stories motivated them to be exceptional and been taken away and destroyed their sense of self the best example of this however is Aaron's entire Journey every narrative that was fed to him from birth turned out to be wrong first the walls didn't keep anyone safe fact chunk of hitters would doomed his mother then a close friend whom he saw as an older brother was directly responsible for this tragedy furthermore his father was supposed to be a respected doctor someone who swore an oath to save lives but he ended up being a resentful murderer From A Distant land as if that wasn't enough the royal family had been manipulating everyone's memories all along so their notion of History was completely wrong and finally Aaron discovers that Titans weren't really monsters just cursed people which meant that the anger that drove him needed a different Target or he wouldn't have a reason to live anymore oh did I mention that not only are there humans beyond the walls but they all want audience dead because there was also that too after going through all this it would be incredibly difficult to believe in anything and if truth isn't real and nothing actually matters simple to conclude that the only thing that really does exist is power on the surface it's really easy to think that nihilism is the main message of Attack on Titan or Niche for that matter this couldn't be farther from the truth though Aaron isn't meant to be a role model he's a grim reminder of what happens when the future looks so Bleak that people give up on life if you see everything as ruthless power struggle without any meaning there's no point in creating anything that will all last you because well nothing matters the only purpose of strength is destruction and that's the biggest problem with Aaron's mindset nihilism simply isn't a sustainable belief if you can even call them that may sound confusing to some but even when someone says they don't believe in anything that's still a guiding principle just not a very constructive one mix this with the fact that most people don't like being wrong and you end up with a bunch of folk who insist on the meaninglessness of life with an almost religious fervor ironic isn't it at the end of the day it's like Kenny Ackerman said everybody's drunk on something some people are honest and responsible with their alcohol while others can't even admit they have a drinking problem this doesn't mean we have to bring back prohibition though values are something that humans create whether we want to or not so if it's gonna happen anyway we might as well have the best ones possible Attack on Titan isn't interested in preaching to you though that would defeat the point of questioning narrative and creating your own values instead it encourages you to analyze your own morals by showing where people tend to go wrong with them this idea is largely explored with two points of view which Nietzsche called Master morality and slave morality Master morality is a kingly or nightly code of ethics it's concerned with ideals like honor courage and strength a typical hero under this framework would be a warrior praise for their dominance and Leadership on the battlefield mythological figures like Achilles or Gilgamesh come to mind here despite their legendary Feats they're not exactly what we would call good people in fact they're often selfish and spiteful to their own detriment why do you have anyone Aaron shows an affinity for these values all throughout the story with his bravery and aggression framed like a virtue at first this is summed up in one of his iconic lines only those who attack him win it's literally in the name of the show and to a certain extent it's true somebody has to go beyond the walls the alternative is sitting around until Humanity goes extinct for instance everyone panicked after the Colossal Titan appeared again in trost except forever some gave up as soon as they heard news then Aaron spoke up and the cats actually developed some backbone he didn't even have to be present to influence people Jon only summoned the strength to act after he remembered Aaron's courage leading his comrades to survival also this is mikos's whole deal not just during her tragic backstory where Aaron saves her and literally urges her to fight but also during her near-death experience while she's processing Aaron's post death you see her give up for a moment then keep fighting due to her memories of him I do want to highlight though that there's a big difference between the values being shown at the start and the destructive ideology that the jagerist and benjali embodied but I'll get to that soon enough for now what's important to note is that what people regarded as good was a little different from how we see it now it used to be a lot more about utility than moral righteousness being strong and Wealthy was considered good because these things are helpful on the other hand being weak and poor was considered bad because these things hindered notice I'm not using the word evil though that wasn't really a thing under this framework if you were powerful enough to get away with something it was often seen as an admirable trait because you earned it that's why a hero like Odysseus can end his story by slaughtering a courtyard full of people and we cheered for it this however exposes the biggest flaw in this value system