Board Thread:Manga/@comment-27321453-20180608184740/@comment-32241202-20180624144218

Fire Eater wrote: KemonoTitan wrote: Fire Eater wrote: Look, all those "plot armor" complaints, why do they even stand? We watch these guys to prevail, not to die, don't we? Isn't that what we hope for? Because frankly, if we had time to complain about what seemed like "ridiculous plot armor", something's wrong here. Losing one of the only lighthearted elements in this series and a character who didn't reach her full potential is an unacceptable maneuver, Isayama will not be treated as an exception here, sorry. This is not going to service the story in any way that couldn't have been satisfied by other means, and it firmly cements Gabi as not only nigh-irredeemable as far as her previous acts go, but also squarely places Eren in the villainous circle. There's no peace with either the Titans or the Yeagers being left alive. There's a shadow here cast by 105 and whether it's a month and a half, a year, five years, whenever this ends, it's a shadow. It will remain. And I very much doubt for the better, this thing needed Sasha. Sickening that this was the time he chose to go that far.

Four years following this. I'm taking the insult very personally. Genuine question. Do you find the main characters surviving while hundreds of red shirts kick the bucket to be good writing? I don't. It breaks my immersion to see several nameless characters killed in battle, yet every main character survives the ordeal. I dislike when Isayama hammers home the point about the massive sacrifices the Survey Corps have made when I rarely feel anybody of note has been lost at all. It's nice watching our dudes win, but in this manga, when everyone is safe it lowers the interest. Particularly when we are expected to feel tension for the character's episodic brushes with death.

Agreed that Sasha was not fully utilized as a character. It's clear Isayama had no idea what to do with her for ages now. Killing her isn't genius writing, but if he had no ideas, its probably better than her standing blankly in the background till the last chapter.

Anyhow, this is exactly what I was saying about being over dramatic. I'm not insulting you, but you feel the need to make the atmosphere hostile. Once again, calm down.

Oh, and agreed that crippled Levi would probably be a more interesting path, especially for removing the most op element from combat. I find that killing underdeveloped main characters and creating so many characters solely as redshirts as Isayama has done to be TERRIBLE writing going both ways. I'm quite furious about both. I probably wouldn't lose too much sleep if Levi bit the dust now and most certainly not if Reiner finally gets it, but I was furious over the losses of Ymir and Sasha, and the fact that Annie was a no-show for what, eighty chapters is just further evidence of this writing-by-the-seat-of-their-pants approach. There's a lot to take issue with, and you know that I do. Frankly I could not give a damn about these guys wearing plot armor if more named characters had not been strictly redshirts. And we know Isayama hates Sasha, she never had armor. He was just biding his time to sic his hounds onto that section of the fandom. I couldn't give a damn if they never die dude, I valued every chapter where somebody did not. Unless they were a Marley dog, anyway.

Hey, I'd rather take her standing in the back to having her dead. Seeing her in action in Liberio was exciting, for it to end like that, right there, after having her death teased in her previous battle........That feels like an insult. Stunts like that.......I expect that from somebody on Fanfiction.net.

I would but you just don't know how much I hoped Sasha wouldn't die now. She was way too good to be a product of THIS manga. So how do I feel anything other than bitterness about it? I sure was not watching this for Eren. Not even Levi, cool as he may be.

Sorry again to the Levi fans, but this scenario easily could've been set up to service that outcome too.

I do not get this mentality of WANTING these guys to die just for some cheap shocks. Especially among the circle of people who could be way more, but never get there because of the lack of imagination in the guy writing them, or rather not writing for them as he seems too content to do while introducing a bunch of brats from an out-of-nowhere-country who have no business stealing the focus of this mindscrew story. Don't get me started on that monster Gabi again.

Nobody can take Sasha's place. Nobody can replace Sasha. That approach is only going to add to the insult if that is the attitude to which he continues to approach his most ill-advised move in over a year's time. It's not like Isayama gives a crap about Connie anyway, who doesn't even have the benefit of being a meme character like Sasha was. Honestly, just leave the comedic duo alone, but seeing how he's already busted that one up......Nothing beyond Crapter 105 matters now.

This is a huge waste of time, an insulting and disingenuous tearjerker that I know was borne out of the author's disregard for this much-loved character......And I am no longer invested. I followed for four years, this is the payoff for it? I've taken a LOT of issues with how Isayama has written this, I have not even touched the anime in a long while, and I don't wanna be around for when he repeats the exact same insult frame by frame, word for word. There's no merit to any of this at all owing to how dishonest and manipulative the whole thing actually was when you stop to analyze it. Some of you here have said yourselves he doesn't know what to do with half of these guys........We do got something fundamentally flawed here and it needs to be addressed. Too bad the damage is done. Hmmm.....I have a slightly different perspective. I agree with you that I don't want characters to die cheap deaths, but there's a fundamental difference between the cheapness of a story and the reality of the world that story inhabits. To us (or at least Fire Eater), Sasha's death feels manipulative and cheap, but to the characters in the story itself, it's a dramatic, unexpected, horrific incident that comes from genuine tragedy.

When something occurs in a story, there are two essential questions to be asked. One, does this make sense in the context of the physical story. Two, does this make sense in the context of the EMOTIONAL story. If the event works on both levels, I see no reason to complain. If it fails on both levels, then it's grounds to lower your expectations for the rest of the story, because quality has been compromised.

Sasha's death works on a physical level because we know it to be possible. It makes sense within the confines of the world AoT is based in. If Gabi fired a laser beam from her eyes and blew off Sasha's head.....well, you get the idea.

The problem with using the second essential question is that it's subjective. Your emotional understanding of the work is different from someone elses. Something that fails to answer your second question could answers someone elses easily.