Unclear usages of の in 「Xとの対話を」 and 「諦めないのと同じ理由」

Question

While reading this page in the Attack on Titan manga, I had a problem understanding some particles used in this text bubble on the bottom right. (Possible spoilers, read at your own risk)

As I understand it, in 「エレンとの対話を」, the と means “with”, so it is “dialogue with Eren”. But then, what is the meaning of the の in that sentence?

The second problem is in the rest of the sentence, 「諦めないのと同じ理由」. I think the と here is a quotation mark, as in saying “as for not giving up on a dialogue with Eren, it is for the same reason (as before, refers to previous text bubble)”. But then again, what would be the role of the の that comes before that と? I thought that maybe it could be an emphasis, but I’m not sure it’s logical to emphasize the sub-sentence which is then quoted by と and not emphasize the entire sentence. I also wondered if that のと might be a contracted version of のこと.

Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

These two の's are very different.

「エレンとの対話を」the と means “with” so it is “dialogue with Eren”. But then, what is the meaning of the の in that sentence?

の signifies it's an attributive with, i.e., it's a noun-modifying expression. In English, "with Eren" can modify both a noun and a verb, but in Japanese, エレンと can only modify a verb. For details, please read: using の with と,で, から, まで

「諦めないのと同じ理由」 I think the と here is a quotation mark, as in saying “as for not giving up on a dialogue with Eren, it is for the same reason (as before, refers to previous text bubble)” But then again, what would be the role of the の that comes before that と?

This の is a nominalizer, and this と is not a quotative particle but a comparison target marker. "Xと同じ (the same as X)" is a super common set expression. This と is the same と as in "Xと違う (is different from X)", "Xと比べる (to compare with X)", "Xと並ぶ (to rank with X)", "Xと似る (to resemble X)" and so on.

So a literal translation would be:

エレンとの対話を諦めないのと同じ理由(だ)。

(It's) the same reason (as the reason why) I won't give up on the interaction with Eren.

のと and のこと are completely different, so don't mix them up.

Answer 2

They're used together essentially because we need a の particle to connect the phrase to a noun. と will make it 'with', but と alone (as far as I've seen) is mostly used when talking about doing (verb) something with another person. Here, 対話 is a noun, not a verb so it needs の.

For a more detailed explanation What does との mean in this sentence?