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[Tellemurius]

Eren's freaking broken-legged unarmed mother puts up more of a struggle!

Sidenote: Notice how she kicked her legs as she struggled?

She was lying about having broken legs.

I did notice that, actually. I assume she either lied or somehow managed to kick despite the pain and brokeness.

in the manga she was grabbed waist down then crushed before eaten, they added that to the anime for emotion i guess (im not a fan for the anime)

[Sirus]

Not sure if you've had/seen seriously broken bones before, but it's not that you can't move the limb because of pain. You can't move them because the muscles and tendons are connected to bone fragments, and don't have anything solid to move against anymore. Basically, crushed limbs are noodles made out of meat.

Not seriously broken, but I have had broken arms. They could move, but not without extreme pain and thus they moved as little as possible.

-snip-

That does explain how the trainees and wall garrison would fail so badly, but the scouts that we've seen at least have some sort of tactical sense. Sometimes.

[Flying Dice]

-snip-

That does explain how the trainees and wall garrison would fail so badly, but the scouts that we've seen at least have some sort of tactical sense. Sometimes.

Like I said, the scouts that are still alive have lived long enough to figure it out on their own. That's how it tends to work when you don't train your soldiers well: the lucky ones live long enough to become good at what they do. Or they all die horribly, but hey, you win some and you lose some.

[Leafsnail]

The ones we've seen are the rare, highly talented scouts.  The bad or average ones got eaten.  Note that scouts would generally be of a worse standard than the garrison due to the fact that the garrison gets better recruits, and also that a lot of the recon corps will be complete rookies at any given time (due to their high death rate).

[Furtuka]

Is it considered a spoiler to discussion the translation for the runes that appeared on the cover for one of the uh... I forgot if it was a book cover or a poster or something

[Leafsnail]

As long as you put it under an appropriate spoiler tag (mark it as either anime or manga depending on what it refers to) that should be fine.

[Chaoswizkid]

Now for an unrelated note: does it bug anyone else how much anime breaks the rule of "show, don't tell"?

I believe that the Japanese, and potentially Eastern Culture in general, does not follow the "show, don't tell" philosophy. I grew up watching anime and reading manga and use the sort of introspective thoughts and explanations you see in those mediums in my writing occasionally, and I've been criticized for it. Personally I see nothing wrong with telling anything as long as you don't botch the actual story you're trying to write. I feel like "show, don't tell" is just a philosophy that was developed because people sucked at telling and it was easier to pull off showing, rather than some universal golden truth.

[Vector]

Meh, I'm like 100% convinced that it's just that different things are shown, told, and prioritized, because folks also routinely complain about the flatness of Japanese characters while totally ignoring all of the signs of characterization that are present.

[Flying Dice]

Now for an unrelated note: does it bug anyone else how much anime breaks the rule of "show, don't tell"?

I believe that the Japanese, and potentially Eastern Culture in general, does not follow the "show, don't tell" philosophy. I grew up watching anime and reading manga and use the sort of introspective thoughts and explanations you see in those mediums in my writing occasionally, and I've been criticized for it. Personally I see nothing wrong with telling anything as long as you don't botch the actual story you're trying to write. I feel like "show, don't tell" is just a philosophy that was developed because people sucked at telling and it was easier to pull off showing, rather than some universal golden truth.

Less that and more because crappy writers are prone to doing things like writing "So'n'so is a terrible evil and must be stopped!" to explain why the protagonists are fighting so'n'so, which leaves us with basically nothing but the author's word that so'n'so is evil, and a near-total lack of investment. We don't know them from Adam, and we have no reason to care. If you write scenes in which so'n'so does evil things, the audience has reason to believe that so'n'so is evil. Any form of "telling" us about so'n'so's evil that's even mildly effective as a device is probably another way of showing (characters recounting so'n'so's past misdeeds, so'n'so having a conversation that reveals their twisted, evil ways of thinking, etc.)

In other words, the "telling" referred to in that concept is when someone writes that something is so without any context, background, or in-universe proof. In a sense it's like the old morality play habit of naming characters after what they represent, e.g. a character with imbalanced humours named Mal-[something], and is almost always going to be a less effective style than either simply showing what you intend to convey through the action, or having the telling done in-universe by a character or characters who can provide exposition and explanation for whatever is being told.

Meh, I'm like 100% convinced that it's just that different things are shown, told, and prioritized, because folks also routinely complain about the flatness of Japanese characters while totally ignoring all of the signs of characterization that are present.

This is what I've gradually gravitated toward with Asian media. The cultural norms are very different, and if you approach a work with your mind solely rooted in Western archetypes and ideals, you're going to miss quite a bit. Granted, I'm no expert, but simply trying to see things different ways has made a fairly substantial difference in my experiences with anime and manga.

[Sirus]

I think you guys are a little confused. When I talk about "show, don't tell", I'm not referring to characterization or foreshadowing or other things that are likely to be expressed differently in other cultures. I mean that the audience is being told that things are happening, which never show up on screen or even contradict what we're shown.

Take, for example, Rebuild of Evangelion. When the first (on-screen, not first in-universe) Angel attacks, we're told about how all the defensive units are being wiped out in the battle to stop the Angel.

Angry General: "What the hell?! Why's it still standing?!"
Calm General: "The tank battalion's been wiped out. That thing's just striding over our defenses like they're not even there."

Plausible, except that the Angel in question is only shown taking out a single helicopter on-screen, using its energy blade arm to make it crash and then stepping on the wreck. At all other times, the Angel is simply shown to be standing there and tanking hits.

There's an even more egregious example in the second film, when (spoiler)Angel-infected!Unit 03 is getting shot at by the military. These things have no ranged weaponry of any kind, and the Eva is simply walking forward through the barrage. And yet you can hear panicked chatter over the radio about how the defenses are getting ripped apart and that any surviving units should pull back.

That's the sort of thing I'm talking about.

[Vector]

Some of the "never show up on screen" is to ground us in the characters we're supposed to empathize with, and their incomplete information.  But a lot of it is budgetary constraints...

[Leafsnail]

Take, for example, Rebuild of Evangelion. When the first (on-screen, not first in-universe) Angel attacks, we're told about how all the defensive units are being wiped out in the battle to stop the Angel.

This is a weird criticism.  If you're in a military command centre you'd expect to hear reports of what's happening.  But yeah if it's NGE it's probably because Gainax are very poor.

[Flying Dice]

Take, for example, Rebuild of Evangelion. When the first (on-screen, not first in-universe) Angel attacks, we're told about how all the defensive units are being wiped out in the battle to stop the Angel.

This is a weird criticism.  If you're in a military command centre you'd expect to hear reports of what's happening.  But yeah if it's NGE it's probably because Gainax are very poor.

It isn't that weird if you read the rest of his post. The issue wasn't that there were reports on what was happening, but that those reports were at odds with other things being shown on-screen. Though as you said, that's likely because it's Gainax.

[Furtuka]

mmmm and the issues Attack On Titan's animation team/budget start to show after a while.

[Vector]

Man, even the first episode has stills with SFX over it.  It's clear that their budget has some issues.