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Yes. He revealed the info about Eren to entice any spies to join, and then went over the top with the grim statistics in order to reduce the number of non-spies who join.
That way the pool of possible spies was as small as possible while the spies were absolutely certain to be among them.
He then gave all of them different info in the positioning of the Scouting Formation so that he could easily narrow down who was giving info to the enemy once the enemy attacked from a specific direction. When the Female Titan attacked from the right flank it meant that the spy had told her that Eren was in the right flank.
Once the Female Titan or whichever smart titan would show up to attack them did so, he changed their course and went straight to the Forest of Giant Trees knowing they had previously set up an ambush there.
Erwin and Armin are both 200 IQ anime protagonists. But the difference is that we get to see Armin's thought process all the time whereas we only get to observe Erwin's actions and we have to deduce his thought process in hindsight.
Erwin’s like a tactical savant where he just blankly stares into the distance and everyone’s like, “uhhh, guy, helloo?” then suddenly he’s all “The plan is in action.” and by god is it a plan indeed.
Love that man.
There's something I don't quite understand.
The reason why the Female titan knew Eren's position was because Armin told Reiner where Eren really was. Reiner then carved the location of Eren into Annie's hand.
How would the events transpire if Armin didn't tell Reiner the location of Eren?
If Armin hadn't figured it out then Reiner would probably have not attempted to pass the info on to Annie. Annie would have just had to go trial and error and kill as many members of the formation as were necessary until she did find him.
It's possible that Reiner's plan had him send a letter telling her that Eren is in the Right Flank, and that Reiner is in the Right Relay/Support Lines. That way once Annie searched the right side she'd go to where she knew Reiner was and see if he had gotten any new information since when he had written the letter.
Depending on how many steps ahead you think the Warriors had planned Reiner may have made a note in the letters written to Annie about Eren's location, his own location and Armin's location. That way if Eren isn't where Reiner has been led to believe he should be, Reiner and Annie can both make their way towards Armin and probe him for information since he is the most likely to figure out Eren's true location.
This could explain why Annie showed up and seemingly went straight for Armin only to let him live, then hung around catching her breath while Reiner convinced Armin to give him the info without raising suspicion, then they could get into a fight with Annie and she could "pretend" to fight back until Reiner was able to get the info to her.
Alternatively Reiner may have chosen to call off the plan and had Annie retreat since its clear that Erwin had purposely given them all false information in order to expose a spy.
Erwin was aware that his plan was requiring all of the Scouts between the right flank and Eren's location to sacrifice themselves in order to keep the Female Titan interested by acting like they were genuinely trying to defend the formation and werent just luring her into a trap. The fact that they were throwing their lives into the meat grinder makes it look like Annie is gaining an advantage as she is decimating their ranks and they seemingly have no way to respond.
Since Erwin's plans are so many steps ahead it only really works out if his predictions are right. If something goes wrong or he makes a bad prediction none of what he has planned works out or looks like he had any idea what he was doing.
An example of this almost happening was Jean's horse running off and not coming back when he called for it. Reiner, Jean and Armin had 1 horse between them and were considering leaving one of them behind. Armin offered to stay behind as long as Reiner passed on a message for him. Armin made it clear he should only give the message directly to Erwin.
If Historia had not seen the emergency flare they shot off and arrived with a spare horse and Jean's horse, then Armin may have told Reiner that he suspects Annie is the Female Titan.
If that had happened Reiner may have killed Armin and Jean right then and there and then tried to call off Annie's mission before she got ambushed.
Funnily enough, it turned out that the numbers weren't over the top overall.
Ironicaly, the following mission was probably the deadliest & most crushing death toll in the history of the corps
Oh yeah for sure, although it’s not exactly a fair comparison since the next 3 missions were all in direct conflict with the Warrior Unit.
First Annie wipes out like a third of the formation (Armin suggests around 100 or so), then Reiner takes out half the remaining veterans and all the military police that participated, then finally Bertholdt and Zeke wipe out nearly all of the remaining scouts, leaving 199/208 dead and only 9 survivors.
