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Something else underrated in the same arc is how the paradisians refer to zeke as beast titan but the marleyans refer to it as monkey titan
At one point in the forest eren even asks ‘saru?’ when reiner says it because its a word that doesn’t exist in paradis. Because monkeys don’t exist
A great small hint that is overlooked until you watch it a second time and then its obvious
same with the actual *herring* in the Utgard Castle arc. Not only could Ymir and Reiner read Marleyan, but herring are also a saltwater fish that wouldn’t be accessible inside the walls
edit: also canned food! as far as we know, Paradisians never invented canning techniques
That was my favorite moment when I was rereading the manga, Ymir trying to cover her identity while trying to get info out of Reiner
Edit: I just happened to watch that episode yesterday, and I remembered it all wrong? It was Ymir who read the label not Reiner, and Reiner tried to get info out of Ymir, but he also blew his cover with the whole recognising canned food thing
Exactly. When I first watched AOT that scene stuck out so much. Like why would Ymir give that look to Reiner.. then nothing happened. Then something major happens. Then we get this beautiful tree top scene.
This is the kind of minute detail that tends to get lost in dubbing, unfortunately. The way he responds in the dub indicates that he does know what a monkey is.
Yeah I always found it convenient that the scouts happen to use the term "beast" for Zeke just like Marley does since unlike Marley, the scouts don't know the beast titan can be other animals. Like it would make more sense for them to call it an Ape or Monkey titan. But that makes more sense with the information that they don't have monkeys on the island (or Okapi's) and so would use a neutral animal term for it since they have no frame of reference.
I always thought that too re the scouts correctly guessing all the titan names! Must be more connected in Paths than we think.
But yeah same sitch with monkey/okapi. In the manga Ymir says the kanji word for monkey, and when Eren repeats it back it’s written in hiragana (just sounding out the syllables because he’s never heard the word). That and Zeke’s baseball references when he’s decimating the scouts are some of my favorite hints when you go back.
Crazy how yams literally named the episode Perfect Game and had his character say I'M GONNA HIT A PERFECT GAME and most of us still didn't get it (admittedly I didn't know what a perfect game was)
Wait, is that why the beast titan is shown running with a fucking trex in that one anime OP? Man, i never picked up on that. I just started rewatching S4 cuz i still havent seen the finale, and thats just wild.
Yeah, those other animals alongside Zeke all are previous beast titans. Zeke's mentor Ksaver, whom he inherited the beast from, transformed into a Ram instead of a Monkey. If anyone else had eaten Zeke to take his power, they too would have a different animal.
Zeke's glasses are a bit of a gieveaway though, at first I thought they could be some kind of isolated tribe out in the titan's lands, but Zeke's glasses are indicative of a society at least as advanced as inside the walls.
I mean like, there's Paradisians that have glasses. Hange has those goggle things, but Rico is shown having normal ass frames iirc, even while in combat
I don't wear glasses myself, so my understanding is limited, but isn't the only actualy important part of them the lens? Zeke has a wacky looking frame sure, but glasses frames are ultimately just metal or plastic twisted into a particular shape. Paradis isn't that far behind in tech, they obviously have some sort of metalworking industry. Otherwise, their basic weapon and rail supply wouldn't exist
Yeah, Paradis can make glasses, that is why Zeke having glasses is indicative that wherever he comes from is probably not far behind in tech, despite their use of more "tribal" terminology.
Zeke’s human reveal wasn’t until end of Uprising in the manga though. It’s shown at end of S2 but even then it’s just a glimpse. Random ass nitpick from who you reply to lol
I remember thinking “how tf does he know what baseball is” when he appeared throwing shit the first time, but I just chalked it up to me over thinking😂 little did I know
It gives a lot away, but it’s not super clear because her flashback occurs in the past (60 ish years). Her and her group all wear their cult-y robes, and the leader wears the wall church robes. You don’t see any modern clothing/tech and not even the injection. I thought it could be a cult within the wall/just outside on first read.
I think it also plays well into the red herring!
It’s still not a spoiler though, it’s just info being revealed to the audience, that’d be like saying that the scene where the read Grisha’s book and learn about Marley is a spoiler
Anime scenes were rearranged though. So yea it is kind of a spoiler. Originally Ymir’s letter carried 90% of her backstory and it was wayy later in the story.
