#bertholdt meta

[the-last-thread-of-my-sanity]

I’ve been thinking lately about how much the ‘curse of Ymir’ really does affect the psyche of each of the nine shifters and how it impacts the ending of the story.

Up until the end of Season 3/Chapter 87-88, the reader and the viewer have no idea that the shifters have a limited amount of time to live. They seem to possess this god-like power and they can rejuvenate and survive almost any injury. They seem unstoppable.

This is what motivates Erwin to create a plan to take one of the nine shifter powers with the serum- having another Titan in your arsenal would make a difference in winning the war.

But what the Paradisians don’t know is how holding the power of the Nine just perpetuates a cycle of violence and cruelty. It’s a curse as much as it is a power. No matter how brilliant or grand your scope is for what you can do with this near limitless power, you have to contend with the fact that you will only have thirteen years to do it.

This revelation to me is the what colors the entire last arc of the story leading into and after the time skip.

For Zeke, it amps up the level of desperation he has for accomplishing the euthanization plan- relying on Eren was still a variable that was largely unpredictable, and he trusted him more than he probably would have if he weren’t running out of time.

Going back further in the story, it retroactively explains why Ymir (of the cadet corps) would go back with Reiner and Bertholdt at all- a seemingly nonsensical choice when it seems she has something to live for in her relationship with Krista/Historia. But Ymir knows she has little time left. She has no future. So she chooses to surrender.

For Annie, it shows her desperation to get back to her father, a man who showed her very little affection, and yet if she could just make it back maybe she could live at least a year or two with him and make at least one happy memory with the man who raised her to kill.

Armin, I honestly feel the most for, because what he and everyone else thought of as his salvation, was actually just saddling him with a curse. And heaps of responsibility to try and be grateful for it. He went from a character with a singular and wholesome conviction, to someone wracked with guilt and forced to solve the world’s problems with limited time and resources.

In Reiner’s case, I actually think the fact that he knows he is going to die is the only thing actually keeping him alive in the tail end of the story. He wants so badly to face retribution for his deeds, and he can only find the strength to keep towing the line because he knows his violent demise is guaranteed.

Characters like Pieck and Bertholdt seem to accept their lot in life- but deal with this internally and develop their own sense of morals despite it- albeit in different ways and in Pieck’s case with a shade of pessimism. Falco and Marcel stand out as a characters who see the farce for what it is- but still want to subject themselves to it in order to prevent someone they love from suffering through it in their place.

Eren, though, it’s easy to see how discovering he has already lived more of his life in powerless ignorance than what he has left is what ultimately causes the collapse in his character. Combine that with the way that he sees ‘future memories’ and doesn’t see any future beyond his own, and suddenly you have a naturally impulsive and violent person living in the most fatalistic reality ever. It makes perfect sense that his fall from grace is near immediate and precipitous.

What difference does all that power make if all it means is that you become a tool for destruction with no future? That you will be forced to curse someone else so that this cruel power will continue to exist? That is the true legacy of Ymir and the Eldian Empire- you can have near limitless power, but you will never have true control over your own life.

And it makes for such interesting discussions and questions about power and mortality and agency- and all the seemingly ‘correct’ and ‘incorrect’ ways to respond to their dilemma.

Anyway, it is always ‘thinking about the moral quandary of the titan shifters’ hours around here…

[moonspirit]

Do you think Levi hates Annie?

Hello anon!

Haha tho, no, Levi doesn't hate Annie. I don't think Levi hates anybody really. (Zeke is another can of worms, let's not go there rn)

First off, what I understand about Levi is that he's a deeply empathetic person. He holds a LOT of compassion and places a lot of value on human life (e.g: he isn't happy to learn that titans were all once humans). At the same time, Levi is someone who recognises that sometimes, it's necessary to make choices that can be violent and ruthless (one e.g: him torturing Sannes; he doesn't enjoy it but it came to that and had to be done). These are two personality traits that can actually coexist.

Coming to Annie. Much of the animosity towards her back when S1 aired was because 1. We didn't know everything about her, and 2. She killed Levi's elite Squad in a particularly violent fashion. She did kill Levi's Squad, and he was enraged, this much is painfully clear, I think. There's no denying he was furious seeing the talented people he worked with all dead in seconds.

But while I believe Levi is an emotional person who takes the deaths of his comrades very seriously, he is faaaaaarr from being vengeful. Remorse, regret, sorrow, and despair, these are things he feels, yes, but irrationally? just for the sake of being angry? No.

When we see the RBA "attacking" Paradis and trying to kidnap Eren multiple times, we (the audience) don't see them as children - we see them as young adults committing unspeakable acts of violence against an innocent population (this is exacerbated by the fact that Reiner is older than the others).

But they are mere KIDS to Levi, who's much older. He isn't stupid. He sees these kids, turning into titans and trying to kill them, and wonders why. Why are these children acting this way?

Also, try to look at it like this and see if it makes sense to you: Once the Scouts reached the basement and discovered the truth of the world, learned of the Eldian race, the Titan powers, Marley's existence, of Liberio within it, of the Warrior programme and how those human war weapons are all just children of 8 and 9 and 10, brainwashed with propaganda and bred to be nothing but tools and monsters - they understood. The Scouts understood before anybody else did, that the world was unfair on both sides of the wall.

Levi too, understood. He watched Annie kill his squad, and he understood at some point in time during the 4 year timeskip, that she was a child when she did what she did, and she had no choice but to do it.

While Levi doesn't express his emotions well, he doesn't dislike someone for the sake of disliking. He's blunt, he's foul mouthed, he's brutally honest and says what's on his mind... But him not openly talking to someone or showing care for them does not mean he hates them.

In fact none of the Warriors wanted to do any of the things they did, they committed those irreversible acts of murder and violence simply because they wanted to go back home. And maybe Paradis was the first place where they experienced some kind of friendship and equality, but it was still the target of their mission, a place they couldn't stay in. They still wanted to go back home to Liberio, back to the people they called family.

