SnK 89 Thoughts

“Someone once asked me if I had learned anything from it all. So let me tell you what I learned. I learned… everyone dies alone.

But if you meant something to someone… if you helped someone… or loved someone… If even a single person remembers you… then maybe you never really die.

And maybe this isn’t the end at all.”

The above is a quote from the fifth and final season of Person of Interest. If you haven’t seen it, don’t worry; I’m about to quote something else that maybe five people will recognize. Also it doesn’t matter much. I just ran into a snag with coming up with how to start this post, so I went with the old-fashioned method of taking someone else’s words.

For the other quote, I have something not nearly as long or haunted.

“I will remember those who have been forgotten.”

–The Stormlight Archive

Throughout the series, one of the recurring plot threads that I’ve been perfectly happy to ignore is the one that touches on the subject of memory.

Humanity has no memory of life beyond the walls.



Titan transformations interfere with memory.

Grisha tells Eren to learn to use his powers from the memories of others.

Frieda regularly wipes Historia’s memory.

Eren and Historia both have dreams of incidents that their waking selves can’t remember.

The cavern built by the Founding Titan, combined with the touch of royal blood, allows for the recovery of memories.

To an unknown extent, nomming a Titan can transfer their memories to the power’s recipient.

Memory has had a part to play since the very first volume. Most prominently in its absence. There’s enough amnesia going around in the series to get a soap opera up and running. Haunting every step our heroes take has been the knowledge that someone has the answers to this world, and they’re out of reach.

First, it was the basement. Grisha.

For a little while, Ymir, as one of the few big friendly giants they knew.



Next came the Reisses, with the introduction of the Founding Titan.

Eren slipped into that same arc, holding the Founding Titan but unable to access large swathes of its capabilities because he doesn’t have the blood for it.

As a metaphor, it’s already pretty nifty, but the literal truth of the situation is that the people who can provide the most help are dead, but never truly forgotten. They are remembered.

Grisha remembers his sister. He remembers Eren Kruger. He remembers Dina. He remembers Zeke. He remembers a world the common citizens of Paradis have never known. He does everything he can to pass on that knowledge.



The Reiss family sacrifice one member every thirteen years to keep the Founding Titan’s memories alive within their house. In turn, the Founding Titan remembers its hosts, keeping them alive for whoever comes next.



The Survey Corps doesn’t have magic Titan powers as a tradition, but they follow the same principle, as put forth by Erwin before his dying charge:

“Those brave fallen men and women! Those poor fallen men and women! The only ones who can remember them… are us, the living!! So we will die here… and trust the meaning of our lives to the next generation!

That is the sole way… we can rebel against this cruel world!”

And before any of that, there is Mikasa.

“If I die now… I won’t even be able… to remember you.”

People finding their reason to keep fighting has always drawn fiction’s attention. Angst calls to a lot of writers, as well as readers, and loss is such a universal concept that of course it’s going to be covered in all its gory detail long after everyone is sick of death.

When Mikasa loses Eren in Trost, you can see the light go out. You don’t really believe she’s going to die, since hey, we’re a protagonist down and she just got a flashback, but everything we know about her says that this feels like an insurmountable loss. She has Armin, but in her head, all she knows is that her family’s gone. Again.

It’s a tragic sequence in either medium you go with. I’m partial to the anime, because I love the music cues in that scene.

Then, as the story requires, she finds her way back to her feet.

Everyone remembers the line about the world’s beauty and cruelty, as well they should. It’s a beautiful line, thematically perfect, and come to think of it, Mikasa should probably get a medal for how well she introduces the prominent themes of this work.

When she makes the decision to live, however, it’s rooted in Eren’s memory.

That always felt a little weird to me, so it’s more memorable than it already was. She continues with lines about fighting, and winning (I think I said this last month, but just because Mikasa was only following Eren to the Scouts doesn’t mean she doesn’t belong there as much as any of the other chaotic dreamers), but the sticking point is wanting to remember Eren.

He’s dead.

His memory shouldn’t be.

This is the scene in the anime that forever sold me on the series. Back then, that particular line was more of an odd fascination than anything else, a touch of uneven humanity buried under the other phenomenal moments–Mikasa missing Eren, but loving him too much to let go of everything he is to her.

Just like their first meeting, Eren keeps her alive long enough for her to find herself, and what she’s willing to fight for.