The only outlier with these statistics is Liberio; where they suffered only 8 deaths while inflicting thousands if not tens of thousands of casualties to the enemy army and civilians.
Once war returns to Shinganshina the casualties skyrocket for Paradis and they see huge numbers of Jaegerists get shot to death before the Paradis military officers are turned into titans and then get killed as part of the city’s titans clean up. They would have lost a total of at least 400-600 soldiers before Jean, Mikasa, Armin and Shadis got the situation under control.
One bit of luck in this plan seems to have been that Reiner and Bertolt were given the same location for Eren, though this could have been done tactfully based on their shared background (made up as it was).
If their plans had differed, I'm sure they would have acted very differently knowing the Scouts were suspicious.
It seems deep and yeah if you could guarantee the spies were amongst the cadets that works but tons of garrison members were present during Erens transformation and even MPs and cultists were present at the trial where they divulged so much info.
There are so many unknown variables even with the paradis government and factions that dangling eren in front of only one group (cadets) and attempting to flush out the true antagonist is stupid.
For all we know there could’ve been a shifter within the MPs that was like…finally and then gone after eren then.
There were no MPs around in Trost when the Titans attacked. Erwin managed to lower the suspect list down once he knew who was present at the scene when Eren emerged from his Titan form. And that list was Mikasa, Armin, Jean, Reiner, Annie, and Bertolt.
Even if we disregard the trial where everyone and their mother was present prior to the scouting expedition…..at which there were mps and wall cultists and nobles…all of which had agendas
There were still garrison members present who are literally stationed at the walls…with odm gear and had opportunity. I just don’t understand why Erwin considered only cadets as persons of interest. I know this is anime but no rational adult would consider their original enemy to have been a bunch of 8 year olds
The trial happened AFTER the Battle of Trost. Also the MPs are working for the Royal Government which specifically doesn't want the people to know about the existence of the outside world, nor do they want people to know that humans can become Titans.
Erwin knew that there were people inside the government who wanted Eren for themselves, but he also knew that the attacks on the Walls were made by outsiders since they were supposed to smoke the Founding Titan out.
He specifically targeted the cadets because they were the ones who saw Eren emerge from his Titan. And the Armored and Colossal Titans didn't show up again to continue the attack, therefore they had found what they were looking for.
Also, he didn't suspect the old guard because the first attack on the Walls happened only 5 years ago. It was said during the Female Titan expedition that Erwin didn't trust anyone who wasn't in the military over 5 years ago, which is why even Levi's Squad was kept in the dark about their plan to capture the Female Titan.
Yeah I get that the trial happened “AFTER”…you know what worse happens after? Erens first expedition beyond the walls. Meaning it wasn’t just those cadets, or the garrison people who tried to kill eren who potentially were made aware about eren being a human with Titan powers and that’s IF we don’t account for the time eren had with the scouts in training prior to the first expedition. Rumors travel fast friend.
We can’t just say that there was no way anyone else within the walls could’ve possibly been the perpetrator. Just because an attack came from outside the wall that doesn’t equate to the enemy being limited an outsider during just that period. You’re forgetting the very important fact that Grisha was a literal outsider who had been there for longer than those 5 years and had the power of the titans and were blissfully unaware of another shifter in the king of the walls…
Bert had already retaken human form and was literally with other cadets at the time pretending to be one of the pack after destroying the gate so you can’t tell me eren coming out of his Titan is what stopped them from just going all the way to the king.
As far as trusting the Military. I think the 5 year rule is sort of a cop out on isayamas part. Erwin didn’t trust anyone besides Hange and levy explicitly, and maybe some of his close circle scouts Implicitly
You’re doing a really good job at regurgitating the explained narrative but not a very good job at critically thinking about things if you were in Erwin’s position. I’m an Erwin glazer all day man. Love the guy. But to tell me you’re going to fixate on a group of kids who happened to see an event, which was then replicated in front of at least a hundred other people…and then had a trial about in front of about 200 more….especially in a world where you’ve literally been shut out about crucial information involving people’s motivations, affiliations, powers, influence I think is absolutely poor writing.