in that it turns a blind eye to the cruelty and encourages often at the expense of the week or less Fortune you see while master values definitely have some Merit behind them this type of logic only really works among people who are equally powerful two Warriors battling over something important can be meaningful and inspiring but there's nothing impressive about hurting someone weaker than you and all too often this is how the powerful established dominance another way of thinking about it is high school mentality where in the world is neatly separated into Chads who will serve special treatment due to their alleged superiority and virgins who need to know their place and tolerate The Bullying this might sound fair on the surface if you're a teenager but it quickly falls apart under scrutiny like sure a great king might embody these ideals and be worthy of everything he's earned but it doesn't mean you should build an entire political system around exceptional individuals they're rare by definition even if they do a good job there's no guarantee The Heirs will be any good in fact statistically speaking they're more likely to be worse because they lack the experience of someone who actually worked for the position so why should they be in charge you usually never hear a good answer to this people will offend it always benefit from the status quo and are looking to protect their own interests worse than that this type of thinking slightly implies that those who find themselves at the bottom of society are there because they deserve it if you didn't want to be a slave you should have never let yourself be conquered nerd Aaron actually demonstrates this attitude near the start of the story after evacuating his home he saw receiving food as pathetic and would rather starve to death than Feel Like A Parasite mikas are quickly knocked some sense into him but this mentality didn't just go away during the training course when candidates started dropping out Aaron had an elitist opinion about their departure saying that those were powerless just didn't belong to them that is until it looked like he would be sent home too then he changed his tune real quick begging for help even when by his own standards he wasn't worthy of it and that's really the problem in a nutshell Master morality is ultimately hypocritical and self-serving it ignores the fact that no matter how exceptional a person is we all need each other's help to keep the world running and a lot of folk just never get a fair shot of participating to begin with it never mattered if a slave demonstrated all the qualities of Mastery considered virtuous at the end of the day they would always be considered property needless to say this isn't really a sustainable framework eventually people are gonna revolt sometimes this will result in a violent Uprising but that's not what I'm talking about here because that type of Revolution usually romanticizes aggressive values ending with yet another ruling class that eventually oppresses people in much the same way what I'm talking about here is a slave for both of mine you see while the Masters could certainly control the physical conditions of the slaves they couldn't really Force any of them to be happy about it or in other words they could tell them what to do but never what to believe and thus hurt morality is born [Music] in response to unfair treatment people develop ideals that are opposite to what their oppressors value traits like humility weakness and mercy then become the highest virtues a person can strive towards and the previous values like power or wealth are seen as evil one example of this are the seven deadly sins which in Christianity are seen as the worst traits a person could have but under master morality they could be seen as qualities typical of great people the results of this moral slave revolt can still be filled today even after Western Society became more secular Concepts like charity and equality are so foundational to our modern sense of good also attitudes like lusting for power and seeking Revenge are still generally frowned upon to this day this doesn't just apply to the West though Japanese culture went through a similar change after World War II people had witnessed the consequences of imperialism and wanted nothing to do with it valuing pacifism instead this could be seen in their Shonen manga which after the war couldn't depict combat or even Sports competitions due to strict guidelines remnants of this attitude can still be seen in more recent stories like Goku's tendency to spare his enemies or Naruto's famous taco Jutsu as nice as it sounds however this type of thinking is not without its flaws either and can be even more Insidious and destructive than its predacers remember this was a slave revolt of the spirit their Avenues of attack were psychological not physical because using violence would defeat its purpose the point was to be as different as possible from a masters which is difficult if you're killing them so in order to claim the moral High Ground hurt mentality uses passive aggressive guilt tripping instead it might sound like a joke but if you've ever seen a self-loathing Catholic you know what I mean and if you haven't well imagine there's a master punishing a slave but instead of crying out in pain the slave just says harder I deserve it you'd be weirded