📚📑📝: Attack on Titan | Inheritance of Sin

The manga "Attack on Titan" (jin撃の Giant) written by Isayama will finally come to an end in 2021, bringing an end to the 12-year struggle between giants and humans. I don't have the habit of chasing anime, but "Attack on Titan" is the first film that fascinated me so much, especially after the fourth season of this year, I have to admire the huge world view that Isayama created for the manga, after watching the fourth season Later, I found that there are many topics to discuss and analyze; among them, philosophy, psychology, sociology, ethics, political philosophy...

At the beginning, I would like to try to discuss the competition between the Eldian nation and the Mare Empire, and the issues raised by the fourth season:

• Are future generations obliged to bear the sins of their ancestors?

At the beginning of the fourth season, the previous layout was stripped out one by one, telling the love-hate entanglement between the Eldian nation and the Mare Empire, and the issue that the author wanted to bring up "the inheritance of sin" . The story mentions that Eldia is a warlike nation, and the conquests have also triggered internal struggles within the country. After the Mare Empire repelled the Eldia nation, the subsequent people moved to Parady Island to choose Live a life of indifference to the world, and the remaining Eldia people who remain in the Mare Empire have become prisoners. The captives had to undergo unconditional training in Mare, in order to avenge the remaining Eldian nation on the other side.

More than a hundred years later, the descendants of Eldia who lived in the Mare Empire seamlessly inherited the sins committed by their ancestors and became the true heirs of the original sin . In fact, such examples have often occurred in human history, as long as the state of war will encounter situations such as "Attack on Titan"; no matter how abused, humiliated, and killed, the prisoners will always be told

"All you do is to pay for the crimes your country has committed."

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Axis and Allies

During World War II, the two camps, the Axis powers and the Allied powers, often captured enemy soldiers on battlefields around the world as prisoners of war or bargaining chips; the Nazis took the initiative to invade neighboring Poland and slaughter Jews, the Japanese took the opportunity to bomb US ports and slaughter China People, it seems that the crimes committed by Germany and Japan are destined to forge a deep hatred with the Allies. If the country's crime is already an established fact, then the question arises, who should bear it?

The 2015 film " Land of Mine " answered this question.

Stories are inspired by real events. Narrated in May 1945, after the surrender of Nazi Germany, Denmark, occupied by Germany at that time, was liberated. In order to take responsibility for the war, a group of young German prisoners of war buried tens of thousands of objects on the beach in front of them with their flesh and blood on the seaside of Denmark. After all the landmines were cleared, they were able to return to their homeland, which had been disobeyed for many years.

"Since the mines were laid by you Germans, you should clear them yourself."

At that time, Officer Carl in Denmark responded to the young German prisoners of war like this. When they were young, they experienced constant demining operations, and their comrades continued to leave with the accident of demining. Officer Carl began to suspect that these children really had the responsibility to bear this responsibility. everything? They did nothing wrong, and they weren't even present when the Nazis laid the mines. There is a scene in the movie. There is an old farm woman living near the German youth dormitory. One day, the teenagers went to the farm to steal food to eat because they were starving for several days, but the food was added to the rat poison by the old woman. Officer Carl saw the teenagers vomit and diarrhoea, so he asked the old woman to question, but he did not expect the old woman to respond with disapproval

They don't deserve such good food

Here, we see the impact of labels on individuals. When a person is labeled with a label, people often see the label and forget that the most fundamental person is a person ; and this group of teenagers are not only people, but also just Underage children, because of these labels, teenagers have to atone for the sins of their parents and brothers. Even if the smoke of war is gone, as long as the discrimination in people's hearts is still there, the smoke of gunpowder in the world may reignite at any time.

In a state of war, prisoners of war have to personally accompany their crimes throughout their lives, and even bring their innocent younger generations together, and they cannot wash away their crimes in a short time. However, if any kind of "sin" has gone through decades, hundreds or even thousands of years, the descendants may not remember the sins committed by the ancestors, let alone the descendants have the alibi when the ancestors committed the crime. So do they still need to take responsibility? This question is what the Bible discusses, the original sin committed by Adam and Eve, the first ancestors of mankind.

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original sin of mankind

The definition of original sin generally refers to the first man Adam and the first woman Eve recorded in the Hebrew Bible, after tasting the forbidden fruit (the knowledge of good and evil) in the Garden of Eden, they committed "sin" and were forced to leave the Garden of Eden; part of Protestant theologians believe that human beings have original sin and sinful nature. The word "original sin" or "original sin" does not appear in the Bible. But the Bible clearly expresses the concept of original sin:

 Just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin;
Then death came upon all, because all sinned.

—Romans, chapter 5, verse 12

Therefore, people have sinful nature from the moment they are born. This sinful nature cannot be eliminated, and it is passed on from generation to generation without stopping. This is "original sin" . The origin of "original sin" comes from the ancestors of mankind, Adam and Eve. In season four, Jabi from the Mare Empire and Kaya in Eldia have a feud about sin; Kaya's mother was eaten four years ago after giants attacked the village, and Kaya does not Understanding why her mother did nothing to be treated so cruelly, Jiabi responded with the argument of the mistakes made by Eldia's ancestors:

It seems to be the original sin of the ancestors of mankind. Even if the descendants of the descendants do not exist in the same time and space as the ancestors of the past dynasties, this original sin can still be passed down. As long as the children of Eldia are born, they will bear a heavy crime. Kaya's argument is that "the parties do not need to be responsible for what they did not do" , Kaya's mother never used giants to raid and kill innocent people. On the contrary, she just lived in the countryside in Eldia. Self-sufficient life, now my mother has become an innocent who was killed indiscriminately.

This bloodline inheritance of original sin fundamentally erases the uniqueness and autonomy of the individual . Such a one-way interpretation overturns the whole ship. Under the filter of original sin, no human being can escape. Everyone is born a sinner; There will be no end in sight, and instead, life will not be able to see hope and redemption. Why is it that citizens are no longer held accountable for the people their country killed in wartime? The state of wartime exceptions did make the country commit heinous crimes, but post-war citizens can still choose not to repeat the same mistakes and live a life that belongs to the independence of this generation. In some cultures; the people could not be held responsible for the crimes of the country at that time, but they could learn from it and prevent the tragedy from happening again.

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Falco, who was accompanying Kaya at that time, heard the argument between the two, and told Kaya that the giant four years ago was because of Mare's foreign military investigation, and Kaya's mother was just a victim of this action. , and then apologized to Kaya. At that time, Kaya responded to Falco:

"Thank you for telling me, but it's so weird that you apologize for me, you just happened to be born in Mare..."

Kaya's response broke the "inheritance of sin" in Jiabi's mouth, because revenge killings can not satisfy anyone; using ideas as a battlefield will only deepen the barriers between each other, and Kaya has the courage to let all this the cycle terminates. If no one takes the initiative to end the inheritance of sin, the cycle of killing will eventually begin.