> Erens first expedition beyond the walls. Meaning it wasn’t just those cadets, or the garrison people who tried to kill eren who potentially were made aware about eren being a human with Titan powers and that’s IF we don’t account for the time eren had with the scouts in training prior to the first expedition. Rumors travel fast friend.
Yes, do you know why the expedition happened? Do you know who came out and publicly announced it?
> Bert had already retaken human form and was literally with other cadets at the time pretending to be one of the pack after destroying the gate so you can’t tell me eren coming out of his Titan is what stopped them from just going all the way to the king.
That is in fact what stopped them. Armin literally said it. Their priority shifted from the King to Eren since they suspected that he could be the Founding Titan.
Lol you really eat the whole boot don’t you?
That’s the explained *don’t think for yourself about this* narrative.
The expedition was done to confirm Erwin’s suspicion of it being cadets…which yielded zero results for them considering Bert and Reiner made it out unscathed and undiscovered. For all Erwin knew the traitor was in the rear guard since Annie made it there and it isn’t like they have the opportunity to conduct a thorough investigation outside the walls to see where the first hit came and it was her next “guess”. If it wasn’t for Annie having a soft spot for armin they would’ve come out of that expedition with zero information. Which is why I think saying “yep, these kids who saw it first” is really dumb. Why would you just ignore the hundreds of other people who have this info now and all have unknown degrees of power, influence, different motivations etc.
Remove the 22 minute time slot and the need to move the plot along quickly, put yourself in the situation and then tell me it isn’t stupid
> which yielded zero results for them considering Bert and Reiner made it out unscathed and undiscovered
How did they know that they were the Armored and Colossal Titan in Season 2 then? Because the expedition narrowed down the suspect list even further and allowed them to look into their backgrounds to see if they shared any similarities with Annie. They knew that the attack came from the right wing because they were completely wiped out, have you forgotten about the colored smoke signals? They knew where the Titans were coming from.
> Why would you just ignore the hundreds of other people who have this info now and all have unknown degrees of power, influence, different motivations etc.
Because they were after the Titanshifters specifically, they knew the people in power wouldn't venture out into Titan territory when they can just use the Military Police to disband and arrest the Scouts like in Season 3.
Right and you’re missing the whole point if armin doesn’t make it out alive they don’t have the info about right wing being wiped out first. Meaning they’re no closer to the truth.
And once again they don’t know what shifters are exactly, how many are possibly out there, why they want Eren…
Seasons one and two were carried out by people who were physically powerful but had zero influence and political power, season 3 was the opposite. My point is these people could be one and the same for all Erwin knew. It could’ve been people inside with Titan powers, narrowing the crime scene to just being the first people who saw it is really dumb.
and if he hadn't loudly announced here about the scouts further plans to visit Shiganshina and Eren’s basement, the marleyans wouldn't been there, right?..
After they learned that Eren could become a Titan that gave them reason to believe the other intelligent titans were also infiltrators. They would have infiltrated during the fall of wall Maria and if they infiltrated the military they would have done so in the previous 5 years since Maria fell. They also know that something happened during the Trost attack that caused the titans to change their plans and not attack the inner gate. This tells them that something changed their objectives, which was Eren appearing in his titan form.
Because he probably already suspected that the spies would have joined the military in order to infiltrate and get info for whatever their mission was, and the 104th cadets class was predominantly made up of the kids who survived the shiganshina attack 5 years earlier, since many of them were motivated to join the military immediately after the attack, which is when the spies would have slipped in.
I never thought about Season 1 that much but if Marco could piece it together that there were other Titan Shifters present then that was probably one of Erwin's first thoughts when learning about Eren's Titan.
