Attack on Titan is ruined · 4:07am Apr 8th, 2021
It pains me to say this because Attack on Titan is (or was, I should say) my favourite anime/manga of all time, but holy shit, that final chapter was GOT season 8 levels of bad. In fact it may just be worse.
Eren’s character was assassinated beyond all comprehension. He went from a 200 IQ master tactician cold motherfucker, driven by pure will and conviction, to a pathetic bitch (seriously, even Armin calls him pathetic) who committed genocide because his adopted sister didn’t say she loves him.
Fucking... WHAT?!?!?!
I can’t even fathom this stupidity. I’m still semi-convinced that this is all an elaborate and cruel prank the author is playing on us. This dumb romance for his adopted sister comes literally out of nowhere, there’s no build up to it, nothing pre-established leading up to it, nothing!
Then it turns out he was the one who killed his mom? So... he killed his mom... to get revenge on the titans for killing his mom? This defies all logic. It also goes against his character for the entire story. This is just so bad. I’m almost crying at how bad it is.
Eren straight up said that he killed 80% of the world. He genocided countless people because he wanted to be stopped? He literally says, “Wait, why did I do this again? I forgot.” And why would he turn himself into a villain just so the world can unite against him? He said before this wouldn’t work.
And even then, this plan to “unite the world against him” failed. The world is still at war. It says near the end, “The war will only be over once one side is fully exterminated.”
So Eren genocided a majority of the human population for nothing. And his character got raped, beaten, and atomized in the process.
There’s a million other things that get unaddressed, things that just don’t make any sense. It kinda feels surreal: how such a 10/10 masterpiece story as Attack on Titan could get completely ruined in one single chapter. It’s actually impressive. So many plot points, things that were getting setup, just inexplicably dropped. And an ending that a 12 year old could have written better.
I’m still in shock at how bad this is. It’s like the author intentionally tried to write the most nonsensical and narratively horrible ending possible. And he succeeded. To quote Levi:
Yeah. I agree whole heartedly.
Nope. He didn't.
It's amazing how I see this everywhere, and how many have completely missed the point. Frankly, I think a few managed to get that reaction out first, and then people latched onto it because it's easier than thinking a bit deeper.
First of all, let's cover the part where he killed him mom. He didn't. However, he did. He says, and we've seen, that the paths cover past, present, and future. He himself says he's so lost into it that he can't even make his thoughts comprehensible anymore. But due to his future connections he influenced things in the past that he never meant or decided to influence. Take the past holders of the Attack Titan for instance, and their common point of struggling for freedom, which came due to Eren's possession, will, and ownership of both the Titan AND the paths in the future. Eren never needed to do something, but the influence would still be there. Think of Eren as a man standing on a trampoline. He doesn't mean to shake or move other things on the trampoline, but he's heavy enough and important enough that he deforms the trampoline and stuff that was on it start falling and tumbles towards his direction.
This is HOW Eren killed his mom. He never actually decided to send the Titan to kill her. But because he was meant to own the Paths, because that's how events were meant to transpire as that's how he knew them, he had control over the Titan but couldn't deviate it from what happened, because if he did then he wouldn't be able to deviate it. Remember, Eren is a slave to his destiny now. He has the power, but he can't use it, so, as he would understand it and he would take it, he killed his mother. He had the means, supposedly, to stop her death, and he didn't. Eren would of course take the blame on himself.
Now, as to Mikasa... That is completely wrong. The reasons for the Rumbling were that this was the only possible future he could see that would let his friends have a chance to live. If he completed the rumbling, Paradis and his friends would be safe from the outside humanity. If he completed enough of it, then Paradis would still be safe but also his friends would be the only ones he would give a chance to stop, thus being accepted as saviors of humanity and live. As to why he wanted to be stopped, remember; he isn't a monster. He doesn't want to kill people, but he feels he has to. He puts his friends above everyone else in this plan. And it was important that his friends would MAKE the choice to stop him, and they would HAVE to fight to stop him; if he made it so they'd win (or lose) then he'd enslave them to a certain destiny, and he wouldn't do that. He gave them the freedom of choice.
It never was about Mikasa. Eren did love Mikasa. He cared for her, he knew she was strong, all that. What he says to Armin is that he wants to not die, to spend his life with Mikasa, for Mikasa to only love him...
