User blog comment:Neetaku/A (Better) Rewrite of Attack on Titan/@comment-24036697-20181012025301/@comment-24407809-20181012030821

I'd argue that Sasha and Connie are irrelevant characters in the series as it currently exists. That's why I killed them off. And yes, my rewrite could have given them more to do instead of killing them, but I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in fixing what I believe are mistakes in the series. I believe it was a mistake to kill off so many of the 104th in Trost, because it left Isayama without established characters to kill off slowly throughout the series. I believe it was a mistake for him not to kill Sasha as he originally planned to in the Clash of the Titans arc. I believe it was a mistake for him to keep Sasha and Connie around for close to 70 chapters without giving them anything to do. So I fixed those problems that I perceived.

1). I firmly believe Sasha serves no purpose beyond Clash, so I got rid of her.

2). I'm disappointed that Isayama never followed through on the plot thread that Connie wanted vengeance against the Beast Titan. I think a perfect time to wrap up that plot point would have been in RtS. However, I think having Connie kill Zeke would be a terrible plot twist, so I wrapped up the arc in the only way I thought was sensible: I had him die while attempting to get his revenge.

3). I'm not going to keep characters that died in the original series alive without giving them a reason to still be alive. That's why I threw Franz and Hannah in the Garrison where I wouldn't have to worry about them until I needed them again for RtS. That's also why I threw in the story beat about Thomas being a mole for the SC who is investigating his fellow trainees for traitors from the inside.

4). I think it's ridiculous that Levi only chose rookies to be part of the New Squad Levi in The Uprising arc. That's why I threw Dieter in. But like I said above, I'm not going to throw a character in and give them nothing to do. So I gave him his own arc where he grows up, having learned a listen from his previous bout of insubordination, until his arc finally ends as an SC commander at Liberio.

Honestly, I think that the way I've written things Thomas, Dieter, Hannah, etc are all better characters than Connie and Sasha are in the series as it currently exists (not to come off as egotistical). The biggest indicator to me of a good character is one that feels like he or she belongs in the narrative, and I feel like the scenarios I have created give each of the characters I included ample reason to exist. I don't mean to put words in your mouth (feel free to correct me if I am), but I feel that when you call Connie and Sasha "good" characters, and wave off characters like Dieter as "unnecessary," you are doing so because you are only thinking of them as they appear in the story that Isayama has written. Think about them the way that I used them in this rewrite. I don't think Dieter is unnecessary because I included him in a way that made his presence necessary. Isayama didn't do that for Connie or Sasha. Which I can admittedly understand, considering he was planning on writing them both out of the narrative after Clash.