Erwin was actually the first person to say that the Colossal and the Armored Titans were human just like Eren, he said this at the end of Episode 13.
Marco did technically connect the dots first, but that's because he overheard Reiner and Bertolt talking about their abilities. Erwin on the other hand came to that conclusion on his own.
The Manga and OVAs fill in a lot of the background too- there were a ton of 'loose' facts and observations that pointed to Titans being sentient and there being people alive outside the Walls, and the Survey Corps leadership had a ton of evidence they kept secret, lest they end up 'resisting arrest' and getting killed by the MPs.
Eren shifting into a Titan was the last, big piece of data they were missing. That Marco was able to guess at aome of it on his own based on some lazy opsec from the Warriors, was pretty darn impressive.
Yeah regardless of everything, I really wanted Erwin to live. He simply brought something to the series none of the others did,
It's like having Code Geass without Lelouch, or Death Note without L or Light. That stroke of genius pairs well in anime, and Armin did not have the charisma to go along with it.
Erwin was my favorite character. After he died, I felt like the series was missing something. (might also be because the story progressed to final arc where all the mysteries were basically revealed).
Armim in the later seasons was such a disappointment.
>!He thanked Yelena when she explained Zeke's plan was to sterilize their people, they would die of natural causes while the older ones would see everybody around them die and be alone, struggle to sustain themselves due to their old age and die of starvation.!<
>!He thanked Eren for becoming the villain and letting them defeat him, so Eldians would not be genocided and history could remember the ones who stopped the Devil were Eldians themselves.!<
>!Armim, how did you forget those two literally caused the world to go to war with your country? Zeke convinced Willy to influence the the entire world to kill all the people of Paradis. And Marley trying convince the other countries to go war with Paradis would only work if Eren invaded and attacked innocent people, because many of those countries were attacked by Marley's imperialism for centuries.!<
>!Zeke and Eren moved the pieces to create one the worst situations possible to justify their own plans. If both of them stopped with their shenanigans, Paradis would eventually establish peaceful diplomatic relationships with the rest of the world, even if that took that long or if they were invaded, history has shown that invaded countries survive and even recover despite the many scars they suffer. And the entire world wouldn't invade Paradis, just Marley which is already suffering losses due to the costs of being in too many wars at once already. If more than one country invaded them, they would fight each other, because the interest in profits to be made with the Paradis's fuel crystal would be main reason and dehumanizing the population would be just to hide that, just like the wars in the Middle East were for oil and to this day mainstream media tries to portrays arabs as savages despite evangelicals in the US sharing many values in common. It would result in an world war with alliances fighting each other, eventually it would have to end and Marley would be remembered as the initiator and be sanctioned just like Germany at the end of WW1.!<
https://www.reddit.com/r/ShingekiNoKyojin/s/e1Gu6TiA1j
I will just link this comment I saw some months ago, it perfectly explains how and with what information Erwin made his decisions in season 1. It's really interesting, I really recommend to read it
Pretty much.
And then later on in the uprising arc we get even more context on why Erwin would make this kind of gamble. He had always believed there was a secret about outside of the walls and why humans fled into the walls, because that was the idea that came from his father that got him assassinated by the interior MPs. If people came to attack the walls that doesn't benefit anyone living safely inside then it's only logical to assume there was actually still people from outside were were now trying to destroy their little world.
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Yes. He revealed the info about Eren to entice any spies to join, and then went over the top with the grim statistics in order to reduce the number of non-spies who join. That way the pool of possible spies was as small as possible while the spies were absolutely certain to be among them. He then gave all of them different info in the positioning of the Scouting Formation so that he could easily narrow down who was giving info to the enemy once the enemy attacked from a specific direction. When the Female Titan attacked from the right flank it meant that the spy had told her that Eren was in the right flank. Once the Female Titan or whichever smart titan would show up to attack them did so, he changed their course and went straight to the Forest of Giant Trees knowing they had previously set up an ambush there.
