Attack on Titan: Who Destroyed Paradis?
After ten years, Episode 89, titled “THE FINAL CHAPTERS Special 2”, finally premiered, and the anime series has come to its deserved end. Isayama’s story is now over, and while a lot of fans are still collecting their thoughts and impressions, we have decided to talk about the ending of the Attack on Titan anime. One of the scenes that was particularly striking was the one showing the future of Paradis after the deaths of the protagonist. And while it seemed that the island would bloom in peace, a scene from the future shows its complete destruction. So, who destroyed Paradis? Keep reading to find out.
The ending of Attack on Titan reveals the destruction of Paradis
Eren started the Rumbling, a tremendous onslaught on the rest of the world when he was able to fully assume the form of the Founding Titan and freely control the Colossal Titans within the Wall. Eventually, Mikasa defeats and beheads Eren, putting an end to his rampage and supposedly bringing about world peace. After the battle was over and the Titans vanished, the remaining combatants set out to build a world in which Paradis and Marley could coexist. They wanted to try, even though they knew it would be a difficult procedure.
The epilogue tells us that while Mikasa started a family, she continued to go to Eren’s grave often as Paradis grew into a nation. Before long, a tree began to grow over Eren’s grave. When Mikasa passes away from old age, Shiganshina is totally destroyed by a bombardment, and the battles that had been happening outside of Paradis finally reach that country as well. A forest takes over the remains many years later, and the manga concludes with a lone lad and his dog reaching Eren’s tree, which has grown enormous, just like Ymir Fritz did all those years before.
The gist of it, in the context of this article, is the fact that war returned to the world of Attack on Titan and that after a brief period of peace, the world was once again plunged into war. At one point, someone attacked Paradis and Shiganshina, which was rebuilt and was a futuristic city at the time (as per the anime), completely destroying the town and wiping it out of existence, as its ruins could be seen later in the series. Having said this, we know the grim fate of Paradis, but we still do not know the culprit, and that is the issue we are going to discuss in the next section.
Isayama never specified, but Marley most likely destroyed Paradis
So, having said all of this, we know that Shiganshina and Paradis were bombed at a later point and completely destroyed. The aftermath is unknown, but the mere fact that Shiganshina was completely wiped out is a tragedy. In the manga, this happened not long after the deaths of the surviving protagonists, while the anime confirmed that it happened several generations later, as Shiganshina had already been a futuristic town at that point. But while we do know “when,” we do not know about the – who!? Who destroyed Shiganshina? Why?
As to the why, the world plunged into war at one point, so that is the most likely reason. As for the who, we don’t know, at least not officially. Namely, Isayama never confirmed who bombed and destroyed Shiganshina; weaponry was seen, but we couldn’t really discern whose it was, and with Isayama not revealing any details, we can only guess. But, knowing the political context of the Attack on Titan lore, we can assume that the ones responsible are the troops from Marley.
We cannot confirm it officially, but knowing that Marley and Paradis were at war back in the day and that the tensions obviously never ended, we can assume that Marley, potentially with some of its allies, bombed and destroyed Shiganshina. Based on the whole situation, this is a very good guess, and it makes a lot of sense.
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