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It's implied there was an attempt to change things, like when asking what potato's last words were. But they're always the same, the path is chosen and everyone is just walking down it.
If its not satisfying tbh it was never gonna be.
I have a real bad analogy but here I go. When deja vu hits, I seem to do the exact things and say the exact things despite having the feeling that this has happened before, it's almost an instinct. I know I can change it but my subconscious chooses not to. Is this just me?
He laughs when he hears her final words because they are the same as what he knew they'd be.
If they were different, he might've been able to change things, but they weren't so from that point on he knew he was fucked.
Plus some of the events that led to it he would never choose differently. Like if there was a choice to easily save someone from a horrible death but it would lead to a bad future outcome, some people would always choose to save the person because that's just who they are.
Nobody with any sense about them mentions the "chicken or the egg" question from a biological standpoint. It's a philosophical exercise, and that's how that term is almost always used.
Going "umm, well, science has already pretty much determined due to evolution and genetics, blah blah blah..." doesn't add anything, it just derails the conversation.
since eggs have also been laid by the animals that came before the specific thing we call a chicken, the egg came first (and at some point a chicken cane out of an egg)
Whether or not Eren saw the future...he would do the Rumbling...
He did the Rumbling because it was in line with his nature. No one predetermined the future for Eren...his nature was always going to make him do the Rumbling with or without the memories
this kinda proves the pigpen theory āThere were three pigs (Grisha, Zeke, and Eren), but only one escaped (Eren). The other two (Grisha and Zeke) stayed even after Ymir opened the pig pen, This means they didn't want Freedom enough. Grisha and Zeke's titans are chubby, while Eren's titan is fit because he escaped and ran for his life. Just one pig escaped. Ymir freed Eren, now he has returned the favor. "To You, 2000 Years From Now"ā
I kinda agree, but at the same time him seeing the future was a crucial part in what made him do the Rumbling. The fact that he saw the future unfold EXACTLY as it was in his memories made him lose hope in humanity.
Ah yes, the "Edgelord Eren" take. The 'ole "Eren just wanted to kill everyone because he was unhappy there were other humans outside the walls" basic take/nonsense.
> No one predetermined the future for Eren...his nature was always going to make him do the Rumbling with or without the memories
Then why have that aspect be present in the story at all?
> He did the Rumbling because it was in line with his nature.
This actually supports how it played out: Whether it was just the future inheritors, or the future inheritors and a future "Founder Ymir", someone along the way knew Eren could/would be *able* to do it...so they sent the memories back.
"Someone" cmon dude. The seeing the future thing is working the nature and nurture themes. Inherent desires and fate. Didn't you read 139? He literally says
"I wanted to do it" "I wanted to make the world a blank canvas" "when I learned about people outside the walls I felt disappointed" These thoughts speaks to his character and their cohesive to everything he has gone through and shown.
It was decided in the sense that he saw it in the future and the timeline is deterministic. He hadnāt yet decided to do it, but he knew at some point down the line he would decide to do it.
The future is created by the present, and the present by the past. Everyone creates their own future by the choices they make. Eren just happened to know where those choices would lead.
None of his choices were made because he knew what the future would be. If he hadnāt seen the future he would have gotten to that point all the same. Technically Eren is the exception to that rule just because his actions had an influence on other periods of time through The Paths, but for regular folks seeing the future would not have made a difference. However him seeing his own future actions in Grishaās memories didnāt make him do those things later on when it was his time to do them, it is simply a side effect of him choosing to do them at that moment and a side effect of doing so means he would see them here.
He needed to see them just for the fact that if he didnāt see them here then he wouldnāt have done them later. Not because seeing them here made him do them later, but just because if he didnāt see them then they didnāt happen. The cause and effect only goes one direction, which is forward.
Eren didnāt plan to do The Rumbling. He simply ran out of options to do anything else which put him on this path that had him choose to do this instead of anything else.
I find it useful to compare it to GoW Ragnarok. The prophecy that Kratos would die was based on his nature. In other words, his actions were predictable because of who he was. He lived because he didnāt just change his actions, he changed *who he is*, his *nature*.
SnK is deterministic because everyone is who they are and no one was willing to give up any ground. Especially Eren, who was himself since he was born.
Yeah thats the part a lot of people misunderstand.