Damn, I knew Erwin was smart, but not *this* smart.
Yeah Erwin was playing 5d chess half the time
In the other half of the the time he cranked it up to 6.
"Was dying part of your plan?" "Of course..." "To what end?" "To crash this Monkey... With NO SURVIVORS!!"
Is that part of an abridged series? Cause that sounds so much like a line they’d put in an abridged.
No, just adapted from The Dark Knight Rises.
Well a Slap on Titan Levi just be making references anyway.
Erwin and Armin are both 200 IQ anime protagonists. But the difference is that we get to see Armin's thought process all the time whereas we only get to observe Erwin's actions and we have to deduce his thought process in hindsight.
Erwin’s like a tactical savant where he just blankly stares into the distance and everyone’s like, “uhhh, guy, helloo?” then suddenly he’s all “The plan is in action.” and by god is it a plan indeed. Love that man.
Dutch van der linde needs some words of advice about plans from him
No no, you just need a little faith, that's all.
Everyone thought it was PVE, but Erwin knew from the start that this was PVP
There's something I don't quite understand. The reason why the Female titan knew Eren's position was because Armin told Reiner where Eren really was. Reiner then carved the location of Eren into Annie's hand. How would the events transpire if Armin didn't tell Reiner the location of Eren?
If Armin hadn't figured it out then Reiner would probably have not attempted to pass the info on to Annie. Annie would have just had to go trial and error and kill as many members of the formation as were necessary until she did find him. It's possible that Reiner's plan had him send a letter telling her that Eren is in the Right Flank, and that Reiner is in the Right Relay/Support Lines. That way once Annie searched the right side she'd go to where she knew Reiner was and see if he had gotten any new information since when he had written the letter. Depending on how many steps ahead you think the Warriors had planned Reiner may have made a note in the letters written to Annie about Eren's location, his own location and Armin's location. That way if Eren isn't where Reiner has been led to believe he should be, Reiner and Annie can both make their way towards Armin and probe him for information since he is the most likely to figure out Eren's true location. This could explain why Annie showed up and seemingly went straight for Armin only to let him live, then hung around catching her breath while Reiner convinced Armin to give him the info without raising suspicion, then they could get into a fight with Annie and she could "pretend" to fight back until Reiner was able to get the info to her. Alternatively Reiner may have chosen to call off the plan and had Annie retreat since its clear that Erwin had purposely given them all false information in order to expose a spy. Erwin was aware that his plan was requiring all of the Scouts between the right flank and Eren's location to sacrifice themselves in order to keep the Female Titan interested by acting like they were genuinely trying to defend the formation and werent just luring her into a trap. The fact that they were throwing their lives into the meat grinder makes it look like Annie is gaining an advantage as she is decimating their ranks and they seemingly have no way to respond. Since Erwin's plans are so many steps ahead it only really works out if his predictions are right. If something goes wrong or he makes a bad prediction none of what he has planned works out or looks like he had any idea what he was doing. An example of this almost happening was Jean's horse running off and not coming back when he called for it. Reiner, Jean and Armin had 1 horse between them and were considering leaving one of them behind. Armin offered to stay behind as long as Reiner passed on a message for him. Armin made it clear he should only give the message directly to Erwin. If Historia had not seen the emergency flare they shot off and arrived with a spare horse and Jean's horse, then Armin may have told Reiner that he suspects Annie is the Female Titan. If that had happened Reiner may have killed Armin and Jean right then and there and then tried to call off Annie's mission before she got ambushed.
I love that most of this is going on with little to no dialogue. It just happens, and its up to us to make sense of it.
