Attack on Titan - Debasement Yourself and Face Bloodshed

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ZepiaEltnamOberon: Oct 25, 2010; I Failed At Anime 2022

Man, I loved that Teen Titans cartoon.

# ? May 10, 2015 12:24

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# ? Apr 28, 2024 14:17

badjohny: Oct 6, 2005

Nelson Mandingo posted:

They have the serum and they have Annie in custody. Kenny straight up handed off chekov's gun to Levi.

Plus the fact that you only need the spinal fluid. They could drain Annie and not even have to kill her.

# ? May 10, 2015 23:25

Shneak: Mar 6, 2015; A sad Professor Plum
sitting on a toilet.

Did Historia kill the Rod Titan off-panel or did that happen in the last chapter? That plot jump threw me of.

# ? May 11, 2015 04:42

Sir Ilpalazzo: Sep 4, 2012

She killed it at the end of the last chapter.

# ? May 11, 2015 04:43

Saagonsa: Dec 29, 2012

Shneak posted:

Did Historia kill the Rod Titan off-panel or did that happen in the last chapter? That plot jump threw me of.

It happened last chapter. Though really she was just the one to finish off the weak spot after Eren blew it up.

# ? May 11, 2015 04:43

NutritiousSnack: Jul 12, 2011

Shneak posted:

Did Historia kill the Rod Titan off-panel or did that happen in the last chapter? That plot jump threw me of.

She killed it last chapter, it was just a small cut to what happened right before she did.

# ? May 11, 2015 07:50

Terper: Jun 26, 2012

Shneak posted:

Did Historia kill the Rod Titan off-panel or did that happen in the last chapter? That plot jump threw me of.

# ? May 11, 2015 08:44

LonelyKing: Feb 2, 2003; Fun Shoe

^^^ I somehow totally missed that because of how Rod's blended into the background.

I guess took the whole 'this world is ending' talk to be more metaphorical foreshadowing of the titans breaching the walls than anything that's going to happen in the near-term to our current cast. It did happen some time in the past, prior to the breach, in the flashback. I mean, really, the entire comic has been about their world ending and their attempts to stop it thus far.

# ? May 11, 2015 11:05

Nelson Mandingo: Mar 27, 2005

badjohny posted:

Plus the fact that you only need the spinal fluid. They could drain Annie and not even have to kill her.

You need your spinal fluid to live at all, so probably not.

# ? May 11, 2015 15:25

Jerry Manderbilt: May 31, 2012; No matter how much paperwork I process, it never goes away. It only increases.

Why don't they feed Annie to Connie's mom? :v:

# ? May 11, 2015 17:09

free basket of chips: Sep 7, 2012; by FactsAreUseless

Now that you mention it, I hope that option is discussed. I like Connie and want good things to happen to him.

# ? May 11, 2015 17:13

Terper: Jun 26, 2012

I mean, I guess it's not impossible they sent someone out to capture her to experiment with, but more likely they just killed her off.

# ? May 11, 2015 17:15

Brightman: Feb 24, 2005; I've seen fun you people wouldn't believe.
Tiki torches on fire off the summit of Kilauea.
I watched disco balls glitter in the dark near the Brandenburg Gate.
All those moments will be lost in time, like crowds in rain.

Time to sleep.

Maybe along with the massive porn stash, that's obviously going to be there, there will be a bunch of Titan Shifter serum that Grisha had brewed up in the basement. He might've had access to that power the whole time but once the wall got hosed over he couldn't go back to get more. The answer is to make everyone a shifter.

It's probably just the porn and like a diary or some lab notes though.

# ? May 11, 2015 17:20

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Nelson Mandingo posted:

You need your spinal fluid to live at all, so probably not.

But they could put some sort of a device into her spine that they could draw a little from on demand when needed. Kind of like a spigot on a bar or a maple tree. We could call it a spinal tap?

:goonsay:

# ? May 11, 2015 17:23

Terper: Jun 26, 2012

Up until this chapter, I thought the basement would be filled with titan serum notes, yeah, but since Levi got his hands on some juice that is probably going straight into the lab, it can't be just that.

# ? May 11, 2015 17:56

MeLKoR: Dec 23, 2004; by FactsAreUseless

So exactly how many walls were there in the past? 'Cause I'm thinking with all this mind wiping going on there is nothing to guarantee us that there were always only 3 walls, for all we know the titan wranglers are descendants of people that were left to die in the past and there are several outer broken walls. It's not like anyone has gone very far from base.

# ? May 11, 2015 20:41

BuhamutZeo: Jun 1, 2011

Gotta give it to Isayama, he sure knows how to draw a Queen of All Humanity. :stare:

# ? May 11, 2015 21:03

Nelson Mandingo: Mar 27, 2005

Terper posted:

Up until this chapter, I thought the basement would be filled with titan serum notes, yeah, but since Levi got his hands on some juice that is probably going straight into the lab, it can't be just that.

