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ghostmartyr · 4 years

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SnK 126 Thoughts

Doctors hate him.

Local man faster at finding new fingers than modern medicine.

It’s nice that we never have to wonder which parts of the story Isayama finds interesting. Clearing out all the titans after a hundred years? Dull. Uninspiring. Have a beach day laced with sadness. Announcing the identities of the Armored and Colossal Titans? We got a fight to get to, chop chop.

We have several groups of people who all think this is a terrible idea but have internal disputes and distance issues that interfere with them collaborating and making a feasible offensive?

-looks for the fast forward button-

Like. Part of me -- a very considerable part of me -- finds this hysterical. In a good way.

I have spent the last... more months than I feel like counting slowing writing my way through a oneshot only I care about. It is taking a long time to write, in part, because of pacing. I am very worried about making sure the pacing of the story stays steady, so all of the beats land right.

Some of the additions such care requires are not my favorite things to write, but for the good of the story feeling like something I can say with confidence I’ve put my best effort into, they’re necessary.

So I’m in flabbergasted awe, here, that someone is out in the world, getting paid to skip everything they evidently find too boring to actually spend time on.

The worst part is it’s really hard to even fault the logic.

Presenting our resolved conflicts!

Is Connie going to kill Falco???

Making Falco and Gabi’s island getaway even more traumatic for the dozenth time even though they’ve had all their character development for it??????

Is Armin going to get make it in time to stop Connie from committing a murder that will definitely happen????

Will Gabi hate everything all over again!?@?!12?

The answer to the first question is no.

It has been no since the concept was introduced.

Even Sasha’s dad is all, “Yeah, it’s probably fine that Connie kidnapped this child.”

Is Jean on Floch’s side now?

No, he’s had that character development already.

Is Mikasa on Floch’s side now?

No.

Is Mikasa doing anything at all or joining Reiner in his depression nap on the floor?

Mikasa joined a rebellion but didn’t have a depression nap on the floor because she was given a bed and also only like five people can sleep with all the rumbling going on.

Will she find her scarf?

Who has her scarf?

Is it the last person seen with her scarf?

Is it the last person seen with her scarf who idolizes Mikasa and first met Mikasa when she was wearing that scarf?

Who also idolizes Eren, who gave her that scarf?

Does Louise have the scarf?

scarfscarfscarfscarfscarfscarfscarfscarfscarfscarfscarfscarf

Mikasa found her scarf.

Louise found it first.

As with most things lately, Eren was a bastard about it.

Mikasa has her scarf.

Is Annie going to reunite with the gang and cause shenanigans?????

Sure, why not?

Is Reiner being left in some building somewhere with food no one is making him eat going to result in something bad for Reiner?

Nope, Armored Titan. Plot included.

Is Reiner ever going to wake up?

Yep.

Are the two volunteers with names in any real danger?

Yes, but Floch’s probably not likely to shoot them now.

Is Falco going to find out that his life got even sadder while he was asleep? :(

Yes.

Are the people of Paradis going to get used to their new Titan overlord just like they got used to the walls, leaving the majority to figure this is not their problem and creating the kind of moral squalor that led to their new Titan overlord completely losing his shit in the first place?

Yep.

Does the plot’s chronic abandonment of Hitch imply a good future for her?

Totes.

Are any of the conclusions to these events surprising in a way that would require more buildup to provide understanding of what is going on?

Nnnnnot really?

Fantastic, let’s not waste time on it. We’ve got a volume to end and a badass crew we want looking pretty.

(Also, Levi still really wants Zeke dead.)

It’s really important that all of these high stakes that the audience is so concerned with are dealt with so we can move into the final arc without any lingering thoughts about things that might get in the way of actually writing the final arc.

I think the worst victim here is Connie’s subplot, because things move too quickly for the emotional weight to come home. At the same time... Connie was never going to kill Falco. There’s only so much suspense you can put there when half of Connie’s thoughts about killing Falco are how maybe he shouldn’t be killing Falco.

Armin’s inclusion and the callback to Serum Bowl likewise doesn’t have much meat on it. Armin feeling inadequate is nothing new, and his complicated feelings on who receives Titan powers are likely always going to be complicated. The only conflict to really resolve here is the physical one of getting Connie away from Falco before some dumb accident happens.

That conflict happens, and squared away it gets.

