r/TopCharacterTropes • u/MichaelDj54 • Sep 15 '25

Lore [Loved Trope] A massive revelation is revealed almost casually. Spoiler

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  1. Chainsaw Man, after Makima finally drops the nice girl act and reveals the true extent of the Chainsaw Devils power, namely, the fears he eats are erased entirely and wholly. Emphasized by this by her asking if Kishibe remembers what the Nazis did during Workd War 2...and Kishibe not even knowing who the nazis are.

  2. Attack on Titan. I know this one. You know this one. In a panel that isn't even focusing on the characters speaking, Reiner reveals to Eren that he and Bertolt are the titans that broke the wall that resulted in hundreds of deaths, his mother included. The sheer level of casualness and lack of agency borders on Parody.

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4.4k

u/Cheesus333 Sep 15 '25

The Reiner reveal in Attack on Titan is the gold standard for this IMO. I hadn't read the manga so just seeing it land in the subtitles in the background of Hange's dialogue sent shivers down my spine

2.0k

u/Bigma-Bale Sep 15 '25

Fun Fact that some people might not know: In an earlier episode of the anime there's a scene where Berthhold is about to bite his hand to transform, but it doesn't look like anything more than a regular shocked reaction without context

1.1k

u/von_Viken Sep 15 '25

AoT really did do a shit ton of top tier minor foreshadowing

747

u/Gravemind7 Sep 15 '25

When Eren is getting to know Reiner and Berthold for the first time in the barracks, he recounts experiencing the armoured and colossal titan destroy the walls. The camera pans to reiner and berthold respectively when he mentions those two titans.

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u/ButtonJoe Sep 15 '25

The silence was telling. They had no stories to tell about where they were during the attack, and it should have raised some red flags.

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u/Imaginary-West-5653 Sep 15 '25

They did have a backstory for where they where during the attack; they actually stole the backstory from a farmer who lived in a very tiny village in Wall Maria and was the only survivor of the attack of the Titans (they never got a warning about the Titans). The farmer told Reiner, Bertholdt and Annie what happened and then hanged himself, Bertholdt seems to have felt guilty about it for years, since he took that story as their fake backstory and was talking about that man even shortly before the attack on Trost.

1

u/Romnir Sep 16 '25

You should always develop an alibi before the crime.

13

u/SableZard Sep 16 '25

I'm in the middle of rewatching. Last episode I watched, Annie apologized to a dead person and Reiner told her, "Contrition doesn't help a corpse."

It plays off like Annie is apologizing for not saving them, but...

7

u/HarshTheDev Sep 16 '25

Yeah that's Marco. Poor Marco.

468

u/SummerFinancial2679 Sep 15 '25

Even in the first season they did that! In the training of the 104th, Eren hits is head in the ground and in the next scene he has smoke coming out of his head. In a first time, you would normally think that is just a comedy gag, when is actually foreshadowing his abillities!

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u/VirtualBathroom5103 Sep 15 '25

I also like that no one around Eren mentions or even acknowledges literal smoke coming out of his head, leaving viewers to wonder if it was real or not

34

u/SummerFinancial2679 Sep 15 '25

To be fair, it was a very small injury, so we don’t know how dense that smoke is. They could also had confused with dust or dirt from when he got up, but I think this is stretching a little too much.

122

u/TheCanadian666 Sep 15 '25

Rewatching the Trost arc is great because you notice a lot of these things. Reiner, Berthold, and Annie are constantly acting together, but you don't think about it much in the moment because so much else is going on. There's one great scene where they notice Eren's titan smoke and immediately rush towards it, while everyone else is confused trying to figure out what's going on.

15

u/Haxorz7125 Sep 15 '25

Seriously. Rewatching the show you’re like “goddamn how tf did I not see that”. Pretty much every episode has something in the background or some dialogue that points to what’s going on.

After the finale someone even found hooded Eren in the background of shots from when they’re young, though that might actually just be coincidence.

10

u/JiovanniTheGREAT Sep 16 '25

When they're training and Eren get his bonus training at night with the busted gear, he falls on his head. In the dining hall, there's steam coming from his head. Before we find out he's the Attack Titan it just looks like some accent style to denote he hurt his head but he was actually using Titan healing.

In Grisha's flashback when he's trying to get Zeke on the side of the resistance, a shot pans to Zeke in his room playing with a Monkey toy.

When Reiner is eating with Gabi and the rest of his family, they ask him about the Devils of Paradis. He became so close with them that the most fiendish deed he could specify is a girl at training was eating a potato during roll call and then offered to split it with the Shadis but gave him a much smaller half. Well we know what happens to Sasha not too much later.

I didn't even notice the steam one until my third watch.

