[Haak]

Wow, there’s a lot to unpack here.

So first of all let me get this out of the way: I totally didn’t expect Grisha’s sister to just be killed off like that - That was abrupt as hell. However, finding out later that she was killed by a pack of dogs unleashed by the police was horrifying. Even more horrifying than being eaten by a titan, considering a titan doesn’t understand what it’s doing. The story did a great job making that Sargent who killed Grisha's sister truly despicable in his hypocrisy and shamelessness. Ironically he got the fate I thought Grisha's sister would get. XP

So Eren’s country are a race called Eldians. Ironically a country that is now besieged by Titans was originally the founder and user of these Titans. And apparently they practised oppression and “eugenics” but of course that was ancient history and the King’s shying away from conflict ultimately led them to be oppressed…okay, it’s kinda hard to ignore some pretty obvious far right victim complex tropes here. It’s hard to ignore how despicably evil these Marlyans are and how cruel they to the people they oppress and the Eldian’s only crime is having a dark past in ancient history is kind of laughable if it’s meant to be analogous to the Japanese who supported Nazi’s in WW2. Also kinda hard to ignore that the Eldians fled to a small island on the East...

Then again, I’m not entirely sure it’s that simple either. Fundamentally, even without the Marlyans making things worse, the Eldians are still caged in walls besieged by weapons of their own creation. And Grisha isn’t entirely being painted in a good light here. His fundamentalism ultimately turned his son against him. And then there’s that perverse bit of irony that Grisha’s first wife promises him that regardless of turning into a mindless titan her love is so strong that she’d find him again….and that love ends up leading her to Eren’s house where she eats Grisha’s second wife. If the story is treating Grisha as being righteous it sure isn’t rewarding him for it. And then there’s that King Fritz/Reiss who Kenny was friends with. He obviously sides with his supposedly coward ancestor who retreated to the island but he was portrayed in a totally admirable light. He was seen as wise and respectable and portrayed far more positively than Grisha.

But for me the biggest bombshell is that the whole situation has shifted to an entire new perspective now. The titans aren’t all humans after all: just one specific race of humans. The show went from “Humanity verses Titans” to what is basically a conflict between two countries that one of those two didn’t even know they were in. I don't know how to feel about that. On the one hand this new perspective feels a lot more grounded and complex than the glorified zombie invasion plot we had before but on the other hand what's not very grounded is the rather incredulous fact that there could be a conflict between two sides without one side even knowing, as well the rather unfortunate far right undertones in the plot.

One thing that bugs me though: Like I said, it’s ironic that the same race of humans is so besieged by the very thing that characterises them but it’s also rather weird that despite Marlyans hating Eldians for being titans, they have absolutely no issue creating more titans and letting them run amok. That I just don’t get.