It's absolutely clear to any true fan of Attack On Titan what message the story is trying to send.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiVKgIxSYiw
Definitely do subscribe to Pax Tube. He's pretty much the last based channel on YouTube after Nick Fuentes got banned.
One of the many rebuttals to the accusation of "homophobia" that the Christian Right has traditionally used is "we hate the sin, but love the sinner." On its surface, this is true and valid. You can have all the homosexual feelings in the world (I myself used to struggle with them as a teenager) but as long as you don't act on them, it's not a sin. However, the usage of this phrase started to become counterproductive for several reasons.
First off, people who have homosexual urges but don't act on them are not homosexual. Many people act like they still are, but are just living in denial, or abstinence. The truth is, abstaining from not just sodomy but all forms of lust is usually a good way to become straight. That's how it worked with me- when I stopped watching porn so often, I quickly realized that I wasn't bisexual, I was just unsatisfied. Being gay is a curable condition, but even mentioning that is enough to get you banned in neocon circles.
Secondly, homophobia is not even real. The word was invented by a porn magazine called "Screw" to shame men into performing acts of sodomy on camera. I'm sure I don't need to inform you (((who))) exactly was behind this publication. The intent from the beginning was not only to portray normal people as hateful, but as mental patients. They intended for the word to be a diagnosis of mental illness. And if conservatives won't stand up and speak out that homosexuality is the real disease, (((they))) will get their wish.
And third, "hate the sin love the sinner" will never convince a liberal, because their morality is not based on actions. Their morality is based on identity. This is why there are no Honorary Marleyans and there are no Good Eldians. To them, non-Eldian identities are good and Eldian identities are bad. The act is merely an expression of identity. While this identity isn't pliable, your relationship with it as well as what place you have in society, is.
This is the morality expressed in the anime I recently finished watching called Psycho-Pass, which portrays a world in which the government has been sublimated by the "Sibyl system" a Big Brother-esque entity that keeps close tabs on the population at all times. However, unlike in 1984, the Sibyl system isn't searching for political dissenters (to a certain degree at least) it's searching for people whose psychological profile shows criminal tendencies. These people are labeled "latent criminals" and it's up to the show's protagonists, Akane Tsunemori and Shinya Kogami, to hunt them down if they refuse to submit themselves to therapy.
Kogami, a latent criminal who serves as an enforcer, essentially doing the police's dirty work, is still obsessed with a case three years ago that claimed the life of his best friend. When a killer with a similar MO appears, he learns that one man was sponsoring the perpetrators of both crimes- Shogo Makishima.
Spoilers begin here.
Makishima has evaded capture all this time because the Sibyl system has failed to judge him. Akane, equipped with a laser gun called a dominator, a weapon that will only unlock when aimed at a latent criminal, is unable to detain him because according to Sibyl, Makishima's mental state is perfectly stable. Even as he brutally murders one of Akane's friends, all she can do is watch helplessly, her dominator worth less than a nerf gun.
Makishima asks her the damning question, "what is crime?" To which Akane has no response, because in this society, crime effectively does not exist. The Sibyl system takes the logic of black nationalists demanding reparations and applies it to all of society:
"White people abused us in the past, so they need to redeem themselves now."
"People with this mental state typically committed crimes in the past, and therefore must be rehabilitated."
Leftists routinely commit sins that they rake Rightists over the coals for. Ralph Northam and Justin Trudeau wearing blackface. Antifa and BLM burning down buildings while the FBI is more worried about the Capitol Protest. White mass shooters are all Nazis, while black mass shootings are "gang violence." Trump was literally Hitler for putting kids in cages, while Biden is clearly doing it for their own good. To the Left, morality is based on your identity, not on your actions.
This is why conceding to the Left's morality is a deadly mistake. Calling them the "real racists" is a hopelessly futile endeavor, because they and the Marleyans they advocate for cannot by definition be racist. At no point in the anime does Makishima demand that Akane and her colleagues submit themselves to get therapy because "they're the real criminals." Makishima rejects their reality and states that any expression of human individuality is righteous.
Naturally we're not meant to root for him, and we shouldn't. The man's a murderer who almost poisons the entire country. But the man we are meant to root for is Kogami, who because of Makishima ultimately decides to flee the Sibyl system and become a renegade. He doesn't agree with Makishima's ultra-individualism, but he also sees no justice in judging people the way the Sibyl system does. To him, the law is meant to protect people, to serve as a code of what people should and should not do. Kogami and his colleagues, the other enforcers, have never strayed outside what most would consider a good legal code- one of the major revelations in the story is that Kogami and another enforcer named Masaoka were once detectives themselves, but became enforcers because they either got too invested in a case and learned to think like criminals (Kogami) or became too distraught by the Sibyl system, or both (Masaoka).
