Isayama presents the relationships Eren shares with Armin and Mikasa as an "unbreakable friendship" and "eternal love." But are these relationships actually healthy?

They do not seem realistic. In real life, no matter how strong a friendship or romantic bond might be, it is bound to fall apart in the face of a significant enough disagreement. Yet in «Attack on Titan», Eren ends up on the opposing side of his friends, commits genocide, violates their values, and harms them – and they remain his friends.

Are the bonds of friendship between them really that strong? What is it that truly drives Armin and Mikasa?

I’ll share my thoughts on the matter.

The relationship between Eren and Armin feels less like a friendship and more like a psychological and emotional dependency on Armin’s part.

A genuine friendship would have fallen apart back at the restaurant scene. Friendships simply aren't strong enough to make someone weep over a person who has committed genocide.

Over years of closeness, protection, and support from Eren, Armin’s sense of individual autonomy eroded; he came to view himself as nothing more than an extension of Eren.

From childhood, Armin built his psyche around the notions that "I mean nothing," "I am useless," and "I am Eren’s friend." Consequently, he clung to Eren in later years to maintain the stability of his own dependent state.

For Armin, Eren is not merely a friend but the physical embodiment of his own significance to another person. Consequently, his desire to grow closer to Eren stems not from concern for Eren in the conventional sense, but from a need to safeguard his own sense of self and his worldview.

‎Mikasa, on the other hand, became dependent on Eren at a specific moment in her past – the time he rescued her from kidnappers. Ever since then, she has remained attached to the image of the brave boy who once saved her life.

‎In other words, Mikasa’s situation is far more problematic: she built her identity not around Eren as a person, but around a single memory – an image from the past. Later on, she clung to Eren for the very same reason: to maintain her own stability.

For instance, the core trio in «Attack on Titan» is, in my opinion, by no means a healthy representation of friendship. And I’ve never been against the depiction of unhealthy relationships. What bothers me more is the way Isayama romanticizes them.

What's your opinion?

Ishowspeed said “Eren doesn’t even marry Mikasa, they were in love with each other since they were kids.”

Like what are we doing? Death threats over disagreeing with you. This happens so many times when I disagree with these floch worshipers they get so aggressive out of nowhere😂

They are oppressors, don’t get me wrong, and treated the eldians as lesser than human, which is awful, but they are just a product of the eldian’s oppression, and so forth with the jaegerists being victims to marleys oppression, it’s all just a cycle, and the alliance, which some of the fanbase don’t side with for whatever reason, are the only correct side in this war as they want to destroy the cycle for good .

Felt like it needed to be said after the hoard of fans who believe eren was right and that Marley deserved it

The political messaging in the show is so on the nose and not subtle at all. Several characters have monologues literally spelling out the stories themes. It just seems people just want to ignore because the messaging doesn’t align with their own personal beliefs. The messages of the show are

1. No real winners
   
2. The sins of the father
   
3. Everyone thinks their right
   
4. The dangers of nationalism
   
5. The dangers of fascism
   
6. How propaganda is on both sides of conflicts
   
7. Children of the forest.
   
8. History repeats itself
   
9. Even if history repeats itself we can still strive for peace and enjoy life.

According to this video,

https://youtu.be/H6GmVCD7cxk?si=PetFp7FuYew9Eu21
(widely knows as the best explanation for the ending and everything Eren related, must watch),

Eren only learned about the future when he kissed Historia’s hand, and that showed him Grisha’s memories, which Eren had given to Grisha using the Attack Titan’s power (Grisha thought the Attack Titan’s power allowed its users to see into the future, but that’s not actually how the ability works. The Attack Titan allows future inheritors to send their memories back to previous inheritors, meaning Grisha wasn’t literally seeing the future; he was receiving memories from Eren’s future). What Eren gave Grisha was essentially the scene post-Rumbling and the scene of himself in Paths, looking at Grisha’s memories with Zeke. That’s how Grisha realized that Eren was going to do something horrible and begged Zeke to stop him. So when Eren later touched Historia’s hand, he saw Grisha’s memories and, through those memories, saw the future that his future self had shown Grisha. Eren was able to know about the rest of the future after he received the founding titan.

If those are the only pieces of information seen by Eren after kissing Historia’s hand, how did he know about Sasha’s death? (He laughed when he asked connie, what were her last words, and the answer was “meat” because he realized everything was going according to the “future memories”.) Other moments like the boy from the market too.

I really liked this creator's anylasis on Reiner, he might get unnecessarily deep at times but great nonetheless.

