Attack on Titan Season 4 - Part 3: Episode 30 FULL LENGTH Reaction!
Added 2023-11-24 14:00:07 +0000 UTC**DEVOTING HEARTS TO THE HEADPHONE WARNINGS**
*Laughs in Discussion Length* There was a lot to talk about with this final "episode" but MAN. WHAT A CONCLUSION! I laughed, I screamed, I panicked, I experienced catharsis, and am left with a surreal sense of satisfaction but denial that the series is over.
I was much more "chill" with this than Part 1, but there's so much to talk about! And then I have Volumes 33 and 34 to reflect upon...before the MAMMOTH that will be the Final Recap, Review, & RIP! HOOOOO buddy. Enjoy!
LINK TO REACTION: https://share.vidyard.com/watch/22fhjRsHzLuRaWef5AHeW2?
Thank you for watching with me and for all the support!
Comments
Ahhhh, thank you so much for the kind words and comment! :) It's been insane how this journey has gone but I'm so glad you all got me into this story!! I definitely won't be forgetting it any time soon! The ending is very bittersweet but it feels so appropriate for the story as a whole. Ahhh, thank you again and for Isayama to finally be able to finish their story -- I agree, I hope they can take it easy, too! AHHHH, I appreciate all the support! It's made this deep dive into this series so worth it! Much love!
Romaniablack
2023-12-16 14:20:44 +0000 UTCEverytime I try to type a comment I just can’t find the words on how I feel watching the finale & your reaction. I’m happy we got to share this journey. It’s been so fun! Still not over, I still have to watch the last two Manga reviews & the recap soon but it’s been so much fun. I’m so happy Isayama got to tell the story he wanted to tell. This story will definitely stick with me forever. Aot is my favorite story of all time. It’s just touched me in ways I haven’t experienced. It’s changed my perspective on things. Made me love & hate characters & it’s left a huge impact on me. I loved the ending. So sad tho!!😭but expected it’s aot after all. Aot depression at its finest. I’ll probably have more to say with the recap but wow seeing aot ending is so sad but I’m glad. We’ve waited so long lol Isayama as well. I hope he can finally take it easy now. Once again thank you for your hours upon hours of diving into this story. I’ve loved every second.
Nyjae
2023-12-12 00:33:54 +0000 UTCGood comment. (And I agree that the ending did grow for me, after reading it I thought it was perfectly fine and over time came to really like it). In case you didn't know, Levi was another Sasha situation; Isayama had him die originally, but after talking about it with the editors he realized that he was doing it for shock value and it wasn't really the most fitting end for Levi, so he changed it. I think Levi's central virtue is his respect for his fallen comrades (exemplified in the very first big scene we get with him), so him killing Zeke and fulfilling his dead friend's last command is quite fitting. He has shown that it is not something he is fully controlled by, or he would have killed Zeke long ago. I also think Annie's and Pieck's responses are quite fitting. Annie is all "I didn't ask for this; worry about yourself dumbass", and Pieck is clearly speaking with her typical sarcasm. "Oh, now you guys are acting all conflicted? Well, I wish *I* could have given Eren a piece of my mind...". I anything, It's Jean's line for me, "conscientious" isn't necessarily the word I would use for Eren, but I think "conscientious piece of shit" is supposed to be a callback to "half-assed piece of shit" from Reiner on the Wall/Eren in Liberio, which kind of makes it work for me. Haha, I still have text file with notes for another ten points or so, but I'm letting it settle a little, and maybe drop the things that someone else already talked about to save Romania the repetition.