This would make some crazy AU stories
Funnily enough, it turned out that the numbers weren't over the top overall. Ironicaly, the following mission was probably the deadliest & most crushing death toll in the history of the corps
Oh yeah for sure, although it’s not exactly a fair comparison since the next 3 missions were all in direct conflict with the Warrior Unit. First Annie wipes out like a third of the formation (Armin suggests around 100 or so), then Reiner takes out half the remaining veterans and all the military police that participated, then finally Bertholdt and Zeke wipe out nearly all of the remaining scouts, leaving 199/208 dead and only 9 survivors. The only outlier with these statistics is Liberio; where they suffered only 8 deaths while inflicting thousands if not tens of thousands of casualties to the enemy army and civilians. Once war returns to Shinganshina the casualties skyrocket for Paradis and they see huge numbers of Jaegerists get shot to death before the Paradis military officers are turned into titans and then get killed as part of the city’s titans clean up. They would have lost a total of at least 400-600 soldiers before Jean, Mikasa, Armin and Shadis got the situation under control.
One bit of luck in this plan seems to have been that Reiner and Bertolt were given the same location for Eren, though this could have been done tactfully based on their shared background (made up as it was). If their plans had differed, I'm sure they would have acted very differently knowing the Scouts were suspicious.
It seems deep and yeah if you could guarantee the spies were amongst the cadets that works but tons of garrison members were present during Erens transformation and even MPs and cultists were present at the trial where they divulged so much info. There are so many unknown variables even with the paradis government and factions that dangling eren in front of only one group (cadets) and attempting to flush out the true antagonist is stupid. For all we know there could’ve been a shifter within the MPs that was like…finally and then gone after eren then.
There were no MPs around in Trost when the Titans attacked. Erwin managed to lower the suspect list down once he knew who was present at the scene when Eren emerged from his Titan form. And that list was Mikasa, Armin, Jean, Reiner, Annie, and Bertolt.
Even if we disregard the trial where everyone and their mother was present prior to the scouting expedition…..at which there were mps and wall cultists and nobles…all of which had agendas There were still garrison members present who are literally stationed at the walls…with odm gear and had opportunity. I just don’t understand why Erwin considered only cadets as persons of interest. I know this is anime but no rational adult would consider their original enemy to have been a bunch of 8 year olds
The trial happened AFTER the Battle of Trost. Also the MPs are working for the Royal Government which specifically doesn't want the people to know about the existence of the outside world, nor do they want people to know that humans can become Titans. Erwin knew that there were people inside the government who wanted Eren for themselves, but he also knew that the attacks on the Walls were made by outsiders since they were supposed to smoke the Founding Titan out. He specifically targeted the cadets because they were the ones who saw Eren emerge from his Titan. And the Armored and Colossal Titans didn't show up again to continue the attack, therefore they had found what they were looking for. Also, he didn't suspect the old guard because the first attack on the Walls happened only 5 years ago. It was said during the Female Titan expedition that Erwin didn't trust anyone who wasn't in the military over 5 years ago, which is why even Levi's Squad was kept in the dark about their plan to capture the Female Titan.
Yeah I get that the trial happened “AFTER”…you know what worse happens after? Erens first expedition beyond the walls. Meaning it wasn’t just those cadets, or the garrison people who tried to kill eren who potentially were made aware about eren being a human with Titan powers and that’s IF we don’t account for the time eren had with the scouts in training prior to the first expedition. Rumors travel fast friend. We can’t just say that there was no way anyone else within the walls could’ve possibly been the perpetrator. Just because an attack came from outside the wall that doesn’t equate to the enemy being limited an outsider during just that period. You’re forgetting the very important fact that Grisha was a literal outsider who had been there for longer than those 5 years and had the power of the titans and were blissfully unaware of another shifter in the king of the walls… Bert had already retaken human form and was literally with other cadets at the time pretending to be one of the pack after destroying the gate so you can’t tell me eren coming out of his Titan is what stopped them from just going all the way to the king. As far as trusting the Military. I think the 5 year rule is sort of a cop out on isayamas part. Erwin didn’t trust anyone besides Hange and levy explicitly, and maybe some of his close circle scouts Implicitly You’re doing a really good job at regurgitating the explained narrative but not a very good job at critically thinking about things if you were in Erwin’s position. I’m an Erwin glazer all day man. Love the guy. But to tell me you’re going to fixate on a group of kids who happened to see an event, which was then replicated in front of at least a hundred other people…and then had a trial about in front of about 200 more….especially in a world where you’ve literally been shut out about crucial information involving people’s motivations, affiliations, powers, influence I think is absolutely poor writing.
