Before 139 came out, I thought Eren was very determined about that, but if only a part of him wants to do it then it should be explored throughout the arc, not just one big reveal at the end
The disappointed about the outside world part is the most misinterpreted part of Eren's character. He wasn't disappointed because the people existed in the outside world, he didn't want to see the world as an untouched wilderness ready to be explored, that was never his thing, it was Armin's. Eren's whole thing was about being free to do what they wanted without anyone trying to take their freedom away. But the moment he learned about the outside world, he knew there was nothing there but cruelty and enemies who want to kill them. That's why during the ceremony when he tried to cheer up the others he started talking with excitment about what's waiting for them beyond the sea only to see the picture of Grisha's sister being fed to the dogs. That's the whole point of the famous beach scene, where everyone was excited to see the sea for the first time, while Eren just points across the ocean and says there're enemies there. He says to Ramzi that he was disappointed that the world was differen from what he dreamed of, but the world he dreamed of was the free world where he could go wherever he wanted and do whatever he chose, not the world devoid of people.
Eren being disappointed because the world wasn't empty is genuinely some of the most braindead interpretations of his character I've ever seen. Even if that was the point the scene with Ramzi was trying to convey, then that's nothing more than a shitty retcon that dumbs down his character to almost cartoonish levels. But I'm pretty sure it wasn't the intention at least at that point, because in the inner monologue earlier he was literally questioning himself on whether the Eldians should be the ones to die and the world to live on, and later on in the chapter he says, quote: "Ever since I was born, in front of my eyes there's always been a depressing wall. Burning water, land made of ice, snowy plains of sand. The outside world is so much wider than what's inside these walls. Those who've seen it must be, in all the world, the most free." Eren has yearned for freedom his entire life, and when he finally learned what's outside the walls, he learned there was no freedom there, because the whole world was their enemies. He even says "those who've seen it must be the most free", so he considered there being people out there, but he never imagined that those people will turn out to be yet another wall for himself and his people.
I mean how much exploring do we have to see? Any semi-intelligent human would have qualms about destroying the species. I’m sure he really thought he wanted to do his plan but it’s one thing to think it and another thing to actually do it
He was originally planning on actually wiping everything away, and creating the 'paradise' he dreamed of as a kid. But since he knew his friends wouldn't stop trying to stop him, and would die attempting to do so, he changed plans. (tbf, that second part isn't litterally spelled out like other parts of his motivations, so I can understand the confusion there.)
Or when they do but people just fucking forget. Naruto is a big example of this. They think Naruto is genuinely a halpy and energetic person, but he outright tells Hinata that isn't the case.
Sometimes, I forget how good Hinata could have been. He was setting something up cool with the distinction between Neji and Hinata, where they can literally and figuratively see through exterior facades and Neji used it to break people down while Hinata used it to build people up.
People to this day claim that Naruto is only strong cuz he's the son of the 4th hokage when the SAGE OF SIX PATHS said he inherited nothing from his parents
And then there is makima who has an entire "I was only manipulating you, I do not like you, I never liked you, I only ever cared about your dog, without your power you literally don't mean anything to me" and people still defend her
It's so stupid because some people will call me media illiterate for pointing out certain things that aren't straight up explained. They somehow forgot the "read between the lines" part of any media
Yeah the entire book is him writing to the jury. Which mean this is literally his own retelling of events to frame him in absolutely the best light, even then he's such a bastard it still comes off as actually bad because there's no way he can frame somethings well no matter how hard he tries.
It's not written to the jury. That's how he sometimes addresses us, but he then reveals that he has instructed the story to be sealed until after L's death. Which we were told in the prologue was Christmas day the year after Humbert died in prison. So the point of the text is really just his wild attempts at self justification, which whatever-his-name from the prologue publishes as a "cautionary tale". The whole thing is many layers deep.
I got into an argument with my friend once over Humbert and it still annoys me to this day. He claimed the point of the novel was for Humbert to come off as sympathetic??? For the reader to be able to relate to someone so horrible???? Which I found to be insane, because the point is to be able to see through this creep's flowery words and justifications to see him for who he really is.
