Attack on Titan Griefing Thread - >tfw even your VA thinks that you're a loser

[Secret Asshole]

Not really. Zeke could have sacrificed himself at any time by emerging and making himself vulnerable to slaughter, and then the Founding Titan would lose its royalty proxy (like it ended up doing in this chapter). He just didn't feel like it.

Maybe so, but he decides to have his head sliced off by Levi? Also wouldn't this just put him back into PATHs? None of this is described. Is PATHs the afterlife? Is it a meeting of all time and space? Is it both? If its a meeting of time and space, Zeke's death doesn't matter. That Royal connection was there. Also Zeke got blown the fuck up into PATHS, literally exploded into another dimension.

The only reason the rumbling stops is because Armin changed Ymir's mind. Technically, Zeke's death would have put him back in PATHs, but the whole fucking concept is retarded, confusing, makes no sense and operates on no rules.

Why is it always that when we talk genocide, we talk Hitler? Why isn't it ever the Young Turks or the Belgians backing the Hutus, or even ancient near Eastern tribes declaring total war on hostile neighbors?

Uh, because Attack on Titan is literally Nazi Jews vs. Jewish Nazis.

They did. Eren even initiated. He literally-- not figuratively, literally tells them to kill him or die.

Don't remember that part, but nobody really tries to understand him throughout the book.

What does he do that doesn't rob them of their own freedom? If he wanted to tie up loose ends, he could have just prevented everyone else from using any of their powers, or brainwash them, or... really, with his power he could do just about anything to literally everyone fighting against him except the person who's the least willing to kill him and a near-cripple.

I mean, he literally doesn't do anything but throw random goon titans at them. He could have turned upside down and dunk them in water. He could have turned all the colossal titans to him and started beating the shit out of them. Fuck, he could have probably used his ribs to constantly shoot out spikes and impale them midair. There's a metric fuckton of stuff he can to do stop them and he just throws goons at them to get slaughtered. He doesn't need to "take away their freedom" to stop them.

He basically just rolls over and takes it.

Effectively, everyone's trying to preserve them, but they're all fighting for different groups of people because the circumstances have forced them into extremes despite largely similar experiences and identical sympathies. Eren's cast his lot entirely with the in-group, and everyone else with the out-group. Eren's gone his way because he's most concerned about life and freedom and is basically aware that nobody figured out anything in the time prior to the Rumbling (imagine that time loop, geez...) and everyone else is ignorant about those future memories but regardless can't stomach the prospect of genociding entire civilizations even if it's the only thing they can do to ensure any kind of long-term peace.

The reason that I'm beside myself with the end of this chapter is because there's zero guarantee that anything will happen outside of them being summarily bombed to death by the rest of the world, even though the world united in order to stop the threat of the Rumbling, and even though everyone at Fort Salta has been able to reconcile their differences in the face of Eren's equalizer. This reality is acknowledged in-story with even less available knowledge (like that facing an apocalyptic threat that imperils everyone equally could wipe away ethnic animus), and for the sake of the story, it would have been totally unsatisfying if everyone else either sat by while Eren stomped on everyone or struggled with decision paralysis for the entire arc. It also would have been unsatisfying in and of itself if Eren was allowed to proceed unimpeded, even at that point, because while the story was building up to the Rumbling, the Rumbling was clearly not meant as the final destination of the story. So, I'm okay with the "Cringe Avengers" as a means of facilitating a climax, their motivations are established and challenged enough, and the climax was exciting enough that I forgot that Isayama, too, bears the Japanese inclination to fight against God reflected in so many of their modern works.

Thing is, I don't like their position because it's clearly not viable in their world, and I sympathize with Eren more because he was the only one that came up with any solution to save their people.

As an aside, your derision of Zeke and Armin's confrontation actually helped me understand Zeke's turnaround better, in that I was able to realize that both parties agreed that the nihilism question ("life doesn't have intrinsic value, so what now?") was valid but approached it according to, respectively, their cynicism and optimism.

The problem is there is no way of seeing what Eren saw. We don't know his justification. For all we know, killing the entire world is the only way to save it. Eren's motivations were kept to be mysterious, like he was seeing something nobody else could and it just turns out to be "SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE". Its incredibly fucking pathetic. We have all these plans and machinations and its just....kill everyone? Fucking really? You have access to Time and Space and a God....and that's what you go with? Its unbearably fucking stupid, I'm sorry.

We're not even shown those future memories, so the justification is assumed. We're not shown anything except Eren spacing out and getting a massive erection from seeing the corpses piled high. And if he knows the future, why doesn't he attempt to tell anyone, to show anyone? Again, Ragnarock is not pure destruction, it is rebirth. It is the end of the old order and the beginning of a new, implied Eden. The first part is violent, everyone forgets about the second part.

So, with 0 knowledge of Eren's plan, what Eren is doing is "The world can't genocide you if there's no more world". Its fucking retarded. Its stupid beyond belief. We've got two chapters left, and the only way you could 'correct' this is a timeloop or a fucking exposition dump, which again, is trash writing. People weren't rooting for Eren because they believed in his cause. People were rooting for Eren because what he was doing was fucking retarded. Because it was so mind-bogglingly stupid and nonsensical, that it became absurd and hilarious.

And yes, the world will probably just fucking murder Paradis after this if Eren dies, because nobody is going to believe this wasn't some sort of secret weapon that Paradis had that went out of control. He's killed millions of people. Yeah, the only logical conclusion is Paradis fucking dies and so do all the cringe avengers. But nothing about this has been logical.

This climax was exciting? Fucking lol. Ok. It was boring as shit. There were no stakes. No sacrifices. They simply win because Isayama fucked up and couldn't figure out how to stop Eren without author fiat.

Its empty platitudes. Utterly empty. This isn't high philosophy they're discussing. Zeke just suddenly decides to get the chop and abandons his whole fanaticism with a single conversation by a rando. Please. Its fucking motivation poster level conversation.

And I never thought the story would end with Eren winning. I wanted him to win because it'd be the most fucking retarded ending possible. There were dozens of ways to end this after Eren had the founding Titan. Make it so that Eren has to kill so many people to summon the Devil and murder him to break the curse. He doesn't tell his friends and moves away from them because he wants to bear the guilt. Killing the devil resets the world. Ala Ragnarock. The world is reborn into a better place, though Eren's soul has to bear the weight of the souls he took, which is why he was crying in the first chapter.

Make the rumbling one outcome of many possible futures. Make Ymir filled with hate and pain and a desire to hurt for all she's suffered. Have Eren show her even with the most absolute of hatred and violence it will result in nothing but self destruction. At the end of the day, she's just a child who is in pain with unimaginable power. Eren can easily relate to this. That's how he relates to Ymir.

