***TRIGGER WARNING: THIS ARTICLE WILL REFERENCE AND SHOW (DRAWN) PICTURES OF HEAVY SUBJECTS LIKE:
*Extreme Gore;
*Massacres;
*The Holocaust;
*Nazi and Fascist Leadership (implied);
*Suicide;
*Extreme Racism;
*Manga spoilers for Season 4 Part 2.
I DO NOT CONDONE OR PROMOTE ANY ACTION OR IDEOLOGY PORTRAYED IN THIS ARTICLE, READER'S DISCRETION IS ADVISED***
Marley, the main enemy to Eldia, the nation responsible for the presence of Pure Titans on Paradis Island, the responsibles of the countless massacres of the Survey Corps and the Fall of Wall Maria.
What's its culture? What's its history? In this article, I will explain the full manga-approved history of Marley, and an analysis of its language and culture.
Marley's beginnings
2.000 years ago, the nation of Marley resembled the Roman Empire, in the manga, in fact, Marleyan soldiers were depicted as Legionaries
Ancient Marleyan Soldiers
Three events that supposedly happened around 1.200 years ago, during the Eldian-Marleyan wars, are taught in Marleyan school; I'm talking about the Fall of Lago, the Massacre of Monte and the Ravaging of Valle. Whether these events were real, or just fabricated to justify the Marleyan mistreatment of Eldians is unknown.
Grandpa Jaeger happily talking to Zeke about massacres
The Great Titan War
Fast forward to the year 743, after a deal between the Tybur Family and King Karl Fritz, a Marleyan figure, properly named "Helos", was fabricated, to justify the king's desire to retreat on Paradis Island, found an hermit kingdom and repent for the sins his people has committed in the past.
Two scenes from Willy Tybur's play. On the left, Helos by himself, on the right, Helos and a Tybur Titan-shifter subduing King Fritz
Supposedly, until the Declaration of War of 854, people believed that Helos, with the help of the Tybur Family, managed to turn the noble Titan-shifting families against each other, until their powers were passed to Eldians who were loyal to Marley's cause. Of course, Willy put an end to this belief in his last speech right before Eren's attack on Liberio.
Willy speaking to the World
Marley after 743
After the Great Titan War of 743, at one point in history, Marley will be overwhelmed by a wave of nationalism, that swept the previous, revolutionary government and replaced it with a military one, secretly led by the Tybur family. From there on, the Marleyan military established a gigantic state, invading neighboring countries using the power of the Titans, just like the Eldians did.
Willy Tybur (on the right) and Theo Magath (on the left)
The structure of this government, is similar to the way Fascist Italy was organised.
The organization of the Marleyan Military
Between the year 743 (the Victory of the Great Titan War) and the year 842 (the year when Zeke inherited the Beast Titan), various organizations are founded in Marley.
The first one to be instituted is the Marley Public Security, a military organization, functioning as military police - their most famous successful operations were:
* The arrest of the Cult of Ymir (785 ca.)
* The destruction of the first Eldian Restorationists (between 743 and 817)
* The arrest of the second Eldian Restorationists (819)
Marley Public Security officers arresting Ymir (785 ca.)
The second known organization founded in Marley, probably shortly after the end of the Great Titan War, is the Titan Biology Research Society, whose occupation is studying the nature of the Subjects of Ymir, the Titans and most importantly, the correlation between the Subjects of Ymir with the Founding Titan.
The only known member of this society is Tom Ksaver.
Tom Ksaver
The biggest breakthrough this society managed to discover is the existence of "Paths", invisible to the eyes. This discovery was made in 830.
The Paths
The third, and last known organization founded is the Marleyan Warrior Unit.
This Warrior Program was formed around the year 835, during Zeke's youth.
The Warrior Unit technically existed even before the Great Titan War, but the one we know today (the one that uses children to invade foreign countries) was founded a lot later.
The Marley Public Security announces the Warrior Program
The relationship between Eldians and Marleyans
Due to the "Sins of the Past", Eldians are mistreated almost everwhere in the world - the prosecution of the Eldian people in Marley is similar to what the Jews have suffered in the first period of the Holocaust.
Jews, just like Eldians, where forced to wear a piece of cloth that signaled their descendance.
Normal Beige (or White for soldier) Armband
Warrior Cadet Armband
Honorary Marleyan Armband
Another similarity to the early Holocaust is the fact that Eldians are forced to live in Internment Zones (the biggest one being the Liberio Internment Zone)
A view of Liberio, where we can see both the Internment Zone and the Warrior Unit's HQ
Some not-so-fun facts about the mistreatment of Eldians in Marley:
* As stated by Udo Bock in Season 4 Episode 63, "From One Hand to Another", the Marleyans treat the Eldians relatively "better" than what other countries do
Udo talks about the life in foreign Internment Zones
*Mixed marriages between Eldians and Marleyans are forbidden, just like marriages between Aryans and Jews in Nazi Germany; if one discovers that their marriage is a mixed one, they would likely be hanged (like Reiner's biological father) or kill themselves out of shame (like Tom Ksaver's wife did)
Tom Ksaver remembers his wife's suicide
* The official coloring of the manga clashes with the visual appearence of the Marleyan military uniforms and the use of the Yellow Armband - whilst in the anime, the Marleyan uniform is white and the Yellow Armband is just used by Warrior Cadets; in the official coloring, the uniform is blue and every Eldian soldier wears the Yellow Armband.
Official coloring of a panel of Chapter 92 "The Other Side of the Sea"
As we know, Marley uses the Eldians in many ways as weapons.
The most obvious Marleyan use of Eldians in war is the existence of the Warrior Unit, but with Zeke's arrival and the experiments of the Titan Research Biology Society, the military started using militarised Pure Titans.