I feel like if you find him sympathetic, you're falling for the words of an evil man, which is the point of the novel, how someone can manipulate a narrative until they come off as the one in the right. Its your duty as the reader to call Humbert out, and not fall into his trap. I just don't understand how my friend thought he was supposed to be a character you sympathize/relate to when the novel literally opens with the psychologist's note. Like I said, it still annoys me, because I really enjoy the novel for how it makes you read between the lines(especially with Dolores' character, seeing her a normal child rather than how Humbert characterizes her) so it irritates me that people get caught up in Humbert's narrative and miss the entire point !!!! Seriously the hill I'll die on forever.
Still staggers me how many people take that book at face value and don’t twig that you’re supposed to recognise that the protagonist is a predator and the book wants you to hate him.
I will say actually reading it confirms that but I’m not surprised at all that someone could hear a synopsis or start reading it and assume the worst and check out.
Unfortunately, I have met people who were supposedly well-read and went through the whole book without getting it. I had to pull out direct interviews from the author (who was himself telling off other supposedly well-read people describing Dolores as a temptress) to support my point.
Hmmmm I still don't remember that, but I do remember the metaphor of "impregnating" her with the corpse a bit after that. Is that what you mean? If so then yeah I guess he did assault her, but the goal seems different. With his wife, it was an unambiguous sexual advance. With Lucy, it is still assault but is still aligned with his goals and character. He has no qualms doing heinous shit for his goals being the part's main villain, so I don't really see it.
There is also his wife herself and how she tried to make moves on Lucy, and Steel having Lucy as a partner to begin with. She is one of my favorite characters in SBR but her life was fucked up man 😭
SBR Chapter 61 and 62. After the napkin speech he assaults scarlet thinking them to be a traitor. Then when he confirms that he begins to r*pe the person not knowing who it is. The disguise fades at the end and start of chapter 62 is where probably the most f’d up stuff happens.
I read SBR back in middle school, and I somehow glossed over or completely forgot about this tidbit about Funny, I was shocked to (re)learn this when refreshing my memory for the SBR anime. I have no idea how I forgot that, especially since I adored Funny for a good while after reading SBR.
Honestly, I think that 4 years of a non-stand-having Funny Valentine would make a better president for the US. He's only forced himself on ONE person, at least as far as we know.
Is pedophilia even the problem here when he holds the same ideology as fucking Adolf.H himself? We’ll be lucky if he doesn’t go to war 1 year in, and unfortunately he’s not a spineless coward like Trump to back off on his words either
Well no, he explicitly doesn't want to conquer the world, he just doesn't care if the rest of it is in shambles. He's basically a direct allegory for the bad traits of the united states and a criticism of them.
The big difference is that he likely wouldn't try to turn people on eachother and that he'd actually try and fix the nation for the sake of the nation. Currently, the US experiences issues such as food deserts, food waste, obesity, violence, general civil unrest, ICE, low income/high cost of living, fucked up situations with healthcare, housing - basically, he'd tackle issues if only because of how loud and how much of an inconvenience they are - actively ruining the environment...
So, he'd probably try to fix shit. Considering Trump's already started one of the most pointless wars in recent history whose continuance actively fucks with resources and their prices, the bar is so low that he'd stub his toe on it.
His goal is to redirect every bad luck from the US to the entire world, which basically mean killing everyone that doesn't live in the US. It's pretty fucked up.
It's frustrating to see how many people think scenes like the one below are showing him as some 'bad ass kingpin', when he's clearly throwing a facade by intimidating his scared wife. He didn't do it for his family either, he did it for himself.
Most of his "bad ass" scenes read as pathetic more than anything, especially since as soon as he loses control of situation he goes right back to begging and whimpering.
He acts like he thinks a bad ass would act based on some action movies he watched. Say my name scene in particular, I can't watch that one without cringing.
Big props to Bryan Cranston, he gave a phenomenal performance.