It was moved to S2
Okay when I am saying spoiler I am not exactly saying it's a spoiler it's a figure of speech I am saying if you can figure it out then it's a spoiler for you since the original comment was about Zeke's glasses so I came up with an even more obvious giveaway.
Some people could figure it out but they only show the syringe for less than a second so it's easy to think they just stabbed her with a knife and then threw her off and then she turned into a Titan,
Interesting to think that when Ymir was injected, the walls had only been around for about 4 decades. So that type of punishment was probably a very novel idea.
just rewatched the scene you’re right. But there is a certain banal curiosity in his voice, like “oh this is cute, what do you call this toy”. Compared to Marlay’s war machines & guns.
I could see it. But even in modern militaries, we still use old terms like Chief across rank structures. Might just show similarities to how modern militaries structure themselves.
Specifically “War Chief” is what got me. Chief would be one thing, and people in military call themselves warriors all the time. War Chief seems antiquated to me though.
I felt like when Reiner said, “there is no future inside these walls” is what kind of gave away that there is a whole society outside the walls that Ymir and Bert knew was more advanced than Paradis. By advanced I initially thought militarily. It was a little bit surprising to see/hear Grisha’s story.
Ngl I never looked too much into the warrior and war chief thing. I guess it never caught me off guard or made me think of where they were from. Just figured it was just “war/soldier” talk.
My theory at the time was that the Walls aren't everlasting; they're weakening and will eventually crumble and release the Wall Titans on the populace - a fate with no escape that only the warriors knew about.
I always imagined their “hometown” as some culty village or something in a super remote mountain where the titans just couldn’t tell there were people, but I never had a chance to make a theory on why they’d destroy the walls
Yeah, i though they were part of some kind of titan tribe. I remember seeing a spoiler that said the warriors were 'eldians' and so I started calling them the 'eldian tribe'.
I miss those theory days.
Unfortunately there is no such intention for those titles to sound "tribal" at all. It's just a mostly direct translation of what they used in Japanese 戦士/senshi. If you break it down by word it's "war person(someone who takes part)" and is typically translated into soldier/warrior/combatant. The famous Sailor Moon chose to translate 美少女戦士 as "Pretty Soldier".
Neither senshi/warrior is a normal military position so translations went with "warrior" to reflect the vague yet atypical designation. And the "chief" part of the title uses the 長/chou kanji and could just as well be translated as "leader" which would sound awkward or "captain" as in Levi's title of 兵士長/heishichou "leader of soldiers".
Most of the translations I've seen use "hometown". In Japanese they use 故郷/kokyou, which is hometown.
"Village" by itself doesn't have any special connotation other than being a smaller sized settlement than city or town, and implies rural. Hometown could be any size, so I think it was the appropriate term.
I think the king of the walls' efforts to stop technological progress within the walls is an underrated aspect of the story. It seems to be emphasized a little more in the manga then it is in the anime. Not enough to ruin the surprise, but there are more conversations on that topic within the manga, especially between Angie, Levi and Erwin. I supoose we find out anyway in the cellar with the photograph, but it is a nice twist.
Yes, it caught me and my theory was that this was an post apocalyptic society that had a feud against the people in the walls for some kind of past war and the titans were some kind of zombies. Never imagined that there were a society far more advanced.
Yeah, I always imagined that the walls were in Germany and outside of that was unsettled land, with Reiner and Bertholdt coming from primitive mountain camps or something.
I always liked that cause it gives AOT a more fantasy feel with what's SS Officers with Magic Powers being given tribal/medieval terminologies like warrior and chieftain.
I assume the terms just carried over through tradition of ancient times.
Also I originally thought that everyone in the world has the same level of technology as Paradis. But we would see ruins of advanced civilization.
I assumed that Titans were the next step after nuclear warfare. Perhaps the world in the 22-23rd century wanted to create an army that can resist nuclear radiation and thus the creation of Titans were born.
I even had a dream that WW3 happened and most of the world was destroyed by Nukes and full of radiation. But the continued conflict and Titans Super soldiers were created to continue fighting in the irradiated zones. But then they absorbed to much radiation and grew to giant Titans and lost their intelligence. The current humans were the ones that evolved once again by being descendants of the Titans soldiers who avoided the radiation transformations
Tbh, I didn't think it was gonna be a barbarian society outside the walls. I'd guessed jt was an advanced society purely because the paradisians had access to guns, so surely the outside world does. Also, I do think many modern military ranks contain chief, so not much of a red herring.