cw
2023-11-28 16:10:47 +0000 UTCSo at last, the epic romance saga about Farmhand-kun and his quest to get his queen (in every sense) has come to an end, sure there were a few other things happening in the b-plot too, but i can't imagine anyone caring to much about all that. You know, over all this was really an episode about romance and love as we also got Mikasa kissing a severed head and the french kiss to end all french kisses between Armin and an okapi, love truly was in the air. Well this comment might be a mess, my thoughts are going in all kinds of directions and my notes aren't much help, so it might jump between points and be a bit scattered. I'll try to get something down that can be called coherent but we shall see how i fare. Same as you i had my fears going into this episode, was this going towards some conclusion different from what i thought the show and Isayama was trying to say? On my first watch i did really like it, maybe shed a tear or two. After seeing it again and having watched other peoples thoughts (both those who liked it and those who didn't) i think i maybe even love it. As you said, Isayama probably made it a good as possible from what directions were feasibly left to go. Sure, we could always wish for something more, more Historia, Zeke and Eren having a conversation or perhaps even Levi and Eren as you mentioned, why not some more philosophical discussions between nihilists and optimists going on in the paths? But AoT needed to end somewhere and i'm mostly satisfied with this finale. In some fantasy world i might have wished for some other clever revelation that recontextualized the whole series again but what we get is a nice bow on all the themes and ideas and most plot points coming to some kind of satisfying conclusion. We couldn't really hope for more than that without being to greedy i think. Maybe it felt a bit to neat at times, everything coming together just right and no one dying (except the Jeager brothers), all the families being there and everyone getting some kind of emotional closure, if Isayama had any balls he should have killed of Levi atleast 😜. On the other hand i do appreciate the ways wich it wasn't that neat, Zeke still thinking his plan was good, the conflict continuing, Paradis turning facist and war still ahead in the future. It felt realistic to have these consequences. I did like how Eren was portrayed in this special, he wasn't some machiavellian super villain who had the best solution (for him) planned out from the start, no he was just a traumatized little child getting his hands on power beyond his understanding... a hillbilly with a nuke. I can't imagine that many people that saw Eren as some macho sigma male, going around doing what he wanted and taking shit from no one, liking this episode, but from my understanding of Eren and where i thought the story was going this made total sense to me. He was a lost child led astray with the access to too much power and it allowed me to have some sympathy for him again. Even his Mikasa breakdown felt right to me as he was a (emotionally stunted) teenage boy, as flawed as anyone, with thoughts and emotions that wasn't always "right". And with the causality loop that is Eren Jeager maybe he held himself back from truly engaging with Mikasa as to not hurt her but instad managing the opposite. Back in the chapter 31 reaction i made a comment about how we are not able to chose who we love just what we do with it, right after that i went and watched this episode, and yeah, that felt somewhat prescient with everything we get here with Mikasa and Ymir and their love for... less then optimal recipients. Now i've seen some different interpretations of Ymir and what it was Mikasa did that "changed" her. My view on it was that Ymir saw that Mikasa loved Eren but still killed him when it was necessary, Ymir couldn't do that with Fritz as she was more a slave to her love than Mikasa was. When we see Ymir "imagining" that she didn't jump infront of the assassin's spear it metaphorically shows her overcoming here love for King Fritz, doesn't mean she stopped loving him just that she no longer was a slave to it. Are their loves comparabale? Eren atleast loved Mikasa back, on the other hand in the end he caused so much more death and suffering than King Fritz ever did. But we can't fault anyone for loving somebody just what actions they take because of it. In the end it wasn't love that saved the day, but the ability to kill someone you love when they are being a real baka. What a lovely sentiment. I didn't see Ymir's actions quite as sinister as you did, when she let the pigs escape i saw it as her just trying to rebel in some small way, exerting some kind of freedom in her life of pain, suffering and slavery, and as a small child she couldn't forsee the consequences of her actions. Of course no one could forsee the consequence being that of finding some godlike power and 2000 years later causing the death of 80% of humanity, that is probably no ones first guess. Just like eren she was a poor traumatized child, another hillbilly with a nuke. But i will say her motivation for wanting to destroy the world is a bit more opaque, but who knows what wants and needs comes from Ymir, Eren and/or that original organism, it might just all be a bit jumbled together at this point. In my mind there was ever only one timeline, if Eren had glimpsed something of the future that was set in stone. When he kissed Historia's hand anything he saw was inevitable, although he didn't know it for sure at that point. He tried to do things to change things but if he had seen it, it was locked in. Until he lost his head entered the paths and became his ultimate founding titan he couldn't see everything and had (potentially) some choice, but after that i guess he had full view of the past, present and future and any freedom was completly stripped from him. I don't think Eren had anything to do with the titan powers disappering from the world nor did he ever have any way of doing that. Ymir made herself a immortal body and a plane of existence without death, so only she could undo it. Maybe anyone with the founding titan power could have ordered Ymir to die, to not exist anymore, but