Have Eren do the rumbling, but only destroy the factories and military of the world, allowing the civilian populace to escape. He neuters the military capabilities of the world against Paradis and pledges that Paradis will remain totally isolated. Because of the past, he could not trust the world, so he had to destroy their weapons and technology.

Have the story be the time loop like was suggested. Maybe Armin figures that out if you want to go with Armin "ALWAYS AS PLANNED" and he has to convince Eren in PATHS to see it.

And these are only a handful of things that I've come up with that are better than what was written. The fact is, Isayama wrote himself into a corner when he put 'genocide only' and then oopsie, turns out that's a really shitty idea unless you fully embrace the myth of Ragnarock of the cycle of death and rebirth. Except Isayama doesn't really have any other God types to fight and destroy. Oops. Looks like that's not gonna work.

Genocide as the only option was idiotic. You create a dimension of time and space with Yggdrasil, the world tree, where characters can come and go from death, and the ONLY option that a living fucking God comes up with access to this immense power to prevent mortals from killing each other is genocide? Bitch please. The writing is so fucking stupid it hurts.

 

[Chilson]

Isn't that true for literally very single story written by a single author? As in by definition.

Yes, but good authors know how to keep up the illusion that there characters have "free will" to the audience. Isayama might as well just break the fourth wall at this point and just tell the audience in the final chapter "Eren loses because I wanted it to happen" because of how blatantly he has pulled all this shit from his ass to force this conclusion.

 

[Secret Asshole]

Isn't that true for literally very single story written by a single author? As in by definition.

Yes, but good authors know how to keep up the illusion that there characters have "free will" to the audience. Isayama might as well just break the fourth wall at this point and just tell the audience in the final chapter "Eren loses because I wanted it to happen" because of how blatantly he has pulled all this shit from his ass to force this conclusion.

Exactly. When I mean a story flows 'organically', it means actions have logical consequences that follow by the rules of the world that the author constructed. A character has a specific personality and actions that character engage in fall within it. It would be out of character for a hot-headed character to hug his enemy out of nowhere with no context. It happened because the author wanted to. But maybe the character is high, or he's hallucinating, or he went on this gigantic emotional journey of self discovery. Therefore, this originally out of character action, becomes an in-character one, because you have a circular arc. The character has changed in some way, justifying that action.

There are some stories where the evil bad guy is caught, but the good guy is just at the end of his fucking rope. He's been tormented so much, having him in cuffs just doesn't work anymore. He just raises his gun and fucking shoots him. This is an in character action because we've seen his mental breakdown. If we haven't seen it, its an out of character action and author fiat.

All stories have a set of rules they establish and work within. If Attack on Titan flowed organically, from all the rules we've previously seen, Eren cannot lose. Not without Deus Ex Machina, which is God from the Machine, which breaks established laws of the world. Now this can work in the protagonist's favor and not in the protagonist's favor.

There's this movie with Jack Nicholson where he plays this cop trying to capture this elusive and horrible child rapist he failed to capture years ago. At the end of the movie, he found the guy and he's luring him into his trap, and he's waiting for him. But on his way to getting trapped by Jack Nicholson, there's an accident on the road he's traveling and he's killed by a truck carrying tree logs, where the logs break free of their straps. Jack Nicholson never realizes this, and it is basically implied he has gone insane and sits there waiting for his quarry for the rest of his days. This is a Deus Ex Machina, an event outside of the story, not implied or foreshadowed, that occurs. Typically this was done in Ancient Greek plays where the author fucked up and has the Gods come down and fix all the problems. The Jack Nicholson situation is the situation in reverse.

Armin talking to Zeke is a Deus Ex Machina. There's no reason why it should work. Why it can work. Armin is basically a perfect stranger to Zeke. Zeke is still a major fanatic. There's nothing to indicate he has changed. Yet Armin talks him into helping him within two pages. Same with every dead character. There is no reason this should be happening, yet it does. Ymir would be far more familiar with Eren than Armin, as Eren has walked PATHS for...god knows how long before. There's no arc or progression for Ymir, for Zeke, for any of the dead characters. It happens because he wants it to. Armin's two page conversation is a clear Deus Ex Machina, as is the rest of the fight. For example, the conversation between Zeke and Armin should have happened with the protagonist/antagonist, not a supporting character. And Armin is a supporting character. This is because of the prior relationship of the characters, the events they went through, their emotional weight....etc. Armin and Zeke are functionally strangers, so their conversation carries no emotional weight, which is why it makes no fucking sense.

It does not flow organically, within the rules of the established world. Its bad enough that the Titan's threat level has vacillated completely through out the book. I mean, I could go in depth as to why the whole thing is stupid, but nothing in Attack on Titan flows organically. There are no real set rules that are followed. Really, anything goes. Which basically means there are no stakes, because any position can be reversed at any time for any reason.

 

[Zero Day Defense]

Maybe so, but he decides to have his head sliced off by Levi? Also wouldn't this just put him back into PATHs? None of this is described. Is PATHs the afterlife? Is it a meeting of all time and space? Is it both? If its a meeting of time and space, Zeke's death doesn't matter. That Royal connection was there. Also Zeke got blown the fuck up into PATHS, literally exploded into another dimension.

Actually, he got summoned there by that Titan that opened up its abdomen for him and put him inside. Zeke totally would have died for reals otherwise. Necessarily, he needs to be corporeally alive for the Founding Titan to operate as far as it can be ascertained, or else Zeke wouldn't have mattered for the purpose of the Rumbling.

The only reason the rumbling stops is because Armin changed Ymir's mind.

If that was the case, they wouldn't have had to worry about the giant Hallucigenia trying to reconnect to Eren's head.

Uh, because Attack on Titan is literally Nazi Jews vs. Jewish Nazis.

When I invoke the Nazis or Jews in discussions in AOT, I only do it in jest because the parallels don't make sense otherwise. I've... gone about this in great detail several pages back, and I don't want to do it again, but suffice to say, the fact that the penultimate conflict has to be described using terms like "Nazi Jews" and "Jewish Nazis" is evidence enough of how little Marleyans and Eldians resemble Nazis or Jews in narrative.

Don't remember that part, but nobody really tries to understand him throughout the book.

Could you elaborate? Their failure to notice Eren's change in mind is noted by Armin at minimum, but I don't get what you would have wanted to see in making this complaint.

I mean, he literally doesn't do anything but throw random goon titans at them

Other goon Titans? Those were past Shifters, with intelligence and everything.

He could have turned upside down and dunk them in water.

I don't think his body supported that at all...

He could have turned all the colossal titans to him and started beating the shit out of them.