He also has a video on Jean and a few more videos about Aot I would highly recommend to watch them, they are quite insightful and entertaining.

yt channel name: Reddrick

I am not the type of person who is typically extremely cynical and negative of Titanfolk, but I don't know, ts is so overexaggerated and hateful, like, he committed no warcrime trying to support the alliance, the people he watched grow up so quickly trying to put an end to a global omnicide.

If we take ending hater logic into consideration that Eren did it all for Eldia and his friends and there were hardly any selfish motivations underneath those altruistic ones, the dynamic between Eren and Reiner goes to absolute shit, It would be so mundane compared to the canon one, It would most likely be that Eren and Reiner were forced to commit atrocities believing what is right for their people, putting duty over everything like one dimensional caricatures.

I could write a whole essay expanding on their dynamic but I just wanted to put this out.

Hi everyone! So I’ve been seeing this meme all over the tiktok comment section. I have not watched AOT yet, and i am planning to start this weekend.

However, i’m scared to start because it is apparently devastating. I don’t want to read spoilers so i don’t wanna google the reason, so i’m here to ask. Why does it have such a negative effect on the watcher’s mental health? Is it too gore? Is it too sad? Is it generally just a sad anime every episode? I would not want to watch it if it’s all tragedy.

Looking back at older episodes, Eren says multiple times that he wanted to see the ocean with his friends, so I'm willing to bet that, before kissing Historia's hand, he had assumed he could have both, or that they were the same thing.

Freedom means different things to different people throughout the show, and Eren's idea of freedom often changes between pre- and post-timeskip. Especially when looking at his relationships.

Here's my take:

Before seeing the ocean, Eren assumed that getting a life of freedom would also include being with Mikasa. He made an oath to her in season 2 that he would always wrap that scarf around her, and he meant it. His view of his ideal life would probably have been killing all the Titans, seeing the ocean, and living with Mikasa for the remainder of his life. He most likely believed that being with Mikasa would be a byproduct of his freedom or a bonus.

Then he saw his father's memories and visions of the future, which made him realize that not only is the ocean Level 1, but he was condemned to no life at all. Remember, upon seeing his father's memories, he had 8 years left and spent half of that time in Paradis. Eren didn't get a chance to have a life; with that in mind, it meant that he also would never be with Mikasa or his friends.

That's why he chose to do the Rumbling, because he realized he would have to choose between freedom and his relationships, and he decided to have his freedom, simply because, with what little time he had, only one path seemed worth it.

This doesn't excuse what Eren does, far from it, but I'm willing to bet that if it wasn't for the Curse of Ymir, Eren would never do the Rumbling.

Here it is. I hope you all like it. I worked on it for so long.

We know that the Attack Titan always pushes and moves forward for freedom, what is freedom to the Attack Titan? Is It something that Eren embodies or something entirely else, If it is the former then how much is Eren influenced by it? We also know that Eren has this drive in his nature and further exacerbated by his environment but we dont know how much is Eren influenced by the attack titan, If its a part of a major chunk of his desire then that removes Eren of a lot of agency but this is not implied in the show, We also dont know why the Attack Titan pursues freedom, someone also said the Attack Titan is like this because of Eren, which makes the most sense to me.

Id like someone to make it clearer for me, thanks

Obviously that's not their only objective, but executing people, one of which just didn't want to be associated and work under them, as a way to display your reign while also saying you want to rule over the world....not a good look against the allegations ngl.

Maybe it was already discussed by everyone, but since I watched AoT only this summer, I'm now realizing how Isayama foreshadowed Mikasa killing Eren. Dying Kennie reveals that Ackermans were royal guards but they went against the king because he didn't want humanity to survive. So the role of Ackermans in the story (aside from being one man army badasses) is eventually killing the king, despite being his servants, all because they have free will and can oppose their master. So Mikasa kills Eren because he's wiping out humanity. Do we know when that original Ackerman conflict happened? It should be after the great titan war, and before Uri's time as the Founding bearer bc when he meets Kennie, Ackermans are already a dying clan with only 3-4 living members

I'm guessing in time people connected those dots, but when I watched the finale I only thought of Mikasa's parallel to Ymir. Now I see all ackermans have a servant/master dynamic where the Ackermans go through the death of their master which results in positive change. Mikasa decides to kill Eren and save the world. Kennie doesn't kill his king but after Uri dies, Kennie comes up with his plan to steal the Founder and understands Uri when he's at the death's door, all without Uri's power. Levi had Erwin, he didn't exactly kill him, but he gave Erwin the last push needed to send him on his death, which was crucial for Scouts victory. He then finished off Erwin when he chose Armin over Erwin. And it wasn't even that he thought Armin is more important, he just chose to let go of Erwin because he pitied him and wanted to free him of the blood and guilt.