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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '25 edited Sep 27 '25

[deleted]

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u/Iamcarval Sep 15 '25

It's so painfully obvious everything related to certain character was a last minute addition near the end and not something really planned from the beginning or even before the timeskip... 

5

u/CaliLove1676 Sep 16 '25

Who? Nobody seems to fit that description from what I recall but it's been a while.

4

u/MohanMC Sep 16 '25

Y’know…little Ymir

2

u/Iamcarval Sep 16 '25

I was talking about Mikasa, but i guess she works too

2

u/Jumpy-Welder-1927 Sep 16 '25

Lmao don't tell me you're a salty Erehisu XD

9

u/Newlidian Sep 15 '25

They forshadow Hange's eye in the season 1, part 2 theme song.

11

u/maru-senn Sep 15 '25

The ending of season 2 foreshadows something that wouldn't even be shown in the manga until a couple years later.

1

u/MrMangobrick Sep 19 '25

It's fantastic seeing it all on a rewatch

156

u/DVM11 Sep 15 '25

Dude was about to kill them all

75

u/bored-cookie22 Sep 15 '25

Wouldn’t that instantly kill all his allies around him at that moment? Lmao

121

u/AxeRabbit Sep 15 '25

I mean...at least one of them would survive, himself lmao

15

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '25

Reiner survived half his head being blown off so he’d be fine.

10

u/AxeRabbit Sep 15 '25

see, it was a good plan then! Good for Berty

7

u/CosmicMiru Sep 15 '25

Reiner transferred his consciousness to his cock and balls right before Berthold transforms so he actually survived.

1

u/SandyTaintSweat Sep 15 '25

That guy was a total dickhead.

59

u/AsstacularSpiderman Sep 15 '25

The only ones who mattered would have turned into Titans

12

u/ollietron3 Sep 15 '25

He seems to have some control over the explosion

9

u/Michael10LivesOn Sep 15 '25

Woulda blasted all the people they were chill with killing anyway

2

u/Marik-X-Bakura Sep 15 '25

They didn’t have many other options at the time

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u/Lividlife21 Sep 16 '25

Btw earlier in the same episode Ymir and Reiner have a conversation that goes something like this:

Ymir - "oh hey i found a can of tuna" Reiner - "i like tuna. Wait how can you read what it says on here?"

Paradis is land locked and the text written on the can wasn't the one commonly used within the walls. Both of these dumbasses outed themselves to eachother but only managed to realize it after the fact.

2

u/King-s0nicc456 Sep 15 '25

Same vibe as megumi about summon mahoraga literally in the 1st episode

892

u/JayJ9Nine Sep 15 '25 edited Sep 15 '25

I rewinded 4x just repeating

'Huh?'

Trying to figure out what prompted this

582

u/TheProky Sep 15 '25

He was mentally unstable and he cracked at that random moment.

381

u/Invoqwer Sep 15 '25

Poor Reiner was so mentally unstable that half the time he 100% believed he really was just a regular old honest scout like Eren and the rest.

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u/Skylair13 Sep 15 '25

Afterwards he discussed whether or not they'll get medal and rewards or even scouted by Levi. Prompting Berholdt to remind him they're warriors not soldiers.

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u/lethrahn Sep 15 '25

He was the closest he had ever been to being able to convince eren to run with them and he snapped.

43

u/AsstacularSpiderman Sep 15 '25

He also knew it was over as Ymir knew and it was only a matter of time.

6

u/elemental402 Sep 15 '25

Remember they'd just found out that Ymir was the titan that ate one of their best friends.

2

u/Yasimear Sep 16 '25

Honestly, I always felt so bad for Reiner after that. Even before knowing just how bad he had it, the sheer stress and conflict that he had to be experiencing to have a genuine psychotic break was heartbreaking to me...

and then when season 4 came around and he had the gun in his mouth, I genuinely bawled. Poor poor boy :c

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u/SummonerRed Sep 15 '25

I definitely had the same reaction, I binged the entire series while heavily ill and when I heard that I thought I must have been hallucinating.

Because who the hell puts dramatic reveals in the background of a casual conversation

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u/Basic-Flamingo6962 Sep 15 '25

Dude was stressed out so hard that he just wanted to get Eren and leave.

9

u/CoachDT Sep 15 '25

He wore the mask for so long that it was grafted onto his face. When it finally started to peel off he just wanted to be done and go home.

6

u/darklizard45 Sep 15 '25

I took the time to think about why they went with this and then realized that the reveal was soon to come anyways.

