Board Thread:Manga/@comment-27321453-20180708204808/@comment-27125793-20180709185546

I think trying to look at Attack on Titan as if it's a story of good guys vs bad guys, heroes vs villains, or good vs evil is a mistake and a fallacious course of action. Like Eren himself said, everywhere, people are just people, with their own motivations and reasons for doing the things they do. In the eyes of the world, Eren is the bad guy who stole the power of the Founding Titan, ending the vow renouncing war and now has the ability to trample everything to dust, and even he himself agrees that the view is a reasonable one. In reality, good and evil, and therefore heroes and villains, are a matter of perspective and hold no objective, all-encompassing value.

I personally think Gabi is an interesting character; not necessarily likable as a person, but a nuanced, multifaceted character still, and I can understand her motivations, even if I don't agree with them. But even as I say that, it's easy for me to disagree in the first place when, one, I am an adult and, two, as a reader, I got to see Paradis' perspective of things. Gabi is just a twelve-year-old girl who's suffered discrimination throughout her life, gave her best to end it all, and then had her hopes, accomplishments, and several of her dear friends trampled on in a manner of minutes, and EVERYBODY expects her to handle the reasonably vindictive and hateful emotions she's experiencing with all the maturity of a hermit. Let's not look at Falco, alright? Kids with his level of empathy and understanding are rare.

Zeke being a restorationist all along is, in my opinion, a unique twist. I'd always expected him to have turned against Marley sometime between the Paradis Island Operation and Mid-east War, but to have been a spy all along... now, that caught me off guard. Honestly, these last few chapters have been quite interesting to me, I really like the exposition. A lot of readers expect the things to go the classical shonen manga way with action every second chapter and a great final battle between the ultimate good guy vs the ultimate bad guy, a battle ordained by fate itself. Please allow me a moment so I can go puke.

...

Okay, I'm back. One of the things I personally really like about AoT is how atypical it is compared to other shonen when it comes to the sort of plot and messages it sends. I like it because it's different. Besides, let's not forget that Isayama himself said he decided the whole plot way in advance, and that it's only the intricacies he fleshes out as he draws and writes, so Mikasa being Hizuru royalty and Zeke being a restorationist were decisions he made a long way back.

OK, getting a bit off topic here. What I ultimately mean is, Isayama clearly tries to show that heroes and villains are dependent on personal views rather than some non-existent objective set of standards, in which each side is composed of human beings with their own personal reasons, their own personal histories and experiences, and their personal justifications. This is no better expressed than through the characters of Eren and Falco, who have both pretty much said the same thing.