If we want to look at the bright side, we can take a bit of a break from the cultural-historical debate over Shingeki no Kyoujin. It didn’t really advance much this week – indeed, we’re mostly where we’re going to be on that score until the next season airs, whenever that might be. With a new studio in charge it may be a while yet before we get to that point too, especially since what was once a pretty big lead for the manga over the anime in terms of material has closed quite a bit in the last 18 months. I’m guessing we won’t see Season 5 (or Season 4 Part I, or whatever they decide to call it) until 2021 at the earliest.
Meanwhile, what we get this week is mostly concerned with the nuts and bolts of the mythology itself – that, and some more of those very odd stabs at humor which make you wonder whether you’re supposed to be laughing or not. Frankly, there’s a lot of pretty arbitrary stuff here – random memories (and visions of the future) being shared, talk about all Ymir consciousness merging at a single nexus point – that seems more about making the plot work than making sense. But that’s been a pretty solid pattern for Isayama since the beginning, so it’s probably not realistic to expect it to change now.
Ultimately, a lot of this comes down to what Eren is going to decide to do now that he’s seen things from his father’s perspective (including the man he was named after). The big revelation (they’re pretty much a weekly occurrence at this stage) is that holders of the original 9 titans’ powers have only a 13-year lifespan – one which Eren Krueger is about to use up in the vision his namesake sees. In effect he and Armin have just received death sentences – and in Eren’s case one with an earlier due date than Armin’s.
Now that we know the source of the title of the series, it’s a matter of learning just what that title means. Eren doesn’t really know that in detail yet, but he’s slowly coming closer to the truth. At this point it should be obvious to him that any involvement with the government – even one installed by his theoretical allies – is ultimately bad news. Whatever course Eren takes, he’s the one in a position to make the decision. And indeed, he’s the one carrying the responsibility – not one he accepted by choice as his father (sort of) did, but one he carries nonetheless.
There is one other pretty meaningful bit of exposition that should be noted, one which Eren tunes into at a rather awkward moment. He now knows who the titan that ate his mother (among others) was, though he hasn’t shared that information with Armin or Mikasa yet. That raises an entirely different set of questions of course, but that’s for a future episode.
Orion Taylor
June 24, 2019 at 10:44 pmI strongly believe that the first king’s war renunciation vow is supposed to be SnK’s version of Article 9.
ibtachi
June 24, 2019 at 11:14 pmHonestly, it couldnt be more obvious.
Orion Taylor
June 24, 2019 at 11:15 pmVery true.
*A*
June 26, 2019 at 4:38 amYou can also draw comparison with the current Taiwan – China situation. Eldians = Kuomintang refugees.
blargnobia
June 26, 2019 at 11:38 amOh, I like that. This series has like 5 historical allegories going at the same time. And they’re all terrible 😀
Unrelated, Owl didn’t answer Grisha’s question about why he didn’t save everyone else. The way he shrugged it off made me think that Isayama knew that didn’t make any sense, but he just wanted to gloss over it to make the plot work.
Guardian Enzo
June 26, 2019 at 11:47 amThat was an odd exchange. I got the same impression, but why did he have a character ask the question if he knew he had no answer for it?
blargnobia
June 26, 2019 at 2:34 pmI’ve had this really dumb thought process when writing. Basically, when something doesn’t make sense, I thought if I acknowledged it was a plot hole (had a character point it out, or turn it into a joke), that would make it okay. Kinda like telling the audience “yeah I know I made a mistake.[shrug]”
Basically a sign of bad writing. I don’t know if Isayama has that level of self-awareness, though.
Simone
June 26, 2019 at 5:17 pmYeah, that seems just a concession to the overarching logic that somehow anything that sounds really GRITTY and A HARD BUT NECESSARY SACRIFICE to make is inherently epic and dramatic rather than dumb as fuck when you actually look at it and realise it was not necessary at all. I mean, it’s also what most of Erwin’s supposed military genius.
ibtachi
June 24, 2019 at 11:32 pmLeaving aside the social commentary and issues with character writing.
In all honesty, this episode reminded me of what I liked about the first season and last years batch of episodes- i.e. the compelling mystery about the titans that permeates Isayama’s world building.
I was, for the most part, satisfied with the psuedo-SciFantasy memory relay developments. For the longest time, I doubted Isayama could deliver anything resembling “the goods” when it came to revealing the secrets of the mystery but here we are. Hopefully, the rest of the story unfolds in a more tasteful manner than 2019’s batch of episodes overall.
Side note: Read an interesting comment on Crunchyroll, pointing out that the 13-year lifespan has interesting implications for the first episode/chapter title “To You, 2000 Years From Now”.
The 145th King escaped to the walls a 100-odd years ago. Assuming 13 years on average per monarch, adding the 100 years and the 8 years Eren has remaining… It gives us round about 2000 years between the First King and Eren’s prescribed year of death.