Annie, to the family she called her father.

A person as compassionate as Levi doesn't hate Annie, because he knows she did what she had to do when she was just a guilt-ridden teenage kid, even if that came at the cost of losing his friends.

Tell me also: Who in the Alliance hasn't lost their loved ones at the hands of another?

Around that fire with Hange, they've all killed someone dear to the other.

[tender-hearteddd]

bertholdt exudes the same vibe as the guy who killed the CEO of UnitedHealthcare ifykyk

[big-trouble-in-little-eldia]

What I like about Eren as a foil to the warriors is that the warriors grew up amid abuse and terror but still chose to love each other and do what they thought was right, while Eren grew up with all the love and support in the world but still desired to destroy the world.

The warriors had nothing and wanted to make the world better for their beloved, no matter how much they were tricked and used by the world and their beloved for that goal. Eren had everything but wanted to make the world worse for everyone, no matter how much he had to trick and use the world and his beloved for that goal.

Eren was always going to destroy, because to hurt indiscriminately is in his nature. Just as the warriors would always choose to love, because to carry others' burdens is in their nature.

[quiveringdeer]

new theory acquired.

Bertito is always sleeping in such wild positions cause while awake he's always shrinking in on himself to appear smaller (childhood habit) and so when unconscious, his body attempts to make him stretch out his muscles and ligaments.

[annawayne]

Hi, Ann! Hope you're having a good day. I wanted to ask—why do you think some people refuse to acknowledge that the sins of other characters in Attack on Titan are no better or worse than Annie's? Why does she seem to get more hate compared to characters like Bertholdt, Reiner, or even Eren? Annie is one of the most hated characters, along with Gabi. Do you think this could be because she's a woman? Her personality is similar to Levi's in different circumstances, yet she gets criticized heavily. People even accuse her of manipulating or bullying Mikasa. What are your thoughts?

Hello!

Oh, thank you a lot for asking! (and sorry it took me a few days to answer it)

There are a lot of wonderful metas on this topic, but I would be glad to contribute a bit with my thoughts on it as well, and thank you for the ask!

Here, a small disclaimer at the beginning: I'll talk only about my personal thoughts, focusing primarily on my reflections on why this intense hate comes from that are not related to the basic "I just don't like her" - it's all valid, and it's absolutely fine not to like a particular character just because, and it's nothing to do with plain hate.

I think that one of the main issues of Annie's hatred is not even about Annie as a character, but, unfortunately, by the way her character arc is built. We see her at the very beginning, and she is still the second-line character, even if she's EXTREMELY important to the plot. So, back then, we had her screen time, and let's be honest, not as much as I personally would love to have, primarily because she's an incredibly beautiful, interesting character with her unique points of view on the world and, as turns out later, one of the most prominent roles in the story as a whole. Still, till her reveal as Female Titan, we have some scenes with her, we have some impacts on other characters (also significant, like for Eren and Armin, for example), and then, the Female Titan arc happens and... she disappears for a VERY long period of time from the show, appearing much, much later, firstly, in flashback like a glimpse, and only then, with her whole come back during the literal apocalypse. So when the time comes to give us her backstory - I won't lie, it feels rushed, and I think, Isayma has a very great sense of self-irony when he articulates it through Hitch's mouth: "Wait, what is it a sudden sharing of your story?", all while on the background the Colossals take a march. I honestly think that Isayma also understood that it's definitely not telling enough to sympathize with Annie's character when it's presented like this (for me, personally, it was enough and I just simply would love to have more, since Annie's past in Liberio is one of the most interesting topics for me), but on the other hand, he couldn't reveal her story earlier because it would hint at her comeback FAR too obviously.

So, one of the main points is this large gap in her presence and a bit rushed exploration of her character due to the lack of time because of the situation around the characters. For example, we have a very detailed dive into Reiner's character, and still, I also feel like there's much more to explore with his character and his psycho, and what we can even say about Annie, who doesn't have such detailed exploration but has the same difficult and complex past which is undeniably important to understand not only her as a character but also more about the universe of AoT?

The next thing that plays the role here is linked to the previous one - due to the massive gap in Annie's presence in the story, many people forget many things about her. Primarily, her emotions. I think it's one of the most overlooked things regarding her character and in AoT in general. The way we see her tears IN HER TITAN FORM when she fails to capture Eren? Her tears when she was crystallizing herself? Her eyes, full of fear, when she woke up before the whole Stohess thing? Her genuine surprise, which she tried immediately to dismiss when Armin called her a good person? Her smile when Eren complimented her on her skills, which was also deleted from the anime but remains in the manga?

Here, I need to highlight an essential thing: Annie's Titan is the only Titan that is capable of showing emotions.

If we look closely, everyone else has their emotions relatively very firm, like, for example, Bert's and Armin's Colossals, caged and restricted by bones; Reiner, it looks to me, is not only the shield for others, but he's a shield from himself, completely forced to be armored in everything he feels; Lara's Titan also seems like covered in pristine white chains, and it's also interesting since she was, let's say, the shifter with a twist; Pieck's Titan also has a very permanent expression, which is compensated by her incredible endurance, just like Porco's or Ymir's Jaws lack of emotions are compensated by their mobility; Eren's Titan has always this emotion of rage as if it's the only feeling he could have going into attack. Zeke's monkey is the only other Titan with emotions, which is also intriguing.

So, back to Annie, her Titan is emotional: her tears from the failed attempt to catch Eren; like she was genuinely shocked to see people under the rubble when she fought Eren, and he threw her towards the church, leading to its crashing; like she smiled when she saw Armin under the hood; how she returned to the last battle, and how she screams in her Titan form - I genuinely here a lot of "human" in this tune, something, she doesn't allow herself in her human form. And yet, people focus a lot on the infamous "yo-yo" thing, on her battle with Levi's squad and other people, where, ironically, she attacks only when she has a direct threat to her identity or capture. If we look closely, Annie avoids fighting humans as much as possible till she's attacked directly - she runs, she screams, she tries to show off people not to touch her, and when it comes to the "fight or to lose" (which is also a remarkable parallel to Eren's character), she attacks, not to mention the obvious question - how else you act at war? Yes, back then, it wasn't something we could call like that specifically, yet she had a military mission, which, by the way, she was failing for several reasons, primarily because she's not so cold-blooded as her character is often reduced to. So, how else was she supposed to act? We don't see a lot of the same questions, for example, for Armin, who came to her hometown and blew up the port with many more casualties among civilians.

