Board Thread:Anime/@comment-27321453-20190603021521/@comment-27125793-20190604021808

Neuroticchicken wrote: Marco1995mega wrote: The thing I disagree with most of the commentators here is the hate for Bert. I mean, I'm not gonna spoil anything, but you all are aware that there's more going on behind the scenes. I understand if you havent't read the manga, but don't you think you should withold judgment for that exact reason. Maybe it's just a personal thing, 'cause I liked Bertolt, especially in Episode 3, where he steeled his resolve. He had little to no choice, the alternatives were in no way favorable either, and, in fact, from his personal perspective, were probably worse. I understand he was abating and aiding in genocide, but if we are to follow a similar logic, Erwin deserved to die too for sacrificing civilians of HIS OWN nation during the Stohess Operation, willingly. Like Bert, he used the excuse of 'I had no choice'.

However, despite this, when he talked with Armin, Bert said that he decided that the Wallians were to die. Like Erwin, he decided to take responsibility and go through with his actions, even if they were terrible, despite the fact that his options were less than limited. When I first read that in the manga, I felt my respect for this character soar. Whether he deserved his fate or not is questionable, not to mention subjective, but I really think he was an awesome character with great character development in the short screen time he had. I have an issue with the cut and dry hatred too, I mean I can't disagree entirely because of how cathartic it is to watch a serial killer die. But yeah we all saw Reiner, Annie, and Bert staring at Marco a few episodes ago in the flashback of him getting eaten. It was like they had just blacked out for a few minutes. Reiner was like "wait....why is Marco getting eaten...?" soooo that implies they're not in control all the time and we aren't sure how aware they are of their actions. I think the only way to prevent yourself from continuing to "unintentionally" commit genocide would be to kill yourself once you start to catch on to what you've been doing and none of them did that so....it might be way worse than we think. Thanks for not spoiling, I'm so tempted to read on though! You misunderstood what I said. When I said they had little choice, I didn't mean that they black out or something. They don't. What I was talking about was Bert's history and his circumstances, which have been long revealed by this point in the manga but not the anime. That's also what I meant when I was avoiding as many spoilers as possible. Reiner's situation is unique; he developed a second personality out of guilt and a desire to escape. It's gone now though. Bert and Annie were just really sad they had to watch a fellow cadet die and that it was them that had to do it.

And serial killer is a difficult word for me to use on Bertolt, or any of the Warriors. He doesn't enjoy killing, and it's not completely willing on his part. What I liked about him in the 3rd episode, was that, unlike almost any other character in the show (main heroes included), he decided not to appropriate blame on anyone else for the bad things that have happened to him or the ones he's pretty much forced to do, but accepted the responsibility and chose to bear the burden on his shoulders in order to harden his resolve. In a way, that was extremely mature of him. Like he said, the world is cruel and the circumstances have forced all of them into this unfavorable situation.

Besides, it's not like our heroes are pure-hearted, innocent little fairies. Levi and Hange have a streak of sadism and vindictivness a mile wide, Erwin may as well have killed the innocent civilians in Stohess himself just to keep the SC from disbanding. The rookies are straighforwardy heroic, but they also rebelled and killed for no reason than diverging opinions. Nobody's really innocent here.