So we have this incredible scene, and volumes and volumes later, it’s only now that I fully appreciate how tightly woven together all of the important moments are.

When you think about it for a fraction of a second, everyone is constantly dying in this series. Often not people we care about, but there’s a lot of death.

With so much of it, it makes sense that the memories of people they hold dear have so much power. They’ve learned to make the most of life, and that includes the pieces that come after death.

That’s the romantic view of it that really has nothing to do with Titan powers.

Now, on the subject of Titan powers, Eren’s managed to fall through one barrier of being an incomplete Founding Titan holder; he can relive the memories of stories he’s already familiar with.

That… is far from where we want the kiddo to be.

Before this extended flashback sequence with Grisha and Kruger, Eren’s memory troubles were primarily devoted to his father murdering an entire family, being eaten, the injection that was the focus of both those things–and a random shot of Frieda brushing her hair.

It’s difficult to tell how much of that flash to Frieda is a narrative cheat. He doesn’t remember it afterward. It does come after Historia recites her sad backstory to the class, but Historia doesn’t remember her sister at the time. Eren could be having headaches and leaving out all sorts of people, but we’re only going to see the relevant ones.

Still, Frieda’s the only one of the bunch that Eren doesn’t have a clear link to, and she shows up during a time where everyone is discussing the significance of the Reiss family.

That would seem to imply that the memories of the world that Eren is carrying around respond to outside stimulus. Which I guess we already knew because of the cavern and the touching, but there, we were given specific, mystical reasons. This seems more down to earth.

Making it less helpful, naturally. It’s not like they can go to Marley and kick off yet another kidnapping arc, only with them as the kidnappers, and hope someone says something that unlocks another chapter of Eren’s memory books.

Which would be why royalty’s back in play in the main plot. One day I might get to that portion of the post.

Getting back to the pages that spawned all of these words no one cares about, to the surprise of me, Kruger’s last words to Grisha are some of the most interesting in the chapter.

Kruger and Grisha have no idea who Mikasa and Armin are. Kruger is unconcerned, having been dealing with magic in his head for quite some time. He assumes that they’re the carry-overs from someone else’s memories.

This is where, if you wanted to, you can make it really convoluted.

Hiiii.

Reincarnation has been a fun theory ‘round these parts for a while, with the taunt of Ymir’s name only inspiring more detailed versions.

We now know that even if Ymir is Ymir’s reincarnation, no one actually believes that to be true–anymore.

Someone was still willing to present her as such, and believed in her enough to feel betrayed when he believed himself to be wrong, so it’s fair to say that some number of Eldians are willing to believe in their god being reincarnated. All things considered, that doesn’t really mean anything, because this manga is willing to let people believe all sorts of things.

But in the same chapter, we have a bitter old guy telling his predecessor that they’re doomed to repeat a horrible history again and again, and thinks of Mikasa and Armin’s existence as a memory, not a premonition.

So like. If you wanted to, a case could be made for and EMA reincarnation trio getting consistently roped into this, sometimes accompanied by Ymir.

A safer bet is probably just that super special awesome Titans have premonitions in addition to remembering everyone who ever was, and assume that those premonitions are things that have already happened, not things that will again.

Honestly, this is something that doesn’t interest me that much. I’m positive that this has something to do with why Eren sees an older Mikasa in his dream as a child, but what it means is still up in the air.

The straightest line through the plot is that Kruger is seeing through Grisha’s eyes before he gives Grisha the serum, seeing what Grisha will say when he passes it on to the next Eren. Supporting that is that this Eren has no clue who Mikasa and Armin are, but Grisha certainly does at a later point.

Future vision is always the simplest answer.



But like I said, if you want to bring the reincarnation madness–you have a very clear invitation.

Anyhow, as uninterested as I am in… large portions of that, the part right before Kruger brings up cycles of suffering is what I like.

“Make a family. You need a full household once you enter the walls. […] Your wife. Your child. Even someone on the street. It does not matter. Love someone inside the walls.

If you can’t, we’re doomed to repeat it all again. The same history. The same mistakes. Again and again.”

At first it sounds like Kruger’s telling Grisha to run off and get hitched and make babies, but the rest of the discussion makes the blood component secondary. It isn’t a matter of making children; it’s a matter of family.

Make a family.

Love them.

That’s the way out.