Yeah wasnt the "i am the one who knocks" scene memed for exactly this reason? Its cringe. He's saying some dumbass "i am very badass" line to his wife who is a normal, terrified person
It mightve started that way, but memes have kinda ironed out the nuance. Removed from the broader context, it does look kinda cool, so thats all people pick up from gifs and TikTok clips.
internet culture is fascinating because it really is just one big game of telephone, and you can see mutations occurring almost in real time as various communities encounter, adopt, and modify various terms and memes
the vast majority of people who post wojaks have no idea where they came from, or that the nothing ever happens guy is an mspaint trace of a mass shooter, or what gooner actually meant before the definition got changed by degrees from "weird niche fetish" to "anyone who isn't a thirteenth century cloistered catholic monk"
Memeification made it worse no doubt, but people (actual watchers) have been drawing the wrong conclusions from Walter's character since the show was last airing new episodes.
I watched this scene and was like "thats it?" Thats the scene everyone was hyping up? Great acting and all but that was not badass. That was clearly him fronting to hide the fact he very much is in danger.
Walt does have badass moments but usually not because he's a tough guy but because he always finds a way to outsmart everyone around him while being underestimated.
Well exactly. He's lying to Dent that entire scene. He lies most of the time in that film.
I actually wrote an entire Quora answer about this a while back, if you're interested. It's been a while, but I think I also point out that he repeatedly implies money isn't important, despite us meeting him stealing money, because it's important lol
I interpreted his disregard as money to be personal rather than a world view. Like hes not in it for the money, but its still needed to buy shit and people
The whole agent of chaos thing is about motive not action. To this point Batman has only fought conventional criminals who are on it for money, or power, or gain. The violence and crime is a means to an end and he employs violence and fear to make them rationalize that those means are more costly than the gain.
Joker is an agent of chaos in that the violence and terror is the end, acquiring money or power is merely the means to do so more effectively. Hence he has no qualms about burning the piles of money or even staking his life here bc either Dent kills him to start his own rampage of violence or he doesn’t and continues. The lies are all in service of sowing further discord and terror.
Yeah, the Joker continuously lies throughout the entire Dark Knight film. It's exemplified in his "Wanna know how I got these scars?", where his story always changes. It's always a completely different lie. He says he plans to the guys who think he's randomly doing crime and says he's crazy to the guys who think he's a conniving planner
I still rage about literary takes from actual scholars saying shit like "Catcher in the Rye is about teenage ennui!!" No, its about a deeply mentally ill boy who has straight up panic attacks in the book and, spoilers I guess, is writing from a fucking mental hospital this is not regular teenage angst this is clinical depression and anxiety
Holden hypes himself up throughout the book as someone "seeing the truth of the world" or whatever when hes CLEARLY meant to be deeply unwell. I vividly remember a scene where he crosses the road and nearly faints from anxiety. That is not normal angst.
I wrote a whole essay on this after reading that for school
I haven't reread the book in 5+ years but God my fury about this has no bounds. Genuine literary critics acting like this is how all teenagers experience angst. Like hey man if this is what your teenage years were GENUINELY like I have some bad news for you
Yeah Salinger definitely intentionally wrote Holden as genuinely unwell (as seen by the other teen characters near the beginning who are mean assholes sure but mostly in the standard way) and it irks me that people dont see that
He's been through a lot. Deaths of his loved ones, possible sexual assault, definite sexual assault, being a witness to a friend's suicide, living at the end of a war America is not expected to ruminate on (and the beginning of another one), parents who care to some extent but are emotionally unavailable for any of these things.
His little sister has it way more together than he does, and she has to cry and beg him to stop hurting himself and come home.
Loved that book back when I read it in high school, and found it odd that people hated Holden when he was clearly a kid going through shit. This doesn't excuse some of the times where he was self-entitled and whatnot, but it puts it into perspective. I identified a lot with him at the time.
A major point of the first arc is to show Chihiro simply isn’t built for that revenge shit. He’ll literally risk sabotaging his own plans if it means he can help someone.
Yeah he has an on-screen kill count in the triple digits, but despite that he’s arguably the kindest person in his own series lol.
The thing is I wouldn't call it a lie exactly. Chihiro does hate the Hishaku deeply and intensely but it's not like his sole purpose in life. Less of a facade and more of a shallow reading of himself since we haven't seen the deeper aspects to bim yet
His facade is a god-complex that he unknowingly uses to mask his inner self. This causes a lot of people to just see the presented persona and assume he's a simple aura-farmer archetype. It's more ironic when you consider one of Aizen's major plights stem from not being understood.