They're not meant for that, and there's too many of them for that to be efficient. Also, they were on him, so would the Colossal Titans wail on the Founder's body to get to them? It'd make more sense to send special Titans of other kinds, which is what he did.

Fuck, he could have probably used his ribs to constantly shoot out spikes and impale them midair.

He summoned the Warhammer to do stuff like that, too.

There's a metric fuckton of stuff he can to do stop them and he just throws goons at them to get slaughtered.

Which is what you suggested earlier, but with just Colossals.

The problem is there is no way of seeing what Eren saw.

But he says what he saw, which is good enough for the reader.

Its empty platitudes. Utterly empty. This isn't high philosophy they're discussing. Zeke just suddenly decides to get the chop and abandons his whole fanaticism with a single conversation by a rando. Please. Its fucking motivation poster level conversation.

I dunno, I wasn't walking into this expecting anything on the level of The Brothers Karamazov.

There were dozens of ways to end this after Eren had the founding Titan. Make it so that Eren has to kill so many people to summon the Devil and murder him to break the curse. He doesn't tell his friends and moves away from them because he wants to bear the guilt. Killing the devil resets the world. Ala Ragnarock. The world is reborn into a better place, though Eren's soul has to bear the weight of the souls he took, which is why he was crying in the first chapter.

Make the rumbling one outcome of many possible futures. Make Ymir filled with hate and pain and a desire to hurt for all she's suffered. Have Eren show her even with the most absolute of hatred and violence it will result in nothing but self destruction. At the end of the day, she's just a child who is in pain with unimaginable power. Eren can easily relate to this. That's how he relates to Ymir.

I actually kind of like those ideas, but both of those still involve genocide, they still feel inferior to the current product, and neither really has a path to closure.

Have Eren do the rumbling, but only destroy the factories and military of the world, allowing the civilian populace to escape. He neuters the military capabilities of the world against Paradis and pledges that Paradis will remain totally isolated. Because of the past, he could not trust the world, so he had to destroy their weapons and technology.

He has no idea where all of those are, and that does nothing about the animus the rest of the world has for Paradis that allowed them to be swayed into participating in total war with Paradis.

 

[Protistology]

So Isayama is a hack. My dumb convenient ending was 'love saves all'. Mikasa finally confesses her love for Eren and asks him to come home and stop killing people. That her love was real and not the result of her genes was Chekov Gunned earlier so I guess that's not going to resolved either. Eren has an attack of conscience and kills himself/goes back to Paradis and recreates the walls for the same previous deterrent. End of manga.

 

[Secret Asshole]

Actually, he got summoned there by that Titan that opened up its abdomen for him and put him inside. Zeke totally would have died for reals otherwise. Necessarily, he needs to be corporeally alive for the Founding Titan to operate as far as it can be ascertained, or else Zeke wouldn't have mattered for the purpose of the Rumbling.


If that was the case, they wouldn't have had to worry about the giant Hallucigenia trying to reconnect to Eren's head.


When I invoke the Nazis or Jews in discussions in AOT, I only do it in jest because the parallels don't make sense otherwise. I've... gone about this in great detail several pages back, and I don't want to do it again, but suffice to say, the fact that the penultimate conflict has to be described using terms like "Nazi Jews" and "Jewish Nazis" is evidence enough of how little Marleyans and Eldians resemble Nazis or Jews in narrative.


Could you elaborate? Their failure to notice Eren's change in mind is noted by Armin at minimum, but I don't get what you would have wanted to see in making this complaint.


Other goon Titans? Those were past Shifters, with intelligence and everything.


I don't think his body supported that at all...


They're not meant for that, and there's too many of them for that to be efficient. Also, they were on him, so would the Colossal Titans wail on the Founder's body to get to them? It'd make more sense to send special Titans of other kinds, which is what he did.

He summoned the Warhammer to do stuff like that, too.

Which is what you suggested earlier, but with just Colossals.

But he says what he saw, which is good enough for the reader.

I dunno, I wasn't walking into this expecting anything on the level of The Brothers Karamazov.

I actually kind of like those ideas, but both of those still involve genocide, they still feel inferior to the current product, and neither really has a path to closure.

He has no idea where all of those are, and that does nothing about the animus the rest of the world has for Paradis that allowed them to be swayed into participating in total war with Paradis.

I call them goons because they get rolled. They are no threat. Remember how strong each of these was in the past? Oops, don't matter now. The most important thing is Armin and Zeke having no emotional connection, and Zeke changing his mind for no real reason other than Isayama wants to. That and them just leaving PATHS. It was an asspull of asspulls, and he wanted it to happen. I mean, Zeke pops out of Eren's rib and just waves to Levi like a fucktard, how in the world can you take this seriously? A leaf is somehow symbolic for a fucking baseball, its nonsense. Nothing that happens makes any fucking sense. Its bad enough AoT purposefully doesn't establish rules, makes them extremely nebulous, make them and then just violate them, place chekov's guns and foreshadowing only to forget or drop them constantly. This chapter is just gibberish.

Its fucking 'friendship rangers' with dead characters coming back for no reason to save people. Ymir is clearly not on Eren's side. She rules PATHs. If Ymir is on Eren's side, then there's no fucking reason any of that shit should work other than Isayama is copying Endgame where everyone just comes from all over the world. There is no context or 'rules' for anything that is happening. He might have just had the entire chapter going "And Eren lost the battle." There's nothing in control here. There is no rhyme or reason. Or who knows, maybe he'll just decide to pull something nonsensical out of his ass in 138.

I wouldn't have went for 'genocide' ending, because 'genocide ending' is so fucking mind numbingly stupid. I wouldn't need to 'save' this ending, because I would have never went with the retarded WWII and Game of Thrones shit that was shoe-horned into a horror manga. I would have went with a time-loop ending.

And how is this going to be closure? Also, assuming this is the final battle and Eren's dead and he's gonna monologue, etc. A lot of fucking people are dead thanks to Titans. Eldia is fucked. Human hatred will continue FOREVER now. Yeah, the world is united...in genociding Paradis.

Eren summoning the literal devil to enact the battle of Ragnarock which destroys and remakes the world, leading to a world with no titans or hate and goes back to the first chapter, with a completely circular narrative isn't closure? I'm curious to see what your idea of closure is. I think two living gods fighting for the fate of the world to remake it into something worse (Devil) or better (Eren/Ymir) is more interesting than some Avengers: Endgame knock-off. But that's just me.

Honestly, going 'this would have made it better/worse' is just an exercise because AoT has been utter dogshit for a long time. It got worse and worse and worse until the story was honestly unsalvageable when Eren was constantly going "JUST AS PLANNED" and then his plan just turned out to be murdering everyone. I mean, to me that just indicated the narrative was dead and directionless. First, genociding innocents is always an evil act. The reader cannot get behind this, except to meme. So Eren is out as a main. Attempting to justify it is stupid unless the entire main continent is going to magically turn into titans unless they all fucking die. And even that is still stupid. With the edgy genocide Eren, we have lost our protagonist.

