Attack on Titan - The Heart of Humanity - Cliff Baby Scene Analysis
Written by Rei Caldombra 6/17/2024
Video version: https://youtu.be/CtX1taisXzI
Hello, Rei Caldombra here. No singular scene in recent memory had such a strong effect on me as this one. I haven’t cried that hard and so many times more on repeated watching, from anything else I can think of. I believe this is the most emotionally powerful scene I have watched. This is the peak of beauty and raw emotion that can be conveyed through visual and auditory storytelling with the complete absence of dialogue. I want to put my intense feelings into words about how this scene displays the complexity of the human condition and many of Attack on Titan’s themes. This baby represents the beating heart of humanity. The caring side of humanity beneath the selfishness that is shown when humanity is at its lowest.
There will be heavy spoilers for the finale of Attack on Titan. To be clear on what I am considering the cliff baby scene, I mean when the cliff is show per the below image and until the part on the cliff where rumbling stops. I am considering the few separate cuts of this moment as one scene. This incredibly powerful around a minute and a half or so scene conveys so much.
Let’s set the stage for what’s going on in this moment. The Rumbling was just activated by Eren. The Colossals of the walls started marching across the earth, destroying everything in their path. We see the military, civilization and people across the earth trampled under the feet of the Colossals. This is truly hell on earth.
One group of people running away from the titans eventually end up at a cliff facing the ocean. They’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. Stop moving and the Colossals get closer, or keep moving and get closer to the cliff’s edge. As this scene plays out we see people pushing towards the cliff, with each person falling bringing another with them. The crowd of people moving forward towards the cliff brings death to the ones in front of them, as they are forced off the cliff. This is similar to the crowd of Colossals doing the same thing. Both the Colossals and normal humans are trampling over each other’s lives. It’s important to remember in this scene that all titans were once humans, even these ancient Colossals. Harkening back to the season 3 opening, even the titans were shown with the bright red hearts. Despite the Colossals presently acting as weapons to destroy humanity, they were humans too. Attack on Titan is a conflict of humans vs humans. And this scene is all about humanity.
Most of the imagery in this scene has muted colors. All hope is lost and people are acting out of pure desperation and fear, caught between death on all sides. As the Colossals march closer, we see a woman holding a baby. Everyone but the woman and the baby she is holding are muted in color.
The woman has a normal color scheme but with a yellow hue over her. The baby on the other hand is distinctly wrapped is deep red fabric.
The heart is a big motif in attack on titan. Some examples being the signature line “give me your heart / shinso sasageo”, the scout salute putting your fist over your heart, and the season 3 opening emphasizing the bright red beating hearts of the scouts, titans and all life.
The baby is encased in red, like a beating heart. As the woman falls off the cliff, the only color left in the scene is the baby. As the woman falls, a man with a mustache as I am referring to him grabs the baby, saving it from falling. After grabbing the baby, we see his mouth move, likely yelling about saving the baby.
We can only make assumptions about what he said, as reading the lips doesn’t work here and we obviously don’t hear it. But understanding his words aren’t needed, we don’t need to know what the man with the mustache said. His words don’t even matter in universe, we know being close to the Rumbling is near deafening from the scene of the Rumbling being activated. Maybe the next person to move the baby heard it, but no one else would have. And we never see anyone else speak again. We just see the baby glide the center of the group, hand over hand without a single break in movement. People saw the baby being moved and immediately acted. The line of hands continued far from the man who would fall off the cliff moments later. All of those people moved the baby in unison without proper communication or coordination. And this continued for the rest of the time from then until the Rumbling stops.
We do not directly see the first man to grab the baby go down, but we see hands in the air move backwards and downward as the camera pans upward towards the Colossals. You can call him a hero if you want, but that didn’t save him. He definitely did not survive when you estimate the time between that and the Rumbling stopping, and I didn’t see him in any of the surviving crowds. This is the cruelty of life that Attack on Titan often shows. Which fits for this scene showing the extremes of the human experience.
