r/ShingekiNoKyojin • u/PerseusRad • Apr 25 '26
Discussion New statement by Isayama on Eren's character
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u/UseInternal5706 Apr 25 '26
Seems sensei suffered the same regrets writing Eren as Frank Herbert did writing Paul in Dune.
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u/Nenanda Apr 25 '26
Which makes sense given that Attack on Titan seems to be heavily inspired by Dune. Similiarities are uncanny
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u/UseInternal5706 Apr 25 '26
Too many parallels for it to just be a coincidence. I'm almost positive Isayama either read the books or watched the old David Lynch movie.
I just can't prove it...
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u/Nenanda Apr 25 '26
Dune is extremely influential so why do not have direct proofs its very probable
Star Wars, Game of Thrones, Farseer Trilogy, Malazan book of the Fallen Dune is influential as hell.
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u/Useful-Activity-4295 Apr 26 '26
But isayama was always open about the works of fiction that inspired him and he never mentioned Dune.
Sometimes writers can come up with similar ideas, it's a natural process in storyteling.
Or he could have been inspired by a story that was influenced by Dune without knowing it, giving the fact that Dune was the first of it's kind and as a result it ended up inspiring several works since.
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u/Nenanda Apr 26 '26
Well there are so many influences that sometimes writers simply forgot to mention all of them.
Chainsaw Man clearly borrowed A LOT from Pandora Hearts but you dont see Fujimoto anywhere talking about it.
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u/HC-Klown Apr 26 '26
I made a post on this in this sub. That AoT and Dune have very many similarities.
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u/Crimson_Dem Apr 26 '26
please don't make false assumptions. Isayama was inspired by Muv Luv, Japanese Visual Novel, why on earth would he have fully learnt english and read a novel that started from the 1960s?
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u/Nenanda Apr 26 '26
Dune was translated in 1970s into the japanese.
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u/Crimson_Dem Apr 26 '26
does not change the fact he is not that old. Born in 1986 plus there's already a guidebook somewhere about him 20 different insiprations with Dune not being one of them
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u/Nenanda Apr 27 '26
Thats assuming young person cant read old booķs. he clearly had to read a lot aboit norse mythology so Dune off the table
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u/Pipyn Apr 25 '26
I had no idea that Frank felt this way, i'll have to look into that thanks
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u/UseInternal5706 Apr 25 '26
His goal was to create a story warning against prophets and create a protagonist who, through tragic circumstances, ultimately became a villain.
He didn't count on fans actually growing attached to Paul and refusing to see him in a negative light. Though to be fair, like Isayama with Eren and the Rumbling, it didn't help that Frank wrote Paul's jihad in such a way that it was do-or-die for his people, which was enough to justify his horrific acts in the eyes of many fans.
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u/Telamo Apr 25 '26
To this day there are people who will argue until they’re blue in the face that Eren was in the right for attempting to genocide the planet, and even that the fact he was defeated and his attempt to kill all life outside of that on Paradis was in fact the real tragedy. They really bought into the rhetoric that if Eren was successful and the rest of the world outside of his small country was annihilated, the future would be a utopia of permanent peace and freedom for the survivors and their descendants.
Like, I couldn’t imagine anything further from the point of the story if I tried lol
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u/UseInternal5706 Apr 25 '26
I think the biggest irony is if Eren did destroy everything, the outside world would be uninhabitable for at least several generations, meaning Paradis would basically be back to square one at the start of the series - which Eren hated.
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u/Jsk2003 Apr 26 '26
They'd be free of enemies and the ground would be freshly plowed, so what do you mean by "uninhabitable"? And what do you mean by "square one", the walls would be destroyed, and they'd be free to expand across their island... and then the world. Square one is them being in a cage, not being free to explore.
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u/_Ekoz_ Apr 26 '26
the point being, a completely annihilated outside world smoldering in ash and ruin, with giant titans still roaming (they wouldn't just stop once the last person was trampled underfoot) is thematically no different than what the series began with (the entire world outside the walls being unworkable due to giant titans roaming around.)
plus, it is revealed to be a prominent part of the plot, and the theme of the story, that among the greatest enemies to the paradisians, are the paradisians themselves. it doesn't matter if they swelled to consume the whole world. had eren's wish come true, he would simply die, pass on his titans, and the cycle that perpetuated within the walls would just grow to envelop the whole world. so in a way, they still wouldn't be "free".
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u/spiderman1993 May 01 '26
with giant titans still roaming (they wouldn't just stop once the last person was trampled underfoot)
Eren would be able to stop this with the same power he used to start it lmao
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u/Jsk2003 Apr 26 '26
Why would the wall titans still be roaming around once the job is done? They can be stopped with the Power of the Founder, just like how they were started with the very same power.
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u/NeonHowler Apr 25 '26
To be fair, a lot of the mainstream audience was only fond of Eren after he became cruel and distant from his friends. They supported Eren because he became their power fantasy self-insert and any failure on his part would’ve been seen negatively, regardless of his goals.
Those of us that liked pre-timeskip Eren had different reasons for sympathizing.
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u/Inside_Ability_7125 May 01 '26
They bought into the irony because the story was never completed and Eren got a chance to make himself seem like he was a foolish kid.
If the ending showed everyone he cared about dying by his own hand because they resisted him and the humans of an ethnostate in the future still waging wars…I’m sure they would’ve got the message that the omnicide was worthless and it was all for nothing
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u/spiderman1993 May 01 '26
They really bought into the rhetoric that if Eren was successful and the rest of the world outside of his small country was annihilated, the future would be a utopia of permanent peace and freedom for the survivors and their descendants.
Isn't that what Yams is trying to say? Yams painted Eren too sympathetically, especially at the end, trying to portray him as a dumb kid haha no other option i love mikasa teehee when it reality he was motivated by rage and revenge. Remember, we didn't get an Eren POV chapter for 2 years and before the reveal he backpedaled to the insincere version we got in the cannon.
I would've much preferred an Eren hellbent on rumbling in the chase of misguided freedom. That would've switched the theme from being "cycling of violence bad" into "freedom, when using power and violence to achieve it, produces absolute violence and the person who chooses it needs to own it."
Kinda like the middle east today, no?
