I find it interesting when Gabi mentions that the information about Paradis is classified, and Reiner is not allowed to tell anyone about it. Probably a reason for this secrecy is to protect military secrets, but I think that there is possibly another reason as well.

When one thinks about it, an easy target to create monstrous images and negative associations about are from things that one knows nothing about. The lack of information becomes and empty “hole”, that can be filled. I think this is what Marely has done here. The information about the residents of Paradis is restricted, and this “unknown”, this hole, is then filled with Marley propaganda, that claims that the people living inside the island are horrifying monsters. Since the Eldians living in Marley do not know anything about the people living in the islands, the only thing they can cling onto is the image constructed by Marley.

What also makes this easier is that the Eldians living in Paradis are an “external enemy”: This reinforces the division between “us and them”, between the “good Eldians” who are atoning for their sins and showcasing that they are different, versus the “horrible Eldians” who live in the island and are monsters.

If one would actually know what the people are like, then this enemy image could possibly be dismantled, and attitudes might change. You can see during the dinner scene, that while the others who know nothing about Paradis ramble about them being monsters, Reiner, who spend years living with the 104th squad, has a different view.

I think this is in away similar how the people of Paradis approached the Titans. They quite literally had no idea what the Titans were, and where they came from. The only thing clear to them was that they consumed humans. I think this mysterious origin and nature of the Titans created a similar “hole”, as in the Marley scenario. Since they knew nothing about the origins, it could be filled with ideas that the Titans are the archenemy of mankind, and need to be destroyed.

This unknown nature was partially artificially constructed, since King Reiss wiped away the memories of humanity, hiding away the truth behind the Titans. The Titans are also an external enemy, residing outside the wall, and a clear cut between them and humanity is constructed.

I think the reveal of their origin might have changed the attitudes towards them a little bit. They are still killed since they consume humans and are essentially biological weapons, but I think there is this small tragic sentiment towards them. Now Paradis knows that the Titans are their doomed countrymen, sentenced into a horrible fate.

I think this new approach shows a little bit when the Survey Corps travel to the ocean. When they meet the Titan who moves very slowly, instead overflowing with hatred and instantly killing it, they watch and ponder with in a melancholic tone, how long it must have been travelling.





So to conclude with a some sort of analogy, the colossal Titan body that is around the Eldians, that hides who they really are, is like the monstrous image and lack of knowledge, that the Marely Eldians have about the people of Paradis. If they knew what kind of people they really wear, and now that Paradis knows that the Titans are their countrymen, maybe this would result in a change of attitude.

