Maybe I Should Start Reading Freud - Blog Posts

Ever Since I Was Born: Eren and his Id

Ironically, after writing a very long critique of the ending, I believe I have found a way to redeem it. Isayama’s comments on the manga ‘Himeanole’, as well as the analyses put forward by @twilight-paradise88 and @cosmicjoke​, led me down a very interesting path of interpretation that makes the ending - thematically, at least - justified.

In the 2017 Bessatsu Shonen interview, Isayama says this about ‘Himeanole’:

Ultimately, I don’t think the series [SNK] 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?”

Does this sound familiar?

Eren, like the protagonist of that manga, is presented as being a certain way since birth. From the Attack Titan’s power to see the future, we know that Eren bringing about the Rumbling was an inevitability.

The kernel of this idea is preserved in the ending. Although Eren’s motivations become more complex, the core of his being still compels him towards that act of destruction. He cannot understand it, because it is not a logical demand. It is simply the nature of who he is.

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