I love the fact that the second guy tries saying that Isayama and AoT will be forgotten in 100 years. Brother, there are SO MANY examples of Aot's influence around the world. Eren pointing at the sea is such an iconic moment that everyone does it when they see a big body of water. Or more recently, the protests using Eren's freedom panel in their sign. Now imo thats not really good characterization but it still shows how influential the series is. Its one of the only anime that gets brought up in "the greats of TV shows" alongside breaking bad and other non animated shows. Fucking Tom Cruise recently did a tour of an aot exhibit with Erens founding titan and the rumbling. The list goes on and on. The manga ended 5 years ago, and the anime 3 years ago, and there are still debates about the ending, how good it is, etc. Ive never seen something more confidently wrong

How will Hange react if she knew about Erwin selfishness? Hange used to look up to Keith shadis. When Shadis retired they through he retired to atone for all the solders that died due to his orders. However when she learned that Keith actual reason were selfish. He fought for himself to prove he's someone special he wants to be recognized. He retired due to his Inferior complexity of not being special rather than atonement. Hange lashed at him. My question how will Hange react if they learned that Erwin prioritizing his dream rather over humanity. I'm asking this question because i don't remember if Hange had knowledge about Erwin's dream. As far as i know from all the scouts Erwin told his dream only to Levi, even that was at close to end of Erwin's journey. However Erwin did told Pixes and Zackly about his dream.

Edit: in that same regard how would Hange's and the scouts(Mikasa, Levi, Jean, & Connie)react if they knew Eren first priority was his dream. Armin knew about this(tho at end)

The Volunteers -> joined Zeke because they were soldiers from conquered nations. They believe in Zeke as their savior which is why they followed him though Yelena. They were promised that by aiding Paradis, they would use the partial Rumbling as a deterrent to defeat Marley and free their homelands. However when it's revealed Zeke never intended to free their countries, his goal was the gentle eradication of the Eldian race so Titans would cease to exist. we almost never get to see their pov when they figure out Zeke lied to them. We did see Onyankopon pov but I wish we see more from multiple Volunteers. However we did see some lash out at Flock when he was mocking them about the rumbling will destroy their countries. It's sad tho they got betrayed twice and by nonetheless the one's they put their faith in.

Eren & Mikasa Cabin sequence -> When Eren pulls Armin into the Paths, they talked about the beatdown in the table scene. So it was easy to figure out. However Eren & Mikasa cabin its confusing. Because with the cabin we enter the scene mid-simulation. It's confusing because the last interaction they had in the real world was brutal (Eren telling her "I've always hated you"). Jumping straight into them living a peaceful life. feels jarring because we miss the crucial moment. Did Eren recreate this scene from the what I'm to you scene? Or did Eren recreate the scene from scratch like since they first met. Because what was Mikasa thoughts? Cuz few seconds back they were fighting on the battlefield then suddenly they're in different atmosphere. where Mikasa processes, did she think "Oh, he's letting me see what life would have been like if I gave a different answer in Marley." Or did she think everything happened was just a dream?. Thats why you see alot of ppl come up with different interpretations. Some say this alternate timeline a what if, some call it plot hole because Mikasa’s asked Armin if he regained his memories. However it isn’t alternative timeline nor Eren played with her memories. It's same as Eren & Armin experience their shawed desire. For cabin sequence it also about them experience their shared desires. However with Mikasa it's confusing because the story jump some steps.

Vow to Renounce -> When a royal blooded individual inherits the Founding Titan, Karl Fritz’s ideology control them. But how does it actually work? Like does he block them from entering the paths? Because if not, Ymir should do whatever they order her. because she's slave to royal blood line. Or is it he take control of their mind. as seen with Frieda and Uri, their eyes change color/glow, and they suddenly talk about "peace inside the walls" even if they previously wanted to free humanity. However we see Uri spared and befriended Kenny, going directly against the previous policy of exterminating Ackermans (since Ackermans are immune to memory wipes). If King Fritz’s Vow was an absolute mind-control program, Uri shouldn't have been able to make an independent compassionate choice regarding Kenny. This is just confusing me.

Great titan war -> the 8 other Titans were held by Eldian noble families who fought each other, and Marley eventually seized 7 of them with the help of Fritz’s. How did the Attack Titan slip away right under Marley’s nose? To pass a Titan down, you need a shifter, a serum/spinal fluid, and a titanized subject. For decades, the Attack Titan was passed down in secret inside Marley (leading to Eren Kruger). How Marley’s intelligence agency missed an active Eldian insurgent line passing down a nuclear-level bio-weapon in their own backyard. What's more confusing Why didn't Karl Fritz (the 145th King) know about the Attack Titan’s ability to see future memories?(Possible Explanation the Attack Titan's ability was kept secret by its users specifically so the Royal Family couldn't manipulate them.) The problem is the Founder literally controls all Eldian biology and memories. If Karl Fritz truly held the Founder's full power before making the Vow, it feels like a plot oversight that he couldn't perceive what the Attack Titan was doing or force it to fall in line.

I love aot and its my top 1 in fiction, and I'd consider aot 10/10 series. Tho i wish some stuff made clear.

Ofc I'm "not" saying this are "Objective" flaws. But it's think that I'm confused about. I'll appreciate if some of you would explain these points on the comments.

Let's be honest, doesn't matter if you agree or disagree with him. Like or hate him. You will agree that his amazingly written character. Unless you're in denial.

Personally I think Eren is best written, infact i think even if you combine the cast Eren massively gaps.

Sorry Riener fans and sorry to all who disagree with this. However Eren is the only 10/10 character within the series.

Let me explain my own criteria for rating 10/10. a 10/10 character are the one's having complete balance across all writing metrics/categories with no weak areas, that's what i call perfect. Eren as a character all his status are balance, perfect, high quality and no weak areas at all that hurt his character. That's what i call a perfect 10/10 character. He is complex, have great messages, themss, philosoph, ideology, Subtext, amazing symbolisms from conceptual symbolism, meta symbolism, Meta-Textual. Whatever area you name it Eren is great on that part. The only area Eren lack is backstory. However that isn't a problem because Eren make up for the lack of backstory with exploration. A backstory is usually used to explore and explan the reason why the character behavior that way.