...And he abandons his dreams and dies. This is what he wants, but it's not what he chooses. He distances himself from Mikasa, so she could have the choice to love someone else, but deep inside he doesn't want it, but he does it. He wants to live, but he takes the path where he will die. He wants to be with Mikasa, but that way would lead to her eventual death and that of all of her friends. So he made the choice Erwin did. He abandoned his dreams and dies.
Eren is a character of tragedy, and he lost everything like all tragic heroes do. He wanted certain things, to love, be loved, live with friends, to explore... but in order for his friends and Mikasa to have a chance to do so, he had to give up on these things himself. Because that's who Eren is. If one of his friends is in danger, he'd throw himself to it to let them escape it. He did it from the very beginning of the manga. It cost him his life, his love, his friends, his desire to be free and explore, and his legacy. He gave it all away.
Remember when he starts the Rumble and we see him as a child, flying over the clouds and saying "this must be what it's like to be completely free?" That wasn't him enjoying freedom. That was him chaining himself to a destiny he made, and gazing at a freedom he wouldn't have. He's an orphan hugging his friend's parents and thinking that this must be what having a mom be like.
When he has his conversation with Armin there, he breaks. He really wants to live. He really wants Mikasa. He wants to be loved so much that they wouldn't replace him. But he can't have that. He's only allowed to scream for a few seconds how he wants them. Then he goes back to the path that will kill him.
Eren isn't "simping" there as many have so harshly judged. He lets go of the serene mask and lets himself be afraid and say what he wants, and it's heartbreaking.
5493167
I hate to come off as passive aggressive, but to be blunt, your whole comment is a bunch of nonsense. You're just making up post-hoc rationalizations to justify the bad writing, inserting heartfelt motives and poetic flourishes into the characters that frankly aren't there and were never set up. For instance:
How on Earth do you know this? From what we saw he was clearly just basking in the freedom he'd get from wiping out the world, which he was doing. Where did "chaining himself to a destiny he made, and gazing at a freedom he wouldn't have" come into play? If you want to claim that there's hidden subtext you have to prove it with hard evidence, otherwise I'm going to do the sensible thing and apply Occam's razor. I see this all the time; back when GoT ended, there were people saying stuff like, "You don't understand"; "You have to think deeper"; "It's not that bad"; etc, etc. In hindsight those people look quite foolish. Same thing will happen with AoT.
When Armin questions Eren on his motives, or when Eren is explaining why he did what he did, he says some variation of "I don't know" or "I'm not sure" like four or five separate times. As a writer, I'll be the first to tell you that these are glaring signs that the author didn't know what he was doing or knew how to wrap things up properly, which is why he relied on vagueness. When Armin asks why did he flatten the world, he literally, word-for-word, says, "I don't know why, but... I wanted to do that... I had to..."
live.staticflickr.com/65535/51102345554_b7389233ed_o.jpg
Really, Eren?
i.redd.it/uqsvfqnbnvr61.jpg
After being so clear in your goals for the past 40 chapters, after explicitly spelling out your motives, after being a cold badass driven by pure conviction, you just don't know why you genocided billions of people? All that set up of "moving forward till I destroy all my enemies," "not gambling Paradis's future," rejecting Zeke's plan because "I was born into this world," you just don't know anymore?
Which is weird, because just before this he starts crying about how he doesn't want Mikasa to be with another man, and that she should only have feelings for him. This is beyond ridiculous. It comes out of nowhere, not to mention he pushed her away throughout the whole series, constantly telling her to stop bothering him, while she was blatantly simping for him. Armin even calls him pathetic, and for good reason. We already know that if Mikasa had given a different answer in chapter 123 (e.g. "I love you" or something) he wouldn't have done this.
This is clear character assassination. It destroys everything about him, from everything he said in Marley, in PATHS, everything since chapter 1. Yes, it was in large part for Mikasa. He says so himself:
live.staticflickr.com/65535/51103375130_7611c74f1a_o.jpg
"The only thing I knew for sure was the result of Mikasa's choice... That's why I moved forward."
It wasn't to defend his friends or to defend Paradis. Eren straight up says that he didn't know what he was doing or why he was doing it, right in the first page. He even says that he didn't know if his friends would survive, so what was the point? "My head's gotten all messed up" is just a lazy way to try to explain Eren's schizophrenic behaviour.
It's hard to analyze this chapter, because the whole thing is incoherent, it contradicts itself and other plot points throughout the story multiple times. For example, let's say that Eren didn't directly kill him mom and only did so subconsciously, as you suggested. Why on Earth did he berate Reiner and ask him "Why did my mom die?" when he explicitly knew he himself was responsible for it?