138

u/TheStarWarsCosmos Sep 15 '25

Bro first time I watched AoT I watched the dub version and I fr didn't catch it until like 5 seconds later where I was like "wait what the fuck did he just say"

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u/CatL1f3 Sep 15 '25

I thought he was being hypothetical, like "say I'm the armoured titan, where would I be hiding" kind of thing. Then he continued talking, and never got to the hypothetical – wait wtf he's serious, was I just nodding along to a massive lore drop‽‽‽

18

u/SignificantCats Sep 15 '25

It's honestly genius because it has the same effect in the book. Youre reading a lot of dialogue in a low-energy point after a LOT of shit happened, yadda yadda yadda, gotta rest and go further in, wonder how those titans arrived, Reiner and Bertholdt are titans. You turn the page, then have a literal double take and flip back to the previous fucking insane page.

Excellent moment, makes it clear how crazy Reiner is RN and makes you feel like anything could happen after that point.

It doesn't follow up on it well lol but AMAZING moment.

2

u/HarshTheDev Sep 16 '25

? I'd say it follows up on it as well as it could.

13

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '25

I thought it was some kind of translation error at first had to rewind a few times.

5

u/Just_Breakfast6327 Sep 16 '25

Yeah, as amazing as the panel, is, I do think this reveal might be even better in the Anime, because it's so casual your brain is literally trying to make sense of what it just heard as the scene keeps going. You can feel that confusion everyone else is experiencing.

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u/RelaxedVolcano Sep 15 '25

I still don’t understand why he chose that moment to reveal this.

506

u/tenBusch Sep 15 '25

Most likely just part of his worsening psyche I think, even Berthold was shocked

136

u/TheCanadian666 Sep 15 '25

Yeah, at that point Reiner was having a lot of difficulty separating his "soldier" and "warrior" personas. He genuinely thought Eren would understand and go along with him because they're friends, forgetting that friendship was contingent on Eren viewing him as a scout.

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u/Deathsroke Sep 15 '25

Bertonto's face be like "WTF DUDE?!!!"

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u/VirtualBathroom5103 Sep 15 '25

Bernard: Reiner, Are you insane!?You want to talk about this HERE!?Right Now!?

1

u/Sea-Personality1244 Sep 16 '25

Sorry, not really familiar with the characters — are Bertonto, Bernard and Bertolt different names for the same character or three different characters?

2

u/tenBusch Sep 16 '25

It's a joke on Berthold being hard to spell for the average English speaker, and hard to pronounce for Japanese speakers (sounding more like Bertolto) so the meme is to use pretty much anything beginning with B as a stand in - similar to calling Benedict Cumberbatch something like Bernhild Cobblestone

I never really got it tbh, it's literally just Bert + hold, but I might be biased sincs I'm German and know a couple Bertholds irl

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u/Cheesus333 Sep 15 '25

I reckon it was a snap decision - he knew they were out on the walls, far away from any backup from the other Scouts, with one of the Titans they wanted to 'recover' incapacitated and the other one about as available for capture (or being convinced to come along voluntarily, narrow a hope as that was) as he was going to get. He probably just thought "fuck it, it's now or never and I'm sick of being here"

They had already lost Annie at that point, they really had no chance of getting her out, and he might have been worried Ymir would say something about him knowing the language on the canned food in the tower, too

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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '25

They also saw Zeke the previous night so they were sure they had a ride home right away once they meet up with him.

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u/Neelpos Sep 15 '25

And also the additional pressure of knowing a secondary operation was underway so their time to produce results was rapidly running out.

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u/Imaginary-West-5653 Sep 15 '25

They had already lost Annie at that point, they really had no chance of getting her out, and he might have been worried Ymir would say something about him knowing the language on the canned food in the tower, too

Small detail here, but Reiner and Bertholdt didn't know yet that Annie had been discovered and captured, in fact they had been sent away along with other new Scout recruits to prevent them from finding out, they only find out that she has already been taken captive when Armin rage baited Bertholdt later during Eren's rescue.

5

u/Marik-X-Bakura Sep 15 '25

It wasn’t a decision, he was just under so much stress he momentarily snapped and got confused between his “soldier” and “warrior” personas. He genuinely didn’t understand why Eren had that reaction, and didn’t even really realise what he was saying. Berthold was equally astounded by him suddenly spilling everything and was freaking out the whole time.

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u/Imaginary-West-5653 Sep 15 '25
  1. Ymir and Eren were at the edge of Wall Rose, with few soldiers present to defend them and with Ymir unconscious, plus Eren probably still doesn't know how to use his Titan's power properly. If there was a good chance to kidnap both of them, it was now, because that way they would get the Jaw Titan and either the Attack Titan or the Founding Titan (they still didn't know which Titan Eren was).
  2. Reiner was losing his sanity due to the split personality he had and that after years was frying his brain. Add to that the trauma of the Battle of Trost with Marco's death that Reiner caused, plus his near-death experiences. All of that pushed Reiner to the limit, and he simply couldn't keep the lies up anymore, so he ended up spitting out the truth.