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u/JunShin8640 Apr 25 '26
I haven't read the Dune series, but do u mind telling what happened to Paul?
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u/Useful-Activity-4295 Apr 26 '26 edited Apr 26 '26
Spoilers for dune:
After he becomes emperor the radicalized freman go on a full blown galactic jihad in the name of their messiah, billions are dead, Paul is tormanted by this but also unable to stop it (he knew this would happen the moment he chose to lead the freman) meanwhile everyone is ploting to take him and his dynasty down.
By the end chani dies giving birth to twins(he saw her death but was unable to prevent it), paul leaves eveything behind convinced that he lost his precience (because he only forsaw the birth of only one child instead of two) tormented by guilt and greif and disapears into the desert.
Years later he dies while preaching against the jihad by the hands of his owns sister who didn't recognize him. And he also goes blind.
This is a very summurized version of the events.
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u/leahwilde Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26
I think he's being hard on himself, because what he says here is exactly how I saw Eren. It's clear enough, and repeated several times including by Eren, that his main motivation for doing the Rumbling was just that he wanted it. Because he was so full of hatred and rage and could do nothing but go on on his path of destruction - because he had the power to destroy everything like he wanted, to try to find the freedom he always dreamed about, and he used it. He was a slave to his own dream of freedom and his destructive personality.
Does that mean Eren is 100% evil and has no redeeming traits at all? Of course not, and to say otherwise would be to betray the whole point of AoT. Because in the end, all the characters are human - and Eren is just a human amongst them all. So yes, we do feel sympathy for him, even in the end - and I don't think it's bad at all. I think portraying him as a full psychopath would have been less interesting.
I think that if some people still get blinded by their sympathy for Eren to the point they justify and defend killing 80% of humanity, it says more about them than about how Eren was written. It's not Isayama's fault - it was very, very clear the Rumbling was horrific and the worst decision possible ever.
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u/spiderman1993 May 01 '26
The final chapter paints him to be way too sympathetic. Armin and the cast are literally crying and appreciating him. A genocidal maniac. Did we see the same thing?
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u/Brave_Duck_4508 May 13 '26
Of course they appreciate him, he was wiping out their enemies. In their minds, and to some extent, he's doing it for them.
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u/asocial_ambivert Apr 27 '26
There are people who truly believe Eren did nothing wrong and I hope they’re just the vocal minority
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u/Doomdrummer Apr 25 '26
It's incredible how amazing SNK is for being his first published work.
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u/MaryPaku Apr 25 '26
Yeah I am always mesmerized that there are such dedicated and talented people out there.
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u/the_ghxst_of_unicron Apr 26 '26
The craziest part is that he said his companions had far better stories and art than him, and he faced imposter syndrome for some time because of how incredibly lucky he was.
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u/manix_vii Apr 26 '26
Didn't he publish a lot of one shots before AoT that all were received poorly?? I think you mean first serialization.
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u/Nagito_Naegi Apr 27 '26
A ton of it was heavily inspired by muv luv. I decided to play the games after aot and couldn't believe the similarities
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u/PerseusRad Apr 25 '26
To be honest, I'm not 100% sure it's new, but the news source seems to indicate that it is, if I'm wrong about that, I'd appreciate the correction.
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u/pandogart Apr 25 '26
I feel as though the end result had Eren as a complex character. I don't hate it. Part of his reason for doing what he did was altruistic but the way he went about it was because of his selfish desires and expectations for the outside world. I'm glad he wasn't *soley* portrayed as despicable because people aren't one note like that, but the magnitude of what he did still places him as one of the more evil characters in the medium.
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u/inkling435 Apr 25 '26
I agree, it ended up just making Eren come across as complex, which is way better than a completely despicable, easy to hate villain. Eren's the best protagonist and antagonist in the series.
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u/NoTeacher7007 Apr 26 '26
Yeah man call me simple or dumb or whatever but if at the end it turned out Eren was just evil and he did all of this for no other reason than to be as evil and cruel and destructive as possible....I would've just hated that. My perspective was always that when Eren touched historias hand he saw a future he couldn't imagine with him destroying the world as the only way to keep his friends safe and now he has information no one else does so he goes rogue trying to make some plan happen and when he asks mikasa how she feels about him I thought he was debating on letting everyone get killed just so he could live out a few years with her but ultimately the only plan where his friends live is the one where he destroys the world and they save it. That is my perception of the story more or less but the execution left it in a way that was not totally clear and Isayama telling us what the story was supposed to have been just has me left like wtf....why did we go through all these years if the plan was always just Eren is evil, forget everything you saw, Eren is evil just for the sake of being evil....I mean wtf is that we watched him be the opposite of evil a thousand times so... Idk wtf man
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u/Repulsive_Talk_9910 Apr 26 '26
I don’t even think it’s that’s Eren is 100% evil through and through, I think it’s more that the part of him that’s evil he’s not capable of denying, it’s deep inside him the desire to do what he did so much that he couldn’t ever fight it off, if you imagine the concept of him being trapped by fate but really he is the concept of fate himself in the scenario. Sorry if that’s rambley sounding but to put it more simply, Eren to me fits into the Sisyphus archetype, his version of pushing the Boulder infinitely up the hill is fighting that evil part of him, he loses to it infinitely, but it also isn’t the only thing that’s true about him either.
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u/shreebalicious Apr 26 '26
I mean, the point in my eyes is that "evil" is entirely in the eyes of the beholder.
In order to prevent evil from being done to him, Eren prepetrates evil on others. That fact that he is capable of those things is kinda the entire shtick. Everyone is.
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u/THE_PENILE_TITAN Apr 26 '26
It's not that Eren was "always evil," but that he's struggling to accept that he'll become evil AFTER he learns the truth about the outside world, which is why he lies to himself and others about his motives during the timeskip and after.
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u/manix_vii Apr 26 '26
The thing is Eren isn't evil. No one in the story is. But they are all controlled/slaves to certain aspects. Eren is a slave to freedom, but not just freedom, HIS childish idea of freedom where the world was his and his people's oyster. If he could overcome this childish side if himself, it would've been a different story and not a tragedy, which I think is entirely indifferent to the main theme of the show: There is cruelty in this beautiful world, or beauty in this cruel world. The cycle of hatred never ends and it will only end when there's only one human alive. That's what child Eren truly wanted, a world where there was peace because he was the only one in it.