out too right at the very least it'll make you stop for a moment and question what you're doing that's basically how Christianity took over the Roman Empire and it's also where things start to go wrong with it like I mentioned earlier Master morality defines good as that which is helpful to you since slave morality only exists to be the opposite of this it makes the mistake of demonizing values that are helpful and elevating ones that are harmful more specifically suffering is seen as a good thing because it's a measure of how unwilling you are to hurt others this is why the defining symbol of Christianity is a man being tortured to death and is woven into the belief system at every level a good Christian doesn't fight back when confronted with violence instead they have to turn the other cheek when someone exploits them they're not supposed to seek Justice they're supposed to swallow their pride and forgive the transgression because God will take care of it in the afterlife at every Point here instead of being cruel to another person they choose to be cruel to themselves because they think it's the right thing to do the epitome of this is the concept of martyrdom which demands that you ignore your own self-preservation instincts in service of others Christians don't like to admit it but nobody wants to be a martyr not even Jesus seriously it's in the Bible and it makes complete sense the most powerful feeling a person can have is the will to live and under this value system repressing it is the definition of goodness sure there may be situations where it's the only option but that doesn't make it an inherently good thing it'd be better if you were strong enough to prevent its need in the first place look at Carla Yeager Aaron's mother when she spinned under the rubble her main priority is making sure the kids are safe and she's willing to die for it however as soon as they are out of earshot she can't lie to herself anymore quietly wishing they would turn around and save her this wasn't just shown to tug at your heartstrings it was done to send a message hurt morality doesn't Empower anyone into action or protect them from harm just helps people cope with their weakness by surrendering their own autonomy and that's well that as uncomfortable as it may sound cruelty is a necessary part of the human condition you engage in it every time you assert power over someone it can be as innocuous as winning a competitive game or important like enforcing personal boundary the point is you can't simply ask people to Never Be Cruel it's the same as martyrdom you're asking them to stop being human since this is impossible people are forced to bottle this anger and turn it inwards which inevitably leads to self-hatred being considered a moral good and if God is dead it isn't hard to conclude that merely being born is a mistake in Attack on Titan this is demonstrated through different members of the Aldean royal family Carl Fritz the first king in the walls held the opinion that aldians and Titans should have never existed in the first place in order to feel like a good person he decided to punish himself in the most selfish way possible destroying his own Empire while doing the people who lived in it free to rise later inherited his bow to renounce war and arrived at the same conclusion she preached peace and love but while arguing with Berkshire Yeager she had no trouble letting her people die for the sake of supposed atonement this is what I mean by cruelty turned inwards the decision to protect the world from aldians by sacrificing them without their knowledge is just as cruel if not more than simply going to war Innocents are going to suffer either way and Frida does nothing all while getting to enjoy the luxurious life of Lenovo and getting to feel self-righteous about it this is then taken to its logical extreme in the form of seat Jaeger unlike his relatives who at least believed in goodness and the sanctity of Life Zeke is a full-blown nihilist has no qualms sacrificing others to further his goals he literally says nobody would have to suffer if they weren't born and he sees sterilizing the audiences both a mercy and a public service it's tragic really seek grew up hearing that a person like him shooting exist and his parents worked hard to opposes but their approach was so flawed that it had the opposite effect on him Aaron called him out on this in his face saying he's a pathetic man whose continued denial of his father's wishes is his only means of self-affirmation and it's true seek needed to believe his parents were completely wrong about everything in order to feel like betraying them was the right choice unfortunately it also came from the cost of having to accept that aliens were a threat to the world this is a microcosm of how hurt morality tends to work out after the death of God it looks harmless on the surface maybe even rational and kind-hearted but it's ultimately an anti-life philosophy saying people are inherently evil due to their cruelty and in order to be good one has to avoid being human as much as possible so obviously the story is saying that the world would be a better place if everyone was a sigma male like Aaron but he's just too based for the normies right incorrect Master morality looks good here by comparison because despite its flaws at least it affirms the value