So like -- as usual, I need a timeline of events to organize in my head, because storytelling has been so very unlinear in recent chapters that I’m like, gimme a solid explanation for what everyone was doing and thinking and when and why. As such, lemme try to reconstruct the order of events as of ch108 year by year...
When the action begins, Marley is politically stable. They’re merrily oppressing their Eldian minority, whom they segregate from the Marleyans and keep in walled enclaves. The reason why they keep these hated Eldians around is that they’re useful: they can turn into human weapons aka titans, and this is neat for subduing other nations. Which Marley also does, because they can. As such, the other nations aren’t Marley fans, but they’re also not Eldians’ fans, because they used to be the oppressors and their ability to turn into titans is freaky. The Tybur family, Eldians who conspired in the fall of the Eldian Empire like 100 years ago, is ruling Marley from the shadows, but pretty much letting them do whatever. The one thing Marley feels is missing from their life is the Coordinate, with which they could control the world more securely. So they’ve sent agents to Paradis to procure it.
Meanwhile, those agents aren’t having the best of luck with their task, complicated further by the fact that literally the day they arrived the Coordinate changed hands (spines?) and now resides in a teenage dude with a lot of feelings about freedom. Various shenanigans lead to the Utgard Arc, in which Reiner and Bert are unmasked and expelled from Paradis. While the SC are busy with the Uprising Arc, the two return to Marley with Ymir. They’re on thin ice with the Marley authorities for their failure and for losing Annie. Ymir is eaten by Galliard, who gets titan powers at this point. Presumably RB tell Marley about the SC’s obsession with going to the basement in Shiganshina, and so they hatch the plan to lie in wait for them there, this time with Pieck and Zeke in tow. While they get organised, the SC install Historia as queen and get ready for finally going to Shiganshina.
The second battle of Shiganshina. The SC defeat the Warriors; Reiner, Zeke and Pieck bugger off to Marley, Bert gets fed to Armin. Zeke promises Eren to liberate him. Erwin dies. The SC find the basement and read Grisha’s diaries therein.
Return to HQ. Eren and Mikasa are in military jail for insubordination. Eren has Grisha’s actual memories supplementing the diaries. Armin writes down what Eren is telling him. Eren relates the thing about 13-year titan lifespan, which may or may not have been in the diaries. He and Armin know that they’ve got a limited time left to live.
Eren and Mikasa are released from jail early for political reasons. The government debates the ramifications of Grisha’s info. Eren decides not to tell them he has a hunch for how to unlock the Coordinate powers, and that this involves titan!Historia. Everyone present is now aware they’ve been part of the whole Eldia vs Marley thing all along, and that Marley is coming back for more war sooner or later. They figure they shouldn’t hide it from the public. Anti-Marley sentiment presumably begins to ferment in Paradis at this point.
The SC attend a function where Historia and government officials honor warriors fallen in the Shiganshina battle. Floch muses on the meaning of life. Eren, touching Historia’s hand, unlocks a memory: Grisha confronting Frieda the day the walls were attacked by RBA.
Across the sea, Marley gets embroiled in a war with other nations who smelled blood in the water following Marley’s defeat in Paradis. A coalition of countries came together in a blink of an eye to try and put an end to the Marley threat. Marley gets bigger problems than Paradis on its plate.
Paradis kills all remaining titans on the island. They get to see the ocean.
Marley is still at war with other nations. Busy fighting all of them, they can spare only part of their attention for Paradis.
Marley does send a survey ship to Paradis just to see what’s going on there. Paradis is ready, but they weren’t expecting Zeke’s loyalists who infiltrated the ship and mutinied in favour of the island. These loyalists, led by Yelena, claim to be Eldian restorationists. They suggest cooperation - helping Paradis in the fight against Marley, for the price of welcoming Zeke on the island and introducing him to Eren. Zeke also claims he can act as a mediator between Paradis and nations friendly to it, which he says are a thing. He also claims that there’s an ultimate secret plan that can save all of Eldians... but for this he needs the founding titan + a titan with royal blood. Eren deduces that this plan involves activating Coordinate powers to wake up wall titans and trample everything underfoot. Paradis government is hella skeptical, but Hange insists they cooperate with Zeke’s volunteers.
Very soon after this, Yelena & co help Paradis trap the other Marley survey ship(s). Marley soldiers appear as prisoners on the island.
Following this, Paradis and Zeke’s loyalists fall into camaraderie-like cooperation, tho Yelena isn’t allowed to interact with Eren directly. The volunteers help Paradis develop their technology and build a port. Hange plans to use the captured ships to trade with nations across the sea. Paradis samples seafood for the first time. The SC trains with Marley-style firearms. Some of Marleyan POW military engineers agree to help Paradis, kinda settling into their new life. Nations mix a bit.
Paradis now has a port. It welcomes the first foreign visitors, arranged by Zeke and his helpers: Hizuru, whose long-lost princess-type-thing Mikasa turns out to be. This is also allegedly the one country well inclined to Paradis due to their historical ties. Their leader is Kiyomi Azumabito. She claims to be working with Zeke Yaeger, who told her he was an Eldian restorationist at heart.