The sound design for this scene is very impactful. All we hear is the crying of the baby and the music. The music is absolutely phenomenal here. Especially over the part of the baby being carried.
The baby by being moved towards the center means it was being moved closer to the Colossals. They moved the baby in the belief that at least the child could escape the horror in front of them for a moment longer, even if they were consigned to their own fates. They still clung to the desire to protect that baby’s life as they marched closer to their own death. They recognize the powerlessness of the baby and wanted to protect it, even while not doing the same for the adults around them. The fear response may have led them to hurt other adults, but it does not transcend the desire to protect a baby. That desire to protect the young is stronger than fear. What can go above our selfish instinct of self-preservation is the instinct to protect our young. Humans have layers of compassion and selfishness.
I think it's very poignant that the end of the first scene on the cliff has a pan upward that focuses on the Colossals, reminding us of what that baby is headed towards despite initially escaping death at the cliff. If the scene ended there, it would imply the baby cannot escape the towering threat of the Rumbling. But it does not end there, it ends by focusing on the baby continuing to be held up by people. Because that is the stronger power in this instance. It is the true heart of humanity that doesn’t break down in the face of the Rumbling. People’s hope was not shattered the way buildings and landscape were. Because you cannot destroy humanity's hope for the future. Humanity will continue moving forward. The baby itself is a symbol of the future, humanity carrying them forward despite all odds. Despite utter despair they still clung to that hope of the future. If you did not believe in a better future, then that baby would be no different than any other person there who people were pushing to their deaths.
In that moment I doubt a person would have much deep rational thoughts. Protecting that baby is an innate instinct. This is humanity putting aside all their differences to protect a young and helpless person. Even in the face of certain death these people united to save that baby. Even if they saw no future for themselves in that situation, they still acted to preserve the future of that child.
We briefly come back to the cliff with the halting of the Rumbling. Here we see the color return as the crisis ends. With the color returning it is all the clearer how diverse the group of people are who have been by the cliff, in age, sex, skin color and clothing. There is no one group of people who are showing care for the baby more than others. We can also note that the yellow tinge that the woman had over her in the beginning is very similar to how the people look once it is over. Maybe the woman being shown with normal colors initially is showing what the people would become once they protect the baby. Humanity’s true colors are shown.
We get the confirmation that the baby survived, along with many people. We see the people at the cliffs edge attempt to save those who were falling. This is also a positive representation of humanity, showing them helping each other once the crisis is averted. But this does not undercut the selfishness we just saw before then. Only once the crisis is seemingly at its end do we see adults helping other adults. This is the duality of humanity, selfish and caring.
But I like to think of there being 3 layers to human behavior that we can gleam from this scene and others. I am not denying the validity of the duality argument, I just think there is strong evidence for it here. There is the outer layer of acting kind when it is easy and convenient. In the normal day to day, people are actually pretty kind to each other, either out of pure kindness or to make themselves feel better. Doing things like holding the door open for others. Then there’s the 2nd layer, which is selfishness shown by people in true distress. This is shown with how in the face of the Rumbling, people will trample over each other in the pursuit of self-preservation. Many people stop there, but I am not and believe this series does not stop there either. The 3rd layer is the true kindness that we see here with the protection of the baby, where self-preservation was prioritized below the baby. It could simply be the desire to protect your young, the biological ideas we see from Zeke. But I think there is more meaning than that. Armin makes his own argument against the purely biological idea, that I agree with. I don’t think it’s accidental that the mustached man is shown to barely grab the baby without falling off.
Just look at the exacerbation on his face, the arching of his back, and his arm being fully stretched.