of life even if it's only your own whereas slave morality is only created out of spite for someone else it doesn't care about inspiring good in people only in punishing evil but like I mentioned a while ago Aaron is a nihilist that's only concerned with destruction he doesn't see the point in creating anything either which despite valuing aggression and freedom warps his mentality into something closer to hurt morality rather than Master morality and the key to understanding the similarity lies in resentment although they look like opposites both the eldian royal family and the jagerous movement share the same origin and that they're both born from resentment and resentment well it's in the word it's the echo of a feeling a re-sentiment these are negative emotions that can't be acted upon due to a lack of power so when people are forced to hold on to them it causes a feedback loop where they're stuck feeling the same emotion over and over long after it occurred with enough time these feelings can possess people and take over the lives without them even realizing it in the story this is reinforced by the fact that the royal families hurt morality can be directly traced back to a little slave girl who felt bad for the cattle and decided to free them Emir is portrayed as the biggest victim of the world's cruelty all because of her kindness she lived to make other people happy everyone but herself to the point where she had to deny her own Humanity in order to cope with it and allowed her resentment to prove for millennium until she just wanted everything destroyed Aaron actually understood this and that's how he managed to persuade her you are not a slave and you are not a God either you're only human you don't have to obey anyone decide for yourself Titans are the literal embodiment of how much she hates the world this means the Royal Family's religion is literally built on resentment because the walls their object of worship are made of Titans mikas also alluded to this idea when she first saw Aaron in his Titan form she called him the physical manifestation of Humanity's anger and she was way more correct than she realized if we analyze Aaron's stated goal Slaughter all the Titans we can clearly see that it too is built on resentment his objective isn't protecting the people he loves or exploring the unknown or reaching truth or liberating Humanity it's all about revenge for him this becomes most apparent during the final season after he completes his transition into villainy but it didn't come out of nowhere first incident we noticed is this before Aaron gets eaten all the way back in the battle of trost everything seemed to be on track until one of his fellow Cadets Thomas got swallowed whole right in front of the squad although horrifying they weren't immediately screwed they were still capable of completing their objective until well Aaron Paul and Aaron he instantly gave into his rage and broke formation to avenge his comrade which cost everyone in his Squad to scramble after him and left him in East Target for the Titans all those deaths were his fault but while he's being digested Aaron just blames the Titans even more this is a similar coping strategy to the one seek developed over his parents Aaron needed to scapegoat the Titans because the alternative was admitting he got a squad kill it sounds basic to the point where most people just gloss over this incident but I think it's important that even early on Aaron's resentment is shown to have devastating consequences and he seems incapable of recognizing this one can also see this when he saved Mikasa as a child although his actions were heroic the reasoning he gave afterwards with his cows in rescinding he called the kidnappers beast and human clothing that served to be slaughtered which is unnerving to hear from anyone that recently committed a murder let alone the child he also shows a blatant disregard for his own life which his father rightfully solds him for mikas's breakthrough during that whole ordeal is also tainted in a similar way while she is having a revelation about the world that you're either predator or prey the musical cue in that scene even takes on a malevolent tone that might not mean much on its own but if you compare it to any other triumphant moment in the story this Epiphany is clearly being shown in a negative light it's the death of mikasa's Innocence at best it's a tragic necessity and at worse it's a traumatic event that literally reconfigures her brain and optimized it for violence and then there's the case of Grisha Jaeger I don't think anyone could fold him for his initial motives the way his sister died would scar anyone for life his resentment though led him down a path he would eventually regret much like his two kids Grisha also compensated for his trauma by devoting himself wholeheartedly to a dream seek even points it out while begging his parents to quit the resistant movement mentioning that grisha's sister wouldn't have died if he hadn't taken her Beyond the Wall this morphed into an obsession fueled by Vengeance where he convinced himself the cost was so Noble it needed to be accomplished by any means necessary that's why he treated seat like a tool instead of an individual restoration was more important to him than his son not because it was the right thing to do but because he cared more