Lets talk about "Attack on Titan"



Let’s just ask, all of you people reading this whether you have watched this show or not. Now, this is my personal opinion that every single person that I could reach out to (not saying 7 billion people on the planet, I wish they all did) should watch it. Also, I desire schools to make kids watch it.
 
Yeah! I would seriously say so. Now, why?
 
“Attack on Titan,” I think covers personality building, critical thinking, and literally every aspect of life. Now one thing I would like to say the reason I mentioned personality is because it greatly concerns some big things inside you, some of which are empathy and compassion (not the way that your cool or most admired entrepreneurs, celebrities, speakers, NGOs, etc. like to represent).
 
Empathy and compassion are two really strong things that decide what type of human you are, so if they are more in your personality you appear very different to others, and if they are less in your personality you again appear different to others. So, even this is a violent show, I don’t know what can we say about that but I think after 15 years of age people can and should watch the show.
 
Let us start simply by understanding How the human brain works or I must say how the human thinks? What is our thinking about the expectation of watching a show/cinema/fiction of any type?
 
“Oh! Let’s watch that movie suggested? Oh! Not that, but the other one that is on the top list of charts”
 
I have consumed a lot of films/content, But still, I fail to point out to a single film/show/content which reflected or represented the very idea about, what the true state of the human condition and human intelligence actually is, other than “attack on titan”. Maybe or definitely, I would have missed some great pieces of art, But no other show than “Attack on titan” communicated the very idea.
 
“Some people may stop here and say: ‘Taxidriver! you don’t know? JOKER! you’re missing this”
 
I would say, But still, you are not convinced by the IDEA in those shows that you can permanently change your thinking perspective and say to yourself that maybe I will start communication with myself and challenge my thinking and points of view.
 
“OK, you may definitely have watched JOKER, but 4 months, 4 years, and you forgot and it did not change your thinking permanently, challenged ideas, and didn’t start a deep conversation with yourself”
 
I have not stopped thinking about the idea in “Attack on Titan” and also have not failed to watch it again and again to rethink. Now I have to clarify that I have watched a crazy number of shows, able to analyze them, But the certification that I use to grade them is by How many times am I unintentionally thinking about the idea? Like, it’s time to sleep and I am thinking about it and saying to myself in mind “Wow! What a great point of view it was back then”
 
This is an important marker to think when you analyze the story because there are very few films and tv shows that stay with you/me even after the end of the show. The ideas end with the ending of the show in most shows which do not make me/you think.
 
Subsequently, I consider “Attack on titan” to be the supreme, not necessarily because of a lot of memorable scenes or philosophical flashes completely, but because this show by far is not at all interested in approaching you through characters. Now it is maybe Quentin Tarantino’s style (not exactly sure) that characters embody a lot of philosophy/story through dialogues, again which is masterpiece level writing. But “Attack on titan” does something different or I should say totally opposite, it’s just the moment of the story which you and all characters in the story follow. Communication happens via story and not characters.
 
And, Do you know, what real life is? It is like you wake up in the morning, take breakfast, go to work and get the task that you are not aware of and live with that task while doing it and live with the consequences of that task too. And they are not the results of your decisions, this happens actually in real life. Real-life that you and I are living is not led by something/someone. You follow the Life, the flow, the live realizations. And realizations do not come in dialogues, they come in actions as consequences. It means when you wake up and go to the office, you got the task to work that day, before that none of it was your decision, It was you following the flow and getting your task is a live “action as a consequence” moment of realization.
 
In “Attack on titan” all characters fucking all of them live those lessons/moments. That’s why for me it is another level of storytelling because they are all living just as we live and none of them is above the narrative of Life that is happening to them in their present state. They are all captives of their little situations and all keep fighting, where even the central character is deeply flawed. But what choice does he have? Because from his point of view, is there anything possible?
 
Now, there are things that I can explain this to you either through the philosophical point of view, other is writing (Which is what I am doing right now). But honestly answer this, How many people actually read on this planet?
 
There is no abundance of great artists/Books in the world that can open our minds in creativity, thinking, nuances, etc. but what’s the use if the number of readers is like nothing but decent. There is no communication happening.
 
“Attack on Titan” to me is one of the greatest pieces of storytelling which moves away from the point of view of entertainment, but it is actually about the human condition. And that is the point, It betrays.
 
Now I am not here to debate but if you are someone trying to compare “Attack on Titan” with “Game of Thrones”, “Game of Thrones” is not that great in my honest opinion. I mean you saw (if you have watched) what ruckus the creators of “Game of Thrones” did in trying to attempt to betray (not Betrayal in the story, but betray in the sense of breaking expectation with winning our mind over themselves)
 
Because again all the other shows do not change your perception permanently or way of thinking. Most of the time lot of shows and their ideas end with the show itself, they do not remain with you. (Show over, thinking over with the show)
 
But this show “Attack on Titan” has made a dent in (I don’t know about your life, but my personally) in the field of “How to Think” because our brain already has shaped itself before it tries to consume any form of fiction/film/show. Because you always know they always show a little good and little bad characters, right and wrong, binary descriptions. There are also selected patterns in storytelling that exist and occur in most of the stories.
 
Watch Kurt Vonnegut’s analysis of the pattern of stories in the given link ( https://youtu.be/j9Qsiu8qqvA
 ).
 
Believe me, this show will break all expectation binaries, patterns, groups, good over the bad theme, all of them. It breaks all monomyth.
 
Also, tomorrow (9th January 2022) the last part of “Attack on Titan” will be released. If you have already watched the previous parts, enjoy it. If you have not, I am not forcing my ideas, but just, in my opinion, my personal opinion, people should watch.

Comments

  1. Very critical thought provoking piece.

    Your writing is seems to be more mature than previous year's posts.

    ReplyDelete

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