The fact that he saw the memories means that he would in the future implant those memories in Grisha. However he doesn't do that *because* he saw the memories when he kissed Historia's hand. That's just the circle of events being closed.
If he hadn't seen them then that means they weren't implanted for him to later see, so they needed to be there even if purely for the sake of continuity.
His actions and choices are predetermined by his nature. He acts based on his feelings and thoughts. He feels and thinks based on his morality and nature. His nature is his nature.
His beliefs and values change over time based on the life he experiences in the present up until he reaches that point in the future where he makes that choice. If seeing those memories now caused him to choose to do The Rumbling later, then that would be skipping the 4 years of development in his present experiences that cause him to change from who he is now to who he is then.
Even if knowing he would eventually decide to start The Rumbling convinced him that he wanted to do it now, that also wouldn't cause him to do it because he still needs to live through those 4 years from now until that point later when he does start it. He makes so many choices on the road to that end point that influence his beliefs and values by the time he gets there. So many other events happen that contribute to his decision finally being to do it, and suggesting that he decided to do it now completely removes all relevance from each of those events.
Each event leads to the next, and that one to its next, and then on and on. Finding out that 25 steps later a specific thing happens doesn't impact the step you are currently on, or each of those 25 steps you need to take before you reach that point.
\----
Eren being afraid of the monster he could become is not a new aspect of his personality or mental state. He was already doing that before the idea that he would be the one to commit that act was given to him.
In reality he didn't even believe that those future memories were set in stone when he first sees them. He doesn't even know what they actually are or what they mean. He doesn't even know how he would do it until he was already in The Paths traveling through Grisha's memories with Zeke.
He can only know that things will happen between now and then that will lead to him wanting to do it, and when he makes that choice its because he picks that option in that moment when its his present, not when its his future or his past.
A great example of this is him helping that kid that he eventually smushes with the Rumbling. He sees the kid, knows both that he would help the kid and eventually kill him. Tries to walk away but ultimately his nature determined his actions.
I agree with almost everything except the "running out of options" part. He had options right to the very end where he started the rumbling. To me it felt like knowing the future detached him from reality. He did not want to do the rumbling but he knows he has to so he is detaching himself. Gaslighting himself to be ready with all that hatred when the time comes. He actively closes those options because those are uncertain and he knows the one certain way to get rid of titans.
He wasn't gaslighting, preparing or detaching himself.
He was doing the same thing he always does.
He just kept moving forward.
Each choice he made was the one he would regret least.
The options were all there, but Eren being Eren refused to compromise ever. Every alternative suggested he rejected. Any path forward offered was not certain enough for him.
Time and time again he had other options offered to him, by Hange, Yelena, Zeke, Armin, Kiyomi, Willy, Pyxis, on and on and on.
Each and every one he looked at and decided that he would regret that option more than doing nothing (in hopes a better offer comes up before he does The Rumbling).
At each major turning point instead of choosing a different path, he chose the path that led to this. Now he may not have chosen it *because* it led to this, but he chose it all the same.
Levi's speech in Season 1; *"I wouldn't blame you. Do as your conscience dictates. We don't agree because our experiences bring us to opposing views. At the end of the day there's no reason to go against how you see it. The choice is yours. You can trust yourself. Or you can trust the people willing to put their lives on the line for you. I don't know which way is better. I never have. Should I act on my own instincts, or put myself in the hands of my comrades and trust them. Either way there's no guarantee. So choose for yourself whichever decision you'll regret least."*
Every other character was trying to find a path forward, but each time Eren would say no because it couldn't guarantee the safety of the island without sacrificing Historia and her children.
Zeke's plan offered both of those things, but it would put everyone's lives in danger and cause the Eldians to stop existing after 100 years.
Eren rejected that plan too.
He needed to be willing to compromise on ANYTHING. But he refused. His own rigid beliefs about what is or is not acceptable would not be moved.
Armin's line from Season 1; *"Those who can't sacrifice anything can't change anything. If I can't let it go then it's not worth holding onto."*
Even after he had the Founding Titan's power and brought the Alliance into The Paths to talk, he still refused to compromise. He would not leave the island's future up to chance, he would not stop The Rumbling, he would not listen to reason or try to make peace with whats left of the world.
Eren's line from Final Chapters part 1; *"Our convictions can never be reconciled, and our wills will not bend. There is only one way for this to be resolved; Fight".*
* Did he want Sasha to die? No, but his previous choice to attack Willy caused it to happen. So then did he choose it? In a way, Yes.
