KS [1] Thanks for the swift reply! I'd like to go private but I don't have a tumblr account, honestly don't feel like doing one if you don't mind. If you don't feel like talking about snk anymore, I understand! If it only causes you bitterness, why bother? I still do it just because it doesn't and it's going to end soon anyway. Regarding your reply, yeah I too meant that the bird was Eren's conscience or connection to nature and not him literally, I just didn't have enough space XD [...]

Hiii...it’s been almost 3 weeks I am so sorry. But between real life being absolute torture, and finding respite in stuff different from snk, I completely forgot to come back to this. I really do not enjoy talking about snk, so I was really overwhelmed by your messages (that I didn’t even receive in full, and that’s one of the reasons why I’d prefer to move the conversation elsewhere - but I don't really wanna have conversations about snk atm anyway. ‘cause you see, I agree 100% with you, it sounds like I wrote these messages myself, but at the end of the day they just remind me of how much I’ve come to dislike the series...so, not really productive, or healthy for my mindset right now (i repeat, real life is just...trying to kill me apparently)).

Anyway, so I’ll just reply quickly to your messages, because you spent a lot of time typing them up, but yeah...this is not the best place or moment to have such long discussions about snk, I believe.

[2] I was wondering more on the implications to that, because thinking about it, I remembered many scenes in the anime's past seasons with birds flying, and it got me thinking if it really was all decided from the start? Maybe by some superior entity? I hope like you that little Ymir isn't just a plot device and has a role to play together with Zeke. I hope this isn't the last we see from Eren pov as well becuase those shots of little him saying 'this scenery' really worried me. [...]

I was thinking birds, besides a white one possibly meaning hope and a black one usually connected to death, are part of nature, just like all things connected through paths. Titans are connected to nature, there has been a lot of discussion about this in fandom for years, so yeah. Also, hope = freedom & life, death = despair. It all plays on the dichotomy that is Eren: he doesn’t want to kill but he doesn’t want to die either. I wonder if one of the morals of the story will be that death is just part of a natural cycle, hence you can be free in death too (but I hate this, because it’s really negative if applied to SnK).

Re-reading some stuff also made me hopeful about this not being the last of Eren’s pov, as far as explanations go. Like, there is clearly more (Liberio, for example, the WHT, etc). As for child!Eren, I think he is totally disconnected from reality, hence he doesn’t see what’s happening, and if he is, he’s also trying to convince himself that, like 19!Eren said in chapter 121, as a child he would take freedom away from people who tried to take his freedom away with little to no remorse - of course, it isn’t the case for adult!Eren, as we saw multiple times.

[3] I just hope we get to see more from him, like War Hammer titan and King Fritz memories, and there's more with Historia as well. I don't really care about shipping so I don't mind if we get EH or if Eren is the father, at least it would make sense for the pregnancy thing to be this dragged out. I just found the Armin/Annie conversation really baffling? What with the timing and the tone of the chapter? What was the point of that? To make us feel sad for Armin if Annie dies? [...]

I feel a couple, in particular a couple with Eren, would be too out of the blue and ruin Eren’s character (and the other party of the pair). Besides, romance has never been part of Eren’s character arc. If it’s just to follow the shonen manga’s trend of the protagonist ending up with [insert female character], then this will finally put snk in the trash bin for me.

I was watching a japanese youtuber’s analysis about the latest chapter and he said something very interesting about the Annie/Armin scene: just like we have child!Eren being happy vs adult!Eren despairing, their little talk repeated the same 2 povs: childhood vs adulthood. Armin’s ““declaration of love”” felt really childish and, as Annie rightfully pointed out, was that really the time for it? People are getting crushed and Armin thinks about such innocents stuff? You could say it’s the same dichotomy of hope - despair, beautiful - cruel, innocence - what Armin later admits: he is not innocent, he also killed people and children in cold blood, ever since the beginning of the story.

I personally don’t think either of them will die, but as the youtuber pointed out, usually these romantic overtones bring one of the pair to their death (I was pleased he brought up as an example yumihisu ahah), so I get why you might speculate as such.

[4] And Eren's pov got me really confused. I kind of understand what the author was going for and I agree with your analysys about his inner conflict and desperation but to me it came out of nowhere? Like you said, it doesn't really make sense for his character. This is what we get by having his thoughts hidden for so long though. At the start of the manga we got those moments where we could see he was somewhat twisted but then he grew out of it and was pretty normal, and now all of a sudden[..]

I think the inner conflict has been there, always throughout the story and in Eren as well, but for me, the problem lies elsewhere, in the sense that there is still no connection (or good enough transition) between “i don’t want to kill people but since i don't wanna die i guess i’ll kill them”. We’re talking about Eren, who wanted to die because people died because of him...who got so angry about being unjustly threatened with death, who stood up against bullies, against all sorts of injustice because he strongly believes in the intrinsic right of being free (WHICH IS THE RIGHT TO BE ALIVE). I get it that the other side wants them dead, but it still feels stupid that he would convince himself to kill the innocent majority, suddenly refusing half of what he has always believed in. If Isayama is going for “hey look, isn’t this tragic? What despair pushes people to do?” like UGH it’s just so annoying, because WE KNOW, snk is ALL about that, but what bothers me in this case, in particular, is, if Eren gets no redemption at all, then fuck off @ this story. See, I’m getting angry.

[5] he has like regressed to his childhood self? If he really hates doing all this, why does he do it? And I think you're right about Eren being demonized by the narrative: the writer made possible only 2 options and forced Eren to choose the rumbling and to him to be the psycho final villain, what with all those exaggerated expressions and shadows to draw him. If he was going with that from the start he should have done it constantly throughout the manga. And I won't even talk about [...]

And yes, the point is Eren changed throughout the story!!! For god’s sake!! Then all that progression was just so that Eren had a more nuanced view of the world so that he could suffer for this choice in particular? Wow, I didn’t know I was reading Tokyo Ghoul...... /s

[6] the predetermination stuff. Did Eren really surrender to the future he saw? Is he really just there in his titan sleeping and wallowing? LOL If Armin turns out to be the hero who can change the future... bleargh. I probably dislike the alliance as much as I do because the narrative is so biased in favour of them. I put my hope in Zeke for that! Please! Let him be the key if Eren is defeated! On the other hand I think it's not so obvious that he will lose as well. on that point, [...]

This is the last one I got, I’m sorry. Anyway, idk if it’s predetermined, or just like, the moment you think of something, the future changes. That would explain how Eren blames himself for this future: only because he dared think of this, then it happened. In any case, I doubt Armin ends up being the hero, I think it’ll be a group effort...remember Isayama was impressed by GotG’s ending....

Finally, Zeke, my lovely bitch, where are you??!?!?!?

He’s late to the party like a true queen.