According to this version of events, Zeke only worked with Marley to hunt down the founding titan so he could consume it and use it for the good of Eldia. He also informed Hizuru of the resources that exist on Paradis (the shining crystal). Kiyomi is pretty much salivating when she talks about these resources: she wants them from Paradis so they give her nation a mega boost. At this point, Mikasa suspects she’s just a footnote to those real negotiations about money and trade.
Kiyomi claims her country’s mediation is central to Eldia’s salvation, of which there are three steps: a) give an experimental rumbling, showing the world what Paradis can do; b) grow in power with Hizuru’s help, catching up to the rest of the world... which will take like 50 years, c) so in the meanwhile, there must be an unbroken chain of founder titans + titans with royal blood in Paradis who can act as a deterrent for the world’s attacks, as they can activate the titan rumbling at any time. With this in mind, Zeke suggests feeding himself to Historia, assuming that Historia then spends her 13 remaining years popping out royal kids.
Historia is ready to agree, but Eren says no way. His point is: how do you know you can hold the world at bay through violence for 50 years? Hizuru agrees to wait for them to make a decision.
Meanwhile, some “plans” are made between Mikasa and Hizuru (at least, Jean references their existence).
Some form of rail construction is underway in Paradis. The junior SC are working on it.
Hizuru apparently promised to case the world on Paradis’ behalf and see if they could establish diplomatic relations/find trade partners, without relying on any sort of rumbling. However, at this point Paradis receives news that Hizuru failed. Hange draws the conclusion that Hizuru just doesn’t want to help connect Paradis with the world, as they want to hoard Paradis’s resources for themselves.
Here, Hange cites a Willy Tybur-esque argument: that, in fact, the world likes having Paradis as a threat to unite against. Given that she heard this from Kiyomi, whom we’ll later see being friendly with Willy, that might be exactly where the words are filtering down from.
Anyway, Hizuru’s negotiations failure means that Paradis must rely on the rumbling and sacrifice Historia to 13 years of pregnancies, because they’ve signed a military alliance treaty that’s backed by the rumbling. (So presumably they did agree to Hizuru’s conditions last year.) However, Hange hatches a new plan: sneak into Marley and try to contact the rest of the world from there, showing them that Paradisians are nice people and not at all devils. She assumes Zeke’s volunteers and Hizuru will help them with this. Eren points out that they need more time, and says they must decide who will inherit the founder titan from him... but it won’t be any of the junior SC, since he loves them too much.
Current year in the manga. No better plan for Paradis’s survival than Zeke’s breed-and-feed-the-children-to-each-other scheme has been found so far. Zeke’s time is running out: he’s got less than a year left to live. Eren is restless, Hange is restless.
Marley wins the war against other nations by the skin of their teeth. Realizes at this point that titans won’t cut it: Marley is behind the world technologically, and they need to start catching up and relying on titans less, since other nations are learning to fight against them.
This triggers two things at the same time. First: Zeke argues to sway the Marley government in favour of attacking Paradis asap. He says that, yes, technological development is needed, but that’s a long-term thing, and in the short term they must take the founding titan and buy time for the aforementioned development. (It sounds like Zeke is doing this because he’s wants to get to Paradis for his own reasons. Given that Zeke resorts to such measures, it’s not obvious to him at this point that Paradis will go along with his plan and welcome him with open arms; he prepares a plan B, which is getting there via invasion.) At the same time, Marleyan Eldians realize that, if they’re less valuable to Marley for their titanhood, soon they might become obsolete... and then their survival as a race is in question.
Latest now, Eren breaks off from the SC to strike out on his own in Marley. Pretends to be an injured Eldian who fought in the Marleyan war with the allied forces of other nations. Is probably in touch with Zeke. (It’s not impossible that the SC is already in Marley at the time; we know they wanted to go, and Armin mentions a period of “lying low in Marley” -- that could’ve been before or after Eren left.)
Willy Tybur, concerned with the Eldians’ survival, decides to take action. He suggests inviting foreign dignitaries to the Liberio internment zone and holding a speech to unite most of the world against the Paradisians. The Marleyan top brass believe he’s doing this to stir up support for their action against Paradis. In actual fact, Willy doesn’t give two hoots about the top brass and believes Marley must be potentially cleansed of them. He wants to stop Marley’s slide into endless warfare. More importantly, he wants to save the world’s Eldians, and he believes it’s best accomplished by throwing Paradisian Eldians under the bus.
Eren and Zeke one way or another agree on a plan to launch an attack on Marley, purposefully scheduling it for Willy Tybur’s performance. Using Falco, Eren contacts the SC, explaining that he’s going ahead with the scheme with or without them. The SC can’t let the Coordinate fall into the wrong hands for lack of backup, so they start preparing to turn up. It’s apparently Armin who comes up with their plan for a getaway blimp.
Willy Tybur starts conspiring with Magath, having singled him out as a competent, non-corrupt individual high enough within the military that he’s capable of effecting change.