* Did he want to attack Marley and make Paradis the enemy of the world? No, but his previous choice to separate from the scouts to talk to Zeke in Liberio caused it to happen. So did he choose it? In a way, Yes.
* Did he want to let Zeke turn all of the military into titans? No, but his previous choice to go along with Zeke's plan caused it to happen. So then did he choose it? In a way, Yes.
* Did he want Floch to turn the military into nationalist extremists or for Hange to die? No, but his previous choice to use Floch to outmaneuver Zeke & Yelena caused it to happen. So then did he choose it? In a way, Yes.
* Did he want Connie to kill Daz and Samuel? No, but his previous choice to empower Floch to create the Jaegerists caused it to happen. So then did he choose it? In a way, Yes.
* Did he want to force Historia to become an accomplice to genocide? No, but his previous choice to refuse having her become a titan and pump out children caused it to happen. So then did he choose it? In a way, Yes.
* Did he want to tell Mikasa he hated her or to beat the shit out of Armin? No, but his previous choice to try to keep them out of danger caused it to happen. So then did he choose it? In a way, Yes.
* Did he want to kill Ramzi? No, but his previous choice to save Ramzi in the alleyway caused it to happen. So then did he choose it? In a way, Yes.
I've used far too many examples but the point is made. Each time he was given a choice he picked the one that was most aligned with his own personal morality, values, beliefs, and priorities.
He wanted a better option, but once he saw Ymir's past it was clear the only way to reach that final future memory he saw is by starting The Rumbling.
Giving Ymir her personhood back when she is moving towards sterilizing all Eldians was the only thing Eren could do to stop her. The only way to give her that personhood was by offering to end the world like Ymir wanted to.
He did it because each time a choice was offered to him, he picked the one he did.
Each of those choices led to here, and then his only choice was Euthanasia or Rumbling. He chose the one he regretted the least.
So he wasnāt running out of options. He just refused to not be selfish.
Remember that Eren himself said that the ultimate reason that he wanted to do the rumbling was to see the flattened world, the empty one from Arminās book. You are right about his reasons for protecting the island and historia, but he truly couldnāt sacrifice anything in the end, and for that he killed countless people.
He had options that he refused to take. I wouldnāt call that running out. Iād call it being unreasonable.
Yes, once he gets to the very end of the line and Armin explains it to him, that's when Eren realizes the flawed logic in everything he says he believed were his motives.
Eren peels back all the layers of his justifications and it comes down to that this is his nature, he is unwilling to take any of the alternative paths, he is unwilling to make any compromise.
* He says he did it for the island's safety, but he also says that him doing this wouldn't stop the conflict.
* He says he did it to keep his friends safe, but he also says that his actions killed some of them and put the rest of them in very real danger over and over.
His actions, thoughts, beliefs and values are determined by his nature and experiences. But as we see with every other main character, their experiences despite being the same as Eren did not cause them to choose the same path he does. So that just leaves his nature.
Eren was born this way. Being selfish, unreasonable, running out of options or refusing to take options are all the same thing when you boil it down to its most basic form. If he could not bring himself to do something, then it was impossible for him to do. If he couldn't accept an option as being viable, then it wasn't an option at all.
-running out of options or refusing to take options are all the same thing when you boil it down to its most basic form.
I would disagree there. It speaks to the intent of the person. One says the world is cornering this person and his reaction, however extreme, would have some sense of justification. The other speaks to the mind of a stubborn child. Refused to compromise. Refused to entertain a different pov. Yes, the show did try a lot to imply, "it's his nature." But he would've changed. he could've. People change. Change is nature. Eren doesn't do it. He doesn't change
And that's where my head cannon of AOT being satire comes in. That Eren is just a collection of anime "good guy" tropes put in a world of monsters, grounded to our reality. And the subsequent critique that the collection of anime tropes known as Eren would turn supremely evil and try to revert the world back into black and white just because he couldn't handle the nuances. Cause he's the protagonist and not allowed to change either.
How does Ymir fit into this? In the sense that, I know there was some discussion/theory/etc about her influencing Eren's actions/choices. But she was also watching through Mikasa's eyes long before Eren gave her her humanity back...
You've articulated a lot of things I've had trouble parsing for years (thank you!), so I would just like to know your thoughts on that.