Secondly, we no longer have a protagonist anymore as you can't justify genocide. Eren is the antagonist. There's no one with as much development or connection as Eren for the audience to latch onto. So now it becomes directionless and can only be lead by the most built up character: Eren. (And Eren is not an anti-hero. Anti-heroes do morally dubious things for good reasons. Genocide is not morally dubious. It is evil). So now you have an antagonist driving the story with no protagonist. This is very very bad, since typically the protagonist is the one driving the action usually. Isayama does not replace Eren as the protagonist. It wouldn't have worked anyway, because look at stories that try and replace their protagonist mid-stream. Take Death Note. Kinda did not work out so well for quality, though Death Note is fucking light years beyond AoT. Armin and Mikasa are fucking NOT replacements. Firstly, because Armin is just smart and his parents got shot. That's it. Those are his traits. Oh, and he jerked off over Annie in a crystal. Mikasa because Isayma doesn't know what the fuck to do with her without Eren and she's basically cast aside. Levi isn't warm or relatable enough. His development as a side character with Kenny was great, but only because of Kenny. Jean is literally a cardboard cut out and his only development is Marco. Hange isn't. Sasha MAYBE could have been, because we get to know her family, she grew up in the mountains, she was sensitive about being viewed as a rube, etc. She had all these developed traits we could latch on to and had enough warmth and likeability she could be a foil to Eren's cold march of death. Except she gets fucking shot. Oh well.

Third, to have all this mystery and lore and its just....nope, kill everyone else. It was funny, I'll give it that. I laughed my ass off when years of build up lead to just Eren deciding the murder the Earth even though he had access to time and space.

There is just so much wrong with this chapter because things happen in it which would entirely change the course of the narrative that came before it. PATHS reviving the fucking dead. PATHS pulling people from time and space. And you are telling me that Eren's only solution, was genocide? How is this good writing by any stretch of the imagination? Eren is also NOT a reliable narrator, so just because he says something, doesn't make it true. Unless we the reader see it, nope.

I mean, I'm enjoying just how terrible it is. Out of all the options he picked the boring one. Unless 138 is another just nonsensical twist somehow. If you're genuinely enjoying it, that's ok. We all have our tastes. But its objectively not good writing.

EDIT:
Lastly, I hope Armin's transformation just fucking blows Reiner apart, just for laughs. Have Isayama take one more giant crap on him for old times sake. He doesn't have to die, just be super fucked up and in pain.

 

[Trashfire Garbagefuck]

Lastly, I hope Armin's transformation just fucking blows Reiner apart, just for laughs. Have Isayama take one more giant crap on him for old times sake. He doesn't have to die, just be super fucked up and in pain.

I'll be genuinely surprised if that doesn't happen. This is his desk

and this is him in his desk chair facing to the left

 

[FaramirG]

I'll be genuinely surprised if that doesn't happen. This is his desk

View attachment 1917457

and this is him in his desk chair facing to the left

View attachment 1917449

Is that a Colossal Titan bodypillow over there on the left? Man he *really* likes Armin.

 

[Secret Asshole]

I'll be genuinely surprised if that doesn't happen. This is his desk

View attachment 1917457

and this is him in his desk chair facing to the left

View attachment 1917449

Hahah, holy fucking shit. Out of all the art in the manga, where there are some good panels strewn in with the bad, he chooses the one with Reiner putting a fucking rifle in his mouth. It is funny how much he hates Reiner and I have absolutely no clue why.

 

[Revo]

Maybe so, but he decides to have his head sliced off by Levi? Also wouldn't this just put him back into PATHs? None of this is described. Is PATHs the afterlife? Is it a meeting of all time and space? Is it both? If its a meeting of time and space, Zeke's death doesn't matter. That Royal connection was there. Also Zeke got blown the fuck up into PATHS, literally exploded into another dimension.

The only reason the rumbling stops is because Armin changed Ymir's mind. Technically, Zeke's death would have put him back in PATHs, but the whole fucking concept is retarded, confusing, makes no sense and operates on no rules.



Uh, because Attack on Titan is literally Nazi Jews vs. Jewish Nazis.



Don't remember that part, but nobody really tries to understand him throughout the book.



I mean, he literally doesn't do anything but throw random goon titans at them. He could have turned upside down and dunk them in water. He could have turned all the colossal titans to him and started beating the shit out of them. Fuck, he could have probably used his ribs to constantly shoot out spikes and impale them midair. There's a metric fuckton of stuff he can to do stop them and he just throws goons at them to get slaughtered. He doesn't need to "take away their freedom" to stop them.

He basically just rolls over and takes it.



The problem is there is no way of seeing what Eren saw. We don't know his justification. For all we know, killing the entire world is the only way to save it. Eren's motivations were kept to be mysterious, like he was seeing something nobody else could and it just turns out to be "SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE". Its incredibly fucking pathetic. We have all these plans and machinations and its just....kill everyone? Fucking really? You have access to Time and Space and a God....and that's what you go with? Its unbearably fucking stupid, I'm sorry.

We're not even shown those future memories, so the justification is assumed. We're not shown anything except Eren spacing out and getting a massive erection from seeing the corpses piled high. And if he knows the future, why doesn't he attempt to tell anyone, to show anyone? Again, Ragnarock is not pure destruction, it is rebirth. It is the end of the old order and the beginning of a new, implied Eden. The first part is violent, everyone forgets about the second part.

So, with 0 knowledge of Eren's plan, what Eren is doing is "The world can't genocide you if there's no more world". Its fucking retarded. Its stupid beyond belief. We've got two chapters left, and the only way you could 'correct' this is a timeloop or a fucking exposition dump, which again, is trash writing. People weren't rooting for Eren because they believed in his cause. People were rooting for Eren because what he was doing was fucking retarded. Because it was so mind-bogglingly stupid and nonsensical, that it became absurd and hilarious.

And yes, the world will probably just fucking murder Paradis after this if Eren dies, because nobody is going to believe this wasn't some sort of secret weapon that Paradis had that went out of control. He's killed millions of people. Yeah, the only logical conclusion is Paradis fucking dies and so do all the cringe avengers. But nothing about this has been logical.

This climax was exciting? Fucking lol. Ok. It was boring as shit. There were no stakes. No sacrifices. They simply win because Isayama fucked up and couldn't figure out how to stop Eren without author fiat.

Its empty platitudes. Utterly empty. This isn't high philosophy they're discussing. Zeke just suddenly decides to get the chop and abandons his whole fanaticism with a single conversation by a rando. Please. Its fucking motivation poster level conversation.

