I have a number of thoughts about this episode of Shingeki no Kyoujin, which was another one that excelled at delivering the soft of goofball illogic spectacle that makes this series what it is.
- First off, Sasha. Honestly to me she was pretty much a comic relief character and never allowed to become anything more. So I frankly didn’t feel a lot when she got taken out – as cold as it sounds (it was obvious what was going to happen by the episode title) I was worried it was going to be Jean. He’s one of the few characters in the cast who’s got a little depth to him.
- Sasha for Zeke? That’s a good trade in narrative terms.
- The whole conceit about how the kids got on board thr airship and allowed Screechi to shoot poor Sasha was pretty silly, IMO. The redshirt Lobov literally hangs around for no reason until she catches up (to a moving airship, mind you – the cruising speed of a Zeppelin was about 75 MPH) and shoots him? It smacks of plot convenience, but I’ll grant that it led to some interesting developments.
- Yelena (Saiga Mitsuki) was treated as if she was a character we should know about, but I don’t remember ever seeing or hearing anything about her until she popped up three episodes back.
- While I get the overwrought reaction to Sasha’s death by Armin and Mikasa (this is Attack on Titan), that really rubs me the wrong way. When you’re in the business of killing people for a living, you lose the moral authority to be indignant when they kill you back.
- What’s abundantly clear now is the extent to which Eren dragged his former unit into this – though to what extent that applies to Armin and Mikasa it’s hard to say. Eren knows his value, and he knew that by turning himself into a hostage the Survey Corps would have no choice but to bust him out by force. As Hange says, every time Eren gets himself captured (which seems to be a lot) people die trying to fetch him back. If those weepers and wailers want to blame anyone for her death, blame him.
With things leaving Liberio for now, one is tempted to hope getting punched in the face by the Holocaust imagery is going to at least take a back seat for a while (for fuck’s sake take those armbands off the kids – I never want to look at them again). It’t going to be interesting to see what happens with the prisoners, especially Falco as he’s been set up as a potential moral barometer in the narrative. As for the Zeke reveal, well – it’s obviously a big one, and was pretty artfully set up. But there’s a whiplash-inducing quality to all the big reveals in AoT – they do tend to lose some impact after a while.
Miyu Fan
February 2, 2021 at 10:10 pmI’m the same with Sasha’s death especially because really she barely doing anything in this season except killing people. But I think that’s more on the fans reaction because in universe Jean and Connie’s measured response to her death meant they understood already that they don’t have the higher moral ground here than Gabi.
I’m very pleased though with Zeke reveal because he’s the guy who outed his parents and massacred a lot of Scouts 4 years ago, and now he’s working with Eren? I’m enjoying all this plot twists already, maybe Erwin’s death really did make the series better now.
Guardian Enzo
February 2, 2021 at 10:24 pmErwin’s death would make anything better.
I was talking more about Armin and Mikasa, but yeah, Jean especially kind of took it the way it demands to be taken.
Krize
February 3, 2021 at 3:18 amI found this a pretty compelling episode, all told. I found some of Jean’s conflict over violence a little forced. Not that it doesn’t make sense for him to feel that way, but the way he expressed it (punching the wall and asking if the violence will ever end) just felt rather generic and mopey for the character.
Regarding Sasha, I agree her character hadn’t done a whole lot. It felt more relevant for the impact on the other cast members (And Jean recovers here be doing an excellent job of calling out exactly what you’ve written-that Eren bears to blame for Sasha’s death).
Regarding Gabi, I know lot of people find her insufferable (I’d say this isn’t by accident, but that doesn’t exactly make it better if you dislike her), but I feel her stand-in as a retelling of Eren’s journey at the beginning of the series is fairly obvious and interest in some of it’s implications. There’s a lot to be noted here about cycle of violence encapsulated in Sasha killing, but sparing Gabi, only to be killed by her in retribution in the end. I thought the conversation between Gabi and Falco before all this popped up was particularly well done, and surprisingly more subdued than I’ve come to expect from SnK.
Guardian Enzo
February 3, 2021 at 7:48 amSome of us don’t want to see The whole Eren ordeal rehashed though. Experiencing him once was bad enough.
