Shingeki no Kyojin/Attack on Titan (Manga Discussion)

More or less, it seems. Well, it sounds like they still accomplished the primary goal of killing the military brass and destroying the harbor. But it sounds like they had a plan that DIDN'T involve "Eren transforms, kills a bunch of civilians, and starts a full-scale battle in the ghetto". But he went off the rails, counting on them having no choice but to come rescue him (again). Hanji even calls him out on using them, knowing that just like in the past, they would sacrifice everything to rescue him.

Gabi went onto the airship fully intending to die, too. She frames it as a suicide mission, intending to go down fighting to avenge everyone. She's very much like the old-school ideals of the Survey Corps, in terms of accepting death in hopes of at least being USEFUL in the process. "I'll die, but Captain Le—....er....War Chief Zeke will make you pay!" Seeing Zeke pretty much drains all the wind out of her proverbial sails, since he's basically like "oh more complications!" to seeing the kids.

Wow. Fuck you Eren. They should definitely get rid of him. I've always been sick of him needing to be rescued, but now he's gone too far.

This is actually the first time Eren needed to be rescue because of something he did, All the other times involve the scouts using him as bait.

You know, what bothers me most is probably that this suggests Zeke has been up to something for YEARS. And the entire battle that wiped out the Survey Corps veterans + Erwin + Bertolt could have been avoided since he'd end up siding with them ANYWAY.

Then again, it seems to be a pattern of Yeager men fucking everything up, either by doing nothing or by doing the wrong thing.

Kill them all I say.

You mean to tell me that some of my favorite characters might have been still alive were it not for the bullshittery of the Yeagers? Ugh, if Isayama is going for a more "Guardians of the Galaxy" vibe, can Eren and Zeke be our Yondu, please? Oh, and make Gabi his new favorite character, while we're at it?

Quite possibly a good solution.

Scanlated stuff is leaking out, some interesting details in the better quality.

• Falco saves Gabi /and/ Jean, through sheer dumb luck. Gabi and Jean shoot at each other, with Falco tackling Gabi out of the way at the last second. In doing so, he knocks her aim off.....which causes her to just BARELY miss and graze Jean's hair instead of blowing his brains out.
• Jean saves the kids from Floch, basically telling him that he can toss them if doing so would stop all the killing and end the war. He's just so over the killing already.
• It looks like the pilot is from Marley (or a conquered nation?) and was part of the same recon unit as Yelena. The one that mysteriously disappeared 3 years ago, off the coast of Paradis.

Man, Zeke and Levi have such great banter. Like, Levi hates him SO MUCH but is restraining himself and Zeke is clearly having a good time. Their similar bathroom humor also works.

So from what I am gathering, it seems like there has been an entire group of Marleyan soldiers that are devoted to Zeke. Enough that they faked their own deaths, and have been helping Paradis all this time. We have a basic Gambit Pileup, in that it seems like Zeke intended to lure the Tyburs out and help Paradis by destroying the harbor and crippling Marley's command. But in orchestrating his own plan, he ran into problems from Magath's plot with the Tyburs and Eren deciding to rampage.

Based on their comments, it sounds like Zeke intended a very precise attack with minimal loss of life. This included having the other Warriors removed from the area and safely contained. But Pieck and Eren threw a wrench in the plan, forcing a more violent battle and unnecessary/unplanned death. I hope we'll have a flashback laying out what the original plan was, and what went wrong.

edited 3rd May '18 1:52:45 PM by harostar

I blame Eren.

This seems like a story of "We could have avoided this" all around. Grisha could have actually talked with Shadis, or...you know....ANYONE instead of vaguely leaving Eren with clues. Eren could have not been murder-happy and Zeke could have decided to help Paradis before all the murder.

Yeah, that was a massive dick move on Eren's part.

Yeah, I hope we can find out more about what actually went on behind the scenes. How we got to this point, now that we're seemingly back to Paradis perspective to some degree. (I feel like we'll probably have things split between the two groups going forward, as they clash and realize things that are going on.)

I also wonder what their game plan is since Zeke said the larger goal was achieved even with the miscalculations. What are they planning, that required using the Founding Titan? I don't want to think they're going to use the Wall Titans. But whatever it is, they needed to buy themselves time by crippling Marley. Only.....you know.....now the whole world is pissed off, thanks to Eren attacking/killing their diplomats.

How far back are we gonna have to go in order to judge Zeke, though? It could be that he was operating with Marley as originally thought, but somewhere down the line the whole issue with Titans becoming obsolete may have been brought up back home. Maybe the idea came up some time after the Warriors were operating there? But yeah, at the very least the battle of Shiganshina could've been avoided, anyway.

