Board Thread:Manga/@comment-5774380-20200908210434/@comment-44328804-20200923012953

RuneLai wrote: Attackcjc wrote:

RuneLai wrote: KemonoTitan wrote: How many times is the "can you kill Eren" question gonna pop up? Guess Yams wants to hammer it in for the speed-readers. At this rate I'm going to be disappointed if they can't. Otherwise why bother asking the question? Its not even hammering in if they will fight him. Its hammering in how they don't want to fight him, and that Isayama is doing his part not to let readers think this is all leading to a fight. In fact, chp 131 solidifed through foreshadowing that we are not just in for a talk, but we're in for one in the same style as the talk Eren and Armin had during the season 1 boulder mission.

Besides, not to state the obvious, but Eren being killed will achieve nothing worthwhile in the long run. There's no guarantee it will stop the rumbling, and his people will still be demonized. We all know the story ends with peace and freedom, and that can't happen if Eren dies as "the bad guy" so something is going to happen that we're not expecting. It's not a question of will they kill Eren. It's can. If they're asking the question "Can you kill Eren?" and the answer is yes, but they don't, that's fine.

But if the answer is no, then why bother asking the question over and over again when the person asking (mostly Annie) and the audience already suspects they know the answer? I think the answer to that question is due to the fact that, if this was any other series, all the characters would be flocking to fight Eren no questions asked. If a fight with Eren was in the cards, after what happened in chp 123, there wouldn't be any debate over it between the characters, and even the ones who proposed it ended up turing away from it (Reiner, Gabi, Annie).

I think this is Isayama's way of setting the stage and telling people not to just expect a fight and Eren's death, as many are expecting. There are people who just think Eren should just die now, ignoring the signs the story won't go in that direction, and on another topic, these are also the same people who honestly thought Eren agreed with Zeke's euthanasia plan, when evidence going as far back as season 1 disproved that. They just bought into how things looked on the surface and not all the details surrounding the situation.

My point is, Isayama's method of storytelling is to keep things mysterious while leaving a bread crumb trail as a hint of where things are going. In this case, he wants to show a dilemma over Eren, but he wants to also hint that they won't end up fighting him.