#aotkathmeta

Understanding Eren’s Trauma

The driving force for Eren's character is his wish to be free because he was “born into this world”, though if you allow me to go deeper into the WHY he thinks that way, I’d argue it’s not only in his nature as many often argue; it was also boosted by the fact that he lived surrounded by walls to protect humanity from titans (and I’d say both the titans and the walls represent the antithesis of freedom to Eren) in one of the poorer districts of the city, in which everyone craved security and stability over the risks that came with venturing out, which Eren considers the behavior of cattle. Everything around Eren is telling him that he isn't free.

And of course, the defining moment that turns this desire for freedom into obsession is his mother’s death, which could have been prevented if the symbols of Eren’s lack of freedom were gone. Rather than just sources of frustration, the walls, the titans and Eren's own lack of ability become reminders of the loss and suffering inherent to being trampled by the strong—the pain that comes with not being free.

To understand his subconscious thought process more, I picture it like this:

“If humanity ventured outside the walls, exercising their freedom and killing the titans, this wouldn’t have happened.”

“If we didn’t live in Shiganshina, a dangerous district where the poor live due to being so close to the outermost wall, this wouldn’t have happened.”

And coupled with this, comes his own lack of exercising his freedom:

“If I had been strong enough to do what I wanted, this wouldn’t have happened.”

Eren's trauma is reaffirmed again and again, by failing to save Hannes, then failing to save Armin, and so on, and it all builds up to make him become who he is in the final act of the story.

Later on, it's revealed that Marley, actual humans, just like them, are the real villains behind Eren's opression. And that's when our protagonist snaps. It's no coincidence that the whole point of his genocide is to end civilization as we know it—he can't stomach a world in which everything that happened was by the hands of humans, one in which the monsters have families and insecurities just like him—it's just too nuanced, and that's too much to handle for Eren. It's easier to trample over everything and restart, than to face his inferiority complex, one that has its roots in the symbols that trample over his freedom, rather than solely on his nature.

From Personal to Systemic (and viceversa)

However, if we look even further than Marley to point towards someone to blame for these symbols, Marley became the way it is because human civilization was responsible for the divides that now can be seen not only inside, but outside the walls.

To put it in a simpler way, why did Attack on Titan start? Because King Fritz enslaved Ymir, someone with the power to become a titan. But we should go into the why, shouldn’t we? And it’s because that’s how human civilization works. The ones in power use it to their advantage and leave a wave of trauma that lasts generations, all to make up for their own weaknesses and fears. It’s about how the personal becomes systemic, and viceversa; and that’s exactly what happens with Eren. He represents the ultimate way in which you can trample over someone's freedom, which is met with retribution (and at the same time being an attempt at making up for his horrible trauma.)

I’d have to get into a whole rant about systemic issues and the feudalism that laid the basis for capitalism for this to become more understandable, but in the end, I’m saying all of this to prove a pretty simple point: it’s all about the cycle of hatred, which isn’t simply about revenge. It’s years and years of systemic oppression, combined with circumstance, combined with nature, and how all of it is processed by Eren’s self-esteem and ego, that led Eren to become who he is.

The line between the outside and the inside blurries, and black and white thinking become shallow in comparison to the nuance of the world—just like Eren's worldview.

Of course, I’m not saying that Eren realized all this. Dude was probably angry with the titans because they killed his mom and that was it. But a lot of it was probably part of his subconscious, and even if all of it wasn’t, all of these horrible circumstances were a vital factor in what is what the Marleyan general calls out for what it is:

Except this time, it’s not just by the Marleyan's hands. Nor is it even present humanity's.

It’s everything.

Eren is to Blame

All of what I showcased explains Eren’s insecurities, trauma and subsequent decisions. It’s because of his nature, coupled with the terrible circumstances he was born into, that shaped him into someone willing to wipe out humanity—it isn’t as simple as just because “it was in his nature”, and I’d argue that’s an excuse Eren himself would use to try and rationalize his horrible actions.

That’s actually what Eren does the most with his all-seeing power: he uses it as an excuse not to take matters into his own hands.

What I feel AOT is criticizing here is that whether it was his nature, or his environment, or the generations of systemic abuse, how Eren dealt with his trauma was his decision. Eren perpetuating the cycle of trauma and hatred, of civilization and war, was his decision. 

