Slightly off-topic, but a few things have suddenly just occurred to me in regard to an anime original ending. Specifically, the one that AnR fans seem to be clamoring for.
The ending they want is still terrible.
Let's just completely disregard Eren for right now. He genocides the entire world, including his friends, and gets to live out the rest of his life with Historia and their kid, but it's okay because he's depressed and suffers from PTSD and guilt, and shit. We all know that part. Let's ignore it for now.
What about Historia? How does she feel about this?
How does Historia, the girl who after being deprived a family, and her own history decided to devote her life to helping others not go through the same thing she did, feel about having millions of people and millions of people die by the very hands of the same person who killed her family?
Not only that, how does she feel about that person also killing all her friends?
How about that person also being the father of her child and also sticking around to raise them?
Is she just okay with it? How? Does she just not care?
Don't get me wrong here. I know that in canon, Historia didn't seem to give a fuck about the genociding considering she didn't tell a damn person about it, or at least was stupid enough to think it was the only way, but I can't wrap my head around the idea that if she and Eren were romantically involved that she would want a damn thing to do with him afterwards.
Even if she dropped the ball on the genocide thing, Historia isn't some cold-hearted bitch who wanted to see people get hurt. She cares about her friends. She cares about people in general. She built the first orphanage. She helps the poor. She helps her people. She has standards.
If canon!Historia was in AnR, she would murder Eren herself the moment he came back, or at the very least, never let him anywhere near her, or their kid. She'd be wracked with guilt the rest of her life. It would destroy her worse than it would Eren.
My point is that in AnR either Historia is just as big of a psychopath as Eren or is nothing more than a brainless trophy with no purpose other than to serve him.
You know.
Just like Mikasa.
Okay, but let's say Historia is also really bummed out about this shit, and stuff, too. She wanted to stop it, but just couldn't. Okay then. What about their kid?
Eren and Historia's child gets to live with their genocidal, psychopathic, depressed father, and their either also psychopathic, or just plain ineffectual mother on a farm in the middle of nowhere with no outside interaction from anyone because everyone is dead, and the outside world is a barren wasteland full nothing but ash, smoke, and corpses.
What if the kid has that same natural drive for exploration like Eren has?
Well shit, kiddo, daddy destroyed everything so there's nothing to see. There's no knew people to meet. No knew things to discover. Nothing.
You're stuck in a gilded cage with your monstrous, miserable parents for the rest of your life.
So much for fucking living.
This isn't even to mention if the kid ever asks about what the fuck actually happened. Are they gonna explain it to them? How is that gonna go over? I mentioned Historia feeling horrible but imagine how the kid would feel.
Imagine your dad destroying the entire world because he's a psychopathic dumbass and that your mom kept him around because she's also a psychopathic dumbass. Imagine them robbing you of your life because of their stupidity, and how your mother should be able to relate to that, but just doesn't for some reason.
Now imagine people trying paint your parents' actions as a good thing, and a romantic thing, and how they're the perfect couple who are more than morally justified to raise despite all evidence to the contrary.
What I'm trying to say is that even in their ideal world, this is still not a happy ending, and I have to ask, is that the point?
Because if so, why does everyone, including the writers of AnR, treat it like it is?
Is their idea of a happy ending Eren genociding everyone, completely destroying all other cultures, and any record of their histories, absolutely annihilating the ecosystem, and most animal species, allegedly being completely torn up with guilt and depression for the rest of his life, and living with his equally depressed, or just fucking uncaring wife, and their kid on an empty farm by themselves? With nothing else to do, or see, or anyone to meet?
Or does all that not matter because Eren "won" in the end and got the "correct" waifu?
I really wanna know because the more I think about this ending, and AnR in general, the more obvious it is that its writers and fans have not thought about more than anything outside of "Chadren wins and gets to make babies with Aryan waifu" when it comes to this story.
All of which just makes the fact that they claimed that AnR is actually canon and is going to change the industry even fucking more hysterical.