Board Thread:Manga/@comment-27321453-20180608184740/@comment-24407809-20180615220307

Fire Eater wrote: I didn't imply that, but I do find her indispensible, her lightheartedness was a necessity here. I really hoped for a lot more, maybe Isayama saw her as nothing more than a death card, but he didn't appreciate what he could've done with her. And so many others in this cast, again I'm going to repeat my assertions on Ymir's role in this story because that was arguably an even worse case than Sasha. She had no part to play, anybody could've done her work in getting Historia to find her place as the rightful heir to the Walldian throne, literally anybody else. It's this kind of crap I hate from this "Anyone Can Die" saga. And I feel that so much was wasted by killing Sasha. And whatever he value as a character, I see no sense in a debate over why we should or apparently should not feel bad about a character's passing, in this case Sasha. Personally, I've NEVER come across a character death that made me feel so sickened as this. That may just be me, but let me tell you that I am not exaggerating when I tell you I felt nauseated. Hange easily fills the "light-hearted" role (as could be seen in this chapter) and, in my opinion, works better not just as a comedic relief character, but as a character in general than Sasha.

It's ironic that you bring up Ymir, since she and Sasha were originally intended to be the same character before Isayama decided to split them in two (maybe that one composite character would have solved any problems). I would have to disagree that Ymir had no role in the story, given the fact that you just described what her role in the story was. Her role was to motivate Historia to accept her role as queen of the Walls. And she was literally the only character that could have accomplished this, as she was the only character who had built such a close relationship with Historia to influence her decisions in any meaningful way. No other character would have been able to talk Historia into that because no other character had the repertoire with her that Ymir did.