Another man, Kagari, was labeled a latent criminal at the age of five, permanently sealing his fate. One woman, Kunizuka, used to be an artist before she was sent to a rehabilitation facility for unknown reasons, where hardly anyone was ever released. According to Kogami, it's the same at every facility. And at the end of the first season, Akane's uptight by-the-book senior, Inspector Ginoza, follows in Kogami and Masaoka's footsteps and becomes an enforcer because of his experiences hunting down Makishima.
It's shown and implied over and over again, that this creates a social caste system in which those with control over their mental states can perform acts that others wouldn't and couldn't dream of. Since the Sibyl system has decided that free will isn't worth it, and that it deserves to be worshipped and revered as a god, the only way it can determine morality is through one's identity. And thanks to Makishima, this backfires spectacularly.
What's scary is that the Left has no such fatal flaw. They don't need a top-down authoritarian structure to dictate this morality, they can simply have the Marleyans enforce it for them, by driving it home through propaganda that Eldian = bad.
This is the reason why the Right must never cave to the Left's morality, and expose their corrupt system. If we are to convince the normies and the Good Eldians who can still be saved, we must drive home that, to the Left, it does not matter what they do, all that matters is who they are.
The Last of Us 2 was one of the many disasters that plagued 2020, due in no small part to Abby, the girl who murders Joel in cold blood with the help of her crew, before spitting on and desiccating his corpse, over Ellie's desperate pleas.
That's not a spoiler, that's all most people know about the game. Even before it came out.
Naturally, this was very divisive. I was one of many who decried Abby's character, and hated her even after learning her backstory- how Joel killed her father while saving Ellie, and how her quest for revenge led her down a path of self-destruction.
But then, I encountered a character I've discussed in earlier posts that made me reevaluate my position- Gabi, from Attack On Titan Season 4. Like Abby, she also kills a beloved character and lets revenge lead her down a path of ruin, but on closer analysis, I decided that this was the perfect way to demonstrate where Neil Druckmann went wrong with his portrayal of Abby.
First off, as a writer, you must understand that the reality of the setting is exactly how you dictate it to the reader. In this reality we've constructed, Abby is a random weirdo with a bunch of weirdo friends hanging around outside of town, and Joel is a heroic badass who saved Ellie numerous times, but has a dark history. Therefore, having Abby suddenly completely overpower Joel and straight-up murder him is shocking and repulsive. We learn later that it makes a lot of sense, both for her motivations and her personality, but the way the context is delivered to us is extremely lackluster. There's no getting around the fact that from this moment forwards, Abby is the antagonist.
If I'd been the lead writer, I would've put the scene where Abby sees Joel killing her father at the very beginning. Assuming we're still going with the dark and deconstructive angle, I would've had Abby and Ellie meet first, and have a large section where they interact and get to know each other, and thus, familiarize Abby with the audience. As a matter of fact, I would've made Abby the playable character for this half of the game, instead of the latter half. We establish that her motivation is to kill Joel from the beginning, leading up to the scene where she ultimately gets her wish. It would also make a lot more sense narratively; Joel would trust Abby because Ellie trusts her, instead of just telling his name to a whole pack of strangers like an idiot.
Now, Ellie's mission to hunt down Abby is far more dramatic. Not only because she was betrayed by a friend, but because we also actually sympathize with Abby and actively played a role in helping her kill Joel.
However, I think there's a way to save this whole mess even if you changed nothing up until the point where Joel gets killed. Instead of playing as Abby, Ellie goes investigating, and finds out Abby's past herself. She confronts Abby at multiple times during the game, and learns something new each time. She eventually figures out that Joel killed Abby's father, and all of this is what leads her to spare Abby's life. Abby becomes a sort of mystery to unravel, slowly but surely unwinding Ellie's motivation. I think you would have to drop the Seraphites in this version as too much extra baggage, but oh well.
Now, this first approach of establishing motivations before killing off the crucial character is the route they take with Gabi. We begin Season 4 in the middle of a pitched battle in a years-long war, with one of the main characters almost dying immediately. Gabi and her friends have been forced to participate in this conflict because of the brainwashing they've been subjected to all their lives. Gabi actually uses the skills the Marleyans have taught her to trick the enemy into letting her be, allowing her to derail a train with a cluster of grenades.