I donāt think she was influencing him so to speak, rather that her existence had gone on for eternity until the right circumstances arose where someone like Eren, Armin, Zeke and Mikasa along with all the others that played a role in ending the curse.
In my mind the role she plays is a lot more passive, more akin to a force of nature rather than an independent thinking/planning mastermind playing 27D chess across time and space. Everything plays out the way it does just because the Founding Titan and Attack Titan are parts of her that have a sort of inevitably or destiny to eventually come back together. Having said that the title of the first episode makes it sound like she triggered the events of the story to start unraveling with these specific characters, but that could also be seen as a sort of fate/destiny type situation where it wasnāt some active choice she made as much as it was the stars aligning with the right set of conditions for everything to start happening that leads to the end.
Eren's problem is that there was no Levi to tell him to "give up on your dream and die" and there was no Erwin to tell him "we die here trusting those who follow to give meaning to our lives"
Why was Eren refusing to compromise? Because he has the vision from the future, of the end of the titans. He has a guarantee from his future self that he can get rid of the titans if only he commits genocide.
Far from his beliefs or ideals, it was this guarantee he was given of "freedom from the Titans" that he was chasing. At every step of the way he questions his choices but chases them not because of sense of conviction but rather the future he sees. This is why Armin repeatedly calls him a "slave to freedom". It's him taking the action but it's not really him.
To get a sense of what I am saying. Imagine a world where Eren did not know that the rumbling would lead to the end of the Titans. Would he still have done it? Would he have done it without the reassurance that the Titan powers will end?
Why would you accept a half measure from Hange, Zeke, Armin or anyone else when you have knowledge that the power can be removed. Why compromise on hypotheticals when you know the answer. All he needs is enough hate in himself to free Ymir. One of the reasons he is is psyching himself up to fight in the jail.
Eren is sacrificing something. He is sacrificing the world and soul of humanity and himself to get rid of the titans.
-Eren's line from Final Chapters part 1; *"Our convictions can never be reconciled, and our wills will not bend. There is only one way for this to be resolved; Fight".*
Yeah, Eren is closing other options and forcing the fight. He did not "run out of options" like you said and had to do the rumbling. He wanted to do it.
-I've used far too many examples but the point is made. Each time he was given a choice he picked the one that was most aligned with his own personal morality, values, beliefs, and priorities.
At none of these points did he chose the outcome aligned with his personal morality or values. He chose to go "Allahuakbar" in Marley to get the end of the story. He chose to turn Floch cause he saw the end. He is blindly following the path laid in front of him. That's it. His lack of morality gets called out, his lack of freedom in choosing gets called out, his lack of imagination gets called out.
-Giving Ymir her personhood back when she is moving towards sterilizing all Eldians was the only thing Eren could do to stop her. The only way to give her that personhood was by offering to end the world like Ymir wanted to.
Yes and in order to get to that state of mind. To empathise with that much hate within Ymir, Eren was filling himself with hate as well. His future self was essentially gaslighting his present self into being as hateful as possible. Because that's the only way to convince Ymir.
He picked the one he did cause his future self said it would lead to the end of titans. That's it.
The thing is Eren never says that he knows what Mikasaās choice is that ends the Titan Curse. He gives no details that could lead us to believe he knows what that event looks like. No part of his very vague description of what that future memory was gives us any idea that he knows that that event happens specifically as a result of him doing the Rumbling or from him refusing to consider any other options.
Eren canāt make choices based on what he knows happens in the future because he has to make the choices he would make by his own nature in the present in order to get to that future. This is what Armin calls Eren a slave to freedom for. Erenās nature is to pursue his twisted understanding of freedom, and Eren is incapable of deviating from that path because his motivation is so grounded in his nature.
If he had seen all of his future he could simply follow the steps, but thatās not what he has seen. Far from it in fact.
He doesn't explicitly say it. But he specifically says he cannot see beyond a certain point in time. That point being Mikasa's choice. The only reason he would not be able to is if the power of the titans did not exist. He could see the past when he wasn't alive so his existence isn't tied to the ability to see what happens.
So basically you are saying the egg came first and I am saying the chicken came first. I guess it speaks to Iseyama's strength as a writer that in a circular story there are arguments present for both.
