Shingeki no Kyojin/Attack on Titan (Manga Discussion)

She just stabbed it with 6-8 boomsticks, that was enough to almost kill Reiner.

Whelp, that was unexpected. Early chapter is early.

• Magath has abandoned the plan to capture the Founding Titan, stating that the era of the Titans is over. He intends to simply kill the holders of the enemy Titans, as opposed to attempting to regain them.
• Lady Tybur is the War Hammer, and Willy's sister as opposed to his wife. The War Hammer seems to have the ability to create the crystals like we saw in the cavern, shaping them into weapons or armor or even extending them from the ground itself. It is powerful enough to shatter even armored Titan skin, knocking Eren's arms and head off in a single blow.
• Pieck warned her unit to come rescue them, so they show up with rope. Pieck and Porco are about to run off to headquarters, when the Survey Corp shows up.
• They're now using the modified gear from the Anti-Human squad, along with what looks like light body armor. Mikasa uses the thunder spears against the War Hammer.
• Zofia is killed by debris, and Udo is trampled under the crowd while Colt manages to keep Gabi safe. Kid is NOT OKAY, seeing her friends being killed. It's Eren 2.0 time.
• No word on Reiner or Falco, nor is Zeke seen this chapter.
• Mikasa tells Eren to please come home already.

I love the Warhammer Titan's design. The face makes it look very imposing yet a lot different from the other shifter forms. It also can talk too which is something we've only seen the Beast Titan do.

Somewhat sad to see Udo and Zofia dead but not surprised. Had a feeling atleast one of the Warrior canidates was going to die these next few chapters.

edited 29th Dec '17 1:47:11 PM by Wispy

Yeah, I expected that something like that would happen.

It seems as though we're seeing multiple parties attempting to out-gambit each other, at this point. Magath and the Tyburs intending to stir up a war, and murder Eren rather than take the Founding Titan from him. And Eren planning to have Mikasa take out the War Hammer while the others kill Magath's forces.

One interesting detail in all of this is, of course, that Zeke is awol at this point. Is he siding with Eren, knowing how Magath and the new Marley are planning to simply kill the Titans as opposed to stealing the powers back for Marley? Considering all the talk between Zeke and Pieck about how the Eldians are screwed in this new era, I have to wonder if he's taking steps to ensure his people's survival.

Another question, of course, is whether or not Eren started this whole thing on his own. Since Mikasa asks him to come home, it's very possible that he basically went off on his own and later notified them through the letters. And they're basically trying to retrieve him with a minimal amount of carnage. They removed the Warriors safely and only seem to be targeting the artillery going after Eren, as opposed to Mr. "I'm going to belly flop into a crowd of civilians" there.

Which raises another issue: Eren (and possibly the others, if they were fully in on things as opposed to coming to clean up Eren's mess) have just crossed some pretty significant lines in slaughtering civilians. It isn't the accidents of Eren vs Annie, where they fell into things and people got hurt. He's actively and purposefully killing as many people as possible without concern for whether they're enemy soldiers or just innocent bystanders.

edited 29th Dec '17 3:10:19 PM by harostar

He body slammed Marleyan military high command, not random apartment buildings. Yeah there would have been civilians caught in it, but most of them were busy trampling Uldo to death. And again, these are the people who literally just unanimously declared total war against Paradis, so Eren probably isn't feeling too guilty about a couple dozen genocidal shitstains without uniforms getting caught in the attack. Not saying it's right, but from his point of view he might consider it a necessary evil - do whatever it takes to so thoroughly destroy them in one fell swoop that there's no one to manage a war. Eren doesn't know that he's doing exactly what Billy wanted and that Magath is already set to take control after this.

That's the thing, isn't it? What does Eren hope to accomplish or is he simply just "moving forward" without planning for a bigger picture?

Because right now, the situation is either Paradis is destroyed or they destroy/enslave the rest of the world. Unless someone can somehow find some middle ground solution that doesn't require humanity to basically nuke itself. We know from past chapters that some of the Paradis leadership (Zackley) want to use the Wall Titans. I've said it before, but I can't see some way for Paradis to win against the rest of humanity without basically just hitting the doomsday button.

If Isayama intends to keep that non-kill them all ending he's been promising, he's going to have to either pull out an enormous ass-pull or have Eren pull a Lelouch.

I mean no matter how you look at it, it's mass murder.

And Isayama has done enough world-building at this point to make clear this is basically a nuclear metaphor. In that simply fighting until one side beats the other isn't going to work, not for humanity as a whole. Because Paradis has the Fantastic Nuke in the form of the Wall Titans, while the rest of the world is basically reaching a technology level where aerial warfare and weapons of mass destruction are a thing.