He says that he killed 80% of humanity because I guess he wanted to be like Lelouch and make his friends heroes:
live.staticflickr.com/65535/51102267186_34ea85185f_o.jpg
Of course, we all know this failed and that they were still at war. And if Eren wanted to protect Paradis, why only kill 80%? Why not dedicate and kill everyone like he planned? Apparently he intended to be defeated without killing everyone even though it did nothing to prevent the war, but he could have prevented it by killing everyone, but he didn't because of a botched Lelouch plan.
There's a million other problems, like what happened to the worm? What was the point of Historia's pregnancy subplot? We don't even know the name and face of the father. Who won the war in the end? Why is Levi in a wheelchair? Why in the actual hell is Armin thanking Eren for becoming a mass-murderer and killing billions?
Again, I'm not making stuff up. It's all right there in the text. Even if Isayama had different intentions and wanted to portray Eren as a better character, like you are by defending him, he clearly failed horribly considering the fact that almost everyone hates this ending, or at least almost everyone thinks that Eren's character arc was disappointing. My guess is that the editors forced Isayama to make this terrible ending. Or maybe he wasn't allowed the ending he wanted, so as a middle finger he intentionally made the worst ending possible. Who really knows. I just hope this gets addressed sooner or later, like how the GoT actors admitted to season 8 being terrible after the fact.
If you like this chapter then that's fine. Art is subjective, after all. Like whatever you want. But when I point out blatant logical flaws and inconsistencies in the story, don't insinuate that I'm just not thinking deep enough. Like I said, I've heard that excuse before.
5493269
Excellent question, my friend! I LOVE talking!
Characterization, boyo! It's in line with the character!
Eren never took delight or enjoyed the thought of other people suffering in order for him to have what he wanted. If you want genuine fact that he didn't want to do the Rumble, then look no further than the chappy where he sees that little immigrant(?) kid purse snatcher and he knows what his future is with the decision he took. Dude's filled with regret and shame.
Also, remember that Eren chose this path and the Paths show the future. He knew how it would end. Yes, he gave his friends and Mikasa the choice, but he didn't do anything to force his will or influence their path (remember, this is the anti-slave guy). The choice WAS their friends, but the influence wasn't his. It was a free choice but he knew how it would go anyway.
How do I know he knew how it would go? The memory Armin unlocked in the last chapter. Eren KNEW beforehand that 80% of the population would die. In a way, he's pretty much played like Muad'dib of Dune. He knows the path and all he can do is take it, knowing full well what will happen and with no surprises, only playing a role.
Writer here as well. And you have to remember that the characters are NOT mouths for the author and they have their own supposed level of understanding, knowledge, and so on. Eren isn't sure how he knows what or why it has to happen, because of the Paths. He says that they are not comprehensible. And it's not. It's pretty clear that time isn't an increasing constant in the Paths but a simultaneous existence of all of it. If I had to liken it to something, I would describe it to someone knowing he's being watched but can't specify a single element of why or how he knows this (which is a real phenomenon, there is a lot of background information we process that gave birth to 'instict').
Eren doesn't know things, and perhaps much that he knows doesn't want to tell the truth about, is ashamed, fears, isn't certain, etc, etc. Eren isn't the author or god in a setting that can give the answers wholly. He's a tragic hero, dragged along by powers beyond his understanding or reach (as classic tragic heroes tend to do).
Myself, I think that when he came to the decision, he couldn't. So he influenced himself as a baby (henceforth the images of his as a babe) as to make him want to do this. It fits the character and how he kept putting shackles on himself.
He did all that. That never not happened. It's the "why he wanted" to do the plan that he didn't (see above).
Make no mistake. Eren destroyed all his enemies entirely. The titans themselves. They no longer exist, and it had been set up from the beginning. "I will kill all the Titans."
He didn't gamble Paradis' future. He knew the future. He played a game that only had one ending.
He was born into this world. He had to DO something and not just let others do it for him. Much like why he joined Erwin and co. He did it, and he dedicated his heart.
Not really. Mikasa had been a constant for him. He never believed Mikasa wouldn't follow, be there, help him, not even at moments when he didn't want her to. And now, that constant was destroyed. He had to push her away, and he had to lose her. People keep talking about how he should have "made a move" but act as if the only way he could show or have feelings for her were by tapping dat ass. Eren loved her, but he never got through that love as what would be or what Mikasa wanted until it was too late. For fuck's sake, he's like 19 when he dies?
