Shingeki no Kyojin: The Final Season Part 2 Episode 11 Discussion

MathMols said:
These last couple episode have made me hate every single character

X-Offender said:


Why's that?

Character limit

MathMols said:
Simply because how they act. Mikasa looks like a slave who simply does whatever Armin tells her to do. Connie and Armin are just annoying to listen to and look at.
The scene where they meet Annie again, they look at her, Connie starts laughing, she joins their group, like could it have been any worse, no one asking any questions about anything. And dont even need to explain how stupid everything is when they join their enemies.

Farabeuf said:
All nuanced discussion about content/meaning is met with a "Haterz gonna hate" mentality

X-Offender said:


Whereas I agree the episode where they meet Annie was weird in how everyone acted (I believe it's one of the most disliked chapters in the series), all your other complaints were settled in the forest episode. That was the whole point of that entire scene. Enemies gathering around a fire and confronting their opposite views.

Yelena's speech in particular was very insightful. "Save the world. Are there any words more sweet and enticing? The noble deed of saving millions whispers to your heart. You gobble it up as if to wash down the taste of hate. That's what I see looking at all of you".

So powerful. Everyone is a hypocrite. The moment goals and objectives become mutual, all the hatred and disdain of the past are instantly forgotten. Just how every other nation who had been in brutal wars with Marely immediately united when confronted with the common enemy of Paradis. All it took was Willy's enticing words, and suddenly people were crying and joining hands together.

People shit AoT because all of a sudden things shifted away from their expectations, when in reality the entire story is a direct criticism of Isayama towdars the human race. And it's done so well.

MathMols said:
I didnt like when they sat down around the fire in the forest. The enemy just say “Help save our people and the rest of the World even though we have tried to kill you all for years and even now still want to kill you, but its better that you allow us to kill you, than you kill us” and they simply agree to this and start killing their friends that they have been together with for years, simply because they talked a little with a couple people from the enemy…

I loved all the other seasons and loved most of the characters, but the way all the characters have been acting this season have made me lose the love I had for the series

Fabienne said:
Eh, where is the new episode? is this every two weeks?

Jay_C_ said:
Everyone complaining about “Connie and Mikasa killing their friends” as if that’s the problem here. Their friends are trying to commit actual omnicide, turning Paradis into a military dictatorship and trying to restore the old Eldian empire so they can subjugate anybody that they didn’t manage to kill. If people think they should still support their friends in a situation like this then they have a very childish understanding of this story. Or they have the same “it’s okay when we do it” mentality that the story is criticising. Also, unless you support genocide I don't see why anyone would be mad at them for stopping Eren, he's trying to wipe out the entire populace outside the walls! I look at it as them trying to stop greater evil for the benefit of the many rather than trying to kill all of your enemies so you and your people are the last one standing. Either way it's still a grey area and I don't think anybody is wrong in this situation no matter what they choose.

deg said:
who is this Archiel? new animator? wow https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/183590

and this one is freaking cool too https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/183580

new talented animators are stepping up

Byniavo said:
The animation was great, but holy shit the plot armour is too much this episode. Why do all the Jaegerists aim like stormtroopers? Why do the alliance members all have aimbot? The boat is massive and there's no way 2 titans can protect it against fucking rocket launchers... Keith just comes out of nowhere. There is no way the whole train would incinerate because of an explosion. Too many asspulls.

I really hope we go back to Eren's pov because the storytelling has fallen hard in these past few episodes.

Watchanime324 said:
‘hesitate, and we’ll never stop the rumbling’

this episode presents the full brutality of a conflict & the consequence of the alliance’s choice to ‘save the world’. it’s an episode centered around the actions ppl take based on opposing viewpoints, and this is highlighted by the mid-card.

‘there will always be an enemy’ is a line that points back to erwin’s words to eren that are repeated throughout the story in different ways - ‘who is the enemy?’


ultimately aot goes down the path of human nature. due to our subjective perspectives, we all create an enemy out of those we believe oppose us.
it’s the same for the alliance. to follow through on their ideals (genocide is wrong) they kill their new enemies the yeagerists. hence it’s a great detail that the most hopeful of them is sidelined after having been shot in the mouth - he literally cannot ‘talk this out’.

however, the alliance also represents something else. unlike the yeagerists who can only view the world through the portion they see, every member of the alliance has adapted their worldview to accommodate both sides of the conflict. the warriors, along with magath/gabi have now understood how twisted their perspective on the ‘island devils’ were, while those same island devils cannot go back to being ‘ignorant’ due to their own visit to liberio. they’ll fight to stop indiscriminate killing on either side of the walls because ‘we are all the same’.


this is what aot has always been. people living by their beliefs, making tough choices in a cruel world that align with their sense of morality. there is also the notion of ‘special’ people, those who do not get caught up by the ‘flow’ of life but form their own path.

