Board Thread:Manga/@comment-25933906-20170514223847/@comment-1327106-20170515021502

I think Isayama has laid out a lot of the story in advance. It doesn't necessarily make him a mastermind. It makes him a good outliner. A good storyteller will convince you he's freaking amazing, without the audience realizing how hard he had to slave over putting that story together. :)

I believe that Isayama already knows the ending, because people who like to outline generally won't start their work until they know the ending. That way they know what they are writing towards. That's how you have pay-off for events earliers in the plot. He might not know it to every last detail, but I'm sure he has the general scope of things, and when he said an interview that he became concerned about having a downer ending, I'm pretty sure that's because when he started this story he had no idea the popularity it would achieve. It's harder to pull off a downer when people love the characters.

(Personally I don't care if every notable character dies as long as it's a well told story.  I have a long history of liking characters who tend to get killed off so all I ask is that they die well.)

Now that we know about being able to see memories through the invisible paths that connect the Eldians, the idea that To you, 2000 years from now is a message to the future makes good sense. We don't know what that message is though.

I'm still not sure how you landed on the message coming from Armin though. Together with the anime is makes a little sense since his VA is also the narrator, but I don't see why the message couldn't be from Eren as well, since he is the main character after all.