r/titanfolk

Haven't read manga, haven't heard spoilers. Sorry this is so long.
Seasons 1-3 were really great, they were unpredictable in a positive way, I liked that I didn't know where it was all going, finally something different. I watched them all in 4 days.

A few weaker/weird moments (early uprising arc/season 3 part 1, battle of Trost after Eren turns into titan to protect Armin and Mikasa) taught me that even if it's weird and I don't know what's going on, it's gonna get really good soon.
Until they got to the basement...
Well yeah, it was obvious there was some civilization outside the walls, it was hinted before, and that Reiner, Berthold and Annie came from there and were brainwashed.

I liked the flashback, but I wouldn't imagine that's how Eren wants to solve Marlyeans hating them...

Time travel is very rarely done well, and AOT isn't that case, I didn't think after 3 normal seasons (except for Eren Kruger mentioning Mikasa and Armin, but that was minor) we were gonna go down this road...

But going back to start of season 4/Marley arc, it feels like Eren wasn't the protagonist anymore, and I don't know what's the point, he was never perfect and stable, but come on... GENOCIDE??? Then every other important character changing sides a few times
it's not even "mystery" anymore, it doesn't make sense, or them being completely forgotten.
And the whole Ymir founder thing??? really? she went into a tree, fell down a hole into an underground lake and a magical worm-god gave her powers??? WTF??? That's the mystery??? It's not even explained. And the whole paths dimension where time doesn't flow and there's sand everywhere and she's making titans from sand???

Eren didn't have free will is bullshit, he did before Marley arc, he wasn't "just an idiot" but was shown making decisions, it was implied he actually had a choice. He wouldn't choose to kill 80% of world population including many paradis island people, if people fear you're devils and will kill them then doing exactly this doesn't fix the issue, and he wouldn't order Dina to eat his mother, that's fucking pointless.

Well they were *some* moments and characters from season 4 that I liked, but you know, for me everything before marley arc was very close to 10/10, so I kept watching thinking "Eren is gonna be a normal protagonist again soon" and nope he didn't.

Also about time travel, no Eren, you haven't "tried it many times" it only happened once, even if you're an idiot times is linear.

At the beggining of season 4 I thought Falco can be convinced to be on Paradis island's side, and he will convince Gabi, and idk, something normal will happen like they will convince all the Eldians to be restoriationists and rebel, they will sit at a round table(intentional reference) and talk to Marlyeans about some plan idk.
And even going down the PATHS road, why didn't Eren ask Ymir to remove titan powers right away??? Why kill 80% of population??? Also why Ymir wanted this?

And what's with the credit scene, no titan powers means some random kid will get them because parasite-god said so??? Why did it just dissapear and was never explained...

tl;dr I loved everything prior to Marley arc/season 4 and hated everything later. If you're ever an author, please don't ruin a great story with time travel/predetermination and lack of free will.

english isn't my first language and it's nearly 2 am when I'm writing this

I just got back from watching The Last Attack in theatres. I had watched it before in episodic format but this was great to see it on the big screen with great sound, really they should do more of this. (They did say something about monthly Crunchyroll nights.). This kind of epic anime is so well suited to the medium, IMAX would be even better.

In terms of story, rewatching only reiterated my views about the entire story being a collective outcome rather than singularly due to Eren or anyone in particular. A few things, repeatedly there's talk of systemic failure: the guy who is in charge of Ft. Salta says the adults failed their children by fighting amongst themselves and that they created this monster; Historia at the end says they all created the conditions for the world together. There's other stuff too. The way the Paths works disabuses of considering events in isolation of one another. Ymir must've known all along this is how her freedom would come via Mikasa after 2000 years of suffering. So my view is that if it not were Eren, there would be someone else to do the same outcome.

Eren keeps giving shifting reasons for doing what he did. He starts with doing it to make his friends into heroes, and then for Paradis, and then when Armin is like you're going to kill 80% of humanity for us? And he says he's not mentally okay and THEN he says because he's a slave to freedom, and he's an idiot who had too much power. And then he asks Armin for confirmation and Armin refuses to say Eren did this alone and they'll meet in hell** together. In between he talks about how many times he tried to change things but didn't work out (Ramzi incident).

And Ymir went along with Eren's plan actively and wanted her own revenge too. The rumbling stopped at 80% because Ymir was satisfied. Per Armin, Eren's only goal was to keep moving forward. The past titans who came to help Eren and Ymir to stop the scouts were due to Ymir per Armin. Armin says something Ymir wants the rumbling to happen too. Which begs the question, how come the past titans of a select few inhabitants like Bertholdt, Ksaver, Grisha, etc. were "allowed" to work against Ymir and Eren. Freedom?

As far as alternate timelines, they are there. In this regard, everything hinges on Mikasa's choice, that if Mikasa had run away with Eren while in Marley, they would've avoided the rumbling. THAT also wasn't apparently a palatable option for the main story but it does occur in the Paths. Same with Eren exploring the world with Armin, though that's with awareness whereas the time being spent far away from everything was though it was a dream. Previously I thought Mikasa's choice was just about her choice to kill Eren, but there was an earlier choice that was key, the movie makes that clear. That's how we get the alternate future where they spend the years together before Eren dies. And there he says he couldn't genocide the world but he couldn't allow Historia to take on the attack titan also or something like that!

**There's new scenes at the end where >!Paradis is seemingly in the modern world with cell phones and traffic lights and such, and someone who looks like Eren is there with Armin and Mikasa who just finished watching the AoT movie and they bicker amongst themselves. This is a very meta commentary about the Internet and everyone's theorisation and such.!<

I bought a pack of AoT stickers and gave them away, it appeared to be well received.

Okay, so I've only seen the anime, and that's it. So if I'm wrong, my apologies in advance.

But I kind of liked the ending of AoT with everything coming together and lining up, the fact that Eren is the one who caused all of this, sacrificing himself and most of the population to stop those monsters from ever existing again.

And a lot of people are saying that the ending is terrible and I'm not going to argue saying it was perfect, I'm just genuinely curious as to why, and I feel like I'm missing something big.