In AoT, everyone has sins. Everyone, with no exception, but Annie sometimes seems to carry the hate as if she's the typical antagonist that is supposed to be hated just because the genre demands (she's not even an antagonist either).

To sum up, Annie's character is simply very misunderstood. She's one of the most interesting characters in AoT, and I say it not because she's my fav, but primarily - she's my fav because she's much more complex than some people see her, starting from her mindset and views of the world to her development, which shows how unlovable, unwanted flower that was denied to bloom, grows through the cement and concrete, firstly, with the spikes not to let anyone close because she knows how it's to be hurt, and then, that uses these spikes, this strength to protect others and eventually leaving them be on the cold floor, and she - growing more and more into buyoant garden.

Her hands aren't without blood, and so are the others who have the same invisible tint on their skin, and yet, the same hands that only knew destruction and cold touch could also be soft and build something new, something much more powerful than her Titans kicks.

When Hitch asks her if she would do all the same, Annie says - yes, but I see it as only the mirror of Levi's "living with no regrets." Objectively speaking, Annie understands that it's impossible to turn the time back, and living among these endless what-ifs doesn't give any change - it's gone and cemented in history as it is. All these potential questions of "what would you do" are more of a mental trick to whitewash the ego. Annie doesn't do it - she understands that nothing of it was something to be proud of, and she never was, and at the same time, she doesn't know anything else. To do something differently from what point exactly? From her crystallization? Not to reveal herself earlier? Not to give Armin a chance to live twice? Not to go into the mission? Force Reiner to return? Not to listen to her father? Not to be born?

Where exactly could this point change something?

Annie doesn't lie to herself, and she doesn't look back with abstract thoughts of "How would it be," but when the time comes to actually take another action, she does it; she returns to the final battle before it becomes another "what if."

And it says more than anything else.

Annie is an honest character, primarily with herself, and she doesn't want to pretend to be better than she is. This makes her character much more human than some people try to make her look.

So, that's it!

It was quite a long read, and thank you everyone who reached this point, I appreciate your time on this!

Thank you a lot for asking, and have a good *timezone*!

[10yearsatleast]

Bro I do really appreciate you bringing this up because I swear I felt like I was the only one who saw it.

It's like in the AoT world if you're not Blonde Haired/Blue Eyed or an Ackerman or a Marleyan you're practically a goner/killed off. Like there is no hope for you. Your grave is already marked.

Eren, Bertholdt, Hange. They never had a chance.

Thank you for killing me slowly by a thousand mental cuts the ask, anon! First of all, lemme apologize for taking so long to answer, but in my defence, you asked me quite the question here.

I want to say first that I used to be a big snk fan. And then the final chapter was released. It was so bad that it made me look at the whole series with a very critical eye, which made me realize that snk has never been that great to begin with. What really made this story good was the anime produced by WIT, and what really carried the story was its big mystery box. The moment we opened it, everything went downhill bc this was no longer a fantasy world, but a lazy parody of ww2 Germany & Japan.

But more importantly, and referring to the final arc, I started to notice all the rot hidden in plain sight: its fascist and antisemitic undertones, the awful writing, the lackluster worldbuilding, the braindead politics and the inconsistent treatment of characters.

Despite my newfound interest for the cautionary symbolism of Reiner and his character arc, I still think it was handled poorly. I have the same problem with characters like Gabi, Annie, Magath, and Pieck. Their individual arcs ended with them facing no real consequences for their crimes. Magath, despite being a literal representation of the nazi, was rewarded by the plot with a heroic death (a baffling choice when you think about who he is and what he did, and just how brutal and meaningless all of the Scouts deaths were pre timeskip). Reiner, Annie, Pieck, and Gabi were all rewarded with the promise of a new, happier life ahead of them, despite being responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths directly or indirectly.

Gabi herself is proof of just how bad the writing is: RBA lived inside the walls for around 3 years, and yet they still went on with their mission. They still killed Marco. Annie still massacred those Scouts. It took Reiner 7 years to fully acknowledge that what he did was wrong and to finally make amends ... by joining an alliance that had the same goal as that of the warriors for the whole goddamn arc: take down Eren. However, Gabi realized she was wrong in like what, just a few months at best? Their development is dictated by however the plot needs them to be or act. But there's more:

Marco, the Levi Squad, Sasha, and -- as victims of similar circumstances -- Pixis, and Hange, the embodiment of pacifism, were all condemned for being good people, and some of them for believing that there is good in everybody, even in their enemies; and punished for believing that conflicts could be solved in peaceful ways. Does the cautionary symbolism of their brutal deaths still holds up when the story rewards violence and crushes pacifism?

I don't think it does.

Showing that even the worst of the worst are capable of change and doing the right thing in the end is an important message, but. The idea that everyone is just a victim of their uprising or their circumstances is simply wrong. Ideologies don't exist without people, cowardice does not justify orders carried out that lead to attrocities. This idea fails to acknowledge that evil exists. Not just nuanced evil, but pure evil as well. It also goes the other way around. This idea also fails to acknowledge that good can exist.

And also to sympathize with Pieck. And Magath, who in his final moments, revealed that he actually cared about the kids he was indoctrinating and instructing to commit genocide all along. I can't ignore the similarity with the way neonazi like to bring up hitler's friendship with Bernile Nienau, a girl of Jewish origins, as an attempt to humanize him. Heck, even Zeke's final moments painted him as more sympathetic than he was. Such is the case with Floch, and the way Jean reacted to his death. All those characters were redeemed in the audience's eyes without facing any substantial accountability.