As for coming out of nowhere, what have you been reading? You don't understand what this was?
Do you remember that badass soldier who took out so many Titans when Zeke first appeared? Where Zeke took his 3D gear and left a small Titan to eat him? Do you remember that guy?
Do you remember how he died crying and screaming for mercy?
Do you remember how after Eren's mother sent them away she started whimpering, pleading for them to come back and not leave her alone? To save her?
Do you remember how almost everyone does is such a way? How AOT showed there was no real honor in death, just brutal violence and pain and tears? How death is ugly and horrendous? How the last moments of a person about to die are horrible?
What did you think that moment was?
Yeah. He was looking for a way out there. A reason to say no. So he asked Mikasa that.
And what else would Mikasa answer? When would she ever admit it to Eren?
Also, that page there doesn't refer to Mikasa's answer to him. It refers to Mikasa's choice to kill Eren, to oppose him even though she loved him. To show Ymir that you could be as devoted to someone as Mikasa was, even spurned as she was (telling Mikasa she was a tool, just like Fritz told Ymir), and still be able to BOTH love them and oppose them. Ymir had been enslaved by her blind obedience to Fritz. Mikasa showed her there she could move on her own without having to stop loving.
Ymir is fucked up, btw.
All time is now. The dude's fucked. It's not the story of a big chessmaster playing the world. It's the story of a young man who wanted freedom and had to enslave himself to himself with the shackles of destiny that he couldn't understand in order to give it to his friends. It's a tragedy. He doesn't know how the things he does will work. All he knows is he knows stuff, sees stuff, and he can only trust that they will work that way out in the end.
I know I said he played a rigged game, but the rigging was never actually certain. That's why he says he couldn't be sure if his friends would survive even.
The easiest answer is: because that's how he'd make Reiner did what he did.
Listen, I know it's confusing and sounds like bullshit, but it's obvious that the author has read Dune. Trust me, that's how it works.
The other possible answer is something I keep telling in advice to writing: Characters can LIE. Maybe all he said it for was to hurt Reiner. Using it as a point. Never take a thing a character says as 100% true or that he didn't say it for other reasons.
Don't know who this guys is.
If it's referring to another person who made himself a villain in order to make other heroes, that's an old trope. Heck, One Punch Man is doing a subversion of the trope in the current arc with that wolf-like martial artist guy, Hero-Killer something.
Choice. His friends had to be able to stop him. Otherwise, if they had no way then they'd be pawns.
Let's think in Paths and you'll see how this makes sense.
You are the Coordinator. You look through the future, and you see there is war in every direction. Then you look at your plan, the Rumble. There, you can see yourself hurting the outside world so much that Paradis cannot be outright destroyed. Paradis might start war, but you don't know if they'll start it or not. You have to hope they don't. You have to hope your friends, with their fame and trust, will stop it. That they will be as able as they have ever shown themselves to be.
Why can't you know for sure that war will happen or not or doing anything to arrange to not happen after you die? Because, in that Path, you die. There is nothing there for you to see. There is no future coordinate. There's no way to see further down that Path. Every other Path leads to war and death. But this one... This one is unknown. So you can't know. And in not knowing means there might NOT be war.
Dude, this is basically God Emperor of Dune.
Undone or returned to where it was. The worm had always been Ymir, in a way. Her leaving the Paths is why the Worm is gone and the Titans no longer exist. The worm never had an actual explanation. We never know what it was, and all we have is some characters' guesses which in no way may relate to the truth. Heck, for all we know there never even could have been a worm. Maybe Ymir was some genetic freak, who knows? It doesn't matter to the story.
That was the end of her arc? She lived without caring or trying to influence how people thought of her or saw her. The father isn't ever given out because he doesn't matter to her arc. It might have been the boy who used to throw stones at her. Why not? They both changed, apparently.
Her child is only important in the essence that it was born free of the destiny that they wanted to make for it as the slave of the coordinator. It represents the hope of what happens next.
We can't know. The war never even started yet, if it does, and it doesn't matter. This isn't the story of Paradis. This is the story of Eren.
The Titan powers are gone. So are the Ackerman powers, since they were basically titanization without becoming a titan. He's too wounded, and he no longer has that extra oomph that kept him up before. He's normal now, and he carries the outcome of his wounds.