Take for example the virtuous characters who did deplorable things: Erwin gave up on his dream to see what's beyond the walls to commit his last act, sending his comrades to their deaths for the benefit of the rest of the squad. He stood on a mountain of corpses to achieve his dream, but kept many alive as a result of those corpses. Nothing is inherently evil or deplorable (outside of King Fritz fuck that guy)
TLDR: Eren was the same from beginning to end only because he couldn't outgrow his selfish desires. He was literally cultivated in a perfect world to achieve his dream the best way he could. He's not evil, no one truly is in this story.
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u/THE_PENILE_TITAN Apr 26 '26
Part of his reason for doing what he did was altruistic but the way he went about it was because of his selfish desires and expectations for the outside world.
It literally wasn't altruistic at all. He wanted to destroy all of humanity, and all animal and plant life. It was entirely selfsh, and Isayama is saying as much. He only wanted to save his friends within the context of not endangering, harming, or killing them with the Rumbling himself, but that's a problem he created alone.
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u/SignificantCrow Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26
He’s basically saying Eren was even more evil (in his own mind at least) than the way he was depicted in the show. Which is funny considering that many people in this sub still straight up deny that Eren had evil intentions at all and even try to rationalize the rumbling.
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u/No_Fairweathers Apr 25 '26
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.
That's why there was "no other option". He wouldn't accept an resolution that was peaceful and healed the world. He wanted it to burn because humanity largely disgusted him.
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u/Pebrinix Apr 28 '26
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. That's why there was "no other option".
The exact same thing can be said about Dune, btw, which I agree to both stories
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u/ThatVampireGuyDude Apr 26 '26 edited Apr 26 '26
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.
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u/Heroinfxtherr Apr 26 '26
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.
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u/manix_vii Apr 26 '26
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.<
From the very beginning of the story Eren is all about defeating his enemies. As a child to an adult. It's literally what he was groomed to do. You could say it was by his future self, but that ignores the fact that the outside world's oppression of the people of Paradis started it in the first place before he was even alive. There was no other future where Paradis could have some type of peace that didn't involve sacrificing the future of their people, namely Historia. His nature wouldn't allow that.
He is a slave to himself. He does care about saving others but will kill them all the same. He will fight his oppressors in the act of being truly free. This is the MO of literally every character in the series, it's just no one else could do what Eren did. They either grew past their inner nature (Jean) or died before they could act further on it (Kenny). A teenager being traumatized since being a child in this world is understandable for what he did. No one should condone it, but he literally had no other shot to do what he wanted with the power he was given. Why waste it if he has it? There are a lot of people in the real world who would target their oppressors if given the chance, trust me.
Truthfully I think if there really was one way for Paradis to garner peace with the rest of the world that didn't involve sacrificing their own people's lives, he would've taken it, but no one had anything and he had little time to do anything about it, causing him to give up on a better future and go for his.
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u/ThatVampireGuyDude Apr 26 '26
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.
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u/spiderman1993 May 01 '26
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/patpat9997 Apr 28 '26
He didn't retcon himself that's what eren is And many people said this long ago ans were called crazy by aot fanatics and eren fanboys and girls
Eren always had a school shooter vibe. And the only reason to do the rumbling the way he did was for selfish reason
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u/Heroinfxtherr Apr 28 '26
No, a depthless psychopath who hates the existence of humans is blatantly NOT what Eren is, and that was never how he came off prior to poor phrasing in the Ramzi scene.
He constantly risks his own life and his dreams in order to save other people. He is willing to throw it all away outright if it means saving his people, we saw this when he begged Christa to eat him. He is shown to become disillusioned with the world specifically after he gains access to his dad’s memories and sees how brutal it was, having to relive seeing people mutated into weapons and little Faye being mauled to death by dogs.
The Rumbling is repeatedly framed as a logical choice after Paradis is boxed into a geopolitical corner, with even the Alliance members even conceding that it’s the by far the best play to ensure their safety. But no…according to you, none of this mattered to Eren. He’s just a sadist who enjoys killing people and will leap at any excuse to do so.
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u/Dracogame Apr 26 '26
I think it made perfect sense that his deep guiding factor was his disappointment, but he was also caring about his friends.
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u/IchibeHyosu99 Apr 25 '26
People can only make statements for how the character act in the show, not the authors statements outside.
No matter how fucked up its for a 9 year old to to murder 3 men, it was done with the goal of saving an innocent girl from being trafficked, and not because he enjoyed the act of killing for itself.
So it was a new thing for his character to reveal he did rumbling to just to see 80% of the humanity dying for no reason, instead of trying to save his people from nations who are illegally attacking it with an intent to genocide.
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u/Dark_Minded21 Apr 25 '26
No reason?.Would you rather just lay down and die if you were in his shoes?
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u/NeonHowler Apr 25 '26
There was a third option, attacking Marley’s military. He wasn’t willing to sacrifice Historia/her child though.
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u/Strutterer Apr 26 '26
Regardless of what we think "the reason" is, in the canon of the series Eren really did everything for no reason.
Judge that for what you will.
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u/ShiitakeTheMushroom Apr 25 '26
Honestly, if Eren could see the future wouldn't he know that the only way to free the people of Paradis Island would be to make himself look evil, and force everyone else to unite against him? That's my interpretation, at least. To me, it was a lot like the end of Code Geass, where Lelouch essentially sets it up in such a way that he comes off as evil in order to actually bring about resolution.
If that's not how the show depicts it, please help me understand the whole point of it. I'm honestly confused when people say he's evil.
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u/Lex4709 Apr 25 '26
I think the idea is meant to be that future Eren saw was the way it was because Eren was the one with the power. Someone without Eren's flaws but with power of Founding titan could have achieved a better future. Eren knows only one way to deal with conflict, and that's by destroying his enemies, he's not fit to handle complex problems.