I also have a huge issue with the false equivalences that were supposed to show us how morally grey everyone and everything is.

-> The link to the post in the screenshot

Jean and Connie and the Scouts that attacked Liberio aren't just wrongfully presented as something they're not, they're also used as tools to rationalize what Reiner and co have done to them throughout most of the series. Jean briefly does that with what Reiner did to Marco before he punches him to a pulp. Then again with the "we're the same" bs. Then again with implying Reiner is one of them as a Scout. There's also no real tension between the warriors and the Paradis side of the alliance. What the warriors did to Paradis is truly horrific, so their only way for redemption is through their victims.

The mistake that most people do when they interpret their relationship or the characters themselves is to only look at the characters' in-story intent. But there's also this thing called the author's intent that overrides everything. Sometimes, you cannot separate an author from their work. Especially when it comes to the final 12 chapters, where the quality of the writing is in the sewer.

But there's actually another way through which these characters were redeemed: the introduction of a much greater evil and a much horrific event that makes everything else pale in comparison. The main conflict of the story was revealed to have always been Eldians vs Eldians. But that wasn't always the case. Not until isayama retconned Eren, and then treated him the same way he treated the warriors. Eren's friends refused to condemn his actions, and instead repeatedly rationalized, then absolved and thanked him for what he did. It doesn't matter that they still did what was right in the end, that Mikasa killed him, or that Armin admitted they're both going to hell for the atrocities they've individually committed. In the anime. Which came out almost 3 years after the release of chapter 139+the extras and the massive backlash that followed. Let's not forget how that conversation went in the manga:

None of that matters because there's a dissonance between their actions & words and their attitude. isayama couldn't condemn any of his genocidal characters in a way that matters, in a way that would leave no room for moral ambiguity. But perhaps the greatest injustice isayama has committed to his own characters, story and messages was to retcon Eren, the character that was at the center of a message as powerful as the idea that we're all special because we're simply born in this world, into a genocidal maniac that cared about no one and nothing (if he actually cared about his friends, he wouldn't have put them through living hell, not when he actually had the power to prevent it, and if he actually cared about his mother, he wouldn't have killed her) through one of the worst executions of the time travel trope I've ever seen.

Snk is not a story that condemns fascism, let a lone a "masterpiece" when it comes to social or political themes, because it's centralized on justifying the oppression of the Eldians and making it an integral part of the plot. Not only are the Eldians an obvious metaphor for Jews, which is antisemitic on its own given how it's executed, but isayama ends up making them truly horrific because he takes real world antisemitic conspiracies and turns them into factual realities in his own story, all while seemingly acknowledging that Jews have been oppressed and the victims of the worst genocide in history. Moreover, the Eldians also seem to be ideologically inspired by imperial Japan, Paradis in particular. As @ shangyang points out in their essay, we shouldn't forget the fact that this is a manga authored by a Japanese man, nor that Japan has its own history with fascism. (Plesse don't skip any of the posts linked here)

All that being said, isayama's true intent is more than clear: violence is praised because his characters were written so to see violence as their only option, and the fascist mentality of eternal warfare as the status quo. Pacifism is not presented as an option. There's no nuance, only extremism. Even the cycle of hatred at the very end only serves as proof that the intent of the story is to present an extremely narrow worldview in which the human species is only capable of perpetual warmongering, hatred, destruction, and death. Which is wrong and is the very opposite of what I'd call "nuance", imo. And the reason this bothers me so much is because snk and other "morally grey" works alike aren't portraying evil people as just that, people, and evil as something that exists in all of us - no, what they're doing is making the unlikeable likeable, the unjustifiable justifiable, and they're making people sympathetic towards things they shouldn't be sympathizing. Such narratives are banalizing evil (if I had a nickel for how many posts I've seen justifying what Magath did or outright saying they love the guy, well I'd have a lot of nickels) and depreciating good (lots of nickels for all the posts I've seen bashing the Scouts). Such narratives serve as propaganda for the things they claim to condemn.

The result is that such stories beget ignorance, and ignorance is a fertile ground, whether is the case of people who are only interested in shipping and blorbofication, or the people who are not properly educated to know what they're dealing with.

And there's a reason actual fascists and neonazi are circling the series like flies, identifying with the yeagerists, and saying that "Eren was right". They're not taking control of the narrative, they're seeing it for what it really is. The progression of Eren's character arc, his motivations, the retcons, the conclusion of the story, Ymir's motivation, the undeserved redemptions, the characters not behaving in ways they should based on their history, none of those things make sense because they don't have to make sense. They're only pretexts meant to mask the actual intent of the story. The cycle of hatred didn't end because the rumbling truly failed. Because "the enemy" (the people outside Paradis, all of them, as Eren made it very clear) wasn't completely obliterated. Because as long as there's "the enemy", there can't be peace. Fascists have a complex relationship with war. They don’t like it, but "the enemy" is always forcing their hand. The rumbling was meant to succeed.

This is not a cautionary tale for anti-fascists.

Snk is a cautionary tale for fascists.

Now recontextualize all of that in present-day fascist politics, and see where it takes you. But ofc, this is only my interpretation, based exclusively on the story itself.

[armoredone]

META 01. home.

It was their goal to return, the only hope three former kids could long for after the atrocities they had done. Home. He'd return and his mother would finally look at him and see someone worthwhile, the piece of the puzzle that'd make her dreams of being on with Marley true, he only had to make it. But when did the lines that make up home so blurred? Before he had been so passionate about their goal, and the role he had stepped into in the cadets had just been a fabrication, a reliable young man who cared for these devils, what better way to hide his disdain. And yet when he laughed at a joke Connie made it was never forced, or when he helped Sasha cook he never felt annoyed, only a warmth and joy once the ingredients melded together into a tasty concoction that Sasha adored.