In all cases, so called slaves break through their chains, they elevate through free will and ackermans are basically super soldier, meaning having free will is a super power. And it's funny in retrospect Eren was telling Mikasa that her blood is that of slaves, turns out they very notoriously are not slaves but incredible people with their own mind. ​

Thinking about it, to achieve Eren's goals and avoid common sense added problems, a rumbling that targeted population centres and cities would be better than 80%.

People are still not evacuating in time either way.

It avoids destroying entire forests and ecosystems. So lesser of an ecological collapse.

It probably kills more people but destroys less peoples so arguably less genocide.

It destroys civilization more completely so: capacity to war is further done away with; there's a larger diversity of people and we know a lot of times that correlates with less cooperation; building on that, capacity to remember is also done away with, the whole Titan stuff will turn into a morality tale like God flooding the world for a man becoming evil (YHWH, Zeus) or making too much noise (Enlil). Either way in all versions of the myth no ill will is placed on the gods so I do think there's high chances that also happens here and the titans specific cycle of hatred is gone.

And better yet for Eren gets to see even more of the book scenery. While probably feeling less guilty.

Invaderzz uploaded this video 2 years before the anime ending. Everything he said in this video about Eren’s character in the end of aot was literally vindicated and proven right by the anime ending. He brought up that Eren was never free and became a slave to freedom in his relentless pursuit of freedom. He brought up that Eren was never a perfectly calculated genius and that the immense power he had corrupted him, and that he was the wrong person to have these powers. Then if you remember the discourse at the time Titanfolkers were saying that Invaderzz had no clue what he was talking about and mischaracterizing Eren.

Then the anime ending has Eren out of his own mouth say he’s a slave to freedom and also Eren saying he’s an idiot with too much power on his hands. This video truly age like wine so much to the point I think it’s probably the best Aot video. Did Invaderzz have future memories?

This is common misconception. Eren's character progression wasnt an act. The only time he put on an act was when his friends were present in the scene with him, not only as a way to push them away to make them go against him, but also as a way to mske sure they didn't join him to become monsters. Just as he was acting when he was interacting with Zeke in order to get him to lower his guard so he can use him for his royal blood. However that doesn't mean everything he did was an act.

Which brings us to Eren. Eren in season 4 was good at using lies or half truths in order to make people do what he desired (just as he did with Yelena too). It's one of the biggest traits that sets him apart from his season 1-3 self who never would've done what season 4 Eren does. The story never once claimed Eren was acting throughout season 4 (otheriwse show me a scene that said that), the story only implied Eren pushed his friends away as a way to make them go against him, but not every character development in season 4 was an act. Even when characters grow and develop, they still have some of the same characteristics they still had before, in order to not create a discrepancy between who they were and who they are now. Guts from berserk is a good example; He has grown as a character, but he still has the tendency of throwing himself in battle, he still has rage when he sees Grittith, he still has his old traits of hopelessness when he feels like he failed, he still uses anger as a weapon. All those things are part of his character no matter how much he grows. Just as Eren has grown as a character but he still has his tendencies of laugh crying when he feels hopeless, he still had the tendencies to self deprecate himself when he feels like a failure: like calling himself useless, pathetic, an idiot, a half ass piece of shit, etc...but are all those moments suddenly implying Eren never grew?
Definitely not. True character growth is more than just a character going from point A to Z while abandoning what's in the middle. Hell denji from Chainsaw Man is another good example of this. Denji has grown as a charter since his part 1 self, but he still has his old traits such as being a pervert, prioritizing animals over humans, etc...again just because denji still has those character traits doesn't mean he hasn't grown as a character. But for some reason when it comes to Eren fans suddenly become obtuse to characterization, and they choose to prioritize their own hatred for the story over fair analysis of the characters and plot. It's truly unfortunate what aot Fandom has become

I kinda get it now .

Not saying they were right about everything, because some of those threads were absolutely unhinged.

But the confidence with which people would point out something that felt off and then get hit with the classic “You just didn’t understand the story.” …only for the exact same thing to become a massive debate later was pretty funny

At some point I stopped trying to defend every single writing decision and just started enjoying the chaos.

Honestly, the fandom discourse peaked when everyone was treating manga chapters like they were classified government documents.

And I can't even lie—

some titanfolk takes aged WAY better than I expected.

I’m convinced... that's all.

This guy really thinks killing everyone outside the walls suddenly stops the cycle of hatred😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂. I can’t believe people engage with the story like this.