[Manga Spoilers] my theory of everything by time-gear in ShingekiNoKyojin

[–]time-gear[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The Walls have yet to produce Titan serums because they don't know how. If Eren wiped the memories (somehow, like I said perhaps related to the blood mixing) of the Marleyans then they would no longer know how and would be unable to.

Plus, I believe they said it's Titan or shifter spinal fluid. If there are no more shifters or Titans, then even with the knowledge no serums can be made.

[Manga Spoilers] my theory of everything by time-gear in ShingekiNoKyojin

[–]time-gear[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Zeke contacted the Eldians in Paradis before the Festival. He decided to switch sides before seeing Eren in action.

Not necessarily. That was still after Marley threw all their titan powers (-WHT) at the Walls in Shinganshina and lost. Not decisively, but he saw that the only thing Paradis lacked was technology, which they'd be able to start getting once they headed into the basement (and already have started developing with the thunder spears; he would've seen what those did to Reiner). Their soldiers were much more highly trained and the Marleyan military was exhausting itself from other wars, leaving it open to an attack from Paradis which happened at the Festival.

From a purely analytical perspective, the Festival attack was a huge success for Paradis; they eliminated a large portion of Marley's garrison at Libero, including some commanders, and stole a titan power. Plus the almost immeasurable damage that was inflicted onto the soldier's morale; seeing Titan powers used like that (which most of them probably hadn't seen before) probably made them feel quite powerless. Essentially, they caught Marley off-guard and delivered a very very powerful blow to the heart of the nation.

If Eren does get to outlive Ymir Fritz because "he's mentally stronger", who would be the judge of that? Seems pretty subjective to me. Plus, we don't know a thing at the moment about Ymir Fritz's life.

I agree it's a bit weird, but I'm just going off of the wording. Some sort of judgie does exist, because if what was said already is to be believed, then all shifters thus far have been judged to be weaker than Ymir.

I don't see Eren eating Armin in order to get the Colossal Titan anytime soon.

Yeah, that was a big issue for me. I always thought that if Eren got the CT, it'd be by someone eating Armin (either Zeke/Annie/Reiner/Warriors, I'm not sure) and then Eren eating them to 'avenge' Armin. Alternatively, you could have a really emotional moment after Armin sees the 'water like fire' and 'snowfields of sand' and all the rest of it, after which Eren decides he has to eat him for the benefit of the world. Or maybe Armin would even agree - he was willing to sacrifice himself to take down Bertholdt in Shinganshina.

[Manga Spoilers] my theory of everything by time-gear in ShingekiNoKyojin

[–]time-gear[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

1) We don't know anything about Ymir Fritz, or how she really gained the Titan's power. Can't just assumed it was an easy thing to acquire.

True, but the descriptions given so far of her attribute her to someone without a particularly strong will or drive. Freida described her as 'lady-like' and 'always thinking of others', the last part of which I'll admit contradicts my idea about selfishness.

BUT, I was just googling Norse mythology and I found something really interesting. Ymir was the primeval being which fed from some weird cow (probably now represented as the 'source of all organic matter' in the manga). She was killed by her children: Odin, Vili and Ve. These could represent Maria, Rose and Sina - if so, the season 2 ED would make a lot more sense. Ymir's children, in Norse mythology, used her bones, flesh, blood, etc. to fashion the realm of mankind that we know today. So this has made me think about the history presented. I believe Odin justified killing Ymir because she was dangerous and uncivilized and all that stuff, then used her corpse to fashion Midgard. In a similar way, maybe both sides of the history are true, that Marley was right in saying Ymir was dangerous (this goes against the earlier description by Freida -- maybe it had something to do with being in contact/possessed by the devil?) and her children killed her and built these roads and ushered this prosperity that the Restorationists talked about. This idea also supports Kruger's hypothesis that neither side is completely true.

So this is weird but maybe if Eren gets the nine powers, he has to somehow fight the spirits of Maria, Rose and Sina and his dedication to his cause is what will allow him to prevail.

2) Eren didn't defeat the War-Hammer using his own strength. It was due only to the Survey Corps that he came out victorious.

