Like yeah, they were insubordinate. But they are not adults. They are 15 years old. That is a child, and that’s a biological fact and is not up for debate. One of my favourite parts of SnK is how realistically Isayama writes teenagers–most stories with teenage protagonists portray them as capable of adult reasoning, which isn’t realistic at all. The human brain does not finish developing until probably around age 25, although recent research indicates it might be even later. The part of the brain that hasn’t fully developed is the frontal lobe, known aptly as the “brain’s executive” because it is responsible for rational decision making, weighing consequences, as well as empathy. That’s why teenagers–as Eren and Mikasa and the rest of the 104th are portrayed–often make impulsive choices that may seem to lack basic foresight. Just because the world they’re in treats them as adults doesn’t make them adults, and whether Isayama has any knowledge of psychology or neuroscience at all I don’t know, but he’s been remarkably accurate in his psychological portrayal of his characters, particularly his teenage characters. Teenagers who’ve been through the trauma the 104th have been through would most likely struggle even more with decision making and empathy. The world may treat them as adults, but they (realistically) do not behave like adults despite being soldiers, and that’s another layer of tragedy to this story.
Tag: snk 87
– I think it’s the most likely the punishment involves just Eren and Mikasa being locked up in their free time. I don’t see Hange and Levi locking them up entirely because their skills as soldiers are important.
– Eren and Mikasa are in fact meant to be teen characters, not adults. Hange specifically calls Eren a rebellious teen at one point in the story. They are characters that are 15 years old. Not only that, but Eren’s suffering heavily because of his father’s memories. They are not only child soldier characters, but traumatized.
I don’t really agree with interpertations that dismiss the characters’ suffering like that.
Honestly I’m so upset about this whole thing I legit started crying while I was having dinner and I know I’m being dramatic but it’s just Eren has given so fucking much and not once did he ever complain about anything nor did he ever expected anything in return and to see him, someone who deserves so fucking much, go through all this shit because of other people is just…… The amount of shit he has been through is just ridiculous and he still keeps going and going no matter what. Eren has been fucking tortured, he is mentally unstable too, everyone he loves is taken away from him so fucking easily, he harms himself regularly, he has begged to die, he keeps hallucinating and having break downs, he is treated like a monster and a tool, he just wants to be trusted and to keep the only friends he has left close to him no matter what, he has given his life away so many times, he was fucking used and traumatised by his poor excuse of a father and that disgusts me more than anything honestly what the fuck.
And there he is, again, in a goddamn cell, probably hungry, unclean, uncomfortable, sleep deprived, having hallucinations, crying. He specifically said in those interviews he hated to sleep underground because of the lack of sunlight and because of the mold but I don’t see him complain at all, he just endures it like always and suffers for other people’s mistakes and stupidity and this kills him. Why? because he begged to save his best friend (the one and only who always believed in him no matter what, the one who was ALWAYS by his side since the beginning) and it is so fucking unfair to see literally everyone shitting on him and shitting on his problems and treat him like this is all his fault when he’s the one who suffers the most because of all of this and he just got caught up in this mess. He never fucking asked for any of this, he literally told Historia to take his powers away from him, he just happens to have a fucked up dad who happens to use his goddamn sons as fucking war tools or some shit I don’t even know what to say I’m just really upset, specially when I get to see so many people shitting on a character to whom I can relate deeply and who is heavily misunderstood. Eren is constantly taken for granted and people criticise him for the simple fact that he’s the protagonist and they reduce him to certain characteristics because they don’t even bother to try to understand how amazing his character actually is and how unique he can be.
Again, I just don’t really want to see Eren crying in a fucking cell and literally deteriorating and becoming progressively worse and worse and honestly if this gets worse I’m going to be so fucking sad because Eren has so much potential and he can do so many great things but unfortunately it seems like people won’t realise that any time soon which is kinda sad because having such a nice character is one of things that makes snk so appealing and even if you don’t like him, eren gives a very special vibe to this show and he fits in it perfectly and he has shown enough times he’s worthy being this show’s protagonist and he was literally created to fit in it and he is so complex in his own messy way and I’m just being clumsy right now but what I really want to say is that I really love this character and I’m upset things are going against him right now and I just really really hope he gets through this because I know he can and I believe in him a lot
Another spoiler pic: Kruger pushing a Mare officer off the wall
Another spoiler pic: EMA
Okay but if the SC actually elected to throw Eren in jail…what a stupid fucking decision.