More, “You betrayed me, Mr. Kru -- I mean Connie, :( :(” doesn’t actually benefit the plot at all. More time given to Falco to react to something the audience has known for months doesn’t really benefit the plot at all. Less time with Gabi and Falco being sad little munchkins arguably does benefit the plot, with how many times they’ve been called on for that role.

Connie cooling down and being pals instead of perpetually angry was going to happen at some point. Throw it in with the rest. Armin needing someone to lean on without melodramatic childhood bonds fits right in. Throw it in.

Did we need Louise?

I would argue I wanted more of Louise, but my opinion seems to matter very little in these things

Mikasa needs Louise. Louise is someone Mikasa inspires into following Eren down the wrong path. Louise is the mouthpiece that tells Mikasa that Eren, who promised to wrap her scarf around her as many times as necessary, wants nothing to do with it anymore.

Louise is someone Mikasa protected, and she’s dead.

One last nail in that awkward coffin.

And I guess we just don’t like children anymore and Falco and Gabi have all the survival tokens, so yeah, throw Louise on the pyre too.

What else, what else... oh, more Floch and speeches. Because he’s still allowed to talk. More happy voices about how no one has to worry about dying anymore because everyone who would think of killing you is going to be murdered.

Uhhhh. Annie could conceivably be there, right?

Yeah, sure.

Annie’s here now.

We all are agreed that was always going to happen, right? No problem?

Public executions in front of an angry mob?

For one morally bankrupt religious nut and one Good Boi who deserves the chance to punch Floch in the face a few times before shooting him?

Yeah, pile that on. Make it really clear that if Eren was going to destroy the world, he might as well have taken out the island too, since we’re doing the whole party anyway.

Give Onyankopon a really solid moment, too. Someone in the chapter has to represent that genocide is bad. Well, Connie sort of implied that already. But Onyankopon has been screwed over the most for doing absolutely everything right, so he deserves the chance to point out that everything is fucked and also fuck you this is terrible you were supposed to be better.

Then like, uh.

That gives us a cast, right?

We’ve got Jean, Magath, Pieck, Yelena, Onyankopon, Hange, and Levi on one side, and Reiner, Annie, Falco, Gabi, Connie, Armin, and Mikasa on the other.

Fourteen!

One over thirteen!

That’s like lucky, right?

Can we do the plot now?

Can we, can we, can we?

It’s amazing.

It’s abominably paced, but oh wow is it incredible. Need everyone on the island who has an interest in stopping this in agreement? Well, here’s a chapter for you. Now they are. Now we can actually maybe like. Do stuff. Against Eren.

Good luck figuring out how, but we’ve at least got everyone assembled now.

Except Historia.

Because you know, fuck the Queen.

...Does anyone on the island remember they have a Queen?

This is a serious question.

Like no, this is amazing. It’s like, well, we could have a bunch of chapters slowly building up to this point while everyone starts counting Wall Titans in the background and wondering when we’ll get on with actually fixing this massive problem instead of just detailing it further for the hundredth time.

Or.

We could just admit that we all basically knew this was coming, so we can skip to the good stuff. Good? Good.

Only we make sure to draw it all out so there’s no argument over how it went down and no one does anything dangerous like apply imagination while a hasty time skip patch job takes hold.

Because that’s probably next chapter.

SHOUNEN POWERS ACTIVATE.

Team Fuck Zeke vs. Team People Die When They Are Killed And We’re Not About That (right now).

Pray tell, do any of you have the power to do literally anything about this?

I do wonder if that’s some of why we’re zooming through these points. While I think there’s a slightly legitimate case to be made that extra time on things we all realized were going to go down is not needed (...it... is needed, for like. enjoying things, but you know let’s just not), part of that hinges on the complications they’re about to face.

Stopping Connie from child murder eats up time. Finding Annie takes time. Confirming Mikasa’s scarf reunion takes time. Confirming Levi and Hange are alive takes time. Confirming Magath and Pieck are willing not to murder them immediately takes time.

I don’t think Levi and Hange’s side is too badly harmed from the pacing. It’s fast, but it’s working with the backing of time. They’ve been absent for a while, and catching us up on where they are and what ground they’re standing on proceeds smoothly. Without the rest of the chapter being what it is, I don’t think the starting scene would feel particularly unusual.

Even the rest of the chapter with its speedrunning ways isn’t too terrible once your brain is expecting it.

...I can’t really excuse Annie.

Unless Rule of Funny comes into play. But even then, yeah. Wow.

