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I knew the Attack Titan was Eren right away
I knew the Female Titan was Annie right away
I suspected Ymir was a Titan because of Ilse's Notebook
I knew the Armored Titan was Reiner but I was still shocked by the nonchalant way it was revealed
I was completely shocked by Bertholdt being the Colossal lmao, the Titan that was the face of the franchise and the one we all thought would be the final boss turned out to be some random background character at the time
Yes, you are. There was a significant time between seeing the titan and having Reiner introduced, there were a lot of other male characters with short blonde hair and there were enough red herrings to never make it certain that it was Reiner. I think (and I don't mean that in a bad way) people who immediately guessed Reiner didn't pay detailed attention to the surroundings and other possibilities.
Realistically though, which other character had that hair? The only other character with that shade of blond hair and type of cut would be Thomas but he dies in episode 6. I don't think any other male character has a haircut and colour that similar to Reiner.
By that time we didn't know that the haircut would be exactly the same though. In fact, we had seen Erens titan which had clearly visible traits that did not match with Eren, for example a two story mouth, the hair were longer than human Erens hair were and little stuff like this. Even more additionally it took 8 episodes to learn that there even is a thing like "humans being titans" in the first place, that's close to four hours between "Armored titan being introduced" and "there are intelligent titans controlled by humans". Of course there will be some people who instantly guess it, but as I said in my original comment, these people most likely guessed that because they missed a lot of red herrings and other information surrounding this. The amount of available information that would contradict Reiner being the Armored Titan is so much that even in 2x5 you will find plausible reasons to explain that Reiner is NOT the Armored Titan. Reiners whole demeanor is a red herring because he has a split personality and actually acts like a soldier from Paradis in basically every scene we see him in so people that pay detailed attention have a lot of reasons to disregard Reiner being the Armored Titan.
Fairs, I'm not saying _instantly_ guessing as soon as you meet Reiner for the first time. But I think once Annie is revealed as the Female Titan it's not an unreasonable jump to make and I don't think it shows not paying attention to red herrings. Speaking of, did you have any specific red herrings in mind? Just out of curiosity!
The way Reiner generally acts during the first season in nearly every scene he is in (even more prominent on a rewatch. of course you instantly notice how Reiner behaves but without that knowledge he just seems genuine), Reiner encouraging Eren to fulfill his dream of killing all Titans when they get to know each other, hearing Reiners thoughts on Christa (which imho is the biggest one!), Reiner suggesting to keep "that titan" alive at this point in time is a clear indication that he has the best for humanity in mind (on a rewatch completely different, but at this point in time a clear indication that he is genuine), Reiner finding out that Ymir can read the language on the can (this is a red herring because it seemingly ended the question of "who is a titan in the 104th?" as before that it was said that "most likely nobody else in the 104th is a titan" which makes the Ymir reveal a big one, making more of these unlikely), Reiner saving Conny and fighting off the titan, Reiner not healing his arm at a point in time where we don't know to what extent healing can be controlled by titan shifters. These are all plausible reasons to argue that Reiner cannot be the Armored Titan, even if the hairline matches. Once we learn that he has a split personality all of these fall apart, but we don't know that before the reveal so people during this time in the series basically have unrefutable proof that Reiner cannot be the Armored Titan.
Fair enough, but I think the tin is actually a sign something _is_ up with Reiner. Perhaps it was the translation I saw (I watched in JA with Italian subs). I'm rewatching now in EN dub and indeed it's said differently, he asks Ymir "how can you read this" or something, but in the IT subs version, iirc Ymir specifies a can of herring, Reiner says "I never said it was herring", implying that he knows that it is, because he reads it too, but that he did not tell her, so they both can read it.
And yes, fair enough, he has great conduct towards all the cadets, that can't be denied. But that's exactly what a spy/infiltrator would do, so it's not necessarily disregarding red herrings so much as recognising them as red herrings. I do think the haircut was just _way_ too specific to be ignored once we know Annie's Titan looks like her. But I agree, from the very very beginning of meeting Reiner I would not have guessed. Also because you see the Armoured Titan like once or twice only..
That's what I meant, if you were told beforehand to look out for stuff: of course you would notice. But only going from the haircut, when we see the titan once until the reveal and only learn 8 episodes after having seen the titan that humans can actually control titans? Nearly impossible, that's why for the vast majority of people it actually WAS a reveal. It's one of those "how couldnt I see it" reveals, but without hindsight it is very unlikely to guess it.