He doesn't. He thanks him for being a friend. For making himself a sacrifice for his friends. For the effort. Eren is his friend. Horrible the actions might be, but he loves the person and understands why he would do something like this.
Also, I'm not convinced there was any other way. The only possible outcomes were Paradis dies, the Rumbling happens with no real control, all Eldians lose the ability to have kids, and worst of all a possible combination of all leaving no human alive. It would be a clusterfuck no matter what. Eren chose one that let those he loved have a chance at least.
This is what I genuinely got from all this. I read what others thought later. It makes sense to me. It follows the themes, the characterization, and the plot-holes vanish as long as you understand that "hard-core chessmaster Eren" that appeared after the time-skip is a facade. We know the real Eren.
What I DO think the story needed was a better way of representing the Paths, especially from Eren's standpoint, and one that showed him how he came to his decisions. It's how much of Dune was done (seriously, read it). I do see why it would be hard though. One, it would mean a complete destruction of the surprise factor. In Dune, you never get the feeling that anything that ever happens after Paul Atreides wakes to his powers and becomes the Kwisatz Haderach is unexpected or a surprise. It would look too much, especially in Manga form, as if Eren got OP powers and was pulling events and knowledge out of his ass, kinda like how it's done in many Isekai and stuff. I'm sure there has to be a way, but it would have to end up being kind of a different story. Also, it would have to be longer.
Apologies for that. What I meant was that being subjected to many similar interpretations often limits ones' ability to consider ideas out of the box or preconceived notions. You can, of course, go with the interpretation that the author suddenly dropped the ball on just the last chapter on how to write his main character. Maybe. He could have burned out, or perhaps the ending, that untameable beast, proved too much for him and the expectations that grew, and he hadn't thought of that part as well as he thought he had. Maybe other DID put their hand in and fucked it up.
I'm only saying, sleep on the interpretation I give. Give them a little bit of leeway, let them worm in as a possible alternative. See if they do fit in with what you know, see if re-reading some stuff with all that in mind makes sense. If it doesn't, well, you gave me a decent chance and thanks for that.
If we don't agree, we don't. No biggie.
Then we can talk about Dune instead
5493376
Again, you're not proving anything. You're just rationalizing your interpretation and passing it off as fact. I can use some of the stuff you wrote here to justify almost any kind of bad writing in any story. "Character is out-of-character? Well that was part of his/her character all along. How do I know? I just do." or "Almost everything established in the story was dropped? It was always supposed to." What am I supposed to say here? You're making a bunch of infallible claims.
Do you even believe that bad writing exists, or is it all just interpretation?
I'm not going to bother going through your comment point-by-point, since you wrote way too much and I'd be here forever. Plus I backed up everything I said with scans of the manga and you're not wanting to accept it. Some of the stuff you said is factually wrong too:
No. He literally says, "Thank you, Eren. You became a mass murderer for our sake."
live.staticflickr.com/65535/51102267406_1f3122dc12_o.jpg
Consider this. If almost everyone hates this ending, and you're the only one who sees the "deeper meaning," and nothing you say is convincing, then maybe that deeper meaning doesn't exist and you're just inventing it. Why don't you sleep on that?
The point that should be taken from this is simple: themes =/= good writing. You can have all the cool themes and meaning in the world, none of it matters if you sacrificed all sense of character logic and plot coherence to achieve it. Like, sure, Eren is a tragic character; he's a horribly written tragic character, the prime example of how not to write tragic characters.
In point of fact, here's some proof that this was not the ending Isayama wanted, and that he was probably forced/pressured into writing this: From this interview he says:
Isayama clearly agrees with me here. All of Eren's original resolve and goals were tossed into the bin. Did Isayama change his mind? Maybe. Maybe not. Seeing as how he's an amazing writer who knows not to sacrifice character logic for themes—as was the case with Attack on Titan till the last few chapters—I'm guessing the ending was not his intention.
Breaking Bad is another example, which Isayama is a huge fan of. Breaking Bad is essentially the king of character consistency and logical writing. Right till the last episode, everything that happens through its 60-odd episodes mattered and didn't change, everything made sense. So when you try to justify Eren's literal incoherency of "I don't know why I did it" by writing off some sophistic mumbo-jumbo, it doesn't do anything for me.
