Revenge, and Why It’s Bad

I wanna kill Gabi.

Now, I have to preface this with the obligatory spoiler warnings: if you haven’t watched Attack on Titan Season 4, or haven’t read the manga until, well, that chapter I suggest that you click off now.

So, I would love for Gabi to die. That’s simply the truth. As a character, I completely understand her ideals. She’s a reflection of Eren, in a lot of ways. Initially wanting to seek justice for the people she belongs to and loves, she’s now twisted by anger at the death of her comrades and is seeking revenge, righteous justice even. She’s got a lot of reasons for wanting to do what she does, a duty to an entire nation on her shoulders, and a lot of emotions for a pre-teen soldier. It makes perfect narrative sense that Gabi would show up in the story when she does, that she would be who she is, that she would interact with the main cast in the ways she has and everything…

I still just want her to die.

In the midst of a season that’s already brought us so much change, losing Sasha honestly felt like a gut punch. Everything we’ve learned about the world of Attack on Titan has been flipped upside down by the revelations between S3 and S4 that humanity isn’t truly confined to the walls, but rather, that the Eldians within the walls are exiles, pushed away from the arms of mankind due to past sins. Eren isn’t who he once was, there’s a plethora of new people to keep track of, Reiner is somehow being relatable, and all I want is for someone who reminds me of the good old days. Back when the show was simple, back when the story was easy to follow, back when it was about killing giants and saving the world like a regular shounen.

Apparently, Attack on Titan isn’t a regular shounen. And the loss of Sasha really helps to hammer that home. Lots of shows have that “loss-of-a-beloved-character” moment: it’s a narrative device that’s been used over and over as long as humans have had an obsessive need for tension and stake-raising. What makes this hit so hard, in my opinion at least, is that for all the death we’ve seen, for all the carnage our characters have been through, for all the pain they’ve suffered, we never really had to worry too hard about if they’d be able to keep moving forwards. It’s been simple, keep on keeping on until the next secret is revealed and the next story beat plays out. But here, by the time we’ve crossed the threshold into seasons 3 and 4, there’s so much more to keep track of. Should a people group be forced to endure discrimination and hate due to the actions of their ancestors? Does it make sense for the Eldians to try and reintegrate with society at large? Was the lie they had to live under necessary?

It’s so many things so far from just wondering what was in the basement.

And in a lot of ways, Sasha represented that simplicity. I’m not saying she was two-dimensional, but rather that Sasha represented something we as the watchers/readers could rely on in the middle of an ever-shifting world. No matter how much Eren got mad or Levi kicked ass, we knew at the end of the day Sasha would be there with a smile and some food-related comic relief to bring us down to earth. Now that she’s gone, we don’t have that. Like a child first stumbling across Reddit, we’ve lost our innocence, and the ball can’t stop rolling from here on out. We wont ever be able to come back to that point where life was as uncomplicated as a potato-loving teenager learning to kill giants with her friends.

And I miss that.

Not just narratively, but personally.

In the time between Attack on Titan season 1 and season 4, I’ve finished high school and am in my final months of college. I’ve changed in more ways than I can count on my limbs, and stayed the same in even more. Life’s pushed me, and I’ve fallen over, broken apart, and rebuilt myself in so many ways over these past 8 years, and in a way so have a lot of the characters and even the world we see in Attack on Titan. Their world is just as big, expansive, unfamiliar, and scary as mine is. And ultimately, the biggest struggle for them is how to approach the ever-yawning maw of the uncertain future they face.

Same, honestly.

I don’t know how I need to move forwards most of the time. Adulthood is a joke, a farce, an improvised stageplay where we all dance to the music as best we can. Trying to be the best even as we bite and critique those around us. It isn’t simple. It might’ve felt that way, at one point. But that only illustrated how much we were kept from, and now that the door is open I find the fresh air to be barely more than stale and stifling. Freedom is in my grasp, yet I feel eve more shackled. Where my will was once strong, unfiltered, and true it now seems to be splintered amongst the ever-growing stack of responsibilities and expectations I seem to accumulate daily.

Where’s Sasha, to remind me that it’ll be okay?

I’m here having to make my choices on my own. Fighting this fight, wondering what my end goal even is. Moving, running, pushing, trying, all for…what? The next battle? The next victory? To be the best? To come home? What’s home? What’s my best? Questions on questions on questions…when did it get so complicated?

And that’s why I hate Gabi.

And that’s why I hate change.

Inevitable though it may be, it never leaves life in a state I can easily understand, adapt to, learn from. It takes so much energy to move in a new direction that in a lot of ways, it barely feels like it’s worth it to do so.

Yet, it is. For without it, I wouldn’t be here. Without change, I wouldn’t have known the depths of love and the heights of despair I could fall to without breaking, and while breaking. Without change, my heart wouldn’t have learned resilience. Without change, God’s truth of giving me that spirit of “power, love, and a sound mind” would never have become real to me. These faltering steps towards an uncertain future, like Erwin’s dream, might seem fleeting, might seem too little, might seem insufficient…but nothing truly good is gained without change.

I still hate Gabi. But at least, I can understand her better now. She too is afraid of change. Life is full of that. We can’t escape it. But if we accept it, and do what we can with it, to the best of our ability, we’ll be able to overcome. And that’s a promise.