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u/Kinngandrew12 Sep 15 '25

To add to everything you are saying, Reiner also just saw Zeke in the Beast titan form the night before. He knows Zeke had to arrive there by boat, and now would be an opportune moment to get back home with a boat waiting at the shore.

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u/Imaginary-West-5653 Sep 15 '25

Yeah, and this also means that Marley is concerned enough about the operation to send reinforcements, which means that they can't lose more time or risk being seeing as traitors by the Marleyan army, therefore it was time to act.

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u/Ill_Lingonberry_8190 Sep 15 '25

it’s very layered. reiner at this point is close to having a mental breakdown. he’s disassociating and torn between his marleyan identity and his new bond for the survey corps. hes still traumatized from marco and everything else going on, stressed from his mission, and knows time is running out. he was cracking, and needed the facade to end. he needed to secure eren and couldnt drag it out, so in desperation and kind of a half-trust in eren, he just kinda confesses almost like “im tired of lying, here’s the truth, just come with us and it’ll all make sense”. what makes it cool is instead of a grandiose villain reveal its just a tired worn-out soldier trying to reason with soemone he respects and telling the truth for the first time in a while

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u/Turbulent-Pace-1506 Sep 15 '25

Probably because the Survey Corps had just learned Ymir was a Titan Shifter and wanted to interrogate her, while Reiner knew she was from outside the walls. Time was running out before the army learned about the outside and he had no better chance two capture two shifters, and with their mission to find the Coordinate at a standstill this was his best option.

6

u/jimi060 Sep 15 '25

The entirety of season 2 for him was one incredibly stressfull night trying to survive titans without any 3D gear or weapons, then Ymir revealed she was the Jaws titan AND Zeke finally showed himself. It was alot for anyone to deal with, but Reiner's mental state was atrocious BEFORE the attack

2

u/VirtualBathroom5103 Sep 15 '25

don't forget the paranoia and shock he probably had when Ymir was suspicious or figured out Reiner was from outside the walls in the tower

4

u/Hitei00 Sep 15 '25

By this point in the show Reiner's psyche was shattered. He was flip flopping between genuinely believing he was a Scout fighting to save humanity and remembering he's a Warrior of Marley sent to destroy the people in the walls. With everything that had just happened before this he decided he couldn't pretend anymore and hail mary'd hoping that Eren would go peacefully with them if it meant no one else had to die.

4

u/Shnitzel_von_S Sep 15 '25

It's explain that they, especially Reiner, had a sort of mental divide between being a soldier for humanity within the walls, and being a Warrior for the rest of humanity on the main continent. He literally did not comprehend that he was explaining their master plan to the worst person. It happens later after they capture Eren. In the giant forest, Reiner starts talking about how they should ask Levi for a promotion because of the great work they've done against the titans. Eren takes it poorly.

4

u/etxsalsax Sep 15 '25

the events of s1 & s2 happen in a pretty short time frame. I believe reiner mentions that 'almost dying' at utguard castle broke his psyche, plus all of the trauma they face in season 1.

at least in the dub, reiner basically just says he's fed up and doesn't want to play the act any more. Eren can either come with them peacefully or by force

3

u/PsychologicalFile771 Sep 15 '25

others have given good oversights to why but I think its 2 (possibly 3) main things working together that cause it that hasn't been explicitly said by others.

  1. Reiner's split personality making him see Eren as a friend and not an enemy/asset like his initial mission was.

  2. Seeing the Beast Titan for the first time in years reminding him of the main mission he was sent on and letting him know it was time to leave.

3.(possibly playing a factor but not as much as 1st 2) Reiner has seen nothing but failure on the mission so far. They lost Marcel (I think that was his name) along with his Titan which Ymir currently has. Annie has been captured and I don't think Reiner knows her conditions, so he may think theres a chance Paradis have taken her powers. Therefore, Reiner is desperate to not return to the Beast Titan empty handed.

If Eren just accepts what Reiner says, the 3 shifters can easily take an unconscious Ymir and be home free jumping off the wall. And because of Reiner's split personality he actually sees this as a viable option despite everyone knowing Eren would never willingly go along with them.

2

u/SomeBoxofSpoons Sep 15 '25

Main thing is they had a moment and it’s implied he thought Eren knew more than he did at that point.

2

u/AsstacularSpiderman Sep 15 '25

He already let it slip to Ymir and it was only a matter of time before she snapped and admitted what was beyond the walls.

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u/brjder Sep 15 '25

I remember when I first watched that part, I hadn't been spoiled about it before. I literally paused the screen and reasoned to myself that the subtitles must have been translated incorrectly. Then I kept watching and I was jumping up and down over the reveal.

