How Isayama Wrote Himself into A Corner
(No this isn't copium because I didn't get my Marleyan-Eldian war [cries quietly])
So, with the anime coming to a close in about a year. I decided to look back, and I realized something about al this. Oh, and before we start, for the record, I'm an r/yeagerbomb member and an r/titanfolk member, so...make of that as you so choose.
People say the story started getting bad around the Annie Pie scene, but I don't think so. I think the cracks began to show when Isayama introduced the Rumbling in the first place, and here's why:
You see, the Rumbling itself isn't a bad thing. The problem is that it sets up a Catch-22/Lose-Lose situation. By season 3, Isayama sets up this story about how Eldians across the sea are opressed, and the entire world believes the Paradisians to be devils, which is only exastrabated by the beginning of the Marley Arc. Then he sets up the Rumbling, it looks cool, it's been built up to and explains alot of things, but it poses a problem, there's no way for the story to end well. Isayama has two choices.
1. He can go with what I call a "Jaegerist Ending", Eren destroys the world. Paradis survives. Only problem is that it turns into "Then what was the point of the fight?". Reiner, Annie, and whoever else tries to stop the rumbling has failed, so why show them fighting at all? It's kind of bleak, but its true. At the end of the day, I don't think the fandom really wanted the world to be destroyed. They wanted Paradis to survive. This was the only way for this to happen. The problem is that AoT is a SHONEN, and it's listed, advertised, and managed as such. An ending like this goes against the entire genre, and no editor would accept it.
2. He goes with the current ending. And we all know how THAT turned out. Plotholes, character assasinations, retconning of seemingly important elements. Sure, he could've done better with this choice, but it was between Bad and Worse. Ultimately, the very concept of this ending is riddled with holes. If the Alliance stops the rumbling, then Paradis will fall, thus rendering the entire journey meaningless. This is by far the biggest problem with this concept, aside from the fact that everyone is suddenly buddy-buddy and is massacring the comrades they fought side-by-side with.
Ultimately, Yams was trapped from the second he put "The Rumbling" to paper. Personally, I would've loved to see a Marleyan-Eldian War. And before people say: "BuT tHiS iSnT rEaLiStIc" it is. The Jaegerists were a fully functional army by 857 even after being nearly wiped out during the War for Paradis. In 6 years Nazi Germany was ready to fight a war with all of Europe (okay this isn't true. It took them until around 1943 to get to total war industrial capacty but they were still fighting pretty competently before that). The problem is that this would've dragged the series out by years, alot of the fans would leave because ̶t̶h̶e̶i̶r̶ ̶b̶r̶a̶i̶n̶s̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶o̶ ̶s̶m̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶c̶o̶m̶p̶r̶e̶h̶e̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶s̶t̶o̶r̶y̶ ̶a̶n̶y̶m̶o̶r̶e̶ there would be an influx of complicated geopolitics that would make the story boring to many. Still, I believe it would be the best option. Anyway, that's my opinion as a Yeagerbomber and a Titanfolker. Check out the wiki, yada yada.
Official Wiki Link:
the-official-flare-titan .fandom. com
