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EP. REVIEW: Attack on Titan The Final Season

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all while the Scout Regiments fly about Marely so they can commit their own, littler war crimes.

Maybe I'm forgetting something but what did the Scouts Regiment do that could be constructed as a war crime? I recall them taking out an artillery battery with explosive spears, flushing out entrenched soldiers with grenades, bombing troop transports and Sasha sniping a group of armed guards.

Anyhow, I don't know if it was deliberate but I found Willy and Margath's plan to be... Really out there. The season started at the conclusion of a war that begun due to a group of nations banding togheter to challenge Marley's hegemony at a time when they were perceived as weak... So they decide their next move is to goad the enemy into fighting an highly dicey pitched battle right at their capital which could very well be left a smoldering ruin - I'm sure that will do wonders for their power projection, specially in they lose any more Titans. I get that the story will just state that other nations just fall in line due to their fear of Paradis overpowering their hatred of Marley but if you think military commands in other nations aren't looking at what's going on and thinking "Well, let's just leave both sides to bleed each other out and maybe swoop in to tip the scales when we can't milk this situation further", then I have a bridge in Paradis to sell you. Sure maybe its shortsided but that's just human nature, courts all over Europe were overjoyed when the French revolution kicked off, not that they had any love for the revolutionaries, but having the premier military power in Europe paralyzed was perfect news until it wasn't.

Also the plan to purge the top brass, while I can concede that some particular power hungry individuals with an overstated assessment of their abilities could go along with, but it sounds incredibly reckless. "Too many generals" is a problem pre-modern militaries did ocassinally run into in a career path that was usually determined by promotion every X years (this was a notorious problem in pre revolutionary France) but that's usually a budgetary problem, which doesn't strike me as a concern for either of the two plotters here. The other reason to do it is ideologic, like Stalin's purges to the military that did away with the last vestiges of the Russian imperial army - tough I don't see that motive being at play here and more importantly, the soviet's humiliation in the subsequent Winter War against Finland should tell you all you need to know about the short term problems of shooting a large chunk of your military brass shortly before going into conflict, let alone right in the middle of a war.

Pipoko wrote:

spoiler[I think the Ymir backstory at least gives the situation a little bit more nuance than that because the real perpetrator of this whole thing actually enslaved what we consider the ancestors of current Eldians. The first king Fritz built the empire on a slave(s) he obtained and abused and that actually does fit the analogy a little bit better because the slaves are also separate folk from the Eldians. The empire was essentially built on the exploitation of the Jewish equivalent (who were innocent enslaved people) by a foreign power and went from there. Ymir also obtains the power in a very neutral way. So it at least leans into the "this is general human nature" and "this is how imperialism works" angles a little bit more. ] But also, yeah, it probably would've been much better to not use the imagery at all. Plenty of other ways to still get the point across.

While agree that using imagery of Holocaust here was not a good idea. However, I slightly disagree about the Eldian empire origin backstory, its a bit more complicated then that.

spoiler[ Backstory was more about the Haves and the Have Nots, powerful and powerless and how much Titan power made a difference to the powerful but did not to the powerless. The original "king" of Eldian people is regular leader - powerful warrior, brute, etc and original Ymir is powerless slave who is so abused and beaten-down that when she obtained the greatest power imaginable allowed herself to be used up by her abuser with only way out by killing herself. After that the story changes, her daughters were the only heirs of the Eldian king, so their family became the power class. ]

But I also find it interesting that in all Eldian power families (Tiburs, Fritz', etc), the other members of the family reaped the rewards but they sacrificed their most powerless member, someone who is always timid (and in Tiburs and Fritz' cases usually female). Its only when Eldian families lose control of their Titans (the ones that Marleys stole) the males become part of it, and they do not consider themselves sacrifices and powerless but more as warriors. I find this dynamic very interesting.

I get that the story will just state that other nations just fall in line due to their fear of Paradis overpowering their hatred of Marley but if you think military commands in other nations aren't looking at what's going on and thinking "Well, let's just leave both sides to bleed each other out and maybe swoop in to tip the scales when we can't milk this situation further", then I have a bridge in Paradis to sell you.