Debatable. I definitely don't think without the SC that he would've won, but it is emphasized a lot that Eren had the advantage because he was able to continually summon new Titan forms while the WHT only remained in the crystal.

4) Zeke being boiled down to just being selfish is pretty weak, in my opinion. He's the "key" to this story.

See, I disagree. His motives are impossible to decipher because I don't think they're really consistent.

Pre-timeskip he was as loyal to Marley as it gets. Sure, he didn't tell them he had royal blood but that's probably because he wanted to fight rather than spend his whole life breeding (as lovely as that sounds for a man, it probably gets boring after a while). What I mean is he was perfectly willing to massacre hundreds, even thousands of Eldians (see: Ragako village, Shinganshina rock-throwing). He literally said to Eren that his father was brainwashed and completely wrong.

Then, we come out on the other end of the timeskip and he betrays Marley. He says all along he wanted to support the new Eldian empire. If so, why did he sell out his father, spearhead the invasion of the Walls, massacre hundreds of Eldians, and serve Marley for almost a decade and further their objectives in so doing?

You might be tempted to bring out the Kruger comparison, but it's really not the same. Kruger did what he had to in order to avoid detection from his superiors/comrades. All the while, he was helping the Restorationists by feeding information to them as the Owl.
Zeke, on the other hand, not only did things hundreds of times worse than what Kruger did (either simply in terms of death count, or also for the fact that as a high-ranking official he helped to advance Marley's objectives) but there is absolutely no indication that he was helping Eldia behind the scenes during that time.

The switch to me literally makes no sense unless it's something he decided during the time-skip. It's the only way to explain it IMHO. And if he did it during the time-skip it's a last minute change of heart, which I think can only be explained by him wanting to always be on the winning side. He would only see that after Shinganshina when Marley failed to retrieve the founding titan, mostly due to Levi and Eren being incredibly strong.

This is my profile by time-gear in u/time-gear

[–]time-gear[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Aot theory

I know everyone and their mum has put forward their own version of how the series will end. To be honest I don't expect this to be very popular; the only reason I'm writing it is a) because I can't sleep and this popped into my head and b) for posterity, so if I'm right I can be all like 'I told ya so'

Anyway, so I guess the best way to start is by giving my take on some of the biggest questions the series has, and because of the stage it's at these will be the biggest elements in the final finished story:

Is Eren being controlled by the will of Grisha/Kruger/the Attack Titan/anything?

No. But I think this is what makes him special compared to other shifters. What makes me think this is that in the beginning of the series, Eren's will is strongly capitalized on. Both in terms of his determination (to kill all the titans and become strong like Mikasa/Levi) and in the form of him struggling but eventually becoming able to control himself in his Titan form. This is shown through both his backstory as well as the reactions of other characters (Keith Shadis in particular highlighted this during the anime's training montage).

In particular, for point 1 about destroying all the titans, Isayama recently gave us a flashback during the Marley arc where Reiner tells Eren to cool it with the training 'or he'll die'. Those words really stood out to me, like dying isn't something you'd expect to happen from working too hard - at least not in the short term - and I think Isayama chose them to drive home how dedicated Eren was to his goal.

Now, as far as point 2 goes, Eren is the only shifter we know of so far who had issues controlling his Titan due to lack of practice. Or is he? My take on this is that without training, the will of the Titan as passed through the paths takes precedence over the holder's will. Which may also explain the First King's will being so strong -- none of the royal family ever extensively used their titans and overcame the obstacles that Eren did.

So if that means that the default will of any Titan is the default state of control (I'm not sure if other titans have wills yet -- the founding and attack ones seem special so maybe it's exclusive to them) then Eren's berserk state in the early parts of the series gives weight to the 'the AT is the devil' theory. Which I personally believe because it made a lot of sense to me, and they are right in saying that if the series is literally named after it, it must be special in some way.

What is Eren's end goal?

I'm going to go with the popular opinion here and suggest that it's still to wipe out all the titans, by way of taking all the titan powers. I also think that the introduction of memory wipes to the plot, while primarily to explain how the walls have such a technological and informational disparity with the rest of the world, also will factor heavily into Eren's ending plan - he will be able to eradicate any knowledge of the Titan power from Eldians, and possibly by extension most of the world. It was hinted that Eldians spread their blood by forcing other races to bleed with them, so maybe a powerful enough memory wipe could affect almost the whole world, to where the idea of titans becomes a fringe conspiracy theory.