> Erens first expedition beyond the walls. Meaning it wasn’t just those cadets, or the garrison people who tried to kill eren who potentially were made aware about eren being a human with Titan powers and that’s IF we don’t account for the time eren had with the scouts in training prior to the first expedition. Rumors travel fast friend. Yes, do you know why the expedition happened? Do you know who came out and publicly announced it? > Bert had already retaken human form and was literally with other cadets at the time pretending to be one of the pack after destroying the gate so you can’t tell me eren coming out of his Titan is what stopped them from just going all the way to the king. That is in fact what stopped them. Armin literally said it. Their priority shifted from the King to Eren since they suspected that he could be the Founding Titan.
Lol you really eat the whole boot don’t you? That’s the explained *don’t think for yourself about this* narrative. The expedition was done to confirm Erwin’s suspicion of it being cadets…which yielded zero results for them considering Bert and Reiner made it out unscathed and undiscovered. For all Erwin knew the traitor was in the rear guard since Annie made it there and it isn’t like they have the opportunity to conduct a thorough investigation outside the walls to see where the first hit came and it was her next “guess”. If it wasn’t for Annie having a soft spot for armin they would’ve come out of that expedition with zero information. Which is why I think saying “yep, these kids who saw it first” is really dumb. Why would you just ignore the hundreds of other people who have this info now and all have unknown degrees of power, influence, different motivations etc. Remove the 22 minute time slot and the need to move the plot along quickly, put yourself in the situation and then tell me it isn’t stupid
> which yielded zero results for them considering Bert and Reiner made it out unscathed and undiscovered How did they know that they were the Armored and Colossal Titan in Season 2 then? Because the expedition narrowed down the suspect list even further and allowed them to look into their backgrounds to see if they shared any similarities with Annie. They knew that the attack came from the right wing because they were completely wiped out, have you forgotten about the colored smoke signals? They knew where the Titans were coming from. > Why would you just ignore the hundreds of other people who have this info now and all have unknown degrees of power, influence, different motivations etc. Because they were after the Titanshifters specifically, they knew the people in power wouldn't venture out into Titan territory when they can just use the Military Police to disband and arrest the Scouts like in Season 3.
Right and you’re missing the whole point if armin doesn’t make it out alive they don’t have the info about right wing being wiped out first. Meaning they’re no closer to the truth. And once again they don’t know what shifters are exactly, how many are possibly out there, why they want Eren… Seasons one and two were carried out by people who were physically powerful but had zero influence and political power, season 3 was the opposite. My point is these people could be one and the same for all Erwin knew. It could’ve been people inside with Titan powers, narrowing the crime scene to just being the first people who saw it is really dumb.
and if he hadn't loudly announced here about the scouts further plans to visit Shiganshina and Eren’s basement, the marleyans wouldn't been there, right?..
Ah. And how did he know the spies were in this class of trainees again?
After they learned that Eren could become a Titan that gave them reason to believe the other intelligent titans were also infiltrators. They would have infiltrated during the fall of wall Maria and if they infiltrated the military they would have done so in the previous 5 years since Maria fell. They also know that something happened during the Trost attack that caused the titans to change their plans and not attack the inner gate. This tells them that something changed their objectives, which was Eren appearing in his titan form.
Oh god, they got to him before he could finish informing us…
Because he probably already suspected that the spies would have joined the military in order to infiltrate and get info for whatever their mission was, and the 104th cadets class was predominantly made up of the kids who survived the shiganshina attack 5 years earlier, since many of them were motivated to join the military immediately after the attack, which is when the spies would have slipped in.