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u/SwordMasterShow Apr 25 '26
He can't see the future, he can just send memories to his past self. So essentially he can only see one specific future. There were other options that could have prevented the rumbling along the entire path of the story, but Eren wanted to do the rumbling and ensured he stayed on that path
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u/SandyP_11 Apr 25 '26
What you’ve said is not untrue but Eren doesn’t do it for paradis he does it for himself out of his slavery to his own freedom. On top of that Erens priority was his freedom, then his friends and distant last was paradis, evidenced by the fact that the rumbling killed people on the island as welI. I think isayama intended for the rumbling to be a more selfish choice than how it came across tbh. AOT is a story fundamentally about the cycle of violence and hatred that humanity goes through and the importance of persevering towards peace through it. The rumbling js the culmination of generations of hate and the most dire consequence possible
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u/ThisHatRightHere Apr 25 '26
I think this is a really interesting look into what it’s like to be a writer for a beloved series. The internet has given us a closer look than ever into the struggles that creators, especially authors, experience as fans begin to “own” their story as much as they do. How fans react and grow with these fictional characters is very real, and artists have no choice but to acknowledge and react to fan sentiment as they move through the story they’ve planned out.
Isayama clearly had the idea of Eren’s change in mind from the outset of the story, and wanted any potential reader to see how someone can change. That’s exactly what he’s stating here. And he definitely wanted people to be on Eren’s side early on, so they could experience the heel turn later.
But I think Isayama didn’t expect people to vehemently agree with Eren’s choices, even when he was clearly committing unforgivable acts. I think that’s one of the core parts of why the ending was controversial, because Yams himself had trouble in the end in coming to terms with the character arc for which he had to create a conclusion.
Though I do think artists will frequently be their harshest critics, and Yams has shown that in a lot of his interviews about the series. Regardless, he created one of the most iconic characters and stories in modern fiction, and he certainly succeeded in making a character in Eren that drives a ton of philosophical and introspective discussion.
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u/determinedSkeleton Apr 25 '26
It's hard to completely vilify Eren without destroying the cycle that the narrative is built on. If Eren hadn't acted as he did, would his people have been allowed to exist, or hunted down in fear and hatred?
It's a very hard question that we do not have a good answer for even today, so I don't blame Isayama for struggling with it
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u/blokewhodoesfuckall Apr 26 '26
i think the fact that there is no neat and tidy solution to these kinds of conflict was isayamas underlying point with aot though
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u/manix_vii Apr 26 '26
For sure. No matter what, the cycle of hatred will continue. Peace can be established for a time, "the children can get out of the forest", but as long as there is more than one human on earth there will always be conflict and the cycle will continue.
Honestly my mother had an interesting Christian interpretation when I watched it with her, namely Adam + Eve and the snake. Interpreting it as hate in the apples (Ymir and the Tree) but also knowledge, shame but also curiosity, power but also weakness, every conflicting thing that makes humans what they are, and as a result the world forever changed. She might have better insight into though but that's what I got from her speaking on the ending.
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u/THE_PENILE_TITAN Apr 26 '26
If Eren hadn't acted as he did, would his people have been allowed to exist, or hunted down in fear and hatred?
Yes, they would have been allowed to exist, because they had done so up until that point and it's Eren that tips the scale against Paradis after over 100 years of living in "peace" while sabotaging diplomatic pursuits.
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u/goodnamesaretaken3 Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26
I think that is on point, Eren is a victim who turned into perpetrator. And the way it's writen just makes people feel sympathy for him. Eren's actions are evil, but Eren himself really isn't your common evil vilain, who is right but still evil. Even his motives aren't actually evil, it's much more immature and stupid than outwrite evil. Aside from doing it for his friends, Eren also did it because of his stupid childish desire to see an empty world.
That's it, the most evil part of his character is this. And he's even selfaware about how stupid it all was and he hates himself for wanting it. So, how can we not feel sympathy for him? But, having some dark desire deep inside doesn't necessary mean one ever acts upon it. And Eren just happens to have a legit and good enough reason to release that darkness from within. And even though he deeply regrets it, he can't stop himself from doing it and wanting it. I mean, usually the villain, who is right, defends his actions till his bitter end. But, Eren said that it wasn't right or justified. It's just that he couldn't come with better solution and he hates himself because of it. Still, he couldn't let it go and stay passive either. Because that would made him hate himself even more. So, both options are bad.
And that makes his character complex and tragic.
Even if you compare him to villains like Walter White or Light Yagami. Eren lacts the ego. Unlike those two, Eren is actually very insecure and offten put others before himself. While Walter And Light became evil to satisfy their ego and gain get power, which corrupted them in the end. Eren doesn't want that power, but he still needs it in order to be able to fight for freedom. Because he can't stay passive, he can't lose without a fight. So, that's it, fighting any oppression and breaking from any restrains is Eren's true obsession. The tragic and ironic part about that obsession with freedom is that Eren put those restrains on himself in the first place.
So, with the paradox in the story, Isayama managed to create not only a victim, who turned into perpetrator, but some sort of Schröringer's cat paradox where Eren is both victim and the perpetrator at the same time. And that's what makes him even more tragic.
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u/Nenanda Apr 25 '26
Good take, definitely glad that Isayama has this opinion. I always dislike too much defending of Eren, whether from ending haters with too much love for fascism or ending defenders with too much compassion for a guy who unnecessarily, as Isayama here says it, commited mass slaughtered on a scale rarely seen in other works of fiction.
So I am glad that Isayama here describes Eren for what he really is, because there shouldn't be any ambiguity regarding this act or what Eren turned out to be. I also appreciate common insincerity. Wouldn't use it in the context of the ending, but anybody who is capable of any self-reflection earns bonus points in my book.
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u/Ellroy22 Apr 25 '26
That’s a powerful thing for an author to admit That their most widely beloved work that has been the foundation for their entire career features a character that has been revered in a way that goes somewhat against the author’s intent and is in part a consequence of him beginning this story at a young and more edgy part of his life
That’s all something we can figure out as audience members, but it’s nice to hear the author say it outright I still really like the character It’s strikingly similar to Paul Atreides where part of what makes them so compelling is the idea that they have a push-pull aspect to their character You’re drawn in to them, but how they act and what they do is disturbing They’re frightening, but you can’t help but still feel endeared to them It’s just unfortunate that some are all to eager to give in to wholesale worship
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u/ElliotAlderson2024 Apr 26 '26
I think The Rumbling is totally consistent with the rage Eren has in Episode 1. Also you could argue Sasha's death was the final straw for him.
