i never paid enough attention to this until i suddenly remembered the scene when griffith tried to raise his sword, but the sword symbolism and how it represents the casca x guts x griffith relationship and how it developed through the golden age arc and how griffith lost casca’s admiration and devotion??? i mean
Literally no one on the site ever remembers/makes mention of this. You all have collective Undertaker amnesia. I think that’s now Number 1 on my Unhappy List.
It’s right in Chapter 60. He let the Bizarre Dolls go after the humans on the ship just to see how many die on each side. And then he’s all thrilled that an iceberg popped up and made matters worse.
Great way to entertain ones’ self.
UT has charmed you all so much you can’t even remember the nasty atrocious stuff he’s done.
@into–the–abyss, I’m sorry, I had to conceal the previous reblogs because it was becoming extremely long, I hope you don’t mind.
First though, here’s a disclaimer to clarify something that you said: Undertaker is indeed one of my favorite characters because I find him complex and interesting. However, I do like Sebastian’s character very much as well and no, I don’t know about you or other bloggers, but I don’t “defend” characters I enjoy.
My only interest in all of this is to present my take on both their characters, based on how I interpret what I read about them and their dynamic in canon, and (not necessarily for this debate but) to possibly help people avoid mischaracterizing them when it’s really too blatant a contradiction with canon.
That’s why I was a bit mad a few days past that you’d consider that everyone who liked UT’s character was biased about him, because I really don’t think that we all are. Of course it’s subjective so I can understand you not believing me, but please know that I’m striving on being impartial whenever I discuss series. 🙂
About Seb & souls
Here’s what was precisely said:
but considering what I said in my previous post, I’m still thinking that it’s possible it might be meant as a luxury in the sense that they’re always hungry for souls, because it will only satiate their hunger for a short time whenever they eat (and deceiving humans before getting their soul is the reason they exist), but this hunger won’t lead them to get weak and die/stop existing.
And even then if you don’t agree on the idea, it’s completely fine, but I still stand by my opinion that our!Ciel’s contract was/is in no way an immediate necessity for Seb because he initially left the choice to Ciel and anyway, it was confirmed he ate the twin’s soul literally just before offering the contract (and it’s been 4 years since then).
In other words, I don’t think Seb deserves to win (again, to use your words) because I don’t think his survival is linked to him eating Ciel’s soul or not. In fact, I feel it’s a bit too dichotomic to just pit the characters against each other and gauge who deserves to get their agenda validated.
It’s just more complex than that IMO and actually that’s why I like Ciel being at the center of Seb’s and UT’s different goals, because overall it’s him living or dying (something that he has a decisional power over, even if it doesn’t seem so clear to even him so far IMO) that will decide who between Seb and UT wins.
About the current arc
I won’t expand because it’s all on my blog and probably not something you wish to discuss in details, but ch108 is just hard to take at face value. Obviously it tells us that UT is involved in this arc, but how and to what point, it’s not so certain (at least to me) for different reasons so far.
I’ll leave it at that though because in itself it doesn’t change much about UT’s (or Seb’s) characterization for the reason I explained in my previous post (namely that if UT’s indeed the responsible party behind this arc, whether it is partially or entirely, then he most likely fucked up because he’s not above that).
About UT
Again, I’ll try not to ramble, because it’s one of these things that appear easy to catch on when you look at what Sensei implied about his character’s agenda up until now, but it’s just from my own opinion as always.
So to quote myself: “it is most likely the results of him having a fucked up existence overall, which led to desperation and to him acting terribly” and, maybe I should have precised from the get go, but I include his obvious enjoyment of (frankly) horrible events as a part of “him acting terribly”.
I do think that the mad scientist vibe was a façade too, just like the eccentric creepy mortician was at least partially an act, that is until ch105 when it was implied that he apparently had a real reason to have said the following:
because the Phantomhive family (and thus Ciel’s survival) appears to really (emotionally) matter to him (and even if the reason behind that is simple selfishness, it’s at least one motivation behind his agenda).
Human vs Demon for their origin on the aspect of Seb vs UT just dictates that UT’s past led him to become what he is now (it’s not to be seen as an excuse but as an explanation/ascertainment), while Seb is the way he is because it’s his nature, so as I said in my previous reblog, comparing them on this doesn’t really lead to anything relevant in my opinion. It’s regarding their agenda however that a comparison can be made, because I agree with UT that the only thing that sets them apart is their goal towards Ciel.