We later learn that Eren was the one who killed his mother, but I’d argue that rather than to only highlight that it’s in Eren’s nature to be free even if it’s a destructive goal, this scene also shows that trauma is self perpetuated—in the end, Eren literally caused part of his own trauma and led himself to a destructive path, though instead of being due to a decision that will have consequences in the future, it’s one that had consequences in his own past. Speaking of which, I think the mind-boggling past-present-future coexistence ability Eren attains due to the Attack Titan isn’t a coincidence, and perfectly complements his character: it’s the ultimate way to reinforce that he’s the one furthering his trauma through his pursuit of freedom, and that no matter where or why it started, he’s the one responsible for not dealing with it and harming everyone and himself so much.

This isn’t to diminish the fact that it was the world that shaped Eren to become that way, or to fall into a “good-victim” and “bad-victim” debacle. Putting it in the frame of the present day, I’d say that saying that your trauma is caused by yourself sounds extremely wrong and it’s not the point I’m trying to make. Yes, Eren causes his trauma, but only a part of it. Eren causes his suffering, but only a part of it. Whatever the case, it’s up to Eren to continue perpetuating that suffering for himself and others, or stop it, and unfortunately, what he ends up doing is continuing it.

Of course, asking for severely traumatized people to deal with their own trauma on their own is not realistic, is it? Asking for severely traumatized people to know how to not take it out in a violent way, without even being taught other ways, is unreasonable. For a quick view on my thoughts, even though I completely agree that Eren should be held accountable for his actions, in the end, the solution to his suffering isn’t to demand him to somehow know how to deal with it: that’s why others are key in helping heal that trauma.

So why didn’t Armin and Mikasa help Eren with his trauma, you ask?

Dude, they’re on like, the AOT equivalent to the 19th century. They probably don’t even know what trauma is, and they have their own to deal with.

Though the real reason is that Eren isolated himself from them, refusing to talk to them about his weakness—refusing to be vulnerable. They weren't allowed to be by his side, and that ultimately spells Eren's downfall.

But we know better now, don’t we?

In the end, I think that what the precious bond between the main trio highlights, whether they're conscious or not, is their ability to stand for each other no matter what kind of crueltry they experience. That’s what the Alliance’s last stand, and their ability to forgive and understand each other in the final arc showcases, too. That even if traumatized, we can make an attempt to connect with one another, and perhaps it will reach those who can’t even think of a way out.

HE HAS A DREAM

Shonen protagonists have dreams (or motivations that drive their character). For Goku, it's to become stronger (just because). For Naruto, it's to become Hokage (to make up for the lack of attention he received in childhood, but doesn’t that sound unhealthy?). For Deku, it’s to become a hero (both to help others but also to make up for being born quirkless, and the last part goes completely unacknowledged by the narrative). 

Eren’s search for freedom manifests in the two dreams he has in the series, which are both also subverted and shown to be extremely dangerous. 

His first dream is the wish to wipe out every titan.

Of course, we later know this is subverted both by revealing that the titans are also human, and thus, greatly messing with the black and white shonen protagonist-esque logic Eren exhibits, and by the fact that even after fulfilling his dream, Eren is completely empty, because not only they weren't the simple enemy he thought them to be, but he still has to fight the outside world regardless if he wants to truly be free. 

This serves both as a subversion of the shonen protagonist who has to face black and white enemies, and of the genre as a whole, by adding a huge layer of moral complexity to the conflict in the series.

And because of it, now his second dream is to wipe out all of humanity, and I think I really don't need to point out why this dream is a complete subversion of everything a shonen protagonist represents, right? The shonen protagonist, which usually fights for his friends, ends up getting many of them killed, wiping out 80% of humanity, all because he followed his dream without giving up. 

The takeaway is that following dreams blindly and without any sort of reflection is stupid and can have horrible consequences for both yourself and others, especially if said dreams have a subtext of trauma and generational abuse like many shonen protagonists (and Eren) share.

And that leads me to my next point.

HE NEVER GIVES UP

Shonen protagonists have their eyes set on a goal, and they follow it singlemindedly, no matter the consequences. They always fulfill their dream by virtue of never giving it up, and that allows them to reach recognition and happiness.

Eren also never gives up, and that gets everyone around him killed many times. Hell, if he didn’t have the Attack Titan, he would have died in episode 3 because he just didn’t know when to retreat. Eren doesn’t listen to other people, and never gives up his dream of being free and seeing an outside world “levelled”, and the result is mass genocide. Even though he should have compromised like adults do for the sake of everyone’s happiness, he was a stubborn child that wouldn’t let go of his dream and not giving up resulted in the biggest massacre in history.

