Board Thread:Manga/@comment-27321453-20200308161511/@comment-4383890-20200310033400

Neetaku wrote: Penguinluver1431 wrote: I don't pretend the people outside the Walls don't exist. I just don't care about them. We started the series with the Paradis Eldians before we even knew what an Eldian or a Paradis was. It's only fair that we support their wellbeing, and the Rumbling is the only way to do that.

Maybe you're new here, but I give zero shits about [and have zero empathy for] the Warriors or anyone outside the Walls. They've done too much to be forgiven or even remotely likable. And that was true even before the basement reveal; I was glad when Bertolt died. Hell, I CHEERED when he got what he deserved, and I've been hoping to Ymir that Reiner and Annie (and as of 105, Gabi) will get the same. Wait, but we also started this series with Bertolt, Annie and Reiner. By your logic, doesn't that mean that it's only fair that we support their wellbeing? Technically you're right in that we started with them as well. But then they were revealed to be the Titans behind all the tragedy and chaos that ruined  Eren's life. Whatever love and respect I had for them turned into pure hatred. And that hasn't changed with their "tragic" backstories revealed. So what if they were 'brainwashed' and 'child soldiers'? Boo hoo, the SC had tragic backstories too, didn't make them evil little shits.

Ironically, though, I like Zeke as a villain. I just wish they stuck with the psychopathic conductor of chaos who just wanted to watch the world burn, a la Joker, rather than make him into yet another misunderstood victim. What Eren did to Liberio was no better than what RBA did to Shiganshina. He killed dozens, if not hundreds of civilians who had nothing to do with the Paradis-Marleyan conflict. And before you say that they are evil for not standing up to Marley, let me remind you that they are all being kept in prison camps under the watch of armed guards. There's nothing they can do.

So, that being said, I can just parrot everything you just said about RBA back against Eren. He is responsible for all of the tragedy and chaos which will surely ruin the lives of many Liberio survivors (short as those lives may be if Eren gets his way). That doesn't change because of his "tragic" backstory. So what if his mother was killed in front of him? Boo hoo, the Warriors had tragic backstories too, and they're not trying to commit genocide on a global scale. But if the Warriors had not killed hundreds of thousands, including Eren's mom, he never would have been driven to go to such extremenes. Not that Hange or Armin ended up being much help; those spineless cowards absolutely refused to make the hard choices needed to protect Paradis from it's enemies. Ever hear the phrase "Mercy is weakness, strength is truth"? Had Hange or Armin shown some semblance of strength, they could have wiped out Marley without interfering with the rest of the world's affairs, thus giving everyone on the island the exact freedom Eren has been fighting for.

And @TKGriffiths I should probably clarify that in general I am not against war stories or morally ambigious characters. But first of all, those characters have to be compelling, which the Warriors are not, they are completely unsympathetic to me. Secondly, the key element of Attack on Titan is...well, Titans. Take that away and it becomes another generic war story that we see in so many other forms of media. I can't tell you how many people I know, doesn't matter if they're anime-only or read the manga, who watched the basement reveal, learned the truth of the outside world, and ended up losing interest in the remainder of the series. Not all, of course, but plenty enough. A lot of people disliked the genre shift and the fact that we were suddenly supposed to view the Warriors as protagonists and were forced to go through nearly a year with only their perspective and hear nothing about the 104th. It's not an unpopular opinion.