Tag: Anonymous

Do you think it’s fair to call a character like Kenny Ackerman a Psychopath or suffering from Psychopathy? He displays several of the common symptoms and wanted to become like Uri so he could feel like him.

I don’t. It’s actually kinda one of my pet peeves: people misunderstanding psychopathy or sociopathy and throwing around the term casually, without realizing that the term is outdated and is a way of spreading fear about a very real and very sad personality disorder. The medical term is antisocial personality disorder, and it’s a very complicated diagnosis to make that requires a degree on behalf of the diagnoser and interaction and observation of behaviors, all of which are impossible to make in relation to a fictional character. 

It’s different to talk about how characters are coded a certain way–for example, in Tokyo Ghoul Kaneki is clearly coded as suffering depression, and Mutsuki with a dissociative illness, and in Star Wars Kylo Ren is coded as mentally ill–but you can’t actually diagnose a character like Kenny or any of them, especially with complicated illnesses like personality disorders. I do think Kenny displays traits of such a disorder, but I wouldn’t say he’s got antisocial personality disorder. 

I also get uncomfortable because usually such fictional diagnoses are then used to condemn the character, and to condemn fans for feeling empathy for such characters, which is really quite ablest. To be diagnosed with a mental illness a patient must undergo evaluations by trained experts, and personality disorders like Antisocial Personality Disorder, are extremely complex and really need careful evaluation.  

What counts as plot holes and/or retcons? People commonly use these words to throw criticism at shows and stories but a lot of the time, they come off as being buzzwords. So how can you tell if something is one of the two and not just an unexplained part of the narrative.

So since literature is by its nature subjective, the definition thereof changes. Retcon is deliberately going back on something previously stated about the work,–like, for example, “it was all a dream” as a plot twist so that nothing that happened then matters, etc. Or for a famous example, making Luke and Leia twins in Star Wars when they were initially set up as love interests (Luke was always intended to have a twin, but it wasn’t intended to be Leia). 

A plot hole is something that an author should explain but does not, and if you think about it, the story doesn’t make sense. Like again in Star Wars (which I love and shout THE FORCE in response to because #ohwell, I don’t enjoy being critical about the OT) when Leia says she remembers her mother, but her mother died in childbirth. That’s also kind of a retcon because Padme was written after. So yeah. 

I do think people overuse the terms and not everything needs to be spoonfed to a reader/viewer, but if you’re contradicting yourself as a writer, you have to explain yourself in general, or else it’ll just come across as one of these. It is your job to help the reader connect the dots even if it’s not to hold their hand, and if the dots aren’t connecting–that’s a sign it’s one of these. 

how religious are you?

I’m pretty religious; I’ve seen some things I can’t explain and I say this as someone who works at the top science school in my country. I pray daily and attend to a Bible study where we ask questions of theology and interpret the text as literature. I’m not however really involved with an organized church or anything because I’m pretty likely to have a panic attack in one thanks to growing up in a cult, but I do help out at Sunday school once a month at a local church because it’s fun. 

I like my faith; it helps me. I like the overall story of Jesus, and the concept of life after death does matter a lot to me (I don’t believe in hell). I love the verse “God is love” and that’s what I believe. 

I’m wondering what do you think about the whole “Eren went to Marley for Historia and her baby” theory? Honestly if its confirmed that the attack on Marley is becoz of her then I’m dropping this manga. If that’s the case then I might as well go read a romance manga. I don’t mind whatever pair being canon by the end of the manga but not right now at this point in the manga. This is not shipping hate or whatever so, I don’t mind if you disagree with me :)

I have answered this multiple times! Search for it on my blog (try clicking one of the tags on this post), but in short, I agree with you and think the chances are like nonexistent. It isn’t what happened.

This is a more personal question from me, but is Reiner canonically gay? When I saw Ymir say that and Reiner accepting it was uplifting for me to see an openly gay character, but he also likes Historia, and then there’s that thing about him having split personalities. I was just wondering if they ever address that later in the manga. Bertolt was into Annie too so their thing was more brotherly.

It’s super unclear, lol. He could be bisexual. But he’s definitely not straight. 

Basically, from what my friend in Japan says, what Reiner says to Ymir is really unambiguous about him being gay, and Isayama has drawn art of him as well that very much suggests he views the character as gay (it’s explicit). Reiner’s birthday is also commonly known as “yaoi day” among fandoms in Japan, so, well, yeah. I doubt the character is intended to be straight. 

It’s also interesting that this is Reiner clearly in Marlayan Reiner mode, when he tells Ymir he does not like women. When he claims to be interested in Christa, he seems to more or less be in his persona of ideal soldier then, and so it is possible he projects his ideal self as being straight, which is sad but not entirely unexpected given the toxic masculinity that often comes with the heroism ideals of Reiner’s ideal self. His ideal self is attracted to a mirage, because of course, Christa does not exist, and he still sees her as Christa as shown in how when he gives Ymir’s letter to the SC, he says it’s for Christa, not Historia. 

Does/did he actually like Historia? I think so, because can you say that the role he was playing really wasn’t in any way him? I’m not sure it’s so clear-cut. In his persona, Reiner might be trying to simplify things into black and white, yes or no, when nothing in the world is and that includes his sexuality. He might be bi with a preference for men, but I do think he’s absolutely not straight according to canon. 

As for him and Bertolt, well, we don’t really know about Reiner’s feelings for him–which, tbh, I do think are very ambiguous, and given his statements about his sexuality, it’s not wrong to interpret it as romantic affection on Reiner’s part, but of course it’s not canonical either. And his feelings may not have been reciprocated, though Bertolt clearly did care a ton about him, but that doesn’t mean Reiner’s feelings for Bertolt were totally straight. We just don’t know. But we do know/can say that Reiner isn’t straight.