Reiner didn't have time to think about how he never laughed so freely in Liberio. He never hummed some unknown tune whilst cooking with his mother. Thinking about it for too long only made him seek refuge, finding peace in the empty barracks, fists curled around the nearest bunk, breaths ragged as he feels his mind switch between two different Reiners. The one who longed for home and the one who had begun discovering home.

Bertholdt was the one constant, a comforting hand on his shoulder felt as reassuring as when their limbs entangled together upon their bunk. If he squinted Reiner could still picture them in the very same positions back in Marley, younger, terrified of the future, of the unknown, yet still them. Boys holding onto one another for dear life, tangible so neither of them would disappear when they blink. Everything his friend did was a comfort, his sleeping positions, the constant of his breathing, the way his lips curled into the slightest smile whenever someone did anything amusing, the warmth of his skin when Reiner is at his weakest and he buries his face in the crook of that neck.

Home. Would it feel as good as the grip Bertholdt unknowingly had on his heart? Was it selfish of him to question if it would ever feel as good? His one goal was to please his mother, make her happy, become worthwhile, but how did any of that make sense when the pride he felt standing beside his comrades made his eyes well up with tears? Streaks that only fall down his cheeks when he's alone and he has to angrily wipe them away before someone sees. A warrior shouldn't cry, not for standing beside devils.

At this point it was the only thing keeping him going, the only thread that kept his mind and heart from spilling over into a mess of attachments he shouldn't have. Bertholdt deserved to go home, Annie deserved to go home. He'd finish their goal and they would, no distractions, only fleeting moments of solace wrapped up together on a wooden bunk.

He'd make it home. Even if the deepest part of his being new the truth. He had already made it home.

[marmarparadoxa]

Thoughts about Bertholdt’s death

I was rethinking about Bertholdt’s death… handled in only one page, it’s one of the most bleak and cruelest moments.  

When Bertholdt opens his eyes again, he finds himself alone on a roof, limbs severed, and a pure titan (actually, Armin in his pure titan form) leaning toward him, ready to eat what remains of him. Grasping the situation, he sinks into a state of utter terror. He has no way to escape, no limbs to run away, and he will be devoured. 

But instantly he realizes that he’s not alone, that there’s someone else: he sees Jean, Eren, Mikasa, Connie and unconscious Sasha on the next roof, all of his comrades are there. So he asks for help from them, to be saved.

It was so sad. That desperate request finally showed us that Bertholdt truly thought of them as friends. And that’s because of that reason that he called them upon to save him.  At that moment, Bertholdt couldn’t think clearly, his mind blurred with panic. And instinctively, he asks help at the source from where he expects to find it, from the people with whom he has shared the last three years of his life. This thought doesn’t come from Bertholdt the warrior, the role that he’s been forced to take on. This thought arises from Bertholdt himself. Hence, for a moment, he forgot that they were his enemies, which only a few minutes ago he had tried to wipe out. But he turns toward them, and this is what Bertholdt sees, the last sight that his eyes catch before the end:

All of them, his companions, gathered together, spectating the scene, awaiting for him to be devoured, in order to revive another. I think this was the most horrific thing of all. Bertholdt finally becomes aware that his death is a means to revive someone else, actually loved by them, and that nobody will come to save him. 

So in his very last moment, he cries out Annie’s, and lastly, Reiner’s name. The only persons left that he could think about as friends, the only ones left to whom he could still mentally ask for help. But he knows that neither of them will come to save him. During his last moments, not a single ray of consolation and care has sparkled for him, Bertholdt has died completely alone.

[gegengestalt]

Attack on Titan + Evangelion spoilers

Bertholdt and Shinji are so similar it's not funny anymore....;;

- Dark- haired, thin looking teenagers. Polite and formally dressed, regarded as timid and quiet by others.

- No "will of their own", but still very talented at what they do (Shinji being the best pilot, Bert being a powerful Warrior). People call them p*ssies but they're actually... Badasses despite their insecurity (do people forget Shinji had the most Angel kills?).

- Low self- esteem, a tendency to emotionally distance themselves from the people around them and close off. Shinji is canonically depressed, Bert seems depressed (the way I see it, at least) as well.

- They deliberately choose not to make choices of their own due to their own issues and this harms the relationships they have. However, they do find the resolve to make an extremely important choice, even if these choices are in very different situations and have very different outcomes.

- The peak of their development also has a similar theme around nihilism and meaning.

- Both control huge flesh beings (the EVA, the CT) for their fathers and become "gods of destruction" at one point (Shinji becoming God in EoE to trigger the Third Impact).

- Both have some weird- ass dreams.

I usually say Attack on Titan from Bert's POV is literally NGE as a joke, but I never sat down and listed the reasons until now.

[the-last-thread-of-my-sanity]

I’ve been thinking for a while about the Colossal Titan and the toll it must take on its shifters.

Despite being slow and lumbering- I honestly feel like it’s one of the most difficult titans to master.

Firstly, you have the transformation itself- the large explosion it causes and being able to calibrate that. Bertholdt at just 10 or 11 years old was able to make his Colossal appear at will without an explosion, but was also able to use it to blow up Shiganshina. Armin’s explosion in Liberio was even more massive- even the one he ignites on the Founder created a crater so deep his titan had to climb out of it.

It also seems with the heat expulsion and steam aspect you can also make the Titan disappear at will- including the skeleton- if you are being optimistic that Eren facing off with Bertholdt in the Trost arc wasn’t a bit of a plot hole and was actually a planned ability for this Titan. (It would have been interesting to see Armin do this- but he also needed to stay in the nape in order to grapple onto the air ship so…)

This titan is so different from the others in that despite all of the shifters leaving some collateral damage when initially shifting, one slip up from a Colossal shifter could wipe out everything for miles. So much of its abilities are offensive and external as opposed to abilities like hardening which are difficult to master but are more defensive in nature- intended to protect the shifter.

So its an interesting symbolism that both Bertholdt and Armin end up wielding it. It could never belong in the hands of someone like Eren who is impulsive and passionate, or even someone like Annie or Pieck where mobility and cunning are their greatest strengths.