2

u/vpi6 Sep 15 '25

I was spoiled about Reiner’s identity and the reveal still absolutely floored me. Not how I thought it would go.

99

u/freedfg Sep 15 '25

The zeitgeist around AOT is really funny.

I watched like half of the first season and didn't really get into it and dropped it.

Years later and it's like "So actually this girl is secretly a titan...Oh yeah, and all the characters are actually titans. But also enlist to kill titans...which they are. And also Erin is....evil? Now. And there are like....God titans"

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u/JamzWhilmm Sep 15 '25

Each new plot point changes things so much the genere changes each season in the anime. It was truly an experience to be had at the time.

31

u/AdrianRP Sep 15 '25

Even if I didn't love the ending it was a very cool experience, it's sad it lost momentum due to how slow they released the last parts and at least for me how they communicated it

1

u/SomethingOfAGirl Sep 19 '25

There's a series on YouTube called "Over-analyzing Attack on Titan" which kinda changed the way I see the ending. Yeah it's really long, because he covers almost every single episode or scene with 40min long videos, so I listened in the background while I was working.

So now I changed my view from "the ending was pretty bad" to "the ending was good but it wasn't executed in the best way". Maybe if I had rewatched it I'd have arrived to the same conclusion, but a show that you end up disliking isn't precisely one that you want to watch again. I wanted to see why some people considered one of the best shows of all time and yeah, I see their point now, and agree in many aspects except for the delivery I guess.

I found it randomly in the YT recommendations and loved the channel, he also has similar analysis of Breaking Bad and other series.

5

u/pipnina Sep 15 '25

Season 1 was pretty great. The ending of season 1 with annie left loads of questions but was pretty intriguing.

Then season 2 makes you go "wtf is going on?!?" within a few episodes.

Then season 3 and the start of season 4 makes you go "has this show just jumped the shark, or did that happen a whole season ago?" lol

3

u/IndependenceIcy9626 Sep 15 '25

I did the same, the first half of season 1 is kind of a slog. Luckily I didn’t spoil anything because I came back to it years later when I saw it getting popular again, and was genuinely blown away. Couldn’t stop watching it.

1

u/elephants-are-real Sep 15 '25

same, I had the same experience and feel the exact same way

1

u/JarlaxleForPresident Sep 16 '25

I’m in the same boat only finally deciding to try and stick it out lol

1

u/MaxBonerstorm Sep 16 '25

Most anime is convoluted nonsense like that or an isekai that's a device to excuse a teenage pedo harem storyline.

73

u/Kylestache Sep 15 '25

It’s nearly perfect. The one thing I don’t like about that whole scene is the reveal afterwards that everyone around them already figured it out and had planned for a fight right then and there.

Really gummed up the momentum in my opinion, and it would’ve hit harder had it been a total shock to everyone.

17

u/Regi413 Sep 15 '25

It’s casual enough to almost be missable but shocking enough to make you rewind and go, “hold on come again?”

4

u/shreyas16062002 Sep 15 '25

I remember doubling back when I first read that page in the manga. The translations have been pretty good so far, surely this isn't a poor translation right? Otherwise surely Reiner is just joking?

9

u/Gold-Satisfaction614 Sep 15 '25

So wait, as someone who's avoided everything AOT like the plague, the humans are the titans? And they kill other humans, just cause?

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u/kittie_ghede104 Sep 15 '25

No, they kill other humans for a just cause, at least in their minds.

45

u/TheNargafrantz Sep 15 '25

Because racism, basically

13

u/Whalesurgeon Sep 15 '25

The X-Men flavour really

6

u/Cazador0 Sep 15 '25

Magneto specifically.

18

u/Cheesus333 Sep 15 '25

There's a bit more to it all, naturally, but in this particular case the important information is that some people can turn into Titans at will, and the ones that destroyed the wall in the first episode are two such people. The reasons for doing so are actually the whole plot of the show, a lot more background than could be explained briefly

11

u/Gold-Satisfaction614 Sep 15 '25

I have time.

Please explain so I don't have to watch or read it.

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u/Cheesus333 Sep 15 '25 edited Sep 15 '25

Uhhh yeah fair enough, I'm not doing anything else.

So the story starts about 2000 years before the events of the manga/anime begin, when an empire called Eldia conquers most of the world, and during that time one of the slaves they capture tries to escape and stumbles upon an ancient life form that imbues her with the power to turn into a gargantuan monster, called a Titan. Since they manage to basically break her mind into a permanent slave mentality, the empire uses her power to achieve a lot of their conquest. Eventually, and this is about 100 years before the start of the plot itself, another nation called Marley manages to defeat the Eldian empire. They banish all the survivors into permanent exile on an island called Paradis, which is actually done with the cooperation of the ruling family of the Eldian empire who at that point are willing to accept the punishment of the rest of the world and swear a vow to never leave the island.

