Board Thread:Manga/@comment-27321453-20180608184740/@comment-24407809-20180614033650

Any complaints about Sasha's (lack of) character, (lack of) story presence, and (lack of) clearly defined emotional ties to the rest of the cast can be tied to the fact that she was supposed to die in chapter 36. And it's not like her death was something that had been planned, but was then reworked with ample time, it was something that literally came about at the last second. Her death chapter was finished, and then the ending was re-written days before the chapter was to be published. Considering how tightly Isayama seems to have this series plotted, a major change like that isn't something that can just be sandwiched in without unfortunate repurcussions to Sasha's character, as evidenced by the fact that she literally disappeared from the story for close to 15 chapters following chapter 36's publication. And from chapter 51 onwards, she was stuck in a story that no longer needed her, with characters and in situations that Isayama hadn't planned for her to be apart of. You can't blame him for not putting her to good use after keeping her alive, you can only blame him for choosing to keep her around in the first place.

Moving on from that, I actually agree that it would have been better for Sasha to die in Shiganshina. That arc was and still is my least favorite in the series because it kept teasing that the main characters were in actual danger without actually delivering, and having Sasha die of her injuries would have gone a long way to rectify that.

The bottom line is that, in my opinion, Sasha was long past her expiration date in this series, and although I agree that her death was executed oddly, and every scene with any character other than Connie mourning for her rings hollow, I think it's better to take a piece off the game board if you're not going to use it, rather than simply taking up space by leaving it sitting unattended.