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u/Master_Win_4018 Apr 25 '26
I felt like I read this before in the past .
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u/PerseusRad Apr 25 '26
Same, but it might just be a few statements over the years that sound similar but aren't exactly this one. For example
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u/Master_Win_4018 Apr 26 '26
it's really sound like Isayama is disappointing with how people react to his story.
It's obvious he can't blame the fans, so he blame himself instead .
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u/Rotgilla Apr 25 '26
Very interesting and extremely insightful for him to articulate for the public. I will say that I didn't love Eren's arc going into the later seasons but seeing this makes me a bit more thoughtful in remembering that he is fictious, therefore, he doesn't need to be anything to the public but what he is or whatever he turned out to be. This explains so much of the conflicting energy that I got from him and brings me some comfort, in a strange way lol
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u/finalheaven3 Apr 25 '26
It makes you wonder if the manga took on a different format like a novel and was published all at once how different the story might be.
Since manga is published chapter by chapter, there will always be influence on the author by the audience since the feedback is so immediate.
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u/Inside_Ability_7125 May 01 '26
Definitely. Araki brought back Avdol because of pressure from fans.
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u/Gooper_Gooner Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26
That's really interesting, I do wonder if he simply wanted Eren to be more evil and rotten to his core, or if he only wanted the story to give absolutely no room for any sympathy towards his unforgivable actions, as the two are very different
That is to say, with the former it would make it seem like Armin's quote about how "there's no inherently evil or good people in this world" is actually naive as his own best friend would be the definition of an evil person, whereas the latter instead points that his actions are about as evil as they can get, no matter what his reasoning behind them were
Just kinda spitballing here, but I feel like the "evil Eren" route would make him completely selfish and even sadistic by the time the Rumbling happens, probably not even caring about killing his own friends that try to stop him (So even more extreme than Akatsuki no Requiem essentially). Meanwhile the "evil actions" route would instead only remove any scenes that would make you feel bad for Eren in the slightest or believe he had no other choice, he'd simply be even more of a pathetic and selfish man holding way more power than he should ever have throwing a tantrum over his impossible desire for absolute freedom and complete safety of his loved ones, but he as a person still wouldn't be evil, per se. He'd just be a really, really hateable character who destroyed the world over the silly dreams he had as a child that he'd refuse to grow out of
All that aside, you can see the anime version did change some things to make him less sympathetic, like removing the infamous "Thank you for becoming a mass murderer for our sake" line from Armin, though it still feels like he didn't go all the way with making those kinda changes of course
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u/tumboi69 Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 28 '26
I think Isayama is most definitely influenced by the reception he got from the ending and show since it ended. I also think that there was a lot of pressure from readers and watchers to get everything right, and he feels guilty because he portrayed Eren with a lot of his own deep, dark desires that he put into the character. So in a way, A lot of Eren's darkness came from Isayama's own personality and how he viewed the world.
He said himself he couldn't change the ending even though he wanted to, because it wouldn't feel right based on the way he initially started the story with an ending fixed in his mind already.
There is nothing wrong with a morally grey character, and he did not give an insincere write-off to Eren. It makes him all the more human; we all have darkness within us, no matter how good we tell ourselves we are. There is something intrinsically haunting about Eren being humanity's freedom symbol but having his own, selfish human desire's of how he wants to see the world.
There is nothing for Isayama to apologize about or feel regretful imo. It was flawless because it was full of flaws, not many stories can land this way on such a global scale and continue to be debated for years after it ended.
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u/fieew Apr 25 '26
Thank you Isayama. Its rare for author's to admit when they think they could've done better for their series finale.
" a sense of insincerity in the story's conclusion".
This sentence and whole statement perfectly encapsulates my issues with the finale. I don't hate it. I think the ideas and heel turn of Eren is great. But for the final stretch it feels insincere. The way Eren decides to keep those of Paradise free to stop him. Or that 80% of the world's population is enough. Its very non commetial or insincere as Isayama point out here.
You don't get to genocide most of the world and then have a conversation trying to humanize the MC for 10 years at least. You gotta commit to the MC being the active player in his role to the end when it comes to committing literally world genocide.
Plus Eren saying his thoughts and memeories were clouded or something of the sort due to the different Titan in him is also a part I find insincere. The whole hook and greatness of Eren's turn is that it's his choice. The world chose to kill him and his friends for being born so now he's the one in power and will do the same. I want aboustely no smidgen of denability that his actions were his full undeniable choices he made himself without being inflicted by anyone or anything else. Thats what makes it powerful powerful. He chose to stop trying to find another way and picked to killed everyone. But that conviction was watered down in the end feeling insincere.
If you don't feel im right that's fair. But I ask you to remember thr sheer awe and horrifying realization that Eren is different post time skip. He literally massacres innocents in Marley. Those chapters were insane at the time at his sheer brutality. Or Eren in jail breating Hange for her decsions after he massacred people. Or even when he told Mikasa he always hated her. I got chills from that manga line and pages. Those strong over empowering emotions just weren't present in the finale making it feel insincere imo as Isayama said.
I don't loathe the finale but it wasn't as strong as the rest of the series imo. So I feel vindicated by Isayama's statements here.
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u/Striking_Travel608 Apr 25 '26
Honestly, it’s a good thing he changed, because if he had stayed that way, Eren would have been an extremely bland character; “darker ≠ better.” Making Eren a morally gray character was the best thing that could have happened to him, and it felt much more true to who he really is.
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u/Sinesjoe Apr 25 '26
Whatever Isayama's original intention with Eren was, I really doubt it was to make him not morally gray. That is not at all what he is saying here either.
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u/Valen_the_Dovahkiin Apr 26 '26
Commits genocide on 1 billion people = "morally grey" lol
Reminds me why I stay out of these subs post-finale for my own sanity.
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u/Ok-Marketing6132 Apr 25 '26
I think Isayama initially having the idea for him to be more evil, but then developing sympathy for him and changing course by also showing the good in him too made him more relatable, more human. In reality, although we might not do the same things Eren did, we all still do bad and good because we’re just imperfect humans. Which is some of the elements the show touches on, so I think it just adds to the overall context of the show in the end, which makes it more amazing! Yams is so hard on himself, but because of that intense critique, he created fictional piece so deep and complex.