And I never thought the story would end with Eren winning. I wanted him to win because it'd be the most fucking retarded ending possible. There were dozens of ways to end this after Eren had the founding Titan. Make it so that Eren has to kill so many people to summon the Devil and murder him to break the curse. He doesn't tell his friends and moves away from them because he wants to bear the guilt. Killing the devil resets the world. Ala Ragnarock. The world is reborn into a better place, though Eren's soul has to bear the weight of the souls he took, which is why he was crying in the first chapter.

Make the rumbling one outcome of many possible futures. Make Ymir filled with hate and pain and a desire to hurt for all she's suffered. Have Eren show her even with the most absolute of hatred and violence it will result in nothing but self destruction. At the end of the day, she's just a child who is in pain with unimaginable power. Eren can easily relate to this. That's how he relates to Ymir.

Have Eren do the rumbling, but only destroy the factories and military of the world, allowing the civilian populace to escape. He neuters the military capabilities of the world against Paradis and pledges that Paradis will remain totally isolated. Because of the past, he could not trust the world, so he had to destroy their weapons and technology.

Have the story be the time loop like was suggested. Maybe Armin figures that out if you want to go with Armin "ALWAYS AS PLANNED" and he has to convince Eren in PATHS to see it.

And these are only a handful of things that I've come up with that are better than what was written. The fact is, Isayama wrote himself into a corner when he put 'genocide only' and then oopsie, turns out that's a really shitty idea unless you fully embrace the myth of Ragnarock of the cycle of death and rebirth. Except Isayama doesn't really have any other God types to fight and destroy. Oops. Looks like that's not gonna work.

Genocide as the only option was idiotic. You create a dimension of time and space with Yggdrasil, the world tree, where characters can come and go from death, and the ONLY option that a living fucking God comes up with access to this immense power to prevent mortals from killing each other is genocide? Bitch please. The writing is so fucking stupid it hurts.

Actually, he got summoned there by that Titan that opened up its abdomen for him and put him inside. Zeke totally would have died for reals otherwise. Necessarily, he needs to be corporeally alive for the Founding Titan to operate as far as it can be ascertained, or else Zeke wouldn't have mattered for the purpose of the Rumbling.


If that was the case, they wouldn't have had to worry about the giant Hallucigenia trying to reconnect to Eren's head.


When I invoke the Nazis or Jews in discussions in AOT, I only do it in jest because the parallels don't make sense otherwise. I've... gone about this in great detail several pages back, and I don't want to do it again, but suffice to say, the fact that the penultimate conflict has to be described using terms like "Nazi Jews" and "Jewish Nazis" is evidence enough of how little Marleyans and Eldians resemble Nazis or Jews in narrative.


Could you elaborate? Their failure to notice Eren's change in mind is noted by Armin at minimum, but I don't get what you would have wanted to see in making this complaint.


Other goon Titans? Those were past Shifters, with intelligence and everything.


I don't think his body supported that at all...


They're not meant for that, and there's too many of them for that to be efficient. Also, they were on him, so would the Colossal Titans wail on the Founder's body to get to them? It'd make more sense to send special Titans of other kinds, which is what he did.

He summoned the Warhammer to do stuff like that, too.

Which is what you suggested earlier, but with just Colossals.

But he says what he saw, which is good enough for the reader.

I dunno, I wasn't walking into this expecting anything on the level of The Brothers Karamazov.

I actually kind of like those ideas, but both of those still involve genocide, they still feel inferior to the current product, and neither really has a path to closure.

He has no idea where all of those are, and that does nothing about the animus the rest of the world has for Paradis that allowed them to be swayed into participating in total war with Paradis.

I call them goons because they get rolled. They are no threat. Remember how strong each of these was in the past? Oops, don't matter now. The most important thing is Armin and Zeke having no emotional connection, and Zeke changing his mind for no real reason other than Isayama wants to. That and them just leaving PATHS. It was an asspull of asspulls, and he wanted it to happen. I mean, Zeke pops out of Eren's rib and just waves to Levi like a fucktard, how in the world can you take this seriously? A leaf is somehow symbolic for a fucking baseball, its nonsense. Nothing that happens makes any fucking sense. Its bad enough AoT purposefully doesn't establish rules, makes them extremely nebulous, make them and then just violate them, place chekov's guns and foreshadowing only to forget or drop them constantly. This chapter is just gibberish.

Its fucking 'friendship rangers' with dead characters coming back for no reason to save people. Ymir is clearly not on Eren's side. She rules PATHs. If Ymir is on Eren's side, then there's no fucking reason any of that shit should work other than Isayama is copying Endgame where everyone just comes from all over the world. There is no context or 'rules' for anything that is happening. He might have just had the entire chapter going "And Eren lost the battle." There's nothing in control here. There is no rhyme or reason. Or who knows, maybe he'll just decide to pull something nonsensical out of his ass in 138.

I wouldn't have went for 'genocide' ending, because 'genocide ending' is so fucking mind numbingly stupid. I wouldn't need to 'save' this ending, because I would have never went with the retarded WWII and Game of Thrones shit that was shoe-horned into a horror manga. I would have went with a time-loop ending.

And how is this going to be closure? Also, assuming this is the final battle and Eren's dead and he's gonna monologue, etc. A lot of fucking people are dead thanks to Titans. Eldia is fucked. Human hatred will continue FOREVER now. Yeah, the world is united...in genociding Paradis.

Eren summoning the literal devil to enact the battle of Ragnarock which destroys and remakes the world, leading to a world with no titans or hate and goes back to the first chapter, with a completely circular narrative isn't closure? I'm curious to see what your idea of closure is. I think two living gods fighting for the fate of the world to remake it into something worse (Devil) or better (Eren/Ymir) is more interesting than some Avengers: Endgame knock-off. But that's just me.

Honestly, going 'this would have made it better/worse' is just an exercise because AoT has been utter dogshit for a long time. It got worse and worse and worse until the story was honestly unsalvageable when Eren was constantly going "JUST AS PLANNED" and then his plan just turned out to be murdering everyone. I mean, to me that just indicated the narrative was dead and directionless. First, genociding innocents is always an evil act. The reader cannot get behind this, except to meme. So Eren is out as a main. Attempting to justify it is stupid unless the entire main continent is going to magically turn into titans unless they all fucking die. And even that is still stupid. With the edgy genocide Eren, we have lost our protagonist.

