Death in Attack On Titan

_“For, as I draw closer and closer to the end, I travel in the circle, nearer and nearer to the beginning”
-Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities_

AoT handles deaths in a somewhat unorthodox fashion to say the least. Most media and shows out there usually try to avoid killing central characters or at least give meaningful deaths to major characters. In shows like Naruto, for example, people die valiant deaths. They go down fighting, come to peace with their pasts, and meet their ends looking optimistically at the future.
AoT is kinda different in that regard.
Here the deaths are ugly, both literally and thematically. In Attack On Titan, deaths are far from being honorable – they are pathetic and unheroic.

Let us observe some examples –
The 104 Cadet Corps Recruits and Levi Squad –
I legitimately thought guys like Marco, Oluo, Petra and Mike were going to be main characters. But guess what, not only do they die the cruelest deaths, their ends hardly matter if we consider the bigger picture. They do not get an epic heart touching monologue, they do not accept their fate with a smile. Everyone down in a state of shock and utmost horror, begging for their lives to beings as unfortunate and undignified as themselves. In Attack on Titan, sacrifices of the brave often end up changing nothing at all. But does that make their deaths meaningless? Absolutely not! Even if these deaths do not succeed in bringing the children out of the forest and creating up an ideal future, they will surely leave stories of martyrs on the pages of history, which would undoubtedly serve as beacons of light for the hopeless and inspiring accounts of valiance for those who want to fight and break free from their shackles
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Gross, the guy who killed Faye Yeager –__
This was one of my favourite scenes in the show. Grisha, who’s about to be turned into a titan, confronts the man who killed his sister. What excuse, what justification does he give for this wretched murder of an innocent child?
He wants to steel himself against death, to purge the very fear of mortality from his soul. How does he want to achieve this? By killing Eldians and desensitizing himself from the terror of dying.
So how does he react when Kruger sends him tumbling down? How does he behave, knowing that he will be eaten alive by a monster of his creation, by someone whose life he ruined? Is he unwavering in his resolve to not fear death? Does he accept that his cruel fate is a consequence of his unfathomable sins?
Alas, no.
Just like every other human, the Marleyean dies screaming pathetically. The message is ironic. No matter how tough you try to act, or how “normal” you find Death, when it comes for you for real, you will be as terrified as the next guy.

Erwin Smith and Marlo Freudenberg–
These two are possibly the most intriguing of them all. Erwin Smith is perhaps one of if not the bravest of AoT characters. He is a hardened veteran who is unfazed by the deaths of his comrades. A cold and calculating tactician who gambles hundreds of lives for the slimmest of opportunities. A general brave enough to frighten the devil. Should not a man of that caliber face death with an arrogant smirk? To laugh at the very idea of being undone by something as simple as a flying rock?
His expression says differently. At the moment the rock strikes his stomach, we see a look of absolute unadulterated horror etched on his face. His bravado, intellect and resolve – all three are knocked out of him with just one fatal blow.
In his dying moments, he thinks not of the hundreds of souls he lead into a suicide charge, not of his duty as a commander. Rather, he dreams of his childhood, of the day he asked his father the question that would shape his life right up to the moment of his death.
Though much less memorable than the one previously described, the death of Marlo Freudenberg is by no means inferior when it comes to conveying the show’s idea of death. Marlo is a dedicated soldier with a one-track mind when it comes to his mission and the betterment of humanity. Things like love and intimacy are seemingly of no worth in his eyes; in fact the guy’s dense to the point that he seems to be completely oblivious to Hitch’s feelings towards him.
That is, until his very last moment.
True to his character, after Erwin is rendered incapable by Zeke’s barrage of rocks, its Marlo who takes charge and just like his commander, his reaction to certain death is, what some may call, “out of character.”
Faced with death, Marlo visualizes Hitch sleeping comfortably in a bed. He wishes he hadn’t gone, wishes that he had stayed by her side. It in this fit of wistfulness that he too meets the inevitable. To the superficial eye, this may seem contradictory and hence may be labelled as “bad/inconsistent writing”. “How did he suddenly start simping a girl he never paid any attention to?” is maybe something someone on the internet may end up saying. However it is this contradiction that makes AoT a realistic show, since in reality, people tend to be confused and conflicted and often take actions that are contradictory to their values. At the moment death becomes certain and the chances of survival become nil, one tends to see clearly the regrets and shortcomings of his life. Things that should’ve been said when there was still time, actions that could have been taken, and finally, the potential relationships that could’ve bloomed from buds into flowers if only there had been time. Hence one regretting and bemoaning about not being able to spend time with a girl he never paid attention to is not only consistent with the themes of the show, but also astoundingly heartbreaking and realistic since on the deathbed, every soul surely thinks about what it could never get hold of, regardless of how insignificant it may have seemed in day-to-day life.
This is something similar to a part of Chapter IX of Leo Tolstoy’s” The Death of Ivan Ilyich”, where we see a dying Court Official regretting his alienation from the blissful happiness of childhood, despite not sparing a minute to ponder on what he really wanted while in good health.
It basically goes like :
““What do you want? What do you want?” he repeated to himself.
“What do I want? To live and not to suffer,” he answered.
And again he listened with such concentrated attention that even his pain did not distract
him.
“To live? How?” asked his inner voice.
“Why, to live as I used to—well and pleasantly.”
“As you lived before, well and pleasantly?” the voice repeated.

And in imagination he began to recall the best moments of his pleasant life. But strange
to say none of those best moments of his pleasant life now seemed at all what they had then
seemed—none of them except the first recollections of childhood. There, in childhood, there had
been something really pleasant with which it would be possible to live if it could return. But the
child who had experienced that happiness existed no longer, it was like a reminiscence of
somebody else.”
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Final thoughts –__
I love how people in AoT die as flawed and weak individuals. If what we call “character” is a building made from bricks of experience and the cement of time, then it must tumble down when tested with the freak storm known as the Terror of Death; and when it does, surely the foundations will be left bare for all to see, including, of course, the dying man himself. On aside note, I think it is because of this and all of the above, are part of the reasons why I find the ending thematically consistent and satisfactory. Thank you for reading this long ass thesis, if you’ve made this far.