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Why is Reiner Braun so nice and good to the members of the 104th training corps if...

he's an enemy of humanity? Shouldn't he care less about them and let them die many times if he had the chance to?

Laurel
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Pablo
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4 Answers4

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This is a good question that Isayama has answered so subtly in his manga.

First and foremost,

Bertholdt, Reiner and Annie come from a 'ghetto' neighborhood of Marley, where Eldians are put to reside. There is a lot of blatant racism in the nation of Marley, especially towards Eldians. Eldians do not have the same rights as Marleyans, and the operate as a inferior race. However Marleyans know the power of Eldians, thus Marleyans are using the titan powers by guilt-feeding Eldians into joining the army and serving the nation of Marley. The guilt is based on the Marleyan theory that Eldians in the past used their titan powers and committed war crimes towards Marleyans.

Which means that for

kids raised in these 'ghettos' such as Reiner, or Bertholdt, are brainwashed this idea that only serving the Marleyan army will give Eldians their acknowledgement, and hopefully pay for the crimes that their Eldian ancestors did in the past.

Therefore,

Reiner and Bertholdt are part of those kids who excel their training in order to have 'the honor' of becoming a titan shifter.

After being assigned a mission to invade

the walls, Reiner and Bertholdt initially had this idea of wiping out every human inside the walls, kidnapping the Coordinator Titan power, and returning to their homeland.

However,

after living there for quite a few years, Reiner saw that Eldians within the walls were not evil as they were portrayed by the Marleyan government. On the contrary, Reiner befriended other survey corps members, and a lot of them were depending on him. So he became more sympathetic and understandable towards the people inside the walls.

Which led to Reiner

facing his ultimate dilemma: is he a "soldier" (aka survey corps), or a "warrior" (aka Marleyan spy)?

And this is the beauty of Isayama's story-telling. We learn both perspectives, and that makes us understand both protagonists and antagonists. To quote Bertrand Russell War does not determine who is right, only who is left

SPOILER ALERT Additional information showed on manga chapter 93. This is another hint why Reiner behaved in such a way. He has been feeling guilt and his position in this war has not been clear to him. Source: mangastream.com

Reiner

mjeshtri
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because he is not the enemy of humans, he is simply a spy inside the walls gathering information and sabotaging the enemy's strategic resources (the walls) to weaken the enemy and help his own side win. he needed to gain the trust of the others and make them believe that he is one of them. Like any other infiltrator in the enemy's lands.

Henjin
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Answer in the anime was sort of given today (27/05/2017) in episode 9 of season 2,

It's more or less what the answer of surveyCorps said, Reiner is sort of crazy and sometimes he forgets he's part of the enemy and he believes he's a soldier just like Eren, Mikasa and the others

Pablo
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  • There is also the added explanation (in the next episode, I think) of _wanting to live a different life_ in order to forget their past misdeeds (they had emotional issues dealing with their past actions). Avoiding spoilers as much as I can here, sorry for the vague comment. – Flater Jul 24 '17 at 09:09
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I think it's because he at first tried to blend in with the 104th Cadet Corps, so he had to be nice or else Reiner would be deemed suspicious. Also, you can search this up and it says that because of him pretending to be a soldier for so long, he develops a split-personality disorder causing him to be confused on whether or not he's a soldier protecting the wall, or a spy that is meant to infiltrate the wall and wipe out humanity.

Aubrey Arias
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