Attack on Titan Actually IS Afraid of Killing Important Characters

Attack on Titan spoilers ahead!

Summary:

• Attack on Titan is considered a series that is not afraid to kill important characters.
• If you think about it, you understand that not many characters that mattered died.
• Everyone survived the final battle.

Attack on Titan (Shingeki no Kyojin) is one of the anime that comes to mind when you hear “not afraid of killing important characters”. And while this might seem very natural at first, when you start truly thinking about it, something just doesn’t add up.

When Attack on Titan started airing, everyone was screaming that it’s “just like Game of Thrones!!!!” where characters are dropping like flies.

So when you first watch it, you expect a lot of deaths, and let’s be honest, the series managed to fool you into thinking that Eren did actually die in the 5th episode of Season 1, and Mikasa would take his place. If not, congratulations, you’re smarter than us.

Not that many important characters die

But after that moment, not a lot of important characters died. Let’s count them all: Erwin, Sasha, Hange, Zeke and… that’s all? “But Levi’s squad! But Marco! But Ymir! But Bertholt! Porco!” Yes, that’s true, they’re also all dead, but were they really that important?

Don’t get us wrong, we loved them. And Petra’s death will be forever one of the saddest things that happened in Season 1. But all these characters weren’t with us for a long time. Marco hardly even had any screen time. And Bertolt was always the least interesting out of the Warrior trio.

Everyone survives the final battle

One of the main issues fans found with the ending of the series is that the battle with Eren was the most heated one in the entire anime, and everyone came out of it alive. Seriously, everyone! Hange is the only character that mattered and died after the Rumbling had started, and still, she wasn’t even defeated during the battle itself.

It’s not like we wanted everyone to die. Of course not, we love these characters dearly, too, but such an outcome just didn’t seem believable, that’s it.

Eren is the only one who didn’t survive the final battle, and even this didn’t come as a shock, let’s be honest. We knew he would have to die long ago, and although it was still awful, we had enough time to be prepared for what was coming.

It was a cool idea to turn Gabi, Jean and Connie into titans during the finale, and although it would have been so cruel if they had to go like that, it would have added stakes to the battle and shown us how unforgiving the world of Attack on Titan is one more time.