Derrick
February 3, 2021 at 8:26 amErwin: sacrifice hundreds of soldiers to subdue several titans
“Erwin is military genius”
Eren: destroyed naval base, gaining several titan powers, extracted Zeke with just 8 Paradis casualties
“What the fuck Eren”
sonicsenryaku
February 3, 2021 at 1:12 pm*The redshirt Lobov literally hangs around for no reason until she catches up (to a moving airship, mind you – the cruising speed of a Zeppelin was about 75 MPH) and shoots him? It smacks of plot convenience, but I’ll grant that it led to some interesting developments.*
Lobov hung around to make sure everyone was boarded onto the zeppelin and that there were no surprise attacks that could impede their escape. I believe the episode made that clear within its first few minutes. Cruising speed of a zeppelin is 75 mph but they weren’t actually traveling that fast as you can see by how much of the city they were covering. Nothing indicated the zeppelin was at its top speed
Guardian Enzo
February 3, 2021 at 3:50 pmSorry, plot convenience. Jean ordered him to come inside and he basically said “I’m a zaku and it’s my job to die”.
And there’s no way a little girl, even a military-trained one, is outrunning an airship. These are not hot-air balloons we’re talking about – they’re aircraft. They may look slow because they’re big but they move, even when they’re not at top speed (which is closer to 125 MPH if they push it). Even if you assume they’d be going slower than they can (which is dubious considering this was supposed to be an escape), at 1/3 their relaxed cruising speed they’d still be going faster than a person (even an adult) can run.
sonicsenryaku
February 4, 2021 at 8:24 am*Jean ordered him to come inside and he basically said “I’m a zaku and it’s my job to die”*
Ehhhh not really; Jean gave a general order for everyone outside to get in as fast as they could before they could get pelted with bullets. Lobov tells Jean he’d cover the rear of the ship a little longer to make sure 1. while everyone was getting into into the ship, they couldn’t get shot (Connie even mentions that squad lima had yet to board the ship so yea) and 2. to prevent any last ditch schemes to bring down the zeppelin. Your claim was that he stayed out there for no reason when the first few minutes made it clear that Jean and crew were ensuring that neither the zeppelin or any of the stragglers would be shot down as they were trying to make it back into the ship. I was only pointing out that your “no reason” part was false. That being said, I agree that some of how the episode turned out was convenient indeed: like Gabi getting the shot off on Lobov, and that it just so happen she was able to use the opportunity to get into the ship, but I didn’t find it to be the kind of convenience that bothered me. The only thing that rustled my feathers a bit was how much time Gabi and Falco stopped to talk to each other despite the fact that they were trying to catch up to the ship; like, isn’t time of the essence? As much as i appreciate the convo they had, YOU’RE CHASING AFTER AN AIRSHIP FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. But hey, that’s all the more reason I think the ship was probably only going at most 15mph. There’s no way these mofos are latching on to an object flying at 125 mph, the whole scene falls apart and I highly doubt Isayama, as meticulous as he can be when it comes to matters in this particular realm, would just completely screw the pooch on this.
*They may look slow because they’re big but they move even when they’re not at top speed (which is closer to 125 MPH if they push it)*
No worries Enzo, I know how parallax works, which is actually the real reason why something like a zeppelin would appear to look slow even if it’s booking it; it has nothing to do with its size. Also, as far as i know, I’ve never heard of a Zeppelin being able to hit a speed of 125 miles per hour ever being recorded. If you have any sources on that, I would definitely like to see it out of curiosity; that’s quite fascinating.
*Even if you assume they’d be going slower than they can (which is dubious considering this was supposed to be an escape)*
Yea, it’s an escape, but these guys need to at least be able to hook their 3d manuever gear onto the ship, no? Would be pretty hard to do that if your ship was cruising through the city at 125 MPH, no? Other detail to note is that if they really were going that fast, then when Lobov got shot, his body should have instantly been dragged away by the speed of the zeppelin, but it didn’t, which indicates two possibilities: Either the scene is absolutely tone deaf on its escape concept (which could very well be the case but there’s a fair amount of evidence to point otherwise) or, what I’m arguing about the logistics of their escape is sound considering how the survey corps were trying to guarantee the success of their escape.
Full disclaimer: “I’m not trying to attack you, I’m just pointing out things that i find are falsities in your claim
Guardian Enzo
February 4, 2021 at 8:57 amGiven all the far more substantive reasons why AoT drives me crazy, this doesn’t seem worth arguing about TBH.