It's got something to do with the first king and letting Eren access all the knowledge his disposal I think.

# ? May 12, 2015 04:11

Sir Ilpalazzo: Sep 4, 2012

MeLKoR posted:

So exactly how many walls were there in the past? 'Cause I'm thinking with all this mind wiping going on there is nothing to guarantee us that there were always only 3 walls, for all we know the titan wranglers are descendants of people that were left to die in the past and there are several outer broken walls. It's not like anyone has gone very far from base.

This is what I'm thinking the Reiss family was about to do when Grisha interrupted them.

# ? May 12, 2015 10:37

Terper: Jun 26, 2012

Eh. With the mind wiping, nothing is certain, so if the idea that there might have been more walls isn't based on anything more than that, it doesn't really carry much meaning. For all we know the humans of the world are all actually robots and they just think they're not because ~mind powers~.

# ? May 12, 2015 10:52

Cthulhuchan: Nov 10, 2005; Rose: Sip martini thoughtfully.

Such as this one.

Just a tiny sip couldn't hurt...

that might fly if there weren't literally people who were immune to mind powers.

# ? May 12, 2015 11:36

MeLKoR: Dec 23, 2004; by FactsAreUseless

Cthulhuchan posted:

that might fly if there weren't literally people who were immune to mind powers.

Yes, and they are hunted down and killed so they keep their mouth shut if they know what's good for them. Besides, what would they say to the other people? "There is a 4th wall that only I know about because an evil wizard made you forget"? It's pretty much Dark City at that point, you're all alone in a world were people have no control over their memories and if the powers that be find out you're immune you're hosed.

Anyway, what got me started on this speculation is that from the conversations with Kenny the king didn't come off as evil but as a fatalist. Maybe it's not that everyone that gets injected has his/her mind taken over by the king, maybe it's just that when they get injected and learn The Truth^TM they realize out utterly and irretrievably hosed the situation is outside the walls and how silly their dreams of "killing all titans" were. There is no salvation, humanity is going to die. The only thing the king can do is provide the population with as good a life as he can before it inevitably all comes crashing down. It's just best they don't know.
:negative:

# ? May 12, 2015 12:30

Fhqwhgads: Jul 18, 2003; I AM THE ONLY ONE IN THIS GAME WHO GETS LAID

Terper posted:

Eh. With the mind wiping, nothing is certain, so if the idea that there might have been more walls isn't based on anything more than that, it doesn't really carry much meaning. For all we know the humans of the world are all actually robots and they just think they're not because ~mind powers~.

28 Day Later-style titan continent while the rest of the world just goes on with their lives. Didn't they say they've never seen this mythical "ocean" full of all that $$$alt?

# ? May 12, 2015 13:33

Jorenko: Jun 6, 2004; I think you're just mad 'cause you're single.

A fourth wall you say? Will our heroes break through it and discover they are just a big Truman Show / Most Dangerous Game bullshit in some future utopia?

# ? May 12, 2015 14:46

AlistairCookie: Apr 1, 2010; I am a Dinosaur

Fhqwhgads posted:

28 Day Later-style titan continent while the rest of the world just goes on with their lives. Didn't they say they've never seen this mythical "ocean" full of all that $$$alt?

I think it will be something like this. I speculated a while back that there would be a Claymore style reveal about the nature of the world. (The wall people are isolated, and kept ignorant as a mercy, because their only purpose is to make and perfect shifter Titans as weapons for the rest of the world.)

# ? May 12, 2015 15:15

PerniciousKnid: Sep 13, 2006

Jorenko posted:

A fourth wall you say? Will our heroes break through it and discover they are just a big Truman Show / Most Dangerous Game bullshit in some future utopia?

So the ape man was Ed Hair-rear end all along?

# ? May 12, 2015 23:10

Syrant: Jun 28, 2006; This post is brought to you by: Goat Bouillabaise.

First 9

Eren just has to pop Annie into his mouth and find out how many licks it takes to get to the chewy center.

# ? May 13, 2015 02:16

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Syrant posted:

Eren just has to pop Annie into his mouth and find out how many licks it takes to get to the chewy center.

Weird, dude.

# ? May 13, 2015 03:56

this allusion meant: Apr 9, 2006

T.G. Xarbala posted:

The thing about a story that relies on character deaths to get people's attention is that, for the people who only paid attention to the story because of those deaths, it has to keep on killing people off in order to keep their attention. So either you either create a character treadmill and constantly introduce, get acquainted with, then kill off named characters (Gantz was designed to be this, also trash) or you inevitably disappoint the people who don't care and just want to see blood.

The Attack on Titan thread has been getting slower as people realize that the early gonzo anything-goes-anybody-can-die tone could only be maintained for so long before it turns into self-parody. (see: Gantz) So now we're stuck with the actual story being told, and it's bleak in a less, I want to say "dazzling" way than one would expect from the first chunk.

