oh god where do i start
when i first watched aot up until about season 4 i really didn't give a fuck about reiner. he fell into the two roles that he really plays throughout the series: reliable older brother figure & scheming enemy. and for me that felt a lot less exciting of a character and less interesting than, say, armin or levi or eren.
that was until mid january 2021 when we got the episode of reiner's backstory and we're forced to see what it was that brought this optimistic and hopeful young kid to the point where he puts the barrel of a loaded musket in his mouth. that moment made me retroactively reconsider every opinion i held about reiner.
because the reality of the situation is that he was an unloved, abused child forced into the military to functionally become a weapon of mass destruction. by twelve he was charged with invading an entire island, leading to the deaths of thousands upon thousands. when considering that, the roles that he played through the first three seasons made more sense
wouldn't it be easier to just ignore the guilt and the trauma over what you had done and instead just put on the personality of someone else? in his case, wouldn't it be easier to pretend to be marcel? or isn't it easier to make others hate you so much more first, to become more terrible so when they tell you to go to hell and die, they're saying it to the version of you that you presented, not the real you?
and then what happnes when you go back, what happens to someone who spent years trying to be someone else, how do you go back to before? and was there even a before? i think there's a solid argument to be made that reiner never really was himself. he was always pretending, pretending to be the perfect warrior for his mother, pretending to be the good friend to those he would have to kill, pretending to be a devil when he just wanted friendship. and i think that his journey of self-realization in the narrative is incredibly powerful. we finally get to see a reiner that acts because he feels it is right, someone that owns up to their mistakes and the pain they caused and doesn't, someone that can still find time to joke around and be a lighthearted person again.
it just feels so important to me that this series doesn't demonize anyone, and instead actually looks at why people do the things that they do. and i think reiner is at the center of that question, trying to figure out how a presumably good kid is able to do such terrible things. and i think the answers isayama gives to that not only elevate reiner as a character but give us so much more context on the story overall and makes it feel more grounded despite its fantastical elements.
fuck man, i just love reiner braun and he deserves all the love
i actually have issues with deciding how i feel about reiner's PTSD in AOT because there are some instances where it is hard to watch in a way i think is successful. most of that is in season 4 where we see what led to coming to paradis, we see him dealing with the ramifications of what he did, and see him questioning the value of his life against the lives he took.
my issue, then, largely comes with season 2 where we his personality split is sort of just touched on as a 'oh he's insane and dangerous' as opposed to actually considering what pushed him to that point. and while we get that a season later, i just wonder if the placement of that reveal could have been handled better
i think maybe one of the best ways to describe reiner is directionless. he's not a man who has any strong morals, not really. or if they are there, he readily abandons them if someone tells him. instead he's someone driven by the bonds he makes with people, driven to protect those he loves and desperate for approval. it's what makes him such a terrible warrior, but such a great character. he has all the makings for what should be a fantastic soldier for marley, but it's his heart that makes him fail every time. and i love him for that.