Grisha finds Carla and has Eren, but he also has Mikasa.

Eren and Mikasa have Armin.

The three of them have the 104th.

The 104th has the Survey Corps.



If you look at what happens to the mainland Eldians at the time of Grisha’s transformation, you can see the difference. Kruger watches dozens of his people die, participating in their deaths and torture for the greater good. Grisha loves his wife, but sees his child as a tool.

Love doesn’t bind these people together. A shared cause, sometimes, but Kruger doesn’t watch Grisha lose everything and hug him, or help him through it. They’re callous and straightforward.

I don’t know if Kruger is being literal or figurative about the cycle their world is stuck in, but the Survey Corps has started a broken kind of family. Somewhere inside all of the hard choices and death, there is love. There is a group of people who will fight for each other.

With the politics involved, I’m sure nothing can be that simple, but their hearts are all in the right place. They aren’t so consumed by their cause that they’ve close themselves off to everyone. A good portion of them still cry over killing traitors.

It seems safe to assume that Grisha has not designed the perfect battle plan, but he loved Eren, and Carla, and Mikasa, and whatever cruelties followed, that love has done them a lot of good.

It could turn out to be more significant than that, or it might not. We shall see.

Though know that if it turns out that the main plot truly is reincarnation madness + time loop that can only be stopped through the Power of Love…

…

I’m… not actually sure I could be upset if that happens. It sounds amazing.

Basic point: A family can be an Eren, Armin, and a Mikasa.

Moving on to something besides the last three pages now, we scurry back to Mikasa and Eren getting special treatment because they make up a fifth of an entire military branch.

There isn’t much to say on that topic; keeping the kids disciplined is good, but everyone involved knew that the punishment wouldn’t convince them out of fighting for Armin, so they might as well move on and do something productive.

Levi and Hange bickering is life, though.

Even if they’re temporarily going with the, “We’ll just let our main weapon be crazy and call it puberty,” line. I don’t think either of them believe it, and everyone’s going to have to sit down and have the memory discussion at some point (wherein Eren will realize that he fails at lying), but for right now, I think Eren’s potential lack of stability is a discussion for a less hectic day.

Drifting back over to horrible things, Mikasa is… doing about as well as one might expect during this phase of the “My family is all going to die again,” arc.





Mikasa’s tell when it comes to family worries is always holding her head in that way. It happens after Carla’s death, and it happens after Reiner and Bertolt successfully steal away Eren.

Armin and Eren are–okay, Eren’s probably right for once about emotions. I don’t think things have fully sunk in for them. Mikasa, though, is living out her worst fear again. Trapped in a cell by herself, she only has herself. She can make do with that, but she never wants to, and she certainly doesn’t want to be forced into it by losing the people she loves.

Whenever Isayama decides to make Mikasa the focal point of an arc (I refuse to believe it won’t happen), things are going to be rough.

Other horrible things include the entire world not being a safe place for Eldians. No one wants people who can turn into giant monsters around unless they can be useful, and even then it’s a stretch.

So we’ve gone from our heroes being locked inside a series of walls, surrounded by monsters, to those monsters turning out to be their own people, to their own people often being monsters, to other people, but still humans, definitely being monsters, and really, it’s a much worse monster problem than anyone had planned for so what do.

Presumably, it’s things like this that led to the First King locking everyone up in the first place.

The nice thing about this flashback sequence is that we have one very simple solution for the Reiss/Fritz situation: The King likely changed his name.

Now, whether that’s actually true or not remains to be seen, but for the time being, everyone’s running with there being one royal blood line, and it not being at all weird that it’s now the Reiss line, not the Fritz. And considering new plot developments, there’s probably not much reason to look accusingly at the situation any longer.

Royalty is royalty by whatever names they dream up for themselves. That’s the story.

I think the most interesting piece of the flashback is that the First King made a vow with the Founding Titan. Somehow, he managed to communicate with his own Titan, and forge a psychic promise that has lasted over a hundred years.

Does that mean that Titans are sentient inside their hosts?

Is that what Armin sees in his dream?

How much can they control the hosts without explicit requests or permission?

I’ve gotta say, even though his Xtreme Pacifism w/ brainwashing is obviously not something a person should be doing, and obviously disagrees with the theme of fighting to win, everything we hear about the First King makes me want another flashback arc.

