Attack on Titan / Shingeki No Kyojin: What's for Lunch?

[Ramza00]

Also, eff you Armin. Yes, you might be right but you're staking the fate of hundreds of people on your trust in an impulsive, backstabbing, murderous jerk. I thought you're supposed to be the smart one.

Why are you mad at Armin? Isn't this current Armin actions in a way a callback to the Armin in very beginning of the story with The Battle of Trost (episodes 9 and 10 of the anime.) Armin is making a leap of faith plea to his fellow comrades to trust Eren much like there was a debate of whether Eren is the enemy or ally prior to Pixis stepping in. Whether Eren is "the enemy" as in A Titan, or an enemy as in "An Warrior," or is the enemy in an "otherizing amorphous way you can't put your finger on" is a thing the series is keep on bringing up and the Survey Corps with their Wings of Freedom has to decide and redecide constantly.

In my opinion Armin having to take a chance is a purposeful callback, one that illustrates the more things change the more the fundamental question is the same. Can you trust a person you do not understand, can you invest in a person who is not you and is not like you?

This is the fundamental question of the series I think. That said I kind of have given up on hope of a theme / question of the series that I am comfortable with for there is too much creepy toxic specific philosophers in Attack on Titan (I am not naming them on purpose for it gets way too close to real life stuff that is against this board's rules.)

[Kato]

Putting the question of philosophy aside, back when he first turned they didn't have a choice and he hadn't done anything that obviously looked like he was evil. They were pretty much lost and Eren was pretty much their one chance to make it less of a disaster.
Now he is responsible for the death of hundreds or possibly thousands of people and if they help him he might commit genocide.
And while this probably is less Eren's than the pilot's fault, if he is secretly plotting against the plan, I don't believe he never had a chance to talk to Armin or Mikasa or whomever about it. (before the chaos of the coup and the attack on Marley at least)

But going back to the philosophy, I'm all for trusting people and I won't deny the story is in general promoting positive positions pointing to philanthropy but if it was all about trust we would not have had multiple spies and betrayals over the course of the story. 'trust Eren' and 'trust people' is not the same message.

[Phexar]

Well... this latest chapter was absolutely shocking. I definitely didn't expect most of what happened here.

Spoiler: Chapter 119 spoilers

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First it starts with Porco attacking Eren as Eren then brutally crushes Porco before he gets shot by Magath again. Pieck and Magath are then attacked by Flock's unit. Reiner attacks Eren as Porco receives a vision from coming into contact with Reiner where Marcel told Reiner that he had Reiner replace Porco to save his life.

Zeke rises and prepares to scream, however he's confronted by Colt with Falco in tow. Colt tells Zeke that Falco ingested his spinal fluid and begs Zeke to hold off screaming until he can get Falco out of the radius of his scream. Zeke sadly tells Colt that he understands his feelings towards his little brother but "it's a pity", and then screams. Colt holds Falco as Falco, Nile, Pyxis and all the other wine-tainted soldiers transform into Titans.

The Titans attack the Marley soldiers as Falco rises as a Titan. Zeke grimly tells Falco to kill Reiner, as Gabi notices Colt lying burned and dead on the ground from Falco's point blank transformation. Eren fights back as Reiner tries to hold him down, and Falco attempts to bite into Reiners nape which he hardens. Magath fires another round into Zeke as its revealed that Floch's unit was all wiped out by Marley soldiers except for Floch himself. As Magath prepares to fire on Eren again, he and Pieck are attacked by Armin and Mikasa, wrecking the gun and killing the Marley soldiers with them. Not sure if Magath's dead or not.

Zeke's titan form evaporates as Reiner decides to relent and sacrifice himself to Falco to bring him back. However... Falco suddenly stops biting into the nape as he notices Porco walking in front of him in human form. Half of Porco's head is missing as he explains that he used all the power he possibly could to regenerate and that he wasn't going to die for nothing, telling Reiner that he saw his memories of Marcel. "This way I made it crystal clear, right? That until the end I'll always be better" as he then lets himself be devoured by Falco so he can inherit the Jaw Titan and regain human form instead.

Upset, Reiner punches Eren in the face as he crystallizes himself, trapping Reiner's fist. Eren then escapes and runs out of his titan in human form towards human Zeke as he himself is crawling across the ground. Reiner breaks free and lunges towards Eren, but he's then attacked by thunder spears from Connie and Jean. As Eren's about to reach Zeke, he notices a tearful Gabi holding Colt's anti-titan rifle, who then fires and decapitates Eren, blowing his neck away as Zeke and the Survey Corps stare in horror with Eren's head flying off.

