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Ending Spoilers - Discussion/Question
So i remember finishing S3 and immediately starting S4. A lot of people will share this experience with me that it was like walking into a whole another show. Yes, but to me it was also like watching a whole new protagonist. And by that, I mean Eren Yaeger.
I spent most of the part I thinking "Wtf?! That's Eren?" I understand Eren was extremely disappointed by the humanity outside the walls but the character shift was too much for me to be believable.
Younger Eren was soft, , honest, innocent. He screamed and Armin thought it was girl. He wasn't good at fighting, he wasn't really that smart. He didn't understand deception.
In S1, he had the hardest time to believe Annie was the Female titan. He literally asked Armin and Mikasa "How are you guys able to fight?" He couldn't even transform because he couldn't fully believe Annie's betrayal despite being right there for her confession. Then in S2, Reiner and Bluetooth's betrayal came and hugged couldn't believe that either. They literally confessed to him directly, the squad had a whole meeting about it before. He couldn't believe during the meeting and he couldn't believe in that moment. Eren was NAIVE.
And then suddenly came S4 and he is attacking Marley and killing women and children just for the sake of killing. Exactly what was done to him. He couldn't even grasp earlier betrayals and then he was betraying Zeke.
Eren wasn't smart like Armin but suddenly he was smarter. He wasn't a fighter like Mikasa but suddenly he was. He wasn't a heartless person at all but suddenly...
It was everything S4 Eren did was again S1-3 Eren. And yes we as fans have managed to understand all his intentions overtime, but anime didn't offer much. There were a few flashbacks but to me they didn't explain that much.
I binge watched S4 and the whole time I was asking "Eren why are you doing this?" I understood WHY he was doing it but why????
To me, it was like S4 Eren was a whole differen person. While everyone's character was built upon, his did a complete 180.
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It all stems from the season 3 finale when he unlocks the last of his father’s memories and sees what the future holds for him.
You see the start of the descent after this and especially when they reach the sea and Eren asks if they’ll be free if they killed all there enemies. The clues were all there, it was only logical that Eren would become what he did
exactly. eren before the basement is almost a completely different character than eren after the basement. but thats what happens when someone full of hope has it completely taken away from them
Not just the basement, when they got back and Historia was rewarding the survivors, the moment he came into contact with her (more specifically her royal blood), he immediately sees the full truth behind both the Founding and Attack titans, as well as getting his mind flooded with memories of both past and future. I'm pretty sure he says later on that that was the precise defining moment where he realized what he needed to do. Plus having to sit on that for what, 7 years? That would change anyone.
Which is also absurd. How had Eren never touched her before ? They had fighting sessions together
Could just be that they were never really partnered up. It's entirely reasonable that whenever they were split up into pairs, Ymir insisted on being Christa's partner since that's entirely within her personality and is almost her entire story. And with all due respect to her, Christa was never winning any awards for her strength, and Eren would likely seek out the toughest competition he could so he could push himself. Especially in hand-to-hand, which was very specifically not graded and just a sort of "do what you will" time, it's not unreasonable that the two never fought together.
Mikasa and Annie, the two obviously best fighters, never sparred either, which is why it was such a big deal when they almost did, but it was broken up before it started.
i mean, name one time in the show where Eren comes into contact with Historia.. Eren very rarely actually touches people other than Armin and Mikasa
We don't see a descent, the end of season 3 was the start of his development, they just skip to the end
He was a very violent person since s1 but it was normalized as typical ‘shonen protagonist’ behavior in a very violent world ‘he was born into.’ He’s not a raging menace, he’s just the “spirited” hero (armin is smart, Mikasa strong, and our hero has heart). Remember how instead of calling an adult he took it upon himself as a child to kill a bunch of pedophiles? When I watched season 1 I always thought it was crazy how the show just had that happen and nobody explicitly pointed out how crazy fucked up that was. He was always getting into fights, and was so recklessly aggressive he gets himself killed in like the third or fourth episode.
In s1 most people think “why is eren and armin such babies about being betrayed, clearly Annie is the bad guy just beat her already.” But then you watch s4 and most of the season the protagonists (and most viewers) are making excuses for Eren and trying to hold out hope until you realize he really is a terrible person.
Even when I first started the show, I couldn’t believe just how much of a hothead he was.