about validating his resentment than about raising his child even after he started a new life and had seemingly moved on he fully commits to killing the rice family when Aaron goats him with the memory of his sister and everyone else he lost proving that in the end he was still ruled by anger there's a court theme being reinforced here no matter the context resentment is always shown to be a toxic source of motivation that should never be embraced blinds people to the things that matter most and instantly corrupts any righteous intentions regardless of how Justified they may sound on the surface and this in my opinion is the meaning behind Titans every person that received the attack Titan was inheriting an enormous amount of past and future resentment even the basic conceit of them is an exaggerated metaphor of how people lose their Humanity when used as weapons these creatures don't eat because they're hungry they just do it out of instinct for its own sake you can't reason with them because they have no ornate drives like procreation or self-preservation their only goal is destruction you know kind of like Aaron the audience on Paradise have no problem rallying behind him because he expresses this bottled up fury on their behalf again like I keep repeating these feelings are always represented due to a lack of strength so when they do come out it empowers those who used to be burdened by them and asking them to be weak again would only provoke them more that's why the serving amount of people don't care that Aaron's committing genocide not when they've been terrorized by Titans and demonized by the outside world for over a century in the end it turns out Commander pixes was right all along if Humanity were to go extinct it wouldn't be because of the Titans it would be because Humanity turned on itself foreign I keep saying that attack on Titan is nihilistic but so far I've only mentioned where people go wrong with morality and not any solutions which brings up the most important question the story races if God is dead if morality is fake if we're all destined to be cruel one way or the other should we just Embrace nihilism and give up on being good people no no of course not genocide is wrong no reasoning in the world can make it right and that's the most beautiful thing about Attack on Titan it doesn't tell you what to believe but it does show you a path and encourages you to explore it for yourself all you have to do is keep moving forward time and time again the characters find themselves in situations where there's seemingly no good options yet no matter how Grim the odds are we're shown that giving up only makes things worse first notable example of this comes in the battle of trost the supply Squad refused to do their job that decision doomed every other soldier that counted on the cadets realize this when they start running out of gas and looking at the big picture it was reasonable to get overwhelmed and assume the situation was hopeless but what did they do they solved the problem one step at a time oh the supply Squad won't come to us well go to them oh Fortress is surrounded throw Aaron at it what's that supply room is infested with Titans and there's little room to maneuver act as bait and shoot out their eyes while the others land a killing blow it would have been impossible if they planned for everything at once tackling each challenge as it rise to allowed them to overcome everything all throughout the story there's tons of little moments where this idea is reasserted at the end of the second season when they're surrounded and all seems lost Aaron punches a Titan out of a stubborn refusal to surrender it should have been ineffective but that one seemingly futile act unlocked his founding Titan Powers which wound up saving them then in the third season we have what is largely the most positive conclusion to an art in the entire story hanji explained it best nobody was able to overthrow the government on their own everyone's choices regardless of how insignificant they appeared or what ended up changing their world on a more individual note historius character Arc is centered entirely around this theme of opposing fate initially she suffered from the same anti-life philosophy that's common in her family just like C she grew up believing she was better off never being born and develop a minor conflict to feel like her existence had worth her actual personality was covered up by a mask of niceness where she only acted kind not because she felt it but because she desperately wanted to be accepted Emir the lesbian not the ancestor was the first person to see through this act she too went through a similar experience of living for the sake of others and suffering for it so when she sees someone else going down the same path she feels compelled to stop them for purpose in life is to prove that your fate is incited at Birth and if his story had the strength to be that cruel towards herself where she would freeze to death if it meant people would think fondly of her and that meant she also had the strength to change her destiny this becomes even more more meaningful by the fact that the royal family is on more than one occasion regarded as Divine instruments of fate it first happens in historia's introduction where Sasha thinks she's a God for bringing her food and water then historia's