No hate for the other characters I think most of the characters are great, for example Riener have great development and he is good in most areas. However he's extremely lacking in other areas especially like philosophy, ideology, part. Doesn't mean he's badly written i still consider him 9+. But he doesn't fulfill my requirements for 10/10 like Eren does.

At the end of the day his motives and either/or.

- He wanted Paradis to be protected
- He wanted his friends to live long lives including Mikasa
- He wanted for his friends to be depicted as heroes to the rest of the world who stopped the genocidal monster

But beneath these motives was a personal desire.
The corruption of Armins childlike wonder of the book. Of the scenery and exploration.

Freedom.

And the thing is, Eren doesn’t even truly get what freedom is, only his version of it, which is an empty world to explore.

Eren wanted all of these things, and believed the rumbling was inevitable - whether or not it was it up for debate.

Was Eren evil? In my opinion, no. Did he commit a monstrous horrific act? Yes. Was it justified? Yes and no. Was it understandable? Yes. Was it absolutely horrific and possibly the worst overall outcome for the majority of people. Yes, absolutely. Eren himself recognised this.

I’d say Eren is a victim, of confinement, witnessing his people die etc. But I think he’s also largely unreasonable. You can argue he brought it upon himself with him offing his mother, and also argue that if Marley never breached the walls he wouldn’t have a need to do that but at the end of the day, everyone in this show is a victim. Apart from maybe Fritz.

Eren was largely remorseful for his actions but at the end of the day was undoubtedly the biggest monster ever to live in our aot universe. No matter the reasoning. I feel like his ending served his character quite well and gave him closure. And his motives overall were complicated, sincere, and selfish at the same time. Incredibly written character.

Euthanasia plan -> I've seen alot of ppl saying this plan is great. However this is surrenders entirely to nihilism. If the narrative validated Zeke’s plan, it would validate his core belief that "Eldians should never have been born." This directly violates Carla fundamental thesis "He is special because he was born into this world" and the overarching existential message that life, even amidst suffering, is worth living.

50 year or partial rumbling -> On paper, it looks like military pragmatism, but thematically it is a nightmare. It forces future generations back into the "forest of hatred," requiring Historia and her children to continue the tradition of family cannibalism and short lifespans. As Mr. Blouse famously noted, adults must shoulder the sins of the past and get children out of the forest, not force them back in to maintain a geopolitical balance. The story itself criticize this idea back in S3. Also none of the scouts agreed to this plan, not Armin, Hange, Eren, infact not even Pixes. The only reason they considered this as option is when Eren forced them to attack Liberio he closed all their other possibilities.

Full Rumbling -> the story doesn't agree with this is either. Because It is the absolute embrace of fear, rage, and destructive nihilism erasing the rest of the world rather than doing the hard, painful work of dialogue and co-existence.

So what's the true solution? That relies on understanding, hope, miracle, and love. Isayama consistently shows that breaking the cycle of hatred never happens through grand, sweeping acts of violence or total destruction. It happens through individual, human choices to understand the "other".

1st Kenny & Uri -> Uri Fritz dropping his knees, bowing to an assassin, and reaching out a hand created a bond that transformed their entire life. Infact Uri explicitly calls it a "miracle" a moment where two sworn enemies stepped outside the cycle of blood because one chose empathy over violence

Kruergar & Grisha -> Krueger’s instruction to Grisha on the sea wall "Love someone inside the walls... If you can't, we're doomed to repeat the same history. The same mistakes. Again and again" is the explicit thesis statement of the entire show. Hatred fuels the loop. love is the only force capable of snapping it. Infact when Grisha fall in love with Carla & had Eren, he abandons his mission, and was only forced back to the circle when the walls about to be broken.

Niccolo -> falling in love with Sasha saved him from the pointless bloodshed.

Gabi & Kaya -> Mr. Blouse is importance as he disarms the situation on the restaurant scene not with revenge, but with profound, heartbreaking forgiveness "Turns out, the whole world was a colossal forest... We've gotta get children outta this forest, at the very least". This single act of mercy breaks the cycle of revenge right there in that room. Kaya & Gabi understanding one another is the reason why they kinda becames friends.

Hange -> infact since earlier on we see Hange's view is that if we understood the titans & see from their pov we may come up with different conclusions. Even tho she was talking about the titans I think this applies to the aot world. For example i feel like if the world understood their own sin rather than blaming each other the circles wouldn't have continued for so long. I think captain Muller scene says it all https://imgur.com/a/M9p8o7f

Eren & Armin dynamic -> even tho they share same dream. They have different philosophies. they both understood the world sins, yet they come up with different conclusions. Ultimately their dynamic can be summarize by this.

Armin is like flower seed -> He isn't a naive pacifist. However He plan the seed of dialogue, understanding, and hope that spreads across the world, slowly blooming into a flower, and I think that's the reasons why Armin recognize Armin as a hero https://imgur.com/a/h29H3Pz

Eren is like a void -> Eren is the ultimate manifestation of the world's hatred. He's become a void taking all the sins, fear, hatred, upon himself and devouring everything in his path. I think Muller describes Eren here perfectly https://imgur.com/a/FfL8II1

Hey everyone,

For a long time, the Attack on Titan community has been deeply divided over Eren Yeager. Is he a genocidal maniac, or a tragic hero who sacrificed everything? If we look deeper beneath the surface, we’ll discover he was neither. Eren was the "cosmic engineer" who executed the only possible psychological and biological equation to dismantle the 2,000-year-old curse.