So the death count for named characters in this chapter would seem to be Eren, Porco, Colt, possibly Magath, and all of the wine-tainted soldiers including Pixis and Nile. I know Reiner survived being decapitated in the Battle for Shiganshina but I do wonder if Eren has that ability as well, or if it's really over for him. If Eren's dead then that would mean the Founding, Attack and Warhammer Titan powers are lost to random Eldians since that would be the first death we've seen of a Shifter without devouring.

[HandofShadows]

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Are they going back to the very depressing very bad ending now?

[Battleship789]

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Are they going back to the very depressing very bad ending now?

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Twist: this is the less depressing ending.

Wouldn't it still be possible to pass down Eren's titans, since it is his spinal fluid that needs to be consumed?

[Ramza00]

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So I am trying to make sense of 119 and see where they are going to go with the story from now, and this is my best gest.

So it seems Levi died only / was severely injured to demonstrate that the Primal Titan, the Ymir Titan, with all 9 aspects is still playing dice with the universe (she revived Zeke.) Levi and Zeke both had to get injured by a thunderspear to demonstrate that Zeke can still die and be returned even if his head was blown off completely.

This narrative act of Levi, Zeke, and Ymir in micro makes no sense and you just inserted another super-power into a series of super-powers. Inserting this super-power with no payoff is just wasteful and confusing from a storytelling perspective, it is not a conservation of energy, it is a needless expansion of energy, it does not make sense in micro.

Yet in macro it does make sense if the it was done narratively for a later purpose instead of no purpose. Chapters ago it only seem like an asspull. It would make more sense narratively to just have Zeke somehow narrowly win, or Zeke not get deathly injured instead getting near death injured via the thunderspear but he is able to recover from this near death experience via titan regeneration. But that is not what happened. Zeke was purely resurrected. Inserting Ymir and the astral plane being able to recover a body of a titan just seem weird.

It makes sense to establish this is possible so that when this same thing is about to happen to Eren, it does not seem to come out of nowhere. Sigh, Levi died / near death experience (Hange Zoe thinks Levi is alive and is with him in the river) only for Eren to die and be resurrected "for our sins." This is quite a bit of [censored]

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Twist: this is the less depressing ending.

Wouldn't it still be possible to pass down Eren's titans, since it is his spinal fluid that needs to be consumed?

We have no clue what the rules of titan shifter transfer is now a days. Zekes resurrection demostrates this.

0) Narratively we are told with the curse of Ymir if the titan shifters die of old age, it will go to a random Eldian. We haven't seen this but we assumed it to be true for it was told narratively. (Show vs Tell, Mimetic vs Diegetic.) This work of fiction loves to have unreliable narrators so unless we see it with our eyes I am skeptical if a fact is true, or even if we see something to be true, we may not understand the rules of the game.
1) We have seen for a fact that when a Titan or a Titan Shifter eats another Titan Shifter their powers will be transferred.
2) We haven't seen any titan shifter die without transferring their shifter power till manga 115. Prior to magna 115 we thought if a shifter died it would be like rule 0 where it goes to a random Eldian. But this did not happen, instead Zeke was resurrected on an astral plane place where a girl crafted him a new body out of sand.

Rule #2 broke our understanding of the rules and now we are in an uncertain liminal space of what the rules are. We have no clue of the rules, only theories and guesses of what the rules are like now. Perhaps titan astral plane girl (? Young Ymir?) will resurrect Eren, or perhaps something else will happen, who knows. Rule #2 also makes us question Rule #0 with the Curse of Ymir, there is probably is some form of curse but how do we know what the rules are of this curse if we already learned that rules can be broken and we are not sure why they are broken. Perhaps Titan Shifters can not die at all for their 13 years, except via old age, or via being eaten. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[HandofShadows]

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Actually coming back from the dead has been seen before with Reiner. He was thunderspeared into chucks at one point. Of course he was in his titian at the time.

[Ramza00]

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Actually coming back from the dead has been seen before with Reiner. He was thunderspeared into chucks at one point. Of course he was in his titian at the time.

