You can't go back again.
Spoilers ahead.
This is it, folks.
This is the point where I have given up on the series.
Oh, don't get me wrong, my friends have ensured that I'd be seeing this turkey all the way through, but this? Episode 8? For me? This is where I've departed the "Giving a Shit" Train because this show has flushed its credibility down the pooper.
Let's talk about Eren coming back to life, and why it destroys this show's credibility.
First, I will note that I am aware of why it is that Eren has come back to life here– because in this purportedly "realistic" universe, his father conducted some sort of experiment on him that allows him to become a Titan whenever he's been wounded enough to start bleeding. I'll have to also assume that it needs to be accompanied by extreme emotional duress, but let's face it, when ISN'T Eren in extreme emotional duress? We're shown that's how it works later on in the series, but this being the method of transformation raises a few questions.
Namely, HOW IS IT THAT THIS DIDN'T HAPPEN BEFORE?!
This can't be the only time he's bled and got upset about it since his father's bullshit Titan experiment! How come he's never changed sooner? Why does it take him being eaten by the bearded Titan for him to finally transform?
Look at this! He's clearly bleeding from the top of his head! He also looks pretty damn upset! Why didn't the little putz hulk out then?! Hell, just a moment ago, he got his leg bitten off by a random Titan while flying through the air with the greatest of ease! I can't help but feel like Eren becoming a Titan was a huge fucking cop-out, as if Isayama thought to himself,
"OH NO, THE STORY MIGHT BE ABLE TO PROGRESS WITHOUT THE WHINY, LOUDMOUTHED SOCIOPATH WHO THE UNIVERSE REVOLVES AROUND! WE CAN'T VERY FUCKING WELL HAVE THAT, NOW CAN WE?! Now what kind of bullshit can I conjure up to bring him back to life...?
What? It's not as if he really devoted the time to dropping hints at what his father was doing to him in these experiments. After all, the plot convenience juice in the syringe had wiped out his memory of what happened! There's no buildup, no reason for we, the audience, to think Eren was capable of transforming into a Titan. Yeah, it's a surprise, because it comes straight the fuck out of nowhere.
Hell, even the Berserk Titan was a huge Deus Ex Machina, and honestly, Isayama wouldn't have to make this much Deus Ex Machina Bullshit if he could just decide if he wants his entire main cast to die or not, because I can't think of any other reason for him to make the Titans so numerous and so ridiculously invulnerable except from an exacto-blade cut to the nape of the neck (I've read that decapitation sometimes does work, but the fact that there are times where it doesn't is all kinds of stupid, especially given that the weakness does have to do with the spinal chord).
But hey, maybe you're tired of hearing me argue about the mechanics of these fictional giant naked people. "Come on," you might say to me, "You're being nitpicky and expecting realism from an animoo, and you should suspend your belief entirely and just enjoy the story!"
I'M SO GLAD YOU BRING THAT UP, BECAUSE THIS WHOLE THING ACTUALLY DISRUPTS THE STORY, TOO.
Let's forget for the moment that suspension of disbelief requires the universe to have rules and to follow those rules. This show was so close to showing that it meant serious business. From the beginning, along with the ludicrous weaknesses and the idiotic contrivances to make them harder to kill, the Titans were shown to be a threat to humanity's survival, and the eventual hand of their extinction. This show's going to eventually try to feed us the "Humans are the real monsters" tripe you see in every zombie apocalypse movie, even though virtually all the fighting we see is with the Titans. The Titans are the ones killing people.
As I've said numerous times, the thing that seemed to give this show credit was that the stakes were high and no one was safe. Eren getting killed should've been a gesture to that respect. Eren is the symbol of pure passionate anger and slamming against a problem and hoping that, if he hits it hard enough, it'll get solved. Having him be gone shows that, for a problem like this, slamming up against it isn't going to work. With Armin taking over the show, it becomes about humans overcoming this problem through ingenuity and clever thinking (no one dare try to compare Eren's dad's experiment with Armin's ingenuity, what Eren's dad was doing was a contrivance– what Armin does actually makes sense). Humanity needs to use its wits to win. Force hasn't helped them before and it won't help them now.
Except now it does.
Eren comes back to life, and this whole thing is just gone. The symbol of slamming his face into the problem and hoping to solve it that way comes back to life.
"No one is safe" no longer applies here. The stakes are no longer completely death for him because now, we know, as an audience, that Eren will be snatched from the clutches of oblivion by the author whenever the whim suits him.
Eren is safe. Eren is without error.
The universe does another turn around him.
I'm sorry, Attack on Titan. You have failed.
You have failed to thoroughly create your grim, dark future. You have failed to make me believe the main cast is in any real danger. You have failed to follow through on your threats. You have nearly successfully convinced me that no one was safe, then you flushed that down the toilet. You've tipped your hand and showed me you have nothing. Your stakes are meaningless. Whatever confused theme you were trying to convey is now muddled by the fact that death does not apply to some people.
You've made your antagonists too invulnerable for believability, and the only way you could resolve that was to make your protagonists even more unbelievably invincible. The Titans are protected by their idiotically conceived physiology, and the Main Cast is protected by Narrative Magic. My suspension of disbelief for a universe that was already straining it has completely shattered. I now know you're just pulling this story out of your ass.
It's not a mystery anymore. You don't know what you're doing, and you don't deserve to have any more of my time wasted on you.
I'll still finish this shit stain of a series, but bear in mind that I'm doing it knowing its credibility is destroyed. Killing Eren won't solve this gaping hole in the narrative. They had their chance, and they missed it– they've made him too invincible to make killing him believable. As far as I'm concerned, this series is already over and it's whining its last breaths and milking its death scene for all its worth.
Timere Defectum.
Attack on Titan belongs to Hajime Isayama. Hulk belongs to Marvel.
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