Secondly, we no longer have a protagonist anymore as you can't justify genocide. Eren is the antagonist. There's no one with as much development or connection as Eren for the audience to latch onto. So now it becomes directionless and can only be lead by the most built up character: Eren. (And Eren is not an anti-hero. Anti-heroes do morally dubious things for good reasons. Genocide is not morally dubious. It is evil). So now you have an antagonist driving the story with no protagonist. This is very very bad, since typically the protagonist is the one driving the action usually. Isayama does not replace Eren as the protagonist. It wouldn't have worked anyway, because look at stories that try and replace their protagonist mid-stream. Take Death Note. Kinda did not work out so well for quality, though Death Note is fucking light years beyond AoT. Armin and Mikasa are fucking NOT replacements. Firstly, because Armin is just smart and his parents got shot. That's it. Those are his traits. Oh, and he jerked off over Annie in a crystal. Mikasa because Isayma doesn't know what the fuck to do with her without Eren and she's basically cast aside. Levi isn't warm or relatable enough. His development as a side character with Kenny was great, but only because of Kenny. Jean is literally a cardboard cut out and his only development is Marco. Hange isn't. Sasha MAYBE could have been, because we get to know her family, she grew up in the mountains, she was sensitive about being viewed as a rube, etc. She had all these developed traits we could latch on to and had enough warmth and likeability she could be a foil to Eren's cold march of death. Except she gets fucking shot. Oh well.

Third, to have all this mystery and lore and its just....nope, kill everyone else. It was funny, I'll give it that. I laughed my ass off when years of build up lead to just Eren deciding the murder the Earth even though he had access to time and space.

There is just so much wrong with this chapter because things happen in it which would entirely change the course of the narrative that came before it. PATHS reviving the fucking dead. PATHS pulling people from time and space. And you are telling me that Eren's only solution, was genocide? How is this good writing by any stretch of the imagination? Eren is also NOT a reliable narrator, so just because he says something, doesn't make it true. Unless we the reader see it, nope.

I mean, I'm enjoying just how terrible it is. Out of all the options he picked the boring one. Unless 138 is another just nonsensical twist somehow. If you're genuinely enjoying it, that's ok. We all have our tastes. But its objectively not good writing.

EDIT:
Lastly, I hope Armin's transformation just fucking blows Reiner apart, just for laughs. Have Isayama take one more giant crap on him for old times sake. He doesn't have to die, just be super fucked up and in pain.

 

[Cryogonal]

I'll be genuinely surprised if that doesn't happen. This is his desk

View attachment 1917457

and this is him in his desk chair facing to the left

I like that panel a lot, honestly. If it weren't so obvious already that he enjoys torturing Reiner, it wouldn't seem so weird.

 

[TerminalTryHard]

Reiner has to be based on someone he knows in real life, and that person should be afraid.

 

[Zero Day Defense]

I call them goons because they get rolled. They are no threat. Remember how strong each of these was in the past? Oops, don't matter now.

Are you judging that based on how they're used or based on the fact that they don't kill anyone before they rebel against Eren.

And how is this going to be closure? Also, assuming this is the final battle and Eren's dead and he's gonna monologue, etc. A lot of fucking people are dead thanks to Titans. Eldia is fucked. Human hatred will continue FOREVER now. Yeah, the world is united...in genociding Paradis.

Either that, or the witnesses at at the fort who saw Eldians fighting against the Founding Titan and its hordes will recount their heroism in aborting the apocalypse, i.e. an unintentional Lelouch gambit. At any rate, that's a possibility they considered and presumably are knowingly risking since they mulled out that exact problem and still did what they did.

Even if your prediction comes to pass, that's also closure. More closure than "Eren breaks Ymir's hate streak --> ?????" or "Ahuramazda and Ahriman (or whatever other dualistic duo, I'm just naming one off the top of my head) redo the story over and over again for eternity to bring it to one of their desired ends".

Eren summoning the literal devil to enact the battle of Ragnarock which destroys and remakes the world, leading to a world with no titans or hate and goes back to the first chapter, with a completely circular narrative isn't closure? I'm curious to see what your idea of closure is. I think two living gods fighting for the fate of the world to remake it into something worse (Devil) or better (Eren/Ymir) is more interesting than some Avengers: Endgame knock-off. But that's just me.

I find it interesting, don't get me wrong-- it's just literally not closure. It's something onto which you could tack a "To Be Continued" and still have it be a pretentious way of saying "Fin".

First, genociding innocents is always an evil act. The reader cannot get behind this, except to meme. So Eren is out as a main.

Secondly, we no longer have a protagonist anymore as you can't justify genocide. Eren is the antagonist.

That's not correct. By definition, he's still the protagonist inasmuch as he's given the most focus in the entire narrative. "Protagonism" has absolutely nothing to do with moral alignment and everything to do with narrative focus. The antagonist, accordingly, is defined in terms of his opposition to the protagonist and nothing more. You can have "evil" protagonists with "good" antagonists (think Invader Zim). In this particular arc, you could well argue that Eren serves as the antagonist because he opposes the rest of the gang who mug the narrative focus in this arc... but you could also argue that the fact that Eren being alive, with thought, and at the center of the narrative regardless of whether we see his natural personage means that he's still the protagonist.

If you meant that the story has no hero, i.e. someone with the moral highground... well, then there's no requirement of writing that mandates such a thing, and AOT goes out of its way to emphasize that there is no objective moral highground, only the interests of the belligerent parties, and strife occurs because the interests of the opposing parties can't accommodate the other.

Secondly, a narrative (at least, this particular one) doesn't demand that you agree with the characters, but rather that you understand the character's motivations. You shouldn't get behind the prospect of genocide, but you can't be said to have been reading well if you don't understand why the protagonist has been moved towards committing genocide.

(And Eren is not an anti-hero. Anti-heroes do morally dubious things for good reasons. Genocide is not morally dubious. It is evil).

Given that we've both attentively followed this narrative, I'm confused by your hang up with the narrative's turn into genocide. No shit, genocide is evil. So is turning human beings into lumbering existential threats "living" a waking nightmare where the only thing they know is to eat other humans. So is sending throngs of these into the borders of a country so they can decimate that country's population (i.e. mass murder, or genocide) on a mission to collect their only war deterrent so you can thereafter kill them all. So is feeding a young girl to dogs because she didn't wear a dinky armband.

So is war-- more so, declaring a total war against a severely disadvantaged people that explicitly don't want any trouble. Do you remember that Eren didn't spring out and eat Willy until after he beseeched all the world's powers to join Marley in annihilating Paradis? Yes, Eren's evil for initiating an apocalyptic genocide on all of the world outside Paradis, but all the world outside Paradis was going to carpetbomb them to extinction if they didn't do anything, literally every non-bloody method of resolution they tried failed, and not even a partial Rumbling would do as much as buy them time to reach technological equality, much less act as a deterrent-- it'd be like partly extinguishing a fire in an Australian desert.

