Shengeki no Kyojin Monologue (Armin)

‘Those Who Can Throw Away Their Humanity’

Monologue From: Shingeki no Kyojin (Chapter 27)
Originally Written By: Hajime Isayama
Translation by: Manga Reader (mangareader.net)

Everyone can make a choice after they’ve learned what it will result in. It’s so easy to say ‘we should have done it this way’ afterwards. But....! You can’t know what your choice will result in before actually choosing, you know? Can you tell that titan’s (monster) true identity? Or how many of them exist? What they can do? What they know? What they’ve learned? The thing is you don’t know! You never know anything! But the time keeps moving, it won’t stop just because you want it to! And there surely will come a time when you’ll have to make a choice, even though you have no idea what the result will be! I know what the words ‘taking responsibility for the consequences’ mean. No matter what the result this plan will produce, it won’t change the fact that a lot of soldiers have been lost in vain for it. Our commander may be a bad and heartless person for what he did, but that’s just fine by me. Having considered every possible course of action, even if he had to put lives of his comrades in danger as the result of his choice. He still had to choose; the lives of a hundred comrades or the lives of all humanity living inside the walls- and the commander has made his choice. He has chosen to throw away the lives of a hundred of his comrades. I haven’t lived all that long yet, but there’s something that I firmly believe in. The people who have the ability to change something in this world, all without exception, have guts to abandon things important to them if they have to. They are those who can even abandon their humanity if they’re hard pressed to outdo monsters. People who can’t throw away something important can never hope to change anything.