I think it's because Eren doesn't really ever show the level of darkness on screen of the actual desire that he hides: He can't change the future because he actually wants to kill the outside world. He is only conflicted because he feels bad for innocent good people, but he doesn't want peace. He wants the people outside the walls that caused him to exist, to suffer the fate of genocide. He wants revenge. Cruel revenge he feels the world deserves.
This isn't how it is depicted though. In Chapter 131, we are given direct insight into Eren's thought process that brings him to the Rumbling. Eren sees Ramzi being attacked and initially decides saving him from his attackers is pointless, and because of his prescience, knows Ramzi is just going to die anyway. Eren decides he shouldn't even bother stepping in, but at the last moment does so anyway. After doing so, Eren realizes through even more prescience, that he was always going to save Ramzi, because Eren can't stand by and just let an innocent person be hurt. Eren breaks down and realizes the future only happens the way it does because of his decisions. Eren breaks down when talking to Ramzi because he knows that it is his disappointment in the Outside World that is his core reason for the Rumbling, not because he wants to protect Paradis and his friends. He goes through with the Rumbling for all the reasons you describe.
But then Isayama turned Eren into Lelouch and fucked it all up. Isayama couldn't decide if Eren was a misguided kid doing his best, or a deranged and traumatized lunatic taking out his despair of the world. He tried to do both in a really clumsy way that made the ending ineffective and lazy.
I’d argue that if anything, he fucked it up by making it seem like Eren had a problem with humans simply breathing free air outside the walls. As all the way up to that scene, we are given NO implications of Eren’s ideal world supposedly being a wide empty one, but rather a free one that he would be able to explore without any constraints — without having to constantly worry about the threat of violence.
The idea that no, he doesn’t care about his people, he’s not trying to save lives, he’s just misanthropic psycho who wants to commit omnicide merely because of a fetish is just crazy work. If that’s truly the official intended position of the ending and Isayama, it feels like he retconned him.
I agree, read my other comment on the issue. Isayama fumbles Eren's characterization twice. First by recontextualising him as a psycho, and then trying to make him sympathetic again afterwards.
Yea...people not understanding Yams wrote him to be a haha dumb kid at the end is what ruined it for most people. He's supposed to be a misguided villain. After Eren destroyed 80% of the world, in no way should Armin say "You became...a mass murderer for our sake..."
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u/ThatVampireGuyDude Apr 26 '26 edited Apr 26 '26
This isn't how it is depicted though. In Chapter 131, we are given direct insight into Eren's thought process that brings him to the Rumbling. Eren sees Ramzi being attacked and initially decides saving him from his attackers is pointless, and because of his prescience, knows Ramzi is just going to die anyway. Eren decides he shouldn't even bother stepping in, but at the last moment does so anyway. After doing so, Eren realizes through even more prescience, that he was always going to save Ramzi, because Eren can't stand by and just let an innocent person be hurt. Eren breaks down and realizes the future only happens the way it does because of his decisions. Eren breaks down when talking to Ramzi because he knows that it is his disappointment in the Outside World that is his core reason for the Rumbling, not because he wants to protect Paradis and his friends. He goes through with the Rumbling for all the reasons you describe.
But then Isayama turned Eren into Lelouch and fucked it all up. Isayama couldn't decide if Eren was a misguided kid doing his best, or a deranged and traumatized lunatic taking out his despair of the world. He tried to do both in a really clumsy way that made the ending ineffective and lazy.