Board Thread:Manga/@comment-27321453-20191008222936/@comment-24407809-20191014170606

TKGriffiths wrote: Neetaku wrote: The only huge issue with the Attack Titan's ability to see the future is that it seems like a staggeringly redundant ability to have since the future cannot be changed, and it seems like the ability only ever works when the Attack's user is in contact with a member of the royal family. This has been foreshadowed since the first chapter, when we hear someone speaking to someone 2000 years in the future.

Also, the future not being able to be changed doesn't make the ability redundant. The future is only the way it is BECAUSE it was forseen, the most obvious example of this is Grisha murdering the Reiss family. If the Attack Titan didn't have this ability, Eren couldn't have given him the motivation to attack the Reiss family and obviously things would be different then. The foresight CAUSES the future to be the way it is, it's not a case of viewing some film that nobody had any influence in creating. The combined influence of everyone in the world is what made that future the way it is.

If you think this ability is redundant, then by extension you must believe that every single ability in the series is redundant since none of them can change the future. The point is they all CONTRIBUTE to making the future the way it is.

Also he doesn't have to be in contact with a royal to activate this ability, neither Grisha nor Krueger touched a royal when they were experiencing the future. The first chapter foreshadowed that Ymir would sent Eren a message from 2,000 years in the past, not that Eren would be receiving memories from the future.

Yes, technically the Attack Titan's ability has a use in the sense that the future can only happen in the very specific ways it does because someone knows the future, but I would argue that it is still a redundant ability. What is the point of having the ability to see what happens in the future if there is absolutely no way you can use that information to try to change it? Normally having the ability to see the future would be astronomically useful, because it would give the main character the ability to see something which happens in the future (let's say the death of a friend or loved one) and then they can use that knowledge to try to prevent it. But Eren's ability to see the future does not grant him any such power.

No, I don't believe that every single ability in the series is redundant, because no other ability in the series involves being able to see the future. Having the ability to change the future is not the only criteria which I use to say that any ability in the series is redundant, because most characters in the series do not have any knowledge of what the future will be. They are just using their abilities based on the limited understanding they have of the present. Eren's ability, on the other hand, is redundant because it allows him to see the future without giving him any real power to change what he sees. And I would argue there is no point in having an ability like that out of the few rare instances we've seen where he is able to use the ability to influence a previous inheritor with his memories.

You're right that Kruger seemed to have inherited memories from the future without being in contact with a royal, but it remains to be seen what Eren was doing when he sent those memories back to Kruger. Grisha was not in physical contact with any royals when he inherited memories from Eren at the Reiss chapel, but Eren was in contact with the Founding Titan when he sent Grisha his memories. From what we've seen so far, Eren has had to be in contact with a royal or the Founding Titan itself every time he has sent memories to a previous inheritor, so I would assume this was also true when Kruger received Eren's memories.