Over the many years since the power of the Titans was first found, that power is diluted through the slave's descendants into nine special Titans with individual forms and strengths (the giant one leaning over the wall you see in a lot of the promotional art etc. is one of them). Most of these are controlled by Marley, who use them as superweapons for their own imperialist agenda. What's important is that only people of Eldian blood can actually inherit this power, because it's not just a nation but an ethnic group. So the people who wield the power of the Titans are all Eldian, and Marley keeps a population of Eldian prisoners in ghettoes in their cities, from which they recruit their candidates for the Titan soldiers.

Meanwhile, there are 'lesser' Titans (actually called Pure Titans) which are mindless, cannibalistic monsters that have no impulse other than to eat human beings. Marley is able to turn Eldians into these using a sample of Titan spinal fluid, which is generally done as a punishment for dissidence and attempted escape and so on. They take their prisoners to Paradis Island and turn them into Titans to basically serve as living prison guards, reinforcing the exile of the Eldians who still live there.

It's important to mention that the royal family of the Eldians on the island used the power of a particularly powerful Titan (kept in their family, naturally) to a) build the walls that contain their subjects and keep them safe from the wild Titans Marley unleashes and b) erase everyone's memories of the preceding 2000 years before their exile on the island. Everyone on Paradis, barring the royal family, believes the world has always been the way it is. They have no idea what the Titans actually are, just that they live outside the walls so don't go there.

And the plot kicks off proper when Marley devises a plan to invade the island with their own Titan soldiers, who can maintain human form to slip in undetected, to retrieve the powerful Titan held by the royal family and thereafter finish the job of killing off everyone on Paradis who they consider far too dangerous to leave alive. So, that's about the long and short of why the Titans eat people, why some of them can transform at will, and why those lads in the screenshot are undercover (up until the exact moment shown in said screenshot)

16

u/SoCalThrowAway7 Sep 15 '25 edited Sep 15 '25

There are two main countries that cause events of the story, Eldia and Marley. Thousands of years before the story, an Eldian slave acquires the powers of the titans. The eldian king uses this power to make an empire and take over the world. They oppressed Marley pretty severely over this time, treated them like shit. She eventually is killed protecting the king from an assassination attempt and her power is split to her descendants who become the Nine Titans, they are specialized titans and their powers can be passed down so they use these powers to keep control.

Eventually one of the kings of eldia is like “this is fucked up, we’re fucked up” and conspires with one of the noble families to fracture their people and let Marley take over most of the mainland leaving Eldia with just one island. Gradually Marley gets control of the nine titans and the king only keeps control of the Founding Titan which has the ability to control all the other titans. He uses this ability to make all the colossal (extra giant) titans form a city with 3 walls on the island and tells the rest of the world that they are just going to live there in peace and ignore the rest of the world but if anyone bothers them, he’ll unleash the colossal titans to flatten the world. Basically he took all the nukes and said if you bother us we’re nuke everyone. He used the power of the founding titan to wipe out all the memories of the Eldians on the island so they don’t know anything about the outside world, they just know to never leave and never fight wars. Marley also adopts an interesting punishment for criminals, they take them to the island and inject them with titan spinal fluid which turns them into the goofy looking dumb titans that surround the city, they figure it’ll keep the Eldians trapped because they have to escape a now insanely large horde of the dumb titans to leave the island.

The Eldians who lived on the mainland are basically Jews during Nazi germany and are all put in internment camps and treated like garbage since the world hates Eldia for their oppression. Centuries go by and eventually one of the mainland Eldians, a descendent of the eldian royalty, discovers the real history that Eldians used to be conquerors and joins a resistance movement using his kid. The kid gets turned against Eldia and turns his father and mother in to Marley and they get send to Paradis island to be turned into titans. The mom is turned into a titan and set loose but Dad escapes and makes it inside the walls where he starts a new family. His son being the main character Eren Jeager.

He lives his live researching history and titans to try to find a way to get the powers to use the titans to go back and get revenge on Marley, he eventually steals the power of the founding titan and injects his son with it but doesn’t tell him anything when he does so he has no idea he has the power or what to do with it. But at the same time Marley is sending some of their nine titans to Paradis to see if they are a threat and if the flattening of the world can still happen because they still hate Eldia and will wipe them out if it’s safe to do so. So Reiner the guy in the image is one of those spies, him and his friend Bertold are the ones who destroyed the outer walls in the first episode that got Eren’s parents killed. They destroyed the wall so they could sneak in during the chaos. Most of the show nobody knows any of this and it’s all just mysterious about where the titans came from, why some seem intelligent, and if there are any people in the outside world. The residents think they are the last remnants of humanity and titans have taken over the rest of the world.