Anyway, what I’m getting at is that despite our full cast of degenerates assembled, we still don’t have a workable plan in sight. Five of the nine Titans are working together against Eren. One remaining is missing in action, but also generally anti-Eren at this point.

Then we’ve got nine humans.

So what?

One Colossal Titan with a baseball enthusiast destroys the Survey Corps, and only dies due to human error and someone’s willing sacrifice.

Eren’s got more than we can count, and the stegosaurus behemoth he’s using as a body now.

It’s all very nice and good to form a united front of fourteen people deciding to kill a god, but what does that actually mean?

Even if we’re generous, and include Shadis and his allies in the available forces, how does that actually help anyone? Does anyone have a good idea of how to get to Eren, let alone stop him? Has anyone in this group had a single stable conversation with him since he set out on his own?

If we took an extra couple of chapters to settle down all of the live wires this one grounds, those issues would still be at the front of the main plot. Drifting into the side pools doesn’t damage the story, but it does interfere with momentum.

Stories are hard. Balancing a story’s pace between what the completed work will look like and what the audience is currently experiencing is a nightmare.

This story has the largest conflict it will ever probably face, and a bit of a list of things to check off before it can get around to dealing with that. So it goes with the option of speeding through the list and skidding to a halt in front of the main show.

I don’t exactly approve of it, but given that this is what was chosen, it’s hard to turn away the benefits. I didn’t really want to read about Connie’s shenanigans with Falco and Armin turning into more shenanigans when they come across Annie and try to figure out if they have to kill her, then yet more with --

There is a lot going on. Consolidating that into a lot going on, but with everyone on the same side proactively working together... I like where this lands us.

It’s just really, really funny.

I don’t think I have another example of an author not wanting to write something, so just. not. This whole chapter is like, “oh wait I wrote myself into a hole well now I’m just going to erase that hole and move along.”

From a writing standpoint, it’s hard not to find that endearing. Wiping the slate clean is something you can do endlessly in unpublished works, but with published works, once you ink yourself into a situation, that situation tends to demand attention.

These situations got a little. As a treat.

But back to the state of the story, the primary conflict is pretty firmly locked in, “Well now what?”

Ideally, you lace, “Well now what?” in with all the subplots you have going, and then upon their conclusion you have a solid, “What has arrived!” moment, and everything plays together beautifully, but this has chosen not to do that. Except with the emotional resolutions.

Team Fuck Zeke.

Team People Die When They Are Killed And We’re Not About That (right now).

-underlines the clears philosophies of the teams-

Wait Yelena doesn’t fit in on Team Fuck Zeke. Unless.

But yeah, so now what?

Does all of this friendly bonding help?

I mean. Maybe Magath and all of his highly influential Marleyan politics can land the good people of Paradis (aka the ones not enjoying their coup) a deal with the rest of the world to unite in taking down Eren?

Or something?

(Seriously, how many countries are looking at this and thinking to themselves, “If they hit Marley first, that’s one problem solved”? I do not think anyone has forgotten they hate Marley, they just hate other things (Eren) more right now.)

While we’re at it, maybe Armin and Mikasa shoot beams powered by friendship into Eren’s stegosaurus skull.

The story potentially still has a lot of downtime. Mixing that in with all of the subplots would absolutely be preferred, but doing that while keeping enough of the main story going to keep the tension up regarding the end of the world...

It gets tricky.

I am sympathetic to the difficulty.

Amazing.

What a chapter.

#Shingeki no Kyojin #SnK 126 #shingeki no spoilers #SnK spoilers #spoilers #tl;dr #chapter post

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haruyuri · 6 years

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Attack On Titan // Manga Analysis

contains spoilers.

this post is focused mostly on the Marley Arc and Sasha’s death. read at your own risk.

Ah, I said I would do this, here I am.

I believe pretty much all of the Attack On Titan fandom is pissed right now. Whether you are a manga reader or not, I’m sure you’ve come across with the most recent spoilers.

Yes, Sasha Blouse is dead.

We shall start with some background on her, using the anime. She was rather irrelevant during season one, I think we all agree. She was simply the ‘potato girl’, or the girl who spoke in a ridiculously polite way, but, during season two, she gained some focus for her character. Truth is she was meant to die in chapter 40, more or less, when she fought that one titan with the arrows. (Titan that was confirmed (i think) to be Connie’s father.)