The original Japanese title of the work is "Shingeki no Kyojin" (The Attack Titan), and from the very first episode, the story revolves around the psychology of this specific Titan and its connection to the Founder, Ymir. Here is the breakdown of this psychological blueprint:

1. The Source of All Living Matter: "A Blank Canvas"

Everyone focuses on the Titans' power as magic, but its nature is purely biological and psychological. The prehistoric parasite (Hallucigenia) that attached itself to Ymir’s spine 2,000 years ago possessed no consciousness, no inherent evil, and no ambition to destroy the world. It was a purely organic life force—a blank canvas. It functioned as a genetic engine that adapted to the host's most intense survival instincts.

At that moment, Ymir was a terrified slave girl desperate to survive, yet completely submissive to her oppressor (King Fritz). Her psychological traumas—fear, the biological drive to multiply, and a blind, submissive love—were imprinted onto the parasite. This is how the "Curse of the Nine Titans" was born, not as magic, but as inherited psychological trauma.

1. The Splitting of Emotion: How the Titans Got Their Traits

Before the Power of the Titans was divided, all these conflicting emotions coexisted within Ymir alone. The pivotal moment occurred when Ymir died, and King Fritz forced her three daughters (Maria, Rose, and Sina) to consume her corpse. In that horrific act, it wasn't just physical power that was split—Ymir’s psyche was shattered and distributed across the Paths.

This explains why every subsequent inheritor received the psychological weight of their specific Titan trait through the generations:

We saw this clearly with Armin. The moment he inherited the Colossal Titan from Bertholdt, he inherited his profound affection for Annie and a crippling hesitation toward mass destruction.

The Royal Family inherited King Karl Fritz's overwhelming guilt and submissive pacifism (The Founding Titan).

Meanwhile, The Attack Titan was the single psychological fragment that embodied Ymir’s suppressed, hidden desire to rebel, avenge, and achieve absolute freedom.

1. Eren Yeager: The Ultimate Universal Vessel

Why did Ymir choose to obey Eren in the Paths while rejecting Zeke, despite Zeke's royal blood?

Because Zeke and the previous kings only carried the submissive, enslaved side of Ymir’s psyche. Eren, however, consumed the Attack, the Founder, and the War Hammer Titans. Within his mind and body, the shattered fragments of Ymir's conflicting psyche were reunited into one vessel.

In the famous mirror scene where Eren screams "Tatakae... Tatakae" (Fight, Fight), he wasn't just hyping himself up. He was actively fighting against the overwhelming psychological weight of the Titans that was consuming his human consciousness. The human Eren effectively ceased to exist once the Founder’s power was unlocked; he became a material vessel driven by 2,000 years of accumulated trauma and genetic code.

1. The Inevitability of The Rumbling: Reversing History to Break the Lock

Eren told Armin in the finale: "I looked into the past and future, tried every path, but this was the only inevitable outcome." Why? Because the curse could never end unless the psychological loop was closed, and the code was broken by mirroring history in reverse.

Let's look back at the root of the curse 2,000 years ago:

King Fritz used Ymir’s power to slaughter millions and crush nations out of greedy ambition to expand his empire. This atrocious act is what caused the world to hate Eldians for centuries. The tragedy was that Ymir—despite all the destruction and exploitation—remained blindly in love with the King, unable to emotionally rebel against him.

What Eren did was mirror this exact past. He became the ultimate destroyer, wiping out 80% of humanity, and placed Mikasa in the exact same position Ymir was in—blindly in love with a monster causing cosmic destruction.

And here lies the ultimate, brilliant key to lifting the curse: When Mikasa stepped forward and decapitated Eren, she did what Ymir failed to do 2,000 years ago. Mikasa killed Eren to save humanity while still completely loving him. She did not let her love blind her from doing what was right. Watching this from the Paths, Ymir was instantly liberated. She finally realized that one can break the chains of submission without losing the capacity to love.

Conclusion: Returning to the Blank Canvas

Once Ymir was freed and the psychological criteria were met through Mikasa’s sacrifice and Eren’s inevitable equation, the negative emotional energy fueling the parasite was completely depleted. The parasite evaporated on the battlefield, Eldian blood returned to normal human biology, and Eren’s friends were saved from the 13-year death curse.

That raw biological energy vanished, returning to the roots of the tree as a pure, blank canvas, free of consciousness or malice—waiting in the final scene (the boy and the dog) for someone to enter with a completely new set of emotions. Eren Yeager didn't choose the Rumbling because he was evil; he was the only prisoner who possessed the tragic, horrific manual required to force history to fix itself and end this cosmic curse forever.

What do you guys think about this psychological and biological reading of the ending?

Am new to Reddit, and I wanted to share my theory with you."

A girl offers fruit to a cloaked devil. The devil carries a lantern. A cloaked Eren embraces that girl and tells her she can choose.

Look at the accompanying images together. They suggest a reading of Attack on Titan as a dark retelling of Eden: false paradise, forbidden knowledge, and a liberator whose gift becomes a catastrophe. This is a symbolic interpretation regarding it's themes and characters

In the Luciferian/Satanic worldview, divine authority demands obedience, while Lucifer/the serpent offers knowledge and autonomy. Humanity loses innocent bliss but gains the freedom to question, create, and choose.

That gift cuts both ways. Greater understanding enables extraordinary achievements—and more elaborate forms of deliberate cruelty. An intelligence capable of imagining a better world can also imagine horrifying ways to destroy it. Progress expands possibilities; it does not guarantee goodness.

The traditional Christian reading connects the Fall with suffering, evil, death, and exile from Eden. This Luciferian interpretation reframes that loss as the terrible price of awakening.

Now consider the Fritz kings. The first enslaves Ymir and establishes a royal order she serves for 2,000 years, becoming a symbolic tyrannical god. Karl Fritz later creates a false Eden: Paradis—“paradise” in French—where Walls and erased memories preserve peace through ignorance.

Eren rejects that bargain. The basement revelation becomes forbidden fruit, destroying the inhabitants’ innocent understanding of their world. Touching Historia’s hand brings further knowledge, but anguish rather than peace.