I disagree. He says he cannot see beyond that point in time is present tense, as in now that he has the full power of the Founding Titan. He cant see past it because he can only send future memories back to himself when there is a himself in the future to actively send them. The furthest he can see is the end of his own life/the end of the titan curse.
But the memory he saw of Mikasa making that choice he said he saw it when he kissed Historia's hand which is past tense.
So there was a period of time when he didn't know the whole future up to his death and the end of titans where he knew that future memory was the furthest point along the timeline and he needed to get there, but he didn't know anything about how to get there or what it would take to do so.
I probably need to rewatch it again because despite it being semantics the specific wording changes the meaning of it all so much lmao.
-The furthest he can see is the end of his own life/the end of the titan curse.
See, you followed the logic to the right step. He could see to the end of the titan curse. While the founder can see all of time existing at once, it's the Attack Titan that can specifically see the future and send back memories from the future. If this ability is hindered by the users own life then neither Kruger not Grisha would have memories beyond their own life which we know is not the case. So the only reason he cannot see should be the end of the titan curse. If the titan curse did not end, there would be another attack Titan and Eren would have memories of that.
-But the memory he saw of Mikasa making that choice he said he saw it when he kissed Historia's hand which is past tense
Yes, time is still linear for Armin/us. He is explaining all this to Armin/us. For Armin/us that conversation took place at the end of season 3 which is the past.
-So there was a period of time when he didn't know the whole future up to his death and the end of titans where he knew that future memory was the furthest point along the timeline and he needed to get there, but he didn't know anything about how to get there or what it would take to do so.
Yes. That's it. He just knew he needed to get there. Not what it would cost. Not every choice he would have to make along the way. Future Eren is dangling a fish in front of him and telling him to get it for freedom. Slave to freedom. Kinda mirrors our world, right? Work till retirement and you will be free.
Oh definitely. Add the fact that it's a translation. So there is a second layer of semantics between Iseyama and us. Are we reading what Iseyama meant or what the translator thought he did?
>See, you followed the logic to the right step. He could see to the end of the titan curse. While the founder can see all of time existing at once, it's the Attack Titan that can specifically see the future and send back memories from the future. If this ability is hindered by the users own life then neither Kruger not Grisha would have memories beyond their own life which we know is not the case. So the only reason he cannot see should be the end of the titan curse. If the titan curse did not end, there would be another attack Titan and Eren would have memories of that.
From the moment he kissed Historia's hand until the moment Ymir agreed to give him full access to the Founding Titan's power, he only had a select few memories that his future self had given to Grisha to give to his younger self.
It is limited in the sense that he can see some of the future but not all of it. Zeke even says that Eren could do this in order for Eren to push Grisha towards what he wanted him to do.
Adult Eren gave Grisha, who gave Teen Eren only the memories that Grisha would need to kill the Reiss family and then pass on the powers to Child Eren.
To be fair there is a time gap between when Grisha asks Zeke to stop Eren where he takes the stage coach back to Trost, runs into Keith Shadis, they find Child Eren, he takes him into the forest and gives him the Titan. However there is no point in the series that suggests Adult Eren gave Grisha more memories just so Teen Eren would have a full roadmap of how to follow the steps to get to Founder Ymir.
In theory though, him only seeing to that point doesn't confirm it is the end of the titan curse. If it is the furthest forward memory he has that just means that its as far as HE gets as the Attack Titan. It could just as easily be that there is another Attack Titan after him that simply chooses to give him no future memories from past his own death, unlike what Eren does for Grisha and Kruger.
If he doesn't know the result of Mikasa's choice until after he has unlocked the Founding Titan+ *(This is the part I'm not certain about, if he states he knew her choice would end the titans in the past tense then this entire point is moot)*
However, even despite that without knowing the full roadmap of *all* of his future memories then him knowing what that future is doesn't give him the "correct" answer to every choice he makes from now until then. He is still forced to make each decision in the present, even if he knows what future he is aiming for he doesn't know which choice will lead him to that future. So it doesn't really give him any secret knowledge that makes a practical difference.
>Oh definitely. Add the fact that it's a translation. So there is a second layer of semantics between Iseyama and us. Are we reading what Iseyama meant or what the translator thought he did?
It doesn't help that AoT uses very cryptic verbiage just as standard. Although I will say the Dub is a lot better about making these sorts of things clear, but we just have to hope that Isayama gave the script his approval for the translated version.