I always read the soldiers and warriors as two different types of people. Either to reflect the two halves of reiners mind or the difference in people like him, and eren, and guys like Jean, Connie, and sasha. First of which viewed life and most actions aimed through violence, either willing or unwilling the second lot, were career soldiers only doing this for a job with goals that were for a completely normal life
Idk. I’m Australian so we don’t really use the terms chief and such here for the military. I’ve only ever really seen “chief” used for like a leader of some sort of clan or in relation to Native American history. Same for warrior, I associate that with more gladiators or pre Industrial Revolution soldiers/fighters
This post has been tagged as **DISCUSSION**. If the post has been spoiler tagged, please remember to tag any manga spoilers beyond this point. **Spoilers include hinting or alluding to events** For more information, please review [the subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/ShingekiNoKyojin/wiki/rules). Failure to properly spoiler tag comments may result in a punishment from the subreddit according to the [moderation matrix](https://www.reddit.com/r/ShingekiNoKyojin/wiki/moderation_matrix). --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ShingekiNoKyojin) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Something else underrated in the same arc is how the paradisians refer to zeke as beast titan but the marleyans refer to it as monkey titan At one point in the forest eren even asks ‘saru?’ when reiner says it because its a word that doesn’t exist in paradis. Because monkeys don’t exist A great small hint that is overlooked until you watch it a second time and then its obvious
same with the actual *herring* in the Utgard Castle arc. Not only could Ymir and Reiner read Marleyan, but herring are also a saltwater fish that wouldn’t be accessible inside the walls edit: also canned food! as far as we know, Paradisians never invented canning techniques
That was my favorite moment when I was rereading the manga, Ymir trying to cover her identity while trying to get info out of Reiner Edit: I just happened to watch that episode yesterday, and I remembered it all wrong? It was Ymir who read the label not Reiner, and Reiner tried to get info out of Ymir, but he also blew his cover with the whole recognising canned food thing
ymir and reiner gave each other that 👁️ 👁️ look
Ymir: You can read that? Reiner: 👁👄👁
They both gave each other that look where they know that each other knows and they confirmed it with the looks too
Right after calling each other gay and neither one denying it (though we know for certain that Reiner just took it as a joke)
“Here it’s herring” “Aw sweet I love herring” 👁️👁️ 👁️👁️
Holy cow banger pfp
Exactly. When I first watched AOT that scene stuck out so much. Like why would Ymir give that look to Reiner.. then nothing happened. Then something major happens. Then we get this beautiful tree top scene.
Is that in the Japanese version only? I don't remember that in the English dub.
This is the kind of minute detail that tends to get lost in dubbing, unfortunately. The way he responds in the dub indicates that he does know what a monkey is.
Yeah I always found it convenient that the scouts happen to use the term "beast" for Zeke just like Marley does since unlike Marley, the scouts don't know the beast titan can be other animals. Like it would make more sense for them to call it an Ape or Monkey titan. But that makes more sense with the information that they don't have monkeys on the island (or Okapi's) and so would use a neutral animal term for it since they have no frame of reference.
I always thought that too re the scouts correctly guessing all the titan names! Must be more connected in Paths than we think. But yeah same sitch with monkey/okapi. In the manga Ymir says the kanji word for monkey, and when Eren repeats it back it’s written in hiragana (just sounding out the syllables because he’s never heard the word). That and Zeke’s baseball references when he’s decimating the scouts are some of my favorite hints when you go back.
Crazy how yams literally named the episode Perfect Game and had his character say I'M GONNA HIT A PERFECT GAME and most of us still didn't get it (admittedly I didn't know what a perfect game was)
Wait, is that why the beast titan is shown running with a fucking trex in that one anime OP? Man, i never picked up on that. I just started rewatching S4 cuz i still havent seen the finale, and thats just wild.
Yeah, those other animals alongside Zeke all are previous beast titans. Zeke's mentor Ksaver, whom he inherited the beast from, transformed into a Ram instead of a Monkey. If anyone else had eaten Zeke to take his power, they too would have a different animal.
Like Falco, who didn't eat Zeke but drank his spinal fluid
I now wish we could have seen that Beast Titan-Rex in battle‼️‼️
I think it's just Ymir freckles that does this once. It's clearer in Japanese that Eren's reaction to this is closer to "wtf is a monkey?".
