#{{tl;dr if you wanna hate Eren - go ahead! but make sure you HATE the causes and environmental factors that made him what he is too.

[acoldsovereign]

I see Eren...

I have a question as a humble anon. Im curious but, how do you feel about him as a character? And how AOT ended? I feel like your answer will be fun to hear. :) I had mixed feelings but idk. Seeing him made go "oh no" because like, I forgot the existed, lol sorry but also because of all the infighting that happened in the fandom. So I was wondering if you had any thoughts?

*ignore my typos if there's any

SUBJECT MATTER: OOC talks / fandoms // sender: anonymous // status--always open!

{{ Oof. Okay, so--I think I'm not the best person to ask about this because when THAT happened in the fandom, I was highly confused as to why people hated it. I legit didn't understand. I had to go back and re-read the manga and I still didn't understand why people were pissed? But looking back on it, I can see it. Before I continue on that point, I'll answer you:

I adore Eren. He's my poor little meow meow. My smol angry husbando. He's a complex, traumatized, aggressive, violent fucker. I love him. Many of my current muses are on the spectrum of 'ready for violence for whatever reason'. I think it's okay to like him. Folks don't owe you a ten page essay rife with sources as to why they like or don't like a character. Moral judgements shouldn't be made about what piece of fiction someone engages with; you're not their parent and shaming isn't cool, whether you're fine with what they like or not. Very rarely will you change their mind, and instead of blocking them/moving on, you're just making yourself upset/creating an unsafe/unwelcomed environment from those who think and engage with the source material differently from you. Putting the rest under a read more because spoiler territory.

With that said, the ending was fine--I quite liked it! It's tragic and sad for sure, but I had no illusions about Attack on Titan ending horrifically. It's a dark fantasy story that began with what's left of humanity defending itself from flesh-eating monsters picking them off one by one. If . . . you thought a story like that would have a happy ending (or would have romance in it--a complaint I saw in many, many places), I have to ask why. Why is that where your mind is when there's death and destruction on every page? Then the plot twist--Titans are actually people, and they were created and planted in strategic places around the world because of [REDACTED FOR SPOILERS]. It's so fucked. You'd be lucky if your favorite character survived to the END. (Which, didn't happen for me. As I said, Eren gets love around here because I adore how layered he is. I did mourn another character who died earlier, though. And Eren's response to her fate broke my heart; yet another thing the fandom twisted around and made into something it's not). Point is--there is no real 'moral lesson' to AOT. It's a dark story made to entertain. The theme is "senseless violence begets senseless violence". It's funny because I was talking about this recently with the Eren I write with (@scarlxtleaves). Isayama himself in many interviews stated he just made it because he wanted to. Many times he was pressed for an answer and that's what he kept saying. There was one interview I remember where he did give a 'proper' answer (a generic answer about hope/optimism/determination, I think? Don't quote me on that), but it was because he was pressed for one--as if people couldn't just take him at his word. It's a bit sad, honestly. Not everything needs to be so deep--which brings me back to the fandom.

I think many people took the ending out of context, Eren out of context and used the manga as a way to attack Isayama. Many people were upset their ships didn't happen, some felt betrayed that Eren turned out be the ultimate villain/antagonist, some even went as far to send him hate mail, tell him his manga was horrible, that he should d*e, etc etc. Again, in hindsight, I understand all of this. I got whiplash too. 😂 I was like "for real??????? Y'all deadass rn???? Someone say SIKE" but nope, that's who he was--which encouraged me to reread and rewatch EVERYTHING. It all clicked and I went "how the hell did we not see this?!" 😭 So yeah, I get that Eren doing the Rumbling is extreme--but that's the point, he's BEEN that extreme since chapter and episode 1. We just didn't pay attention and thought he was bluffing. That's not the character's fault. And it doesn't mean he's written badly. He's not.

We just thought he wasn't gonna stand on business. Eren Yeager stood on that shit, 10 toes down. Genocide IS extreme (it always is, no doubt about it--and I'm not a fan of those who call Eren fans/appreciators genocide apologists because whoa??? Buddy, it's not that serious???? Again, we're not in school, we're not getting tested for morality or what have you, please take a chill pill. You're NOT getting a medal for being more moral or 'gooder' of a human than me because of . . . what character I like??????), but I get it. Don't blindly cheer him on but also: AOT Earth is NOT equivalent with our Earth. The cast is dealing with abnormal situations that we don't (people turning into giant weapons/human eating monsters, a government conspiracy to continue using SAID monsters, a even more secret plan by multiple world governments/nations to wipe out a defenseless island of people who have NO direct connection with the vile Empire that spawned them, etc etc). So if you're gonna put Eren on a crucifix, put the Marleyan government on that shit first. They LITERALLY are the reason why Eren's mom (and many innocent people) died/became mindless killers (the Titans), which made him want to kill them all in the first place. Put Grisha Yeager on that shit too, because he was a deadbeat ass father who ONLY had Eren just to pass on the Attack and Founding Titans BECAUSE SOMEONE TOLD HIM TO. He's the same thing as Gaara's father from Naruto. Same reasons why they had their youngest sons. EXACT SAME. Unlike Rasa, Grisha never apologized to Eren. Not once for bringing him into such a cruel world, not once for forcing the Titan serum on him, not EVEN for SHORTENING HIS LIFESPAN (Eren would die at 23 or until someone else killed/ate him for his Titan powers), none of it. Annie, Reiner, Berthold--they BROKE. The wall. And allowed the Smiling Titan in--the same one that ate Eren's. Mom. Like, c'mon now!