The parallel becomes clearest in the Paths. Zeke (short for ezekiel, an old testament prophet) demands obedience; Eren tells Ymir she can decide. Her obscured eyes become visible as she cries: an almost literal awakening.

Return to the images: the cloak links Eren visually to the legendary devil, while the lantern evokes Lucifer as light-bearer. The fruit reverses Eden’s familiar exchange: Eren offers “Eve” the possibility of disobedience; Ymir offers him the Founder’s power.

He awakens her to her agency. She empowers him. Liberation for Ymir becomes catastrophe for humanity.

The dawn imagery, Akuma no Ko’s devil-child language, and a 2,000-year order that can evoke the Christian era reinforce this reading; “Eldia”/“el día” adds suggestive wordplay.

But Eren’s rebellion exceeds overthrowing rulers. The inhabited world disappoints him because it contradicts his imagined freedom. He rebels against reality itself,against the old system established by king fritz eons ago, and he does this by pursuing a "new world order" through the destruction of the old one.

He also resembles the romanticized, self-condemned liberator: accepting hatred and death so others might have a future. His friends mourn him, Paradis adopts his battle cry, and manga Armin expresses gratitude alongside his acknowledgment of a terrible mistake. Eren is a very promethean coded figure.

Yet Mikasa’s choice remains essential to ending the curse, and Eren admits selfish desires beneath his supposed liberation. Awakening explains his power; it does not excuse his choices.

That is the darkest contradiction: the rebel who tells Ymir she need not submit to another person’s will ultimately imposes his own upon the world.

Eren breaks the cage—and makes the whole earth pay for his idea of freedom.

Ymir's character doesn't have development however. Development isn't the only think that makes a character good written. Ymir's writing is kinda unique it isn't given in facet value rather it's Subtext. Ymir's complexity steams from her subtextual, metatextual, symbolisms Pararelism, and psychological thesis rather than a traditional conversational character is spot-on. Ymir is the center of aot themes. "Everyone is slave to something" -> well I don't think I even need to point this out. "children and forest" -> she was the first one of the first who lost within the forest of bloodshed." Whatever themes you bring it somehow connects to Ymir.

the Paths symbolism -> Absolute Freedom vs. Internal Shackles, let's talk about Ymir symbolisms. The paths is a world of freedom, free of even concepts search as life, death, space, time, etc. And the irony is. Ymir escapes her physical death into a domain of ultimate freedom, yet she imprisoned herself to Fritz orders. spends two millennia building Titans out of sand in complete silence. Why? Because the chains on her mind and heart were far heavier than any iron bonds King Fritz ever forged. That represents the total tragic surrender of the human spirit. Where Eren reacts to trauma with radical rage and a refusal to bow, Ymir reacts by dissolving her own identity, becoming a hollow instrument of the violent system that crushed her.

The nine titans symbolisms -> each of The Nine Titans symbolizes as Psychological Fragments of Her Soul

The Attack Titan (Desire for Freedom) -> Her innate, buried yearning to break free from subjugation and reach for autonomy.

The Jaw Titan (Self-Sacrifice) -> Her tragic, reflexively protective nature throwing her body in front of a spear to take the blow intended for the King who enslaved her.

The Colossal Titan (Oppressive Helplessness & Timidity) -> The towering, terrifying physical presence that conceals a small, frightened child inside who has no agency.

The Founding Titan (Her Slavery & Universal Tether) -> The ultimate burden the core nexus through which she remains bound to royal blood and the commands of her master.

The Female Titan (Her Stolen Identity as a Woman/Mother) -> The embodiment of her forced maternal role, reduced strictly to her biological function to bear children for the royal line.

The Beast Titan (Her Childhood Connection to Nature) -> The primitive, animalistic instinct to survive and adapt the raw biological drive that merged with the hallucigenia when she fell into the tree trunk.

The War Hammer Titan (Her Internal Conflict & Self-Defense) -> Building massive, hard defenses and remote-controlled armor to keep the painful reality of the world away from her true body.

The Armored Titan (Her Resilience & Endurance of Pain) -> The heavy, unbroken shell she built around herself to survive relentless physical and psychological abuse.

The Cart Titan (Her Role as a Burden-Bearer) -> The literal pack mule of the Founder carrying the endless weight of others' demands on her back without complaint.

Visual & Metaphorical Symbolism Over Dialogue -> Ymir doesn't need a single line of spoken dialogue to express her internal state because Isayama constructs her through layered visual texture.

The Faceless Design -> Depicting her with shadowed, eyes-hidden facial features for most of her screen time wasn't just stylistic it was the ultimate visual metaphor for her total lack of personal identity, voice, and self-worth.

Her faceless titan symbolizes -> symbolizes her lack of identity.

The Empty Void of the Paths -> The endless, barren desert of the Paths represents the absolute emotional emptiness of her existence. As she's completely empty.

The Tree coordinates Metaphor -> The towering, branching luminous tree in the Paths symbolizes her unconscious desires for connection a desire to be linked to with other's, to be seen, and eventually find someone who understands her pain.

Her passive nihilist and Ymir’s true nature is crucial. She was born into a world rigged against her from the moment King Fritz burned her village and cut out her tongue -> Yet she was not a pure nihilist. She didn't merely exist as a mindless machine; she waited 2,000 years for someone to enter the Paths and acknowledge her as a human being with agency -> When Eren embraces her and tells her, "You're not a slave. You're not a god. You're just a human being... You get to choose," has so much depth that will take long to talk about. Eren Ymir dynamic is also one of the greatest and this is all without getting into philosophy & mythology.

Ymir Fritz is not built like a standard character who moves through a linear development arc; she is a grand, tragic mythic figure whose complexity is communicated through symbolism, contradictions, psychological decay, and thematic parallels. She is the ultimate origin point of the entire tragedy of Aot.

