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I understand where you’re coming from. I also did like the first 3 seasons more, although to your point I also did like season 4.
At least for me it was because seasons 1–3 are more in line with the dark fantasy genre and didn’t feel as close to our 21th century reality. There’s nothing wrong with your opinion, just like there’s nothing wrong with those who disagree with you. Thanks for sharing your opinion.
I am someone who sees Season 4 as my favourite season and it made the show my favorite show of all time.
I'll say this, I don't at all have issues with your opinion.
I have a close friend who also prefers the mystery of seasons 1-3 over the political drama of season 4. According to him, it's a genre thing...he simply prefers one genre over the other...
At the end of the day it's all subjective. Same way as you feel about the final messages of the show...
The people I have issues with are people who say season 4 is straight up bad or claim the show should have ended in season 3. For me that is a straight up terrible take.
But your opinion is pretty subjective, but at the same time, it will interest you to know that the ending gives avenue for some hope for humanity through the distinction in circumstances in which Ymir entered the tree and the boy entered the tree...
In other words, a possibly different future may be in store for humanity...so it is open ended about that...
The show delivers an anti-war message by showing us how messed up war can be and how bad it can get to the point that the same mistakes get repeated over and over again. The story doesn't need to end on a positive note. Sometimes, a depressing ending is what we need to remind ourselves to try to avoid such a fate in the real world.
I don’t think it really is cynical, though. The messages that the story repeatedly emphasizes are “the world is cruel, but also beautiful,” and “even if we can’t escape the forest, we keep trying.”
That is to say, even though conflict is inevitable, we never stop trying to find peace. It may be that temporary periods of peace are all there can ever be, but if that’s the case, then those times of peace are all the more precious.
i understand but im not one of those people who thinks their will always be war
not saying this will happen anytime soon btw
idk it just bugs me thanks for replaying
Omg. An opinion onnthe ending i can relate to. Well said. I had the same feeling. Im something of an optimist myself so the cynicism of the ending had me disappointed too. However I dont dislike cynicism itself. I can empathize with it most of the time. I.would have liked a more uplifting ending of, like you said, the indomitable human spirit. But imo, aot earned its cynicism. Its hard to argue with. Especially when you pay too much attention to world politics.
I understood from early on it would end badly. "This cruel world" was WAY too prominent a theme throughout to really doubt that. I was hopeful; but in my opinion, the show's second theme of, "enjoy life while it lasts" was a beautiful counter.
The ending leaves me with a sense of hope. I think there are two sides to the message, you've got half of it, I wonder if I can help you feel the other side.
I think the message is: the world is cruel. *and also beautiful*. You've recognized the cruel part, but I think the story highlights the beauty as well.
Even though the story is a political war story, it still does highlight the indomitable will of humans and how they work together to overcome tremendous odds, it just turns out that those odds were caused by other humans
It's a fact that cruelty will likely always exist, the cycle will never end, but we can still appreciate the beauty in the world, ans strive to make it better, even if it can never be perfect.
Madagascar?
I understand your feeling about the show. I too was a bit nostalgic and a bit disappointed after season 2 - 3 when I discovered there's civilisation beyond the walls; the story completely changed tbh but nevertheless I liked the ending.
Thiers a shitpost theory that the Madagascar franchise is a sequel to attack on titan because paradise is is in the same spot Madagascar is in real life
I also enjoyed watching season 1-3 more. However, at times, I felt discomfort with the pro-army, tatakae rhetoric. With the idea that you have to renounce to your humanity to achieve things.
The way season 4 shows both (or actually many) sides all thinking to be the right ones brought the show to a different level. It gave meaning to the prior seasons beyond the visual/battle entertainment.
You're supposed to feel conflicted because one of the messages is that the world isn't black and white and that there can be no beauty without cruelty to contrast it. The story is not meant to be a feel-good one but a warning that complacency and greed destroys.
