What do you think the goal of storytelling is?

For me, it depends on the audience. The goals of someone telling a story over the campfire to some children, reading a bedtime story to a single child, or just one person telling another person something they imagined for entertainment, all have different meta goals. For the children, it can be just imparting a simple set of societal morals that aren’t too hard to digest. “Three Little Pigs,” for example, teaches us that doing something the right way pays off in the end. The children might not realize it at the time, but maybe one day they cut a corner and it burns them. That story will linger in their subconscious and guide them in making better decisions in their future.

So how about when we grow up? What is the goal of a story told from one adult to another?

A lot of times, it’s just entertainment. Something to pass the time. But more and more, we have stories trying to tackle moral issues that we, as adults, all have to deal with, things that children aren’t burdened with. Bad things happen in our societies, things that happen because of societies, things like genocide, sexual violence, economic inequality, racism. Children can’t control these things or understand their motivations a lot of times. But we can control them, maybe not directly or even a lot. But even if it’s just shaping how our children think about them, we are all taking steps forward.

Stories aren’t direct philosophy. Good stories will try to convince you through their events that what they’re trying to convince you is true. For example, one of my favorite TV shows, The Wire, does this in one of its arcs in a masterful way.

Howard Colvin, one of the police majors for the Baltimore Police Department, tries to reduce crime in a unique way: the police won’t enforce drug laws in “declared safe zones.” This plan is a highly controversial public policy opinion in the United States, especially at the time The Wire was made. But The Wire gets you to side with Colvin’s vision. He’s retiring soon, nothing he does reduces crimes, and he wants to make an actual difference in his community. He goes to community meetings, and people lament that the police aren’t actually doing anything about the rampant crime. Colvin agrees, and people are sympathetic to him, but they also want him to stop crime. So he tries a radical experiment: the police will set up three “safe zones.”

In these safe zones, dealers can sell all the drugs they want, and users can use all the drugs they want. But the millisecond you step out of this zone, the protections are no longer afforded to you. The result? Specialized programs, like those that provide clean needles, are extremely effective in these zones. Drug users can see rehab programs right next to where they get their drugs. Ambulances can give more immediate assistance to people in these zones. Felony crime drops dramatically in his district. So much so that Colvin accidentally brings undue political attention to his safe zones. News is leaked to the media, and the idea of the zones proves to be immediately politically infeasible. The zones are shut down, crime increases to the pre-zones levels, Colvin is demoted, his pension decreased, his job opportunities taken from him, and life goes on.

The Wire doesn’t just say “legalize all drugs, it will be good for society.” It shows you, in detail, how a local system that legalized all drugs would operate. It shows you that not only would this benefit the “druggies” and drug dealers that don’t matter to normal people, but this would materially affect normal people in communities by significantly decreasing felony crimes in the neighborhood. This, in my mind, is what a good story does. It tries to convince you of its ideology or philosophy by showing us the consequences of the ideology that opposes it, or the benefits of implementing it. Good romances make people want to go out and get hitched as soon as possible. Characters with good principles that lead to good results for them make you want to have those principles in your life.

Attack on Titan gives its opinion on complicated moral issues, similar to The Wire, and does so to great effect (in my opinion). One of those issues is examining the motivations of genocide. By taking us step by step through Eren Jaeger’s life, we understand, but might not necessarily agree with, him enacting The Rumbling by the end of the story. Similarly, by glimpsing into the past of Reiner Braun and the culture of the Marleyans, we can see how Reiner, although willing, is highly motivated through cultural incentives into choosing the path he did, to the point where it’s hard to say that he made the decision himself. When I think about what they did, it’s clear to see that people shouldn’t have to die. But when going through the story moment to moment, it’s difficult to see how Reiner and Eren could have navigated themselves out of the circumstances they were in while protecting the people they cared about.

Instead of attacking the individuals, Attack on Titan chooses to indict the world around the characters. It’s the culture of Marley, the idea that Eldians are irredeemable monsters which they spread to the entire world, that forces Eren to make the decisions he did. For a year, he tried wandering the world, looking for a solution, any solution, that would avoid the future he saw. Similarly, it’s this culture that pushes Reiner to join the Eldian’s Warriors, which gives him and his family preferential treatment. It’s the Marleyan narrative that Eldians who fight against the island “devils” are heroes to Marley, that Eldians who fight against the devils are “good” Eldians.

Like The Wire, Attack on Titan makes a convincing indictment against racism. It shows you that a world that chooses to indulge in racism and supremacy will have these negative consequences. And instead of throwing Reiner away like a used-up rag when this message is effectively communicated, it shows Reiner struggling with what he has chosen to do with not only his life but the fourteen years given to him once he became the Armored Titan. The story shows him try to reconcile his role in breaking Wall Maria to his family, where he accidentally describes the “island devils” to his family as completely normal people, even though he’s trying to describe them as evil. Attack on Titan shows Reiner and Annie express deep regret for their actions, with Reiner going as far as to stick a gun in his mouth and cripple the power of the Armored Titan by being so unwilling to fight. Even though what Annie and Reiner did would be considered by some as unforgivable, the narrative shows characters like Armin recognize real remorse and find forgiveness.

Forgiveness for unforgivable actions, self-reflection and realizing that past actions you thought were right were actually wrong, understanding the effects of racism on society at large, and even showing how your perspective on an issue can deeply color how you perceive the morality of an action. All of these things and more are thoughts that Attack on Titan wishes you to have by its end. And pondering these types of moral questions are things that I believe lead us to make better, more well-rounded decisions in the future, and guide us in becoming better to each other.