with the concept of fear of death and the founding organism as a pure distiliation of life as just living, spreading and multiplying i don't think so, it would also make what Mikasa accomplished way less meaningful. Ane yes, that Mikasa and Eren kiss, it felt suitably morbid for the end of AoT so i approve. Also they way she cradled his severed head afterwards felt so tender and the look on Eren's face was so serene that it too worked for me. I'm not quite sure how i feel about how much... reverence this episode had for Eren but it is mostly from the point of view of his closest friends that also loves him so it makes sense. I do agree that the comment from Annie (and Pieck) felt somewhat off. Annie's humor was on point and her exchange with Mikasa about what the hell an okapi is was great, i guess the Paradis government banned/destroyed the books about those. Also getting to see Zeke going out, back to his cheeky self (pun intended) was also great, although i'm not fully sold on the way Levi killed him. I know Zeke sacrificed himself to stop the rumbling and maybe also to atone for some of what he had done, but to me Levi dispatched him in a way that perhaps felt to much out of anger or some need to fulfill his promise to Erwin. With the way everyone else has gotten past previous... "grievances", i wanted something slightly different for Zeke's death. Reiner and Annie might just be culpable for as many innocent deaths as Zeke and they got to keep their heads. The Marleyans and Eldians again almost fighting i think works, it's again that fear ruling living things. Müller had overcome his fear and wanted to not make the same misstakes again but when those Eldians turned without warning that fear returned to him, but it did allow Armin to mirror himself from season one (but succeed here), dropping the ODM-gear and stepping out of the smoke trying to convince someone not to commit violence. AoT loves those callbacks. If someone pushes me into a another person i would still apologize (and having someone on the brink of death eat somebody else without their consent/knowledge to gain their power and memories is the exact same thing 😉), so Armin offering up an apology to Bertholdt as a way of saying sorry for what happend to him feels ok to me. Now, if Bertholdt had come to Armin demanding an apology for what he did to him i would say "hell no, screw you Bertholdt". I agree that it would have been nice to see more of Historia in these later stages of AoT, but i do dislike when characters are killed off just because they don't know what to do with them anymore. It's ok to put them on the backburner or have them ride off into the sunset, if you find a need or purpose for them come back again? great. AoT was always good at having background characters (not that Historia was a one) be around and come back into the story, or not. As for there not being much about Historia's child i think it works with the notion of it being okay not being special, same for Farmhand-kun, he was just some dude. And i'm glad it didn't turn out the baby was Eren's or something like that. We could argue about plot holes and i see some potential ones but my thing wasn't the gas (perhaps we can fudge the numbers there a bit to make that work). For me it was the swords, back in season one Mikasa destroyed her blades with one attack on a single pure titan? that is the whole reason why they are detachable and they have several, but yeah that isn't really a thing anymore. Here they can fight an unlimited number of titan shifters, including war hammer ones, without a problem. As for Mikasa getting back to the island? we don't know how long it took, for all we know it took her 2 years to get back. Does the Ackermanns have any special power left? with Levi in a wheelchair i thought no, but if someone had used the founding titan to give all Eldians a third arm would they still have it after the power disappeared? If the Ackermann power comes from their bodies having been tuned to perfection (and not from some titan power coursing through their veins), beyond any normal human, they should still be OP in this post titan world, if that is the case Mikasa could probably just run and swim back to Paradis. Now Eren might have become quite ripe when she finally did manage to return to Paradis, don't know if you know the game Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice but there you play a woman carrying around the rotting head of her loved one, so there is precedent. Also i'm sure there must be some old greek tragedy or something with the same motif. Maybe not a plothole but why was the "Ackermanns can't be controlled or mindwiped" introduced? in the end it didn't matter and wasn't even true, Eren messed with Mikasa's memories just fine. Sure, when he set Ymir "free" Eren unlocked the potential of the funding titan in away no other had before him so you could say that is why he can do that, but still, makes that plot point kind of unnecessary. I did like the end credits, but perhaps they reminded me a bit to much of the first episode of Futurama, wich made it feel a bit to humorous (if you don't know just google "futurama fry gets frozen"), maybe just showing the city growing and later just seeing that end character walking through ruins to the giant tree, so we could deduce something bad had happend between, would have been enough. With the 3 year skip and all the seasons changing i think it might just have added up to 10 years, it was as Grisha said, "from now on only Eren gets what he wants". And if that is Jean with Mikasa at the end i feel a bit sad for him, not only did he have to wait 10 years she still wore that damn scarf the rest of her life, i guess he might be fine being the second (and alive) choice. The Armin/Eren bromance was also a thing, i guess Mikasa is great and all but no one can really understand you as thoroughly as your closest bro, poor girl, didn't stand a chance. Eh, feels like i must apologize for the length of this one, i might be worse than cw. 😂
Christopher Pettersson
2023-11-28 01:20:19 +0000 UTCHAHAHA, I'm glad I didn't let you all down! :) Oh, take all the time in the world! But thank you for the comment!! I'll be excited to hear your thoughts!
