Anime1mo ago · 12 comments
Eren Yeager: tragic hero or an anime-justified genocidal maniac?
He started as a boy who wanted freedom and ended as the architect of mass death. The fandom is still at war over whether we should sympathize. You decide.
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Add your comment- Maya1mo ago
Eren is the best written character in modern anime precisely because you can't cleanly call him a hero OR a villain. That's the genius.
- Maya1mo ago
Whether you cried for him or feared him, the fact this debate exists means the writing won. No other shonen pulls this off.
- Liam R.1mo ago
The basement reveal turned him from a hero into something we couldn't look away from. Peak storytelling, terrifying character.
- Elena1mo ago
Y'all really watched a boy lose everything from birth and then act shocked he wanted the world gone. The show TOLD you who he'd become.
- Marco B.1mo ago
The freedom theme is the whole thread. He was never free, not even from his own future memories. That's the actual tragedy.
- Leo1mo ago
Defending the rumbling is wild but I also can't pretend I wouldn't root for him in the moment. That's what good writing does to you.
- Leo1mo ago
'I'm just like them' — Eren admitting he's no different from the people he hates is the most honest a protagonist has ever been.
- Kofi R.1mo ago
He's a kid who never got to be a kid. Monster and victim. The fandom wanting one clean label is the real problem.
- Quinn1mo ago
Tragic hero is cope. He chose the rumbling when other paths existed. Brilliant character, but call it what it is.
- Kofi1mo ago
Comparing Eren to real history makes some of these defenses age very badly very fast. Just saying.
- Leo1mo ago
He's a deconstruction of the 'angry shonen protagonist'. Isayama took the trope and showed where that rage actually leads.
- Quinn 921mo ago
He committed the largest genocide in fiction and people still defend him because he had a sad backstory. Trauma explains, it doesn't excuse 80% of humanity.
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