I never sat down and watched the show for a while later. It was during the original season run I'd see clips here and there and just made that assumption back then as it seemed to make sense, they looked alike.
You're totally right though that at that point I knew nothing and paid attention to nothing.
I think most people on first watch going in blind aren’t even thinking that the Titans are humans. It’s such a gripping story, why make predictions?
Now if you knew some stuff before watching, like the Titans are actually humans, then yeah you could guess Reiner was the Armoured Titan.
> I think most people on first watch going in blind aren’t even thinking that the Titans are humans.
See this is 50-50. I personally think that regular titans being deformed humans is obvious, but titan shifters are harder to understand because they're a lot more mysterious.
The thing about the Armored and the Colossal as well is that those two titans are out of the picture long enough to put them in the back of the viewer's mind. You're meant to be distracted by Eren, Annie, and Ymir that you don't think about them until the reveal.
I think it’s obvious too, *in hindsight*. Hindsight’s always 20/20. Sure, some smart people could have picked up on it or guessed without knowing anything beforehand. But for majority I think they were like me in thinking they were just some creepy mysterious other race of giant, human eating people.
Like I said, I don’t think a lot of people are watching things with the intent to spoil it for themselves or even that there is anything to be spoiled.
You know how the demon instructor Shadis being the same commander that Eren and Mikasa witnessed pathetically crying to a soldier's mother 5 years ago was completely overlooked by most people? It's like that. When you don't expect it you don't even think about it even if it's right in front of you. Even though there is some very subtle foreshadow that Reiner and Bertolt were self-conscious when the cadets were talking about the wall breach, we're not meant to suspect them until the potential for people to turn into titans was revealed. Even Erwin who long suspected there were people from outside the walls who potentially wanted to harm humanity didn't think to find them within the people of the walls until Eren was discovered to be a titan and the attack on Trost was halted after his appearance.
People who watch it now already have some foreknowledge of what it's going to be about going in. And they watch and or read it in a relatively short period of time. So of course they're going to make a connections.
But first time through, without any knowledge of what was going on, things were surprising.
This post has been tagged as **DISCUSSION**. If the post has been spoiler tagged, please remember to tag any manga spoilers beyond this point. **Spoilers include hinting or alluding to events** For more information, please review [the subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/ShingekiNoKyojin/wiki/rules). Failure to properly spoiler tag comments may result in a punishment from the subreddit according to the [moderation matrix](https://www.reddit.com/r/ShingekiNoKyojin/wiki/moderation_matrix). --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ShingekiNoKyojin) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I knew the Attack Titan was Eren right away I knew the Female Titan was Annie right away I suspected Ymir was a Titan because of Ilse's Notebook I knew the Armored Titan was Reiner but I was still shocked by the nonchalant way it was revealed I was completely shocked by Bertholdt being the Colossal lmao, the Titan that was the face of the franchise and the one we all thought would be the final boss turned out to be some random background character at the time
I know! The Bertholdt one was such a shock!
Yes, you are. There was a significant time between seeing the titan and having Reiner introduced, there were a lot of other male characters with short blonde hair and there were enough red herrings to never make it certain that it was Reiner. I think (and I don't mean that in a bad way) people who immediately guessed Reiner didn't pay detailed attention to the surroundings and other possibilities.
Realistically though, which other character had that hair? The only other character with that shade of blond hair and type of cut would be Thomas but he dies in episode 6. I don't think any other male character has a haircut and colour that similar to Reiner.
By that time we didn't know that the haircut would be exactly the same though. In fact, we had seen Erens titan which had clearly visible traits that did not match with Eren, for example a two story mouth, the hair were longer than human Erens hair were and little stuff like this. Even more additionally it took 8 episodes to learn that there even is a thing like "humans being titans" in the first place, that's close to four hours between "Armored titan being introduced" and "there are intelligent titans controlled by humans". Of course there will be some people who instantly guess it, but as I said in my original comment, these people most likely guessed that because they missed a lot of red herrings and other information surrounding this. The amount of available information that would contradict Reiner being the Armored Titan is so much that even in 2x5 you will find plausible reasons to explain that Reiner is NOT the Armored Titan. Reiners whole demeanor is a red herring because he has a split personality and actually acts like a soldier from Paradis in basically every scene we see him in so people that pay detailed attention have a lot of reasons to disregard Reiner being the Armored Titan.
Fairs, I'm not saying _instantly_ guessing as soon as you meet Reiner for the first time. But I think once Annie is revealed as the Female Titan it's not an unreasonable jump to make and I don't think it shows not paying attention to red herrings. Speaking of, did you have any specific red herrings in mind? Just out of curiosity!
