#askdoro

[dorovahkiin]

Dear Doro you make a very friendly and personable impression. There really must be more people like you in the SNK fandom. Then the fandom would be much more relaxed.I am glad that you are a Reiner-stan. He's always been my favorite. And a very handsome man.I would like to know how you feel about Historia. Her whole development in the time-skip is ... sad to say the least. Is there still hope for her? Does she survive? Will she at least find some kind of hope with her child? My second question

Hi dear anon 💕

Thank you so much for your kind words, it means a lot to me.

Nice to hear Reiner is your fav, this man can't get enough appreciation!!

Now to your question... I think Historia's arc is not savable anymore. Why?

The point of "development" is to go along with a character through time and and get to know what they are going through, understanding them etc., and seeing how they eventually grow or regress.

The problem with Historia however is that we barely saw her since uprising and barely got any POV from her. We speculate how she feels since ages, but in the end we do not know for sure since Isayama doesn't tell clearly. That's also the reason the fandom is fighting so much over Historia's arc and how it will end.

Even if we were not supposed to know about genocide pre 123 he could have delivered something else from Historia's POV that's not her just sitting on a chair and being irrelevant to the story.

So that's the first point. Even if Isayama gave her some sorts of development we did not witness it properly.

Second point (and that's the even bigger issue): There's only one chapter left and it has only the regular 45 pages.

I think we all expect to see her next chapter and to get her POV. But it will be very rushed. There are still other things to cover as well.

For me it would have been savable if we now got several chapters dedicated to her, seeing her development and POV in retrospective, but of course also in the present and future. But that won't happen and instead Isayama will probably squeeze it into a few pages. And that's very disappointing and underwhelming because it feels forced and you can't really feel with the character because there is no time to breathe. Even if her POV is not that relevant for the whole story (we don't know that yet though, but at this point I doubt it) I'd still expect it for the sake of the character Historia.

I want to witness a character's development WHILE the character is going through it.

Now to the content aspects you asked.

Imo Historia has to survive. I think her arc is about having a future and creating it the way she wants it. Decide for herself. Her dying after no screentime would be underwhelming and senseless to say the least.

That's just my opinion, I know other people don't agree and actually want her dead to reunite with Ymir. But I think even Ymir doesn't want it and wants Historia to live as long as possible instead, but the way she wants and not living a dictated life like it's now.

If she still dies that's not only tragic, but imo just bad writing because of the lack of screentime she had before. Regressing a character can be well written (Eren for example), but let us witness it at least. Otherwise it's just very hard to follow and almost impossible to feel with the character.

I hate the whole pregnancy plot and thought the pregnancy was fake for the longest time because it just has so many holes. At this point I think Isayama just made her pregnant to sideline her which is sad.

Historia has a big heart for kids and I think she will love her kid either (and not treat it the way her mum treated her), but the problem is here again we won't see much of it in only 45 pages. We also need to know what happened after the 130 convo with Eren that got cut. I don't believe in AnR or Eren being the father and I think at this point the question is irrelevant anyways.

I'm just so disappointed in the lack of her screentime.

And this is the best example to show what snk's biggest weakness was recently in general:

The lack of proper character focus, development and character interactions. It's either rushed and feels forced or he doesn't address some topics at all that would be important for a character's individual development. At the same time the story pacing is almost too slow. Maybe that's a post for another day, I could make a whole list about it.

So I'm still looking forward to Historia's POV, but tbh I don't expect much anymore. Even if it is a well written POV it will simply be too rushed.

What was your second question again? The text got kinda cut.

Thank you and sorry for the long text!

💕✨

[dorovahkiin]

Could you further elaborate about how eren's manipulation of historia reminds you of ymir and the first fritz king? Since that historia didn't tell anyone of eren's plan as you said.

Sure! This could of course be complete bs, but here is my interpretation:

When I first read 122 I have asked myself: Why didn't Ymir rebel against the King? Why did she obey? (Just like now everyone wonders why Historia obeys Eren).

Why did Ymir save the King's life? Because she loved him? Not in a lifetime. But she was so powerful with the power of the titans, she could have freed herself without any problems.

Is it a plothole? No.

I think Ymir had the mindset of taking everything on her shoulders, this is why she also probably took the guilt of letting out the pigs (if it wasn't her). I'm sure she had low self esteem. She grew up as slave, probably doesn't know a different life. The King even told her: "Rise. Work. That is why you have been born. Ymir my slave".

I can imagine this is not the first time he told her that. And if you keep telling this a person with low self esteem they start to believe it, especially if you don't have any friends to tell you otherwise.