He killed 2 men who had killed Mikasa's parents and kidnapped her. One of them stated that the reason they intended to take Mikasa and her mother was to sell them (presumably into sexual slavery), since they are the last Orientals. They themselves did not show any sexual interest in Mikasa. So, they were murderers and wannabe human traffickers but not pedophiles.
He almost gets himself killed in the 5th episode.
Fun fact: Traffickers go to the same hell as pedofiles
He isn’t a terrible person though-
Others have made great points so I'll say this in addition -
In season 1, Eren killed two of the three kidnappers when he was a 9 years old kid. That scene was disturbing and even when Grisha confronted him, he said they were no better than animals...
That event gave Mikasa strength but also fucked her up...and the event was criticized several times but because Eren is our protagonist we didn't listen.
In the season 1 finale, while attacking Annie in Stohess... Eren punched Annie into a church full of civilians causing massive casualties.
Even Annie was shown to be disturbed when she saw the people caught in the attack, but Eren was not...he was filled with rage instead.
That battle led to many causalities without Eren giving a care or consideration while smashing into buildings
Several times in the show, Eren has been called out for being a monster - In season 1 during the trial, Levi called him out...same as in the forest while chased by the female Titan.
Reiner called Eren the "worst person in the world to have that power" when he discovered that Eren had the coordinate.
Eren explained his mentality while speaking to Zeke when travelling through the paths...he said "I've always been the same since I was born. If anyone tries to take my freedom, I'll take theirs. My father didn't make me that way, I've been that way since birth"
a really key scene is the death of levi squad. eren puts trust in his team and they all get slaughtered. he wouldnt make that same “mistake” ever again and even goes as far as to say something along the lines of “yeah if anything is gonna be done its gonna have to be by me”
Yeah, that fucked him up pretty good, he kinda got his trust back on his team as season 2 and 3 went on, but once she saw all past present and future, he knew he had to do it himself
Also, during the Liberio attack long before the Rumbling, he has no qualms basically inflicting on the Marleyan people what he went through at Shiganshina. He kills the Tyburs and civilians indiscriminately.
Liberio really isn't the black mark on Eren/Paradis a lot of people seem to want it to be. Eren and the Scouts were attacking a military target (port city) in a country that has been attacking them unprovoked and is actively preparing to use affermentioned port city to attack them again.
Now obviously that sequence still gives us some insights into how twisted and hate-driven Eren really is deep down, but those traits were kinda right in front of us all along.
I feel like most people don’t understand that Eren didn’t change. He grew, for sure, but he didn’t inherently change. He has always been capable of horrendous things. And he has admitted that and others have noted that in the show as well.
I think the whole point of AoT is that Eren is a nice person who loves his friends, and he also absolutely hates his enemies. That's why he has so much trouble accepting that Annie, Reiner, and Bertholt are those very enemies. It's meant to sneak up on you suddenly, you're meant to think of Eren as the good guy until he suddenly starts committing war crimes against innocents. Because that's what fascism feels like when good people, your friends and family, become capable of great evil if it's done against the right people. In a world of us versus them you have to realize that the friend next to you might only be nice to you and not actually share your values.
I think in a story about a German people living inside walls, outside of which are giant, human looking, bloodthirsty monsters seeking only to invade and kill, when the protagonist starts saying things like "I'm gonna kill them all!" you're meant to take note and ask if the story won't end with the Titans being far more humanized than they first seemed while Eren remains the xenophobic.
in S1 he's a young kid with ambitious dreams.
in S4 he's a traumatized, jaded, grizzled war veteran with nothing but revenge in his mind
he goes through several moments during the show where his spirit is broken more and more (E.g. season 1 when female titan takes out his squad. season 2 where reiner kidnaps him and he has an existential crisis about how he trusted them and they betrayed him. ) and I think the show makes a pretty decent effort to highlight those moments so we can see his character slowly deteriorating into a revenge-obsessed wreck.
Do you know why? Because he had seen the future and was trying to change it but in S4 after he "fakes" being an injure Eldian he understands that fate is sealed, and he cannot change the future and has to walk it out. Imagine that? You see the future and desperately try to change it only to realize you cannot. Imo it was at that point he truly became a slave to freedom. He realized he HAD to live out the future he saw in order to save Eldia and his friends and rid the world of the titans. It's like imagine you lived a life then were able to go back in time only to realize you can change nothing but live it out EXACTLY as it already played out.
