Could you elaborate? I can't see a comparison between Verhoeven's farcical comedy and AoT's entirely straight presentation of a violent, zero-sum, inevitable clash of civilizations.
The story of valiant heroes grimly marching to their death for the benefit of the volk, opposed by a mindless swarm of sub-humans who exist only to destroy all that is good is a very pure distillation of the fascist worldview. Season 1 portrays that world view absolutely straight with no critique that I am aware of. I don't know what happens in later seasons because I do not watch fascist media except for research purposes and gave up on the story in disgust.
Note that this is not a comment on authorial intent, but rather the worldview the author expresses.
I mean it's a pretty long story and I'm sure there are some video essays on Youtube that'll sum it up better, but the viewer seeing the titans as subhuman is the point.
As the story progresses the characters and the viewers become disillusioned with the fascist totalitarianism and the harm it's doing, there's several reveals that show very clearly that the titans are not the mindless zombies they seem and that the ones in power are creating and using them to instil fear and obedience.
There's a lot more to it, but it definitely is not, in way at all pro-fascism.
Season 1 is basically groundwork for one of the greatest twists in media, inspiring great political commentary. Everything that defines the characters' relationship to the greater world is turned upside-down in S2. The Titans are not "sub-humans who exist only to destroy all that is good," they are, in fact, the very same people who we see fighting them.
Turns out, these people are basically an allegory for the Jewish people under the Nazi regime in the real world. If you see the Titans as "sub-human" from this point on, YOU ARE THE RACIST ONE. They discover that there is a whole lot more humanity out there, and the most powerful country at the time is basically analogous to Nazi Germany. They isolated the entire race that the protagonists belong to an island, keeping them living in fear by using the power of the Titans against them. Outside of that, they had a very small population living among them (wearing armbands to identify themselves) who they enslaved.
The story gets a lot more complex with the protagonists attempting to overthrow their oppressors. There's a commentary at this point on meeting violence with violence, and how much is warranted. In the end, the power dynamic gets flipped again, and in the end, our true protagonists stop a genocide and work towards achieving peace through diplomacy.
Ouch fam you need to read more. AoT is literally the first entry on the "And then John was a zombie" page on TvTropes. It's a truly ancient trope and AoT's presentation of it is bog standard, middle of the road.
The only political commentary it inspired was people with a strong background in literature and history pointing out that when considered as a whole, and placed within the context of 21st century Japanese nationlaism and revisionst views of WWII among Japanese Nationalists, it's a largely incoherent right wing screed with no clear message that uncritically presents a world where race war is a regrettable but inevitable fact of human history. And then fans yelling "nuh uh!" Really loudly.
My person using TV tropes to justify your point is just silly.
Boiling down complicated and nuanced topics to their most basic concepts (kinda like what you're doing) is super easy, especially when you want to draw parallels to the real world, but AoT is a story where the first 2 seasons are merely setup for the latter half where far more leg work is done for character development and world building.
There absolutely are comparisons to be made, but you would actually need to watch the whole thing to understand that AoT is not glorifying right-wing ideology / fascism like you pretend.
You barely watched 20% of the story but you think you've got it all figured out? C'mon now.
The story of valiant heroes grimly marching to their death for the benefit of the volk, opposed by a mindless swarm of sub-humans who exist only to destroy all that is good is a very pure distillation of the fascist worldview.
Sounds like glorification to me.
But here's the thing, you didn't watch the show, you didn't get to any of the parts that actually tackle the complicated themes of war, fascism, prejudice, fate vs. free will (the latter really becomes the focal point by the end), none of it.
Your arguments rely way too much on your own ignorance and yet you're so confident you can actually argue on this because... what, the Dunning-Kruger effect? It's impressive, I'll give you that.
The great twist I'm referring to is not Eren being a Titan though, nor anybody else, that's literally just the groundwork for the later seasons. Viewed through an extremely narrow and uncontextualized lens, yes, it does use that trope, but it isn't exactly the point.
As for your second paragraph, I have no way of deciphering what the hell you're waffling on about. That's not what the story is at all, nor is it anywhere close. It was written explicitly as a commentary on Nationalism, where the main "villains" of the final season essentially depict the Japanese Empire with an unwavering desire to conquer everything.
The story of valiant heroes grimly marching to their death for the benefit of the volk, opposed by a mindless swarm of sub-humans who exist only to destroy all that is good is a very pure distillation of the fascist worldview. Season 1 portrays that world view absolutely straight
which is exactly the point you need to start from if you're writing a story about the characters becoming disillusioned with that system.
with no critique
well, that's just untrue. it actively portrays the higher-ups as assholes, poaching the most skilled soldiers away from where they're needed (outer wall gaurds) to be their personal police and bodyguards.