She was unharmed. She didn’t have her gear on, but she did save a small child from a titan and fought it with something she was good at, shooting arrows. But though, I think she isn’t given enough credit for this. She had this whole episode for herself and still, she was still ‘potato girl’.

Throughout the whole anime, Sasha is seen as a goofball who has an incredibly high appetite. Sure, she is a rather positive character, so is Connie, but both of them have their own demons as well.

Believe it or not, Sasha was rather important during the Uprising Arc. She was one of the chosen to be part of the new Squad Levi, as long as the other 104th soldiers and she had an important role in protecting Eren and Historia.

After she takes care of Levi’s wounds, she stays on guard all night as the squad is eating and drinking.

She then takes part in the rescuing of Eren and Historia, as they know their whereabouts and, shall we not forget, she saves Connie’s life.

And, later on, it’s Connie’s time to attend to her safety, in the Return to Shingashina Arc. Being hit by the debris upon fighting the Armored Titan, Connie takes her unconscious body to a roof and everyone begins thinking about the Titan Serum. Though, she’s not injured to that point and the debate is then between Armin and Erwin, Levi ending up deciding to give it to Armin.

Even more, as they return to Trost and she finally recovers, she is exhonerated with a damn medal. Sasha is a worthy soldier.

And finally, we get to the shitty Marley Arc. Personally, it has been my least favorite arc so far. Now, having read chapter 105, I feel like I’ve wasted all the time I’ve put into reading this manga. I used to love every bit of it, even with the death and all the angst, I still looked forward to the next chapter. Now, I don’t. Now I’ll think “Ah.. Another chapter. I’ll read it later.” and just go on with it.

Alright, let’s get this Arc straight, shall we.

We had a heck ton of chapters that made us though “Where the fuck is the Survey Corps” since only hobo looking Eren and mentally fucked up Reiner were on the show. Sure, we got to know some stuff about the Marley dudes, but they’re not that interesting.

It seems to me that Eren left to Marley on his own accord, that he probably even disobeyed his superiors orders (That’d be Commander Hange and Captain Levi) and even wrote them a letter.

Both Hange and Levi show their discontent with Eren’s development and behavior. Eren, who used to be Humanity’s Hope is now nothing but a suicidal soldier, who uses himself as bait and causes his comrades to die.

He was, for a long time, talking to Falco, bonding with him so that he could get to Reiner. I’m not sure how I feel about Falco though, because he seems to be a good person and he felt deceived by Eren, because he thought Eren was a good person and he was surely though that the people of Paradis were monsters.

Falco felt used by Eren and realizes he was lied to. The kid probably has trust issues, who knows.

Despite knowing that his name is Eren Jaeger, he still goes for Kruger. He’s upset, he understood Eren is a bad guy, I guess.

But anyway, Eren masters up to fuck Reiner in the head even more and bam- he goes batshit crazy and turns into a titan. Nothing we haven’t seen before, right?

Well he goes and kills the Thor look alike and ye, look it’s a new titan!!!

You are one creepy fucker, Tybur woman.

And, of course, the rest of Marley had to come, right? We get a better look at Pieck’s cart titan and Zeke’s beast titan as well. Let’s not forget what Levi promised Erwin before he died. He would take down the beast titan.

But, surprise surprise. Zeke is betraying Marley. Or.. You can’t be that surprised, c’mon, he betrayed his own parents.

Here’s how it starts:

Eren seems a bit unamused to me, I don’t know, woops.

On another note, both Levi and Jean talk about ‘time’. That’s another confirmation note to the fact Zeke is actually on Paradis’ side (apparently) and Levi killing him, for now, is an act.

Pieck knows that Zeke just betrayed him, so.. my question is. Why didn’t she do anything about it? She probably just realised that Levi did not kill him, that he acted as if he did. So why did she just carry on battling and didn’t do anything? Hm.. Fishy.

But moving on.

Let’s talk about another character. Gabi Braun. She’s just 12 and also an Eldian and Warrior Candidate. Her goal is to kill Eren Jaeger, who trampled over her home.

So here’s the thing about Gabi. First of all, she’s a brat. Second of all, she has a superiority complex. Third of all, she doesn’t listen to anyone. We all know Falco is more inteligent than Gabi and less impulsive than her.

Don’t talk back, you brat.

But here’s what pisses me off. She made it clear. Eren Jaeger is her target. Sure, she holds a grudge against all Survey Corps members, but mostly, Eren.