The alternative solutions you have, as I stated, are interesting, but they involve also involve introduction of new narrative elements (e.g. the devil of all earth that's very likely only a mythological construct, branching timelines/outright re-labeling most of this arc's narrative as imaginary à la Breaking Dawn). Absent the introduction of those elements... what else could Eren do when the stakes escalated to the genocide of his people-- a threat that he was exposed to from the day he was born in the form of the Titans that once clustered the sides of the walls of his country before they let themselves in?

I don't really have much contact with the fandom, so I can't say what weird ways they're trying to take any of this, but I have a feeling that they're missing the point that there's no heroes in the fog of war-- only people with irreconcilable interests.

 

[Secret Asshole]

That's not correct. By definition, he's still the protagonist inasmuch as he's given the most focus in the entire narrative. "Protagonism" has absolutely nothing to do with moral alignment and everything to do with narrative focus. The antagonist, accordingly, is defined in terms of his opposition to the protagonist and nothing more. You can have "evil" protagonists with "good" antagonists (think Invader Zim). In this particular arc, you could well argue that Eren serves as the antagonist because he opposes the rest of the gang who mug the narrative focus in this arc... but you could also argue that the fact that Eren being alive, with thought, and at the center of the narrative regardless of whether we see his natural personage means that he's still the protagonist.

If you meant that the story has no hero, i.e. someone with the moral highground... well, then there's no requirement of writing that mandates such a thing, and AOT goes out of its way to emphasize that there is no objective moral highground, only the interests of the belligerent parties, and strife occurs because the interests of the opposing parties can't accommodate the other.

Secondly, a narrative (at least, this particular one) doesn't demand that you agree with the characters, but rather that you understand the character's motivations. You shouldn't get behind the prospect of genocide, but you can't be said to have been reading well if you don't understand why the protagonist has been moved towards committing genocide.


Given that we've both attentively followed this narrative, I'm confused by your hang up with the narrative's turn into genocide. No shit, genocide is evil. So is turning human beings into lumbering existential threats "living" a waking nightmare where the only thing they know is to eat other humans. So is sending throngs of these into the borders of a country so they can decimate that country's population (i.e. mass murder, or genocide) on a mission to collect their only war deterrent so you can thereafter kill them all. So is feeding a young girl to dogs because she didn't wear a dinky armband.

So is war-- more so, declaring a total war against a severely disadvantaged people that explicitly don't want any trouble. Do you remember that Eren didn't spring out and eat Willy until after he beseeched all the world's powers to join Marley in annihilating Paradis? Yes, Eren's evil for initiating an apocalyptic genocide on all of the world outside Paradis, but all the world outside Paradis was going to carpetbomb them to extinction if they didn't do anything, literally every non-bloody method of resolution they tried failed, and not even a partial Rumbling would do as much as buy them time to reach technological equality, much less act as a deterrent-- it'd be like partly extinguishing a fire in an Australian desert.

The alternative solutions you have, as I stated, are interesting, but they involve also involve introduction of new narrative elements (e.g. the devil of all earth that's very likely only a mythological construct, branching timelines/outright re-labeling most of this arc's narrative as imaginary à la Breaking Dawn). Absent the introduction of those elements... what else could Eren do when the stakes escalated to the genocide of his people-- a threat that he was exposed to from the day he was born in the form of the Titans that once clustered the sides of the walls of his country before they let themselves in?

I don't really have much contact with the fandom, so I can't say what weird ways they're trying to take any of this, but I have a feeling that they're missing the point that there's no heroes in the fog of war-- only people with irreconcilable interests.

Protagonist, antagonist, whatever. There is no one equivalent to Eren in terms of story-telling or character. That's why him going "LOL GENOCIDE" basically breaks the story. There is no narrative counterweight to Eren. It is his story and when he loses the audience, that's pretty much it. Isayama even admits this himself. So when the audience loses Eren, there's nothing to replace him with. Though I really did want Eren to fucking kill the entire world because that's the most hysterical ending possible, just sitting on a mountain of blood and corpses like fucking Khorne. The most metal ending. Eren losing and doing some dumb monologue and dying and then it turns out everything is fine and everyone is holding hands is fucking boring as shit. And even if he goes for a Leouch ending, its just Isayama ripping off another work.

Oh, of course I understand why Eren chose genocide. Its because the story railroaded him into that point. Everyone outside of the walls is a hysterical racist caricature who don't actually represent real people. I supported Eren when he Dresden'ed the fuck out of Marley. The problem is we're all lead to believe Eren has this complicated plan to save everyone and the solution is to kill everyone. If you don't see how that's fucking hysterical, I don't know man.

Introduction of new elements? A mythological construct? Zeke gets blown into fucking time and space where a little girl builds him out of sand who has been there for two thousand years and had her eyes plucked out, was tortured to death and cannibalised because she opened the gate to some fucking pig pen. Don't go on to me about 'mythological' in this fucking setting.

Armin literally pulls people from out of time and space who are dead to help him. That alone leaves the possibility of alternate timelines and changing history.

Fucking mythological construct. That's a goddamn hysterical term to use in this story.

 

[FaramirG]

Hahah, holy fucking shit. Out of all the art in the manga, where there are some good panels strewn in with the bad, he chooses the one with Reiner putting a fucking rifle in his mouth. It is funny how much he hates Reiner and I have absolutely no clue why.

For me the one really great character development post-timeskip is Reiner being suicidal, it's a completely reasonable reaction to all the trauma he's been through, and the irony of the Armored Titan having plot armor that prevents him from dying even though that's literally all he wants at this point is hilarious. He's like a reverse One Punch Man, he just wants someone to kill him but whether it's thunder spears, modern artillery, other titan shifters, or the literal apocalypse, he just can't die.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Correct me if I'm wrong, if Eren's power is derived from Ymir, wouldn't the most logically consistent way to deal with him will be to communicate with Ymir so she would abandon Eren?

 

[Secret Asshole]

For me the one really great character development post-timeskip is Reiner being suicidal, it's a completely reasonable reaction to all the trauma he's been through, and the irony of the Armored Titan having plot armor that prevents him from dying even though that's literally all he wants at this point is hilarious. He's like a reverse One Punch Man, he just wants someone to kill him but whether it's thunder spears, modern artillery, other titan shifters, or the literal apocalypse, he just can't die.

The last panel should just be Reiner at the end of the world with everyone dead but he's still alive, looking up at the sky screaming, "WHY WON'T YOU LET ME DIE" with Isayama's face smiling above him.

Correct me if I'm wrong, if Eren's power is derived from Ymir, wouldn't the most logically consistent way to deal with him will be to communicate with Ymir so she would abandon Eren?

