Why Did Eren Yeager Begin The Rumbling?

“Assault on Titan” is arguably the defining anime of the fashionable period. It is a present that rode the wave of the large shift towards simulcast streaming to turn out to be a cultural phenomenon, breaking into the mainstream and getting everybody speaking about it — even when they’d by no means watched one other anime earlier than. It is easy to see why; “Assault on Titan” is the proper sequence for anime newcomers and has the identical broad attraction as blockbuster style exhibits like “Sport of Thrones” and “The Strolling Lifeless.”

A part of what makes “Assault on Titan” such an exhilarating and profitable present is its method to thriller and worldbuilding. In contrast to, say, most U.S. style exhibits after “Misplaced,” “Assault on Titan” would not have a thriller field storyline; fairly, it makes use of its characters to drive the plot and, in doing so, develop its personal lore and mysteries. Each season of “Assault on Titan” radically modifications what the viewers and the characters beforehand thought they knew concerning the present’s setting, recontextualizing what got here earlier than and introducing one surprising plot twist after one other.

The twists work as a result of they serve the story of the characters and their arcs. Take protagonist Eren Yeager and his surprising turned to villainy, along with his motivation and plan turning into the most important thriller of the fourth and last season. Season 4 additionally retains Eren at arm’s size from the viewers, trasnforming him from our point-of-view character into extra of a aspect participant who barely exhibits up. Whether or not Eren had a plan to avoid wasting the island of Eldia from the hatred and mixed militaries of the world or not was a degree of many discussions amongst followers because the season unfolded. Then got here The Rumbling, the crux of the ultimate season and the purpose of no return for Eren, who unleashed armageddon on the world seemingly out of nowhere.

Although the explanation for Eren beginning The Rumbling was clearly expressed within the last episode of the present, there have been nonetheless those that wished extra, both anticipating a distinct reply or hoping that “Assault on Titan” creator Hajime Isayama — who himself has defined extensively what occurred and what Eren was pondering — would pull one final twist. In case you want additional convincing, or when you merely determined to not watch the present and wish to spoil your self for among the finest TV endings of all time, here is a helpful information for you.

In the direction of the top of season 3 when Eren kisses Historia’s hand, he will get a terrifying imaginative and prescient. He sees again in time to the evening his dad killed the Reiss royal household, however he additionally sees different issues his father noticed that evening, together with visions of the longer term and glimpses of The Rumbling itself. It’s because Eren is seeing his dad’s recollections from an evening when his dad himself noticed Eren’s future recollections of the Rumbling, permitting the then-present Eren to see it. Thus, the second Eren kissed Historia’s hand, he resigned himself to a horrible future the place he’d must destroy most of humanity. Eren was trapped in his personal powers, very like Isayama was caught writing in direction of an ending he’d provide you with from the beginning.

So, what was Eren’s plan? As he explicitly spells out within the final episode of “Assault on Titan,” Eren determined to make himself the dangerous man as a way to unite humanity towards him whereas additionally making his buddies the heroes that saved the world. That meant bringing his half-brother Zeke to the island of Paradis and beginning The Rumbling, guaranteeing that about 80% of the world’s inhabitants would perish. Granted, this would not precisely finish all warfare or hatred on this planet, however it could merely stage the enjoying area in order that the world contained in the partitions can be about as massive because the world exterior. In different phrases, there can be as many Eldians as there are individuals who hate them. 

Besides, to cite Dakota Johnson, “Truly, no. That is not the reality, Ellen.” A minimum of, not the entire fact. The supposed imaginative and prescient of the longer term that Eren noticed and seemingly doomed him to his personal destiny was actually only a self-fulfilling prophecy. That is as a result of, as Grisha says when he will get Eren’s future recollections, Eren is barely displaying him a part of the longer term, not the entire thing. Eren despatched his father (and thereby his previous self) particular pictures that will validate previous Eren’s personal pre-conceived concepts and fatalism. These pictures had been likewise designed to ship Eren down the trail to beginning The Rumbling and ignoring another options.

Here is the factor concerning the “Eren was doomed to the longer term” factor: If Eren had seen a horrible future involving an precise armageddon and wished to cease it, he would’ve tried to keep away from the longer term the place he put himself within the precise circumstances wanted for The Rumbling to occur. However that is not what Eren did. His future wasn’t pre-written, he made aware decisions at each flip as a result of Eren wished this to occur. He selected his personal destiny.

It wasn’t the imaginative and prescient Eren noticed when he kissed Historia’s hand that modified him, his demeanor and worldview had already modified a lot earlier. It was actually the second Eren reached his father’s basement and realized the reality of the world that modified the whole lot for him. This was additionally the second the place he realized the world was not what he hoped it could be. Not due to the bias towards Eldians or the atrocities dedicated towards his household and other people. No, what actually left Eren shocked and appalled was studying that there have been different individuals out on this planet.