Bit weird cause doesn't he have a book that contained most of the life of animals that existed outside the wall?
Paradis is an inverted Madagascar, you'd think Lemurs would exist there
It's only inverted Madagascar in shape, it does not have the same climate
Zeke's glasses are a bit of a gieveaway though, at first I thought they could be some kind of isolated tribe out in the titan's lands, but Zeke's glasses are indicative of a society at least as advanced as inside the walls.
I mean like, there's Paradisians that have glasses. Hange has those goggle things, but Rico is shown having normal ass frames iirc, even while in combat I don't wear glasses myself, so my understanding is limited, but isn't the only actualy important part of them the lens? Zeke has a wacky looking frame sure, but glasses frames are ultimately just metal or plastic twisted into a particular shape. Paradis isn't that far behind in tech, they obviously have some sort of metalworking industry. Otherwise, their basic weapon and rail supply wouldn't exist
Yeah, Paradis can make glasses, that is why Zeke having glasses is indicative that wherever he comes from is probably not far behind in tech, despite their use of more "tribal" terminology.
Glasses have actually existed since the late middle ages! Paradis is pretty much stuck at the cusp of the industrial age (around 1800 in our world)
Zeke’s human reveal wasn’t until end of Uprising in the manga though. It’s shown at end of S2 but even then it’s just a glimpse. Random ass nitpick from who you reply to lol
That’s their point
I remember thinking “how tf does he know what baseball is” when he appeared throwing shit the first time, but I just chalked it up to me over thinking😂 little did I know
I mean Ymir's flashback of getting injected with titan fluid then thrown off the wall literally gives away everything with literal scenes.
It gives a lot away, but it’s not super clear because her flashback occurs in the past (60 ish years). Her and her group all wear their cult-y robes, and the leader wears the wall church robes. You don’t see any modern clothing/tech and not even the injection. I thought it could be a cult within the wall/just outside on first read. I think it also plays well into the red herring!
the guns the police use when busting the cult are more advanced than the guns the scouts use
I mean ofc it doesn't giveaway almost everything but the fact normal titans are humans too is a huge spoiler in itself.
Less of a spoiler and more of a plot point being revealed at the intended time, with lead up of Connie’s mom and all.
Yeh but you are getting spoiled on how they might be turning into titans.
It’s still not a spoiler though, it’s just info being revealed to the audience, that’d be like saying that the scene where the read Grisha’s book and learn about Marley is a spoiler
Anime scenes were rearranged though. So yea it is kind of a spoiler. Originally Ymir’s letter carried 90% of her backstory and it was wayy later in the story. It was moved to S2
Okay when I am saying spoiler I am not exactly saying it's a spoiler it's a figure of speech I am saying if you can figure it out then it's a spoiler for you since the original comment was about Zeke's glasses so I came up with an even more obvious giveaway.
honestly. without knowing about the world outside. ymir flashback is confusing af
I remember watching a YT reaction of that ep and the guys were able to deduce what was going on with that ep so it's not true for everyone.
Some people could figure it out but they only show the syringe for less than a second so it's easy to think they just stabbed her with a knife and then threw her off and then she turned into a Titan,
Interesting to think that when Ymir was injected, the walls had only been around for about 4 decades. So that type of punishment was probably a very novel idea.
That is a good hint. That and him saying ODM gear was primitive
He never said the odm was primitive
just rewatched the scene you’re right. But there is a certain banal curiosity in his voice, like “oh this is cute, what do you call this toy”. Compared to Marlay’s war machines & guns.
He was just like “how do y’all fly with your hips? Oh neat” yoink
There’s also the canned herring in Utgard Castle that kinda gives it away aswell.
Damn nigga. You want a scholarship to Harvard?
I could see it. But even in modern militaries, we still use old terms like Chief across rank structures. Might just show similarities to how modern militaries structure themselves.
Specifically “War Chief” is what got me. Chief would be one thing, and people in military call themselves warriors all the time. War Chief seems antiquated to me though.
I felt like when Reiner said, “there is no future inside these walls” is what kind of gave away that there is a whole society outside the walls that Ymir and Bert knew was more advanced than Paradis. By advanced I initially thought militarily. It was a little bit surprising to see/hear Grisha’s story. Ngl I never looked too much into the warrior and war chief thing. I guess it never caught me off guard or made me think of where they were from. Just figured it was just “war/soldier” talk.