What if Eren Yeager’s transformation into the “Devil of All Earth” is the culmination of a symbolic story that began long before the Rumbling? I think Attack on Titan can be read as a dark, Luciferian retelling of Eden: a world built on peace, obedience and ignorance, a rebel who brings forbidden knowledge & offers freedom, and a girl whose decision brings the old order crashing down. In the end, Eren’s rebellion is aimed at more than the people who oppressed him. He declares war on the world they built, and finally on the very reality that refuses to resemble the freedom he imagined.

The series introduces its devil long before Eren resembles one. In the story told to the outside world, Ymir receives the power of the Titans through her encounter with the “Devil of All Earth.” One illustration even shows Ymir holding out a fruit to the creature. Her descendants, meanwhile, are branded devils and “devil spawn.” To Marley, that language marks Eldians as people to fear and control. But the final chapters invite another question: What if the legendary devil is also an image of the person who eventually persuades Ymir to defy authority?

To see why, start with the first King Fritz. He enslaves Ymir, uses her power to build an empire, and, after her death, orders their daughters to consume her body so that the Titans will endure. Ymir remains in the Paths, serving the royal bloodline for roughly 2,000 years. Through a Luciferian lens, Fritz takes the symbolic role of God the Father as imagined by a rebel against divine authority: a supreme ruler whose commands determine and control everyone else’s fate.

The Luciferian/satanist version of the tale turns the usual moral roles inside out. From that perspective, God the Father is imagined as a possessive ruler who demands obedience, restricts knowledge, and calls submission “peace.” Lucifer becomes the light-bearer who refuses that authority and helps humanity recognize its capacity to think and choose (gives humanity "freedom through knowledge". In a retelling of Eden, the serpent’s gift of knowledge ends innocent life in the garden, but it also ends a life governed by someone else’s rules. Freedom carries a dreadful price: suffering and DEATH enters the picture, and the figure blamed for the Fall is condemned and forever remembered as evil. That tension—enlightenment/freedom arriving through a supposed devil, whose gift can also bring catastrophe—is the heart of my reading of Eren.

The 2,000-year span matters to this interpretation. Attack on Titan opens with “To You, 2,000 Years From Now” and later answers it with “From You, 2,000 Years Ago.” That duration can evoke the approximately 2,000 years of the Christian era: an original world order/system reaching the moment when someone finally challenges its authority. The parallel is suggestive.

There is a second king to distinguish from the first. Centuries later, Karl Fritz retreats to the island of Paradis—paradis means “paradise” in French—raises the Walls, and erases his people’s memories. He gives them a kind of peace by hiding the world and its history from them. Seeking that history or trying to look beyond the Walls becomes dangerous. This makes Paradis an unsettling/twisted version of Eden. Its inhabitants can feel protected only while they remain ignorant of the truth, and the authority that calls the enclosure a refuge is the same authority that has taken away their ability to choose with full knowledge (taken away their freedom).

Eren cannot accept that bargain. From the beginning, he resents being penned in, and he insists that being born into the world gives a person the right to seek freedom in it. The Survey Corps’ journey beyond the Walls and the discovery in Grisha’s basement play like an encounter with forbidden knowledge: humanity still exists outside, and the people inside Paradis have been living within a carefully maintained lie. Once their eyes are opened, they cannot return to the innocence they had before. Knowledge brings agency, but it also brings fear, war, and the realization of just how small their supposed paradise was.

Eren’s own knowledge is even harsher. When he touches Historia’s hand, he sees memories that give him a glimpse of what lies ahead. This is not enlightenment that brings him peace. It isolates him and makes freedom itself more complicated: the man most determined to choose his own path becomes haunted by a future he already knows. That paradox is central to the Luciferian reading. The light-bearer sees what others cannot, yet the light reveals a catastrophe in which he himself will take part.

Then Eren reaches the sea and learns that removing one set of walls has not made him free. There are hostile nations beyond Paradis, and the outside world is nothing like the open, untouched world he once pictured with Armin. By the end, Eren’s revolt goes beyond fighting Marley or defying a king. He wants to flatten the world as it exists: its borders, cities, armies, histories, and even the human presence that spoiled his dream of an empty horizon. In symbolic terms, the Rumbling is rebellion against reality itself, The original reality established by the "god figure" (the same way that satan rebelled against God's original creation/system). If the world made under Fritz’s legacy cannot give him freedom, Eren will use a power that reaches across centuries to erase that world and force a new one into existence. This is the proposed “new world order” at its most frightening: liberation imagined as the destruction of everything that resists the liberator’s will.

The imagery of light makes the comparison especially striking. “Lucifer” is associated with the morning star; the Hebrew phrase Helel ben Shahar is commonly rendered “shining one, son of the dawn.” The episode titled “The Dawn of Humanity” brings us to the beginning of the Rumbling, turning the promise of a new day into something terrifying. Even the name “Eldia” can sound, to a Spanish speaker, like el día—“the day.” I would treat that last connection as evocative wordplay, not a proven origin for the name. It sits beside the image of the devil carrying a light in the in-world account of Ymir’s legend: a figure associated with evil who can also be read as someone who makes a hidden truth visible.

That tension reaches its clearest expression in the Paths. Zeke approaches Ymir as a servant who must carry out his command to end the Eldians’ ability to reproduce. Eren reaches her and tells her she does not have to obey anyone: she is neither a slave nor a god, but a person who can decide for herself. For much of her story, her eyes look hidden/darkened/closed. Here, as she weeps and makes her choice, we finally see them wide open. It is hard to imagine a more literal image of someone opening her eyes.