Eren's iconic catchphrase, "I will keep moving forward", implies not looking back, not thinking about the consequences or the implications of what you're doing—how many people will suffer because of it, or how to break the cycle of hatred at all. It's a phrase that encapsulates never giving up, at the cost of others, and that's awful. Attack on Titan itself has a message about how giving up is the right choice sometimes, Erwin’s whole thing is “Give up on your dreams and die”, and that allows the scouts to win in Shiganshina and discover the basement. Armin and Mikasa also give up on Eren, and that allows for the remaining survivors to find happiness, and yet Eren just had to be the man, Eren just had to never give up and look where it got him.

HE FIGHTS FOR HIS FRIENDS

Shonen protagonists are unnaturally selfless, and they always go out of their way to save others.

Eren tries to be selfless, hell, he uses his friends as a facade to explain why he did the Rumbling, but it’s all a lie. Because Attack on Titan is realistic, and human beings just don’t have it in them to live for the sake of others.

Shonen protagonists are all about how they do what they do for their friends, but if the story goes a little deeper, it isn’t really about them, is it? Does Deku want to save others because he’s selfless, or because he wants to make up for his percieved inability to be a hero by overcompensating and saving everyone? Does Naruto save his villains because he’s the kindest being who will empathize with any mass murderer, or because he wants to save himself deep down, and his villains share many aspects of himself?

Eren tries to act like he’s doing everything for others, at first to have revenge for his mother when the titans are the enemy and later for the sake of his friends when the world is his enemy. But he’s never doing it for them. He’s doing everything for himself.

Eren feels insecure and powerless because his mother died in front of him, and he puts himself and everyone else at risk by trying to compensate for that fact. He’s not after justice as much as he is after placating his guilt. And do I need to mention how his actions through the Rumbling resulted in Sasha and Hange dying? Does that look like protecting his friends to you?

He literally killed his mom.

Eren is doing all of this because he didn’t grow up, because he wasn’t mature enough to compromise and realize that maybe, just maybe, committing mass genocide isn’t helping anybody, not even himself.

HE HAS THE MORAL HIGH GROUND

Shonen protagonists have the moral high ground, and no matter if the villain they’re faced with is making good points, they maintain their black and white ideals and continue to perpetuate the status quo that is responsible for the conflict of the story (Just look at Bleach and its corrupt Soul Society that never really changes for the better, and that Ichigo still fights for until the end, or Deku and hero society, or Naruto and-)

Sure, they attempt to change a few things, and they give peace to the villains affected by systemic issues in messiah-like ways, but they don’t attempt to question the roots of the issues (Bleach) or they only make slight modifications and everything works out (MHA and Naruto).

Eren also starts as a victim of systemic issues, feeling like he has all the right to wipe out all titans and unabashedly committing himself to that goal without morality really coming into the picture until way later. And when it does, it shows just how dangerous Eren’s black and white morality really is. 

The worst part is that when he talks to Reiner, you can notice that he actually realizes the nuance, but he chooses to ignore it for the sake of “moving forward”, a phrase that once again, doesn’t really have much meaning beyond "not giving up" and that makes Eren and everyone around him suffer immensely. 

Eren swears that he has the moral high ground at the start of the story, and even when he realizes he doesn’t, that he’s the same as Reiner, he still friggin does what he does, because in his mind, he’s still being a hero this way, he’s still trying to save Paradis and his friends…

But he’s just lying to himself. Eren is no hero.

HE’S RECKLESS AND LOUD

I mean, this one is pretty simple. While Shonen protagonists are rewarded for their recklessness and loudness (Deku saving Bakugo), Eren is so incredibly reckless that it puts everyone around him in danger.

The main example of this is when he tries to save Armin and ends up in the belly of a titan as a result. He didn't have the strength nor the intelligence to plan what he was doing, and it got him killed—if it weren't for the Attack Titan, his story would have ended there.

I’ve explained why in the previous points, so there’s no really a reason to repeat myself, but it’s this same recklessness and frankly stupidness and lack of preparation that ends up with a boy that has too much power and uses it in the most stupid way possible.

HE GETS POWER UPS

Shonen protagonists get power ups for the convienience of the plot, in order to timely defeat their enemies. Whether they’re justified or not, it brings ocmplicated power scaling questions in to play, until the protagonists’s strength and the rest of the world’s is so far apart that he becomes a godly being with enough strength to protect everyone he cares about and defeat any enemy.

Instead of that though, Eren’s power ups are a curse, that end up slowly corrupting his mind and do more harm than good in the long run—creating a teenager with too much power in his hands, an amount of power that Eren himself says is too much for one person to handle.

