Responses
It's information they got from the three books in the basement and the books triggered Eren's memories.
I liked reading about it because if the author gives you all the information at the same time he has no need to give more information later on so he can focus on the story and the battles. That's what I'm hoping for anyway. =)
Well, that's fine if you like that, but it's bad writing. I should say that Isayama is so skilled that even the harsh critic here, me, enjoyed them.
The past few chapters are boulder-size chunks of story information fed to us by people sitting around, talking to each other. A history lesson isn't my idea of good reading. Up till now, the author has left out background information that should have been reeled out slowly, for instance, through the discovery of mysterious artifacts by the survey corps. In all of those meaningless, death-ridden trips beyond the walls, the story could have sizzled with excitement as pieces of endian history were gradually unearthed. That wasn't done, so now the author has to stop all action and just feed it to us through exposition-dialogue. I don't like it. It's a clumsy, difficult-to-digest, rock pile of confusing information fed to us too quickly. The story has been at a standstill since the death of Erwin.