father Sees God in the eyes of his brother after he inherited founding time finally there's Elena worship seat with a zealous devotion calling him a God that gave hope to the powerless in all these instances God is equated with an ultimate governing Force One that decides the fate of people in the world and the royal family are the ones carrying out its will Astoria on the other hand rejects this notion completely she doesn't want a world where one person gets to decide who should and shouldn't exist that's why when her father is pushing her to accept Godly she refuses to go through with it choosing to finally live on her own terms and construct her own values even if it makes her the worst most despicable girl in history is resulted in changing changing not only her faith but the fate of everyone in pair this what a queen literally my favorite moment where this theme is highlighted though doesn't involve anything as climactic as denying godhood it's a lot more personal and meta than that you see Sasha browse favorite potato girl turned out to be an even bigger symbol of changing Destiny than his story in the second season when Sasha has to warn her Village of Titans she starts having flashbacks to before she became Soldier we see she wasn't a particularly moral person back then thinking selfishly and presenting all the refugees who came after the walls belt then in the present he finds Kaya who is paralyzed with fear while her mother is being evil Sasha tries to save the girl before Titans notice but things start to quickly go wrong she loses her ax horse leaves them behind the Titan is quickly gaming on to make matters worse kaija's world had fallen apart after seeing the village abandoned her mother which makes her question the whole point of altruism while they're being pursued Sasha gives her an answer not with words but through action where before she was reluctant to help anyone else now she's risking her life to save someone she doesn't even know after sending Kaja ahead Sasha fires a few arrows and misses but Lancer third one in Titan's eye one Arrow remaining Sasha needs to land this for both she and Kaya will die what does she do takes her Fade Into fade into her own hand rushing for stabbing it herself [ __ ] I genuinely can't talk about this without getting emotional that's what it's all about what elevates the secret is something I learned afterwards about how this moment was conceived and later interview is a yamahajime revealed that he actually considered killing Sasha off in this chapter but obviously decided against him so yeah Sasha didn't just fight her fate inside the story she literally transcended her own reality to achieve it you may not like it that puts her on the same power level of Eisen Okay so we've seen examples of how never giving up is what allows people to develop their morality however if you think about where the story goes in the later half there's a glaring problem with this after all it's easy to think that Aaron's refusal to give up is what enabled the rumbling that however ignores something very crucial about his Arc you see Aaron didn't fight his fate at the end quite the opposite he embraced it and by doing so ended up enslaving himself Aaron isn't free he thinks he is but that's not really the case this is vital to understanding his character and it's explicitly shown in the turning point of the story before Aaron initiates his attack on libero during his conversation with Reiner he mentions the reason he's there is because he has no other choice he then absolves Reiner and the other Warriors from their actions claiming they were only kids who also didn't have a choice to Capital off Aaron ends the conversation by saying they were both born that way almost like it was their fate to do what they did the implication here is pretty clear Aaron doesn't think anyone is responsible for their actions because everything has already been decided that's the opposite of freedom a betrayal of everything he used to believe some people like to defend his actions claiming there was no other way to protect his home the whole point of fighting your fate is that you do it regardless of how futile it looks Aaron never tried to find another way he didn't even tell anyone what he was going through he just gave up when he realized he was going to die in a few years again people like to use the curse of Emir as an excuse and while more understandable having a shortened lifespan doesn't justify anything he does this is supposed to be a tragedy his actions are meant to sadden and disappoint us that's a far cry from saying he had no other options and that's precisely what story is trying to communicate if you don't believe in something Beyond power you'll blind yourself to any solutions that don't involve hurting others unfortunately this still doesn't answer anything for example one can argue that float found meaning in LD nationalism made him courageous and allowed him to endure a lot of punishment but that doesn't make him a moral person in fact he was an [ __ ] kept ruining everything because he grew his spine at the end doesn't mean he's cool he gleefully sacrificed people for the sake of his ideal and exactly where characters tend to go wrong in the story in every occasion that someone valued a narrative over human life they're always framed as the villain for it