It Still Feels Like A Dream

final draft of ending critique is halfway done. normally i’d be able to finish it this week, but a heatwave has hit the uk and is sapping all my energy. please bear with me a little longer 🙏

I think this is all quite valid, but I'm quite sure Isayama intended to portray Eren as something "inhuman."

There's the scene in Marley were he speculates that he was born like this.

There's the scene in 121 where he also claims to have been like this since birth.

There's the constant narrative of this being set in stone(Eren's birth is even juxtaposed with "it doesn't matter where" and his child self with "maybe all of this was set in stone from the start"), and even when Eren reflects on why he wanted to do this in 139 there's a shot of him just being born.

There's also the fact that Yams has explicitly addressed the theme of the "innate perpetrator" in two of his interviews as essential to the ending. One in 2017 where he says this:

Ultimately, I don’t think the series passes judgment on what is “right” or “wrong.” For example, when I read Furuya Minoru’s “Himeanole,” I knew society would consider the serial killer in the story unforgivable under social norms. But when I took into account his life and background I still wondered, “If this was his nature, then who is to blame…?” I even thought, “Is it merely coincidence that I wasn’t born as a murderer?” We justify what we absolutely cannot accomplish as “a flaw due to lack of effort,” and there is bitterness within that. On the other hand, for a perpetrator, having the mindset of “It’s not because I lack effort that I became like this” is a form of solace. We cannot deny that under such circumstances, the victims’ feelings are very important. But considering the root of the issue, rather than evaluating “what is right”…to be influenced by various other works and their philosophies, and to truthfully illustrate my exact feelings during those moments - I think that’s what Shingeki no Kyojin’s ending will resemble.

And the other with Arakawa where he draws a connection between his self expression through destruction/"turning things upside down" with the ending and the work of Minoru Furuya(the artist from whom he got the "innate aggressor" theme).

Do you think Eren was forced to do the rumbling because he felt he had no choice? A lot of people are saying that Eren felt compelled to do the rumbling because it was the only way to save paradis. And that sounds wrong to me. He started the war and people don't care about that. A lot of people are mad when we criticise the rumbling or Eren's actions or if we even dare to imply that he did it for selfish purposes. They say that there was no chance for diplomacy at all. What do you think of this?

Hi!

I think that Eren did the rumbling because this was the conclusion that he wanted: to put an end to the Titan curse. I believe that there would have been other ways to save Paradis if that was what Eren wanted, however, those conclusions would not have led to the eradication of the Titans.

The weird complicated part and what I think Isayama was going for, is the kind of time travel that I believe he enacted [wiki]:

The Novikov self-consistency principle, named after Igor Dmitrievich Novikov, states that any actions taken by a time traveler or by an object that travels back in time were part of history all along, and therefore it is impossible for the time traveler to "change" history in any way. The time traveler's actions may be the cause of events in their own past though, which leads to the potential for circular causation, sometimes called a predestination paradox,[81] ontological paradox,[82] or bootstrap paradox.[82][83]

and the so-called time loop is a causal loop [wiki]:

A causal loop is a theoretical proposition in which, by means of either retrocausality or time travel, a sequence of events (actions, information, objects, people)[1][2] is among the causes of another event, which is in turn among the causes of the first-mentioned event.[3][4] Such causally looped events then exist in spacetime, but their origin cannot be determined.

Which means events became fixed and he didn't have a choice because of the decision that he at some point had made. But we are given a glimpse that even if he didn't have a choice, it was still as what he wanted, as per his thoughts in chapter 130.

I'm sorry it is very confusing XS

Was it for selfish purposes? I think that it was a mixture of both, selfish in the sense that he wanted to achieve his own personal aim, but he did still want to achieve freedom for Paradis, by destroying all of their enemies. As with the whole story, it's complicated and not so easy to paint a singular "good/bad" stripe on anything, let alone Eren, which I also believe is the whole point. Plus the fact that I'd said that he believed that he had made the wrong decision in relying on his comrades during the first mission to capture the Female Titan which I believe also led to him choosing to go it alone, which does seem to vaguely imply that there might have been a chance for a different solution if he had brought his friends on board.

I'm going to bring back my thoughts at the ending, because I don't feel like there's been any change in my thinking since then.

I’m going to admit that the reason the ending worked for me is precisely because Eren was shown to have only 2 braincells and failed to use them. He claimed that he loved his friends, but failed to bring them into his decision making and decided to go gungho and do it all by himself. He claimed that they were free to act but his decision in fact took away that freedom from them and forced them down the path he set out for them. He did it this way because he was bull-headed Eren always charging ahead leaving his friends behind. The power of friendship didn’t fix anything either. I feel a sense that there might actually have been a better way, if he wasn’t the way he is. It is a tragedy.

So I do believe that rather than that there was no chance for diplomacy, that diplomacy wasn't given a chance at all, at least not until Eren had achieved his main aim, leaving his friends to clean up the mess.

