User blog comment:KiraMeansKillerInJapanese/How Fans Are Being Too Hard On Isayama/@comment-1327106-20190313003543

I think Isayama is too soft to be frank about it. He's spared too many characters for way too long given the setup we had during the Battle of Trost. That was my opening impression of the series, and set the expectation that this was gritty and this was a series with a body count. The Female Titan arc introduced Levi's squad and then killed all of them.

I'm still disappointed Armin didn't die back in Return to Shiganshina after all the drama about the sacrifice he was making so that Eren would have a chance to take our Bertolt. Turns out all that drama was just a bunch of smoke, because he didn't die!

And I don't hate Armin. I'm perfectly fine with my favorite character going out making a supreme sacrifice. When Erwin led the suicide charge I was pretty sure he was going to die and I was perfectly fine with it (he didn't right away, but still, that's ultimately what killed him).

It would be nice if my remaining favorites make it to the end of the series, but one of them drank the Titan juice. The other might make it, but we'll see. Even if they don't, I won't mind. It's what I signed up for.