Romaniablack
2023-11-27 13:12:43 +0000 UTCNow here is a one of those epic length Romania Black reaction special extravaganzas we know and love. 😉 Might take me a few days to make it through all this but... i can only move forward.
Christopher Pettersson
2023-11-27 12:44:56 +0000 UTCYes, someone else was talking about that on YT for patreon, and that makes a lot of sense! Thank you for taking the time to explain that as well! :) Y’all flatter me, but that does make me a little sad that some of the symbolic stuff that we’ve seen all four seasons still had to get explained so much – but I’m glad that maybe people got it by the end at least! 🙂 I think my overall issue with Historia wasn’t that her baby had no real meaning – I’m glad that’s the case – it’s just that her storyline just kind of falls off and she doesn’t have much to do until the very end when we seen she’s part of the negotiations and ambassadors for peace. I have my overall issues with her character, BUT I do like that you bring about the idea that the “kids are out of the forest” so thank you for that! And yes, god, I’ve been preaching Niccolo’s word for a year now it seems: If you don’t accomplish peace today, keep trying. As bloody Eren would say, “even if you die. Even after you die.” And YES. God, Eren is an idiot. But he redeemed himself at least in acknowledging it and being self-aware! Hahaha! NO, I agreed with a lot of what you said! 🙂Thank you so much for the kind words and comment!! And yes, I talked about that “see you later” in part 1, but it was here, too. I’m super excited for the manga and then the final recap! I can’t believe it’s near the end, though, either! And your English is great!! 🙂
Romaniablack
2023-11-25 03:49:00 +0000 UTCPushing out a few really quick comments: The gas question: The new ODM gear certainly helps. But really, the Battle of Heaven and Earth didn't take that long, and took place over a rather small space so not a lot of movement. The battles where gas was a big problem (Mostly Trost, and to some extent Shiganshina and Utgard) took place over a geographically large area (whole city) or took a long time away from supply lines. This battle was over rather quick, we just have a lot of people moving and doing stuff that we are actively watching so it takes a good amount of screen time. Mikasa getting back to Paradis probably involved meeting up with the Azumabito engineers, who should be able to build something seaworthy by the time Mikasa ran into them. Lady Kiyomi ends up on Paradis as well, so that would fit. It certainly needs a bit of handwaving, but stranger things have happened in this series (like Gabi and Falco just happening to run into Sasha's family...) so I don't think it's too much. The episodic recut of the Specials has commercial break info cards, and these actually answer the question why Eren's titan is colossal-sized. It's Eren regenerating from the Titan head, but in a different form as he can't access the Founding Titan powers anymore. As the Head is much larger than the normal Attack Titan head, the Attack Titan now becomes Colossal-sized. (It's still obviously an explanation made up to justify having Armin and Eren slug it out, but it's a reasonable enough explanation...) I think the dead scouts appearing, like Ymir, is supposed to be because of the steam of the disintegrating Hallucigenia/worm/source. That's what ends paths and titan powers, and for a moment paths and the real world intersect so the fading paths forms can briefly appear in the physical world. About Isayama being to shy to draw that kiss in Scream, that's and interview from the guide book and the translation is a bit awkawrd. I don't think there was ever an official one. But from reading it and checking with my broken understanding of Japanese, Isayama told the editors (who suggested it) that he was too embarrassed to draw a kiss, but it was more that he had no idea how to draw their relationship after that, so he decided not to and use that as an excuse. And a few callbacks you may have missed: Mikasa saying "I am strong" is a callback to her speech in Trost after learning that Eren died. Armin answering Muller's question "Are you human or Titan" is a direct reference to him doing the same in Trost to Voermann. And this may be less intentional. but Eren says "I can't die here" while in a titan's mouth in Trost, and ends up dying in a titan's mouth...