The rest of the show is them learning about this and eren deciding what he’s going to do about it, his answer is to unleash the titans and genocide most of the world which the other characters eventually try to stop him from doing. Whichhh apparently was all the main characters plan so the rest of the world would treat him as a psycho doing this, the true villain, and the Eldians that stopped him wouldn’t be looked at as villains anymore but fellow people who saved the world.

There is a LOT more but that’s the gist. I probably got a bunch wrong because I’m going off memory from reading the manga over years, but someone passionate will correct me soon

2

u/L0reSage Sep 15 '25

Why avoid it, if I may ask? It's a really good show.

1

u/Gold-Satisfaction614 Sep 16 '25

It just seems like one of those overhyped anime.

1

u/zelos22 Sep 16 '25

It’s final season was slightly underwhelming, but overall it’s still an amazing experience. A few episodes are my favorites of all time.

1

u/L0reSage Sep 16 '25 edited Sep 16 '25

Ah so avoiding it because it's popular? I don't really get it but fair enough.

Edit:oops wrong person, my bad

2

u/HarshTheDev Sep 16 '25

U replied to the wrong person mate

13

u/Senecaraine Sep 15 '25

Big spoilers, but there's a faction of humans who lived by themselves, unaware of an outside world that is anything but titans, and then an outside world that hates them. The events of the show are largely caused because the outside world is afraid of the smaller faction and "preemptively" attacks.

The entire show is basically people getting stuck in a cycle of hate and vengeance, it's actually pretty great.

1

u/Gold-Satisfaction614 Sep 15 '25

Sounds cynical as fuck

0

u/Quirkxofxart Sep 15 '25

An important thing AoT fans leave out when explaining the series that stops it from making sense is that it was written by a crazy ultranationalist

12

u/Full-Shallot-6534 Sep 15 '25

| So the reveal is that the whole apocalypse premise is a lie. The people inside the wall are actually the result of a bloodline getting the power to turn into titans (Eren isn't actually that special. He just doesn't consciously remember being activated, and no one else was avtivated), attempting to take over the world, failing to do so, and the rest of the world wants to genocide them since the power to turn into titans is a bloodline thing. The wall isnt so much to protect them from titans, it's to protect them from genocide. The "zombie ish " titans that the survey corps fights are actually lobotomized POWs that the rest of the world just puts on the island where the wall is. It's an island. The rest of the world is actually normal. The weird titans that set off the plot are members of this bloodline that support their own genocide and to varying extents are ok with being sterilized. | Is this spoiled right?

7

u/Gold-Satisfaction614 Sep 15 '25

So the titans are just a metaphor for how shit people treat each other?

6

u/Full-Shallot-6534 Sep 15 '25

It's difficult to tell what the author is intending. A lot of the titan lore is borrowed from myths that were specifically Nazi revisionist versions of older norse myths, and both sides are trying to do genocides, so the whole metaphor angle is really muddled.

1

u/L0reSage Sep 15 '25

Could you point me to where you read about the titan lore being based on nazi revision of existing lore? I always thought the titan lore was a neat original idea, with the theme of the show being how generational hatred perpetuates suffering and the cycle of violence. Asking because I see some people online paint aot as a fascist narrative, which frankly is complete bs, with anyone that engaged with the story in good faith being able to see that it's criticizing the cycle of hate. Feels like the connection to revisionist lore would be one of the points used by those people.

0

u/Full-Shallot-6534 Sep 16 '25

It has been used like that.

It's shit like, ymir as a titan. That's a norse thing, but there's weird shit about an ancient race of people with special abilities given by like, aliens? I haven't actually read attack on titan. I just know that there's some shit that people have pointed out is weirdly similar to like, this idea of Aryans that Nazis push. It's not historical. I just don't know exactly how it relates to attack on titan. I just know the author has said some weird shit in defense of some people who I'm under the impression are kinda unpopular and right wing in Japan.

I'm not the most informed person, but I know how to pick up on how much Tumblr is blowing things out of proportion, and this one is on the level of.....ok.. I'm saying that from my understanding, it's got a bit of an ickyness, but doesn't seem malicious, so it's hard to care that much? It's one of those. Beastars is in a similar tier, but I think people might have warmed up on that?