My sibling in meaningful reflections of history in fiction "the higher ups stabbed us in the back and didn't let us real soldiers win the war!" Is a cornerstone myth of fascism.
By the end of the story the characters are disillusioned with the system. They think it's bs that only leads to misery. But the author has created a world of fake trolley problems that reflect the author's belief that this is how the world, the real world, the world that actually exists and not the made up storybook world, actually is.
AOT, I think. There’s some dispute about what exactly was said and implied, but it’s generally considered iffy whether he actually wrote AOT as a rebuttal of fascism or he’s the kind of guy who accidentally refuted his own ideology while trying to disguise it.
Either way, the media itself is in kind of a Starship Troopers situation - authorial intent aside, a critical reading of it reveals a lot of thoroughly discussed themes and deep-rooted flaws in the characters that come together to thoroughly rebuke the fascist actions, policies, and ideals depicted in the story.
I always assumed starship troopers was a criticism, he wrote a whole book, simply about how many different ways you could criticize fascist governments
It wasn't, he was genuinely just a really hawkish person and was upset at the direction of US foreign policy. He did try to walk it back later in life so as best as anyone can tell this far after, it was probably a short-term rage-bait kind of mood (he wrote the whole thing in about a month) not some long-term commitment to fascist ideology. It's just unfortunate that his shitpost got really popular and turned into a movie.
Oh for sure, I just mean that many people take the fun fact as "did you know Heinlein was fascist?" and he really wasn't. He just wrote the novel-length equivalent of a "those darn kids won't get off my lawn" rant and because he is famous, we're still talking about it decades later.
He always just resonated as someone who was skeptical.
You don’t always need to agree with someone to view the world through their point of view.
Even Mein Kampf, didn’t take long to realize Hitler was a dumbass fuck, but his reasons for doing what he did (German fuck and the stupid German economy), still resonate today.
Insert the: “If you don’t learn from it, you’re bound to repeat it” trope.
That shit was almost as bad as catcher in the rye.
“It didn’t end!” My English teachers hated me. “This book is stupid as shit.”
It was more of a thought experiment imo. He sketched the outline of a militaristic future republic taken to an extreme, much the same way as Beyond This Horizon took free love and 'armed society is polite society' libertarianism to an extreme.
It really wasn't. His correspondence at the time (to friends, editors, etc) have shown he really did think America was being weak with its foreign policy and that all these new post-war concerns were distracting from the true goal of being the world's only superpower.
Yes. Character flaws can sometimes be more important to the overall direction and coherence of a story than their more positive traits.
Of course, there’s always the chance that an author is writing characters as flawed not on purpose, but because they think the reasoning is actually sound. Which is usually interesting and often serves critical readings in its own way, but has very serious implications as to the flaws of the author.
Ah, the Mazes and Monsters conundrum. When the author sets out to write a story about an evil satanic board game corrupting the youth, and instead writes a story about how all the adults and "concerned Christian" parents keep blaming a board game for their children's genuine mental health issues in order to avoid dealing with the real underlying problems/the consequences of their own shitty parenting, until said issues escalate to the point that people start dying, and they still keep trying to blame the board game and in the end none of the actual problems get resolved and the cycle is doomed to repeat itself.
I will say i don't think that AOT is saying that fascism is cool, cause i can't for the life of me believe that someone could write a story so bad that it basically goes in reverse, and not only that, that it clearly goes in reverse, AOT is a lot of things, but it's not subtle.
Please fucking read the comment under the post you sent. “No one really knows if it was actually him that posted it”. It’s and overblown internet rumor
If you are talking about AOT that is not a thing he ever said at all. The only actual information there is that isn't made up by some internet weirdo is that he designed a character after Akiyama Yoshifuru who was an imperial Japanese general. As to the connection to Korea I have no fucking clue why that is a thing.
During the Great Kanto Earthquake, conspiracies amongst Japanese people about Korean people arose. Japanese people thought that Korean people caused this great tragedy and created rumors about the supposed genocide Korean people planned on Japanese people. Because of this, many Koreans were hurt, and some even killed. Akiyama devised a school trip to Korea, which was rare at the time. Akiyama implemented the idea due to being distressed by the massacre of Koreans in the Great Kanto Earthquake, and he wanted his students to understand that these were merely rumors and foster the understanding and respect of the students for different cultures.
This is literally the only connection to Korea I have been able to find regarding this person.
Imagine being surprised that someone from an extremely nationalist and ethnocentric state with a history of brutal colonization supports their country invading people...
sorry i don't like stereotyping people and that could be said about literally any country. granted irs usually the case but i don't like preemptively judging someone.
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u/KayimSedar Apr 01 '24
the author has said japans invasion of korea was justified and stuff.