cw
2023-11-25 03:34:43 +0000 UTCWow, Romania, great reaction and discussion. I put down a ton of notes, but it might take me a bit to write everything out. I hope you don't mind if I put things in more than one comment. I'll start with a big one instead of going through everything in chronological order. So, Ymir and Mikasa. This one is very opaque, but I think it makes a ton of sense in terms of the whole series and the interrelations of its major and several minor themes. I don't think it's actually about love at its core, it's about what the whole series is about: freedom. When we begin the series, freedom has a clear meaning: the 'stifling walls' that keep us caged. They do so, as Zeke might say, using fear: without them, we have to fear for our lives, but because of them, we are not free. This is the Eren view of freedom, you become free by attaining the power to make sure nothing can use fear to stop you from doing what you want. But almost exactly in the middle of the whole series, this begins to shift, with Kenny's words: "Everyone had to be drunk on something to keep pushing on. Everyone is a slave to something." These things that we are slaves to also stop us from being free,and they do so by the same mechanism: fear, the fear of losing what keeps us going. And in many cases, this is something that we cannot get rid of, because they are good things and make us who we are at people (love, family, freedom, etc.). They are integral to our selves. We could call this the Kenny view of freedom, only this one is much trickier to resolve. Power will not help in getting rid of the chains, the only hope is to transcend them, to no longer be ruled by the fear they cause. We see this happen a couple times in the series, and there are some commonalities across them: getting rid of this fear brings a sense of calm (again as Zeke describes), and it can be inspiring to others. It's actually rather interesting to look at characters in light of this theme, but that would make this even longer, so I'll just mention Erwin's soft smile as he thanks Levi, as he comes to accept that the only way for anyone to get to the basement will cost him the thing that matters most to him: getting to the basement himself. (Zeke after paths is another good example, but to make this argument I'd need a way deeper dive into his character and deeper motivations). Mikasa as a character is formed around her fear of losing Eren. She is this way from the start, but she truly traumatized by losing him during the Trost battle; thinking that she has lost Eren, is about to give up her own life, only to realize that she hasn't lost everything yet: even without Eren, she still has her love for Eren to keep her who she is. There is a tragic nature to the relationship between Eren and Mikasa; Eren's nature is to always run headfirst into danger to prove to himself that he is free, which means that she has to save him from danger, and Eren despises looking weak in front of her, so he ends up running away even more. I think out of all the main characters, she may be the one that suffers the most from the thing she is drunk on. And I think this suffering is where the similarities to Ymir come in. Eren talks a lot about her 'love' for Fritz, but as we all know, Eren knows nothing about feelings. I don't think the toxic attachment she has to Fritz is truly at the core of her desire; a character with a much higher EQ suggest an alternative interpretation: Ymir is all about seeking connection; as a brutally treated, perpetually lonely girl (even before her village is raided, we only see her alone), cut off from communication by lsoing her ability to speak, she sees her attachment to Fritz as the only way for her to get this connection to someone else, but no matter what she does, her situation only gets worse because Fritz is truly a terrible person. While her and Fritz are very different from Mikasa and Ymir, they are similar in how their suffering is structured, so Ymir sees herself in Mikasa's emotions. In the final parts of the story, one question is constantly asked to Mikasa: "Can you kill Eren even though you love him"? Mikasa avoids an answer, or answers that she won't have to do that. She is governed both by her fear of losing Eren, and her fear of losing her self through losing her love for Eren. Eren does various things to push her away, and to push her toward answering this question in the affirmative. But it was the wrong question in the first place; Mikasa had already lost Eren once and knows she can get over this if she has to. The real