But Eldians are also used in more "conventional" warfare methods, like normal Eldian Infantry Units, and Suicide Squads.
Militarised Pure Titans
Eldian Infantry Unit
Eldian Suicide Squad
Eldian Warrior Unit (on Paradis)
Marley in Season 4
Marley in Season 4 is presented properly.
After the failure of the Expedition of the Warrior Unit on Paradis Island (the one with Reiner, Marcel, Bertholdt and Annie), an alliance of Middle Eastern states declares war on Marley, upon knowing that they lost the Colossal and Female Titans.
The Marleyan-Mid-Eastern War lasted four years (from 850 to 854), and ended with a Marleyan victory after the fall of Fort Slava.
Fort Slava
This war revealed that Marley, since it relied solely on Titan powers for their expansion, was beginning to be backwards in terms of technology (the fact that the Marleyan navy didn't manage to gain naval superiority in four years signals the technological advance of the Mid-Eastern navies, and the existence of powerful weapons that could overwhelm Titans, like the Armored Train and the Anti-Titan Artillery)
The Armored Mid-Eastern Train
A month later from the victory in the Middle East, Marley starts to prepare for a war against Paradis Island, but during the Declaration of War, Eren Jaeger interrupts the show to raid Liberio, along with the Survey Corps
Eren kills Willy Tybur during the Declaration of War
During the Raid on Liberio, most of the Marleyan High Command is killed, leaving only Theo Magath and some of his loyal officers in command of the Army. This action will let Eldia prepare for a full blown war against Marley, but thanks to Reiner's pressure, the Marleyans will invade Paradis Island with their Airforce a month after the Raid. The Revenge for Liberio, or Second Battle of Shiganshina, begins.
Yelena cheers the destruction of Marleyan Airships
The battle though, will not last long until Eren activates through Zeke the Rumbling.
The Rumbling
Approximately 99% of Continental Marley and 90% of its occupied territory will be destroyed by the Rumbling, that stopped at Fort Salta.
Fort Salta
The Analysis on culture
Finally, after knowing almost all there is to know about Marley, we can start talking about its culture.
As I wrote in the title, Marleyan culture and history is based upon Italy's, and now I'll list the similarities between the real nation and the fictional one.
*The historical resemblance: Marleyan ancient soldiers are clearly based upon Roman Legionaries, as we've seen at the beginning of this article
Marleyan soldiers
*The names: Marleyan people and city names all resemble (or literally are) italian;
The japanese pronunciation of Marley is itself "Ma-re", which translated in italian (and latin) means "Sea";
The three ancient cities of Lago, Monte and Valle are three italian names, that respectively mean "Lake", "Mountain" and "Valley"
Another city name based on italian is Liberio, that can resemble the italian adjective "Libero", which means "Free" in english
The Japanese pronunciation of the word Marley
Marleyan people names are, again, based on the italian language:
Ethnically Marleyan people with Italian names:
Theo Magath Nicolo
THEO: original Italian name: Teo, or diminutive of Matteo
NICOLO: original Italian name: Nicolò, or Niccolò
Carlo Calvi
CARLO: original Italian name: Carlo
CALVI: maybe referring to a surname?
Ethnically Eldian people using Italian names:
Marco Bodt
MARCO: original name: Marco
Porco Galliard Falco Grice
PORCO: no original name, "Porco" literally means "Pig"
FALCO: no original name, "Falco" literally means "Hawk"
Dina Fritz Carla Jaeger
DINA: original name: Dina pronounced as in "Dee-na"
CARLA: original name: Carla
*The architecture of Marleyan cities somewhat resembles traces of Italian Fascist Brutalism
Views of buildings in Liberio
Fascist brutalist buildings in Italy and Israel (designed by architect Marcello Piacentini)
*Marleyan cuisine is similar to the Italian one
Oh boy, we're going to have a talk here.
Being Italian myself, I know a lot of dishes, and most of them can be recognized in both the manga and the anime.
We get a big glimpse of Marleyan cuisine in the Episode 63 ("From one Hand to Another") and in chapter 98 ("Good to see"), during the festival scenes, and also in Episode 68 ("Brave Volunteers"), with the introduction of Nicolo:
(The coloring of this panel is wrong), supposedly the Warrior Cadets are eating a Cannoli, Sicilian pastry consisting of tube-shaped shells of fried pastry dough, filled with a sweet creamy filling usually containing ricotta.
These are Cannoli.
The kids here are eating another type of pastry, called Conchiglie (literally "Shells" in english), the manga scene is totally different from the anime, which depicts another type of pastry I wasn't able to recognise
This is the unknown pastry, similar to the Conchiglie, with some jam on them.
The kids here are eating a sandwich with salami as topping.
The Marleyan ice cream, similar to the italian "Gelato", a staple of desserts rarely available to Eldians, as stated by Eren in chapter 123 ("Island Devils"):
Eren tells Mikasa how rare eating ice cream in the Internment Zone is
This is another scene from the festival, although it's just showing food in the making, italians will know that the person in the shot is making mozzarella cheese.
A real italian making mozzarella cheese
This scene depicts a lot of sea food dishes:
1) Looks like a variation of a plate of "Spaghetti with clams" with shrimps
2) Looks like a normal plate of "Pennette" with an unrecognizable topping
3) Those are just gratin mussels
4) Another plate with clams, this time also gratin
5) Looks like a variaton of "Rice with potatoes and mussels", but instead of potatoes there are shrimps.
And last but not least, the staple of italian food: the pizza!
Phew! This could easily be the longest article I've written on this blog...
So this is the analysis on the entire Marleyan history and culture, and its similarities with Roman and Italian ones.
I hope you enjoyed this, and I hope I could see you around again!
Thank you for reading,
Alesmat.
