Board Thread:Manga/@comment-5774380-20160908231942/@comment-24407809-20160915014242

I had no problem with any of the revelations in this chapter, but I will admit that it could lead to incongruities in the story. It has been stated multiple times that Isayama has been altering and expanding his story based on the manga's success. He's stated that he had an early ending planned in case the series didn't find an audience, he has stated that he planned to end the series after twenty volumes, and he has stated that he originally was going to end the series with an "unhappy" everybody dies ending (I say go for it, I can't remember the last time I felt any sort of "threat" to the characters). All of these statements about his original intentions to end the series early say (at least to me) that his whole "humanity lives" story idea is something he thought up after he had already started writing the series, which means that we could be looking at a potential plethora of plot points that conflict with early chapters of the manga.

That said, the fact that the series has been so isolated the entirety of its run means Isayama is in a unique position to change the lore he has already built around this world without it contradicting too much, as the amount of knowledge the characters and readers have about the story is so limited.