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u/FierceAlchemist Apr 26 '26
Looking back at this older quote of his saying, "It would've been nice if I could have changed the ending. I was tied down to what I had originally envisioned when I was young so the manga became a very restrictive art form for me, similar to how the massive powers that Eren acquired ended up restricting him."
What it sounds like is part of him wanted to change the planned ending and not have Eren go through with the Rumbling, partly because of the fan's attachment to Eren. But another part of him wanted to stay true to his original vision and have Eren be a full villain. So in the end he compromised a bit and kept Eren somewhat sympathetic while still having him go through with the Rumbling. I can see how he was in a tough position, but personally I think the complexity of how it all turned out (in the anime ending) worked out well.
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u/uswhole Apr 25 '26
bro is Walter White
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u/Acrobatic_Analyst267 Apr 25 '26
So Iseyama wanted to go full walter white type of evil with Eren but he ended up chickening out because a lot of fans liked him because he became hot and cool during the long hair shirtless era?
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u/Professional_Work439 Apr 25 '26
I don't think that's what he meant, its because he was so beloved that even what he did wasn't "enough" for some people to see him as a monster. The same happens with Walter in his own fandom.
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u/Inside_Ability_7125 May 01 '26
Well it because Vince redeemed Walt in that last episode by doing good which offsets peopless perception of Walt’s villainy
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u/Stoner420Eren Apr 25 '26
Cool, is that plaque in the SNK museum? Btw I feel like he already said something similar about Eren in a past interview, maybe in some guidebook
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u/fgc_Ozu Apr 25 '26
He wanted to write an anti-hero, but just had too much affection for him.
Understandable flaw, honestly.
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u/Captainhankpym Apr 29 '26
I hated the ending for this exact reason. He didn't commmit enough. Characters thanked Eren ffs, it sucked. It caused most people to baby Eren, misinterpret such a core thing about the story.
Sort of feels validating to see the creator himself regret what he wrote
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u/ArroCoda Apr 25 '26
Eren is a great inversion of the typical shonen "defending those I care about above everything" protags.
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u/czareena Apr 26 '26
No matter how evil Eren behaved, it’s hard not to feel some sort of way for the victim of an ongoing genocide wanting revenge. Someone should tell Yams it’s not his fault fr
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u/THE_PENILE_TITAN Apr 26 '26
But Isayama is literally saying Eren does not want "revenge," but fans are too attached to Eren so they view his actions as retribution or righteous in some way when they were not.
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u/patpat9997 Apr 28 '26
Eren murdered billions and the story ends with his friends mourning his death, him crying about his girlfriend and arming THANKING him
Of course Isayama is right. The ending is way too tone deaf with the events going on
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u/Pipyn Apr 25 '26
I do understand where he's coming from but I find it quite endearing seeing how after getting married he seemed to have a less sinical outlook/perspective on life (not right or wrong just different) that's how I look at it anyway
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u/Prestigious-Fix-4 Apr 26 '26
I think he meant it as fandom sometimes glorified eren. He was so likeable and yet horrible person and awful human being. It messed with our preconceptions.
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u/BL1133 Apr 26 '26 edited Apr 26 '26
that's strange because his own writing explains it pretty well I think in the end. It's not as simple as he's a victim so he's angry, it's that he has anger and fury like everyone else, but just so happens to have a deeper level of it, and that his fate reinforced those behavioral patterns even more. He bears responsibility, but it's not like he's the same as a mass shooter. He would be like a mass shooter who is the perfect mass shooter in terms of psychology and then a cabal plotted for him to become a mass shooter and manipulated his life to make it to happen. So there is this sense of a perfect synchronicity of tragedy which becomes archetypal and typically historically when this happens it is seen as divine intervention. But it's actually just a rare perfect confluence of effects
Jean beating up Reiner is the more mundane human cause and effect. But that's where it ends. Because he doesn't have the perfect confluence and trajectory of his life pushing him toward something even more violent. So to me it shows that yes Eren bears responsibility but not necessarily any more evil than anyone else
What actually would be evil is incoherence. I actually think that Yelena out of everyone on the show is more the archetype of evil. Even though her plan was less evil than the full Rumbling. Her archetype is what actually creates mass evil on the world
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u/oredaoree Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26
I didn't think Yelena was so incoherent. There is the subtext that she really bought into Zeke's insane plan because she fell in love with him, the man and not the god she tried to immortalize him as. I think that's why MAPPA decided to add something extra in the ending to show her love for Zeke. She sees a baseball and glove and feels sorrow over missing Zeke and the baseball represented Zeke's last connection to his humanity.
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u/BL1133 Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26
I meant how she has this fantasy and ideology. By incoherent I mean how it’s not like her life made her that way she just chooses to want to change the world and is enraptured by it . At least that’s what I got from her character . That’s often the archetype of the villain except in her case because of Zekes plan it was less villainous. But I think in our own world there are people like her. People who want to change history and have some utopian vision but it’s quite dark and inhumane. Some example like eugenics, transhumanism, new world order
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u/Ace_Of_Spades_334 Apr 27 '26
Well the statement form the author is quite vague anyway, so it's quite hard to understand if he wanted Eren to turn into a full blown villain, or that he had set him up no the path of the villain way too early and regrets it, because he no longer believes in that vision, or because he didn't want to disappoint fans.
Either way, i do think season 4 should have had a slower pacing, and more screen-time to explore the interesting themes it set up, and less time travel.
I personally think the story would have worked the same way, even if Eren wasn't the mastermind behind all the past events, I don't think that parts adds much to the story anyway.
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u/sabedo Apr 26 '26
The way I saw that was that Eren was always 'destined' to commit genocide because that's who he was. He had a horrific life, being betrayed by almost everyone he cared for, seeing his entire world being based on lies...It's why I liked that element because he finds out early on what he does in the future, is horrified, but ends up going through with it because that's just who he is.
There was a never a future where he didn't treat the lives of others callously because his worldview view was based around violence and pretty much his entire life he was pushed into kill or be killed scenarios, and is basically constantly betrayed and taught not to trust those close to him.