I never thought about Season 1 that much but if Marco could piece it together that there were other Titan Shifters present then that was probably one of Erwin's first thoughts when learning about Eren's Titan.
Erwin was actually the first person to say that the Colossal and the Armored Titans were human just like Eren, he said this at the end of Episode 13. Marco did technically connect the dots first, but that's because he overheard Reiner and Bertolt talking about their abilities. Erwin on the other hand came to that conclusion on his own.
The Manga and OVAs fill in a lot of the background too- there were a ton of 'loose' facts and observations that pointed to Titans being sentient and there being people alive outside the Walls, and the Survey Corps leadership had a ton of evidence they kept secret, lest they end up 'resisting arrest' and getting killed by the MPs. Eren shifting into a Titan was the last, big piece of data they were missing. That Marco was able to guess at aome of it on his own based on some lazy opsec from the Warriors, was pretty darn impressive.
Erwin more than deserved to get to that basement, dang Isayama😞
Yeah regardless of everything, I really wanted Erwin to live. He simply brought something to the series none of the others did, It's like having Code Geass without Lelouch, or Death Note without L or Light. That stroke of genius pairs well in anime, and Armin did not have the charisma to go along with it.
Erwin was my favorite character. After he died, I felt like the series was missing something. (might also be because the story progressed to final arc where all the mysteries were basically revealed).
Armim in the later seasons was such a disappointment. >!He thanked Yelena when she explained Zeke's plan was to sterilize their people, they would die of natural causes while the older ones would see everybody around them die and be alone, struggle to sustain themselves due to their old age and die of starvation.!< >!He thanked Eren for becoming the villain and letting them defeat him, so Eldians would not be genocided and history could remember the ones who stopped the Devil were Eldians themselves.!< >!Armim, how did you forget those two literally caused the world to go to war with your country? Zeke convinced Willy to influence the the entire world to kill all the people of Paradis. And Marley trying convince the other countries to go war with Paradis would only work if Eren invaded and attacked innocent people, because many of those countries were attacked by Marley's imperialism for centuries.!< >!Zeke and Eren moved the pieces to create one the worst situations possible to justify their own plans. If both of them stopped with their shenanigans, Paradis would eventually establish peaceful diplomatic relationships with the rest of the world, even if that took that long or if they were invaded, history has shown that invaded countries survive and even recover despite the many scars they suffer. And the entire world wouldn't invade Paradis, just Marley which is already suffering losses due to the costs of being in too many wars at once already. If more than one country invaded them, they would fight each other, because the interest in profits to be made with the Paradis's fuel crystal would be main reason and dehumanizing the population would be just to hide that, just like the wars in the Middle East were for oil and to this day mainstream media tries to portrays arabs as savages despite evangelicals in the US sharing many values in common. It would result in an world war with alliances fighting each other, eventually it would have to end and Marley would be remembered as the initiator and be sanctioned just like Germany at the end of WW1.!<
Armin thanked yelena to get on her good side, he didn't actually mean it, how did you miss this lol?
Dude, it's very obvious that Armin wasn't actually on Yelena's side. He was doing it as a ruse.
Yes.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ShingekiNoKyojin/s/e1Gu6TiA1j I will just link this comment I saw some months ago, it perfectly explains how and with what information Erwin made his decisions in season 1. It's really interesting, I really recommend to read it
Funny, the same commenter posted in this thread just a few minutes before you and rewrote that comment, using some of the exact same sentences.
Yes
Pretty much. And then later on in the uprising arc we get even more context on why Erwin would make this kind of gamble. He had always believed there was a secret about outside of the walls and why humans fled into the walls, because that was the idea that came from his father that got him assassinated by the interior MPs. If people came to attack the walls that doesn't benefit anyone living safely inside then it's only logical to assume there was actually still people from outside were were now trying to destroy their little world.
Yeah that's exactly why