Yes I agree with our knowledge now, but let me say BUT

Spoiler: Reiner

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Reiner was probably definitely dead at the time we saw him in several instances of the Battle of Shiganshina District Arc of chapters 70 to 84. We thought at the time (in micro) that Reiner just got all these luck roles and asspulls that saved his ass when he definitely should have died. But in hindsight after Zeke returning from the dead we now have to question whether Reiner lived during those moments or did he die. Did Levi kill him on the wall? Did Reiner survive the Thunderspears and so on?

I feel like a Toad right about now from an X-Men movie.

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Toad: Don't you people ever die? [Referring to Storm]

But now "we know*" they can't die, the titan shifters, they are Vandal Savage given titan flesh. [Except we don't know if this is true or not, it is merely highly suggested and is likely to be true.]

[HandofShadows]

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Well, we know they can die for good, but it seems to take specific things to do it. Being eaten by a Titian in one. Dying from the Curse of Ymir is another.

[Lurkmoar]

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Huh. So Floch was right when he wanted to toss Gabi and Falco out of the air ship.

[Ramza00]

New chapter and it is Memento Mori.

Edit: On a reread.

Spoiler: Chapter 120, August 2019

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There is some memory gambit [censored] going down with this. Non-linear time I mean thought travel in this memory recall.

Grisha can see Zeke, and specifically older Zeke in the memories. Grisha being one of the attack titan holders. Grisha thinks this is a dream but instead it is not a dream but something to do with Paths.
But a few pages earlier Baby Eren looks specifically at the doorway and sees Older Zeke and Older Eren.

This detail is not obvious to the reader at first glance, but the last 6 pages are important, for Baby Toddler Eren seeing Older Zeke and Older Eren occurs prior to us seeing Grisha do the same thing, but we are not dealing with a reliable narrator, and this is a non-linear storytelling going on.

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So pretty much this is some sort of memory gambit where Eren has started to figure out a way to recover control and Zeke hasn't figured out that Eren is manipulating him. Eren is not watching the memories when they occur, instead he is watching Zeke who is watching the memories.

Either this is due to Eren's intelligence or it is one of the abilities of the Attack Titan / which resists being controlled so much as its nature, the Attacker Titan that craves Freedom above all.

[Tom Kalbfus]

Previouse Thread: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...geki-No-Kyojin

Time for a new thread since the old one hit page 50.

Does it take place on Saturn's Moon Titan?

[Cen]

New chapter and it is Memento Mori.

Edit: On a reread.

Spoiler: Chapter 120, August 2019

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Snip

Surely this series has gone bonkers

[HandofShadows]

New chapter and it is Memento Mori.

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Hahaha. Zeke though he was going to show Eren that he was brainwashed, but instead we see that Grisha while he made mistakes, did care about his kids. Eren has probably know the truth for months and maybe even a few years. I wonder though, did Eren come up with this plan totally by himself? I wonder if Levi was in on it.

[Ramza00]

Surely this series has gone bonkers

It is not Evangelion level of bonkers yet. Then again are we in the End of Titan part of the franchise yet? 🤔

[Ramza00]

New Chapter 121 Future Memories (Sept 2019)

Spoiler: I called it last chapter

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Non-Linear Storytelling plus a Memory Gambit was occuring. And I still do not quite understand what is happening now.

I understand how the Non-Linear Storytelling and the Memory Gambit works, I do not know understand what is going to happen next what is Eren's plan, what is Zeke's counterattack, and so on.

[HandofShadows]

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Yah, Eren is pulling something here. I have seen the theory other places that at least some of what is being shown in these memories are in fact lies. So what is truth and what is fiction? The one panel with Fritz lady on how she wasn't going to save anyone however was very real. Eren is PISSED there.

[HandofShadows]

Spoiler: New Chapter

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Yeah. We get the true history of Ymir and the first titan. And really, if you have a weak stomach, beware.

[Lurkmoar]

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I'm... really hoping that end the world is more along the lines of "End the endless cycle of terror, abuse and revenge" and not "KILL EVERYONE".

[Ramza00]

What was the line from Today in the X-Men movie? Ah, yes it was...

Don't you people ever die?

Nope because of PATHS.

Spoiler: Chapter 122, so we more or less got an explanation of a mechanic of how something works.

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Chapter 122, so we more or less got an explanation of a mechanic of how something works... it is not flat out stated in the text but via subtext we can figure it out.

So royal blood means they have the DNA Paths of the king who bossed around YMIR Fritz. Via sexual reproduction the royal blood have both the DNA of the king and YMIR Fritz herself. {scrubbed}

And to be a titan you must belong from YMIR's tribe and eat some of the spinal chord of one of the children, or YMIR Fritz herself. Yet your body's base is not of YMIR Fritz and thus you are a splinter titan who is their own line breaking some aspects of the PATHS.