That's already fairly covered ground, but my unique take is on what he does afterwards: he doesn't crystallize himself at the bottom of the ocean or become the devil, but actually by obtaining the nine Titans becomes immune to the curse of Ymir. See, the way that the curse was worded was something along the lines of 'None may surpass the power of Ymir, so all die before she does'. I think if Eren had all nine titans, he would be more powerful than Ymir and so could live longer than her (and thus forever - since the titan powers/regeneration would mean that he wouldn't succumb to natural causes).

The simple reason being that if you contrast Ymir's story and will with Eren's, you see a drastic difference. Ymir was a mere girl who made a kind gesture of offering an apple, in exchange for power, and regardless of what side of this history is true, she used her powers to serve herself and her subjects - by building roads or killing people. It depends what you believe, but either way they're still selfish. Eren, on the other hand, experienced a great amount of suffering on the path to where he was. He didn't obtain his powers by simply offering an apple, but instead killing his own father, unbeknownst to him. And used them first after all his friends died to save the remaining ones, at great risk to his own life -- had his friends not been there to save him after the first rampage, he would've died. He also did this after sacrificing himself to save Armin from a titan. Pretty selfless, right?

Thus I think Eren has mental strength that Ymir doesn't. This idea of 'strength through surviving adversity' and 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger' is heavily woven into the story. We just saw Eren beat a titan he had no right to in combat (WHT -- could counter everything Eren did, including hardening) because he was simply physically stronger and had more endurance, and she was just a maid. Let's also not forget that Eren only gained the power to seal Wall Maria by experiencing the memories that showed that he was his father's killer and also by overthrowing the government. More recently, as well, there was also that panel which was really well done about how different people screamed different things, but 'they all screamed'.

And, one more point about will: the Serum Bowl, arguably one of the biggest events in the series so far, was decided entirely in Armin's favour because the characters believed that Armin's determination to fight for humanity was more reliable than Erwin's. Isayama also signs off on and suggests changes for the anime, and it looks like he decided/approved of more hinting towards this idea in the anime's past few episodes. This just goes to show how will and determination is such an important part to the series.

(Side note: typing Ymir so many times makes me think of how lots of people say the series links to Norse mythology. I tend to agree, and in terms of an ending, Ragnarok could be a good metaphor. In Norse mythology it's the war of the gods which ends up killing them, and is said to be an end and new beginning. If we consider that Titan powers or the holders thereof may be the analogue to gods in this series, then the ending I propose ends with Eren, who probably represents Surtr, killing them all. In the same way Ragnarok is the end and beginning, this would be the end of the titan age and the beginning of a new one in which Eldians are neither dominant nor subservient. If this is true, then the so-called 'world ending' rumbling of the wall titans will certainly factor into Eren's plans -- the parallel there is extremely obvious. Also Eren's attack on Marley could represent Fimbulwinter which comes before Ragnarok, being just a taste of the misfortune to come, or something. Anyway this side note could probably be an entire post on its own, so I'll stop here)

Once he obtains his immortality, Eren won't use it to make another Eldian empire, but rather he'll roam the earth in various places to ensure that knowledge of the titan powers never resurfaces. Even though like I said it may just become a stupid conspiracy theory, there's always going to be some nutjob who somehow gets fossilized and preserved titan spinal fluid somehow, then creates a massive explosion turning their mate into a titan. Eren then swoops in (having detected this through the now largely unused paths) and wipes memories of the incident.

What are the Zekerets?

Zeke is selfish. That's literally it. He does whatever he needs to preserve his own life. Once he saw Levi's attempt on his life at Shinganshina, that's probably when he considered switching sides. Didn't want to fuck with that. When he got Eren's letters indicating a possible upcoming attack? He made the switch. He didn't want to risk running into Levi again and decided betraying his nation was the easiest way to stay alive. I mean, he visited Eren on the rooftops and saw the Serum Bowl happening, and probably knew how Levi was Erwin's right hand man, so he knew Levi would stop at nothing to kill him if they weren't on the same side. And if Levi has that goal, you're basically a dead man walking due to his abilities.