Thank you for your ask! :)

I found a few interesting parallels and repeated motifs with Eren.

In both cases Armin asks why Eren would want to do such a thing, and he responds in very different ways, yet the reason is still grounded in the same fact. Eren's birth into this world.

It should be noted that when Armin asks this the first time, Eren is confused and even angry at the fact that Armin would ask such a question. He takes this as a given but he can't articulate any clear reason, and in anger he proclaims it's because he was born into this world. This time, Eren no longer feels justified or entitled, but sad and grave, and he can't even confidently say it's because he was born into this world(though the implication is clear in the flashbacks), yet he can't deny the strength of that desire, he had to do it no matter the cost.

Another callback has to do with the hope beyond the hell.

Previously Eren believed undoubtedly that hope lay beyond this hell, but after his disillusionment with the world beyond the walls, he now questions whether his struggles will lead to actual fruition or yet another hellish disappointment after so much sacrifice and strife. Eren has come to the conclusion that he'll never know unless he actually gets there. It's interesting how previously the ends were unquestionably good and so was the fight to attain them, yet when Eren says this it's in an arc that has been criticising the "keep moving forward" mentality and he's not even fully confident in the value of this end, what remains constant though-through the ambiguity, confusion and corpses-is the core drive within Eren.

Did you get the Paths idea from Madoka?!

Death & Resurrection: Eren’s Harrowing of Hell

Eren…he kept moving forward to the very end. Through the opposition of the whole world, through his head being cut off twice and through the nuclear force of a Colossus Titan blast, Eren still managed to stand up and keep moving. His forwards momentum was near indomitable.

His fight for the freedom of the people he loved came at a phenomenal cost: countless innocent lives and, ultimately, the death or titanisation of many of the people he was trying to protect. But we weren’t mad for loving Eren, even in his latter days of mass murder. There was something pure in Eren. He had an ideal and he devoted himself to it entirely.

Keep reading

“They were just there wherever I looked from the day I was born. Those miserable walls.”

I think this is the most important line we need for understanding Eren. From the moment he was born Eren felt caged no matter what he did and he longed for release.

This desire was unconscious at first, but seeing Armin dream so passionately brought about the realization that Armin was seeing and believing in something that Eren couldn’t, and this brings about the realization in him that he’s restrained/caged from doing something.

He initially believes that this indignation from a sense of being caged is because of the Titans or oppressors but as time goes on and the circumstances change, Eren realises that this is something internal and the fact that it’s something that no one else experiences is one of the sources of his tragedy: he can’t communicate/share this desire.

(There’s probably some symbolism in the fact that Eren confessed his truest desires to a child that didn’t speak the same language)

At first, Eren associated release with the “sight” of the things in Armin’s book. He believed that seeing those things will give him the release and liberty he’s been longing for, though it should be noted that Eren says he doesn’t care what the particular sights *are* just that he sees them so I think he cares much more about the feeling of liberation that those things stand for than the sights themselves.

So I think that even though Eren might say that he’s disappointed that the world wasn’t what was in Armin’s book I think what he’s really sad about is that he didn’t feel liberated by the world beyond the walls, but because he associated those feelings with the sights in Armin’s book he uses them interchangeably(I think this is supported by the fact that Eren still feels caged and empty when actually seeing those sights in 139).

The reason Eren slaughters humanity beyond the walls is because from his perspective, *they* are walls/barriers obstructing his freedom. “That Scenery” is one of the most important motifs with Eren, it’s the liberty that comes with transcending or breaking a wall, but one of the ironies in 131 is that Eren is deluding himself to think that it’s freedom. Eren’s very nature demands that he cannot see beyond the “walls” and this is testified to by Eren looking unfulfilled immediately after the freedom panel and the fact that he still needs Armin’s approval. Besides Isayama deliberately contrasts Eren and Armin by saying that Armin still believes in a world beyond the walls, with a panel of Eren’s eyes closed.

Eren’s tragedy is that of a man born with the inability to look past the repression of life(or you could say he was born with the ability to see restraints everywhere). I think this solves all the contradictions I thought I saw in Eren’s character and addresses the “Problem of being a Slave” that Isayama once brought up.

Before I go there’s one last thing I have to say about the final chapter and this motif, Eren can’t see the dream Armin enjoys and he can’t see the future that lies ahead, but his love for his friend(s) let’s him transcend that nature by putting his hopes in them at the end. He won’t ever be able to see beyond the walls, that’s just how he is, but he can be at peace with the fact that his friends will.

Edit: I made this post mainly because I was tired of people rooting Eren’s actions in trauma or an ideological mistake or lack of development. Eren has developed enough as a protagonist, especially by chapter 100, his “mistakes” in the Final Arc are a result of his nature, I think that’s what Isayama wanted to convey.

Touka: *exists*

Kaneki:

Eren’s Path

I just noticed the parallel between these scenes.

When faced with an outcome as horrible as the Rumbling, most other characters try to think back to a point where they could have gone down a different path or where the trouble originated from. Eren even briefly does this.