And now Erin through his behavior that warps time and space, is able to go back in time and influence previous Titan holders of the Attack branch of YMIR Fritz titan line. {scrubbed} He introduces a challenge to the king who bossed YMIR Fritz around, and this challenge to the authority provides people choice instead of blind obedience.

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Now in this flashback we can assume 3 of the 9 titans are from the children of YMIR Fritz, and these 3 daughters are given the same name as the 3 walls of Paradise, Maria, Rose, Sheena. So one aspect of history lore survived and was not corrupted over 2000 years [Yet so much else of the history is corrupted.]

So did the 9 titans all come from those 3 daughters, or did 6 other people eat the Spinal Cord of YMIR Fritz? This question is still not answered as of Chapter 122.

[deuterio12]

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So did the 9 titans all come from those 3 daughters, or did 6 other people eat the Spinal Cord of YMIR Fritz? This question is still not answered as of Chapter 122.

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I think it's pretty obvious that the 9 titans came from the 3 daughters since:

a) Random people can't become titans after YMIR Fritz as far as we know, they need to belong to the bloodline.

b) The royal family would probably not risk handing the spinal cord to just any 6 randos.

c) It's more mystic/fluffier if it's 3 daughters having 3 daughters each instead of "3 daughters and 6 randos".


Also I bet part of YMIR Fritz decided to jump into that spear's path just for the sweet release of death. Only to realize that there would be no rest for her.

Still it feels like a bit cheap that YMIR Fritz's whole power origin story is "walked into a random tree and suddenly TITAN".

[Lurkmoar]

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Still it feels like a bit cheap that YMIR Fritz's whole power origin story is "walked into a random tree and suddenly TITAN".

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That was a nod to Norse mythology. It is anti-climatic, but while necessity may be the mother of invention, accidents are surely the father.

[-D-]

Question:

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Which king forced future descendants to hide in Paradiso? It can't be this king, right?
Why wasn't Zeke affected by that decree?

[Lurkmoar]

Question:

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Which king forced future descendants to hide in Paradiso? It can't be this king, right?
Why wasn't Zeke affected by that decree?

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I think it was the 145th King. Ironically known as the First King to the people on the island. The decree is carried by the Coordinate, NOT royal blood.

[Phexar]

Spoiler: Chapter 122

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Looks like the Rumbling aka Ragnarok's finally started. I didn't expect it to happen right now though it'll be interesting to see how it plays out as it throws everything into chaos.

And there's a lot to unpack in this chapter. Poor Ymir, she's suffered the most of any character by far.

The power of the titans seems to come from that spinal parasite that Ymir fell into and merged with after falling through the giant tree - an allusion to Nidhogg at the root of the great tree Yggdrasil. The parasite may have been an ancient lifeform from the Cambrian age, I'll just quote these which someone else found:

'"The "parasite" that gives power to Ymir is an animal species that really existed: Hallucigenia. And who lived in the Cambrian era. The Cambrian explosion, which appeared suddenly, created almost all the biodiversity (plants, animals, etc.) present in the world. And The explosion apperead in Burgess Shale type preservation , the same zone where Hallucigenia was found This confirms the theory of Eren Krugger who said: "She came into contact with the origin of all life" In the opening of season 2 of attack on titan , we see animals and all the biodiversity at the end that have a link with the titans. Issayama wants to give an explanation of the origin of the current biodiversity from this mysterious animal that lived at the time of this explosion and who participated with other organisms in the emergence of the present life." - Quoted from a comment by Kane Batista on a video by Foxen Anime https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hgC...70297079390206'

"I actually like how she fell in water with the "spine." In Mesopotamiom and sumerian mythology, there is something called the mystical waters of abzul, Which is a fresh water ocean underground from which all life is derived from, and all fresh water sources are derived from. And the fact it was under a tree reminds me of the world tree [Yggdrasil] in norse mythology, which is the tree that connects all 9 realms. Being connected to all 9 realms explains the titan realm, and it being the mystical waters of abzul explains where the titan form come from." - goaty mcgoatface (same video)

One could also make a loose comparison between Nidhogg and the devil, which is where the Devil of All Earth tale could come from. The Eldian king is also shown waging war against Marley to crush them as well as telling Ymir she 'cultivated the land and built bridges across mountains', as both versions of Eldia's history state.