I’m actually really curious about this, because the whole thing strikes me as very strange. If the SC is behind Eren’s imprisonment, I assume it would have been Hange’s decision, and that would almost seem out of character in a lot of ways. Erwin’s dead, there’s no bringing him back, and Hange gets that; plus, the Survey Corps has literally nothing to gain by imprisoning Eren over that particular incident, so I don’t see how this can be about Serum-bowl (as I’ve seen people speculating). I’m hoping there’s some additional context we’re missing (did someone higher up than Hange and Levi–like Zackley–put Eren in prison after someone else–say, Flocke–complained? Is Eren in prison for something else entirely–a reaction to Grisha’s notebooks? Is he even in prison or is it just in his head?)
There’s no way this is a coincidence…plus, Eren’s hair is also starting to look more like Grisha’s….
I wanted to add a commentary on these two panels (Source unknown -if someone has the link, feel free to give it to me-) that I translated myself with my basic Japanese.
Aside from the dialogue, it seems Eren is connecting the dots between his dreams, potentially the glimpse he got under the Reiss chapel and the logs Grisha left behind. Now that the truth makes sense you can see how strange the dialogue became and how suspicious some panels are:
Eren’s change in pronouns and familiarity: as pointed in the dialogue, he started using “私 (watashi)” instead of “俺 (ore)” as a first person pronoun, on top of him getting awfully familiar with the titan that ate his mother, as well as his father’s first wife, despite the two of them having never interacted before.
Mikasa, Armin and the cell’s bars: notice how awfully different Mikasa looks here? Not only that but she shares the same hairstyle as Eren’s grandmother, on top of her having the same expression of concern. On the other hand, Armin wears exactly the same clothes than the ones he had before departing to Wall Maria. That’s one of the most blatant details than the one that really bothered me when I saw the two pages: the crossing bars. Eren, Mikasa and Armin have been crossed by these bars and I hardly doubt that’s an effect to highlight their faces since several instances clearly depicted a demarcation between the cell and its’ exterior (Sannes and Hange). The bars are almost… merging with their faces.
These two details lead me to believe that Eren was thrown in a cell, alone, piecing the information in his mind. While doing that, the coordinate slowly began to take effect on him, almost as if he was possessed by Grisha. In fact, I think his memories are becoming so jumbled he pieces his information with Grisha’s.
He’s good for a coordinate delirium during his imprisonment.
P.S.: I’ve seen some people comparing Armin’s look to Faye and I wouldn’t be surprised if portions of Faye were reflected in the Armin we’re seeing. That would explain why he’d notice Eren’s sudden change in pronouns, since Grisha also used
“俺 (ore)” when he was a kid.
Initial Reactions to Snk 87 spoilers:
Which may or may not be edited/thrown out when the entire chapter is released with translations.
Those spoiler images are pretty horrifying. Given what Grisha went through, his position becomes more understandable (even if not necessarily justifiable). Grisha’s read for awhile as a very gray character to me, morally speaking, and this seems to confirm that status. I feel incredibly sorry for him, and from a psychological perspective, he must be a pretty strong person to be able to continue to lead a semi-normal life/show compassion towards anybody after that. Ultimately, he’s a tragic figure to be sure, and I can even see some (albeit distant) parallels with Erwin Smith here–both sacrificed countless people to achieve their goals, which were in part motivated by honoring their loved ones’ deaths and the ideals they stood for. The difference, of course, is that Grisha was a lot more foolish than Erwin and had a lot more knowledge of the true happenings, and put both his children in impossible positions, for which he can be faulted.
Secondly, the image of the titan Kruger turns into bears a striking resemblance to both Grisha’s titan and to Eren’s titan (I actually think it looks like a hybrid of both Grisha and Eren’s titans, which interests me because Grisha and Eren’s titans only seemed to minimally resemble each other’s). My current hypothesis is that it’s most probably the shifter Grisha ate to turn back into a human is Kruger, which would be narratively satisfying in a number of ways. Of course, the full chapter could completely crush this speculation, but I would be very surprised if this is a coincidence. It’s also possible Kruger is Zeke’s boss, in a sense, and is still alive and is our missing 9th titan, but I think the resemblance between Kruger’s titan and Grisha’s/Eren’s is too strong to make this likely.
@mercyandmagic I’d love to have your thoughts.
hamliet 