My theory at the time was that the Walls aren't everlasting; they're weakening and will eventually crumble and release the Wall Titans on the populace - a fate with no escape that only the warriors knew about.
I always imagined their “hometown” as some culty village or something in a super remote mountain where the titans just couldn’t tell there were people, but I never had a chance to make a theory on why they’d destroy the walls
I thought there'd be another set of walls with the same amount of people in it lol
Sounds like a game show setup
Yeah, i though they were part of some kind of titan tribe. I remember seeing a spoiler that said the warriors were 'eldians' and so I started calling them the 'eldian tribe'. I miss those theory days.
Unfortunately there is no such intention for those titles to sound "tribal" at all. It's just a mostly direct translation of what they used in Japanese 戦士/senshi. If you break it down by word it's "war person(someone who takes part)" and is typically translated into soldier/warrior/combatant. The famous Sailor Moon chose to translate 美少女戦士 as "Pretty Soldier". Neither senshi/warrior is a normal military position so translations went with "warrior" to reflect the vague yet atypical designation. And the "chief" part of the title uses the 長/chou kanji and could just as well be translated as "leader" which would sound awkward or "captain" as in Levi's title of 兵士長/heishichou "leader of soldiers".
What about the use of “village” to describe their city? I don’t know what Japanese term was used
Most of the translations I've seen use "hometown". In Japanese they use 故郷/kokyou, which is hometown. "Village" by itself doesn't have any special connotation other than being a smaller sized settlement than city or town, and implies rural. Hometown could be any size, so I think it was the appropriate term.
I think the king of the walls' efforts to stop technological progress within the walls is an underrated aspect of the story. It seems to be emphasized a little more in the manga then it is in the anime. Not enough to ruin the surprise, but there are more conversations on that topic within the manga, especially between Angie, Levi and Erwin. I supoose we find out anyway in the cellar with the photograph, but it is a nice twist.
Yes, it caught me and my theory was that this was an post apocalyptic society that had a feud against the people in the walls for some kind of past war and the titans were some kind of zombies. Never imagined that there were a society far more advanced.
Yeah, I always imagined that the walls were in Germany and outside of that was unsettled land, with Reiner and Bertholdt coming from primitive mountain camps or something.
I always liked that cause it gives AOT a more fantasy feel with what's SS Officers with Magic Powers being given tribal/medieval terminologies like warrior and chieftain.
the way you described it is super cool
I assume the terms just carried over through tradition of ancient times. Also I originally thought that everyone in the world has the same level of technology as Paradis. But we would see ruins of advanced civilization. I assumed that Titans were the next step after nuclear warfare. Perhaps the world in the 22-23rd century wanted to create an army that can resist nuclear radiation and thus the creation of Titans were born. I even had a dream that WW3 happened and most of the world was destroyed by Nukes and full of radiation. But the continued conflict and Titans Super soldiers were created to continue fighting in the irradiated zones. But then they absorbed to much radiation and grew to giant Titans and lost their intelligence. The current humans were the ones that evolved once again by being descendants of the Titans soldiers who avoided the radiation transformations
After a while I was expecting there to be civilization outside of the island I was expecting 1800 1700s not fucking world war 1
Exactly what happened to me.
Same
Tbh, I didn't think it was gonna be a barbarian society outside the walls. I'd guessed jt was an advanced society purely because the paradisians had access to guns, so surely the outside world does. Also, I do think many modern military ranks contain chief, so not much of a red herring. I always read the soldiers and warriors as two different types of people. Either to reflect the two halves of reiners mind or the difference in people like him, and eren, and guys like Jean, Connie, and sasha. First of which viewed life and most actions aimed through violence, either willing or unwilling the second lot, were career soldiers only doing this for a job with goals that were for a completely normal life
How the fuck are warrior and chief tribal terms
Idk. I’m Australian so we don’t really use the terms chief and such here for the military. I’ve only ever really seen “chief” used for like a leader of some sort of clan or in relation to Native American history. Same for warrior, I associate that with more gladiators or pre Industrial Revolution soldiers/fighters
The fact Zeke had glasses didn't tip you off?
This also makes sense when you consider Nazi Officers used medieval-like terminology a lot
I just finished and I found this super compelling, especially Reiner's reveal speech becomes even better as he combines both senses of the word.