Chapter Shingeki no Kyojin 139 FINALE Chapter Discussion

[Hard_Rock]

 

[Farfalla]

Yeah that's a grim ending...

 

[Len1k]

fk time line

 

[kkck]

Wait, wtf?

So... mikasa met ymir after eren died... And ymir was looking through her eyes? The fuck does that mean? Is that why mikasa had headaches?

Also... paradis got destroyed regardless? Seems like it happened at least some 80 years later but still...

 

[Asako]

It's kinda depressing but realistic..... War will always come back


But fuck that, the cylce is back.... I seriously wanted the curse to break for all the sacrifices it had to reach there..... Arghhhh

 

[kkck]

I mean, the parasite died but... it laid eggs? or eren was the egg? Or his head was the egg? What about the rest of his body?

 

[Asako]

I think it's more the centipede than eren himself considering how ymir found the same tree the same way

 

[Farfalla]

Yeah the centipede kinda disappeared in the last chapter and people even meme'd it, I guess that's why it went off-screen.

 

[Karnak]

WTF! I already said goodbye to this manga and now this.... not really happy with this mini chapter!

It made it seem like everything in the manga was pointless. It reeks of fanfiction and a cash grab by Kodansha to me. I'll just ignore and say it ended where it did last month instead of this

 

[Shad]

Since it was really hard to get over SnK ending I wasn't following the discussion about this new images added to the final chapter.

But now that it seems to be finished, I'm very confused.

Maybe Ymir's physical body was the centipede they fought?
Similar to the way shifters drive titans, and to how Zeke spawned from the founding titan and got himself killed by Levi (I'm still confused about the physics behind that).

Mikasa is dead, what happened to the ackerman super powers, did they disappear with the titans? or are Mikasa's kid still can kick ass?

I'm so confused, didn't Mikasa bury Eren near the tree where he used to sleep? Is this the same tree? Why is there a door in this tree? Did nobody wonder what inside that tree for a 100 years until this new war happened and the tree found by a random hiker?

 

[Farfalla]

I don't think Ymir is necessary for titan power to be on Earth, the point that could hint at a continuation is how close to the tree where Ymir found the centipede the one where Eren was buried looks like in the future when Paradis is destroyed.

Idk I think I'm really bummed about Miura's passing, and I wasn't even a fan of the series ('cause I've never read it)... Made me feel further like cherishing what we get from the talented mangakas while we still get the blessing of getting it... Had conflicting feelings over a continuation at first but I guess I'm just longing for future work from Isayama.

 

[toru]

A few days ago I finished Attack on Titan
I don't think the last episode was that bad.
But their fans are getting really annoying
As if they draw the manga themselves
Isayama really sees this and gets upset (in my opinion)
If I make an overall score, I would give 7.5 / 10

 

[Felruci]

wait did Mikasa marry? Who's baby she holding? Seems like there was another woman there too. Might be old friends coming with her to visit.

I can't do nothing but laugh looking at the few panels near the end with the extra imgs released.

 

[XXGenesis]

Ok many are again being very ungrateful and annoying with their criticism....However; The emotions may just be warranted this time.

Isayama after hearing all the naysayers about his original ending; decided to add 8 more pages.

8 more pages that do not clear up a damn thing!!!! They add more unsettled mysteries & doesn’t explain what is shown which leaves, us with an very very open interpretation; when we didn’t need that nor should we have it at the end.

All in All, I’m not mad Paradise was destroyed lol, It’s the whole Tree thing; It’s the whole Mini convo with Ymir; Mikasa never forgot about Eren, Damn Jean is fully aware he’s #2 in her heart. The Centepide, where did you go and why is eren’s grave a Tree

This ending imo just gave AOT....GOT vibes
That’s not good; Sadly ending of the story takes quite a bit away from the ride, which was great; Overall the main story of AOT I think losses itself and a mediocre outcome is presented at the end;

 

[Eigengrau]

Well, I'm finally here, after quite a long time...
I managed to go into the last chapter 100% blind, so that was good.
But after finishing the first time around, I decided to let it "sit" in my head for a while, I avoided looking at discussions, threads, headlines, etc. (although that's not something that could be totally avoided) because I didn't want stuff to influence my opinion in the least.

Procrastinations also had a bit to do with it, but yeah... I'm finally here to leave a thought or two, almost 2 months later.

In a nutshell, I'm totally fine with the ending.
Was it the best ending ever, of all time? Not really.
Was there room for a better, improved ending? I guess.
But as someone who's been reading since 2012, I'm 100% satisfied with the ending, and have no problems with it.

For the past few years, I've been saying a lot of things that proved to be true (I wasn't the only one, obviously), such as:

- by the time the story ends, the Titan powers will be no more; this one was obvious. I mean, Titan powers still being a thing by the end would defeat the entire purpose, so it came as no surprise to me. Predictable, yes I guess, but it was obvious that the story was heading down this path;

- Eren dying; even if Eren did all this because "there was no escaping the future he saw" and/or he was only doing it for the rest of the world to band together against him, there was 100% no way for him to be redeemed after all the death that he caused. He had to die, and there was absolutely no sort of salvation for him;

- Connie, Jean, and all the others being un-turned, and reverting back to their human forms: this one is a no-brainer. IF they had been transformed more than 1 chapter before the end, then MAYBE there might've been room for some doubt, but it would've been absolutely non-sensical for all of them to be turned only for the Titan powers to go extinct in the next chapter/a few minutes later, and them all dying like that. That would've made no sense whatsoever. So everyone reverting back was to be expected as well. Had this happened a few chapters before, then their "deaths" would've had more impact I guess, as opposed to 1 chapter before the end.