Eren never wanted to really kill the world but after realizing the world wanted to wipe his people off the map and were sending titans in there to keep them in a cage, fellow eldians btw, his love for the outside world, as i imagine most of us would feel the same, was gone. The dream of a great world was turned into, us vs. them. Remember when he saved that boy even though he knew he was going to be crushed? Why did he do that if the end was the same? Imo because he saw they suffered like Eldia had at the hands of Marley and had compassion. I think if he could have saved everyone outside of Marley he would have, but the Rumbling had to happen as it did. That's my take anyway.
I'm afraid Isayama has explicitly stated that Eren did in fact want to kill the world lol
The rumbling isn't the only solution, Eren never says other solutions won't work. In his dream world with Mikasa, he even mentions that he was torn between the full rumbling and the survey corps long term peace plan, which suggests he did see them both as equally viable options
He also doesn't say that he was magically forced to commit the rumbling because he had seen the future. What he says is that even when he tried doing other things, they always turned out the same, and we actually get to see what this looks like. Our primary example is him seeing ramzi being caught. And he considers not saving ramzi, because maybe that would prove he can change the future. but like you mentioned, he goes and does it anyways- because he still has compassion for ramzi, because he wants to save him. This strongly indicates what when he says "I tried doing other things and it didn't work" he doesn't mean that like, time magically contrived itself to make the rumbling play out anyways. What he seems to mean is, every time he came to a decision he had foreseen, he wanted to do things as he had predicted them . When the moment comes, he chooses to save ramzi, because it's what he wants to do. And when the moment comes, he chooses to bring the full rumbling, because it's what he really wants to do
He recognizes it's unfair to a lot of innocent people, but his desire for a simple solution where he kills all his enemies outweighs his desire to not kill innocent people. When he tells Historia he's gonna do a full rumbling, he doesn't say "I don't want to do it, but I have no choice, the future is unchangeable." What he says is "I know you'll understand, because you're the worst girl in the world." The conversation he's referencing is when Historia chose not to eat Eren, even though at the time they both sincerely believed that her retaking the founder was what would be best for their people. She didn't do it because, according to her, she's selfish, and would rather do what made her happy in the moment than what was best for other people. That's the reasoning Eren invokes for doing the rumbling- it's not about what's best for anyone else. It's about what he wants
And I think that makes total sense, because one thing extremely consistent about Eren is that his solution to his problems is always very simple: kill everyone he sees as an enemy. What op doesn't mention is that while he does struggle with the idea that people he thought of as friends aren't on his side, his reaction when it's proven to him is "I'll kill all you damn traitors." He has a simple worldview, and betrayal complicates that because it means some people don't fit where he thought they did. But once he accepts that, he doesn't change his mind, he just resorts where people go. If reiner and bertholt and Annie aren't on his side, then it doesn't matter that he has a friendship with them. They're his enemies now, killing them is how he'll solve the problem. It doesn't matter that he recognizes the world is full of innocent people like ramzi. Eren Yeager does not do gray areas lol, if you arent on his side, you need to die
Good points. Either way what had to happen needed to happen, and after seeing the post credit scene kinda wish he had succeeded lol.
And even after he infiltrated Marley, while he did understand that there were innocents like Ramzi who lived there, even knowing that he was about to kill a small kid among millions of others wasn’t enough to deter him from the Rumbling. One of his biggest flaws is how incredibly narrow-minded he is. As others have said, he just has to do things his way.
I wouldn’t even call that a flaw. He kept his word and did what he said out to do. Even if it was mass genocide.
I remember reacting similarly the first time, being kinda mad even thinking they had made him the bad guy just for the sake of it. The fact that I binged the entire series in like 15 days with no time to digest the info surely affected that too.
A rewatch was all I needed to really start understanding properly how everything unfolded for him
I also binged in just a few weeks 😭 I’m reading the manga and I plan on doing a rewatch so I have a better understanding of how he got to the point of the Rumbling.
When the show starts, he’s just a little kid. Sure, he did fucked up and violent things to save Mikasa—but he was still just a kid. By the time S4 rolls around, he’s seen and done a lot of shit and just wants revenge. The show literally starts with him swearing vengeance on the Titans after Carla’s death. I mean, hell, even as he’s marching on during the Rumbling and killing millions, all he sees is freedom and not the innocent lives he’s snuffing out.
