#next chapter is gonna be a doozy cause it might be on the longer side to write

[rainbowninja00]

Of course NOW in the dead of night I get gay thoughts and writing inspiration. It's not even for any scenes that are gonna happen too soon! Most are when dream are around except one which might be in the next chapter.

I do not have the energy to pull up the damn doc and write a chapter this late.

[snkception]

So chapter 90 was a mixed bag of offerings--a clear transition chapter which nonetheless managed to do some interesting things. Some really rather fascinating things, even.

Pixis dropping truth bombs about where you end up if you start out by concealing facts from the populace was A+. Not, like, because there are even clear-cut sides to this argument--I can also acknowledge that creating a mass panic is Not A Good Thing. But Pixis rolling in Pixis-style and having no chill about justice was great.

I confess than when Historia announced this:

... My first thought was, hoo boy, that’s not gonna go as well as you think. But the population seemed to deal with it surprisingly okay, actually--at least, we weren’t shown any significant societal upheaval in the year that followed. I wonder, though.

Like, surely things have changed? The enemy has changed, right. These people have lived under the titans’ siege for 100 years; that’s been the cornerstone of their understanding of the world at large. It’s them, in the walls, the last remnants of humanity, alone against the titans. And then the SC’s latest discoveries turn it all on its head, in addition to the titan enemy as they know it running out of steam. The titans seem to have pretty much eliminated themselves via Hange’s guillotine, and new titans are known to be made on a case-by-case basis and dropped off at a particular point. From being an insurmountable, monstrous horde, the titans went to being a controllable problem.

What a time to be alive.

So, like, Floch has talked about the SC and its recruitment, but at this point, why does the SC even need to recruit? What would they be recruiting for? This new world is one where titans are functionally no longer a problem and going outside the walls has stopped being a suicide mission. This new world doesn’t need the SC, or at least not as it existed before.

What this world needs, if they plan to eventually fight Marley, is a way to confront Marley’s military might and their warrior shifters. This is less “desperate struggle to chip away at the titans one by one and maybe learn something about the world in the process” and more a thing that the country’s whole survival depends on--and therefore a thing that concerns all branches of the military equally. The distinction between the military branches has ceased to be significant from the practical point of view, although of course they have very different internal cultures, so I imagine this will keep them separate. And, anyway, this war won’t be won without deploying the Coordinate, and that’s Eren in his full existential crisis glory.

I say, the Hairstyle of Significant Time Passage suits Eren rather well :D

Anyway, so a chapter ago Eren realized a thing: he alone is not in fact sufficient for activating the Coordinate. He needs Historia, a true royal descendant, to help him channel the full powers. Precedent shows that it was only by being in physical contact with a titanified royal that Eren managed to use the Coordinate... therefore, chances are that holding hands with titanified Historia would yield similar results. Like, it’s not guaranteed, but there’s a chance of it working, and, should he point this out, someone will definitely suggest trying it.

And I find it interesting that, in the same chapter where Eren gets accused of valuing a friend over the rest of humanity, this comes up:

Idk, I’m seeing some parallels here. Pretty sure that Floch singing the song of the red-shirted people right here and now wasn’t a narrative accident.

The moment Eren bends over Historia’s hand, he gets a flashback to Grisha’s confrontation with Frieda (and we finally know what was said there, woohoo). I mean, maybe he learned something else from that encounter that we haven’t seen on screen--and if so, I’m mightily curious about what it is. But, in the absence of that, the untimely confirmation that physical contact between them unlocks something Coordinate-related is the reason why Eren is making this face:

It’s a great face. (Also, these are beautifully drawn hands, but I digress.)

And in the year that passes after, Eren says nothing to anyone about this. Or at least nothing that we know of. And that’s... there’s a lot that can be said about it. For one: this story is literally never kind to Eren, is it? He’s always been ready to lay down his own life for the cause, but it’s not been that easy. First, he’s had to let people die for him, and to learn to live with that. Now, it’s taken one step further: Eren is pushed towards actively sacrificing the people he loves. He faced the choice of Armin vs Erwin, the (ostensible) hope for humanity. Next up, Historia vs the (potential) salvation of the walled world. These are not choices with which Eren can possibly deal well.

(So many ways in which he’s not Grisha, who’s never had a real problem sacrificing his loved ones for the sake of humanity at large.)

And here’s another thing. Almost since the start of the manga, we--and Eren--have had this clear narrative: humanity must fight titans in order to win;  once they’ve fought their way to freedom and defeated their enemies, they will walk outside under the free skies and breathe fresh air and finally reach the ocean. It’s been drummed into us that the ocean is the end goal. That the ocean is synonymous with freedom, and that it lies at the end of the path. This is what the audience was told to believe, because Eren believed it also.

And in this chapter, he finally gets to the ocean. Only it’s not the end of anything. He’s exhausted himself trying to get to this point, and he got there only to find that the ocean is just a very large and very salty body of water. The freedom that it promised remains far out of Eren’s--and humanity’s--grasp.

Freedom is what Eren has fought for from the very beginning. Freedom is what Eren’s been all about, possibly since the day he was born, definitely since the day we met him. And he’s gone from shouting about freedom at the top of his voice to pointing feebly toward the sea, going, is it there? is freedom finally there? and his whole bearing suggests that, at this point, he doesn’t even know what freedom is anymore, whose freedom he’s fighting for, or whether it even really exists.

The conflict between humanity and titans was never easy, and it often looked hopeless, but Eren had a clear enemy to fight. There were humans, and there were monsters, and humanity had to triumph over the monsters. Over the course of the story, things got more and more complicated, and Eren’s conscience more burdened with every new discovery about the world and his own place in it. And now, his enemy is the rest of humanity, and his weapons are his friends, and he’s already come so far and fought so hard, and he carries the memory of people who’ve fought and lost and spun this cycle of violence endlessly on.

Even walking outside the walls and tasting the salt of the ocean on his tongue, Eren still isn’t free, and it looks like he’s just standing there and wondering whether this is what freedom is, for humanity--this constant struggle to defeat enemy after enemy. Can humans really only be free once every single one of their foes is dead? What kind of freedom is that? Is he supposed to sacrifice the people he loves for this? Is there ever an end?

The ocean was supposed to be the end.

This is some... existential-level mindfuck, right there.

And, like. It takes us back to what this story has really been about all along.

War--ordinary war between humans--has been the central conflict of the story from the start, and this is only clear in retrospect. The titans were a symptom, not the disease; the Colossal and Armored Titans were simply enemy combatants; and even inside the walls much focus has been on the military. All this time, our heroes were fighting in a war the true shape of which is only becoming clear to them now.

Except, at this point, nobody remembers how this war began. It’s only known that it’s relentless, and whenever one side gains the advantage, it’s only a matter of time until the other will strike back. And so it goes, ad infinitum.

... Why yes, as a reference to real life and humanity’s long and bloody history, this is not even a bit subtle. And I’m curious how this story is planning to resolve the philosophical conundrums it raises, if it plans to resolve them. Because, quite honestly, if human nature is the bad guy in your story? Man, good on you, but you’ve got a real doozy on your hands.