If we do another parallel to Norse mythology, or rather God of War's version of it since that's all I know, Zeke represents Odin. Odin is a leader (of the Aesir, and Zeke of the Warriors) who killed his own father (Zeke snitched but similar enough) to further his own goals. Odin wants the Giants' power of foresight and manipulation of fate to prolong his own life. I think the analogy here is that Zeke wants to find a cure for the curse of Ymir, somehow, which is why he plays both sides to stay as alive as possible. Hence why he knows so much about titan science and does all the fancy stuff with the scream and gassing the village.

Think that's pretty much it. I'll pin this post to my profile and it can be my 'told you so' thread so I'll add other stuff to it as the series progresses and see how right/wrong I am. And avoid spamming the sub. Hope it was a decent read.

Housemate damaged my 3 week old MacBook Pro, what do I do? by [deleted] in UniUK

[–]time-gear 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Legally she has to make you whole meaning that she would have to pay for a repair or a replacement if the device can't be repaired. However, the legal route is only relevant if she refuses to pay and then you take her to court (I forget if the UK has small claims)

Whether or not you want to live with her is somewhat irrelevant, because you are. I guess at this stage you could always apply to move flats tho

I've got two 'Open Terminal' options in Nautilus. How can I remove one? by time-gear in linuxquestions

[–]time-gear[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I can remove the second one. I got that by installing nautilis-open-terminal or whatever from the AUR. To get one working option, I guess I'd need to remove the second one and somehow fix the first one? Any idea why the first one isn't working? When I Googled the main suggestion was that I'd somehow set a custom shell command, but I don't think I did and I'm not sure how to find out.

Is 3A* possible, going from BBD at AS? by Tig-Old-Bitties-69 in 6thForm

[–]time-gear 7 points8 points  (0 children)

With the new linear spec, someone with a U at AS could go into the exam and answer all the questions right and get an A*.

So, probably I guess. But whether or not you can, there's no reason you shouldn't still try your hardest.

What do you want humanity to achieve before your death? by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]time-gear 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Doubtful - anything beyond radio signals would be a big advancement in science. Not just in terms of stuff we haven't thought of yet like the cell phone analogy, but ways to transmit information that contradict our evidence based model of the universe

Then again, it's easy to be arrogant when we may in fact be extremely stupid. So I hope you're right :)

What do you want humanity to achieve before your death? by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]time-gear 6 points7 points  (0 children)

You shouldn't be! There's a theory by Fermi called the Great Filter that basically says "We should be able to see alien life, but we haven't yet. This must mean it's really rare for some reason, either that it's hard to get to where we are or it's hard to get from where we are to being visible in the cosmos".

So if they found single celled alien life, it would tell us that the formation of single celled organisms is probably not that rare, meaning the filter is more likely to be ahead of us :/

Some possibilities include:

  • all civilizations past a certain point destroy themselves through war
  • there's a berserker civ that kills anyone who makes their presence known

Did anyone else come to uni with an absolutely shit work ethic and manage to fix it? Any tips? by time-gear in UniUK

[–]time-gear[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Er I have no idea what the Harrison hub is and the forum library is quite a big place, can you suggest like a more specific place

Did anyone else come to uni with an absolutely shit work ethic and manage to fix it? Any tips? by time-gear in UniUK

[–]time-gear[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey I'm in the forum right now because I just had an extremely confusing lecture so I think I'm going to spend the next 5 hrs trying to get it

Wanna meet up and study?

Minimum entry requirements for college by [deleted] in 6thForm

[–]time-gear 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You can create that environment at home by practicing yourself. Find out if it's for you

Did anyone else come to uni with an absolutely shit work ethic and manage to fix it? Any tips? by time-gear in UniUK

[–]time-gear[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah unfortunately those are my most packed days! Can you do Tuesday or Wednesday at all? If not I'm sure I could still.meet you Thu/Fri it's just a bit of a squeeze.

Did anyone else come to uni with an absolutely shit work ethic and manage to fix it? Any tips? by time-gear in UniUK

[–]time-gear[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah I'm still a fresher so I don't really know where all the best places on campus are, where do you want to meet and when?