English Dub Review: Attack on Titan “Pain”

There is no war within the walls.

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Levi is pursued by Kenny as he tries to protect Eren and Historia. He’s chased to a bar as the show decides to just straight up turn into a Western and Kenny does his best Yosemite Sam impression. Getting a chance to catch up, the two chat about the existential nature of their occupations before Levi finds a chance to escape and regroup with Mikasa and the other Scouts, some of whom are understandably uneasy about having to fight against humans. Jean gets the drop on one of Kenny’s troops but hesitates, allowing her to turn the tables and nearly kill him. Fortunately, she also hesitates, and Armin ends up killing her. Sadly, the rest of the enemy make off with Eren and Historia, and Armin is mortified both by their losing Eren and having to take a human life.

In the capital, Mitras, the royal council sulk over their unproductive interrogation of Erwin, but decide that the “Charter of Humanity” will dictate how they retaliate against the Scouts for trying to uncover their secrets. As they talk, word from Lord Reiss reaches them of the capture. Back with the Scouts, Levi emboldens his team to the new conflict, as ugly and bitter as it is. Armin and Jean are particularly torn, given that they’ve only ever been trained to kill Titans and protect humans, but Levi reminds them that they’re beyond thinking like that at this point.

They then interrogate one of the captured kidnappers, who honestly wants nothing more than to make sure the people of Trost don’t starve. They use him to lure out the MPs who killed Pastor Nick so they can interrogate and torture him in the same way. After a while, things seem to be going nowhere, but one of the MPs, Sannes, tells them that the reason they keep things secret is to “protect the king’s peace”, convinced that they are fighting for a righteous cause that makes up for all of their terrible deeds. So, with a little staging, they use the other prisoner to pretend he’s given everything up easily and that Sannes is the only one who’s been believing something greater. After that, Sannes sings like a canary, starting with the fact that the Reiss family are the real ones in charge, and Historia’s the rightful heir. Meanwhile, she and Eren are taken care of by Lord Reiss himself.

OUR TAKE

Well, that’s 0-3 for Eren on kidnappings, but at least this time he didn’t have to get eaten. And he’s got a much nicer kidnapping buddy with him than Ymir, so that’s a plus. But yeah, things are kinda bad all around for everyone on the “good” side, even with the recent victories. A lot of that has to do with the shift from the external threat of the Titans to the internal threat of this royal conspiracy, which involves Historia and the Reiss’ family. It used to be as simple as hunting and slaying inhuman monsters that will kill you on sight if you don’t kill them first. As Armin puts it, now they’re only fighting this other group BECAUSE they’re the other group. There’s no moral high ground they can take (at least not yet) in justifying having to kill these people other than just saving their own skin.

The interrogation seems to nail this point home (pun intended), as Levi and Hange have to resort to underhanded psychological warfare in order to break Sannes, who admits to several awful crimes that were all supposedly done in the name of peace. Ultimately, neither those actions nor those of Levi’s team is for a greater purpose than simply a means to an end. The royals wish to preserve the status quo, and Levi and Erwin wish to change things. This makes Kenny a potentially interesting parallel and foils to Levi as we begin this storyline. Both are remorseless and skilled killers who will do whatever is necessary, but the difference between lies in their ability to see a bigger picture. Not necessarily an ideal or morality, but a clear idea of how they wish the world to be. Kenny seems content with keeping things as they are as long as he can kill without consequence, but Levi kills with purpose. This is all just speculation currently, but we’ve only dipped a toe into this new arc, and so we’ll see how much of that is true as we carry on.

We also get a proper look at our new Ending credits for this half of the season, giving us our obligatory Linked Horizon song, but primarily from the perspective of Historia, glimpses of her past, her longing to be with Ymir, and other things that I’m sure will be slowly uncovered moving forward. But we will have to make due with this for the next two weeks.