Overall my point is: referring to UT as a chaotic character is not wrong per se, because he is really going by his own rules, however I think some of his motivations are defined and were hinted at before in the story (which isn’t always the case with chaotic characters). Tragic or not however, I think we will have to decide once we know more about his past, because UT will probably remain a mysterious character until then.
As for him being desperate, this is again just my opinion but he deserted 50 years ago. Granted that we don’t know what he was up to all this time, I find it odd that he’d start going on several insane rampages after Vincent’s death, the contract and the Queen being up to shady plans (when we know he doesn’t really like her), for the timing to be a coincidence.
Maybe I should have just said that, since he probably has nothing left to lose besides Ciel’s soul to Seb, it’s possibly the reason he’s going all out now, especially if he’s after something in particular where the Queen is concerned. I may be wrong but it’s just that I doubt he used to constantly go to such extreme for his goals, which is why I tend to qualify this as him possibly being desperate.
Look, I’m not saying that the fandom doesn’t have UT-apologists, because clearly some exist and I also agree that Yana-sensei’s writing has its issues in sometimes being vague, but so far I like the Seb => Ciel <= UT plot dynamic.
Finally about UT during the twins’ captivity: I really think you are being slightly unfair yes, haha, if just because there are so many things we still don’t know about that one month => we don’t know how Tanaka managed to escape the (possibly already burning) manor and reach the hospital while still alive, we don’t know what Frances did during that one month, so I think it’s natural that whatever UT was up to is still unknown for now.
Personally I don’t doubt that UT, Frances, Alexis and possibly Klaus and Diedrich really tried to locate the twins by any means possible since their bodies weren’t found in the burnt manor, but the culprits were probably clever enough not to leave any clue. But we’ll see that for sure when it’s going to be addressed. Finally…
about Seb and Ciel
Rest assured, I do not think either that Seb “raised Ciel to be evil”, precisely because of ch14 that you mentioned and his little exchange with Frances. In fact I don’t think that Ciel is evil, but that’s another debate.
However, while Seb certainly taught Ciel important things in order for him to learn about the world he was evolving in and to fit in, I do think that he’s one to enjoy watching Ciel occasionally suffer, if just because that’s how he “cultivates” Ciel’s soul.
Seb sees humans as insects, I hope you don’t disagree on that, but that doesn’t stop him from being interested in how they think and how they act, thus it makes sense that he’d enjoy his “butler game” with Ciel too and that he’d support him/give him advice, while still enjoying whenever Ciel is damning his soul more and more.
There, I didn’t address everything, but I think it should cover most of what our initial disagreement seemed to have been based on. Obviously you don’t have to answer (publicly or privately), but I certainly did appreciate knowing the full depth over just your initial answer to that first Anon. :))
Hey! most likely because it’s a follow on from this moment
Amon knows Hide’s perspective and what it feels like to have someone you care about think you’re dead. Whatever his reasoning, Hide hasn’t been able to confront Kaneki and let him know he was alive, similarly to Amon with Akira. So I guess it was most appropriate for him to be the one as a call back to these moments and to make readers think back on this scene. It explains why Kaneki, on top of the guilt that he’d feel for what he did to Hide, would feel frightened at the news that his best friend has literally come back from the dead.
Also, Amon needed to make up for not telling Kaneki back then :’)
Is anyone else curious as to why Porco was able to pinpoint Levi and Mikasa as Ackerman’s the very second he laid eyes on them? Was he able to deduce their clan blood due to their skill in combat and strength or is there some kind of defining physical feature? Maybe it has something to do with him being a titan shifter and the the Ackerman’s being “byproducts of titan science”? Can they just sense it somehow?
I am more than open for discussion on this topic because it wasn’t just Porco. Zeke knew they were Ackerman’s too. Which, for Mikasa would make sense due to Reiner and Bertoldt knowing her surname. However, they didn’t know Levi’s. How did Zeke – without a shadow of a doubt – know Levi was an Ackerman without needing the proof of hearing his surname?
Maybe that’s exactly how it is. The shifters may be able to sense the Ackerman people as some sort of threat or have a hunch / feeling that they’re not a common human.
Don’t forget about the “Rogue” Titan attacking Mikasa twice in the Trost arc, when Eren lost control of his titan. That detail always seemed strange to me, because he kind of attacked her the way he was attacking the pure titans when he first transformed… but she was “just a human”? And on his very first transformation he was always ignoring people and just went on a rampage against the titans.
