Highlights
- Eren's character development in Attack on Titan has been remarkable, transforming the show from an action-centric dark fantasy to an apocalyptic political thriller.
- Eren's actions in the War for Paradis Arc and subsequent Rumbling have sparked moral debate, but the transfer of memories through Titan powers raises the question of whether he had any control over his own life.
- Eren's role in the Rumbling was influenced by past and future inheritors of the Attack and Founding Titans, suggesting a deterministic conclusion to the series where Eren was trapped in a predestined outcome.
The following contains major spoilers for the Attack on Titan anime, now streaming on Amazon Prime.
Considering how he was initially regarded as a stereotypical shonen protagonist in the initial story arcs of Attack on Titan, Eren Yeager's development as a character has been nothing short of astounding. Where characters such as Levi, Jean, Armin, Annie, or Erwin may have seemed more intriguing at first, Eren's part in the narrative of Attack on Titan after the time skip, was crucial to the radical change in tone it underwent, transforming from an action centric dark fantasy to an apocalyptic political thriller.
Later seasons and story arcs have yielded conflicting opinions on whether Eren is still the protagonist, a tragic antagonist, or someone who cannot be pigeonholed into such categories, and this became an integral part of the show's allure. Although Eren's actions in the War for Paradis Arc and the events of the subsequent Rumbling have inspired much debate on his sense of morality, there is an even more important question of whether any of his actions were his own. The transfer of past and future memories through inherited Titan powers had a massive role to play in the series' conclusion, and this forms the core of the argument against Eren having any real say in how his life played out.
Yearning For Life Beyond The Walls
Growing up in the Shiganshina district on the outskirts of Wall Maria, Eren and his family lived in constant fear of the Titans, and it was this sense of powerlessness and confinement that drove him to join the Survey Corps to explore the world beyond the Walls. This dream was dealt a hefty blow with the Fall of Wall Maria, which resulted in the death of his mother Carla Yeager, and the destruction of his home. For Eren, this event served as a potent emotional trigger, as he vowed to rid the world of every last Titan.
Enlisting in the military soon after proved to be the first step in fulfilling this goal, and the discovery of his own Titan powers was a vital turning point in the battle between the Titans and humanity living inside the Walls. Over time, Eren grew into a seasoned soldier alongside Armin, Mikasa, and the rest of the main cast who joined the Survey Corps.
Overcoming his own insecurities, Eren used his newfound power as the Attack Titan to take on the Female Titan, Armored Titan, and Colossal Titan over the course of his journey, as the Survey Corps learned more of the secrets behind the existence of the Walls. Following a hard fought battle against the Beast Titan, Colossal Titan, and Armored Titan in Shiganshina, the Survey Corps successfully recaptured Wall Maria and reached the basement of Eren's home.
Here, they found out about the state of human civilization beyond the island of Paradis, as well as the circumstances that drove their ancestors to seek refuge within the Walls. The extermination of all Pure Titans on the island cemented this victory, with Eren now having the freedom he sought as a child, in the palm of his hand. However, a new enemy soon presented itself from the other side of the sea. At this time, Eren also bore witness to a horrifying new future that he would have to face on his own, by accidentally triggering the Founding Titan power which lay dormant within him.
The March Of The Doomsday Titan
It was this vision that drove him to seek out any means necessary to protect the Eldians of Paradis from the wrath of the entire world — who sought vengeance against them for the past crimes of the Eldian Empire. As diplomatic routes for Paradis to establish peace gradually eroded away before their eyes, in the face of the blind hatred they had to confront, Eren looked to a more drastic solution. Finding no other way to protect his friends and everything they had fought for, he chose to willingly go along with what fate had written out for him.
Disobeying orders from Paradis' government, Eren infiltrated the Marleyan military and killed innocent civilians as well as diplomats from various nations during the Raid on Liberio, erasing any prospect of peace for Paradis. Subsequently, he manipulated Zeke into cooperating with him to access the Founding Titan, and successfully managed to do so in the nick of time. Undoing the hardening to release the Titans inside the Walls of Paradis, Eren chose to safeguard his home by wiping out all life beyond the Walls with the cataclysmic Rumbling.
With this, he manifested the very horrors of the future of he had been trying to prevent, in the hope that someone would come and stop him. There is a certain ambiguity on how much control Eren had in his choice to start the Rumbling. Although Eren seemed to be fairly well aware of how unforgivable his actions were throughout the course of his genocidal crusade, the complexities of the Founding Titan's power cast some doubt on this matter, as there was no way for him to have altered the trajectory of the timeline by that point.
This was in part, due to the unique ability of the Attack Titan, which permitted users to see the memories of future holders and accordingly influence events in the past. As a result, past and future were melded into a singular causal loop, with no real avenue to deviate from the course of events that had already been predetermined. The loop itself began with Eren Kruger's decision to hand Grisha Yeager the Attack Titan, followed by Eren Yeager convincing his father to take the Founding Titan from the Reiss family after the Fall of Wall Maria, and finally, concluding with Eren experiencing his own future memories of the Rumbling after the operation to retake Wall Maria.
Trapped In A Cage All Along
Beyond all this, the influence of Ymir Fritz was a critical factor in the activation of the Rumbling, as it was Eren's plea to her that allowed him to circumvent the barrier of not being a member of the Fritz bloodline, which had previously prevented him from using the Founding Titan. He was the first person who gave Ymir the option of choosing her own fate, pledging to rid the world of Titans once and for all, which would end her eternal imprisonment in the world of the Paths.
In the process of doing so, Eren began to wonder whether she had been waiting for someone to free her during the 2,000 years that elapsed between her death and the Rumbling. Eren's subsequent Founding Titan form was also special due to its fusion with the Attack Titan, which gave it the power to transcend time itself, experiencing past, present, and future all at once through the Paths — an experience that broke Eren's own mind. If this was true, then it seems as if the events of those 2,000 years were written out from the very start, due to users of the Attack Titan being gradually fed incomplete memories of future inheritors, which in turn influenced their own actions.
Perhaps the best illustration of this came when Eren was fed a memory from the Founding Titan via the Paths, which manipulated Dina Fritz's Pure Titan to avoid a helpless Bertholdt Hoover during the Fall of Wall Maria, and instead eat Carla Yeager. Experiencing this event from that perspective made Eren feel personally responsible for one of his life's defining tragedies — the death of his mother. That being said, it is not yet certain whether this was the result of Eren's own decision or the combined will of Ymir and all inheritors of the Founding Titan, gradually manipulating the threads of fate to a predestined outcome.
This presents a deterministic conclusion to the events of Attack on Titan's storyline, where Eren was little more than a facilitator of this combined will, which was finally released from the burden of love that tied Ymir to Paths when Mikasa Ackerman chose to kill Eren and end the Rumbling. Under this perspective, Eren was trapped at the very center of this causal loop, bound by his fate to wipe out most of the human race and die for the sake of the Eldians of Paradis — despite making good on his promise to rid the world of Titans. He had virtually no agency to affect the future in spite of the incredible power he gained access to. There is a cruel sense of irony to this, as the boy who treasured freedom above all else, was condemned to be a victim of his own destiny from the very start.