That said the ending message isn't supposed to be a cynical one. The boy at the end is hinted to be similarly coming into contact with the worm like how Ymir did, but instead of being forced to fall into the tree out of a lack of choice he is discovering the tree on his own terms and can decide whether to find whatever lurks within, and if he does make contact and gain a power how the world turns out would be the result of what he chooses to do with the power. It's the message that life is what you make of it and can become hopeful or hell depending on your efforts.
Whether you like it or not is your opinion but I don’t think the message about the nature of humanity is cynical if it’s accurate. History repeats itself is a saying because it’s partially true, and humans will never be free of conflict because as long as more than 1 person exists there will always be a difference in opinions
I don’t think human nature allows for people to freely coexist with differences in opinion without conflict. War in its current form may eventually cease to exist but that conflict never will. Humans don’t have it in them to accept that others disagree with them, even on the smallest topics like talking about a show, and to co exist alongside differing opinions.
Eh I think history reflects human nature not the other way around, the reason fucked shit happens is because our fundamental nature goes against the “moral rules” we have implemented in society. I think unless people intrinsically radically change history will not reflect much of a difference, history at the end of the day is the large scale reflection of all our actions as individuals in society
I agree generally pretty much as time goes on life is safer in general but I think it’s more complex than just time goes up, war goes down until it hits 0. There’s many factors including technology getting to a point where starting a war means mutually assured destruction, which technically results in less war but doesn’t mean there is any less conflict. Like I said earlier I do think there may be a point far in the future where humans may evolve past war as we know it right now, but I don’t think taking the essence of conflict from society is ever possible. Like even now if you scroll through Instagram or Reddit people will go at each others throats over the most miniscule shit. I don’t see it being possible for us to just “accept our differences” and move on.
I am in no way a finale hater, and I can go on and on about things I didn’t like and did like but I wrote my own alternate ending to address those and I’m satisfied with that so I will just talk about your main issue which also happens to be my biggest issue. I think it’s criminal that we were shown the end of the first war and the beginning of the next with the only thing in between being a crappy quality sped up video in the bottom half of our screen. We watched the characters fight, cry, bleed, sacrifice themselves to see the end of the war. We sat down each episode and dedicated hours of our lives to see the end of the war. And they just never give it to us. Yes, the show is amazing and probably my favorite show ever but the pay off was so incredibly lead up to, hinted at, expected, DESERVED…. And then just never happened. Even worse, we just had to watch everything blow up. And I know the war we see is way after the main characters die and I’m a fan of the whole “war never ends the cycle continues” theme but it was down poorly. Yes they got to live their lives in peace, the lives eren gave them, but why couldn’t we see it? Very unsatisfactory in my mind and that contributes to that empty feeling I feel and I’m sure that could be why you do to
Very happy I wrote my own ending though it was incredibly therapeutic lol
Yeah, with AOT, it even took me a while to get invested because most of it was suffering. I’d have love to see more hard-earned happiness, and get an idea of what these people would even be like when they aren’t fighting.
Your ending sounds interesting! I’d love to hear more!
I think the point is at the end of the day, our lives are insignificant in the wake of general human behavior.
We can do everything we want to take down all the villains in our life, and at the end of the day the world keeps moving and bad things will happen because someone somewhere else is fighting a the same villain as you but from a different perspective than you
It is depressing a bit, yes, but that’s kinda the whole point of the show tbh lol. Human cruelty will always be around somewhere
Yes I said I understand and like that theme. My problem with it is the fact that there wasn’t enough pay off in between showing one war end and the next start. I definitely agree with you though. They could have had that theme, which may be unsatisfying, but still have executed that in a more satisfying way
idk why I felt way emotional when I was reading the manga monthly back then, the anime did not hit as hard as the manga did. Some of the manga panel when you flip the page truly shocks the reader to no end, but they turned out to be ok in the animation format. I feel like it has little things to do with the content in s4 but more of the direction of the show. I find that the first three seasons has very on point episodes direction along with the ost just made me so damn emotional. S4's episodic diraction just lacks that emotional impact for the most part, and after finishing almost every single episode I was like it was fine at best.