Several episodes pass with us seeing the entire situation in Marley- the ghettos, the propaganda, and the self-hatred the Eldians have. When Eren attacks the internment zone, and a massively destructive battle follows, it makes perfect sense that Gabi should be after revenge. We see Sasha kill two guards who were trying to protect Gabi, and thus she chases after Eren and the airship even though she thinks it's pointless.
Sasha's death is sudden, but it's not out of nowhere like Joel's was. Gabi has already been set up as a tragic character, and not only that, the scene makes narrative sense. She takes the Eldians by surprise by using a dead soldier's ODM gear, and gets one shot off before she's swarmed.
The following episodes are also better than the following scenes in the game. We actually get to develop Gabi's character further, while the game instead has to go back and explain her entire character retroactively. And while we haven't seen the end of Gabi or the show yet, I doubt we're going to have a scene where the main characters forgive her for no reason. No one's seeking revenge on her, but she is still an enemy combatant.
Update as of Episode 13: While it looks rather like my prediction was disproven by Sasha's father refusing to kill Gabi, unlike Ellie he has very valid reasons on why he's not killing Gabi, and why he won't let Niccolo do so either. First off, she's still a scared little girl. Secondly, he understands perfectly well the role his daughter played in the conflict, and what she must have inflicted on Gabi. And third, his desire for peace and to break the cycle of violence doesn't violate anything about his character or motivations. In fact, for the kind of man he is, I think it makes perfect sense.
To drive this home even further, Kaya tries to attack Gabi with a knife herself, letting us know that Gabi isn't a Mary Sue, and that she's not so easily forgiven like some other anime villains. She still has to earn redemption, unlike Abby who gets to ride off into the sea.
And one more minor difference: Abby is built like a damn body-builder in the middle of the apocalypse. Gabi is part of an oppressed minority, and appropriately looks like a mildly underfed child soldier. Character design matters.
Last of Us 2 is what happens when you put social justice over making a good game. The only truly good video game that did the anti-violence message well was Undertale. You cannot tell the player that violence is wrong if the only way to complete the game is violence. But that's an article for another day.
God bless y'all and have a nice day!
I enjoyed another extremely based episode of Attack On Titan today, where we actually see a flashback to season 2, back when Sasha fought a titan with a bow and arrow to save a little girl whose mother got eaten.
This little girl we learn, eventually came to work on Sasha's parents' farm. Apparently her name is Kaya. Four years later, she discovers our resident Good Eldian (Gabi actually refers to herself as this in the episode!) and Falco making their escape from prison, determined to find Zeke and demand an explanation for his apparent betrayal. Or at least, Gabi is. Falco is still just trying to keep her out of trouble, and in this episode, fails miserably.
I'm not a misogynist like I was when I was younger, but honestly? Men, if a woman is acting this self-destructive, stop playing Captain Save-a-Ho. I know that Gabi is literally a dark version of Eren, and that Falco plays the same role as Mikasa did, but real life is not an anime.
No matter how badly I wish it was.
Anyways, Kaya figures it out pretty fast that Falco and Gabi are lying about their identities (Falco introduces them as Ben and Mia respectively) and gets into a heated argument with Gabi over the Eldians' guilt in previous centuries. Gabi becomes so angry that she tries to stab Kaya with a pitchfork, and Kaya still covers for her so no one suspects anything.
She takes Gabi to the same spot Sasha found her in all the way back in season 2, unable to do anything as she watched her mother be devoured by a titan, due to the fact that her legs didn't work. Even after she describes in vivid gory detail how her mother eventually gave up and died before the titan came after them, Gabi still insists that all Eldians deserve it due to all the atrocities they committed in days past. Kaya provides no other argument other than "what do I or my family have to do with any of that?"
Eventually, Gabi gives up when Falco interjects, admitting to Kaya that neither she nor her mother did anything wrong, and that they were caught up in a pre-offensive leading up to the invasion of Paradis.
Now here's where I interject. I'm sure Gabi will see some character development later on, and eventually realize she was wrong, leading either to an epiphany or a tragedy, but once again I remind you that we don't live in the world of stories. Kaya needs to use this argument to drive the point home to Gabi. But in real life, people like this rarely change their views.