For an independent and healthy person it's hard to grasp, why she didn't defy, but it also happens in our modern world all the time, especially in toxic relationships and I know irl examples myself. I think it's usually like:

1) Keep telling her how bad she is and taking away her value as human being, taking away her free will, so she is confused. At best isolating from other people. If she has low self esteem it works even better. That's what King Fritz did by treating her like a slave.

2) At the same time making her dependent on him, making her believe she is indebted to him. In Ymir's case I'm not sure why she felt intebted to him because their "relationship" is not very elaborated, he probably kept telling her "You are MY slave" and she lived by that, maybe telling her it was an honour to be the mother of his children, he literally said this was a reward. So this line can be used to make her believe to be grateful for that and show this gratitude by serving him. Maybe even threatened her so she was scared of him.

3) Telling her to obey and she does. Not because she agrees, but because she is already emotionally abused, confused and afraid of him. Manipulated. At the same time, you always see Ymir's depressed look.

Now let's move on to Eren and Historia. The manipulation is not as cruel as it was with Ymir, but it is way more subtle. But you see the same pattern:

1) He told her she is the worst girl in the world. It sounds even more convincing because she once said it herself down in the cave, and he uses these words here to confuse her, put them into another context and make her believe she is an evil person (whereas she is actually NOT imo, this lie is a form of taking away her value). Now this is only my interpretation and the EH shippers would say otherwise, but I don't believe Historia is an evil, selfish bitch, she just stated these words in the cave without thinking and even said it didn't mean anything later in uprising. She is not the Krista goddess either, she is just a person with strengths and weaknesses, but with a good heart. Her official stats still say Altruism 10/10 and she leads the orphanage OUT OF FREE WILL and with passion to save kids. She even said she will save anyone who feels lost. Is that what an evil person does?

Her whole life was also slave-like though, she was forced to hide her identity, forced how to live, so imo she already had low self esteem and was easier to emotionally attack. This probably got worse when Freckles Ymir died and when she got the confirmation of her death by Ymir's letter. Ymir, a person who pushed her self esteem in a healthy way. But now she is pretty much alone.

2) Making her dependent and indebted to him. Eren takes away her free will of choosing for herself, but telling her his plan is the only option, implying he is the only one who can save her. "Offering" to erase her memories is also manipulation and implies "I don't respect your own will", it's just wrapped inside sweet words.

She believes he wants to protect her after all. I think he does want to protect her and cares for her, but also manipulates her at the same time because his genocide/freedom philosophy is more important to him than anything else. He is a maniac, and maniacs often contradict themselves, it's almost like they have different personalities (sympathising with his enemies in chapter 100 / dehumanising them in chapter 130 by calling them "animals" is one example).

Going back to Historia, Eren boosts the feeling of indebtedness by telling her "You are the worst girl in this world WHO HAS SAVED ME". He makes her believe she wants to follow him herself, that she wants to serve his desires, that deep down she wants him to destroy the world. By that he is saving her, so she is indebted to follow him. That's at least what he implies. He doesn't give her another option. Doing this by twisting her own words is pretty genius and disgusting.

3) Telling her to obey and she does. I already implied why she obeys even if she doesn't want to, by manipulating her and making her believe she is dependent on him, taking away her free will to choose for herself, taking away her value and making her believe that's what she actually wants.

But just like Ymir, Historia looks depressed and conflicted all the time (Chapter 106-108). She has been emotionally abused all her life and this is no exception. I still don't believe she supports genocide and she shuts up because she is manipulated by Eren to do so. Just like Eren manipulated Grisha to kill children, even if Grisha didn't want that, but still did. Just like King Fritz manipulated Ymir to obey him, not to rebel against him, kill so many Marleyans and do whatever he wishes. And it's pretty clear Ymir wasn't happy with this either. As I said, the same pattern still happens today in people's real life. All the time.

Someone has to save Historia, I don't know if she can save herself, though I wish she would be capable of helping herself. But I think she is just too weak, emotionally confused and damaged to do so. Eren makes her believe he is the only one who can save her, but that dude is destroying her just like he is destroying himself by his toxic philosophy.

Again, someone has to save Historia. If she can't do this herself I believe that will be Reiner since he has promised Freckles Ymir to do so, and I don't even mean this in a shipping/romantic context! But this subplot is still open and fits to this situation.

Thank you for your question, I hope this was not too confusing and long!

[dorovahkiin]

i really love your thoughts on chapters and theories. you seem very well-spoken and smart! can’t wait to read your thoughts on next month’s chap! 🌸

Thank you so much, that really means a lot! ❤️🙏