Shingeki no Kyojin/Attack on Titan (Manga Discussion)

Well...shit.

Can't help but imagine someone has quite the shit-eating grin after that moment, myself.

My only question is: was there anyone caught in the explosion worth giving a shit about?

Oh man, what happened is interesting enough, but these comments are the shit.

Seems like the general situation continues to go to the shitter.

Edited by Xorn15 on Oct 3rd 2018 at 9:13:40 AM

Man, so man shitty puns today

So how long is this little trend going to continue?

Till we shit ourselves trying to come up with a new one.

Reddit user Organic Dinosaur posted a better summary.

• Chapter Title: Liar.
• Flashback of the destruction of Connie's village. Zeke + Titan Pieck + two gasmasked goons release a gas into the village, which infects everyone and causes them to collapse. His scream wakes them up and turns them into Titans. Only a tiny amount needs to be breathed in by Eldians to make them Titans.
• Pixis talks with Yelena, who is shady as fuck.
• Hange and Onyankopan's discussion, which gets heated.
• Armin visits Annie, but is startled by something outside and goes to see.
• An angry mob has gathered outside the government building gates, screaming about Eren and the Eldian Empire.
• Mikasa and Armin meet with Zackley, with a cameo by the shit machine. They argue about Eren, and finally leave as another group enters. Armin wants to keep talking, tries to go back and Mikasa yanks him away as the office explodes.
• Zackley's corpse lands in the yard in front of the gates. The crowd goes wild, screaming "DEDICATE YOUR HEARTS" ala the old Survey Corps.
• Hange, Armin, Mikasa meet with Nile. They learn Eren has organized a jail break using the War Hammer's powers.
• The group including Floch and his followers meets Eren, presenting him with a cloak. They're going to start looking for where the military hid Zeke away.
• Hange, Armin, Mikasa, and Onyankopon in a carriage together. Pieck is in the crowd they drive past. The narrator points to internal strife/civil war while foreign enemies infiltrate. This is supposedly the final chapter of the Marley Arc.

Ladies and gentleman, I think that Eren has pretty much become our Arc Villain for things to come. Abandoning his True Companions without a word to them, surrounding himself with fanatics while the public worships him, and working with Zeke's faction. He even gets creepy shadows around his eyes, a black coat, and running around shirtless ala earlier Zeke. Shit is about to get bad, and we're likely going to see Eren vs Levi at this rate.

Dear Annie: Please wake up and kick Eren in the head repeatedly.

Edited by harostar on Oct 3rd 2018 at 10:20:48 AM

Honestly, we probably should have suspected this as far back as when he first went stabbity on this poachers. Sure, they were not good people, but Eren's devotion to that course of action at that age has always been massively disturbing. I guess he just finally crossed over.

That's a good point to raise, especially since that was revisited last chapter. Most notably, the tone was completely altered with Mikasa recalling Eren in a more sinister fashion. Even she no longer thinks about that moment in a positive light, which is saying something.

Armin and the 104th: No, we need to talk to Eren before we make any drastic decisions. He just needs to explain to us what he's thinking!

The following chapter: Eren: Lol, I broke myself and my cult out of prison. Also, have the angry mob that's been screaming my name start a military-style cheer when the top official of the military gets assassinated.

Armin: ......dude, wtf.

So yeah, I think we're officially in Protagonist Journey to Villain territory. The only question is of course what Eren has been thinking and intends. But it ain't looking good no matter what.

Edited by harostar on Oct 3rd 2018 at 10:42:49 AM

I really need to get caught back up with the manga. Shit's getting crazy.

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Well, shit.

Edited by TheAirman on Oct 3rd 2018 at 9:57:24 AM

When Eren got called the enemy by Willy, he seems to have taken it to heart and is now committing to it.

I kind of like this course for Eren. Back then, he was considered a psychotic anti-hero, but a hero nonetheless. Now not only is he getting progressively darker, but the story is now treating his heroic exploits in the past in a less than flattering light (or at least it's being more profound about it.

I think my favorite part of the last chapter was when Mikasa reevaluated the time Eren rescued her from her parents' murderers; he doesn't look◊ heroic or sympathetic◊ at all, just some creepy kid who decided to Pay Evil unto Evil.

Edited by JRads47 on Oct 3rd 2018 at 8:19:26 AM

Still, I really don't want to jump the gun on Eren just yet as we still have no context for his actions and the full chapter hasn't been revealed yet.

Again, it's out of character of Eren to suddenly be the "bad guy" when the previous arcs have shown Eren slowly moving away from his rage influenced persona in the early arcs and not to mention his talk with Reiner and Falco before he starts a battle.

There is still the popular theory that Eren is influenced by the Attack Titan in a similar matter to how the Founding Titan works. If that is true, then Eren may not have control over his actions

Even without the above theory. Eren hasn't directly harmed his friends yet. For all we know, Zackly and the Paradis Government was planning some evil shit to him and Eren decided to take some drastic action.

It's still too early to make such conclusions.

Edited by Auralian on Oct 3rd 2018 at 8:39:55 AM

Oh,I have absolutely no doubt there's some major things going on that we won't learn about for a while. The simple fact we haven't been given a single insight into the minds of either Yeager brother is very suspicious. It means what each of them has been thinking and plans is a new Big Mystery for the next arc.

