!!! THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS TOWARDS ATTACK ON TITAN MANGA !!!
Eren Yeager is an amazing character. He has everything that a great MC needs, a great design, interesting ideals and an impact that is widely impacted across the story of Attack on Titan. Unfortunately, some people don't see this and mock him off as the edgy genocidal maniac that has no feeling whatsoever.
Ever since the timeskip, people have been thinking this. This vision of Eren is one created by fans and is nothing like the Eren Yeager in the Story. Then how did Eren go from the naive and reckless person to the strategic and serious person who spouts his idea of freedom wherever he goes.
Realization is the key to Eren's growth, realization is the key to many things to the Attack on Titan world as well. With the people of the walls growing their Island, from getting information from other nations and Marleyans such as Gabi and Falco realizing that the Eldians on the Island are no monster and demons that they thought they were.
Realization brought Eren to move forward and while he does continue on, he knows that the world is not just filled with his enemies, but innocent people as well. When knowing that humanity had existed outside the walls, he was disappointed.
He knew the results that would happen to all of them. But despite knowing that, he still took part in The Rumbling plan and not going ahead with either Zeke's or Alliance's plans. Eren actually thought Zeke's plan would actually save many more people with the Eldians able to vanish with time and the titans along with them. But the Eldians that Marley wanted to get rid of isn't just normal Eldians, they were Eren's comrades that he fought with for years and he sought to protect. And with that, he cannot accept an ending like that. He cares about his friends a lot, and wants them to live long lives as he had said in Chapter 108.
Although he cares about his friends that much, he values his freedom as well. So knowing that they would despise his plan about The Rumbling, he still would have to keep moving forward despite his friends having to go and try to stop him from completing his plan.
Eren's early environment is vastly different from other characters from Levi's or Zeke's. He had a quiet and comfortable lifestyle at the start of his life. He had parents, friends and a home to go back to. Going by these assets, its strange to know that Eren had been angry, ruthless and really violent. We've seen this while witnessing Mikasa's backstory with Eren violently killing two people and continuously stabbing one of them with rage. Did this rage developed by his environment? Or actually within his mind?
Eren had always felt like he was trapped inside of a bird cage. Those miserable walls had always stood out towards him every single day, reminding him of the cruel world that is stopping him from going to the sea or the other side of the walls. He had hated this. He is in a world that restrains him from getting the privilege of seeing the flaming waters, frozen plains and snowfields of sand that Armin had always told him about. He was born in this world and he has the will to achieve the freedom that he wanted.
If someone was to try to take that sense of freedom away from him, he wouldn't hesitate to take away theirs. We see this in Mikasa's backstory and we see this again with The Rumbling as the world wanted to destroy Paradis and all of his loved ones. So it wasn't Eren's environment that had made him into who he was. This is just like Reiner. Reiner wasn't turned into who he was from the Marleyan environment, it was he who wanted to be the Hero himself, and that is why he had continued on with the mission after Marcel had been eaten. The parallels between Eren and Reiner is something I would like to talk about in a future post because they are both share similar traits and both are just amazingly written characters.
Back to the topic of Eren's mindset driving himself to become who he is today, so what emotional state has Eren been in for a while? People has always crossed him off as edgy and devil kind of guy. But that's only because they don't understand what he's been through in these years. He had seen his mother be eaten by a titan at a young age, only increasing his hatred for the monsters. Annie then betrays him and as he tries to transform, he can't really accept what has happened, halting his transformation process. A comrade and fellow human had just said that they were his enemy and ofcourse Eren couldn't accept that as his hatred for the titans has been absolute for a while at the current time. He just couldn't accept finding a comrade shortly after he comes to his senses with remembering what situations Annie's titan had caused towards his other comrades. Specifically, Levi Squad, making him to be able to have the will to actually kill her.
Later, Reiner and Bertholdt betrayed him as well. Although, he accepts their betrayal really quickly, but as he does this it was all in anger as he couldn't believe as his enemies were that close to him. The next time he is hit very emotionally is in the uprising arc with him finding out his father was the one who had killed Historia's family and took the Founding Titan while also realizing he was the one who had killed Grisha. This ofcourse had to hit Eren severely. His father was responsible for the Founding Titan to get out of the Royal Family's hands and he had also eaten his father. Fortunately, his story does tell Eren that all of the Royal Family's actions was not for the people but only for themselves.
The next big thing to severely hit Eren emotionally is something that did change Eren's attitude for the future of the story. the basement revealed plus him kissing Historia's hand to see the future memories of The Rumbling. Eren's seeing his future memory basically served as him having no other plan to combat his new enemies being the world and as he does try to find another way it all comes crumbling down once everything else he tries fails, like we see in chapter 123 in the flashback.
He also begins to see his future becoming more real with him seeing the kid that he saw within his future memories. he also tells him he's sorry for what the future holds. Eren's true emotions come out in this scene and it shows it, he was disappointed in knowing humanity had existed outside of the walls and he wished for it to all wipe away. He continues to keep repeating "sorry" in this very sad scene and after this it just reveals that Eren really isn't the evil selfish person some people think he is, he has a heart and sadly that heart isn't strongly swayed towards the people in the outside world but towards his friends that he wanted to live ling lives. But this does show that he has the sympathy for the people he is killing. Its just a big price to pay for freedom. So this brings the question, is Eren really justified in his action?
