Eren: Freedom Over Humanity

I love this analysis. If I could I would definitely write a paper about this

Eren and Reiner

I’m still seeing people defending Eren and saying that his attack on Liberio is good and justified, given what Reiner did previously, but despite the similarities of their actions, there’s some extremely important differences:

1. Age

Reiner is 12 when he attacks Shiganshina. Eren is 19 when he attacks Liberio.

2. Training - both physical and mental

Reiner has had years of specialist training and indoctrination, living in an internment camp where his mind has been manipulated for years. Riding on his success is the welfare of his entire family and he’s been brainwashed into believing all the people in Paradis are literal devils (his family is shocked when he inadvertantly describes them as normal and human when he returns home). Reiner did exactly what he was trained, encouraged and brainwashed into doing.

Eren has been trained ostensibly as cavalry to fight titans and titans alone. He has witnessed an enemy that isn’t human and has hunted them down. He also gained all of Grisha’s memories and is aware that the people living in Liberio are just like the people of Paradis. Eren is therefor not doing what he was trained to do and as we’ll see soon, has forced his comrades to unwillingly join him on this mission.

3. Relation to the peoples they fight (which I touched on above)

Reiner arrives on Paradis, primed to think they’ll only encounter monsters and inhuman beings on the island. His only encounter with anything living on the island before their assault on the Walls is when Ymir’s mindless Titan eats Marcel - further reinforcing his indoctrinated beliefs about the island. When he and Bertolt destroy Shiganshina they do not know the people. They have not lived among them. They believe they’re killing monsters. Soon after they infitrate the Walls, Reiner comes to realise the “Island Devils” are just ordinary people going about their lives. After spending time living among them Reiner goes further than just imitating Marcel - he has a complete mental break that gives him two personas - the Soldier and the Warrior. When he and Bertolt find the Jaw Titan they take this as an opportunity to retake the Jaw and capture the Attack Titan and retreat without having to infict further horrors on Paradis (unaware that Zeke has been sent to extract them and he’ll have none of that behaviour). Capturing these Titans gave them an out as they didn’t want to fight the Paradisians any more.

Eren meanwhile, as stated, has Grisha’s memories. As well as knowing the depths of the depravity of the Marleyan forces, he knows that Liberio is a town full of downtrodden, miserable Eldians who are trying their best to live their lives despite being treated utterly horrifically by the entire world. Eren then goes there against orders, infitrates their military, shares meals with the soldiers, accepts their medical care and comes to know the Liberio citizens very well indeed. He even meets his grandfather and learns of his regrets, and his descent into madness that followed on as a result of botth Grisha and Zeke’s actions. He knows these are tortured people who are his literal kin. He decides to murder them all anyway, even using an unwitting child - Falco (whom he obviously intended to kill) - in order to facilitiate all of this horror.

4. The knowledge of consequences

Reiner takes a chance in attacking Paradis - he doesn’t know if it will trigger the Rumbling or not, but they’re there to carry out a specific mission. But more importantly in Reiner’s juvenile world, if he completes this mission he might just save the world and save his family and his kin from their miserable lives.

Eren meanwhile listens to Willy’s speech, and knows that the truth of Paradis is coming out - that King Fritz truly did want peace. He also hears Willy describe him personally - and rightly - as a threat to the world. We find out later that there was little chance that Marley would listen to a thing Paradis had to say, but Eren doesn’t even try. He forges onward and makes sure to prove Willy right. He purposefully takes on the mantle of the Island Devil, not caring for the dire consequences this will have for each and every Eldian throughout the world. By extension he aso utlises this summit to declare war against all of the nations gathered - These are nations that suffered under both Eldia and Marley, who unlike Marley have never posed a threat to Paradis and whom Eren personally has made no diplomatic overtures towards, blithely believing the Azumabitos who insist diplomacy won’t work.

So there’s a whole heap of differences in Reiner and Eren’s stories.

To sum all of the above up - Reiner was a literal child who was conditioned, indoctrinated, used, abused and brainwashed into commiting an atrocity against people he didn’t know the first thing about. All he knew about the people of the Walls was lies. Coming to know these people *after* the fact mentally and emotionally broke him and has left him suicidal, full of regrets, and desperate to save his little cousin from the same fate that he is currently enduring.

Eren meanwhile, although he has suffered horrendously, is an adult. A fully informed adult who intimately knows the people of Liberio, who knows they’re just like the people on the island. Indeed he’s taken the time to get to know them. Despite this, he will knowingly try to commit genocide against Liberio - the people he knows have suffered even more than the Islanders have. And he won’t finish there - he plans to ethnically cleanse the entire world.

Yes there are parallels, but these two characters are vastly dissimilar, as are the motives and rationales behind their actions.

Neither is good. If there was such as thing as hell they’d both be going there for sure.

But the actions of one are infinitely more horrific than the other.

Nobody:

Geto:

Gojo: *Trying to kill Geto on a busy sidewalk in front of KFC*

Girls w glasses are so cute. Like wow you have beautiful eyes I’m glad you got them framed

Nssssssssss

I normally am not crazy about anime original endings but I will accept this due to the fact her death was unnecessary.

I mean he could’ve at least been with a veteran for his ending.

The only Anime Original Ending that I‘m hoping for.

Your gonna destroy your own peace confronting everything you see, you have to learn how to let things be. Everything doesn’t need a reaction.

WHY ARE THE UNFINISHED FICS USUALLY THE BEST I’M-

On June the 14th the constitutional court in Belgium stated that prohibition of wearing religious signs in an establishment of higher education does not constitute a violation of freedom of religion nor a violation of the right to human dignity which includes the right to education. This declaration meant that Hijab-wearing women don’t have the right to get higher education. Some will, unfortunately, give up on their dreams and some will be forced to remove the hijab to get an education. “I was in a school establishment where wearing a hijab was forbidden. Therefore, every morning, when I go to school, I had to take it off and put it in my bag. I had the feeling that I was enduring microaggressions from a system that was supposed to protect me”. #HijabisFightBack was a way to protest this discrimination. ✊🏽 The right to education should not be negotiable. (source)

A gentle reminder to all that the first university the world ever saw was founded by a Muslim woman. Today, we have to beg to be able to wear a hijab and get an education at the same time — both of which are fundamental rights that our women are being stripped of. 

THANK YOU!!!!!

I’m sooo tired of people comparing blm to a group of terrorists that literally committed treason

Me when onyankopon was on his hands and knees in front of all them white people and mikasa.

Who ever made this count your fucking days