The shifter has to be both reliable and reluctant when using it. And there’s something so tragic in that.

Additionally- when talking about Armin specifically- we never see him actually injure himself in order to initiate his transformation. (If I’m wrong about this please sound off in the notes). The two times we witness it, he has already done it and waited out to transform at the opportune moment. In the boat, at least, we have no semblance of how he initiated it- we see his hands but they aren’t bleeding or bitten. In the finale, we can assume his injury in his leg is enough to trigger it.

But the stamina and wherewithal to be able to control it so well despite already triggering it (like we see Eren do, where it implies that this is impressive by shifter standards) makes me believe Armin may have even surpassed Bertholdt’s abilities- at the very least in this aspect.

Also the idea of perspective- the motif that the Colossal is almost god-like in scope and scale- but its shifters cannot ever fully use its power or have to use it so sparingly. The idea that using its power over and over again diminishes it and makes it vulnerable.

How it fits the personality of its wielders so well while also drawing them in contrast- Bertholdt, who used it sparingly and only when ordered because he was incapable of deciding things on his own, and Armin, who used it in the capacity of a person commanding others. He is the last line of defense, the last resort- the one who will take the fall.

I think it is important thematically that Mikasa ends up killing Eren in the end- but until he shifts again there is a solid ten minutes of screen time where we are led to believe that Armin WAS the cause of his demise, and I think that’s still important to talk about. Both of them had to make the choice to “kill” Eren in the end- it’s only that one of them was more successful.

I could talk for hours analyzing the titans and how their abilities mirror the flaws and strengths of their shifters- but the Colossal specifically just intrigues me so much.

[vvasilisa]

meta about pieck relationships-opinions & how they changed over time in relations to the warriors. 

PRE ― POST TITAN SUCCESSION.                                primarily the training days.  

marcel: they could have been considered close, honestly, they had very healthy interactions & banter between them. pieck even began to view marcel as a sibling to a degree. he was easy to get along with.  she recognised that he was cunning,  & had a knack for leading, but she also saw that he was rather biased when it came to porco: she understood why, but she always worried that it would complicate the mission going forward / always suspected foul play on his end as for why reiner was chosen over porco. [she said nothing due to her respect for him, but she did notice his behaviour. if he did cause the sudden shift in choice, she wanted to believe he knew what he was doing.] 

porco: they got along well, & since pieck hung around marcel, her and porco interacted a lot. it was mainly her teasing him though  /  she called him on his bluffs. in truth, she did find him to be rather immature & cocky during this time, but he had the skill to back it up in a sense. 

bertholdt:  they never had any issues.  they talked a bit, but you could not really call it a strong friendship in truth. pieck was always wary of him, his demeanour always had her questioning what he was thinking. [she recognised his abilities and respected him. but she kept an eye on him.]

reiner: they never had any issues, pieck even felt pity for reiner honestly: she understood him in a way, after all, at the time she was not as physically capable as the rest of them / had trouble with the physical demand in all seriousness; however, since she is being judged far more on her intelligence over brawn, no one could doubt her & her abilities ― none of them posed a threat to her position for the cart titan. [that being said, she still believed that porco was far more qualified in receiving the armored titan based on his performance at the time.] pieck also noted how often reiner would manipulate the situation / how loyal to marley he tried to appear, mainly during his fight with porco over the armoured titan.   

annie: they were the closest. pieck helped annie with her homework & chores, & overall,  she spent the most time with her. of course, she developed ulterior motives in spending so much time with her, but at first it was genuine fascination with her,  she saw annie as this lonely & scared girl, even if she came off as stoic & emotionless thing.  & pieck wanted to honestly understand her, which grew into a strong fondness & a genuine connection  ――― love.   pieck taught annie how to write & read much better, & even taught her how to spell her real name correctly.  [annie even then was very unpredictable to pieck, however, she begun to understand how she operates. beside the point, annie was extremely skilled in the physical aspect & weapons. ]

the change,   POST TITAN  ―  UPRISING ARC.                            marcel’s death & annie’s death. 

reiner:  their relationship lost any amiability that it once had,  & her sympathy turned into resentment. she didn’t hate reiner so to say [maybe a bit tbh....] but she felt lied to & like he was directly responsible for what happened to annie & marcel. their interactions were as needed, always when in relation to duty, because in truth, they both kind of avoided the other during this time, their talks would be very uninspired / force. [part of this was due to her projecting her anger/confusion onto him, since he was the easy target, but she also didn’t believe half of what he said, he was good at lying.]

bertholdt: their relationship during this time was weird. indifferent is probably the best word for it. at first they avoided one another,  seeing as pieck was rather sensitive over the lack of details on what happened, but bertholdt understood her as it seemed, in some weird way: it seemed like he wanted to help her come to terms with stuff  ―― the two would drink together, & make bland small talk which would naturally became a little deeper as time with on, & the two had an odd relationship of trust & distrust. still not friends, but not enemies either.  [she always felt that bertholdt knew more than he let on. pieck still respects bertholdt, but she never felt like she could fully trust him.]

porco: during the period in which; marcel, annie, reiner & bertholdt deployed for their mission, pieck & porco begun to spend more time together. & they developed a close bond. they both kind of lost a brother/friend & porco also lost the position of the armoured titan, being labeled as a back up by the military.  however, with reiner & bertholdt returning, that was when he really needed a friend & a shoulder to lean on ―― she needed that too. after porco inherited the jaw titan, the two were sent on many missions together, & thus their friendship only became stronger. [porco at the time was pieck’s most trusted person & friend.]

lost,   RTS ARC ― MARLEY TIMESKIP.                  bertholdt’s death.

porco: bertholdt’s death was painful for everyone, & it created a great pressure on them / marley had lost their prized titan after all.   porco & pieck were constantly on missions together & overall when downtime was permitted, they would just chill.  however, during this time, an incident occurred between the two which leads to them kind of becoming a little distance. [one that she had him promise to forget.] after a little bit of time, they slowly returned to their normal friendship, & are very close. [pieck has trouble adjusting at first, but she is good at adjusting.]  