Also part of the reason I decided to hold off before talking about the chapter, was in part due to some of the "reception" that I saw... like so-called "fans" threatening Isayama and his staff... I saw and heard about some really despicable, disgusting things.

I'm not too sure what the reception was like here since I haven't had the time to fully catch up on all the replies, but yeah...


But yeah anyways, I liked it.

When it got to the end, with the bird wrapping the scarf, and then flying away, and we see its wing, and when I read "the end", I don't know, it kinda really hit me in the feels. Like, that was it, that was the end, and I think it ended on a really bittersweet note.

I hope the anime ends like that, not too sure about those extra pages. I'm glad we got those since they're interesting, but idk.

That's it for now I think.

 

[Shad]

@Eigengrau reception here was luck warm, I'm personally of the opinion to not think too much about it and instead wait for it to be animated and voice acted, I guess every fan is coping with SnK ending differently.

 

[SonOfDaws]

Well, I thought it was about time I leave my current thoughts on the finale.

This isn't the type of ending I would have imagined at the start, but this series, this ending included, has an enormous amount of meaning packed into it and delivered upon what the series always said it was: Intentionally like ours, the world of Attack on Titan was cruel yet beautiful.

After Eren's painfully understandable yet monstrous actions, the people and world we've been following throughout the story did not go on to be perfect and flawless, but they did go on and people could live lives full of the meaning.


That said, I understand why some people are upset with the ending and I think it is in fact due to a flaw of Attack on Titan's ending: Hajime Isayama went to great pains and lengths to establish the nature of the world or, rather, the psychological nature of the people that live in the world and did so masterfully, but the lack of a proper hero to root for or an emphasis on any one particular journey meant readers and viewers are bound to feel less grounded in a world, less willing to stay in it, and less likely to feel with said characters.

Isayama turned the hero's journey on its head beautifully and the story is more rich than the vast majority of most hero stories, however, the hero's journey has been beloved and prominent throughout human history because a person is more like a hero on a journey than a world that contains many great journeys. A love story is similar in that the journey is to find and manage love, similar case goes for a "coming of age" stories, and many others; goals are built from the start and clear. So, while not focusing heavily on a typical, cliche "quest" can lead to a lot of meaningful storytelling, it does make it harder for readers to feel empathy and satisfaction in the story. If the typical hero story beats were paid more mind in SnK, then as @desin24 pointed out with his Naruto example, the readers and viewers would feel satisfied as they can see a hero or heroes have their clearly defined start, build up, and end goals get achieved accompanied by more satisfaction.

AoT flipped the goal to be achieved on its head and didn't reestablish what the end of the journey should actually look like: It's hard for a hype train to easily pull into the station when it's hard to tell if the train's on a track at all, even if its actually been on the same track for some time.


Still, many of the remaining main characters were shown to have returned to or found some sort of happiness and/or meaning, even if the source of happiness they're returning to obsessing over an old, hopeless crush.

The explosive growth and technological development implying successful negotiations, trade between the nations, and multiple generations of life.

Still, our world and theirs are inherently cyclical due to human behavior and there is no one everlasting, perfect solution. This is a message that the series has been trying to hammer home since the plot first hammered Eren's home, before that even. If things can't go wrong, then there would be little meaning found in them going right. The meaning-filled life Armin spoke of and lived would not have been possible if it weren't also possible for things to eventually go wrong and for unfair deaths and destruction to occur like we saw at the end of this final chapter.

Still, this is a situation that Isayama has been trying to get us to understand that it will keep happening, even if a world absent of titans, with titans, if Eren and Ymir never did the rumbling, and even if Eren and Ymir succeeded with the rumbling. The series has also made sure to make note of what should happen with the boy and the world tree seen at the end:

( The following manga pages are all sourced from https://ww7.readsnk.com/ and the quote is from here. )


"Why did things end up this way?

Spoiler

Having your mind and body rot away,

Spoiler

Having your freedom taken away,
Losing your sense of self...

Spoiler

Anyone who knew they'd end up this way

Spoiler

Would never step foot on a battlefield

Spoiler

But something pushes them onward.

Spoiler

And they all walk into hell anyway.

Spoiler

Usually that something isn't their own will.
The conditions and people around
them leave them with no choice.

But people who push themselves onward see a different sort of hell.

Spoiler

They're looking at something past that hell.

Spoiler

It might be hope,

Spoiler

Or it might be yet another hell.

Spoiler

Only the people

Spoiler

Who keep moving forward

Spoiler

Can know for sure."
- Eren Yeager / Hajime Isayama, Shingeki no Kyojin.

​

 

[Reinhard_Lohengramm]

wait did Mikasa marry? Who's baby she holding? Seems like there was another woman there too. Might be old friends coming with her to visit.

I can't do nothing but laugh looking at the few panels near the end with the extra imgs released.

We don't know with whom is she married to. Some people speculate it's Jean because a) the guy from behind does looks like Jean; and b) we knew Jean was attracted to Mikasa, but she ignored him in favor of Eren, now that he's gone, perhaps there was a a slight chance for him to get her attention.

And yeah, the extra pages added nothing and personally only furthened my dislike for the ending, specially suggesting that the curse of titans may still activate, even after all these years. I don't like the kind of message was trying to send us, or at least the message I think he was trying to convey.

--- Double Post Merged, Sep 20, 2021, Original Post Date: Sep 20, 2021 ---

On the bright side, I liked how Levi got a somewhat...happy ending?