Am I the only one who thinks this whole Connie-Falco stuff came out of no where? We haven't heard from his mother in so long and now all of the sudden we're hit with him wanting to sacrifice a child... felt very out of no where.
I don't know if you're the only one, but I have to disagree with you.
The plot thread about his anguish towards his mother and his family and what happened in Rakago has always been there in the background. There was never focus on it after it happened because more pressing things ended up taking up all the space, but it's always been something I have wondered about. What happened to Connie's mom? Was she mercy killed? Was she kept alive in the hopes to find a cure? What about Connie? How does he feel about this? What's gonna happen with them? I have never forgotten about this topic, and I was positive Connie wasn't gonna die in Liberio because of this unresolved thread.
Besides, his descent to the "dark side" (more like, Connie losing himself in anger and despair) is something that's been hinted at and even spelled out multiple times since the timeskip. In order:
Connie is the one to be explicitly shown to have a family-oriented mindset here.
Connie has lost someone he considered his found family, his twin. He is overcome by desperation and grief and, after this, even anger.
Connie is absolutely distraught at being betrayed by Eren, as well. Eren is someone who was pretty close to him, he surely considered Eren part of his found family.
So Eren is partially responsible for Connie losing one of the people closest to him, after he had lost in a very horrifying way his parents and his little brother and sister. And he's aching so bad because it's Eren. It's obvious Connie is both angry and hurt. Because he still loves Eren but at the same time he has lost someone else that he loved because of Eren.
This leads to him acting irrational and violent, something that we have never seen him do prior to what happened to Sasha. It was very clearly his trigger, alongside Eren's betrayal (besides, Eren was also apparently cooperating with the person responsible for his family's transformation into titans, which is basically a double betrayal).
This anger has been boiling for a while now, in canon at least a month, and for us, clear displays of it were shown multiple times (a 1 year and a half worth of chapters ).
His outburst this chapter was...sad, more than anything. He can't make sense of the situation (see how he avoids even commenting on it), the only thing that can make the world stop spinning is a little fragment of hope and comfort: getting at least his mom back.
And we finally find out what exactly happened with her - she's still there, in Rakago, and Connie has been visiting her for 4 years. It reminds me of someone who has been paying visits to an unconscious family member in a hospital. It is exhausting and draining but you can't stop hoping for them to wake up someday.
It's really tragic that such a kind boy as Connie has been pushed to this - sacrificing a kid. It is obviously morally wrong, but can you blame him? He's been hanging on a thread trying not to lose it.
There was a very obvious moral parallel to the serumbowl there (saving someone trusted for the future of humanity because the responsibility for that role would be too much for you, vs saving someone from your family, completely disregarding the life of the enemy shifter that will be sacrificed), so just like back then Eren and Mikasa's reactions were completely normal and justified considering the terrible and stressful and exhausting situation imo, I felt the same now with Connie.
So it's not out of place: there is no way he could've acted rationally in such a situation when a family member of his could be saved - at the price of sacrificing a child, yes, but an enemy nonetheless. Bertolt was just 17 when he was killed (clearly Falco's sins are nothing comparable to Bert's, but Connie has no way of knowing or no reason to think a person from Reiner's group wouldn't try to kill them, considering their records, and how a kid the same age as Falco's killed Sasha in cold blood).
On the contrary, I would've found it really disappointing if Connie's mom was never brought up again! And I would've found it completely OOC if Connie hadn't reacted in such a strong, desperate way, considering how he's been feeling lately (though him deserting with Falco honestly left a bad taste in my mouth, but I guess there's some reason linked to future events). Compared to other characters' characterization, going back and forth between one behavior and another, Connie has felt the most consistent and enjoyable to read. At least for me. :)