A large part of it is that social justice becomes these people's whole identity. It's not that they entirely define themselves by their politics (though some do) it's that their way of life is inextricably bound to social justice activism. Take for instance, the Jewish author Robin DiAngelo, writer of the best-seller "White Fragility", the most rage-inducing anti-White propaganda ever put to paper. If you hear about it being taught in your local school or library, take action immediately.
Anyhow, even if she were the kind of person that accepts reasoned arguments that alter her philosophy (which she explicitly states in the book she isn't) nothing you ever said or did to her could convince her that Whites have a right to promote their own interests. This is because anti-White hatred isn't just her ideology it's her entire career, it's her reputation, and it's her entire mode of being. Unless you uprooted her entire living situation, maybe by sending her to live in a ghetto or maybe South Africa, nothing will ever shake this world-view.
And even then, it's not a guarantee. Gabi clings on to her Marleyan upbringing even after coming to Paradis and seeing the things she does. There is no justifying yourself to these people. They have already classified you as less-than-human, and there is no point in altering that perception.
What Kaya should've said to Gabi is "Good."
I'm glad the Eldians did those things to the Marleyans, because they obviously deserved it, based on how they treat the Eldians now. Everything Marley has attained, they only got due to Eldian titan powers. Not only that, they became just as, if not more oppressive than Eldia ever was.
The Eldians wiped out cultures? The current Eldian living situation has shown that that was clear-cut self-defense. And it's not as if Marley is any different, seeing how we have anime's most based black man, Onyankopon, as one of their imperialized subjects.
You cannot avoid the guilt of your ancestors, so own it. Christopher Columbus did nothing wrong, and neither did any of the men who came after him. Andrew Jackson, Robert E. Lee and Huey Long were all American heroes. Your reparations are getting to live in the greatest, most tolerant, most prosperous country in the world.
Kaya and the New Eldian Empire should embrace the term "devil." And it seems like Eren and a lot of other characters are intent on doing so.
However, I remind you that Japan has a very different conception of the terms "devil" and "demon."
In real life, the true servants of the Devil are the Marleyans, and do not forget that.
As always, there are no Good Eldians, and there are no Honorary Marleyans.
Depending on how the next couple of episodes go, I'm thinking we should start calling ourselves Jaeger Loyalists.
Episode 8 of Attack On Titan is out, so go watch it before reading this spoiler-filled post.
In this episode, we learn that Gabi, one of the Warrior cadets, one of the children striving to be "Honorary Marleyans", has the ambition of proving to the world that Eldians are good people. This backfires spectacularly because of the New Eldian Empire's raid on the internment zone, killing two of her friends and massacring hundreds more, including the Marleyan top brass. Neither side doubts that this will bring the entire world down on Paradis' head.
Enraged, Gabi chases the fleeing Eldians all the way to their airship, with Falco tagging along to help her. Her hate drives her to throw away her own life by attacking a heavily-armed team of adult soldiers, similar to suicide by cop. She blames them for ruining the image she's trying to craft of the Eldians being respectful, kind, and peaceful people, that can contribute and live in harmony with the world.
While Gabi is presented as a very tragic character, being raised from birth to worship Marley and believe the lies she's told about her history, I can't help but hate her for how stupid she is. She's seen firsthand that even when her comrades are tending to the wounds of enemy combatants, they ask to be left alone so as not to be infected by the Eldians' devil blood. She has undoubtedly seen the Marleyans use her people as suicide bombers, and she was there when they forced a group of them to turn into titans, before turning them loose onto a city.
Her irritating nature is definitely intentional, and in this episode it is played for full dramatic effect. This girl is the pinnacle of Marleyan brainwashing, and Falco is the only one keeping her in check, trying to save her from inheriting the Armored Titan.
There are many people like Gabi in real life. I used to be one of them; in my post "On the Nature of Red Pills" I mention that I once tried to rehabilitate the words "White pride" by arguing that White pride and White supremacy are two different things, at my school's poetry slam. Most anti-SJW YouTubers back in the day were all about exposing the hypocrisy of calling all men sexist or calling all Whites racist because "not all Whites/men/Straight people are like that." My rationale reciting the poem was "okay, all races can live in harmony, because we can all be proud of who we are without hating each other." That's really what it boils down to- I didn't want to be hated.
