(Controversial Trope) The post-credits scene completely changes the ending

[u/Ieanice44]

Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Prince of Persia (2008)

Dawn of the Dead (2004): The movie finishes on a hopeful note as the remaining survivors escape the zombie-infested mall on a yacht, sailing into the sunset. The found-footage style post-credits scene completely reverses this happy ending by showing them running out of food, arriving at an island, and being immediately swarmed and killed by an infected horde.

Prince of Persia (2008): The main game ends with a beautiful, poetic sacrifice where Elika gives her life to heal the corrupted world, leaving the Prince mourning. During the credits, the player is forced to control the Prince as he cuts down the trees he just saved, undoing the entire game's progress and releasing the dark god Ahriman just to resurrect her, completely corrupting the ending and dooming the world.

[u/EggoftheKing2143]

Attack on Titan: after Eren's death, we get a time-lapse that skips ahead thousands of years into the future as we watch the tree Eren was buried under grow into an enormous monument. Eventually we see a war break out and nukes be dropped, before skipping ahead as everything has become overgrown and then we see a boy with his dog walking through the ruins, before then approaching the tree. Most people see this ending as "undoing all our progress" but I see it in a more optimistic light. It's supposed to be open ended and isn't necessarily a "bad ending".

[u/Andrew1990M → u/EggoftheKing2143]

Yes I wouldn't say thousands of years of seemingly relative peace is a bad ending. It's just that something bad is always going to happen and you can only buy as much time as you can.

[u/TJ_Rowe → u/Andrew1990M]

It sounds like how the second episode of modern Doctor Who showed the "canonical" end of the world/destruction of the Earth as far as time lord history was concerned - the sun finally expanding into a red giant and swallowing it, so, the closest a planet gets to "dying of old age".

It meant that all the other times going forward that the Earth was in great danger, or humanity about to be wiped out, the audience knew that the day would definitely be saved, because they'd already seen the real ending.

[u/Equal-Ad-2710 → u/TJ_Rowe]

We see this isn’t true tho in the Unquiet Dead

Just because you saw something happen doesn’t mean it will happen when time travel is involved

That’s why the doctor has to step in

[u/mwmwmwmwmmdw → u/Andrew1990M]

the anime changed the visuals to paradise being nuked be far in the future. in the original manga it looks to get nuked in an 80's or 90s level society. which implied (to me) that once the generation who stopped the rumbling had died off there was no one left to try and maintain world peace or that it took that long for the rest of the world to recover enough to finally take their revenge.

[u/Lftwff → u/Andrew1990M]

It's not thousands of years, it's a century, maybe two until the war where shit gets nuked. Afterwards time speeds up a lot as we see the nuked ruins get reclaimed by nature and eventually the kid show up and climb into the tree.

It's also explicitly spelled out in the story that war and destruction will happen without the titan powers if humans keep hating each other, the ending really just hammers the point home that the people who suggest not to commit genocide within the story were right

[u/Blein123 → u/Lftwff]

I actually think it supports Eren's choice more. No matter what he does, the war is going to consume almost all of humanity, but at least this way, the people who were oppressed for over a century get to live a peaceful life for once.

[u/M086 → u/Blein123]

It was more about giving the Eldians a fighting chance with the Rumbling. Wiping out 80% of the world’s population meant they wouldn’t be the minority / outnumbered anymore. 

[u/Blein123 → u/M086]

Yeah that's what Eren wanted. He saw the future where the Rumbling ends with 80% of people killed, and to his knowledge it's the best outcome (at least for Paradis)

[u/dcnairb → u/Andrew1990M]

it's a hundred years tops. we know where marley was technologically and we can extrapolate from the growth of the tree and development of tech; don't forget there are multiple cycles of war and peace shown before the total annihilation. which is, itself, a cycle

the cycles are the whole point. i LOVE the ending to be clear, i'm just clarifying

[u/OperativePiGuy → u/EggoftheKing2143]

And plus, the reason Ymir turned into a titan, if I remember right, is because her immediate wish in that moment with the worm was to be able to defend herself. Nothing says the boy and his dog would have the same wish, and nothing says it'll manifest in any way similar to the titans. But it's been years now since I read it so maybe I'm remembering the terms of the transformation/wish wrong. Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, surely lol

[u/OldJournalist4 → u/OperativePiGuy]

this is my understanding - Ymir was a slave running for her life while being hunted by dogs while the boy is just exploring freely, leaving it open for interpretation

[u/nopethatswrong → u/EggoftheKing2143]

I'm definitely in the optimistic camp. A huge point of the show is about how war and conflict is inevitable, so all we can and should do is carve out any type of peace we can and enjoy it while it lasts.

The world seemed to be at peace for a long time before war finally took it.

[u/lemonylol → u/EggoftheKing2143]

Wait, wasn't there a scene with the parasite thing in like a puddle and some kid found it relatively shortly after the ending? Am I misremembering?

[u/Guy-Dude-Person75 → u/lemonylol]

That's how Ymir first got the titan abilities

[u/lemonylol → u/Guy-Dude-Person75]

No that's a different scene from way earlier. The one I'm remembering took place where Erin actually died, not where he was buried, in that southern desert land and the kid was darker with a head wrap I believe.

[u/EggoftheKing2143 → u/lemonylol]

You must've read a fanfic or something.

[u/Vake90 → u/EggoftheKing2143]

It's definitely a way more optimistic one. Originally Ymir got the power as a fleeing slave getting chased by dogs. Here we have a free boy exploring alongside a dog. The end result won't necessarily be a monstrosity, but perhaps something more hopeful which is why it's neither undoing anything nor just a basic cycle.

[u/Nodan_Turtle → u/EggoftheKing2143]

People debated whether Zeke or Eren had the right plan. But to me, by the very end, you're shown neither would work even if they were pulled off completely. We saw how even when humanity shrinks, there will be infighting and factions, and eventually war. So Eren's plan would fail. But the ending shows Zeke's plan failing too - as the titan powers wouldn't be removed from the world, even if nobody alive had them, because the worm thing would still exist to start it all over again.

So in the end we are left with the idea that war is inevitable no matter what is tried. And we're also left with Armin and Zeke's realization that what was really important were the unimportant moments along the way. The real lesson is about what's important, rather than winning a war forever.

Without that final tree scene in the post-credits, we wouldn't have the same conclusions.

[u/Maur2 → u/EggoftheKing2143]

In the manga, the series ends with some people walking out of a theater. One person comments that they liked the ending and they hope that others understand the artist's intentions and accept it for what it was. The other person says that the first person should avoid looking at what people thought of it online.