Board Thread:Manga/@comment-5774380-20160808233126/@comment-26932251-20160809080502

"   who knows what else they may possess."

Call me optimistic but I actually think the situation for the Homelanders is very bad right now, strategically and they probably don't have anything else in reserve.

Between Bertolt, Reiner, Zeke, the Quad, and the multiple dozens of dumb dumbs (seemed like at least 50 total), I think that constituted Zeke throwing nearly everything he had into this battle.

Why do I think that? I determine that based off Zeke's conversation with Reiner and Bertolt, it had an air of profound desire for finality about it. This battle wasn't just some flight of fancy for Zeke and the homelanders, it was supposed to be the moment in which they finally grab the coordinate holder, their apparent absolute main objective, and exterminate the best soldiers that the wall people have.

To put it another way, they were trying to grab the coordinate, this apparent key to the whole damn world, this magical ability to control mindless titans, and so I think Zeke was going to throw everything he had at the Survey Corps and Eren. It's like, if Zeke has like ten more colossal titans and beast titan shifters in reserve then he would have committed them to this battle but he didn't have those assets so he couldn't deploy them and this battle was so important for Zeke that I believe it proves what they had.

And in essence, with Annie neutralized, Bertolt dead (and even worse for the Homelanders, his power is stolen), 100% casualties among the warriors who turned into mindless titans at Zeke's command, I think things are looking pretty bad for the Homeland right now and I would hate to be Zeke having to explain himself to whoever it is he has to answer to now.

Potentially even worse for the Homeland, while they've been decimated, Eren is going to only become stronger both as a user of the coordinate and hardening abilities, the Survey Corps are going to get whatever is in Grisha's basement, and if the homelanders left anything of value in whatever base the Quad refers to inside of Wall Maria the Survey Corps will get that too. It will also take time but Armin will eventually learn to use his abilities as the new Colossal Titan.

To put it another way, especially if Eren gains the ability to command titans at will, yeah the Survey Corps lost a lot of soldiers but it might not need as many soldiers going forward (especially depending on what is in the basement).