• Gabi is full-on drinking the Marleyan Kool-Aid. Granted, her home - shitty as it is - just got destroyed, her friends died, tons of people died - including Marleyans who went out of their way to actually help her and other Eldians in the ghetto - but she ain't letting that grudge go. If not for Zeke's appearance at the ship, she'd probably have to get thrown out the deck just to make sure she doesn't hurt nobody.
• Floch, meanwhile, is drinking Paradiso Kool-Aid together with some various randoms. "New Eldian Empire"... though then again, he's been uncharacteristically supportive of Eren even when it's obvious now that everybody else isn't.
• So Eren, at the end of the day, is still the same hotheaded idiot he's always been. This time however it turned a clean-cut operation - as Zeke had advertised - into a bloodbath, energized Eldians into drinking Marleyan Kool-Aid, energized Paradisians into Paradiso Kool-Aid, killed a slew of non-Marley dignitaries and got Sasha killed. It's kind of horrifying, honestly; how his rage and hope went away, giving way to despair and indifference.
• Worst thing is, he can afford not to care. He's Paradiso's vital asset, their trump card. They cannot proceed without him. In fact, it seems nothing would have been possible without his powers and it seems it had finally clicked with him. It's such a shame that we got this clusterfuck for it. Granted, Sasha's death might have been enough to shake him out of this stupor.
• However, giving him unnecessary flak when Erwin "I'll throw my entire force at Beast Titan and see what happens" Smith exists in the same universe might be a bit much. Yes, Eren's actions have far more reaching consequences, but the rule appears to be the same.
  • However, it's true that Eren throwing a wrench into Zeke's plan yielded greater results; SC incapacitated both Jaws and Cart Titan as well as acquiring Warhammer Titan - which is a huge asset. Callous as it is, losing eight people, Sasha included, is small potatoes.
• What is the Zekeret to end them all? Are they planning to awaken and then arm Wall Titans via the combined power of Founding and Warhammer Titans? What was the original plan, actually? Disable Marleyan Navy and kill off the military high command?
• "Meat." Famous last words right there, Potato Girl. Goodbye, it's been a crazy run.

edited 3rd May '18 3:38:46 PM by FergardStratoavis

Does anybody else found Gabi to be very scary in this chapter? She has lost her god damn mind!

edited 3rd May '18 4:34:22 PM by ManOfSin

Too Soon, you know.

Well, she is Rule 63 Eren. So that unstoppable rage is kind of a given. But yeah, it was pretty horrifying to watch and I am thoroughly impressed with Jean and how he handled things. Few people could have remained as calm and reasonable, given those circumstances.

I wonder how long before they realize who each other are? I mean, it's pretty obvious now that Reiner's speech about his comrades was foreshadowing her capture. I wonder how everyone will react, when they realize Gabi is Reiner's cousin? And how she'll react when she realizes these are the people he was talking about?

Zeke has always had at least a small streak of utter cruelty to him, I should note...he's not trustworthy in the long term.

Yeah, that really is the Million Dollar Question. He isn't completely trustworthy, and I think everyone knows that. It really is going to be interesting to see where this goes, since they're working together but Zeke has never been someone to trust. They need each other, even if we don't know what the real end-game is for them or how things may go wrong.

There's also the factor that Zeke doesn't have much of a long-term to worry about. He potentially has nothing to lose at this point.

And there it is. He has a year or less, at this point. And Trapdoor-chan seems to indicate that Zeke has been plotting for at least 3 years now, with him basically making his move once the war was over. Presumably, he has several months left before the Curse begins destroying him. But he doesn't have much time to finish whatever he's up to and he's going to die no matter what.

I suppose one reason to attack Marley the way Eren did is too encourage the world to home to paradis and get crushed by the wall titans and reduce the damage to the world by doing it at home without them crossing the ocean.

Crazy thought: any chance that Eren was, unbeknownst to the others, acting on orders from higher up, like directly from Historia, for example?

So Paradis/Eren is Belka?

edited 3rd May '18 6:46:44 PM by TheAirman

I don't know about that. I can't imagine that sort of information blackout, and going behind everyone's back like that. It seems more likely that Eren was solely responsible, at least....for the most point. Isayama already made a comment about him acting under the "influence" of someone else, when he started taking an interest in Falco and his crush. It could be possible that Eren's actions have been influenced by one of the past Hosts, or something in their memories that only he knows.

As I don't give a shit as I never cared about Eren's edgy attitude, but I call bullshit thst people weren't already drinking Marleyan kool-aid or the fact they applauded Tyburs plan to go out and raze Paradis was a clear sign they were going to do that crap anyways. Nothing Eren did changed that save for clearly wanting to take the Tyburs off the board. Even if the plan went as hoped and Eren hadn't been a moron Marleyan propaganda can easily twist them into doing worse if needed.