The Attack Titan is often uncontrollable and the casualties Eren brings throughout his path at the start aren’t small, and part of his character hints that it’s his way of fulfilling his destructive tendencies.

And I don’t need to mention how adding the Founding Titan to the mix messes up Eren’s conception of his free will and overwhelms him with the ability to destroy the world and see every possible future.

Yes, this powers give the scouts the edge to finally fight back and Eren is often referred as “humanity’s last hope”, but every coin has two sides, and it’s this same power that dooms 80% of humanity.

Attack on Titan subverts the idea that power is unequivocally good, and it poses the dilemma (that characters that Levi also properly express) that being the strongest doesn’t mean that you can control everything and exercise freedom. The actually strong characters understand that the world is too big for one person to handle and don’t let their defeats and failures define their life and their subsequent goals in it. Life is cruel, and also beautiful, and Eren couldn’t accept the first part and used his power ups to define the plot when in truth all he was doing was throwing a childish tantrum.

Besides, Eren’s seemingly “out of nowhere” asspull power-ups are always properly foreshadowed and even if, at the time, they seem unexpected and unpredictable, later it becomes obvious that they were always intended as a vital part of the story rather than a way of bending the plot to make the protagonist win. 

HE’S AVERAGE… wait, huh?

Eren is what happens when you throw a Shonen protagonist into the real world. All the lofty facades fall off. He’s not powerful. He fails at almost every single instance. He is a burden to his allies most of the time, and there’s a hundred people other than him that could use his powers better than him. Throughout the start of the series, Eren constantly tries to prove the idea that he’s average wrong, and even when he comes to accept that he has to take a step aside and serve as a tool for humanity’s survival, it’s treated as a step forward rather than a bad choice.

Eren both matures and doesn’t mature, he stops seeing things in black and white and yet continues to act self-servingly regardless—he loses his fiery passion and replaces it with pragmatism and manipulation in service of his goals.

He becomes a person, a proper tridimensional protagonist for a story as complex as AOT, and all he had to do is face the world. Of course, the fact thet he loses his simplicity isn’t a positive development in and of itself, because no matter how much he grew externally, his wishes and motivations remained the same, except Eren becomes someone so nuanced that it’s impossible for him to keep pretending like things are as simple as he once thought he was, losing himself in the cruelty and complexity of the world instead of keeping his spirit regardless, like Armin does.

Shonen Protagonists are both Good and Bad

Eren first loses the "bad" aspects of Shonen protagonists, but he also loses the good ones as the story progresses, and retains some others… he becomes a complete person, nuanced, who makes good but primarily bad choices, who is swept up by his ego, by the narrative of a protagonist he built for himself—and he destroys the world as he tries to fulfill it.

Eren loses the optimism, the courage, the camaraderie, and continues with the most toxic aspects of the shonen protagonist—the need to do it alone, the need to fulfill his dream no matter what and move forward, without questioning himself in the process.

Eren fails because he wants to be a Shonen protagonist, but Shonen protagonists are not human beings. No one always wins, we should strive to be like them and at the same time avoid losing the nuance that is so vital in such a cruel and beautiful world like this. The reason why we like Shonen protagonists is because they inspire us, they are role models, simple and ideal, but if you don’t separate the character from reality, you forget that every strength comes with a downside, and you end up following a misleading narrative in which you lose sight of what truly matters.

At first, his wish didn't align with the death of others... but later on, it did. It's as simple as that. He had done too much harm to have any sort of morality at that point. He was corrupted by his experiences, and he lost the idealism necessary to find a satisfying result in which he and his friends live, while at the same time keeping the toxic idealism that wouldn’t let him give up on his dreams. 

Eren wasn’t a Shonen protagonist, and that was both for the best and for the worst, because humans shouldn’t dream and wish for impossible outcomes, but most importantly, they should never lose the hope for a better world, and for their own happiness.

Eren's Motives

Three of his generally accepted motives are these:

1- To see the sight in the book, aka, "levelling" the land. His childish dream he couldn't let go of.

2- To save his friends by having them kill him (they would be seen as heroes and the titan curse would end, saving Armin, Reiner, Annie, etc.).

(The result being the end of the titan's curse)

3- Keep Paradis safe (the level of development of the world would be incredibly reduced, Eren's friends could act as diplomats, and Paradis would now have a fighting chance.)

(I'd argue this motive is just a happy consequence of his real priorities, number 1 and 2).