OrdepNM wrote:

I get that the story will just state that other nations just fall in line due to their fear of Paradis overpowering their hatred of Marley but if you think military commands in other nations aren't looking at what's going on and thinking "Well, let's just leave both sides to bleed each other out and maybe swoop in to tip the scales when we can't milk this situation further", then I have a bridge in Paradis to sell you.

I could see that being the case if the other nations had a sort of neutral position in the whole "Eldians are devils" conflict, but from what we've learned so far, Eldians in other nations are hated and oppressed far umore than in Marley. So if Paradis were to declare war (which I guess they have as of last episode), I don't think they'd have the luxury of waiting and milking the situation. In Paradis' eyes, everyone outside its borders is already an enemy, and considering the imminent, world-scale threat that The Rumbling poses, I can see why the other nations would heed Marley's call.

After the last few times that we have been shown the Colossal Titan, I've got to wonder how damn strong the walls must be.

Yuvelir wrote:

After the last few times that we have been shown the Colossal Titan, I've got to wonder how damn strong the walls must be.

The walls being made out of Colossal Titan is likely a big part of it!

Agent355

You've stated you're up to date with the manga but you wonder about Tybur & Magath's "plan"? Have you forgottenspoiler[ about Zeke's part in the planning and his subsequent betrayal of said plan? Episode 8 and later episodes will no doubt clear the issue up ]
spoiler[
I've also come to believe,after reading the latest chapters, that Ymir is using both Eren & Zeke. Would not be surprised if she did not have a hand in from the beginning.]

But even the masonry around them is excellent for all bricks to stay in place.
And that line disturbed me a little wheb hearing it. Isn't THE Colossal Titan one of the very special 9 special titans? How come that there are hundreds or thousands of colossals? With skin? And noticeably shorter than THE colossal titan? And they're also good at hardening.
And come think of it, how much of his population did Fritz sacrifice to make those walls? Assuming he could control what shape his titan subjects could take.
Unless... this episode we saw two Eren Titans on the same frame... Would it be possible to "dismount" your titan and, instead of it slowly dissolving, hardening it (before dismounting I assume)?

Gem-Bug wrote:

Yuvelir wrote: After the last few times that we have been shown the Colossal Titan, I've got to wonder how damn strong the walls must be. The walls being made out of Colossal Titan is likely a big part of it!

But even the masonry around them is excellent for all bricks to stay in place.
And that line disturbed me a little wheb hearing it. Isn't THE Colossal Titan one of the very special 9 special titans? How come that there are hundreds or thousands of colossals? With skin? And noticeably shorter than THE colossal titan? And they're also good at hardening.
And come think of it, how much of his population did Fritz sacrifice to make those walls? Assuming he could control what shape his titan subjects could take.
Unless... this episode we saw two Eren Titans on the same frame... Would it be possible to "dismount" your titan and, instead of it slowly dissolving, hardening it (before dismounting I assume)?

These are great points, and I agree Tyber and Magath’s plan was ridiculous. I don’t quite like how the narrative creates this circular and almost too perfect structure of cause and effect—Tyber and Magath are purposefully baiting Paradis to attack, Paradis takes the bait just as planned, the whole world agrees to ally with Marley against Paradis. It’s a little too perfect, and it seems to have been done just to showcase how Tyber, Magath and Eren are equally at fault/too blame for the civilians killed in the attack.

A few points of correction, though: Magath and Tyber “planned” this attack not only to “unite the world” (which I agree shouldn’t have worked) but also because they suspect there are traitors in the Marley military working with Paradis and they wanted to smoke them out; and the attack doesn’t take place in the Marley capital but in Liberio, the Eldian ghetto, because Marley and Tyber don’t give a damn if innocent Eldian civilians are murdered and their ghetto destroyed, plus bonus! They think the rest of the world will be more sympathetic if they see images of the poor, subjected Eldians cruelly killed by those “evil Island Devils.”
Magath had some reservations about putting civilians in danger but ultimately he was cool with it.

I think we’re all supposed to be questioning Eren’s motives now. Frankly, as someone up to date with the manga, I’m still questioning Eren’s motives. It cannot be stated enough that he just committed a War Crime and murdered innocent civilians, including children, and while his fellow soldiers are helping him out, they have reservations. Mikasa was clearly not cool with it and Jean, to his credit, was trying to minimize the damage. He also just reinforced the Whole World’s negative suspicions of Paradis Eldians in particular. I have no idea why he thought this was a good idea.