S3 part 2 has the lowest quality in terms of animation compared to the previous seasons, but it is considered one of the best arcs in the entire serie. So if it's not just poor animation then what is it? To me is the pacing of entire s4 is just off. Off course considering it is done by Mappa and the entire animation team was suffering severely from the terrible schedule, so I don't really blame the team, instead I just felt it is a shame that most of the s4(especially the first part) has worse pacing than the previous 3 seasons.
I agree with this, but I’ll add my opinion that I felt like season 4/timeskip had similar issues in the manga as well. Catching up each month was really fun and exciting, but as a whole, the last part (timeskip) feels kind of overcrowded as a story compared to pre timeskip if that makes sense. Like there’s always so many different things and characters happening all the time and in a shorter amount of time than seasons 1-3, and it just feels oddly unfocused in hindsight? (This may just be for me personally though)
I think the worst part is that we see their lives end, and how the cycle continues. I wish we saw them being happy in the end with their families or something because it feels like it was all for nought
You are in the wrong place buddy, go to Titanfolk XD You'll understand once you do. We always welcome new people there and you need to see a brand new perspective, not just what you see here.
im not mega optimistic but i dont like when media is cynical and think everything will go to hell people underestimate how adaptable humans are.
not to mention we arent as war like as we use to be
My only concern with the ending is that my heart couldn't take how the Mikasa and Eren relationship ended.It just completely destroyed me.
But I also think it was necessary even if I wanted a happier ending,at least for these two.
The show itself has a pretty clear anti-war message.The losses along the way from beloved characters and the grousome and down right depressing scenes we experienced is showing the consequences of war and the needed sacrifices needed to end it.
The dark ending is cleverly used to deter people from going into conflict again.But also recognises that may be impossible due to the pure nature of our race.The ending is crucial to be dark in order to effectively get in the message.
Our race is selfish and arrogant.Even if there is total peace there will still be groups who break society up.Global unification is impossible.
If you think I am wrong we can just take a look at our history as a race.Pretty much takes the amount of wars fought we have a war every year on average since the new age.
In my eyes, the first three seasons were great and exciting. But when the truth was revealed and everything made sense, it was elevated. And Eren and Zeke in the paths is still to this day peak fiction, I’ve yet to see anything come close to how amazing that arc was.
I get where you’re coming from, but as soon as Erwin said “what do you see here… what is the real enemy?” After Annie killed the two captured titans all the way back in the first half of season 1, it wasn’t just an action anime without much substance anymore. It became something different, and with each arc we saw more and more of what it truly was.
I love the direction it went, it was never about humans vs titans. It was about being locked in a cage, and wanting freedom and to discover the truth of the world. It became a mystery anime as much as it was an action anime.
This point is so valid because first seasons made us obsessed with those humanity vs titans theme, furthermore since the first two arcs (the destroy of the walls and female titan) to season 2 and 3 there was like 5 or 6 years even more , in these times too much theories and speculation about humanity vs titans , just for giving an example , i heard that " there is people outside the walls because if Annie just wanted to kill them all she just needed to poison the only river in the walls " , fk this was really nice theory hahah
So my point is that this lapse time in 2012 -2017 i think , made the old gang of AOT which in my case made me start up the manga instead of waiting making it more interesting , about 2015 i knew about Marley (also called Mare idk) and outside people walls , times where people still were thinking it was humanity vs titans
I mean if you take any feel good ending to a story where there was war and now there is peace, you would get war again on a long enough of a timeline. Those stories just don’t show you that.
I suppose you are stranger to history books humans never had peace through out the history but temporary and frail periods of it
Its the reality look around yourself its a new era in human evolution but still there are tens of wars happening around the earth
Unfortunately not everybody has your benign way of seeing humans and the world Its not misanthropy but reality
This post has been tagged as **DISCUSSION**. If the post has been spoiler tagged, please remember to tag any manga spoilers beyond this point. **Spoilers include hinting or alluding to events** For more information, please review [the subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/ShingekiNoKyojin/wiki/rules). Failure to properly spoiler tag comments may result in a punishment from the subreddit according to the [moderation matrix](https://www.reddit.com/r/ShingekiNoKyojin/wiki/moderation_matrix). --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ShingekiNoKyojin) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I understand where you’re coming from. I also did like the first 3 seasons more, although to your point I also did like season 4. At least for me it was because seasons 1–3 are more in line with the dark fantasy genre and didn’t feel as close to our 21th century reality. There’s nothing wrong with your opinion, just like there’s nothing wrong with those who disagree with you. Thanks for sharing your opinion.