Ymir looks like she died or was struck down by a spear that went through her nape, a titan's weakpoint. Whether she truly died or lost the will to live I'm not sure. Similarly her children being made to eat her body makes me wonder if that influenced the titans devouring people. And of course the three walls were named from her three children, Sina, Rose and Maria. The daughters-eating-mother scene was also foreshadowed in the ending of season one of the anime.

I wonder if the man who stuck down Ymir inspired the false legend of Helos? As both of them were shown wielding a spear.

Ymir was also used as a scapegoat to take the blame just as modern Ymir was as the figurehead for that cult. Also pregnant Ymir appears similar to pregnant Historia.

Eren's expression when coming into contact with Historia's hand mirrors Ymir's expression when he frees her. He also doesn't wear an expression of hatred when discussing her slavery either which shows he doesn't really hate Mikasa for being enslaved to him in a fashion.

Some had theories about how if all Eldians have distant royal blood from Ymir and that Eldian king, then how is it that the Founding Titan only works for the royal family. I had about 2 guesses:

1- Ymir only recognises a certain amount/relation of the main royal family as royal blood. It might have been the branch that inherited the Founding Titan and not the other 8. A bit similar to OotS and Familicide actually.

2- At some point a member of the royal family put a similar ongoing clause to the one the First King made - something like "the Founding Titan can now only be used by the royal family" or "the Founding Titan now only works for this branch of the royal family" to prevent anyone else from being able to use it.

I suspect it might be the first one now though, where Ymir followed the king and the royal line absolutely in a Stockholm fashion, grown up as a young slave with her tongue cut out and sold out/blamed by the other slaves. Perhaps it's why she saved Zeke since he was dying and she had that chance.

At the same time at the start of the chapter Frieda is telling Historia about being a good kind girl who is always thinking of others, someone who is always loved by all and who depends on others and who can be depended on. Maybe Ymir followed the royal line because she just wanted to be loved.

[danzibr]

Finally read like the pasts 20 chapters. Holy smokes.

1) I really like how the first chapter name references recent happenings (well, recent in the manga).

2) I'd really like to read this manga in chronological order.

[-D-]

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I think it was the 145th King. Ironically known as the First King to the people on the island. The decree is carried by the Coordinate, NOT royal blood.

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Ok, but it triggers when royal blood inherits The Coordinate, right? Like in Historia's case.

And Zeke is royal blood, right? Wouldn't him getting coordinate, essentially submitting to First King's will

[HandofShadows]

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Ok, but it triggers when royal blood inherits The Coordinate, right? Like in Historia's case.

And Zeke is royal blood, right? Wouldn't him getting coordinate, essentially submitting to First King's will

That's correct. I don't think Zeke knows that though.

[Lurkmoar]

That's correct. I don't think Zeke knows that though.

Actually...

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His conversation with Tom Xavier... I think that was the previous Beast Titan holder's name was, was that it absolutely would. Which is why he had to someone else as the 'container' for the Coordinate. And Eren needed a royal blooded Titan to access the Paths fully. And he sure as hell didn't want to Titanize Historia.

[Phexar]

That's correct. I don't think Zeke knows that though.

Actually...

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His conversation with Tom Xavier... I think that was the previous Beast Titan holder's name was, was that it absolutely would. Which is why he had to someone else as the 'container' for the Coordinate. And Eren needed a royal blooded Titan to access the Paths fully. And he sure as hell didn't want to Titanize Historia.

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Yeah Zeke does know, it's why he lied at first and deliberately portrayed himself to Eren in the Paths Dimension as wearing chains, telling him he was bound by the First King's Will and that as a royal he couldn't use the Coordinate/Founding Titan power and only Eren could command Ymir (to test if he could truly trust Eren).

He would have been bound for real too, if he hadn't used the same loophole that Eren had access to - Eren assumed he could freely use the Coordinate/Founding Titan power by contact with Zeke (royal blood titan + non-royal titan with the Coordinate/Founding power) but it hadn't occurred to him that it could also work the other way and that Zeke could freely use it too (and that Zeke being a royal gave him priority). I don't think Zeke knew he had access to the loophole as well until he entered Paths via Eren and discovered he wasn't bound though.

Also Zeke stated that he used the Coordinate to abolish the First King's Will once he had access through the loophole, it doesn't exist anymore. It makes sense because it would have gotten in the way if Eren betrayed him and he needed to take the Founding power off him as a last resort.