But he not only refuses to consider other possibilities, he even rejects the utility of retrospecting in the first place. To Eren, the Rumbling happening is not a problem of the right choice or the circumstances that shaped it, it's just about who he is and his "primitive desire".

So I guess in Eren's mind, the Rumbling was an existential dilemma. So long as he exists he will surely bring ruin to the world, so is it better to never have been born? Or take away his life? He couldn't possibly do so after Historia and Carla's lessons.

So he tried to change the world by facing judgement through death for his actions, or as @jeanandthedreamofhorses said, he tried to use this inherent ‘evil’ to make the world better, by gearing his desires towards their own self destruction.

But it seems to me that a curse, no matter the good brought about by it, remains a curse, 80% percent of humanity is too great a price to pay for the end that was reached, but Eren and the Alliance were at least able to prevent total extinction, and no matter when, Eren was able to temper his desires. So he may have brought about a great amount of suffering, but his final acts contain seeds of good in them.

“They were just there wherever I looked from the day I was born. Those miserable walls.”

I think this is the most important line we need for understanding Eren. From the moment he was born Eren felt caged no matter what he did and he longed for release.

This desire was unconscious at first, but seeing Armin dream so passionately brought about the realization that Armin was seeing and believing in something that Eren couldn’t, and this brings about the realization in him that he’s restrained/caged from doing something.

He initially believes that this indignation from a sense of being caged is because of the Titans or oppressors but as time goes on and the circumstances change, Eren realises that this is something internal and the fact that it’s something that no one else experiences is one of the sources of his tragedy: he can’t communicate/share this desire.

(There’s probably some symbolism in the fact that Eren confessed his truest desires to a child that didn’t speak the same language)

At first, Eren associated release with the “sight” of the things in Armin’s book. He believed that seeing those things will give him the release and liberty he’s been longing for, though it should be noted that Eren says he doesn’t care what the particular sights *are* just that he sees them so I think he cares much more about the feeling of liberation that those things stand for than the sights themselves.

So I think that even though Eren might say that he’s disappointed that the world wasn’t what was in Armin’s book I think what he’s really sad about is that he didn’t feel liberated by the world beyond the walls, but because he associated those feelings with the sights in Armin’s book he uses them interchangeably(I think this is supported by the fact that Eren still feels caged and empty when actually seeing those sights in 139).

The reason Eren slaughters humanity beyond the walls is because from his perspective, *they* are walls/barriers obstructing his freedom. “That Scenery” is one of the most important motifs with Eren, it’s the liberty that comes with transcending or breaking a wall, but one of the ironies in 131 is that Eren is deluding himself to think that it’s freedom. Eren’s very nature demands that he cannot see beyond the “walls” and this is testified to by Eren looking unfulfilled immediately after the freedom panel and the fact that he still needs Armin’s approval. Besides Isayama deliberately contrasts Eren and Armin by saying that Armin still believes in a world beyond the walls, with a panel of Eren’s eyes closed.

Eren’s tragedy is that of a man born with the inability to look past the repression of life(or you could say he was born with the ability to see restraints everywhere). I think this solves all the contradictions I thought I saw in Eren’s character and addresses the “Problem of being a Slave” that Isayama once brought up.

Before I go there’s one last thing I have to say about the final chapter and this motif, Eren can’t see the dream Armin enjoys and he can’t see the future that lies ahead, but his love for his friend(s) let’s him transcend that nature by putting his hopes in them at the end. He won’t ever be able to see beyond the walls, that’s just how he is, but he can be at peace with the fact that his friends will.

Edit: I made this post mainly because I was tired of people rooting Eren’s actions in trauma or an ideological mistake or lack of development. Eren has developed enough as a protagonist, especially by chapter 100, his “mistakes” in the Final Arc are a result of his nature, I think that’s what Isayama wanted to convey.

This reminds me of something from an interview with the editor.

When the series started in 2009, Kawakubo’s original suggestion was for Isayama to draw something “easy for the majority of the public to understand and caters to them.” However Isayama responded with “But who represents this ‘majority?’” as he preferred to create something with immense impact, even if understood by few. They continued to argue back and forth about this for an entire year.

Critique of the Ending

After an unreasonably long wait, here are my thoughts on the ending in more detail. I’ve always tried my best to decipher the author’s reasons behind their narrative decisions instead of dismissing them off the bat if they rub me the wrong way. But, in the case of this final chapter, I can’t help but find it unworthy of all that came before it.

This critique is divided into four subsections: ‘An Irresponsible Plan’, ‘Underwhelming Heroes’, ‘Wasted Characters’, and ‘A Gimmicky Solution’. The ending launched so much new information at us that I can’t cover everything, but I have addressed those errors in plot, themes, tone, and characterisation that disappointed me most.

Keep reading

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.

T.S. Eliot, from Four Quartets; Burnt Norton. (via xshayarsha)