this is because when your values are more important than people you can justify any actions in order to uphold them no matter how horrifying it doesn't just apply to how we treat others either when you value an ideal above your own life you end up being a slave to it even if you think you're choosing it that's the difference between historia's martyr complex and the noble sacrifice like Irwin or hanji one was done out of low self-morph while the other was done out of love and respect for their comrades this is one of the more subtle messages of story Aaron isn't a victim fate he did all of this to himself from his perspective manipulating Grisha and setting all the events into motion is proof of his own autonomy which is a fundamental misunderstanding of freedom see Freedom isn't doing as you please without any consequences that's the attitude of a child humans are free because we can choose to overcome our desires accepting moral responsibility for our actions this doesn't mean we should ignore our feelings but if we always followed our violent impulses they would always decide Our Fate and we'd be no different from wild animals and yes I understand humans are animals too what I'm saying is that we're not just animals so more than that tiger can't choose to be anything other than a predator because it always has to follow its instincts but humans don't have to be this way this finally leads us to the answer Attack on Titan gifts or the question of Silence it asks you well to believe in your own worth and value Humanity just as much that people aren't a means to a net they are the end itself and including me a few points especially when cycle of hatred doesn't seem to end but that's all the more reason to keep trying remember how Sasha managed to change her fate some might argue it was pointless because she ended up dying anyway a few years later but if she hadn't survived she wouldn't have tasted Seafood you can roll your eyes while you want it's truth look how happy she is I would die to protect this beautiful mess of a person how could life not be worth living even if only a little while longer when you can experience so much joy from even the smallest moments that's why even while Aaron is carrying out the rumbling all he's thinking about are his friends because that's what ultimately matters it's also why Levi and hanji are the most moral individuals in the story their main concern is always protecting human life and they create their values in service of that not the other way around where others seem to only care about people because their beliefs tell them to and this brings us back to what I said at the beginning about character-driven storytelling why this focus on people over action was so important to communicating its message and how that makes the story so different and most shown and out there Attack on Titan is insane that narratives are worthless or that believing in stuff is cringe it's saying the most valuable narratives are about elevating people not ideals and that giving up on the world will just make things worse the most obvious evidence I have to support this is the name of the very first episode two thousand years from now in a way this title frames Attack on Titan as a story within a story where the idea is that someone is witnessing these events in the far future almost like a warning in the shape of a myth whether or not it works is up to the audience because his Anonymous viewer is also a standing for us go through you're the one who gets to decide if it's meaningful or to just an entertaining distraction that's why I started this essay by saying that attack on Titan means a lot to me lets you say all the narratives I was raised with turn out to be wrong and it took me a while to get over that disillusionment I also know I'm not alone this anime wouldn't have been so popular if it didn't connect with the audience a lot of people nowadays find it hard to believe in anything whether in themselves or in others causing them to grow isolated and hate Humanity doomers aren't just a funny meme it self hatred being normalized and projected outwards which is what makes the story so important so remember that no matter how monstrous they look our enemies are just as human as us that memories of those we love are what drive us to lead moral lives and there are virtues or Wings of Freedom something we invented soar above the brutality of Nature and reach towards an unseen Horizon so offer your heart to life and reject nihilism because he only means when you stop attacking [Music] before I go I like to share that I have a free ebook available on a pinned comment below it's called shotgun fantasy and it's basically a less cynical version of Breaking Bad except instead of cooking meth they're building magic guns like I said it's free and you can find it on a pin comment below you know I've been working on this video for six months now and now that I'm about to end it um terrified freeing it into the world mostly because I don't think anyone will really watch it but if you're a one of the few people who actually makes it to the end thank you I hope it was worth your time [Music] so until next time peace foreign [Music]

Channel: Unseen Horizon Stories

Views: 6,234

Keywords:

Id: AwUm8BFzPBo

Length: 52min 51sec (3171 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 12 2023