If there is one thing in particular that I would fault Attack on Titan for, it would be that the author is bad with characterisation. When looking over how characters develop in the series, this normally happens in one of two ways. Either the character has a flashback or another character just starts a verbal dissection of someone’s character right to their face. In this episode we have evidence of both these things at work with starting off with as flashback to the scouting corps winter training which we never saw before and Ymir outright berating Crista over what she surmised was her wish to die while doing something perceived as heroic. I dislike this matter of character development as it pretty much ignores the fact of how utterly obnoxious this kind of thing would be to a genuine person. Imagine if you will, some random coworker coming up to you and insinuating about your character based on their personal observation.
It would be annoying because who is this random person to judge and quite frankly, nine times out of ten they would be completely wrong. The readers of this blog can insinuate a lot about my character by how I write these posts, but I am fairly certain you would be far off the mark on who I truly am no matter how closely you read. When you get down to it these outbursts are not for the character benefit as after all they just sit and take it. This is for the audience’s benefit as someone verbally lays out this character’s motivations and intent bare. When it comes to matters like this, less is more and if you have reached the point where you need to verbally explain someone’s character to the audience then I think you have failed as a writer. At least when it comes to the visual medium.
Well this episode has Ymir defending the remaining people just in time for the rest of the scouting corps to arrive to save the day. Other than that we have a flashback to Ymir and Christa’s training days which serves to explain that they both have trouble with family. In Christa’s case it seems her family name holds a large amount of importance if the priests of the wall is to be believed. Ymir looks to be dead but considering titan regeneration it’s possible she could walk this off. I do believe that Eren managed to regrow an arm in the first season. Speaking of which he finally killed his first titan using 3D gear which really goes to illustrate just how much of the kid is talking the talk but not walking the walk. In the titanverse he admittedly hasn’t been in the corps for that long but for someone who oh so boasted about killing all titans, this is suitably pathetic. But oh, is that just Eren. He has always been the character to speak grander than he can deliver. Which makes his pairing with Mikasa, who has the skill to live up to such promises, all the more fitting. Eren is all ego, no action. Mikasa is all action, no ego. When thinking about it this does make you question just what is more important in this kind of dire situation. To be a person who says what needs to be said or someone who can do what needs to be done? Admittedly not much happened aside from that, this was mainly an episode focused on Ymir and Christa. I will say that shot of Christa face when saying her name to Ymir was quite beautiful.