this is exemplified by mikasa. she is driven by the philosophy that the world is not only cruel, but also beautiful, and fights to WIN in order to preserve that beauty. this juxtaposes bertholt who was happy to go with the ‘flow’ because he was unable to see the beauty too.


this is why mikasa would be classed as ‘special’. even when protecting eren it was always due to her own feelings which often went against what eren actually wanted, hence this episode where she fights the symbolic extension of eren (the yeagerists literally worship him) is key
this episode highlights a lot of her growth implicitly. whether that be her bond with annie, fighting ‘eren’, or the idea of not hesitating. not hesitating is about accepting the responsibility of ones beliefs and acting on them, the culmination of her arc throughout.
she is emotional, she does feel the weight of her ‘sins’ (the overt imagery of the blood ‘staining’ her as the needs to pause in the middle of the conflict). she exemplifies pushing down emotions to stand by one’s beliefs, while still understanding the full weight of that.

this idea of not hesitating is the same for jean, the culmination of his own struggle with human killing that started in uprising. he is fighting due to his own morals and idea of what being a scout truly means, just like everyone else is fighting for their own beliefs.

FLOCH
floch in his own way is doing the same, fighting for his own beliefs about the security of paradis even if that involves genocide. he leans into the ‘devil’ eren and opposes the alliance both thematically and functionally. his twisted salute(Shizou wo sasageyo) the perfect representation of this.

you can even view floch as similar to shadis when he was first a soldier. flochs was swept up by the ‘flow’ when he first became a scout but now that switches to an attempt to make a personal impact - ‘I will be the one to save eldia’. its these things that make him interesting

Keith and Magath
the conversation between magath and shadis spells out the underlying message aot is trying to send. these are both commanders of their respective sides who grew past their own conceit to accept the true reality of their actions and try to grow past them.

shadis believed he was an average person, a bystander who could do nothing but go with the flow. that’s why it’s important that annie plays a part in what ends up moving him, as she aligned with that same philosophy. in his conclusion, he shows that anybody can be special

no matter how we perceive ourselves. his original goal was tainted by the need for validation, he had to be SEEN as special. hence in his conclusion he plays a role that no one will ever actually know of - emphasized by the irony of magaths line (no one knows he’s here).

true validation can never come from others, it has to be something we find within ourselves. magath refused to pat himself on the back due to his failings, but understanding his true feelings allows him to end his life by doing something he wholeheartedly believes in.

he found value in his bonds with the warriors, and while it was too late, it presents a route that could’ve made him happy had he realized it sooner. a route that could’ve made him ‘free’. he had warped his own conscious to justify his actions and now feels the full weight of it
the last part is their names. we have a couple of examples in the rumbling arc (eg gabi & kaya), where a resolution between characters ends up with them calling each other by their real names. this is very important because names above all represent personal identity.

in a world where the other side is generalised (‘island devils’, ‘mainland’) this personal identity is key. each individual on each side has a right to live, each name is valuable and each life is different. you cannot group everyone as an enemy or the cycle is only perpetuated.

they may never know those names but they DO exist. magath and shadis recognize each other as people, they find common ground and they show a way past the barriers of ones birthplace - albeit too late.

another brilliant episode with a layered commentary on the human condition

SoryaKen said:
the characters didn’t really felt to play their own selves. everyone keep playing out of character

SoryaKen said:
But to kill your life-long friends like Mikasa did (cutting them half and then blowing them away like in a cheap B action movie) is completely ridiculous.

.

KneelBeforeMe said:
it's a shame that there's absolutely 0 tension during the fights. The outcome is evident when the yeagerists are all treated like fodder and written to have 0 personality. They can't even manage to hurt or kill a single person during all that chaos. But I guess we're suppose to be hyped and cheer for Mikasa slaughtering them and going over the top when she's executing them while Marley's theme is playing in the background? Nonsense.

Floch is the true MVP. Having to deal with incompetent followers while fighting against plot armored super humans.

Meritas said:
This basically, the episode was painful to watch, I can't remember the last time I saw so much plot armour anywhere, not just in AOT.

Floch had colossal rocks when it counted, and I respect him for that, despite how much of a shithead he really is. If you think about where he started from, it's just highly unlikely that there wasn't a single other jaegarist that could put as much fight as him, if not more, when push comes to shove.


On a different note, why did Sadis have to die? There was 0 point in him being on the ship at the time of explosion. Isayama is trying to wrap this up in an epic fashion all-around, but most of this action comes off as cheap compared to the grounded style we are used to in AOT.

Zprotu said:
Shadis' character arc had finished then and there. I don't think there is a better moment for him to die. Who cares if Isayama is trying to wrap it up in an epic fashion? Its enjoyable. Also, it being cheap is not true at all.

Meritas said:
Why does he have to die after his arc has finished? I doesn't make any sense narratively or otherwise imo.