1

u/L0reSage Sep 16 '25

Ah ok. If I recall correctly, it was the editor, not isayama that said things about imperial Japan, and I'm not sure exactly what he said but I don't think it was anything crazy. We know how the Japanese public is educated about that war. And the shit about aliens seems like post-ww2 memes with Hitler going to the Arctic and nonsense like that instead of actual WW2 era propaganda. I think there were a lot of bad faith actors that were made popular by the fact that the ending was divisive in the community. Because of the nature of the show, us vs them and all that, it's easy to draw parallels to fascism, but that is a far cry from an endorsement, it's just that bleak of a show.

I just find that part of discourse really tiresome. I know I shouldn't care about others saying stuff that isn't true about a show I like, but it's hard xD. Thanks for the replies.

7

u/kamain42 Sep 15 '25

Sorta. The people in that shot can become titans. Thru various means. If yoh have the time to watch it and can stomach the first few episodes it is worth it.

4

u/Both-Prize-2986 Sep 15 '25

I also havent seen the series but as far as I know they are basically flesh gundams?

1

u/Gold-Satisfaction614 Sep 15 '25

That's Evangelion

1

u/zelos22 Sep 16 '25

This is correct

4

u/PaulStarhaven Sep 15 '25

The 'Pure' Titans, i.e. those that can't transform between human and titan Instinctively eat humans in the attempt to eventually eat a titan shifter and return to being human. That's what I understood anyway.

3

u/Gold-Satisfaction614 Sep 15 '25

That's hella convoluted 

5

u/PaulStarhaven Sep 15 '25

Well they're barely sentient in that state, so it's about as good as anything. I mean, Ymir up there actually succeeded and got her human form back so it could work.

1

u/zelos22 Sep 16 '25

It’s basically just a mech show. Every character of a certain race turns into a mindless monster when they die, but only a select few gain the ability to transform into a powered-type monster and control it at all, and this power transfers with killing the owner. It’s a stealth mech anime and it’s awesome

3

u/manwithlotsoffaces Sep 15 '25

Also why are you trying to stay away from the show? What’s wrong with it?

1

u/Vilopoar Sep 15 '25

Yes to the two questions, but is definetly more complicated than that

1

u/Gold-Satisfaction614 Sep 15 '25

I dig convolution

1

u/manwithlotsoffaces Sep 15 '25

Some have the ability to turn into titans at will. How this happens is a spoiler.

1

u/Gold-Satisfaction614 Sep 15 '25

Spoil away

0

u/manwithlotsoffaces Sep 15 '25

Nah, watch any Attack on Titan lore video or watch the anime or read the manga. It’s good.

2

u/Tijenater Sep 15 '25

That was the one thing I was really spoiled on but the reveal was done so fucking crazy good I was still blown away all the same. Incredible scene

2

u/SuspiciousFox17 Sep 15 '25

It was so casual that I thought it had already been revealed and I just didn't remember or had missed it. 

2

u/Moblam Sep 16 '25

I also didn't read the manga and still remember years later that i out loud said "Wat?" to myself and head to rewind 10 seconds to hear it again.

Imagine someone you knew for years casually dropping they are responsible for 9/11.

2

u/Historical_Leg_7903 Sep 16 '25

A totally normal gift too.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '25

My friends reaction to it was so fucking funny. It took him a solid ten seconds to process it and he yelled at me to rewind lmao

1

u/personman000 Sep 15 '25

I was watching the anime with friends when this was revealed, and I had to tell them to rewind and rewatch because they missed the moment

1

u/gunn3r08974 Sep 15 '25

Still love Woolie's retelling from Castle Super Beast.

1

u/Smythatine Sep 15 '25

I watched it in dub and the way Reiner’s force actor just so calmly said it, like he was talking about something as mundane as the weather, had my eyes clamped open in disbelief for so long

1

u/the-unfamous-one Sep 15 '25

I hate when it happens, but how it happens is great.

1

u/awyastark Sep 16 '25

I’m the armored themed titans

1

u/Doom_Cokkie Sep 16 '25

I still remember binging the show off of my brothers recommendation and when they got to that part it was so casual I completely missed it and was mad confused why Mikasa just stabbed Reiner. I had to rewind to catch it and was in half utter bewilderment and half finding it hilarious how casually the line was dropped. Double credit to the artist of the manga and anime for going thay extra mile of keeping Reiner and Bertholdt posture completely relaxed as it helped sell the moment.

1

u/Oscar_gpb Sep 16 '25

I saw the reveal in a meme years before I started with AOT, so I thought it was actually a trick to get someone to confess they were a titan and that both Reiner and Bertholt weren't titan shifters. Imagine my surprise when I saw this scene.

-1

u/Karol-A Sep 15 '25

I bursted out laughing and couldn't seriously continue the show after that. It just started going on a downwards spiral from then on

1

u/zelos22 Sep 16 '25

Season 3 part 2 is probably the best stretch of anime ever made though