Not right now. Geez, no.

But one obviously needs to happen.

It was funny enough when he dragged a bunch of his people to an island, locked them inside, told everyone outside they couldn’t have his toys or he’d set his colossal army on them and they’d all die.

Now it has the companion piece of him saying that maybe they all deserve to die if they can’t stop fighting for five seconds.

This person is clearly related to Historia.

From the outside, he’s obviously made some very sketchy, probably not altogether helpful moves, and played with the lives of people in ways he had no right to.

From a character perspective, this is a person who actually had enough conviction to break all tradition, kill anyone who could remember that tradition, set up a contingency plan for which the word “overkill” is perhaps designed, and did it all because he thought that everyone deserved to die if they abused their power–oh, and he also put in a safeguard so that for over a hundred years, all of his successors would find it impossible to color outside his lines.

No other character or group in this manga has been so ruthlessly effective. You can even scrap the ruthless part. This is an individual who used his hammer, made everyone else a nail, and called it a day.

While being scornfully judgmental.

In a peace-out kinda way.

This is where the story gets even more interesting.

The world is going to want our guys dead. They’re too dangerous to keep alive, and having Titans without the Founding one isn’t the prestige boost it once was.

The Founding Titan is the best protection they have against extermination.

Eren makes the leap fandom’s been making for months. The last time he made the power work, it was while he was touching a titan of royal blood (hey look, a reason for Kruger not to give the Attack Titan to Dina!). That might be how to trigger it.

There’s only one person left in that line.

She wouldn’t eat you, Eren.

This is about touch, but the positions are still neatly reversed. Eren’s making the same choice she does–for slightly less selfish reasons. The question is if everyone else can be okay with that, and whether or not Eren will be able to justify putting humanity at risk to keep his friend.

Or maybe he’s wrong about his guess, and he’ll just end up swooping around the woods with Historia on his back. She’s short, she could totally be a Yoda.

Mikasa, Armin, and Hange clearly know something’s up. Really, it’s all about how far they’re willing to push. Can they kill the Queen to save their people? Is it even necessary? Outside of necessity, is is an action they’d be willing to participate in?

We’ll probably find out!

Though Armin’s attention in particular makes me slightly antsy.

“I haven’t lived an especially long life… but there’s one thing I’m sure of. The people capable of changing things… are the ones… who can… throw away everything dear to them. When forced to face down monsters… they can even leave behind their own humanity. Someone who can’t throw anything away… will never be able to change anything.”

Hi, Armin from Chapter 27! Please don’t foreshadow unpleasant things!

Many things in the direction this story takes are unknown. We don’t know for sure what kind of ending we’re getting, or which message will prevail in the end.

Personally, I’m an optimist. Armin talks about throwing things away in the seventh volume. Way too many paragraphs in this post talk about how people have survived by doing the exact opposite.

I want to believe that if it turns into a battle of ideals, being better than the monsters will prevail. Forming families and loving them.

But boy howdy is this an uncomfortable playing ground to feature that in.

And that’s it from me.

Time to wait impatiently for the next month.

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Oh yeah, Historia read Ymir’s letter.

I suppose I’m supposed to say something about that.

Right.

HOW THE HELL CAN ALL OF THIS FANFIC NONSENSE EXIST IN THE SPACE OF SO FEW PAGES.

Do you have any idea how long it took me to realize that this latest instance of Ymir being an overly dramatic idiot is actually canon? Sure, she jumps off towers into hoards of monsters, and makes up lies in the middle of kidnapping her girlfriend, but I’m choosing to believe that the translation is accurate in representing Ymir’s writing style of horrific floweriness to play off how sincere she’s about to be.

ALSO: “I am about to wow you with a romantic tale.

It starts with me starving to death and ends with me getting stoned.”

THAT IS THEIR RELATIONSHIP. STOP POINTING OUT REASONS WHY REINER DOESN’T HAVE A GIRLFRIEND AND START WONDERING HOW THE HELL YOU HAVE ONE.

I’m mostly sure that this was done the way it was so that Isayama wouldn’t have to deal with too much Ymir speculation in the wake of revealing the ancient Ymir. The fact remains that Ymir plays up her tragic tale of woe as a love letter, and this is like a good third of why Historia has trust issues.

More seriously, this ties in to what the rest of the chapter wasn’t about, but I made it about: Memories.