It was a four-year transition from s3 finale to s4 so I think his descent into madness and depression definitely made sense. Other post references his loss of hope in humanity after the basement and I never saw it that way but I highly agree.
Eren’s mental state was beyond messed up royally (no pun intended) from seeing the memories of the Attack and Founding Titan from then on.
Eren saw the future and couldn’t change it, nomatter how much he wanted to. The weight of killing 80% of the world weighed on him at all times.
In the time between s3 and s4 he learns this and it sinks in for him. If you go back and rewatch it, he really is just plodding forward in S4. He’s barely there, he only really moves quickly when he’’s fighting or when he has to show up for a “story event” in his life that moves the narrative forwards. During the rumbling and before it, he’s really just kind of a defeated man that just walks forwards towards his inevitable fate.
What kind of state of resignation would you be in if you were in that situation? If you knew what would happen, and that nothing you could do would stop it? Wouldn’t you also just kind of be walking through your life, playing out the motions until the damn thing finally ended?
We see this as after he rescues Ramzi from being beaten and basically breaks down crying and apologizing. And when he and the rest of the gang go to Marley for the first time, he’s so depressed and despondent because he knows what he’s going to do.
4 years had past since season 3. He kissed historia’s hand, saw all those fucked up memories, then had 4 years to dwell on that. During those 4 year, all he saw were things that gave him less and less hope in a different outcome. We see a little bit of him during those 4 years during flashbacks, and his personality and outlook seems like an in between of his younger self and his adult self.
4 years is a long time, people can change a lot in 4 years, especially when they’re young. Looking back, 15 year old me (Eren was 15 for most of S1-3) and 19 year old me (adult eren’s age) are completely different people. Also Eren has always been heartless/ruthless to his enemies. His enemies just changed from titans to humans.
I don’t think it was a complete 180. We just didn’t get to see the progression that well. I think it was a slower process, not an instant change. I felt the same way, but after finishing S4 episode 28, his development felt a lot more believable.
Idk man I thought he was a psycho as soon as I saw him butcher these guys when he was 9
When you gain millions of memories from the future and past I would hope you gain some insane development lol. I think it would be more unrealistic if Eren's character did NOT shift because of the trauma he went through. Eren's shift is similar to Paul Atreides in Dune.
Before Paul tookthe water of life he was indecisive, but after he took the water of life he was more decisive due to the memories and clairvoyance he gained. Paul's character took a massive shift in a short span of time, but it was realistic, just like with Eren when he touched Historia's hand.
Both characters are great but the difference with Eren is that it took 3 seasons and slow burn development for his character to shift. S1-S3, he lost many parts of his humanity to become the monster we now know in S4 to fight Marley's warriors, it perfectly falls in line with the theme Armin spoke of.
Also you can even argue Eren didn't change at all, but that's a whole other thing lol
Eren is the only one who changed when the world's conception changed. Most people are focused on themselves and don't want to give up who they are. Eren, however, while not sacrificing who he is, realized that he needed to adjust to meet the needs of the real world. Most people in both Eldia and Marley were not willing to do this, and their intransigence is what made the rumbling inevitable.
Because Eren has seen his horrific future in the Season 3 finale, he is burdened with the guilt and dread of things that haven’t even happened yet.
His involvement in the Paths and abilities of The Founder exacerbate this to the point where Eren has trouble knowing WHEN he is.
Mikasa is stunned when she sees Eren’s first massacre at Liberio, but Eren seems blank. To him, it isn’t the first time he’s massacred women and children. It’s like when he refuses ice cream because he’s already tasted it in his dad’s memories. Eren not mentally in the same place as his friends. Worse still, he’s being mentally undone by his own actions, which he paradoxically can’t do anything to stop.
He’s a slave to freedom.
Agreed. I just started season 4 last night and it's basically an entirely different show. Eren has absolutely not been shown to have grown into the apathetic psycho he is now. It's a huge letdown. The show is so fucking confusing now, too
Finish the season. It’ll make sense trust me.
I had the same reaction when I started S4 too, and even though I finished it a day or so ago, I’m still processing everything.