Jesus fucking Christ. Every time I think it can't get worse, it does. I thought it was all over, since the final chapter was released, and I figured those extra eight pages would just flesh things out a little more without making any major changes, but NOPE. I thought 139 couldn't get any worse, but these extra pages dig the grave even deeper, to the point where it's even pissed off people who originally LIKED 139. I don't even want to try to analyze the bullshit I just read, but I suppose I should anyway just to try to make sense of this ongoing shitshow.
First of all, that conversation that Mikasa had with Ymir makes no fucking sense. I have no idea what the hell Mikasa is even talking about. And that scene where it showed the first Eldian king dead and Ymir hugging her children...what was that? Is it implying that the past has been rewritten so that the events of 122 didn't happen? If so, that raises so many plotholes. If the past was rewritten like that, then wouldn't the current timeline cease to exist? And if it's just supposed to be something Mikasa is imagining when she thinks of Ymir and her three daughters, why include the bit with the king and the spear? It's so confusing.
And the final pages...what the actual fuck. I'm not inherently opposed to the idea of Paradis being destroyed. After all, I destroyed Paradis in my version of the ending. But the crucial difference is that I explained how and why Paradis was destroyed, and I explored the repercussions this event had on the world and on the characters. The manga, by contrast, explains NOTHING. Aside from showing planes bombing the island at some point in time presumably after the main cast has died of old age, we have nothing to go on, all we can do is speculate. And I could speculate, but I don't feel like it, because fuck this ending. You can't just drop a massive bombshell like that at the last possible minute with no explanation. Well, I guess you can, because it did. Seriously, fuck this ending.
And that last bit with the tree and the kid...is it implying that it's all going to happen again? Or is it just symbolic or some shit? Either way, fuck this ending.
As mangled and terrible as 139 was originally, I could at least sort of see what Isayama was trying to say and do, even if it was awful on so many levels. But now, I have no fucking clue what the hell he's trying to say with this bullshit.
It's official. There's only two possibilities. Either Isayama has lost his mind, or he is deliberately trying to piss people off. Those are the only options.
Our only hope now is an anime original ending. But as a meme I recently saw said, hope is for the hopeless. It's just better to assume that the anime ending will be shit too rather than setting yourself up to be disappointed all over again.
Edit: I'd just like to mention one more thing. I know other people have brought this up, but they're right. 139 is a straight up retcon of Eren's character. There were numerous instances where Eren either hinted at or flat out said that he was going to destroy everything outside of Paradis. EVERYTHING. Yet in 139 he says he was only going to destroy 80% of the world, which means that he must have been lying all the times he said otherwise. And this doesn't make sense on so many levels, not least of which it makes Eren's motivations and plans an incoherent mess.
When it comes to what Eren wanted to achieve, broadly speaking he had two options. He could either A) guarantee Paradis's safety, or B) minimize the amount of death and suffering in the world. If he wanted to achieve A, then destroying the entire world with the rumbling was the only way, and it looked like that was what he was going to do. If he wanted to achieve B, then he should have just gone with Zeke's plan.
Instead, he went with the nonsensical, 80% plan that achieves NEITHER goal, as an obscene amount of people still had to die, yet Paradis still ended up being destroyed. It's the worst of both worlds. Like, what the fuck was Eren thinking? Or more accurately, what the fuck was Isayama thinking? This ending just makes Eren look like a shortsighted idiot who doesn't understand the consequences of his actions, in direct contrast to how he was characterized before 139 came along and butchered him beyond recognition.
Seriously, fuck this ending, and fuck anyone who seriously defends it. If you like it, fine, like it, but don't try to argue that it's good, because it's not.