question is "Can you love Eren even though you kill him"? And when Mikasa realizes that this is the question, the answer becomes clear: she can't do anything else. There is nothing to fear. This is the significance of the macabre kiss, and the reason why Mikasa is so calm afterward. Seeing this, Ymir finally realizes that her attachment to Fritz was not actually that central to her, and that had she acted differently, she could have maintained her self's deepest desire without him. Only now it is too late, and continuing to maintain paths and serve the will of others will never help. This insight, brought about my Mikasa's, finally allows her to pass on, as in a classic ghost story, taking solace in the few connections she did have. (Unrelated point, but as it relates to Ymir I'll put it here: The story, rather unsatisfyingly but also rather cleverly, keeps much about Ymir in the dark. In particular it's left open to what degree Ymir used her agency in the whole matter. Is she a scheming mastermind sacrificing the world to see the spectacle of a macabre kiss, or a poor slave girl with little will of her own? There's plenty of hints in either direction. And I don't think it's coincidence that Kruger's famous lines, "The only truth in this world is that there is no truth. Anyone can become a god or a devil, all it takes is for people to believe it" were said about Ymir. Well, if we trust Eren, we know that she was jsut a person, but that doesn't really narrow it down much...) Anyway, thanks for coming to my TED talk I guess. I'll try to keep my other points much, much shorter (though when it gets to Eren, it might be hard...).
cw
2023-11-25 02:12:58 +0000 UTCI think Ymir was waiting for Mikasa because the two have similarities but also differences. Ymir loved King Fritz more than anything, even though he was a monster. And that's exactly how it is with Mikasa. But the difference is that Ymir couldn't turn away from King Fritz and still protected and loved him. Mikasa on the other hand also loved Eren more than anything, but she was able to kill him to create a better future for humanity and killed her lover. Ymir waited for Mikasa who had that unconditional love for Eren but nevertheless choose to kill him. (The user Cw explained it much better than me I think) And I think you overestimate the audience a bit when you said “Isayama tells us what we know”😂. Because almost everyone who reacted was surprised or didn't know these things. The difference is, you have a lot of passion for the series and are smarter than the average. Sometimes an author just has to say everything at the end so that EVERYONE understands it. You also said that Historia's baby no longer has any real meaning. And yes, you are right. But I think that was the point. So before that the child was somehow in “danger” because Historia had to have this child so the royal bloodline could continue. But now that the Titans are gone, this child can live normally without any outside influences. So “let the children out of the forest” and let them live in a normal environment. I think the ending also shows how the cycle of hatred can never really end and that it is almost impossible to stop war. You can also see at the very end that Paradis was probably only destroyed after hundreds or thousands of years. That means our characters have managed to create peace for so long. I personally really like the ending because I think it's very realistic. I just wouldn't have liked an ending to Aot where everything is great, we've now achieved peace for the whole world and have no more problems. And that's the message. Even if we don't accomplish peace today, we should try again and again. I also loved the part where Eren called himself an idiot. I was like you are 100% correct my friend😂. That's how I understood things. But important: Of course, this is all my own opinion! Everyone can think differently or have different interpretations than me and that's completely okay. So I loved your reaction and I‘m always excited to hear your opinion. Oh, and Idk if you noticed it but in the first chapter Mikasa also says „See you later, Eren“. Because you just talked about the scene where Eren said that Mikasa‘s hair got longer. Feels a little surreal that it's over now. But I still have something to look forward to because of the manga reactions😊. Btw sorry that I wrote this much but I thought this is one of the last times I can do it in terms of your reactions😂. And sorry that my english is not the best. I‘m not a native speaker.😅
Melisa Erkaya
2023-11-24 21:40:00 +0000 UTC