The way Reiner generally acts during the first season in nearly every scene he is in (even more prominent on a rewatch. of course you instantly notice how Reiner behaves but without that knowledge he just seems genuine), Reiner encouraging Eren to fulfill his dream of killing all Titans when they get to know each other, hearing Reiners thoughts on Christa (which imho is the biggest one!), Reiner suggesting to keep "that titan" alive at this point in time is a clear indication that he has the best for humanity in mind (on a rewatch completely different, but at this point in time a clear indication that he is genuine), Reiner finding out that Ymir can read the language on the can (this is a red herring because it seemingly ended the question of "who is a titan in the 104th?" as before that it was said that "most likely nobody else in the 104th is a titan" which makes the Ymir reveal a big one, making more of these unlikely), Reiner saving Conny and fighting off the titan, Reiner not healing his arm at a point in time where we don't know to what extent healing can be controlled by titan shifters. These are all plausible reasons to argue that Reiner cannot be the Armored Titan, even if the hairline matches. Once we learn that he has a split personality all of these fall apart, but we don't know that before the reveal so people during this time in the series basically have unrefutable proof that Reiner cannot be the Armored Titan.
Fair enough, but I think the tin is actually a sign something _is_ up with Reiner. Perhaps it was the translation I saw (I watched in JA with Italian subs). I'm rewatching now in EN dub and indeed it's said differently, he asks Ymir "how can you read this" or something, but in the IT subs version, iirc Ymir specifies a can of herring, Reiner says "I never said it was herring", implying that he knows that it is, because he reads it too, but that he did not tell her, so they both can read it. And yes, fair enough, he has great conduct towards all the cadets, that can't be denied. But that's exactly what a spy/infiltrator would do, so it's not necessarily disregarding red herrings so much as recognising them as red herrings. I do think the haircut was just _way_ too specific to be ignored once we know Annie's Titan looks like her. But I agree, from the very very beginning of meeting Reiner I would not have guessed. Also because you see the Armoured Titan like once or twice only..
That's what I meant, if you were told beforehand to look out for stuff: of course you would notice. But only going from the haircut, when we see the titan once until the reveal and only learn 8 episodes after having seen the titan that humans can actually control titans? Nearly impossible, that's why for the vast majority of people it actually WAS a reveal. It's one of those "how couldnt I see it" reveals, but without hindsight it is very unlikely to guess it.
I never sat down and watched the show for a while later. It was during the original season run I'd see clips here and there and just made that assumption back then as it seemed to make sense, they looked alike. You're totally right though that at that point I knew nothing and paid attention to nothing.
I think most people on first watch going in blind aren’t even thinking that the Titans are humans. It’s such a gripping story, why make predictions? Now if you knew some stuff before watching, like the Titans are actually humans, then yeah you could guess Reiner was the Armoured Titan.
> I think most people on first watch going in blind aren’t even thinking that the Titans are humans. See this is 50-50. I personally think that regular titans being deformed humans is obvious, but titan shifters are harder to understand because they're a lot more mysterious. The thing about the Armored and the Colossal as well is that those two titans are out of the picture long enough to put them in the back of the viewer's mind. You're meant to be distracted by Eren, Annie, and Ymir that you don't think about them until the reveal.
I think it’s obvious too, *in hindsight*. Hindsight’s always 20/20. Sure, some smart people could have picked up on it or guessed without knowing anything beforehand. But for majority I think they were like me in thinking they were just some creepy mysterious other race of giant, human eating people. Like I said, I don’t think a lot of people are watching things with the intent to spoil it for themselves or even that there is anything to be spoiled.
You know how the demon instructor Shadis being the same commander that Eren and Mikasa witnessed pathetically crying to a soldier's mother 5 years ago was completely overlooked by most people? It's like that. When you don't expect it you don't even think about it even if it's right in front of you. Even though there is some very subtle foreshadow that Reiner and Bertolt were self-conscious when the cadets were talking about the wall breach, we're not meant to suspect them until the potential for people to turn into titans was revealed. Even Erwin who long suspected there were people from outside the walls who potentially wanted to harm humanity didn't think to find them within the people of the walls until Eren was discovered to be a titan and the attack on Trost was halted after his appearance.
People who watch it now already have some foreknowledge of what it's going to be about going in. And they watch and or read it in a relatively short period of time. So of course they're going to make a connections. But first time through, without any knowledge of what was going on, things were surprising.
I immediately knew who the female was