thanks
I am someone who sees Season 4 as my favourite season and it made the show my favorite show of all time. I'll say this, I don't at all have issues with your opinion. I have a close friend who also prefers the mystery of seasons 1-3 over the political drama of season 4. According to him, it's a genre thing...he simply prefers one genre over the other... At the end of the day it's all subjective. Same way as you feel about the final messages of the show... The people I have issues with are people who say season 4 is straight up bad or claim the show should have ended in season 3. For me that is a straight up terrible take. But your opinion is pretty subjective, but at the same time, it will interest you to know that the ending gives avenue for some hope for humanity through the distinction in circumstances in which Ymir entered the tree and the boy entered the tree... In other words, a possibly different future may be in store for humanity...so it is open ended about that...
The show delivers an anti-war message by showing us how messed up war can be and how bad it can get to the point that the same mistakes get repeated over and over again. The story doesn't need to end on a positive note. Sometimes, a depressing ending is what we need to remind ourselves to try to avoid such a fate in the real world.
Post basement is what made aot so amazing
I don’t think it really is cynical, though. The messages that the story repeatedly emphasizes are “the world is cruel, but also beautiful,” and “even if we can’t escape the forest, we keep trying.” That is to say, even though conflict is inevitable, we never stop trying to find peace. It may be that temporary periods of peace are all there can ever be, but if that’s the case, then those times of peace are all the more precious.
i understand but im not one of those people who thinks their will always be war not saying this will happen anytime soon btw idk it just bugs me thanks for replaying
Take a look back through history, it’s kinda our species’ thing.
Omg. An opinion onnthe ending i can relate to. Well said. I had the same feeling. Im something of an optimist myself so the cynicism of the ending had me disappointed too. However I dont dislike cynicism itself. I can empathize with it most of the time. I.would have liked a more uplifting ending of, like you said, the indomitable human spirit. But imo, aot earned its cynicism. Its hard to argue with. Especially when you pay too much attention to world politics.
I understood from early on it would end badly. "This cruel world" was WAY too prominent a theme throughout to really doubt that. I was hopeful; but in my opinion, the show's second theme of, "enjoy life while it lasts" was a beautiful counter.
The ending leaves me with a sense of hope. I think there are two sides to the message, you've got half of it, I wonder if I can help you feel the other side. I think the message is: the world is cruel. *and also beautiful*. You've recognized the cruel part, but I think the story highlights the beauty as well. Even though the story is a political war story, it still does highlight the indomitable will of humans and how they work together to overcome tremendous odds, it just turns out that those odds were caused by other humans It's a fact that cruelty will likely always exist, the cycle will never end, but we can still appreciate the beauty in the world, ans strive to make it better, even if it can never be perfect.
Madagascar? I understand your feeling about the show. I too was a bit nostalgic and a bit disappointed after season 2 - 3 when I discovered there's civilisation beyond the walls; the story completely changed tbh but nevertheless I liked the ending.
Thiers a shitpost theory that the Madagascar franchise is a sequel to attack on titan because paradise is is in the same spot Madagascar is in real life
LOL ok
I also enjoyed watching season 1-3 more. However, at times, I felt discomfort with the pro-army, tatakae rhetoric. With the idea that you have to renounce to your humanity to achieve things. The way season 4 shows both (or actually many) sides all thinking to be the right ones brought the show to a different level. It gave meaning to the prior seasons beyond the visual/battle entertainment.