reiner: this period of time is where their relationship hits rock bottom, & slowly, it begins to improves / probably the best it will ever be for a while. pieck blamed reiner for bertholdt’s death, she begun to blame him for most things that went wrong, he became the escape goat for why all these bad things were happening. [she never outwardly expressed this, mind you, it was always an internalised anger cast at him.] however, she recognised that he was experiencing what she had & was experiencing [& after the incident / she spoke to her father, she tried to be a little less cold to him.] plus porco was already beating on reiner enough, & really,  she felt she was holding onto so much anger when at the end of the day, she knew he felt a lot of regret too. so, she tried to alleviate the tension / she took a more prominent role as peace maker  /  & fell into that role a lot harder. [pieck respects reiner abilities, she trusts reiner with having her back, but she still blames him for annie & marcel. it was less of a hate & more of resentment,  there was still just a lot of distance between the two.]  as time goes on, they have a similar relationship to one her & bertholdt had, they are much more friendly with one another than what it was.   

the end. MARLEY ARC TO RUMBLING ARC. 

reiner: her relationship with reiner is much healthier, she tends to pull him out of the ring whenever porco is being unreasonably harsh /  she knows that his mental state is not the best  ―  she needed him to be able to fight.  during this period, she will admit that she acknowledge that reiner was the best choice for the armoured titan.  not because of his outright skill, no, but because of how dedicated & resilient he has become /  he is a cockroach with how he refuses to die. [after pieck & annie reunite, there is some confusion & anger that she begins to process in his treatment of annie.]  after the rumbling, it is easy to say, pieck has animosity toward reiner. his abuse of power over bertholdt & annie, & his outright manipulation of the warriors―  she could feel the raw anger from annie alone when they were in each other presence which has lead to pieck, once again, playing peace maker & trying to keep that blood-lust at bay.  you can imagine that their relationship after the rumbling is damaged again, & might return to more of a loathing again.

porco:  upon his death, pieck was very heart broken; however, at the time, she didn’t allow herself to process this lost unlike how she had with the other dead warriors―― in which she had time to be alone after the fact & feel something. but the rumbling was already set into motion & she had to stay in a clear mindset.  [when the rumbling was happening & she saw him, she was so worn mentally at that point that she did become rather emotional at seeing his & marcel titan form.]

annie: pieck was very shocked to say the least at being united with annie, after all, she has been told that this girl has been dead for years. [her goal of sneaking back into the walls were to find supplies & see if she could find reiner, gabi or anyone really.] so granted, when she found annie with hitch, you can understand why she became distracted from her mission.  hitch handed annie off to pieck, since she recognised that annie was a danger here. &so, pieck & annie had a mini reunion while being taken from the city by carriage [since hitch was already going to take annie out of the city this way anyways]. this was when pieck, kind of just confessed her feelings to annie, cause wow they could die very soon. the issue was, annie was very fragile & overall her mental stability was a wreck. she was like a wounded animal ready to bite.  ―  throughout the rumbling, pieck ensures annie safety...& that annie well,  doesn’t hurt their new SC teammates or the marley ones for that matter. [pieck is very exhausted by this point.] pieck overall feelings & relation to annie doesn’t change outside of her taking on a even more protective role, & seeing annie as a shell of the old her  /  she need patience with her, but she is heartbroken by what has become of her. 

[tender-hearteddd]

thinking about how the few characters close to bertholdt chose to exploit him for their own dreams and goals and taking it very personally lolz

his very own “best friends” didnt even leave him with not even a shred of comfort or closure; he was a good boy who just wanted his father to be okay and he died without ever knowing whether all the atrocities he committed had even saved his father in the first place from the colonial power that is marley

the only thing he’s ever wanted was to protect the ones he loves and his love ones can’t even acknowledge his pain or what he went through when he was used as their scapegoat for their crimes. eren literally changed the whole course of history to exploit him in order for the rumbling to happen yet bertholdt is still blamed for thst shit. he didn’t get to have any dreams or aspirations bc he was too busy worrying abt reiner losing his mind. his last few moments was fighting to stop the inevitable slaughter that will continue if he doesn’t fight. he doesn’t want to put any more people through the hell he will always reside in - that is why he fights, and he didn’t even get to accomplish this goal. literally everybody else in the whole entirety of the manga got to accomplish whatever their goal was, all the other characters got a consolation prize. what does he get? his want to protect the people he loves was twisted into some sinister evil goal by the majority of the aot fandom like the scouts didnt enable a whole ass genocide in the name of….friendship i guess?

bertholdt cared about the warrior candidates before he even met them. bertholdt cares about anyone who’s ever been lost. no one even cares about his pain, no one ever cares that he was exploited. he’s just there, he came and he left and he had to accept that he will forever be a weapon for a country that hates him and a monster to the people said country sent him off to kill.

[big-trouble-in-little-eldia]

Oh hey, I never posted this here

Last month, I got bored and took a look at the AOT characters’ most likely sexuality in canon, might as well share it on here

Usual disclaimers: Isayama is dead to me and intention doesn’t matter, only depiction does. Some of my headcanons and fanon differ from these as well and just because something’s (probably) canon doesn’t mean anyone’s in any way obligated to follow these. This isn’t meant to contest others’ interpretations and fanon, it was made purely as a fun little bit of trivial meta. Characters between two points can arguably can fall into either side and the side they skew towards is the one that’s most likely. Since not a single character can really be pinpointed with 100% certainty, 90% certainty has become the new reference point for the set sexualities.

[quiveringdeer]

Dating Bertholdt will include taking pictures of his many many weird sleeping positions for a scrapbook

I wholeheartedly agree!!

It gets him so flustered when you pull out the scrapbook and add a new picture. Give them all names and write a lil caption!

[botaniia]

Chapter 128 was packed with details, but the final two pages of the chapter are some of the most important in the whole series to me because they tie up a loose end that’s been there for quite some time in just two small pages.

