WHY ATTACK ON TITAN’S ENDING IS SHIT 1/4

AoT’s manga chapter 139 will forever live in infamy, and turned what could have been a GOATed story into a flawed mess at best. And sadly, the anime adaptation refused to fix its biggest problems.

For starters, we got the “Lelouch Ending”, which was always going to be the worst, most uninspired way to wrap up the story – when the majority of your readership sees it coming from lightyears away, because they just don’t believe you have the balls make your protagonist the villain, it’s hardly this great, shocking twist. And while I really like Code Geass, ripping off its ending is hardly worthy of the kind of story Attack on Titan aspired to be.

Does the Lelouch route even make sense for AoT, in-universe? I mean, I don’t for a second think it would actually work in the real world, but was there justification for it working in the AoT world? Well, we know that in the manga, Teen Eren and Dot Pixis actually discussed something of the kind, and dismissed is as naïve/stupid. Everything we’ve seen in AoT indicates that even when facing an existential threat, humanity *won’t* really be able to unite – all the conflicts on Paradis Island (including MULTIPLE military coups), as well as the war between Marley and the other countries well aware of the threat posed by the Paradis “devils” proves that. If humanity won’t truly unite in the face of such active threats, why on earth would it unite AFTER the danger has passed? And why on earth would the surviving countries forgive Paradis because of the Alliance supposedly defeating Eren, when 1) the Alliance members are all considered Traitors to and Enemies of Paradis Island, 2) Paradis now has a fascist Jaegerist government and most people there openly supported Eren’s genocide and 3), even if Eren was eventually stopped, he still KILLED 80% OF THE OUTSIDE WORLD!

See, this is what really gets me. A Lelouch Ending for AoT was always gonna suck, but this is a particularly RETARDED way to go about it. Killing some people, including innocents, to convince everyone that you’re a villain, sure, that’s how the plan works, flawed as it is. But 80%? I hate to break it to you, but that’s Genocide, and a pretty comprehensive one at that. If you view Eren’s plan as “working”, that 100% makes AoT’s ending pro-genocide. Don’t even try to deny it – if Hitler had killed 80% of all Jews, and the result had been a Thousand Year Reich of peace and prosperity, that would have been a W for Genocide no matter how you slice it. More realistically of course, all you will have achieved by the 80% Plan is leaving enough of your Enemies alive that all the deaths and sacrifices will all ultimately have been. By trying to have it both ways, you ended up with the worst possible outcome. For fuck’s sake, Zeke’s euthanasia plan of Partial Rumbling plus taking away the ability of Eldians to have kids wasn’t great, but it was way better than this shit!

Of course, personally I’m not really a fan of the “take a 3rd option” cop out whenever characters are faced with a Sadistic Choice – I think the character being forced to make that terrible choice, defend it and then live with the consequences, makes for far more compelling drama, and might actually contain some valid real world lessons. AoT went out of its way to establish that Yes, the only choice is between letting the outside world destroy Paradis, or Paradis destroying the outside world with the Rumbling. Hange never tried denying that by Saving The World, they were Dooming Paradis. And after all that, it STILL ended with a total cop out. Keep in mind, the cop out was the Lelouch Ending – an Alliance Victory ending, followed by Paradis being destroyed would have been far better in terms of writing, if still unsatisfying and less than ideal. Camp of the Saints ended up with the author cucking out on dealing with the Invaders (which he openly admits to doing, he was open about not daring to go through with his original ending), but by making the consequences of that choice clear, the lesson nonetheless becomes a very powerful one.

What the hell is the lesson of AoT at the end of the day? War is hell, history repeats? Nothing really matters, just live for the little things? A genocide ending wouldn’t necessarily be pro-genocide (it all would depend on how it was handled), but it would still mean the story had something worthwhile to say: Never back someone into a corner and give him no way out except to kill or be killed (ESPECIALLY when he has world-ending powers). Or how about this: If the cycle of hate and revenge is allowed to endure, eventually the only way to end it will be for one side or the other to be completely eradicated. Just a couple of my own reads on the Genocide Ending (Akatsuki no Requiem), without even going into the truly spicy White Nationalist interpretations. I personally consider those lessons/messages far more interesting and original than what we actually ended up with.