This review of Shingeki no kyojin: The Final Season contains spoilers. If you haven't seen the chapter, we recommend that you do so and then come back and read the review.
Chapter 5: Declaration of War
He just wants to be judged, resonates in the present and before him is, Eren Jeager who wants to talk to Reiner. In the external and superior part Willy, telling the lie that all know to reveal the truth that all ignore, was Frietz the true liberator of humanity and the one who imprisoned his ethnic group. Two titans in the service of Marley are caught and cannot act, because a suspicious soldier set them up. While in the inferior one, Eren's "I am like you" resounds, who will fight for his own justice and will not rest until he eliminates his enemies, becoming in that moment a titan and thus accepting the declaration of war.
Chapter's opinion
Compilation and interpretation, under these terms I can synthesize today's chapter. Why? Compilation because they tell us a story that somehow we already knew, about the titans and their struggle and how King Frietz decided to go to Paradis, adding some subtle things like Annie's father and the memories of Falco and Reiner. Interpretive because it is no longer seen under a few eyes, but those acts are taken to give a new meaning and convenience to the parts that use them: Willy and Eren.
To some it may sound far-fetched, but there is a symbolism in the places where the actions take place: Willy in the light of all, Eren subway and in the intimacy. Let's keep this for future reference.
Double statement
When the last chapter ended, I thought it was Eren who would declare war, announcing it to Reiner, but no, it was Willy who called to arms to defend peace. It seems that Eren already knew about this and only waited for the moment when Willy would say everything to come on stage. It's not that Eren wasn't going to stay without doing something, but it was a chess move, waiting for the enemy's movements and knowing how to enter. In the end it's a double statement, because Willy throws the ball and Eren receives it. To accept war is also to declare it.
Incidentally, Eren's voice is mature and developing, no longer the child who complained about everything, who was afraid and wanted to destroy the Titans. He has a mature voice, which gives more "realism" to the character, the same can be said about the one I suspect is Armin.
Trap
Pieck, Porco and Zeke are taken away by a soldier who says they are Magath's orders. Zeke is sent to another direction, while Pieck and Porco are taken to a trap in which they fall, not being able to transform themselves into titans or it would be their ruin. Pieck mentions that this soldier is familiar to him. It seems that it is Armin, who managed to infiltrate as a soldier of Marley. The plan was simple: separate them and catch them so that they do not have any intervention in the subsequent events, which must be to capture the Titan War Hammer. It worked, at least in the beginning.
The truth controls the masses
Let's get a little more serious. First I must admit that I loved Willy's part, because what he does is a description of our reality: how stories shape our mentality and how they build nations. Helos' story reminds me of the Cantares de Gesta, which are nothing more than exaltation stories for the construction of an identity as a nation, that's what was done with Helos. Marley's mystique and superiority is based on this false narrative.
What would have happened if Eren had not attacked? What would have happened when he knew the new truth? I would have liked to see it, but it will not be possible, since the unity of the people of the continent will not be based on a new myth, but on a common hatred, something like that of Lelouch of Code Geass: hatred of a common enemy.
This makes one wonder, in the end, which narratives we accept as truths without bothering to find out the truth? One example: were the Spanish really the bad guys? Go to the last section to talk a little more about this.
I am like you
Remember the closed, subway, private room? I hope so, what do you do when you want to talk to yourself? Don't you look for privacy or in any case not to interrupt others? That's what Eren did, to talk to her self reflected in another (Reiner) she looked for a private place. Intimate truths cannot be revealed to the public at large, but must remain as interior as possible. Eren declared war on the continent through Reiner, for it was as if he (Eren) were telling it to himself and that is what mattered.
Both want to be heroes of their respective parts and both become so, at a time both are enemies of the other. Both had to live with the enemy and both understood them, but this does not erase sins or eliminate hatred of all toward few and from few to all. Eren declares war on his self of the opposite side and Reiner accepts the war of his self of the other side.
The good, the bad and the Eren
In this season: Is Eren the protagonist or the antagonist? When do I know that my action is good or bad? What came to fascinate me is that Eren accepts his evil, accepts that he is the bad guy in the story, but also implies that he is a hero. The dichotomy remains with Eren, while Reiner doesn't accept this as much, Reiner hasn't matured as Eren or he did in a parallel and opposite sense. Willy stands as a hero for the continent, a crystal hero whose power corresponds to that given by tradition and by possessing a weapon, but are they really the good ones, does defending a continent really make them good? The weak line between good and evil is accentuated in a desacralized world, where the national will is imposed and the nation is the one who sets the limit, which is artificial in the end.
Thus ends this chapter of Shingeki, the next chapter comes with force it seems. Let's hope that time will come.