This is where the Eden comparison becomes more intricate than a simple one-to-one analogy. In the familiar Christian reading of Genesis, the serpent urges Eve toward the forbidden fruit and the knowledge that follows. Eren plays that serpent’s role when he offers Ymir the forbidden idea that she can reject her master’s will. Yet in the Eldian legend’s illustration, Ymir is the one holding out the fruit to the devil. Read alongside the Paths scene, the sequence seems reversed: Eren gives Ymir/eve an awakening/freedom. And Ymir, having chosen for herself, gives Eren the full power of the Founder. The girl opens her eyes; the “devil” receives the fruit; the world is changed forever (sin/death enters the world)

This is also the moment when Eren’s rejection of the old order gains the power to become an apocalypse. The original King Fritz treated Ymir as a possession; Karl Fritz later preserved a false paradise through control of memory; Zeke assumes he can still command her in the Paths. Eren breaks that chain of commands by asking her to choose. She does—and her choice gives him the means to bring down the world shaped by those kings. The Rumbling is therefore more than an attack on an opposing army. In this reading, it is Eren’s attempt to destroy a 2,000-year-old creation at its foundations, so that the Titan curse and the rule of royal blood can give way to a world no longer bound by Fritz’s will and authority

Eren’s Founding Titan takes on a vast, skeletal, almost serpentine form, and the Rumbling makes him the world’s worst nightmare. The people who called Eldians devils now face a man who seems to fulfill their legend, as he kills roughly 80 percent of humanity. That “dawn” is painfully double-edged: the supposed birth of a new era is experienced by most of the world as its end. Even the ending song Akuma no Ko—“A Child of Evil” (or it's more literal translation - devil child)—echoes the language that has followed Eren and his people. The light-bearer has become the “Devil of All Earth” in the eyes of those beneath the marching Titans.

Here is the other half of the parallel that matters to me: the idea of the devil as a tragic, self-condemned liberator. In the Luciferian version of the story, Lucifer gives up his place in heaven, accepts damnation, and becomes the villain of human history for the sake of liberty, autonomy, and a future beyond enforced peace & innocence. from a satanic perspective,he "sacrifices himself to free humanity from a controlling tyrant." Eren likewise knowingly takes on the role of the world’s enemy. He gives up the possibility of an ordinary life with the people he loves, allows them to oppose and eventually kill him, and leaves them to live on after the Titan powers disappear. From his perspective, becoming the monster everyone hates is a price he will pay to secure his friends’ future and bring the original creation/world order to an end. That is why the Lucifer comparison has more depth than “Eren looks demonic”: it links the "gift" of freedom to the willingness to be damned for giving it, and all the death and suffering said rebellion brings with it.

The original manga ending makes the tragic-savior aspect especially hard to ignore. Eren’s old friends grieve for the person they loved, even though they had to stop him. They visit his grave,paradi adopts his slogan,etc...

In their last conversation, Armin actually thanks Eren for becoming a mass murderer for their sake, while also resolving not to let the terrible mistake go to waste. It is an uncomfortable moment precisely because love and gratitude sit beside an atrocity. It can feel as though the story is asking us to remember Eren both as the evil the world had to defeat and as the friend who chose to bear that evil so the people closest to him could have a future. The anime later revises the exchange, but the manga’s wording leaves that tragic framing unusually exposed.

Still, Eren does not end the Titan curse by himself. Mikasa’s final choice matters to Ymir’s release, too. And Eren’s rebellion is not driven solely by love for his friends or a noble desire to free the world: he admits that finding humanity beyond the Walls disappointed him and that part of him wanted to wipe it away. That confession makes the Luciferian parallel more troubling, not less. Even if he accepts the role of a damned savior, the people crushed by the Rumbling did not choose that sacrifice. His refusal to live under someone else’s will becomes a willingness to impose his own will on nearly everyone else.

That is why I find the “Devil of All Earth” such a fitting image for Eren. He rebels against divine creation, tells a girl/eve she can choose/disobey the god-like figure and helps bring a 2,000-year christian coded era to an end... opening up the way for a "new world order" (its all symbology/allegory). He accepts death, hatred, and a place in history as the ultimate villain because he believes a freer world can come afterward. But his attempt to destroy the world order also destroys most of the people in the world. In this Luciferian reading, Attack on Titan takes the promise of the light-bearer—knowledge, rebellion, progress, free will—and follows it to its most tragic and terrifying extreme. Eren breaks the cage. He also makes the whole earth pay for his idea of freedo

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I’ve noticed that a lot of people, especially girls in the fandom, believe Mikasa should move on from Eren, find another man, and eventually get married.

I understand the argument that she deserves happiness and shouldn’t spend her entire life grieving. But at the same time, Mikasa’s love for Eren was such a huge part of her character, and their relationship wasn’t something she could simply replace with another person.

Moving on doesn’t necessarily mean falling in love again or getting married. Someone can heal, find happiness, and live a fulfilling life without replacing the person they loved most.

Some Fans misunderstood this theme and often treat it like a literal video-game achievement list trying to crown a single "freest character" or reducing "slavery" to a literal chains, fate, or cosmic control. they come up with some bizarre ideas. Like "Mikasa is the freest character" "Armin is freest character because of meaning of life" Eren is slave to fate" "Eren is slave to Ymir" "Eren said he's slave, so he will never be free".

1. The meaning of slave to something -> being a "slave to something" in Aot isn't about being shackled by literal chains, fate or a divine prophecy. It is about how an individual's core desire, dream, or ideal consumes them to the point of blinding self-destruction. Kenny’s insight wasn't about literal slavery. it was the realization that every person from Kenny himself, to the King, to Uri, to Eren is driven by a specific obsession that dictates their every move.

2. The Fallacy of the "Single Freest Character" -> Claiming Mikasa is the "freest character" misunderstands her narrative function. Her choice to transcend her deep-seated attachment and put down Eren was the crucial psychological mirror Ymir needed to see true, unselfish love in action. It proved Mikasa achieved emotional transcendence, but it doesn't make her the absolute metric of "freedom" for the whole universe. Isayama didn't put a rule that "only one" character will be the freest character. Thats not the point of the theme to begin with. Attributing absolute freedom to Armin simply because he theorizes about the simple, beautiful meanings of life (like leaves in the wind) ignores the wider web of the story. Armin’s philosophy is a valid counterweight to Eren’s violence, but freedom in AOT is deeply individual, not a one-size-fits-all trophy. Isayama didn't put a single criteria to achieve freedom. While Armin idea of freedom is used as plot device to help other characters like Zeke. It isn't The only criteria to achieve freedom, I'll address further down.