Just to add to this, in chapter 69 Uri knew that Kenny was an Ackerman without being told. And the panel where Annie called Mikasa a beast was another strange one.
After Zeke states that Eren is not his enemy in front of Pieck and Porco, the next panel shows their reaction:
That bubble speech, positioned right there, from my point of view seems to indicate that he just declared both of them and/or Marleyas his enemies instead in a kinda subtle?? way. Not Levi.
As some other people pointed out, the way Zeke dramatically falls after Levi cut him is not believable at all. There’s not even damage in his legs for him to fall like that, unless Levi straight-out cut him in half inside of his Titan or something for him to fall face first?
Then Levi just drops the bomb on the Beast Titan’s nape and leaves like buh-bye!
Too easy-peasy, right?
What I guess, in a complete speculative mode, is that Zeke could be wearing a 3DMG and flew the hell out of there before Levi dropped the bomb or even a bit before Levi cut his nape, for his titan to fall down like a puppet. All of this while Levi was aware (IF they’re working together in spite of everything).
The other possibility is that he escaped a few moments before Levi dropped the bomb. Now, if he’s still inside the nape, he could have used the hardening ability (if he got the upgrade) to protect his human body or he just got kinda screwed inside there but he’s still alive.
Whatever happened, we still need to know all the zekerets.
He was clearly waiting for Levi to get there and cut him apart. I know it may seem unrealistic at first, but it just so happens so suddenly that Zeke doesn’t even try to resist? Also, Isayama didn’t even draw some monologue of him inside his nape, screaming and so on. There is clearly something up with him. I think the plan was for Levi to cut him out and get him away from there, while they put up a play where he is actually on Marley’s side. He just… went down way too quickly for me to think this was a legitimate battle, despite Levi’s face expression. Afterwards though, if he was really trying to kill Zeke he could have just cut him out of there and ended him on the spot instead of risking the bomb not going through/killing him properly. The bomb was most likely a distraction so that the people watching (Falco, Gabi, Magath) would not realize what happens.
Plus, when he says “Come on out, Levi. Time is running.” There is this panel of Levi with the watch:
Glad
you asked. It’s a narrative structure used in a lot of epics (the Iliad and
Odyssey, Paradise Lost) and modern classics as well. Harry Potter and
Star Wars employ it, as do maaaany books of the Bible (no I didn’t take several entire classes in chiastic structure when I was in college why do you ask; hi Professor B I
hope I’m making you proud rn). It basically refers to a paralleling
structure, wherein events or motifs parallel
other events and motifs, forming a chiasm if you were to chart it out. (It’s also
referred to as ring structure.)
Here’s my handy dandy chart for TG’s structure:
I’m
using arcs as dividing points and this is reeeeeally simplified but I’m
going to discuss the motifs used in each arc and how they parallel each other. This is not to say the arcs only parallel each other in this
sense; for example the first six arcs of both TG and :re parallel each other really
eerily well, and of course the Fool’s Journey is a structure of its own, but I’m specifically describing the chiastic structure layout (which is also present) so I’m
sticking to that in this meta.
Let’s start in the middle. The Torso
investigation Arc and the Auction Arc. Notably, these arcs are about the
Qs, and they’re about Sasaki struggling to fit in with his new “family”
and yet being perpetually reminded of his family back in Anteiku. We
have Touka appearing to Kaneki at the end of the Torso investigation as the
Nutcracker investigation picks up, and we have Hinami appearing to save
him at the end of the Auction Arc.
Both of these arcs tell Kaneki he
belongs in two worlds. With the Qs family and with ghouls, and that
humans and ghouls are not so easily separated into good and back, black and white. We see this when Saiko, the one who is ostensibly human, chooses to not save Kaneki from Takizawa, but Hinami on
the other hand chooses to save him (both Saiko & Hina are coded as
children of Kaneki).
The Anteiku Raid and the Rose Arc.
Gee, look how the most tragic arcs in the mangas–the arcs in which we
see the most deaths (or fakeout deaths) of characters we love–parallel
each other and how Kaneki’s confronted with how badly he just wants to be loved the entire time.
They also represent Kaneki losing his sense of security--in
the Rose Arc when he gets his memories back and in the Anteiku Raid when
he loses his memories. Tsukiyama also wants to save Kaneki in both of
these arcs.
midnight-in-town 