Disclaimer; I'm never going to watch or read the rest of Attack on Titan. I think it's a gross, misanthropic story. So if I'm completely wrong about the conclusion let me know n the comments

Since "media literacy" and "How could you say my blorbo is a fascist?" are constant and inescapable on the net, I was once again drawn in to the "Is AoT fascist?" discourse.

I stopped watching AoT during the first season because it's a story of a bunch of valiant heroes grimly marching to their deaths in a war of annihilation against a teeming swarm of sub-humans who exist for no other purpose than to crush the light of civilization in an orgy of mindless violence.

Which is to say, the straightest possible portrayal of the fascist world view.

But many in the discourse argue that this isn't fair, the author clearly shows that the protagonist is the bad guy, people are dumb and media illiterate. Well, I don't want to watch four seasons of gorn just to weigh in on weird anime discourse, so let's just look at a summary of the conclusion of the story.

Let's see... minority with tainted blood who once ruled the world with an iron fist gains control over superweapons and immediately uses them to exterminate all of pure blooded humanity, even though he didn't have to, as human history is a zero-sum clash of civilizations in which there is no possible alternative but an inevitable war of annihilation between those of pure blood and those of tainted blood. Also apparently The Jews The Marleyan Royal Family secretly set the whole thing in motion.

No fascism detected! What a relief! It's a good thing the author expressed his view that racial war of annihilation is the only possible conclusion to the inevitable clash of civilizations! I was afraid he'd look directly at the camera and say "Everything that Hitler believed is correct and I have written a story reflecting that".

Like, seriously, the story starts with the Jews Eldians engaged in an auto-cannibalistic war of annihilation, and the story ends with the protagonist, once noble and heroic, revealing his true Jewish Eldian nature by annihilating humanity for basically no reason. "Eren is the bad guy!" Yeah no shit, that's exactly what the author said; The Jew cannot overcome his nature and will inevitably destroy the world no matter what. He set up a story where we sympathize with the hero, and then in the end the hero is shown to have inevitably turned in to a monster as the power of his tainted blood leads him to destroy real humans. It's Race Realism: The Motion Picture

Or maybe I'm totally wrong. idk, because I don't want to watch 40 hours of miserably nihilist murder porn written by someone who pretty obviously hates humanity.

Final thought; Isayama is Zach Snyder if Zach Snyder hated humanity.

For my next trick I will explain why Fullmetal Alchemist; Brotherhood is apologia for the crimes of Imperial Japan

Edit: I have observed that a lot of people are assessing AoT's message based on what the characters say or do. I was recently introduced to the idea of "Diegetic Essentialism", an emerging, often unconscious, belief among many people that media can only assessed within the context of the story, with the characters treated as though they were real people instead of puppets of the authors. Thus, "Isayama depicted all sides as miserable fascists" is considered important, rather than examining the world the author created and what that says about the author's beliefs about humanity and life.

Here's the post that introduced me to Diegetic Essentialism. From our buds over at /r/Sigmarxism, of course. I'd been struggling to articulate something I saw for a long time and this gave me a name for what I had seen.

https://libreddit.kavin.rocks/r/Sigmarxism/comments/11wt3kp/the_plague_of_diegetic_essentialism_or_how_i/

  • Frank [he/him, he/him]
    ·
    8 months ago

    While initially criticized as having strong fascist leanings in ideology and aesthetic, it has become clear during the final arc of the series that Attack on Titan is not a celebration of fascism but a whole-hearted criticism of it. This is mostly due to the existence of Marley, which provides an excellent foil to Paradis in that while Paradis is fascist out of a need for survival, Marley is fascist of it's own willingness. Even when arguing that Marley could be justified in keeping the Eldian population oppressed out of fear of their Titan Shifter abilities, it is shown that many Eldians actually agree with the Marleyans that the Nine Titan Powers are dangerous and should be kept in containment. This, combined with the years of socio-political oppression and xenophobic hatred towards the Eldians is actually re-igniting the race war that apparently almost destroyed the world, and many Eldians simply want to be equal to their fellow Marleyan citizens. It is also made clear many times in the narrative that the fascist tactics of both nations are only working because of their respective situations- Paradis needs to have a strong military force otherwise it will be overrun by the Titan threat, and it is shown at the end of the Uprising arc that the average populace would much prefer a monarchy or democracy rather than a fascist autocracy. Marley on the other hand is said to use the Warriors as a weapon to oppress other nations despite being oppressed more than any other by the Titan threat, repeating the mistakes of their past in a vain attempt to keep a fascist stranglehold on their nation and the surrounding ones. This, combined with how critical of warfare Attack on Titan is, shows that Isayama intends to criticize fascist ideology by showing what a permanent modern total war state would actually look like- political unrest, xenophobic segregation, and utter devastation.

    I dug this out of the depths of TvTropes and I think it's a very good example of my point; a superficial read of the story by folks without much experience in critique and analysis says that the story is anti-fascist because it shows that fascism sucks. A more experienced critic asks why the author created a story where fascism is the correct and only choice.

    • marxisthayaca [he/him,they/them]
      ·
      8 months ago

      Is fascism the correct and only choice in AoT? Are there not different ideologies at play. There are several characters whose primary goal is to stop the violence as it continues to get worse and worse.

      • Moss [they/them]
        ·
        8 months ago

        Fascism in AOT is the only effective method to keep the main characters safe. Armin and Hange supposedly spent four years in the time gap looking for a peaceful method to resolve things between Marley and Paradis and failed, and literally no one had any other ideas except for Zeke (end the Eldian race) and Eren (genocide everyone but Paradis). Armin's pacifism is presented as useless, especially in the fight at the fight in the harbour where he's unable to avoid killing his friends.

        There are no communists or even liberals in the world of AOT. Marley is a fascist nation, the Eldian resistance want to return the Eldian empire, Zeke wants to exterminate the Eldians and the Jaegerists want to kill everyone outside Paradis.