With the possibility of Paradis having allies, we're headed for basically a super-early World War 2. And beyond that a situation where both sides are soon going to be capable of wiping out all life on earth.

Yep.

Something occurs to me: We keep asking what Eren's long term plan is, but what about Willy/Magath's? Marley isn't just at war with Paradis, they're at war with everyone. They won the fight the fight in the Mid-East, but only just thanks to Reiner's (Plot) Armor, and the consensus was that they will lose going forward unless they can gain the resources on Paradis to develop their military beyond "support the Titans and try not to die".

All Willy did was unite the world against a common foe, and once that fight is over the world will inevitably go back to cutting each other's throats.

And there's the other big question floating in the air.

From this chapter, it seems that Magath and the Tyburs intend to abandon the Titans as a military asset. While Eren ate Willy's corpse, Magath and Lady Tybur seem to want to just outright kill Eren so that his powers are more or less lost. By extension, that would mean killing Armin outright as opposed to regaining the Colossal Titan.

That makes me think that all the worrying Zeke and Pieck have been doing lately is going to come to a head. They believe the Eldians will be exterminated once they are no longer useful to their masters, though Willy claimed that making them victims of a massacre would make the world pity the ghetto Eldians.

Which makes me think Zeke will side wherever he believes is best for his people, since his concern is seeing that the Eldians aren't exterminated once the "era of Titans" comes to an end. We've got a lot up in the air, in terms of the Warriors' since they've mostly been kind of sneaky and expressing quiet doubts about the future of their people.

Either way, Sofia and Udo's deaths will probably throw a huge wrench in any sort of negotiations.

Status chart is back◊

I'm not sure why people on tumblr keep insisting that Eren is as bad or worst than RBA. there is a world of difference between killing hundreds of thousands of people that did nothing wrong and killing the people that just declared they're going to kill the rest of your people.

It's probably the characters' attitude towards their actions. RBA have shown remorse or resignation towards their actions, while Eren is displaying indifference towards his victims. Of course, this logic is flawed because of the nature of their victims, just like you said.

edited 30th Dec '17 9:17:57 AM by JRads47

What? Just last chapter Eren expressed hope when it looked like there was a chance for peace, and then resignation when Willy shot that chance down with thunderous applause.

From what I am seeing, it's a combination of attitude about their actions and their level of agency. Mostly in that Eren is going into this whole mess fully aware of what he is doing and is a mature adult, as opposed to RBA that were brainwashed kids at the time. We'll have to see how Eren feels about this mess going forward, and how much of this was his original plan or done with/without the knowledge or planning of the others.

But it seems at the moment that both parties went into their murder-escapades believing that their actions were necessary or unavoidable. The only question going forward is basically wtf Eren is thinking and planning, because right now it seems like he's doing something incredibly stupid but thus far most of his actions have been very cautious and calculating so there may be more going on.

It might seem like what Eren is doing right now is really stupid, but really what choice does he have? The entire fucking world just declared their unified commitment to the Final Solution, not even stopping to consider Paradis' view or possible intentions. They just said "These people are evil and plan to destroy the world, and we know this because I say so." Either Eren takes the intiative and kills a bunch of people now in an attempt to nip things in the bud while all the enemy leaders are gathered in one convenient location, or he hesitates, Paradis' odds of survival plummet exponentially, and a fuckton more people die than just those in the immediate vicinity of the stage.

I mean "stupid" in terms of pretty much doing exactly what the Tyburs wanted him to do. But there's so much up in the air right now concerning Eren's plans, the SC's plans, and who else is out there with their own schemes (Kiyomi, Zeke, ect).

There's a lot of players on the board, and not a lot of information concerning the game plan.

I mean, realistically what he's doing wouldn't nip things in the bud. The only thing he accomplished is taking out some military officials and some civilians. But in doing so, he's basically confirmed Willy's claims of him as the "enemy of peace" that intends to destroy the world. While Marley might have been hurt a bit by the losses, we the audience (at least) already know that Magath and the Tyburs intended to get rid of those folks.

It might delay the international response, but that would be it. Because even if he killed every single person at the festival, eventually the word would get out what happened. And it's still going to involve a lot of very pissed off nations mobilizing a multi-national military operation to bomb Paradis back into the stone age. Because they won't just shrug and forgive what happened. And unlike Marley, we know the other nations have significant ranged weapons such as heavy naval artillery and early bombers. And this attack won't harm their military in the least bit. It might at best delay things a little, but it's sure going to provoke an even stronger response from the world because now Eren's basically just confirmed everything Willy claimed.