His instinct to stay away from the cliff was superseded by the instinct to protect the baby. To me there is so much emotional weight to this scene that cannot be written off with just humans having instincts based on procreation. That argument also doesn’t hold much weight when you consider that there are various animals that will actually sacrifice their young to protect themselves. This scene shows humans protecting a baby over themselves. Humans cannot be written off as just following animalistic behavior, that does a disservice to the complexity of the human condition- both the horrors and beauty shown in human actions.
Everything in this scene calls back to Mikasa’s line of “The world is cruel, but also beautiful”. This scene showcases the cruelty humans are capable of, humans pushing other closer to death in order to try to save their themselves. But amidst that selfishness is the beauty of an innocent baby being protected by those same people. Even at their worst humanity still has empathy and the desire to protect in their heart. Even amongst the selfishness and raw fear on display of people shoving each other off cliffs to their deaths, they still protect that baby. That innate desire to protect a baby trumps their fear. Even if they view their deaths are unpreventable in that moment, they are still protected the baby. This scene also hits on the running theme of succession. We don’t know for sure if the first woman holding the baby was the mother. She could have been, or she could have found or been given it offscreen. There could have been many people before her who protected the baby, and there were people after. After she falls, we see the mustached man protect it, who also falls shortly after. It then moves on to the many hands and ending with the bearded man. These people succeeded the ones who died previously protecting the baby.
There are many interpretations of Attack on Titan’s themes and messages, in particular the perspective on humanity. Regardless of your opinions I think most can agree that the series tends to lean more towards pessimistic than optimistic. Many people view the ending as bleak, and it portrays the unending cycle of human conflict. But this scene shows how it is not all bleakness about humanity from Attack on Titan. People fight each other, such as pushing people towards their death. When in our darkest moments, people tend to act at their truest. And in the horrible event that is the Rumbling, people are pushing each other off a cliff. This suggests that at our core, we are selfish and self-serving. But while they continued to push each other off the cliff, they still raised that baby. These are the layers of the humanity. That man with the mustache might have been the one to grab the baby from the falling woman, but he’s not some lone hero amongst a bunch of selfish humans. This isn’t some “one of the good ones” situation. This is not specifically about parenthood, or biological women vs men or anything like that in my eyes.
It is also important to consider the point that there were no better or worse people here. That bald man was the one to pull down the woman holding the baby, which you can pick out as especially heinous. But everyone else around the cliff except the woman was pushing and pulling at others. But maybe she was too and it is just harder to tell. He was pushed off himself by the woman in front of him. So is she actually the one to blame? What about the person who pushed her? How long would this string of thinking go on? You could say it would end at Eren since he is the one who started the Rumbling. But it’s clear from the story that the cycle of violence throughout history led to this. Eren is not solely at fault. And his main reasoning for the Rumbling was also to protect- in that case it was his friends on Paradis. The cliff itself is a microcosm of the overarching cycle of violence in the story. There is no one person to blame for humanity’s sins, another theme heavily touched on by Attack on Titan. All of humanity is guilty of the selfish harming of other humans, but still has the capacity to protect.
In the face of the Rumbling, many hands moved to push humans to their deaths, but also to protect the life of a baby. The baby represents the beating heart of humanity, the innocence and purity humans carry deep down, and the future that people strive to protect. Every person there had the capacity and desire to protect that baby on instinct. All humans have that capacity to protect others and hold hope for the future, even in the worst situation imaginable. We must recognize and accept the horrible things humanity is capable of but also the inner pureness that humanity has at its core which drives them to protect.
I hope my feelings came through with this, this is me putting my literal tears and strong emotions to page and doing my best to make them cohesive. Hopefully I succeeded in putting into words how this scene causes such a powerful emotional reaction in me and many others. I’d love to hear any of your thoughts on this scene.
Thank you for reading! Please bookmark the website and follow on socials if you want to hear more from me. My Youtube can be found through my name Rei Caldombra or you can click on one of my video versions of these posts. I also have links in the about page.
And to end this very heavy post on a fun fact, the baby was voiced by Yuki Kaji’s baby!
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