The warriors’ morality has been a long-discussed topic, but out of RBA I think Bertholdt’s is the most interesting, simply because he’s been discussed so little and the reader actually has to extrapolate to explore him instead of getting it all spoonfed to them. There was no reason for the story to discuss him because Reiner was still alive and he was used to explore RBA’s reasoning and history. And because it was shown through Reiner so well, I’d long given up on the narrative ever revisiting Bertholdt again.

But even if it makes sense, that doesn’t leave me satisfied. I am all for seeing Reiner’s (and Annie’s) growth, but that’s only possible because they are still alive and active players in the story. Readers get constant new info on them and see how their actions and perspective have changed, and get the chance to recontextualise them. And for many people, that allows them to sympathise with them.

The same can’t be said about Bertholdt.

To plenty of people, he’s the previous holder of the colossal titan, Reiner’s shadow, and ultimately the guy who made peace with the fact that he’d kill lots and lots of former allies and Survey Corps alike before he was punished with a gruesome karmic death. He not only got what people believed was due, but readers were also never again challenged to rethink their position on him like they were with Reiner and Annie. It was easy to form an opinion on him in Return to Shiganshina and never have to adjust that opinion as new info came. 

There was no need to see how terrible his life was before he died, or how he was in the same boat as Reiner, or to speculate what he’d have done were he alive in the current arc because it simply wasn’t raised to the audience. So he remained despicable, and it was a good thing he was dead.

And that stance is understandable. Because no matter how good a motive someone has, murder is murder, and what happened to Shiganshina, Trost, Marco, the SC, and Armin was still murder no matter how terrible Marley was to these child soldiers. I reject the idea that their strong alleviating circumstances change nothing, but I understand why people are unable to find compassion for him after he said he was okay with killing them all on his own volition (which I still think was a coping mechanism to deal with how little he was in control of his life at that point and not a factual statement, but that’s a discussion for another day).

In short: a story that so powerfully made many people do a complete 180 on what they thought of Reiner, someone they previously wanted to see die a violent death, doesn’t at all invite the reader to consider the same for Bertholdt, and it felt missing.

That is until these two pages show up and change everything. 

See, the thing I said about murder applies to anyone. Bertholdt’s death was still murder, no matter how you spin it. A necessary murder where the SC had no other choice, but still murder. But emotionally, it was never framed that way. We don’t really see the 104th’s opinion on RBA, but I can’t imagine they felt all too much compassion for Bertholdt. 

Because he had it coming. 

Because he would’ve murdered them had they not murdered him. 

Because he betrayed them like the heartless bastard they learned he was.

Because he was all talk about no one wanting to do what he did, but in the end he still carried through with it.

Because it’s easier to feel no guilt over killing someone when you decide that he was never worthy of your compassion in the first place.

He died without a shred of humanity. The people who would mourn him didn’t know if he was truly dead and the people who knew he was dead didn’t want to mourn him.

That’s kinda it for him. Suddenly, radio silence. Reiner’s depression largely stems from losing him, but he’s never actually mentioned. Porco gets angry learning about his death at Liberio and charges into combat, and that’s about the only on-panel reaction we see to his death.

And then, four years later, the 104th suddenly land themselves in a situation where they are the traitors. Two of their comrades stand between them and their goal, and their lives are directly threatened by them unless they choose to act right now. 

“You betrayed us, didn’t you?”

“Weren’t we gonna reclaim the land and eat meat together?”

“You traitors! Why? Aren’t we comrades?”

Hey, aren’t those words Connie and Armin have heard somewhere before?

They are indeed their comrades. And Connie pulls the trigger twice.

It’s emotional. It’s painful. It doesn’t feel right, Connie doesn’t want to do it, and he knows he’ll have trouble looking himself in the mirror from the moment he shoots Daz. He’s the first one of the 104th to gain insight into how terrible it is to have to harm friends for a goal he truly believes is worth fighting for. 

But he did it anyway because he had to. And that’s the moment where he understands, crystal clear, something he has been struggling for four years to understand: how could Reiner, Bertholdt, and Annie do something so selfish, so gruesome to their comrades? How could they do this to him?

How could Connie and Armin do this to Daz and Samuel?

I don’t wish what Connie and Armin are currently feeling upon them in any way, just like I didn’t wish it upon RBA when they were experiencing it. But it’s undeniable that they currently have an understanding unlike any other of what a dreadful situation their enemies had been in when they infiltrated Paradis. This may even help them understand the position Eren is currently in.

Killing a former friend who turned enemy out of necessity is one thing. Learning his motives can change one’s perception of him, but doesn’t necessarily change the animosity still felt for him. But to live the exact experience he lived and gain an emotional understanding that wasn’t there before?

It’s hard not to relate to an experience you now understand.

So what’s that loose end I was talking about? 

Back in Clash of Titans, Bertholdt begged for someone to find them. I interpret this as being about understanding how hopeless their situation was from the start, seeing the good through the overwhelming abundance of terrible, wanting to be understood but knowing it wasn’t possible.

Ymir ended up being the person to respond to that call, leading to her going back to Marley with them to face certain death in order to spare them. Back then, she was the only one who could find them, but she never quite gave the type of understanding he was looking for. He wronged the Paradisian Eldians, it was them he needed to reach.

Even though it’s long after his death, Connie remembering his words in the situation he did is the first time that someone actually did see, did live his perspective while explicitly linking it back to him. Someone finally understands the pain they went through, and Isayama made a conscious effort to make readers think about that fact by showing that one panel of Bertholdt breaking down all those years ago. It’s no longer implied by extrapolation, it’s explicitly shown, the reader has to think about it.

It’s doesn’t look like much, but that is the exact type of closure I’ve wanted to cap off his story. 

Someone whom he didn’t want to harm but harmed anyway finally understands how human his situation was.

There wasn’t actually a heartless bastard, just a conflicted one who made his choice. Just like they did.

Someone finally found him.