Like I've said, the issue is that sooner or later it would come down to either unleashing the Wall Titans for a mutually-assured destruction scenario or eventually being worn down through extended siege.

If there isn't some game plan involving an eventual accord with the rest of the world, Paradis is doomed in the long run. Because their options are either find some way to reach an accord with the world, or choose between letting the rest of humanity wipe them out or exterminating all life on earth. c_c

TLDR: I'm mostly scratching my head looking for how things can turn out with something other than a Rocks Fall, everyone dies kind of ending. But Isayama has made these comments about being inspired by Guardians of the Galaxy of all things and not doing the original bad ending. So like.....how are we going to get there? And how much of a mess will it be before we get to this supposed Not-Bad ending?

edited 30th Dec '17 10:46:52 AM by harostar

I'm not sure what to think of all this. On the one hand, yes, the Paradis folks are essentially reinforcing what Tybur has said and cementing their image as a threat, instead of trying to use diplomacy, for example. This is painfully obvious and Eren seems to be fully aware of that. On the other hand, would it be even possible for Paradis to try the pacific approach when they aren't even recognized as worthy of respect by other nations and Marley has the bigger advantage in political/ideological warfare (as we just saw)?

The way I see it, the folks from Paradis were cornered into a very delicate position. I want to see what Isayama has planned to make them get out of this (if this is what he wants, of course).

Speaking of Isayama, is it just my impression or is he drawing sightly better? I noticed something different by looking at Willy and, especially, at the Attack Titan in chapter 100...

My thought is just how many people In universe will actually make the connection that Eren attacked only after war was decided? Would it matter, once propaganda mills start their work. Say what you about Marley, but they basically convinced the Jews everything Nazi Germany says about them is true. They know propaganda.

Settling things peacefully what wasn't really an option from the start. the moment all the world leaders all approve of the decision to destroy paradis, that option disappeared.. This isn't the ideal course, but I'm not sure if a better course of action exist. Unless the warhammer titan pulls a bullshit trick like Reiner, then she'll probably die from Mikasa's attack, which gets rid of a dangerous enemy.

If her body is at all intact, Eren might even steal her power. He seem to be trying that before when he ate Willy.

Delicate position is a good way to put things.

Honestly, if it were just them and Marley duking things out they might be fine. The rest of the world has thought of Marley as a bunch of douchebags and been content to ignore that conflict. The problem is that Marley has intentionally gone out of their way to court the other nations, and create a scenario where they will be invested in this conflict.

We know Magath's goal is to re-establish Marley as the "hero nation" that the rest of the world looks to for leadership, and he's using Paradis as the scapegoat to accomplish that. And we know that they really want the natural resources of Paradis, to begin modernizing their military so they can abandon the Titans as a weapon.

So now Paradis is stuck in this ugly position where they have to defend themselves, but also have to find some manner of establishing diplomatic relations with the other countries. They need to either get back to being ignored by the world, or hopefully find a way to join the table along with the other nations. And man I have no idea how they're going to accomplish that, when Eren just went full Koolaid Man, bursting through a wall and killing a bunch of people.

Honestly, instead of Eren showing up they should have weaponized Goddess Mode Historia to win them over ala Minmay from Macross.

Historia: (SPARKLES with a background of bubbles and hearts)

The world: .....oh shit she's cute. Marry us, plz.

edited 30th Dec '17 11:37:38 AM by harostar

Chuckled at Mikkelsen's chart entry

Of course another thing that isn't good for Paradis is that they don't know how to fight a war. Any army that was created for fighting humans over the time skip is going to be a bit rushed.

side note is how the scouts got in. Eren pretend to be an injuried soldier suffering from memory lost, a excuse 100 times better than his fathers "I got really drunk" Excuse, but the scouts can't really all do that.

My thinking is that it involves the "allies and collaborators" mentioned in Willy and Magath's conversation. Someone(s) helped them into the country, and helped them get set up.

Of course, in terms of security, I doubt Marley thought to watch the roof tops. There are only three people in Marley that know anything about 3d maneuver gear and we've already been shown that nobody actually listens to Reiner in terms of his expertise and information.

edited 30th Dec '17 11:59:34 AM by harostar

One course of action that I see is that they could've used Historia and, with the help of Eren, activate the Wall Titans without engaging them, if that was an option. She could use them as a deterrent agent, much like... nuclear bombs, yeah. With this, they could gain time and political leverage to force other nations to negotiate.

Now, Eren going full Shockmaster kinda screwed that up anyway, so...