Either way, the current situation is positioning Eren's current group against the old gang. The situation is a powder keg, and Hange is probably the next in terms of the people being angry now that Zackley is dead. Eren's group is going to go after Zeke, which puts them at odds with Levi. The rest of the old gang are also very doubtful of him to begin with, so this really doesn't help the situation. I have a feeling Eren is going to be playing the "Mysterious Antagonist" in the next arc, in terms of all three groups opposing each other over Zeke. I don't think he's EVIL, so much as he's being positioned to acting against the main Paradis group in terms of what they want. And us being kept in the dark over what he's thinking as Isayama loves to do.

Edited by harostar on Oct 3rd 2018 at 1:17:01 PM

I am not sure what to make of this turn of events.

Is it possible that Titan Shifters don't need to eat food?

Since ordinary titans need only sunlight to be active and even without it they are dormant like Ymir's titan. It may be possible Titan Shifters are similar although they can still feel hunger.

If the above is true, it explains why Annie can grow despite being inside the crystal and not being able to eat for 4 years.

More goodies leaked, very A+.

• Armin's visit with Annie is super-cute, and he's startled because HITCH comes up behind him and shouts into a rolled-up newspaper to scare him. She teases him about trying to touch the crystal, threatening to ban him from his regular visits if he doesn't behave. Armin gets flustered and insists that he was only hoping to "trigger memories" because touching another Titan can help with that. It's just for RESEARCH and hopes of getting vital military secrets, he promises. (He's doing the same panicked-blushing and shouting thing Bertolt would do when his crush was brought up.) Hitch teases him a bit more, and jokes that Annie is super-popular even though all she ever does is sleep. Hitch says it's good that Armin visits, so Annie won't get bored with only her as company.
• A flashback seems to indicate that EREN is the person from the scene of Historia being warned/convinced to wreck plans by getting pregnant. He's wearing the same coat in a pre-Marley flashback.
• Zeke and Levi banter more, with him suggesting that Levi isn't popular with women. Levi seems to indicate that he's never been with a woman.

Edited by harostar on Oct 4th 2018 at 5:03:06 AM

That seems like such meta commentary on Annie.

Found some raw scans of the full chapter, which adds some interesting visual details.

• The destruction of Connie's village is very obviously meant to remind us of World War 1-era chemical warfare. It seems like the village was their test of the new delivery system, since everyone but Zeke and Pieck are wearing gas masks while deploying the gas. It's a pretty terrifying thought that Marley has a means to subdue an entire population in short-order and turn them into Titans at their leisure. This raises some interesting questions about the later stage of the Paradis Operation. If they had such an efficient tool, why bother to fight the Survey Corps in the old fashioned way? Wouldn't it have been easier to just release the gas into the city, and then collect Eren once everyone else was unconscious and ready to be turned? Not enough supply for the operation? Zeke being shady and doing things that way for his personal reasons? Reiner and Bertolt preferring to kill their old friends over letting them be turned into mindless Titans? It's also a scary thought for future events, since the weapon seems to be dependent on Zeke.

• Armin and Hitch seem to be very good friends. Hitch is a Shipper on Deck, it seems.

• Onyankopan seems to be afraid of Yelena, with a flashback showing him looking horrified as she executes someone with a blank expression.

Got to read a typeset, and...

The shit machine was used as a plot device.

I did not see that coming.

So Zeke, Yelena, and Eren are the primary ???? at this point. Yelena acting without anyone else knowing, but also going from KILL THE MARLEYANS to actively advocating for the prisoners of war. The ones that we know are currently up to something with that "special bottle".

The Yeager brothers' group has infiltrated the military as a whole, with Floch seeming to be Eren's #2 at this point. The way he reported everything to Eren sounds like he already knew about their actions leaking information and assassinating Zackley. I am........really, really wondering what Eren's game-plan is here. The one thing that stands out to me is that Eren has chosen to surround himself with loyal followers, willing to betray the military and kill for him. But he has AVOIDED his friends for months and kept them completely in the dark. He's refused to explain himself to them, and allowed this enormous divide to occur. It makes me wonder whether he's pushing them away on purpose, trying to protect them from what he's going to do in the future.

One thing that I keep thinking about is the conversation between Pixis and Eren on the Wall. The one about a Genghis Gambit to keep the peace. Is Eren intentionally trying to unite everyone against him, creating his own rogue faction that is an enemy to Paradis's government? So essentially they can look at the world and point to how they imprisoned Eren for his attack and were considering executing him.

I hope that isn't Isayama's goal in mind for Eren. It's why I hated Lelouch's endgame plan in Code Geass.

In the same conversation, even Eren dismisses the Genghis Gambit trope as ridiculous as even with the Titans as their number one enemy, the people of the walls were still at odds against each other.

So Eren achieved in making himself public enemy no.1 of the world and forcing the hate away from Paradis. Does this get rid of the many decades of racism and hate the Eldians, the Marlyeans and the rest of the world has been throwing out for against each other?

Edited by Auralian on Oct 5th 2018 at 1:57:37 AM

To be fair, Attack on Titan is one of the few scenarios under which a Zero Requiem could actually work. If Eren is the enemy of the whole world, including Paradis, it would give the Paradisians the opportunity to show that they are not the devils that Marlean propaganda condemned them as.