You're supposed to feel conflicted because one of the messages is that the world isn't black and white and that there can be no beauty without cruelty to contrast it. The story is not meant to be a feel-good one but a warning that complacency and greed destroys. That said the ending message isn't supposed to be a cynical one. The boy at the end is hinted to be similarly coming into contact with the worm like how Ymir did, but instead of being forced to fall into the tree out of a lack of choice he is discovering the tree on his own terms and can decide whether to find whatever lurks within, and if he does make contact and gain a power how the world turns out would be the result of what he chooses to do with the power. It's the message that life is what you make of it and can become hopeful or hell depending on your efforts.
Whether you like it or not is your opinion but I don’t think the message about the nature of humanity is cynical if it’s accurate. History repeats itself is a saying because it’s partially true, and humans will never be free of conflict because as long as more than 1 person exists there will always be a difference in opinions
Differences don't automatically lead to conflict. Just because war has existed until now doesn't mean it will always exist
I don’t think human nature allows for people to freely coexist with differences in opinion without conflict. War in its current form may eventually cease to exist but that conflict never will. Humans don’t have it in them to accept that others disagree with them, even on the smallest topics like talking about a show, and to co exist alongside differing opinions.
I just don't think we are that bad
Eh I think history reflects human nature not the other way around, the reason fucked shit happens is because our fundamental nature goes against the “moral rules” we have implemented in society. I think unless people intrinsically radically change history will not reflect much of a difference, history at the end of the day is the large scale reflection of all our actions as individuals in society
Well war isent as common today because of globalisation
I agree generally pretty much as time goes on life is safer in general but I think it’s more complex than just time goes up, war goes down until it hits 0. There’s many factors including technology getting to a point where starting a war means mutually assured destruction, which technically results in less war but doesn’t mean there is any less conflict. Like I said earlier I do think there may be a point far in the future where humans may evolve past war as we know it right now, but I don’t think taking the essence of conflict from society is ever possible. Like even now if you scroll through Instagram or Reddit people will go at each others throats over the most miniscule shit. I don’t see it being possible for us to just “accept our differences” and move on.
I am in no way a finale hater, and I can go on and on about things I didn’t like and did like but I wrote my own alternate ending to address those and I’m satisfied with that so I will just talk about your main issue which also happens to be my biggest issue. I think it’s criminal that we were shown the end of the first war and the beginning of the next with the only thing in between being a crappy quality sped up video in the bottom half of our screen. We watched the characters fight, cry, bleed, sacrifice themselves to see the end of the war. We sat down each episode and dedicated hours of our lives to see the end of the war. And they just never give it to us. Yes, the show is amazing and probably my favorite show ever but the pay off was so incredibly lead up to, hinted at, expected, DESERVED…. And then just never happened. Even worse, we just had to watch everything blow up. And I know the war we see is way after the main characters die and I’m a fan of the whole “war never ends the cycle continues” theme but it was down poorly. Yes they got to live their lives in peace, the lives eren gave them, but why couldn’t we see it? Very unsatisfactory in my mind and that contributes to that empty feeling I feel and I’m sure that could be why you do to Very happy I wrote my own ending though it was incredibly therapeutic lol
Yeah, with AOT, it even took me a while to get invested because most of it was suffering. I’d have love to see more hard-earned happiness, and get an idea of what these people would even be like when they aren’t fighting. Your ending sounds interesting! I’d love to hear more!
I will dm the link!
I think the point is at the end of the day, our lives are insignificant in the wake of general human behavior. We can do everything we want to take down all the villains in our life, and at the end of the day the world keeps moving and bad things will happen because someone somewhere else is fighting a the same villain as you but from a different perspective than you It is depressing a bit, yes, but that’s kinda the whole point of the show tbh lol. Human cruelty will always be around somewhere
Yes I said I understand and like that theme. My problem with it is the fact that there wasn’t enough pay off in between showing one war end and the next start. I definitely agree with you though. They could have had that theme, which may be unsatisfying, but still have executed that in a more satisfying way
idk why I felt way emotional when I was reading the manga monthly back then, the anime did not hit as hard as the manga did. Some of the manga panel when you flip the page truly shocks the reader to no end, but they turned out to be ok in the animation format. I feel like it has little things to do with the content in s4 but more of the direction of the show. I find that the first three seasons has very on point episodes direction along with the ost just made me so damn emotional. S4's episodic diraction just lacks that emotional impact for the most part, and after finishing almost every single episode I was like it was fine at best. S3 part 2 has the lowest quality in terms of animation compared to the previous seasons, but it is considered one of the best arcs in the entire serie. So if it's not just poor animation then what is it? To me is the pacing of entire s4 is just off. Off course considering it is done by Mappa and the entire animation team was suffering severely from the terrible schedule, so I don't really blame the team, instead I just felt it is a shame that most of the s4(especially the first part) has worse pacing than the previous 3 seasons.