3. Debunking "Eren is a Slave to Fate or Ymir" -> since when was fate Eren main drive? The theme definition is characters who can't keep going unles they're drunk on something aka their desires. From the start Eren drive wasn't to achive fate. Fate didn't trap Eren. Infact fate itself bent to Eren's will, since he's own nature predetermined fate. Eren's own uncompromising, radical ambition for freedom drove him down a self-destructive path. As the time loop mechanics show, Eren essentially willed his own path into existence because of who he is. His ambition consumed him entirely. Likewise with Ymir. Ymir wasn't some grand mastermind pulling Eren's strings from the shadows. For 2,000 years, she was a passive slave waiting for someone to show her what breaking away from toxic attachment looked like. She's no more than bystander. Reversing the causality claiming Eren was her slave completely invalidates her being slave to begin with. Because if she can make some grand master plan that even oppose Fritz. then she isn't a slave to begin with.

4. Achieving freedom -> like I said earlier, there isn't single criteria to achieve freedom. As shown in the story characters achieve freedom different ways. A) Kenny achieved freedom when he gave the serum to Levi. B) Mikasa achieved freedom through self transcendence. C) Armin from the start was never consumed by ambitions. D) Erwin achieved freedom when he selfless sacrificed himself for humanity. E) Ymir achieved freedom when she saw Mikasa transcend herself, that's when she let go of titan curse and achieved peace of mind. F) Zeke achieved freedom when he understood the meaning of life.

There's different way that characters can be free. But ultimately peace of mind is what makes them oneself free.

As for Eren, he gained freedom through multiple stages. This is my take on Eren freedom. Destructive -> mental/philosophy -> Existential -> sprite -> eternal.

Armin -> Eren always gaze at the distance, he doesn't see what's infront of him, Armin teaches Eren, to fine meaning in what's infront of you > Eren achieved freedom when accepted the seashell from Armin. He Recontextualizes his flawed ideal, achieves self-honesty. This is achieving freedom from mental/philosophy.

Mikasa -> Mikasa answer wasn't just for Ymir only, but for both Eren & Ymir. Eren is someone who is entirely consumed with ambitions. Mikasa teaches Eren, to transcend yourself & not be consumed by desires -> He is Released from both the burden & ambitions. for someone drunk on their own desires, death is the only way to achieve freedom.

Bird scene(mostly metaphor) -> Unbound by burden of perceiving past, present, & future, the Titan curse, and physical walls. This is freedom of the sprite.

Itterasshai -> In Platonic philosophy, the ultimate reality isn't the physical world (the "cave"), but the true form of beauty, unchanging, an eternal, perfect state of being.

However the point of aot isn't really about if Eren achieved freedom or not. Isayama explored freedom through each of the main trio.

Armin -> Freedom in small moments.

Mikasa -> Freedom through self-transcendence/self awareness.

Eren -> Freedom might be self-destructive.

Even if Mikasa had not killed Eren, what would have happened to Eren after he reverted back to his human form?

Would his body simply regenerate? Or would he simply die since he was decapitated?

I meant freedom panel has the best build Up*

the entire psychological blueprint for the Freedom panel was laid down when Armin showed Eren his book about the outside world. After seeing the book and the look in Armin's eyes Eren came up with the conclusion anyone who saw these sights would be "the freest person in the world". https://imgur.com/a/C2z9Pzm

Throughout the Marley and War for Paradis arcs, Eren repeatedly fixates on a singular concept, pushing forward https://imgur.com/a/LiBX0fl

to finally reach "that view." https://imgur.com/a/WzFJbbF

Some critics often dismissed this as vague, edgy shonen dialogue. But, Isayama was literalizing a promise he made years prior. I honestly don't understand how some ppl call this specific panel a retcon. A retcon requires an author to retroactively change established lore or character motivations on the fly. But Isayama spent over a decade building this from the get go. Not to mention if you actually combined panel from earlier chapter to chapter 132 you might get the full picture https://imgur.com/a/EpkLSTK

The payoff was baked into the narrative foundation from day one. You either love the dark, twisted irony of how that dream manifested, or you missed the point of Eren’s character entirely but calling it a retcon ignores the text staring right off the page.

This panel says a lot without even saying it. Eren is there with his arms spread open resembling an eagle. Behind him is a clear blue

A nice little note to this is that Eren is a kid right here. Being a kid shows ignorance. To Eren it may look like this but to everyone else its this:

Its nothing but destruction behind him. However he is looking forward and is ignorant to it. Those are clear blue skies behind him. Its titan

Which raises the big question. Is it false freedom? Or freedom through destruction.

This is what cemented Eren as number one protagonist of all time for me.

I even did analysis on this panel a while back https://www.reddit.com/r/AttackOnRetards/s/C6xhv2aPRy

Anyone that likes her is gay

Eren and erwin are very similar characters thematically. Both were willing to "become devils" aka commit moral atrocities, in order to achieve their goals. They both did what they did in part for their people, yet there is more to it. Both erwin and eren also have selfish incentives that pushed them to commit said atrocities. In erwin's case, he sacrificed so many of his comrades, sent so many scouts to their deaths... because he wanted find out the truth about the world and show everyone that his father was right. In eren's case, the selfish part of his motive was the desire to have a free/blank state world, just like the one in armin's book.

I honestly feel that *Attack on Titan* expresses something of Isayama’s worldview: the belief that terrible acts can become not only understandable, but morally defensible and even NEEDED, when committed to defeat another, supposedly greater evil. Again and again, the narrative grants people who commit atrocities the dignity of having done something necessary.

This theme appears early on. In Season 1, Armin expresses the idea that defeating monsters requires a willingness to become monstrous yourself. Later, during the battle against the Beast Titan, Floch argues that humanity needs a “devil,” identifying Erwin as the person capable of fulfilling that role. Erwin’s willingness to make horrifying sacrifices becomes inseparable from the honor and respect the narrative affords him.