So why, why did she have to kill TWO soldiers before she got Eren?

She killed Lobov and, right after, she didn’t even aim. She grabbed the gun and shot. She had no idea if she’d get anyone or not. But she did, she killed Sasha with one shot.

What was the damn logic? She shot randomly. Did she even know if she’d get someone? As much as she knew, she could’ve shot against a wall. Her aim wasn’t defined, she didn’t know what she was doing.

But no. Poor innocent Sasha had to take the damn bullet. No one was expecting that, Jean and Connie are dumbfounded as Sasha falls backwards.

Some people are supporting Gabi in here, saying she’s protecting her home, but let’s get something straight. If Sasha hadn’t hesitated back then, Gabi would be dead. Sasha spared Gabi’s life and how did Gabi thank her? She didn’t. She killed her. She killed the one who granted her the miracle of life when she could’ve taken it away.

And of course, the Survey Corps flip. Sasha is obviously dear to everyone, we can tell that everyone sees Sasha as a close friend, or even a relative. While Jean and Connie, the closest people to Sasha, try to take care of her, the others are quick to pin Gabi and Falco down and hit them. They’re seriously pissed that a brat got in their ship and shot one of them.

We all know Jean is an emotional guy. But, seeing try to stay collected, giving orders as he sees Sasha slowly slip away from life.. Damn mate.

Also, Connie asks her to hold on until they go home. I still wonder why.

Also, y’all know what pisses me off? When I’m sad/upset and people still make fun of me. And this happened here. Everyone’s sad about Sasha’s death, some people are probably sad over Eren’s state and how the Survey Corps are treating him and Sasha’s last word is ‘meat’ ?

Seriously now, m e a t ?

At this point, I can’t help but believe Isayama is toying around with us. Sure, Sasha became known at the ‘potato girl’ and someone with high appetite, but is that what her whole character is about? Apparently.

And know what hurts the most?

This probably happened about five minutes before she was shot. Both Jean and Sasha are reflecting on their mission, on what they have to do and how they have to kill. And of course, Connie plays the positive guy. Sure he ain’t smiling, but he’s glad he’s alive. He’s glad his best friends are alive. Jean and Sasha are pretty much everything that Connie has. Sure, he might be a bit close to the others, but Jean and Sasha are definetly the closest people to him. He’s lost his family, he’s lost comrades and now.. Well, he lost Sasha.

We can see the closure between Sasha and Connie and I’m not saying this because I’m a Springles shipper, but I think that there was something more than friendship, but of course romance would never, in a million years, be relevant to Attack On Titan. (cue; Hannah and Franz died rather quickly)

Sasha was smiling after Connie said she was special and soon they were happily talking about dinner. They just wanted to hang out and relax now.

But no. Sasha had to be murdered.

Jean is stressing out. Sasha is dying in front of his eyes. He’s probably thinking that he couldn’t protect her, but deep down he blames Eren for this.

The other soldiers have beaten Gabi more than Falco, of course, Falco isn’t even bleeding, but they threaten to kill both.

Gabi’s speaking shit and how they’d let the commander know and Jean just tells her she can tell Zeke in person.

On another note, Pieck is talking about Yellena, and how she knew Zeke was betraying them with Yellena’s help. Once again, why didn’t she do anything or report Zeke’s intentions to the other warriors?

Zeke wasn’t expecting that. He probably wouldn’t expect Gabi to murder two soldiers either. He thinks that these kids ruined his plan. I’m still not sure what the plan is, but well, the Corps seem to know.

Well, seems like Gabi ruined things for ya, Beardie. But calling those kids miscalculations is almost the same as called them failed abortions. Yikes.

I’m still very confused about this page, about the conversation between Levi and Zeke. Of course Levi would want to kill the one who killed Mike, got other soldiers to die and was heavily involved in Erwin’s death, not to mention he promised Erwin he would take down the beast titan. And, no matter how much he has to team up with Zeke now, Levi keeps his word.

And well, this was it. I don’t have anything else to complain about. I hope y’all enjoyed this if you reached this line. Maybe if I read chapter 106, i’ll add more to this,

#attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #eren jaeger #levi ackerman #sasha blouse #mikasa ackerman #armin arlert #hange zoe #reiner braun #gabi braun #spoilers #manga #marley arc #analysis #manga analysis #theories #snk #aot

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