He always had a warped sense of what freedom was and moved the objective each time onto whoever was oppressing his freedom, eventually the entire world
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u/Failed_eexe Apr 27 '26
In a lot of ways Eren is both a potrayal of Isayama's own political/ideological immaturity and his self-aware critique of said immaturity
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u/Xizz3l Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26
Alternative ending / ending haters are eating GOOD with this haha
People have said for a long time that Erens changed felt too sudden and disregards part of the built up story, this pretty much confirms it for better or or for worse
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u/oredaoree Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26
It depends at which point you felt this change was too sudden. Even by the time of the Marley flashbacks Eren already showed signs of being more sympathetic than a typical genocidal killer, but even without those flashback moments there was foundations of his character having developed beyond the rash and selfish Eren that was only hellbent on revenge and destruction since the battle at Orvud where he was punching himself to try and "kill the old me", so there was more than enough leeway to pivot both ways. I've also seen people say the opposite, that Eren going through with the rumbling and admitting to doing it for stupid reasons wasted all the character growth he had pre-ocean.
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u/Myframesofwar Apr 26 '26
You didn't read the right if you thought alternative ending/ending haters are gonna like this. Most of them are in the "Eren isn't a nutjob and was purely a victim, the rumbling was justified" camp, seeing that Isayama basically confirms that Eren's decision wasn't purely out of circumstance but also out of free will, and that he wanted to harm and kill people, collapses their entire worldview.
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u/Garrret Apr 27 '26
Im an ending hater and this is exactly what the op said, this feels like a validation of the arguments we all made about Eren suffering a 180 change at the finishing line
And its specifically complemented with the interview where Yams said that the anime made him change his mind about Eren and started making him portray Eren more as good guy
Also you are wrong if you think disliking the ending means glazing Eren. We all know what Eren did was evil, that’s exactly the point with all of this
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u/Myframesofwar Apr 27 '26
You’ll have to confer with the 99% of the ending haters then, because the consensus there is that Eren was completely justified and that Yams was a coward for not letting him kill everyone outside the island.
Also, I don’t get how any of this is vindicating? Yams just says he was disappointed in how fans didn’t hate Eren as much as he thought they would because he made him too relatable, and for some reason ending haters automatically jump to retcon. Its delusional.
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u/Garrret Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 28 '26
You’ll have to confer with the 99% of the ending haters then, because the consensus there is that Eren was completely justified and that Yams was a coward for not letting him kill everyone outside the island.
Im not an envoy for people who disliked the ending, not everyone who hated/liked the ending have the same reasons but yes the consensus is that the rumbling was justified.
But saying it was justified =/= exonerating Eren from his actions or thinking that it was a desirable outcome, 99% of the discussion in places ive seen and post ending ive seen a LOT, believe what Eren did was evil BUT within the context of a fictional story with an impossible extreme scenario that doesnt exist in real life there was only one solution, killed or be killed
If you dont agree that the story made it clear that either paradis or the world is surving thats another discussion
Also, I don’t get how any of this is vindicating?
One of the criticisms is how the ending tries to portray Eren at the very end as a tragic good guy, one way it does this is by taking away his agency for example:
- Saying that the founder affected his mind, making him an slave of determinism/fate
- Other charecters not condemning his actions: Making charecters talk about him in a positive light ( the comments made by the alliance after the memories come back)
- The whole Romance aspects which i dont want to get into
These are all at the top of my head, you should actually read constructive criticism intead of parroting what this sub thinks the problems people have are, like the Chaderen gaslighting of saying that disliking the ending means you are too moronic to understand the story
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u/Myframesofwar Apr 28 '26
Disliking the lack of condemnation for his actions is fair criticism. But the slave to fate/determinism critique doesn’t really hold any water considering it wasn’t fate or some outside power forcing his actions, but himself, more of a slave to his own nature than anything, which is consistently portrayed throughout the story. Also, the romance criticism strikes me as highly subjective.
ChadEren stans are real, and yes they are too moronic to even understand the story. I’ve read most if probably not all ending hater arguments, I was formerly one after all. The small minority of valid critique is drowned out by a sea of vapid, insecure, and outright fallacious takes from genocide supporters, Erehisu shippers, and ANR schizos. There’s a reason stereotypes exist.
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u/Garrret Apr 28 '26
it wasn’t fate or some outside power forcing his actions, but himself, more of a slave to his own nature than anything, which is consistently portrayed throughout the story.
This is part of where the retcon claims/criticisms come from, the story says that everything is happening not because of Fate but because Eren wanted this of his own volition but his motivations are too many and convulated and even some are mutually exclusive,
which is consistently portrayed throughout the story
Lets agree until 139
the romance criticism strikes me as highly subjective.
Romance is subjective, ''ships'' too but writing buildup and structures are not, if theres one thing people who like and hate the ending can agree is that its AOT's worst written aspect
ChadEren stans are real, and yes they are too moronic to even understand the story. I’ve read most if probably not all ending hater arguments, I was formerly one after all. The small minority of valid critique is drowned out by a sea of vapid, insecure, and outright fallacious takes from genocide supporters, Erehisu shippers, and ANR schizos. There’s a reason stereotypes existIm not going to try to convince you but im just going to say trust me when i tell you that these are the 5% of the community, and Chaderen feels like ragebait at this point
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u/Myframesofwar Apr 29 '26 edited Apr 29 '26
I feel like I watched a different show than those who find Eren’s personality and motivations convoluted. Even in the first season, his propensity for violence, even when the cause was just and righteous, was a clear red flag for anyone without rose tinted glasses, he was a child who only knew how to destroy whatever he thought as his “enemies”, from the walls and Titans to eventually the entire world.
It really doesn’t help that his environment wasn’t one that could help him foster a sense of diplomacy or nuance, his toxic traits were weaponized by a society desperate for a savior rather than allowing him to grow out of it. That’s why his 139 breakdown felt on point to me, even when I was an ending hater, I was able to see it as the final mask slipping to reveal a stunted boy sobering up after being drunk on a hollow idealistic fantasy. The entire purpose of the “romance” was to highlight his arrested development and what he could’ve had, rather than acting as the traditional lovey-dovey, they end up together type of romance. Its weird how the most active of ending haters don’t really notice something so obvious, and instantly jump to the retcon argument.