The problem is that its pretty nebulous if she's abandoned Eren or not. If she was still on Eren's side and they had an emotional connection, I don't get why killing Zeke would stop the rumbling.

The chapter implies Ymir wants to be connected to every Eldian and when Zeke dies that connection is magically lost, even though Eren understood and related to her on an emotional level. Like many things in the chapter, it doesn't make much, if any, sense.

EDIT:
I looked back on it. In chapter 120, Eren can freely move in PATHS. Zeke implies he is the only one who can move freely there, while he is in chains (which is kind of ditched). Also, the only reason that Eren needed to touch Zeke was to reach the center of PATHS and Ymir.

In 122, Eren embraces Ymir while Zeke screams he is of royal blood while he commands her to obey. Eren holds Ymir saying "You must have been waiting all this time, 2,000 years, for someone." Ymir explicitly ignores Zeke's orders. Which means, he is no longer needed or useful. Why would he be?

So no, there's absolutely no reason to believe why killing Zeke would stop the rumbling. Again, its author fiat and not based on anything previously tied to the story. In 137, she's treated like an automaton who needs a 'connection' (one of which she already has with Eren) with royal blood or some shit. Which she's already explicitly ignored. Reminder, Eren is the only one who made her show any emotion at all.

So again, its just him making something happen because he needs it to. I just don't get how you can see this as 'good' when he's explicitly ignoring elements of his own story and just explaining them away with meaningless exposition. Like Eren and Ymir understanding each other was a great moment really, and then it just gets washed away by exposition.

EDIT 2:
You're right, but the problem is who is going to convince her? Eren and Ymir understand each other, which is why he was granted the founder's power and supported by her. Armin doesn't understand Eren, so how is he going to talk-no-jitsu the founder? And Zeke was already rejected, so he's out of the question.

I just don't see it.

 

[Zero Day Defense]

Protagonist, antagonist, whatever. There is no one equivalent to Eren in terms of story-telling or character. That's why him going "LOL GENOCIDE" basically breaks the story. There is no narrative counterweight to Eren. It is his story and when he loses the audience, that's pretty much it.

Those are some weighty assumptions you're making, as though you could say that the audience was lost when he resorted to genocide or that the rest of the Survey Corps wasn't also carrying the narrative in a story that spends a substantial amount of time not focused on Eren and his activities.

It's also difficult to dismiss the way that you used the terms "protagonist" and "antagonist" because the crux of your argument was that the lack of hero (presumably according to conventional morality that would suggest that genocide is a grave evil) meant that the story is non-operative, when the reality was that the narrative rejects that any of these characters are virtuous and suggests that you just sympathize with them even as they do reprehensible things like torture or promising slaughter-- you assert that Eren's resort to genocide must have lost the audience, but well before that point Eren outright said that he was the same as a man who, as a boy, ran through the barriers of his country and consigned his community to death.

And even if he goes for a Leouch ending, its just Isayama ripping off another work.

Would it matter? There's a difference between having a similar ending to another work and outright appropriating the story beats.

Oh, of course I understand why Eren chose genocide. Its because the story railroaded him into that point.

...yeah. That's... what part of what a narrative does. It brings its set pieces to a particular destination after a distance of some length and shape. I'm guessing you mean that the way that he got to that point broke your suspension of disbelief.

The problem is we're all lead to believe Eren has this complicated plan to save everyone and the solution is to kill everyone.

Dude, I think you betrayed yourself. The Rumbling was always looming in the background like a Chekhov's Vickers gun in the house of a first-time gun owning gun otaku with heavy Asperger's who keeps insisting that it can only do full auto-- I could not imagine a final climax where the Rumbling didn't happen, which meant that Eren would have had to activate it, which meant that he would have had to commit to the prospect of genocide like everyone was hoping would be an effective threat but was something they really didn't want to do. I especially wasn't thinking that he would come up with this plan to "save everyone" after reading him simultaneously eat Liberio's lunch and have the goaded Survey Corps clean up his table and foot the bill. I don't know how you thought the Rumbling wouldn't happen, or that Eren was concerned with the world after he talked about advancing until all his enemies were destroyed and then proceeding to give a grim reminder to the world powers gathered at Liberio. Mikasa even had to tell him that he killed civilians. This boy killed kids. Made them trample on each other.

This is what I get for reading in isolation. I really don't mean to offend-- I just find our divergence in expectations hilarious.

Introduction of new elements? A mythological construct?

Yes. Introduction of new elements in a story with ~100 pages left. How are they going to do that? The train for doing that is currently at EOL and awaiting scrapping. Literally everything you mentioned was introduced in a timely fashion.

When I talk about mythological constructs, I mean the "devil of all earth" just doesn't exist according to any indication beyond in-story folklore, we have two chapters left, and I expect the last chapter to be an epilogue. Even the giant hallucigenia was shown when Gabi blew Eren's block off however many chapters ago.

 

[Doctor of Autism]

For me the one really great character development post-timeskip is Reiner being suicidal, it's a completely reasonable reaction to all the trauma he's been through, and the irony of the Armored Titan having plot armor that prevents him from dying even though that's literally all he wants at this point is hilarious. He's like a reverse One Punch Man, he just wants someone to kill him but whether it's thunder spears, modern artillery, other titan shifters, or the literal apocalypse, he just can't die.

Honestly Reiner was probably one of the more better written characters especially after the timeskip and I found it funny how in Chapter 137 he was saved by the three Jaw Titans who saved his ass before.

 

[Trashfire Garbagefuck]

Honestly Reiner was probably one of the more better written characters especially after the timeskip and I found it funny how in Chapter 137 he was saved by the three Jaw Titans who saved his ass before.

I like that panel a lot, honestly. If it weren't so obvious already that he enjoys torturing Reiner, it wouldn't seem so weird.

I think he makes him suffer because he can do it in a way that's interesting. The shotgun scene in particular is really good for the way it's built up and how Falco interrupted him. He really is the best written character in the series. I mean, it's weird and funny that he wants to ruin Reiner's life so bad, but as a result he puts a lot of effort into him as a character.

I kinda wish we could have had one last hand to hand Eren v Reiner fight were Reiner actually gets to win for once. Even the times Eren lost he didn't lose to Reiner, someone else interfered. Maybe if it turns out they didn't kill Eren just his connection to the founder powers (I'm with @Secret Asshole on this one how the fuck does killing Zeke stop this? Is he like an ignition key that has to be in there? I thought the restrictions were only because of Ymir's own personal emotions and decisions) then he would still have the Attack and Warhammer powers, and he could make one last rush at the cringevengers. I'd be satisfied with a 1v1 with Reiner (and maybe Falco he deserves a piece of this specifically) and then Mikasa either finishing him off or staying with him as he dies "See you around... Eren".