Nowadays, you see it with people like the Lincoln Project and Liz Cheney. (P.S The founder of the Lincoln Project got exposed as a gay pedophile today, so make sure your male friends aren't affiliated with them). They don't want to support liberalism per se, so they try to make themselves out to be the "good Whites" by opposing those nasty Nazis. The difference between them and Honorary Marleyans is that they take the position that race doesn't matter, and that color blindness is the answer to police brutality and systemic racism. It's the classic Neocon strategy of "accept the left's morality, but quibble with their methodology."
To Gabi, all the Eldians of Paradis have to do to be seen as "good" is surrender, and hand over Eren to the rightful Marleyan rulers. She doesn't stop to consider that no one else wants to live as she does- in a ghetto, undergoing grueling training, before inheriting a titan that will shorten your lifespan down to 13 years. In fact, although she does not know it, Reiner and the other Marleyan warriors on the original mission were trying to wipe out the entire population of Paradis. Reiner explicitly tells Eren in Season 2 that his and Bertholt's goal was to make sure humanity [behind the walls] was erased.
The lesson to take from all this, is that just like there are no Honorary Marleyans, there are no Good Eldians. The only way to live is in accordance with God's will, not what other people think of you. I said it in my poem, but I never really believed it until I became truly redpilled: "I'm proud to be White, because that's the way God made me." Everyone knows that living for someone else's approval isn't healthy, but Good Eldians live for the approval of literally everyone but straight White Christian males.
However, Good Eldians and Honorary Marleyans have one crucial difference: it is possible to redpill a Good Eldian. If I made the jump, so can others.
I'm trying to think of a clever Attack On Titan reference to describe pro-Whites, but I can't think of anything yet.
God bless you and good night!
There's this show that I watch, and it's pretty popular. It's called Attack On Titan.
Spoilers ahead.
In the show there's a race of people called Eldians, whose ancestor Ymir made a pact with the devil to gain the powers of the Founding Titan- a near god-like entity who made the Eldian race the dominant superpower on the continent. For years, they conquered and colonized until one of the titans, called the Warhammer Titan, betrayed them to their enemies, the Marleyans. Marley then took over, forcing most of the Eldians to flee with their king to an island called Paradis, where he wiped their memories and built massive walls around his people. He brainwashed them into believing that humanity beyond the walls was dead, and wanted nothing more than to live in peace, despite the plight of his people.
Not satisfied with subjugating the Eldians who stayed behind, the Marleyans want to end them once and for all. So they tell the Eldians, who now live in ghettos and are forced to wear armbands, that they can become Honorary Marleyans if they volunteer their children to take on titan powers, go to Paradis, and recover the Founding Titan.
These children, like all Eldians, are raised from birth to hate their ancestors and to feel guilty for the sins of their nation's past. Even the descendants of the Warhammer Titan, who are exempt from wearing the armbands and live in decadence, believe themselves to be the spawn of devils. They're taught they deserve every bit of abuse and degradation heaped upon them because of what they are, and what their ancestors did to Marley.
Naturally, those selected for the Marleyan Warrior Program, where children are trained as soldiers and given titan powers, desperately want to succeed and earn the right to be called Marleyans, a "privilege" that extends to their families. So much so, that the main character's half-brother actually turns in his own parents, when they try to use him to infiltrate this program so he can then save Paradis instead of destroying it. (This is why you homeschool your kids instead of sending them to your local indoctrination center. Or maybe they didn't have a choice?)
Anyways, we see how grueling this program is, and how seriously it's taken by the participants. Anyone who expresses skepticism at the prospect of becoming a warrior and a titan shifter is angrily derided and mocked. No one talks about the fact that becoming a titan shifter shortens your remaining lifespan to thirteen years, after which you either pass on the power to someone else, or it's reborn into a random Eldian. No one talks about the fact that you still have to wear an armband that clarifies you're still an Eldian, just one with Marleyan privileges. Even in other countries, you're never seen as anything more than another devil-spawn. Other Eldians who join the military are used as cannon fodder, suicide bombers, and even injected with titan serum before dropping them out of airships.
When the inhabitants of Paradis finally invade Marley, they don't try to reason with these self-hating Eldians.
When you're fighting for your life, there's no time for traitors. The Marleyan Warriors made their choice, and they chose the wrong side. If being forced into a ghetto and being treated like second-class citizens isn't enough to convince them to stand up for their racial pride and their civil rights, then nothing will. They're treated just like the rest of their enemies- more food for the titan shifters that they have on their side.
Follow their example. Don't try to convert race traitors. They will never stop trying to be like the people who hate them, to be their slaves. They will learn in the end:
There are no Honorary Marleyans.