Latest now, but maybe before this (depending on how much time everything takes), Yelena possibly tells Historia that she should arrange to be pregnant at the time Zeke gets there, because then she won’t be able to eat him: they’ll have to wait till after the pregnancy, so she buys herself time. Historia possibly goes along with this because she still hopes to escape the ‘forever pregnant and also dead in 13 years’ plan. Yelena, if it was her, just plots to save Zeke. According to Nile, Historia chooses a dude to be pregnant by, and either now or later retires with him to a house in the countryside.
It’s been about a month since the end of the Marley’s war with other nations. Falco has full-on befriended Eren by now. Apparently, Eren has sent a number of letters through him.
Magath has been gathering information on Marley’s military. He informs Willy Tybur that numerous senior officers should be replaced, because they’re pursuing outdated policies that harm the nation. Willy unofficially places Magath at the head of the military (for the record, his new policy ideas involve being more reasonable about war and relying on titans less). Magath also informs him that the remaining reliable people in the army have told him that there are traitors in their ranks.
Eren meets his unwitting paternal grandfather, who apparently has regular breakdown episodes on account of life.
Marley holds a reception for all the foreign dignitaries Willy wants to woo with his performance the following day. At this reception, Kiyomi shows kindness to a random Eldian boy, without visibly benefitting herself. This suggests that she does in fact sympathize with Eldians to some extent.
Prior to the performance at some point, Magath briefs Willy about the likely attack on the event. Willy says they should use it to their advantage: make the intertment zone Eldians look like tragic victims with whom the world will sympathize. He’s ready to sacrifice lives to this, his own included.
The performance. Eren, with Zeke’s cooperation, lures Reiner to a private talk. The strategic purpose of that talk is not clear, unless it’s literally just to separate Reiner from others. Yelena&co work to lock up Galliard and Pieck. They also give the excuse for Zeke to get away. Kiyomi, clearly aware that some shit is gonna go down, skedaddles away from the performance venue, having wished good luck to Willy.
Willy reveals the truth about what actually went down when the Eldian Empire fell apart and the first king buggered off to Paradis. He says the king only wanted peace, and so did his descendants. He also says this peaceful rule has been overthrown, and paints the new Paradisian government in violent, expansionist terms. He calls them the new Eldian Empire, with everything that entails. (He’s... not 100% wrong; people like Floch will use that exact terminology for themselves later.) Willy officially declares war on Paradis.
Eren attacks, kills Willy, wrecks everything, slaughters tons of civilians and the Warhammer titan. (It seems like Warhammer action may have been among the goals of the plan, and it makes sense: that titan hasn’t come out to play in forever, and nobody knows who it even is. If other titans might be easily encountered in battle, this one must be lured out. And sure, with other titans incapacitated and Marley under attack, the Warhammer steps out of the shadows.) The SC forces swoop in, help with the fighting. The most important thing is to get away on schedule, which is presumably why Galliard and Reiner survive the battle: Eren doesn’t have time to fight them. They skedaddle, Zeke in tow. Sasha is shot by Gabi on the way back.
The SC return home. The people celebrate a glorious victory. Eren gets locked up in military jail for insubordination, again, and goes along with it, at least for the time being.
Zeke is taken to the forest of giant trees by Levi, who’s keeping an eye on him personally and making sure he’s not getting up to anything.
Zeke’s supporters hand over to Paradis the titan serum they stole from Marley. However, in light of recent Zeke shenanigans, trust in them has run out and they’re taken under guard by Paradis. Part of the hope is that with them as hostages, they will be able to influence Zeke a bit. Another part is, of course, making sure Zeke doesn’t have agents in Paradis.
Meanwhile in Marley, they figure out Zeke’s a traitor. The rest of the world is rallying to attack Paradis, but preparations will take six months -- time Reiner points out they don’t have. He insists they must attack Paradis at once, before Zeke has masterminded some other calamity.
A whole number of things jumped out at me while I was compiling this, but they probs deserve their own posts. One observation fits here, though: it seems the main source of pressure in the story, for a while now, has been Time.
Half the characters are either running out of time, or trying to play for time; time is key to the development of Marley, who needs to catch up to other nations, and also Paradis, who must do the same. Titan shifters are running out of time, some faster than others. Zeke is increasingly desperate to fulfil whatever plans he has, because at this point he barely has a year. A change in Eren’s character, too, can clearly be detected from the moment he learned of his lifespan constraints: he keeps counting time, keeps trying to do the most he can with the little that’s left. Reiner has been giving on borrowed time for years at this point, and is painfully aware of every single one of them. Historia may be playing for time with her pregnancy, delaying fateful decisions about whether or not she’ll become a shifter. Willy timed his performance to what he felt was the crucial moment for the Tyburs for intervene to save Eldians, and Zeke and Eren also timed their attack on Marley to that point. The Paradisians wish they had more time to reach out to the world and show them that they’re not devils. Time, time, time: everyone needs it, and nobody’s getting it. This has been the main constraint the characters are facing, and it makes sense, given that we’re hurltling towards the story’s resolution.
(It increasingly seems the resolution will be determined by this: choices the characters make not because they’re the best possible choices, but because they need to make what choices they can in the very limited time they have left.)