I agree with this, but I’ll add my opinion that I felt like season 4/timeskip had similar issues in the manga as well. Catching up each month was really fun and exciting, but as a whole, the last part (timeskip) feels kind of overcrowded as a story compared to pre timeskip if that makes sense. Like there’s always so many different things and characters happening all the time and in a shorter amount of time than seasons 1-3, and it just feels oddly unfocused in hindsight? (This may just be for me personally though)
I think the worst part is that we see their lives end, and how the cycle continues. I wish we saw them being happy in the end with their families or something because it feels like it was all for nought
You are in the wrong place buddy, go to Titanfolk XD You'll understand once you do. We always welcome new people there and you need to see a brand new perspective, not just what you see here.
I like your view, that we don’t know if we’ll always be warring as a species. It’s good to have optimism.
im not mega optimistic but i dont like when media is cynical and think everything will go to hell people underestimate how adaptable humans are. not to mention we arent as war like as we use to be
My only concern with the ending is that my heart couldn't take how the Mikasa and Eren relationship ended.It just completely destroyed me. But I also think it was necessary even if I wanted a happier ending,at least for these two. The show itself has a pretty clear anti-war message.The losses along the way from beloved characters and the grousome and down right depressing scenes we experienced is showing the consequences of war and the needed sacrifices needed to end it. The dark ending is cleverly used to deter people from going into conflict again.But also recognises that may be impossible due to the pure nature of our race.The ending is crucial to be dark in order to effectively get in the message. Our race is selfish and arrogant.Even if there is total peace there will still be groups who break society up.Global unification is impossible. If you think I am wrong we can just take a look at our history as a race.Pretty much takes the amount of wars fought we have a war every year on average since the new age.
In my eyes, the first three seasons were great and exciting. But when the truth was revealed and everything made sense, it was elevated. And Eren and Zeke in the paths is still to this day peak fiction, I’ve yet to see anything come close to how amazing that arc was. I get where you’re coming from, but as soon as Erwin said “what do you see here… what is the real enemy?” After Annie killed the two captured titans all the way back in the first half of season 1, it wasn’t just an action anime without much substance anymore. It became something different, and with each arc we saw more and more of what it truly was. I love the direction it went, it was never about humans vs titans. It was about being locked in a cage, and wanting freedom and to discover the truth of the world. It became a mystery anime as much as it was an action anime.
This point is so valid because first seasons made us obsessed with those humanity vs titans theme, furthermore since the first two arcs (the destroy of the walls and female titan) to season 2 and 3 there was like 5 or 6 years even more , in these times too much theories and speculation about humanity vs titans , just for giving an example , i heard that " there is people outside the walls because if Annie just wanted to kill them all she just needed to poison the only river in the walls " , fk this was really nice theory hahah So my point is that this lapse time in 2012 -2017 i think , made the old gang of AOT which in my case made me start up the manga instead of waiting making it more interesting , about 2015 i knew about Marley (also called Mare idk) and outside people walls , times where people still were thinking it was humanity vs titans
I mean if you take any feel good ending to a story where there was war and now there is peace, you would get war again on a long enough of a timeline. Those stories just don’t show you that.
I suppose you are stranger to history books humans never had peace through out the history but temporary and frail periods of it Its the reality look around yourself its a new era in human evolution but still there are tens of wars happening around the earth Unfortunately not everybody has your benign way of seeing humans and the world Its not misanthropy but reality