Board Thread:Manga/@comment-27321453-20200708115559/@comment-45683175-20200710085105

Attackcjc wrote: RuneLai wrote: The chapter was surprisingly light on things actually happening, but as a trade off we got multiple gorgeous two page images or other large panels. I'm also glad we got some more pieces of the puzzle filled in. I just didn't think they would be as straightforward as "yes, Eren really is trying to wipe out the rest of humanity" which is what we get from his conversations with Floch and Historia. He might have reason to lie to Floch, who's going to be a part of his plans, but lying to Historia, when he has the option to simply leave her in the dark, wouldn't make sense.

I would have liked more on why he made this choice other than the reason he gave Historia. He says this is the best option to stop the hate, but I'm not following how he arrived at this conclusion. He's seen some discouraging things, but I'm not seeing what he's tried at before resorting to the nuclear option. If anything, his only attempt at befriending people from the outside world was with the Mid-East refugees and that actually went well.

I'm not sure if it's something with the official translation, but the conversation with Historia sounds like it takes place after Eren has come back from Marley. He tells Historia "The Military Police Brigade is moving forward with a plan to turn you into a Titan and feed Zeke to you now that he's here on the island." Zeke obviously doesn't get to the island until after the attack on Liberio.

And if we take the dialogue at face value, this also means Historia is probably not actually pregnant (if you're a fake pregnancy theorist) because the panel that flashes to her in the Eren/Zeke conversation shows a distance shot of them both and Historia's belly is not distended like it is in the only non-flashback panel we have of her in the current arc.

However, the thing that makes me uncertain, is that despite the dialogue saying Zeke is now on the island, Eren's hair looks too short to this to be a trip after breaking out of prison. I suppose Eren's dialogue could be temporally from another time, just like his wish for his friends to live long lives seems really disjointed from the conversation with Zeke (who is he even talking to at that point?), but that would mean the conversation we're hearing is not the visual we're seeing, and it hurts my brain to think about why that would be.

I also liked the Zeke/Eren conversation about Mikasa. When you're looking into whether a girl is genetically predispositioned into caring for you, you either are as thick as a brick or you're hoping that it isn't what you think it is. And judging from Eren's lack of a reaction, it sounds like it's the latter. He already suspected Mikasa was interested in him in a way that went beyond friendship, but he was hoping he could chalk it up to something else. Your whole response highlights something I hope people catch onto: all those flashbacks took place before the attack on Marley. On that note, him saying he will destroy the world to Historia and Floch was before his conversation with Reiner, where he sounded of a different mindset. Remember when he sounded like he would also destroy the world at the end of season 3, the same moment that made Armin go "no way" in chp 118? Yeah I don't think the puzzle pieces are as filling as we might think lol who knows? Maybe he also lied to Historia to get her into action or something. We don't know his reaction to the question "what if I bear a child?" yet. There are still cracks in this puzzle, enough that this chp didn't feel like a "mystery solved" moment, not unlike chp 123. I agree that this chapter isn't a complete revelation of all the events that occurred from Eren's point of view, but I think it certainly fills in a decent amount of holes. I also believe - as you do - that the flashbacks took place before the attack on Liberio, and before he left for Marley with the other Survey Corps survivors to see the outside world for the first time (or was that Hizuru that they went to? I can't remember off the top of my head). Correct me if I'm wrong, but in that same trip, he met the foreign refugees that he had the little party with, and then later attended a meeting with the Gang about Eldians on Paradis, and left in secret when they announced their resentment for Paradis. He wasn't seen by anyone from Paradis again until the attack started, and in the meantime, he went trough the  Marley-Mid East Allies war disguised as a soldier. With that all said, he went through a lot of perspective-changing events between his conversations with Floch & Historia to his conversation with Reiner. He saw the innocent people of the world, he saw war, he saw how Eldians on the mainland were indoctrinated from birth to fight for Marley. I think that's a perfectly reasonable explanation for his shift of mindset once he got to speak to Reiner, especially since his previous interaction with him before that was extremely hostile, unlike Floch or Historia.

As for lying to Historia to get her into action, I don't think that's the case; he used true information about the MPs plans to get her into action, but she refused to take his advice because she felt that the MPs plans would regardless, come to the same conclusion as her following the Azumabito's plan of bearing children and becoming the Beast Titan, which she was on board with. Once he realized she was complacent, he revealed that he isn't, and what he was going to do about it (The Rumbling). He was confident she wouldn't reveal this information, I assume, (which has merit considering she never actaully did) and gave her the whole story anyway.

You're obviously correct that we don't know Eren's reaction to Historia's question: "What if I bear a child?" I think it was a smart writer's move to keep it open for interpretation, and the notion that Eren could potentially be the father of her child is quite interesting. And given the timeline of these events and her progress of the pregnancy when she was seen in present time, it's not completely impossible. I always found it weird that Historia would chose some farmer dude who used to chuck rocks at her as a kid to impregnate her. She could've literally chosen anyone, she's the (highly attractive) queen after all. Maybe Eren was asking Zeke about Mikasa and the Ackermans abilities trying to chalk it up to something else (as RuneLai pointed out) because he knew that if Mikasa really felt that way about him, it'd devestate her if she knew he knocked up Historia?

I guess we won't really know until more chapters come out, but I definitely agree that the mystery wasn't completely solved in this chapter. I definitely enjoyed what cracks it did fill in though; I never would've guessed the Wall Titans could swim like Olympians!!