Wasn’t there a scene early in the anime that could be summed up as “lol stupid people and religion”? There was a group huddled together in the church praying for protection and then a titan hand slammed down on them? Seemed like it was played more for laughs rather than shock and horror?
Well, they worshiped the walls and prevented further fortifications on them for decades. They were basically powerful. Its not so much 'lol stupid religon' as a representation of the feudalistic, medieval church. The problem with the church is that Isayma basically abandons all the medieval pretenses, so like a lot of things in Attack on Titan, this representation no longer matters and is hence pointless to even include. He just constantly ditches themes and ideas when he gets bored and inserts new ones. It is very, very badly done.
Switching gears here for a moment, but I've been wanting to ask you guys this for a while. I want you to remember the first third of AoT. Back when it was good. In your opinion, what was dumbest/worst moment of it?
I'm going with the Court Room Scene on the grounds that it makes no fucking sense. Now there's a lot of reasons for this, but for the sake of simplicity, and (relative) shortness, I'm just going to cut it down to main ones. If any of this incorrect,
please tell me. It would actually make me really happy to know that this scene might not be as big of a dumpster fire as I think it is.
- The fact that literally no one except for Mikasa tries to stop Levi while he's kicking the shit out Eren. This is despite the fact that there were people ready to shoot Eren, guns drawn, loaded, and everything, right before it started.
- The above mentioned issue is even more egregious when you consider the fact that to the people outside the SC, Eren somehow both had no control, and yet total control of his powers. You'd think that they'd be freaking out that Levi attacking him would trigger him into shifting either on accident, or by making him even angrier, and that they'd want to stop him even more. Again, you'd think, but no. They just stand there and do nothing.
- The beatdown was primarily to show that Levi could handle Eren easily. However, this reason completely falls apart when you remember that Eren didn't have full control over his abilities yet, and could literally shift, at least partially, at any moment (spoon incident anyone?). Now this wouldn't be such an issue until you realize that a) they're in building, b) even if Titan Eren could somehow fit inside of the courthouse, there's still going to be a massive explosion, and most importantly c) Levi does not have his gear in this scene. In fact, I'm pretty sure no one does. So Eren just so happened to shift, they'd all be screwed.
- The second motive for the beating is to show how awful it is to this brutal to a kid. This also doesn't hold up very well either due to the fact that kids are routinely treated like shit in this series what with them being allowed to join the military groups at age twelve, the fact that the training involved to join is brutal, and frequently sabotaged by the trainers, and that kids die all the time from it. Oh yeah, there's that everyone in this story should be used to seeing fucked up shit at this point, so one constipated, angry dwarf beating up an even angrier teenager shouldn't effect them that much.
- For some reason, no one considers the possibility that Eren might hold a grudge against the man who just beat him within an inch of his life, and that giving him to said man might not be a good idea. I mean, we the audience know he won't, but they don't. They just hand him right over without even thinking about it even once.
I honestly didn't think of this. Now that you explain it out it seems pretty terrible. But I think mine is worse: Erwin's plan for the female Titan.
That was so fucktarded. When I was watching it, I was like "TRANSFORM YOU FUCK, CLEARLY NOBODY HAS A FUCKING CLUE AND YOUR ELITES ARE DYING. WHY ARE YOU TRUSTING THESE FUCKTARDS. YOU HAVE THE ADVANTAGE RIGHT NOW." Even Eren got it right when if he transformed into a Titan it would have had to go crystal and fight. Plus you've got a squad of elite Titan killers right fucking there. Have Mikasa with him. Having her not be there makes NO FUCKING SENSE. Why isn't she there? She'll fight the hardest for him. And you've got your best team there as well! Fuck capturing it. Making it go into the tight forest where its larger and has a bigger disadvantage than Eren who is more nimble, though less experienced, with a host of Titan murderers, you'd have just ended her right then and there. You could have even bought time for Erwin with his cannons to move. It wouldn't be able to keep up the damage the squad and Eren would do to it, making constant crystallization hard. Then just have Annie commit sepukku by saying she's a warrior and just adding to the mystery. And not have her be out of commission for four fucking years.
But no, let's totally rely on this one plan which we have no idea which will work or not and you have to make sure you get it EXACTLY RIGHT at a female Titan running at like fucking full blast. Not the Titan you have and your most experienced team to constantly force it to regen itself while Eren is beating its face in, and then surround the fucking thing, cutting it to pieces. Have fucking Mikasa there too. So you have your A-Team and a Titan vs. One Shifter. You clearly outnumber and outclass it. Instead you'll try to capture a Titan Shifter, of that which you have no idea what its capabilities are or its powers or even the extent of its strength. Or even if your timing will be right. Its so fucking dumb.
I've even got one better. Use those stupid spike traps to trip her. Then use close range cannon fire to blow off her legs. Then have your A-Team with Mikasa and the Attack Titan kill the ever living fuck out of it. If she ever looks like she's getting the upper hand, pepper her with cannon fire from cover. She can't take the cannons out because she's surrounded and the cannons don't risk hitting your scouts because you can always aim the trajectory low since they're attacking from height. I mean its so fucking stupid. There are so many better plans. You fuck up her titan enough not to heal. I never got that shit with the cannons. 'Canons can't kill Titans, therefore useless'. No, cannons with smokeless powder can fuck titans up so your soldiers can go in and finish them. Like, you never bothered thinking about having a support team for your scouts and develop explosive and grapeshot weapons more to disable Titans to make them easier to kill so you don't get wiped every time they move a foot outside the wall? Its like "Well, we can't kill them with explosives. Therefore they are completely and utterly useless and we have no use to develop them any further. What, have a support team with mobile explosive weapons disable Titans while your scout squad kills the now huge, immobile targets? IMPOSSIBL-" *develops thunder spears in 30 seconds*
Here's why that happened: Isayma couldn't have a squad of elite Titan killers. He needed to nerf them. So he comes up with a stupid plan that looks brilliant, because the watcher doesn't really know what the fuck is going on at that point since its still early in the series. He also needs to raise the stakes, so he does it artificially by having them fuck up. And then, as a consequence, Annie is just out of commission because maybe he wants to do something with her later. Of which he has no idea. And still does not. She'll probably wake up and then get eaten or something. Why fans still fawn over her shows the quality of the community this manga/show has.
People still whine about Armin winning in serum bowl. But Erwin lost multiple elite squads for a stupid fucking plan when he had the largest advantage by leading Annie into the woods. She wouldn't have been able to prevail. No shot. Plus, Annie chasing them IN the woods was stupid on her part. She thought she could beat Eren's Titan form and the best squads with like over a hundred kills to their name? C'mon son.
How do we know they're not the ones enforcing this to begin with? Sure Ishiyama might be the main issue here, but who's to say the Editor and/or publisher aren't egging him on or came up with the idea in the first place to cash in on the GoT crowd?
I'm not sure. The manga definitely had issues before reaching that point, but the way ideas are brought up and discarded and the sheer amount of narrative that doesn't make sense or don't have any clear way to resolve effectively within the story (Annie being the biggest example. She should have been killed long ago. Now what's she going to do? Wake up after four years then be killed, because she's now completely irrelevant as a character except she is a Titan shifter, which essentially means she transformed from a character into a boring McGuffin so Eren can time travel? GENIUS).
There's too much that's all over the place for a publisher. JoJo is just as, if not more popular and is tight as fuck. Isayama gets these ideas and just drops them. He's probably going to end with a time loop because he has no fucking clue what he's doing.