But the first and second motive directly contradict each other, no? If Eren wanted to do a complete rumbling and truly level the land, he wouldn't wish to be stopped. But according to the second motive, he always intended to be stopped. Not only that, he knew he'd be stopped at 80% because of the power of the Attack Titan.

So why bother doing the Rumbling at all even though it could never accomplish point 1? For his friends only then? But he didn't even know which one of his friends would survive, just that they'd stop him and end the titan curse.

Maybe everyone but Pieck could have died while trying to stop him, so his plan wouldn't fulfill point 1 nor point 2. He wouldn't get a full Rumbling to fulfill his dreams nor a happy ending for his friends.

To make sense of this, my theory is that Eren is stupid and just couldn't help himself despite the risks and impossibilities. He just had to do it.

Eren is an Idiot.

Eren has always been stupid. He tried things irrationally just because he wanted to be free and go outside the walls, believing that it would go well as he severely overestimasted himself, almost getting killed several times because of it.

He's a subversion of a shonen protagonist in a realistic world. The only reason he got so far is because so many people were covering his back and because he got the Attack Titan. This is a vital part of his character. He is average, childish, and prone to succumb to his feelings; and that's exactly what he did. Eren developed so much along the course of the series, and managed to keep control of his recklessness with rationality and discipline... but he never developed emotionally, and this was the result.

Even if he knew that the Rumbling would stop at 80%, it'd still partially fulfill his dream to see a levelled land and becoming free. At least for a moment, he'd be able to feel like he was accomplishing that goal of his and feeling free because of it.

He fought back against Armin because Eren wouldn't give up his freedom without a fight, and he wanted to know that he truly tried everything (aside from taking away his friends' freedom, which would make him a hypocrite in his eyes). Eren was a slave to freedom and was unable to give up on it unlike basically every other character in the series. (give up on your dream and die). He was the ultimate shonen protagonist, especially in his unyielding dream, and it backfired immensely. In no universe Eren was able to stop himself from doing the Rumbling, because it's what he wanted to do to get his freedom, even while knowing it'd fail. It isn't rational. He just couldn't help himself from doing his upmost to live freely, because he was born into the world and thus had a right to, in his eyes. Eren latched onto that childish idea, of never compromising, of being unable to give up on his desired outcome, and it ended up making him a mass murderer. He never grew up, and this was the result.

At the same time, though, he did want to give his friends the chance to stop him and become free themselves, which would also save them to boot. There was the risk that they died, but he couldn't help himself, and in the best case scenario, most of them would live.

Thus, no matter what, the Rumbling was the best way of fulfilling Eren's contradicting goals, not from a logical sense, but from an emotional one.

Rationalizations

In the end, Point 2 and 3 of his motivations are just rationalizations for going through a plan he knew would fail. Point 1 was the main reason he did it (even though, as I explained, it's not really the only reason, just that if he truly wanted to save his friends and Paradis this plan was one of the worse options), and the worst part is that he knew it wouldn't go his way and he did it anyways.

So yeah, he's smart, stupid, free, trapped, selfish, selfless, and that's the point? If so, I think it's a pretty interesting point to make. Eren never managed to mature enough out of being a child—he was denied agency again and again by the world, and unlike everyone else in the series, he couldn't accept that. He couldn't compromise, not on his dream, but not on his friends, either.

I think it's really clever writing to hide all these layers behind Eren, even though the confusing explanation did end up making a lot of people wrongly excuse his genocide "because he did it for his friends", even though he straight up admits he wasn't, he just thought he was.

In truth, he killed 80% of humanity because he wasn't mature enough to pinpoint his irrational motives founded in the trauma of living trapped in walls with the physical manifestation of being trapped embodied by the titans. (A systemic analysis of Eren coming in another post!)

I do admit that actually understanding that all of this was Isayama's intention though, if I even got it right, was completely convoluted and confusing and could've been written way more neatly; but I still love the ending, because it shows us that Eren is doing the most Eren thing imaginable through the Rumbling—showcasing his stupidity, rashness and average nature, which was always a huge part of his character that I'm glad wasn't forcefully taken out of him because of his "cooler" role in the last season.

If there's one thing I've always loved about Eren, is how human he is. How imperfect he is. And his actions are, without a doubt, the embodiment of what it means to be an irrational being with a brain that tries to rationalize everything—a being that would kill 80% of humanity for his dreams, while risking his friends' lives, while also deeply wishing to save them.

I guess that his character (and humanity) can be summed up by Mikasa quite well, don't you think? Because in the end, even if he's stupid, he's also kind. He's cruel...