Board Thread:Manga/@comment-5774380-20160908231942/@comment-26932251-20160917095017

"   If it were the case, you would see doctors and nurses administering medicine in this fashion."

To be fair, you never DON'T see them administering medicine in that manner. What I mean is, we don't actually get much opportunity to see the inner workings of a wall hospital so we don't know that they don't have syringes.

The only certain evidence of absence of syringes would be if there was depicted one of the precursor methods practiced prior to the advent of the syringe.

For example, the Ottoman Turks had a primitive form of inoculation whereby smallpox pustules would be physically inserted through incisions into the person receiving the inoculation. We don't see any such technique depicted.

I would propose an alternative explanation, the syringe holds a unique place within the narrative. The syringe is symbolic of the attainment of a power that exists beyond ourselves. Think back to when Historia is holding the syringe, the tip of it in her arm, meditating on the prospect of physically putting god inside of her and then the motion of her throwing the syringe and breaking it is very vividly depicted in order to convey her rejection of her father and the development of her sense of self.

Point is, from a purely narrative standpoint, especially considering there aren't that many situations in the main narrative where syringes would even have to be depicted for any reason in a hospital setting, the impact of the image of a syringe is lessened by depicting it outside of contexts related to titanization.