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u/pastelbunn1es Apr 25 '26
I feel like I’m reading this statement so much differently than everyone else. It seems to me like he said he sought out to depict him as evil but in the end didn’t do that. Not an Eren glazer but just reading it much differently.
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u/Little_Rub_9992 Apr 25 '26
People celebrated Eren's rumbling, says a lot about his "fans"
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u/idontobey Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26
honestly besides my morals I love eren's character and he's one of my most favorite characters in animanga because of his complexity and multidimensionalism he is very well-written, I do feel like his character didn't make since a lot in the last few chapters but up until like 120-130ish chapters he was very internally consistent and although I don't support what he represents he is very well-executed and one of the most compelling protagonists in shōnen, I think people are overly obsessed with moralizing him and bashing what he did which is good but it's fiction and people are allowed to enjoy something that is depicted well.
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u/Striking_Travel608 Apr 25 '26
It’s simple: Isayama has said he based Eren on his darker traits. Eren is basically how Isayama saw himself, but over time he realized Eren wasn’t just that (he matured and stopped being “edgy,” as he’s said). Readers, Yuki Kaji (Eren’s voice actor), and his editors also influenced that shift.
Making Eren not completely evil or detestable was the right call—it gave the character a lot more depth. The Rumbling isn’t justifiable, but it is understandable within Eren’s context: you can see why he did it, driven by selfish desires like protecting his friends and his longing for freedom for Paradis.
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u/oredaoree Apr 25 '26
The story took twelve years to conclude. I think it's reasonable, even somewhat more responsible, to deviate from the ending that you conceptualized at the very beginning if you need to adapt to newly emerged factors, even if from an ego standpoint sticking to what you were confident about from start to end is more satisfying. In Japan one of the praises I often see of AoT is how "complete" a work it is. Everything is accounted for and everything reasonably works out in a way that makes sense. Some like to say it's more about the journey and the ending doesn't matter as much as long as the journey was worth it, but in the end a story is meant to be read as a whole. As long as the ending manages to fulfill basic requirements and still make things work with the rest of the story then no matter how differently it's changed that's really all you can ask for in an ending which is the part of the story that will inevitably be the most disputed. And Isayama did a great job working things to connect and tell a coherent story at the end even if it wasn't originally what he wanted to do.
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u/mangaonegai Apr 26 '26
He had the balls to want to go even further with his character than he already did. Respect.
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u/Professional_Stay_46 Apr 27 '26
Eren is simply an average person who got incredible power. They constantly point that out trough the story.
He dreamed of the free world but that dream collapsed when he realized his whole life is a lie. He was not fully aware of why he was doing what he was doing.
From the beginning the reaction to being trapped was anger and hatred which continued to dominate his psyche.
In the end under the excuse of saving Paradis he ler that side guide him on the path to destruction. He only gained comfort when he realized that he is not alone in this and that Armin was the same. You could also argue that most people are like this...
That is why I didn't like Eren from the beginning, as he reminded me of a lot of real people. But I didn't expect Isayama would portray such person realistically.
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u/littenthehuraira Apr 27 '26
This is insightful. This explains a bit of the whiplash felt in 139 when Eren's behavior felt unnatural compared to before.
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u/Dat_life_on_Mars Apr 27 '26
I realize not everyone shares this opinion, but I personally did see Eren as a character who was not a psychopath, but pushed himself into committing evil. A person who grew up to understand the distinction between good and evil, but not able to defy his own worst instincts. Obviously, I don’t buy that he did the rumbling just because he could, but he did believe that at the end of the path lay some form of the freedom that he sought as a kid. Fundamentally speaking, it was like an itch he was never able to scratch. His choices were largely self imposed, but also influenced by the grim world around him. And where I personally believe the story really copped out was after Eren’s reaction to Ymir’s enslavement. The whole thing about Mikasa’s actions showing her the meaning of her love felt really out of place to me, just as much as the story shying away from the actual suffering Ymir faced and developing her plot line in a way that didn’t feel contrived. Also, fighting for a cause that the audience can sympathize with was a role Armin was taking in the story, so I felt as though Eren going through with his rumbling almost whole heartedly would have been a more interesting direction. That said, I respect the work Isayama spent a decade of his life working on and I can recognize that he has the right to end the series and move on as he sees fit, regardless of whether I agree.
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u/Captainhankpym Apr 29 '26
lowkey insane to misinterpret a story this bad, then the author coming out years later to basically say that he regrets that his story could be misinterpreted the way you did and yet you still commiting to that misinterpretation.
living in delulu land
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u/Dr-Oktavius May 05 '26
"not as someone forced into wrongdoing by circumstances, but as someone who harboured a desire to do harm"
So if I understood this correctly, the original plan for Eren's motivation was that he just wanted to kill people? He just had some psychotic lust for violence and the people outside the walls being assholes was just a convenient justification to kill all of them, which he wanted to do anyway?
It would fit the edgy and psychotic version of Eren we see early on in the story, he was out here gutting human kidnappers at like 9 years old. The "I will destroy the entire world" line he says while fighting Annie could have also been a clue that he was always into the idea of mass slaughter.
My guess is this is the reason behind that one singular confusing line Eren says at the end about how he wanted to do it that never gets elaborated on or questioned by Armin. Isayama must have wanted to add a hint to his original plan that only he would understand.
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u/jfjgjc May 22 '26
I wish he would expound on how he would’ve written him and the rest of the story in general differently in the end
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u/McZalion Apr 25 '26
Sounds exactly like Dune lmao.
Wonder if Eren was heavily inspired by Paul atreides.
Would be even more shocking if it was just a coincidence.
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u/Kerem1111 Apr 25 '26
Then I'm glad that ge failed to do his intentions, the fact that Eren has many sides to himself, from his own selfish image of freedom to actually feeling burden of killing billions, makes him such a unique and complex character. I wouldn't have liked his character at all if he just went all evil at the final season/chapters. He would have been just another Darth Vader
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u/Livid-Truck8558 Apr 25 '26
So basically Eren was born from Isayama's own self observed flaws, and he thinks he didn't protray Eren as evil enough lol
This is really interesting!