5493736
I am quite confident I don't make this claim. I am pointing out previous characterization and how it fits with what he does, and how he follows the themes established before the timeskip. If you want to point one specific and we talk it over just that one instead of trying to discuss ten points at the same time, I'm game.
*Enter communist Bugs Bunny meme*
I don't believe I'm the only one. I do believe however that the loudness comes from the... let's call them 'haters,' It's not uncommon for those who dislike something to scream the loudest, is it? Not to mention I tried to talk it over on some reddit subs and mine and other posts got purged for not agreeing that the ending was trash. I got kicked out of the group by one moderator, even, for just one post that compared the nature of the Paths with what we see in other media like in Dune and Dr Manhattan, because if I didn't want to add my voice to that of the group like a good member he saw no point in me being there.
Lovely, huh?
First off, agree. A good portion doesn't make a whole work good or means the other parts are equal.
Second, this is how I interpret Eren's actions along with what he says, previous themes, etc, etc, bla, bla, bla, with what we are given. They make sense to me, and I can see them work according to how I'd think it over on behind the scenes. I do NOT say that it was well-written. I pointed out before that there is loss on the choices that the author made. We didn't get Eren's POV and we didn't have the Paths seen from the POV of someone having control of them. I consider this a MAJOR issue, and a big detractor of properly making the interpretation I explain here (and I believe Isayama was going for) more credible and more ingrained in the reader.
For instance, let's think of this. We have the Eren from before the timeskip. All this characterization. Then we see his obvious big flag changes with how he doesn't communicate with his friends, being secretive, etc. He reads as a completely different character. Let's make though the crazy assumption that it IS the same character; that what we see is a facade and it's why the author wasn't showing us his viewpoint. It would break the surprise, the mystery, etc. BUT, and this is a big mistake, it also cost him the opportunity to exhibit the tragicness of the character. We don't see Eren's internal struggles. We don't see how he made the choice to go with the Rumble; he says it in such way as it was a simple choice, but knowing what we do of Eren, does it sound like it would be a choice that wouldn't torment him? We remember how he felt when the elite scouting members died in order to protect him from the Female Titan when they used him as a bait. And now he made this choice so simply? But we DON'T see this!
Keep in mind, there is a big difference in me saying "this is what I believe the interpretation is," and saying the ending was well done. I think the ending actions, the sub-surface reasonings, all that IS visible in some way; but it's like a puzzle that misses many pieces. You can tell there's a shape of a fish there, but miss almost the entirety of the fish. For me, the problem isn't so much the ending as it is the execution of the latter half of the manga and missing expositions and POVs.
I see this as a support of what I said. Eren's signature will/resolve was to kill the titans and for them to be free. He did that. The titans are gone and there is no coordinator to ever tie people to destiny.
I don't believe he sacrificed the logic. I believe he lost the ball in keeping the logic in a visible line for the audience. People fell for the facade of afterTimeSkipEren and lost sight of the true Eren that we knew and we kept seeing POVs of, unlike the one after. So when the facade broke, when oldEren came back to the surface, it was jarring and such a shake that it seemingly made no sense.
Unless you take it as almost a given that since you don't see his POV that means he lies.
I think I made clear what I would do if I could have godlike power and fix AOT. I'd change a lot of the writing in the latter half and the author choices that were made rather than touch the ending as an idea and what events transpired. I'd give a long good view from Eren's POV majorly. Maybe even revisit already transpired events shown from his side and how he really thought or how and why he did certain things.
Can I ask how do you think it would get fixed?
5493753
Good grief. That was his resolve in the beginning. His resolve now was to kill everyone outside Paradis to protect it. This is all blatantly spelled out at the end of chapter 123. But it was all a lie. He didn’t even know why he did it. In short, he lied to himself, which is what Isayama hates. It’s amazing that no matter what evidence or quote I give you to show you that you’re wrong, you somehow manage to twist it in the opposite way. You’re a talented rhetorician, I’ll give you that much.
And no, that was not always his character. You’re falling into hindsight bias. Literally no one a year ago thought that Eren’s character was going to end like that, and rightfully so: it’d be nonsensical.
How would I fix it? Someone already did that. It’s far from perfect, but it’s ten times better than what we got.
I really don’t see any point to this conversation anymore. The bad writing is plainly there for anyone with half a brain to see, which I’ve pointed out. You’re so desperate to defend the last chapter that you’d actually change the entire second half of the story to match it, instead of just change the last chapter.
Yeah, I don’t blame them.