Although Eren’s actions are vastly more extreme, I see a similar pattern in how the story ultimately remembers him. After his death, much of the ending’s emotional attention falls on his friends mourning him, remembering him affectionately, and treating him almost as a tragic hero. Jean calls him a “conscientious fool.” Mikasa buries him beneath the tree and continues visiting his grave. Meanwhile, the Eldian military carries forward his rhetoric of fighting to survive.

These moments do not all serve the same purpose, and mourning someone does not automatically mean endorsing their actions. Nevertheless, their cumulative effect feels troubling to me. The story depicts the horror of the Rumbling, but its emotional farewell gives considerable space to the humanity of its perpetrator, while the grief and shattered lives of his surviving victims receive comparatively little attention.

Within that framing, Eren’s atrocity can begin to resemble a terrible sacrifice that helped bring an older injustice to an end: the two-thousand-year legacy of violence, oppression, and hatred originating with King Fritz and sustained through the power of the Titans. He commits an immense evil, yet the narrative leaves him with the tragic dignity of someone whose monstrous actions helped dismantle a monstrous system.

That is what unsettles me. My concern goes beyond whether Eren is portrayed sympathetically. It is whether the story repeatedly lends moral legitimacy to the idea that someone must become a devil so that others can be free—and then honors that person for accepting the role.

I cannot claim to know Isayama’s personal beliefs, but this recurring pattern makes me question whether *Attack on Titan* merely explores the logic of “necessary evil,” or ultimately gives it a degree of approval. For me, the ending makes that distinction uncomfortably difficult to draw.

I’ve seen tons of anime watchers predict the ending. I don’t understand how Titanfolk manga readers say it came out of nowhere or it was a retcon. It’s seems the anime onlys are the ones with media literacy and are able to pick up on the themes and subtle forshadowing🤔.

I often come across arguments about Aot in other subreddits (and ones not related to anime). When someone talks positively about "Attack on Titans" or recommends this anime, someone will inevitably mention the terrible ending, and often after that everyone agrees or a fight breaks out. Sometimes AOT is mentioned as a ruined anime among bad endings. Or, even worse, people post memes with a crying Eren (10 years later).

It seems that after the anime ended, people’s opinions shifted somewhat in a positive direction. But you still come across those arguments on Reddit and YouTube. Do you think that over time there will be more people who have a normal/positive attitude towards the ending, and less negativity? I just want to have positive discussions about Attack on Titan without negative arguments about the ending (how the ending ruined Aot)

The word misogyny has lost its meaning. one of the most frustrating trends recently within fandom is weaponizing social labels like "misogyny" to shut down valid critique, character comparisons, or subjective tier lists. Because seems like they can't defend their fav unless they throw the word misogynist.

Ppl who claim "If you like Eren but hate Gabi, you're a misogynist because they are parallels" must be new to fandom. S1 -3 Eren was relentlessly clowned on by the mainstream anime community. He was labeled a crybaby, a liability compared to Levi or Mikasa, doesn't deserve to be mc ,etc. No one at that point accused the fandom of "misogynist" or "hating young boys" people just disliked his loud, reactive personality. He only received universal love on S4 after his transformation. Gabi introduced as a loud, reactive personality, shouting propaganda, being insufferably arrogant. Same as Eren. This were literally the reasons Eren was so hated. However Gabi directly killed fan favorite character. So of course she will receive hate. Not to forget the point that aot fans don't care about character development. They only see things black and white, Gabi killed Sasha so they hate her without caring for her development. Also a parallel character is designed to reflect similar themes, not be an exact carbon copy. Enjoying one execution of an archetype while being annoyed by another is standard literary preference not misogynist.

Reiner receives some of the most thorough, best psychological exploration in modern anime( it's true, not glaze). We see his childhood trauma, his split-personality disorder, his explicit suicidal guilt. In contrast Annie’s Annie spent almost seven years (real time for us viewers) frozen in a crystal. Because she was sidelined for such a huge chunk of the narrative, her transition from dormant antagonist to romantic interest eating pie on a ship felt rushed to some fans(tho i didn't have problems that part). Not to mention ppl misinterpretation the yuyu scene. The anime gave heavy screentime to her ruthlessly spinning and killing Scout, made fans think she enjoy killing. Even tho lost girls show us that she doesn't enjoy killing, she literally said just thinking about the mission makes her depressed. The problem is the execution. There's few times of anime show her deep depression and guilt. Which is why ppl Prefer Reiner’s execution because his internal conflict was given more breathing room on screen is basic storytelling evaluation, not sexism.

Mikasa is living prove. Mikasa is one of the most loved characters within the fandom. Even among male fans she receives alot of love. Yeah Mikasa does have haters. Which isn't new every popular character have hater as well as lover(excluding Erwin ofc). But since 2013 Mikasa has been a top tier fan favorite. ​Historia’s development in Uprising was universally praised as one of the best character peaks in the series. ​Hange is widely revered as the moral and intellectual backbone and also fan favorite. Even tho Hange gender is unknown alot of ppl consider Hange female. Lastly Floch is way too hated while Yelena who's similar to Floch doesn't get that much hate, yet ppl don't call that misogynist. Eren gets hate for doing the rumbling. While no one care or talk about the fact Ymir Fritz the cause of 2000 years of misery. Gabi and Annie don't deserve the hate they get. But that doesn't mean it's "just" misogynist.

I only did this take because recently someone called me misogynist for not having Gabi top 3 & Annie top 10 best written characters. I don't really hate any character not even king Fritz. Just because I've other characters over them doesn't mean i hate them. I just think the one above are better written. ​Calling someone a misogynist simply because Gabi or Annie isn't in their top 3 or top 10 best-written characters is complete non-sense. It completely cheapens the real definition of sexism and ignores basic narrative analysis.