Ymir believes she’s about to be very dead (we all have future vision now). She can pick what she tells Historia. She chooses her life. She chooses to tell the girl she loves, the girl she finally got to be herself with, all of the pieces that came before them. She tells her what she was. She glosses over all of the whys, and just tells Historia what she experienced.

She tells Historia the full truth about how they’re alike.

She tells her about her suffering.

She’s willing to admit that she finds the world incredible. All of her cynicism about what happened to her and how little it matters melts away, and all that’s left is freedom, and a life that she doesn’t regret.

Except for the part where they aren’t married.





You do not understand how much I enjoy Historia’s reactions to things.

Ymir gives Historia her whole history to remember her with, not just the parts they shared. She calls it a love letter, and brings up marriage so abruptly that no wonder Historia is confused, and while those are true expressions of how she feels, the romantic part of it is that Ymir wants Historia to know her. She wants to apologize, and let Historia know that them being incomplete is her only regret–and she wants Historia to know her before she’s gone. Even after she’s gone.

Historia’s the person she loves, and the person she wants to be with. She can’t be with her, but she can be remembered by her.

Yeah, that’s such romantic way to be SO UNBELIEVABLY UNHELPFUL.

Historia’s reaction is really the only correct one.

“You play it off the moment you feel embarrassed. How am I supposed to understand like this…?”

HOW ARE YOU BOTH SO BAD AT THIS.

Ymir, protip: stop bringing up marriage only when Historia is on the brink of tears.

Historia: SHE LIKES YOU.

I’ll admit to being dedicated to my belief that Historia does not have the first damn clue what Ymir wants from her, and this sequence really only makes that dedication stronger.

Historia probably understands Ymir better than anyone else on the face of the planet, but she doesn’t understand herself, and as a consequence, I don’t think she really gets how she and Ymir work, except that they do.

In the days before Ymir’s departure, Historia is still perfectly willing to believe that Ymir is only hanging about because of her family, but in the days after Ymir’s departure, Historia tells Connie in no uncertain terms that she knows Ymir. In the immediate aftermath of Utgard, she tells Hange that she knows her well.

Historia really does know Ymir–well enough to claim it as Krista, as Kristoria, and Historia.

That’s different from having faith in someone’s affection for you, and that’s where a lot of Historia’s confusion in their relationship comes from. On the one hand, she knows Ymir, and knows that she’s someone Ymir chooses to hang out with.

On the other hand, no one’s ever wanted her.

Ymir makes it more difficult by skating around her feelings so well that even when her glib remarks are serious, it’s hard to take them that way. She places implications of romance on either side of a story that’s clearly hard for her to let out. It can be read as lightening a heavy mood, or just the truth, and Historia is so terribad at trusting in a relationship that it’s like handing her a toddler’s slot toy and telling her the sdklj goes in the sdklj hole.

YOU’RE BOTH SIMPLE IDIOTS. STOP PRETENDING YOU’RE NOT.

I mean, that’s one facet of her response.

The other one connects to something a little further back.

“Ymir saw the real me… the me that chose the Survey Corps. The me that even I didn’t know about. But… after Ymir disappeared, I stopped understanding who I am… and what I want.”

–Historia, 54

Ymir is still gone.

Historia has learned to understand pieces of herself, and she can be her own person, but the truth is that she only really feels secure in herself when she has Ymir, and Ymir isn’t here. Ymir might never be here again.

Ymir gives Historia her memories.

She doesn’t tell Historia who she was in them.

Ymir’s the only person who has ever had the ability to remember Historia Reiss correctly, and if she’s gone, and she never explains it, how is Historia supposed to know who that is? How’s she supposed to be the value the person she loves sees in her if she can’t recognize it?

These two have no idea what they’re doing.

They never really have, but they always knew that if they were together, somehow, that worked.

Now they aren’t.

The result is that we have the second time in the series that Historia’s tears actually fall. She tears up plenty, but the tears only make it past her eyes twice.

The first time is when he father hugs her, and tells her she’s wanted.

This is the second time, and it’s both cheeks, not just one.

Neither shot provides a clear view of her eyes.

That, obviously, is reserved for when Ymir and Historia are reunited.

(Let me have my dreams.)



Alright, having long since passed the point at which people will give up and go read something else, I… think that might actually be it.

Let the waiting commence.