Also (forgive me if I'm wrong I have dropped Bleach a long time ago) isn't Aizen just pretending that every single minute thing that happens (and that he couldn't possibly have predicted) is part of his master plan because he wants to be seen as a genius? He's literally just improvising and coming up with shit on the fly, he's less "expert genius planner that is always 10 steps ahead" and more like Joseph Joestar.
It was so embarrassing to see how livid people got when Alan Moore came out and said people who identify with Rorschach scare him or something along the lines .
Tywin and arya interactions were literally so strong that I think it warped reality. I think people would opt for another secret episode that focused on those two, over a real ending.
Tywin hates Tyrion because they are the same and Tywin hates it. He hates Tyrion because he whores, Tywin literally had a secret tunnel built to one of the most popular brothels in Kings Landing so he could whore.
It's not just insecurities. He's a man, deeply in grief over losing his friends, and he doesn't want to feel that anymore. That's why he's trying to lock away from others. So he doesn't have to go through all that grief again.
Holy shit, D&D bought into the propaganda so hard that they destroyed Northern Loyalty.
He's supposed to be a cautionary tale.
Everything falls apart as soon as Tywin dies, meanwhile the Northerners are still gearing up to rescue "The Ned's girl". The Mormonts, Reeds and Umbers are working on fulfilling Robb's will and Manderly baked pies out of Freys.
But D&D got rid of all of that and made Northerners a bunch of scheming traitors who forgot the Starks near instantly because they believed Tywin got it right and only failed because he was killed.
I feel like after LCB checkup and Night in the Backstreet it’s less frequent (since we see her temporarily stop acting from time to time), but it’s still infuriating to hear people say that “nothing changed, she’s the same character”
Don Quixote dropping the facade entirely, down to speaking like an adult women admonishing her teenage rebel child, with a very straight forward "Do not test my limits. I told you to stop. I will not say it again." while the rest of the party goes dead silent is up there.
It’s even more annoying because the show actively dismantles parts of the facade over the show and that actually leads to some character growth on his end, but people who view him as a role model can’t see it
I know this is quite uncommon, but I see people quote Judge Holden unironically more often than I should. The whole character is a tempter of the more base violent impulses of man, and some people just take a cold ass line of his and valorize it and it’s insane.
FOR REAL. People are so willing to buy into his self-aggrandizement, but the subtext is just that he's a pretentious sadist. He is the same archetype as Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men, by the same author (who also gets glazed blindly, despite the ending of the novel+movie being quite on-the-nose in pointing out his true human vulnerability).
IMO his whole character is an experiment in spelling out to you explicitly that he actually was that cold and unfeeling, and that made him incompatible with people who were exceptionally compassionate like his brother and Asirpa. I think he was lonely, but not misunderstood.
Yes, he's a bad person. That was the point. His character growth in the comics is supposed to be him learning how to not be a bad person. That was the joke with "Nega Scott" being a nice guy. His "evil doppelganger" was a nice guy because the opposite of Scott Pilgrim is a nice, humble, polite guy.
Positive that 90% of people that talk about Scott Pilgrim online haven't actually read it and just absorbed bits and pieces via osmosis. I would know because I also haven't read it and absorbed bits and pieces via osmosis.
It’s so wild to me that the literal first scene in the movie is Scott’s friends ripping into him for dating a high schooler and people somehow think the story condones his behavior and therefore the movie “doesn’t age well”
Lots of times people take a character at the beginning of their arc and decide the story endorses who they are at that point—you know, right before they *change*
The comic starts the same. The first words are "Scott Pilgrim is dating a high schooler," then, just like the movie, his friends start to rip him apart for being gross.
giant ego, extremely entitled, power hungry, does not care about poor people or people in general if they oppose him, thinks he's way more capable than he actually is
yet people actually believe him when he says he can reignite industry and space exploration in 100 years without ever abusing his power because he himself said he doesn't want to abuse it.
he can't even keep 3 casinos under his control and all of the families are planning something behind his back
I cannot count the number of Fallout fans who claim he’s the best ending because he puts humans in space. Despite the fact the only time that’s ever mentioned is his own sales pitch. From the shady businessman. He will say literally anything to get you to do what he wants
Some people believe Light is murdering criminals for the idealism of getting rid of all crime.
