Thank you for sharing your opinion!

I pretty much agree word for word with what you said, I’ll just add a small comment:

you claim that it was his father, Grisha, who set him up for everything that’s to come, then it’s no longer Eren’s own making

Wasn’t it the opposite, though? Eren used Attack Titan time travel shenanigans to force Grisha’s hand and kickstart the whole quest. He also made Dina ignore Bertolt at the wall because he needed him alive for later (probably so Armin would eventually become the Colossal).

Another small criticism I have with the ending is that, in true japanese storymaking fashion, a lot of important motivations and plot details are left unexplained, as you said. So ok, Eren goes Lelouch and genocides 80% of humanity to make it so the survivors had to work together against him, uniting them in the process. Ok, sure. But then he just gets stopped and is like, “alright, good luck with the world now, I did my part”? He doesn’t properly explain his motivations to Armin and the others, I feel, in an adequate manner to help them cope with what happen and deal with what’s to come. The final chapter was very much, as you put it, focused on the emotions of the moment and not so much on the implications and consequences.

Additionally, I feel like Isayama wasted a perfect opportunity for an aesop about racial relationships. Not that that would make the story bad, stories don’t need an aesop to be good (although it helps, as you said, if they relate to some fundamental aspect of real life and can serve as a teachable experience), and certainly not one about such a contentious subject nowadays that could land him in trouble if done the wrong way, but I feel like the obvious plot point was kind of missed here. So, Eren dies and all titans cease to exist. Great! Muller is still suspicious of the Eldians he was just pointing guns at not long ago, as expected, and Armin talks him down by saying that Eldians no longer have the power of the titans. This is great, people are getting along, although I feel like it’s a bit of a cop out. So Eldians are accepted in society now… because they’re the same as everyone else?

I feel like a much better ending would have been if the power of the titans hadn’t disappeared and, still, Eldians were accepted despite of who they are, because of what they did to stop the end of known civilization. I feel like the Armin vs Muller scene was even set up beautifully to be a parallel to that time when Armin argued against the paranoid Garrison captain whose name I don’t remember, back in Trost, when Eren had to partially transform to shield him and Mikasa from the cannon. In that case, despite Eren being a titan, Armin managed to use his superior intellect to convince the rest of “humanity” that they could be a benefit, and not a detriment, to them.

The anime stopped on chapter 116, also titled Above and Below.

That’s a really good one.

Update: Episode 73 will be broadcasted along with Episode 74 next Sunday (21/03). Both discussion posts will be opened then.

That is a good point. Ultimately, it’s there for the people who feel passionate about it and want to express something.

I’ve been trying to keep up on recent chapters and episodes of Attack on Titan on !shingekinokyojin@lemmy.ml by basically cross-posting the discussion threads and leaks from Reddit, where the community is very active and well organized. Unfortunately, I don’t exactly produce art/other content myself and I haven’t thought up of other ways to spark discussions as of yet. In hindsight, making a community for an anime series which is almost at the end is probably not the wisest decision I’ve made, but here I go, with some shameless self-promo.

Kio okazas al la babilejo? Mi nun trovis tiu afiŝo kaj provis eliĝi, sed ne povis. Mi vidas ke la afiŝo estas malnova, ĉu tio eble signifas ke la babilejo ne plu disponeblas?

deleted by creator

Hmmm, I’m torn about this. Obviously what they said is way over the line, but should we really be “moderate” and give excuses for China? I mean, they still are a dictatorship with horrendous mass-surveilance and human rights practices, which is committing, at this moment, a cultural genocide and which is gaining progressively more leeway in the global economy and geopolitical panorama. If anything I only disagree with their methods because they would target innocent civilians, who are the primary victims of said government, rather than the government itself as much as possible.