Plot hole or not?

ghier said:
SPOILERS if you haven’t seen this season.

So there’s this scene where Armin suggests to Hange and the others that they head for Wall Maria overnight to avoid Titan encounters. It’s a good idea. But now I’m thinking, why couldn’t they have done that for literally every expedition prior to this if they could make it to Wall Maria from Trost in one night as they did in the second part of this season? It makes it seem like lives were sacrificed in every scout expedition when they really didn’t need to be.

I’ve been racking my brain at this one for awhile, but I can’t fully explain it away.

• Visibility is poor? That ain’t good enough.
  
• Some titans can operate a bit at night? Still doesn’t negate how much smaller of a threat they are at night.
  
• 3D maneuver gear can’t be used well at night? Disproven in the show by being used at night.
  
• Setting up supply points requires more time in the field limiting night expeditions? Maybe that helps a bit, but definitely not enough. Night expeditions should still be common practice.
  

Does anyone have a really good explanation for this?

Side note: just realized when I came up with idea about supply points that they were able to lift horses over the wall for the expedition this season but for some reason had to go out the west or east gate for the expedition in the first season. Did they just not have lifts yet? Or was the Titan threat at the gates much more minimal in the third season? The latter seems more acceptable to me.

SparCy said:
basically in early aot everyone is stupid apart from Armin cause Armin is the “smart” one.

bossome said:
1. The discovery of titans not being able to move at night was done fairly recently by Hange around season 1 I believe, but these were only two titans that she tested on. There are all different types of titans, so they don’t know if abnormals for instance could or couldn’t move around, or other titans in general.

2. The point of the expeditions were to explore more of the outside world, there really was not any other point. They had no light outside of the walls to be able to see, so there really wouldn’t be any point of exploring at night without said light source. They could bring torches, somewhat like they did in season 2, but even then it is still really dark. This makes the point of going out to explore pointless. In season 3 part 2 when they are going back to Shinganshina, they had a new light source powered by the glowing rock in the cavern under the church. This now gave them the opportunity to travel at night as they’d be able to see.

Nitroade24h said:
Visibility outside is something we take for granted, but with no lights from any cities or villages around, you can hardly see a couple of metres around you, and for a regiment whose purpose is to scout out the world outside the walls, being able to hardly see the tree you’re about to crash into at high speed on a horse is extremely impractical. As well as that, some titans still move at night, and it would be impossible to fight even a few titans if you can’t see and can’t use ODM gear as effectively.
Remember also that most of the scout missions last several days or weeks so you can’t only go out at night.

About the horses, the lifts can only carry a couple of horses at a time so it would take ages to get the whole scout regiment’s horses over using them.

kusharin_RD said:
bruh you've watched one too many youtube video essays haven'tya
and since when do you have the map of some non-existent island in an imaginary world memorized?

Shubh20 said:
Firstly expedition missions were to explore the world outside the walls so they had to make bases outside the wall for a longer stay so they need to stay there both in the day and night, so this doesn'tmatter if they leave during day or in night(this is mentioned in a cut scene). They tried to go as far as they can. but after wall maria was breached the goal changed to retake the wall. And after the mission changed to rebuild the gate at wall maria they needed equipment,which slows them down, which they can't take to trost to maria in a single day(hange explains this in the show). But because eren mastered titan hardening they don't need any equipment at all, And just becauseof that they can think that they can surelyretake the wall. (Horse's speed is also mentioned in the cut scenes: both with and without luggage). As for the lifting horses over the wall I think it's a minor plot hole, your argument that there was less titan threat in the 3rd season plus the fact that they were going in the night does satisfy a little but it's still not convincing enough.