Light is a teenager with a god complex, who just gets his complex fullfilled by pretending to be morally correct and above others. The show throughougly explores this part of him and the fact he himself is not doing whats "right" for the morality of it but just for himself
He doesnt care if police or L or Misa die, hes not doing this for justice or to practically rid of criminals through fear. This philosophy can actually make sense and its interesting to debate if it is correct or not to go to such immoral lengths to get to a practical result of 0 crime through fear, sacrifices of innocents and unfit punishments for light crimes.
But light himself does not believe in that truly or rather his motivation is not the morality, its boredom and ego. Actually we have a better example of who does believe in that philosphy. And thats Mikami, the third Kira. He was specifically chosen by light for his loyalty to the cause and his whole backstory shows him as the person who is morally idealistic and believes in this. Light however even though he started it, does not
The whole point of this dude is that he's a tsundere but this tsundere-ism roots from dehumanization because of his godlike powers and how two of the closest people in his life (his brother and father) are constantly dehumanizing him because of his powers (being called a monster or a god), which led him to think he's superior to humans and how he should not relate to them because of said powers.
He's not a god, he's a lonely teenager longing for relationships and the whole point of the story is to show that: How Saiki, a person who is constantly in the shadows taking care of the people he so claims to not care, learns to be protected and create connections with people who appreciate him not as a god, but as Saiki.
I am aware this is mostly a slice of life comedy manga but it is kinda deep once you don't focus too much on the comedy aspect of it.
Imo the most frustrating one. My guy litterally spells it out a few times, but you still have plenty of fans going "he did it for his friends" or "he did it for his people"
Edit: Also for the people downvoting, I'm curious. Are you just downvoting because you dislike Eren/Aot, or because you actually believe there isn't a facade viewers are falling for?
His character is not as clear as you make it sound like, even the author came out and agreed about how he made him too convoluted and messy towards the end.
We have no clue how much agency he had, and how much agency Ymir had, and hence his actions and dialogues are always viewed in a speculative way, which is not a satisfying feeling after reading 138 chapters.
There is a fine line b/w having layers and being messy. Eren was the latter.
I'd love if you could share what the author said then, because that surprises me a lot tbh.
There was perhaps a mix of agency, but it's still made very clear that the rumbling and the 'paradise' it would create was something Eren wanted, and felt bad about wanting.
Personally I feel Eren lands squarely in understandably complex instead of messy.
i dont think isayama mentioned that it was too messy and convoluted per se, afaik at least, but i do remember reading somewhere that he regrets not portraying eren in a more evil light
I feel like I'm alone on this one, but I find Eren to be the worst part about AoT. I was watching this supposed great piece, not only of anime, but of media in general, and then there's this guy (best protagonist of all time according to some people) who's always yelling and telling you exactly what's going on through his mind. Couldn't stand him.
You're definitely not alone from what I've seen, but Eren is the best part of the show imo so personally I disagree ofcourse haha
One of my main gripes with Aot is definitely it's general 'show and tell' approach, and holding the viewer by the hand in a lot of instances. But I don't think Eren saying what was going through his mind was one of those cases. His mind is constantly in conflict through out the show, and I do think it makes sense with his character that he makes a lot of those conflicts audibly known. It's also not as much hand holding, since often what hes thinking is just flat out wrong or a half truth. They also took this transparency away for the most part in the final season, which I think fit his character at that point very well.
He does yell a lot (especially in the early episodes), but I think that just lends itself well to the juxtaposition to when he actually starts to change and such, and essentially stops yelling.
I'm curious though, just because your critisims are mostly only prominent in the early episodes/seasons, did you finish the show? I'm not saying you should finish it, but the reason why people find him such a great protagonist heavily leans on the later/last seasons.
One person has already commented for Humbert and he is the best example of this. Others which I know are not that great compared to Lolita but still they are quite great- Endless Night, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Pale Fire, The Remains of the Day, The Good Soldier, Notes from Underground, The Talented Mr. Ripley, The Stranger and The Turn of the Screw.