From the very first second we met him, Eren has all the time been about one factor and one factor solely: freedom. This concept drives each resolution Eren has ever made, and the whole lot he is ever achieved was in pursuit of the world he noticed in Armin’s image ebook — one full of lovely and, most significantly, empty landscapes. When Eren noticed the reality (that the world was full of nations, societies, and individuals), he turned upset. Greater than the purpose of saving his buddies or destroying the armies that had oppressed the Eldian individuals for thus lengthy, his want to wipe the whole lot away and depart a clear slate just like what he noticed in Amin’s ebook outmoded the whole lot else in Eren’s thoughts. For him, freedom means one factor: a world free of individuals, unsullied by humanity.

In the long run, the true motive Eren began The Rumbling had nothing to do with avenging his fallen buddies, the trauma from dropping his mother to a Titan, and even defending his family members. No, Eren Yeager began The Rumbling for a similar motive Walter White turned a drug kingpin in “Breaking Dangerous”, ie. “I did it for me.” As Eren tells Armin within the final episode of “Assault on Titan,” he was all the time simply “a garden-variety fool who obtained his palms on energy.”

The reply to the above query is made fairly clear within the present itself, with Eren explicitly saying he calculated the human price of The Rumbling to be about 80% of the whole world inhabitants. First, there are the numerous, many people on Paradis Island itself who die when the partitions come down. That is additionally one other nail within the coffin of the “Eren did it to avoid wasting his individuals!” idea since he nonetheless killed a ton of his personal individuals (on prime of these lifeless from the a whole bunch of 1000’s of Colossal Titans). Then, because the Titans begin strolling away from the island, they destroy the whole lot of their path, starting with the Mediterranean-inspired nation of Marley.

Within the final episode, we lastly get a glimpse of what different nations seem like on this planet of “Assault on Titan,” which incorporates analogs for Japan, the UK, and even an African nation. Because the Colossal Titans flatten the world, they depart nothing behind — with not simply their large our bodies destroying the whole lot of their path, but additionally the warmth they emanate burning the whole lot. The result’s precisely what Eren wished: a world that seemed like Armin’s ebook, freed from people however with “Water that glows like hearth. Fields of ice. Big rocks that take days to climb.”

A few of the most heart-wrenching and upsetting pictures in a sequence already upsetting and heart-wrenching sufficient come within the last episode, the place we see large crowds panicking and attempting to run away solely to be crushed by the Titans. This culminates in a scene straight out of Steven Spielberg’s “Schindler’s Record” the place we see a crowd operating from Titans and onto a sea cliff. Immediately, the display screen goes black-and-white apart from a mom and her child, who’re in full colour. When the mom falls over, she lifts her child to others, who begin passing it round in a determined try to let the infant stay however just a few seconds longer. Notably, the infant is wrapped in pink material, very like the little lady within the pink coat in Spielberg’s masterpiece.

That is the whole level of “Assault on Titan.” It is perhaps bleak as hell, however the sequence all the time fought for and argued in favor of hope, insisting that it is all the time value it to attempt to save a life even whereas the world itself is falling aside.

The Rumbling appeared like a real armageddon, with Eren serving because the satan himself, turning into not possible to succeed in, not to mention defeat. Bear in mind, at this level Eren is surrounded by a whole bunch of 1000’s of Colossal Titans, and he himself is a fair greater monstrosity.

The plan to defeat Eren actually took the colossal efforts of everybody — not simply the heroes we would been following because the starting of the present, but additionally the individuals they’d come to treat as villains. It is a part of the magic trick “Assault on Titan” pulled in its last episode, permitting it to turn out to be a totally totally different present (one the place heroes turned villains and villains turned heroic). The plan concerned the previous scouts battling a military of former Beast Titans whereas Levi manages to kill Zeke, ending Eren’s connection to the powers of the Founding Titan and stopping the Rumbling. In fact, that also leaves Eren himself. As such, it falls to Mikasa, the lady who has beloved Eren since they had been youngsters, to cut off his head and finish his reign of terror.

Nicely, Eren is lifeless by the point The Rumbling ends, so not a lot technically occurs to him after that. Earlier than his demise, nonetheless, he releases the reminiscence of a dialog he had inside each certainly one of his buddies’ minds main as much as the ultimate battle. In these conversations, Eren defined his actions — or at the least the excuse he wished them to consider about sacrificing himself for the others.

With Eren lifeless, the worm-like creature that originated the ability of the Titans additionally dies, ending the ability of the Titans perpetually. Nonetheless, although most of humanity is lifeless, that does not precisely cease the cycle of hatred and warfare. In an epilogue through the finish credit, we see the way forward for Paradis and the numerous wars fought within the background of Eren’s gravesite all through the ages that adopted. “Assault on Titan” argues that you could’t actually cease humanity from hating and waging warfare; all you are able to do is train the subsequent era to decide on understanding earlier than violence … and to not belief a homicidal teenager who insists genocide is the one reply due to one thing he noticed in a imaginative and prescient.