For what it's worth I wasn't terribly impressed with the initial chapters. To be honest my first, extremely unkind reaction to AoT was "Ooh here's another zombie apocalypse with a ~twist~ look at how impressed all of these readers are the people are [gasp!] dying! The idea of introducing a bunch of disposable characters early to inflate a death-heavy tone is completely new and original and not at all blatant sensationalist shock-schlock designed to steal your attention since you're an idiot so it must be new to you." The fact that a common refrain among people disillusioned with AoT is the lack of central character death only shows that, yes, the initial attention-grabber ploy worked, but now we're left with a chunk of audience who were misled to believe this was an edgier, more "hardcore" story than was actually going to be.

I only really started to care once the politics and the ontological mystery entered the forefront and before then it was mostly morbid curiosity that kept me reading, though not regularly. The fact that the political arc seems to be wrapping itself up means that what's really left is the mystery and the world situation, and I'll probably keep checking in occasionally.

I think it's good that you know what you want out of a story.

sort of carving out a position in between here: i liked that there were mysteries that were hard to solve largely because humanity didn't seem to be in control at all, and that attempts to even gather information to sift through for clues that could easily lead to dead ends were incredibly risky and bloody affairs. named character deaths and credible threat of annihilation (coming primarily from the high threat level from titans) really helped to establish this fact about the world. now i'm somewhat disappointed because it's looking like it actually is mainly another story about humans scheming against one another after all, which is still interesting in the specifics, just not what i'd originally hoped for. the simultaneous lack/brevity of credible dangers associated with the tremendous progress in solving mysteries in recent chapters has also been disappointing in terms of the perceived difficulty of the ontological challenge. i suspect this is largely a matter where the human enemies feel less dangerous than the titans; whereas the titans always add at least some tension even if levi and mikasa are present and armed, not enough is done to show how the human enemies seem really terrifying to the scouts, even though a post hoc analysis does seem to suggest they were actually more dangerous in many senses. i feel that danger is poorly conveyed with the visuals, but i guess it's not really the author's fault that guns often aren't a serious threat in other manga stories. not that i'm under the illusion that named character deaths on their own will help fix what i'm actually disappointed with in any way (tho they can be used to draw attention to a major change of focus when one does happen, like with Hannes's)

# ? May 13, 2015 04:52

Say Nothing: Mar 5, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

Darth Walrus posted:

Weird, dude.

# ? May 13, 2015 04:54

Phobophilia: Apr 26, 2008; by Hand Knit

The first time the interior MPs showed up, they were terrifying. People just as fast as the Scouts, and possibly even more maneuverable, and armed with guns. The Scouts lost dozens of people in that ambush, and Levi got away by the skin of his teeth.

The problem with the Interior MPs was the followthrough. While they were excellent at suppressing unarmed humans, they fell apart as soon as the Scouts fought back. While the Scouts were never trained to fight other humans, they were veterans against the Titans, and were flexible on both the offence and defence.

# ? May 13, 2015 07:00

Cuntellectual: Aug 6, 2010

You know, I was thinking Kenny's pose from a few chapters back looked familiar...

# ? May 13, 2015 23:17

Simstim: Mar 16, 2005; You just gave me a great idea buddy.

When Kenny is talking about what motivates people at the end of the last chapter, on the 'children' panel, the women looks like the former queen and the child looks like Eren. Maybe Eren is half Riess and half Ackrermann, which is why he wasn't indoctrinated when given the power but can still control the power.

It explains how she knew Eren, and Eren's dad and the former queen planned from the start for Eren's dad to kill her and the rest of her family because they knew once she took the power she would psychologically change and thier son, Eren, was the only way to break the cycle.

# ? May 14, 2015 02:22

Terper: Jun 26, 2012

Simstim posted:

When Kenny is talking about what motivates people at the end of the last chapter, on the 'children' panel, the women looks like the former queen and the child looks like Eren. Maybe Eren is half Riess and half Ackrermann, which is why he wasn't indoctrinated when given the power but can still control the power.

It explains how she knew Eren, and Eren's dad and the former queen planned from the start for Eren's dad to kill her and the rest of her family because they knew once she took the power she would psychologically change and thier son, Eren, was the only way to break the cycle.

It was Levi and his mother.

# ? May 14, 2015 04:13

Fister Roboto: Feb 21, 2008

Terper posted:

Eh. With the mind wiping, nothing is certain, so if the idea that there might have been more walls isn't based on anything more than that, it doesn't really carry much meaning. For all we know the humans of the world are all actually robots and they just think they're not because ~mind powers~.

And then they'll reveal who the Final Five Titans are.

There must be some kind of way out of here~

# ? May 14, 2015 15:27