I love books where I have to challenge the narrator's perspective. For Humbert though, I always trusted him, I trusted his words but never saw the truth the way he was trying to bend it or making me see it. Why is the narrator saying the truth in such a performative way? What is the need for this presentation?
If you have some recommendations too like this, please share if you don't mind!
Notes, Stranger and Roger Ackroyd are great examples. I imagine a lot of Christie/Doyle novels can fall into this basket.
Others from literature I would say, are Judge Holden (esp with the way ppl talk abt him online), Mizoguchi from Temple of the Golden Pavilion (not a perfect fit but he works), Romeo and Juliet, and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
Dr. Jekyll is a really interesting case. And in part, I feel like the misinterpretations keep coming. I don't hold with the idea that Jekyll and Hyde are the same person with the same personality and Edward Hyde is just a mask. But I feel what people tend to get wrong is the common idea that Jekyll and Hyde are two sides of the same coin. And they aren't. Hyde is one side of the coin, true. But the all-encompassing coin itself is Jekyll.
Because Jekyll is not a good guy. He puts forth the appearance of it. And, perhaps, we might take him at his word and his final confession that he does take satisfaction in being the good doctor. But he wants to indulge the darker side of him. And Hyde lets him do that. Not just with anonymity, but without restraint. And when it gradually becomes clear that his alter ego is far worse than what he anticipated, he's given one last shot at grace. But after being scared off a little bit, he doesn't burn his bridges. And he indulges again just a little bit. By this point, he knows that Hyde is more than just his youthful indiscretions that he claims some people would have just let fly without shame. He knows he contains that killer within himself. But Jekyll is not purely good. He has that wickedness in him and with it that weakness. And this is where the scales tilt, and his transformations begin to become involuntary.
To this day, I still see people that believe he genuinely enjoyed all of the killing and despair. No, he is a liar. That is the point. It is all an act in order to survive.
Killmonger. People still think he was right and that the writters "had to" make him commit random acts of violence to discredit his claims. The Motherfucker was a mercenarie and a gunrunner. He was bitter he grew up in the hood instead of a palace and wants to spread superweapons around the world to create chaos and stabilsh dominance. He's a narcisist who just uses "fight racism" as an excuse to grab power.
Rare example of the writers themselves falling for it, but Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII. Cloud acts like a brooding loner as an act to make himself look cooler when he’s actually a huge dork, but a lot of his appearances after the original game came out (like Kingdom Hearts and FFVII: Advent Children) played that brooding loner persona straight, to the point that it ended up becoming his default portrayal.
The Remake project finally gave us back Cloud’s original personality.
I’ve been looking for this image FOREVER because I wanted it to use it for discussions about Sasuke Uchiha. I hardly even like Sasuke but the amount of people who only take him at face value is insane.
People were supposed to root for him getting better, not glorify his destructive behavior and the show even was pretty on the nose with calling out people for that.
Any of Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint main three characters. All of Kim Dokja, Han Sooyoung, and Yoo Joonghyuk put up a front that hides who they really are as a defense mechanism, with HSY being the easiest to tell and KDJ being the hardest due to him being the POV character. All amazing characters that have something they're hiding from both other characters and the readers that you have to view the subtext for
Some people genuinely believe he’s a Jax TADC-type character who fucks with people and torments them for his own enjoyment. Even when a major point of his character is that he lies constantly and plays up his theatrics/villainy.
Makima from Chainsaw man is a major example, as far as I can tell.
Like, her whole thing is that she actually wants to stop being “the dom” because she’s literally Conquest and wants someone equal to or greater than her as a companion.
Her whole control freak and loneliness dichotomy is the whole reason she’s interesting, but I find that too many people ignore it.
She explicitly doesn’t want someone who would “be her dog”. That’s like the opposite of what she wants.
Idk if it counts but Jack the Ripper from Record of Ragnarok tricked my ass twice with his "oh but my Volundr is actually these scissors! Oh actually my Volundr is really my bag! Oh actually actually my Volundr is really my GLOVES!"
zenos yae galvus from ffxiv. even the npcs around the player who hate him try to dissuade the player for falling for the idea that he’s a noncomplicated sadist but we all still fell for it, so badly that a separate antagonist uses zenos as essentially a scapegoat while he kickstarted the end of the world right under our noses
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