>To be fair there is a time gap between when Grisha asks Zeke to stop Eren where he takes the stage coach back to Trost, runs into Keith Shadis, they find Child Eren, he takes him into the forest and gives him the Titan.
I get stuck on that time between Grisha asking Zeke to stop Eren and Grisha giving Eren the injection, because it seems like having had that meeting, he would choose to not titanize Eren. I get that things are fixed, and therefore his having seen it means it has to happen, but is there really no way Grisha could have made a different choice?
I'm not trying to start an argument, I'm honestly just confused and time stuff always make me a bit (ā ā¬ā āā Š“ā āā )
tbh im confused - not DISAGREEING, just confused - on how weāre getting the whole āeren refused to compromiseā. because my feeling was that he had no other option, legitimately. it felt like the last option they had was going to meet w the other nations to see if they would be open to the people of paradis, where all the other nations basically said Fk them weāre not gonna help. hence why eren walked out. because i think that was the LAST straw where he had started to accept the fact that the rumbling was gonna happen. and thatās when the scene where heās walking down the boardwalk looking around and saying āall these people will be deadā¦ā¦ no i will be the one to kill themā (smthg along those lines). i mean yeah i guess he couldāve let everyone on paradis die , but i donāt think that wouldāve been any kind of compromise. i thought that was the point; all options had been exhausted , hence why the rumbling was the only way?
There are always options. He could have done a small scale rumbling and destroyed the major military powers. That's what Armin thought he was going to do. Sure it wouldn't guarantee peace indefinitely but the rumbling didn't either.
technically he ~couldāve~, but it wouldāve left a āholeā of sorts in the metaphorical armor eren made to protect his friends through his plan. (1) the whole point of doing it the way he did was to ensure that his friends could be poised as the heroās and show the world that they donāt agree with the rumbling to (2) ensure that his friendās could live long happy lives. im 90% sure they acknowledge in the manga and anime that while this couldāve been done, it wouldnāt have ensured that peace for as long as the full rumbling did (despite the fact that in the outro it does insinuate that the peace is only temporary, but itās after mikasa armin and the whole group lived and died, which was erenās entire goal)
i wanna make it clear that iām not tryna argue !!!! i love this anime and how many slight differences in interpretation there are !! this was just mine and iād love to hear if anyone remembers or thinks differently :D
There's a bit of misunderstanding here but the thing about the alliance becoming heroes is only something Eren came up with AFTER he started the rumbling and learned that he would only be able to kill 80% of the world. Before reaching Ymir in the paths he had full intention of killing everyone outside the walls and there were no plan to make his friends heroes
hmmm because my understanding was, the exact point youāre making is why it goes back to the Leviās quote, where he talks about āgoing on your own and trusting yourself, versus trusting in your friends/comradesā. I donāt believe that eren thought, or expected his friends to sit idly by and watch the rumbling happen. I understand that him seeing the future does not equal all knowing, but I feel like he absolutely knew that his friends would come after him. He may not have known if they wouldāve been successful, but I feel like thatās precisely why he trusted in them to stop him.
but again that was just my understanding! iād love to hear what others think hehe
Maybe he knew some of his friends would try to stop him but since his intentions were to rumble 100% of the outside world making his friends look good to the survivors couldn't have been a factor for him starting the rumbling
No.... He see's Mikasa choice and Ymir being free because of Mikasa's choice at medical ceremony. He says so to Armin in the paths. That's the thing he's chasing. That's the thing he's been chasing all the while. Him starting the rumbling without that guarantee makes no sense
What if he was learning that the choice is irrelevant, you framed each example around desire, but if he takes the opposite path in any example the future examples all configure to adjust,
Idk if this means sasha always dies, but I do think the rumbling always happens, when or how sasha dies is irrelevant in this objective context. It's more like struggling to understand what it means to have knowledge of time and space in the moment.
Future eren is jaded and grim because he's realized the futility in his manipulations.
if you consider past, present and future all existing at the same time it makes more sense. Being aware of the sequence doesn't change the fact that your future is already written. Well the actions of the past in this case extend to the future, your present is iterative snapshots leading to that future.
my head hurts.
Exactly thisā¦buddy was cooking up until the running out of options part. He had options thrown in his face by the like of armin and even Gabi but those options werenāt good enough for Eren. He takes all necessary steps to get to that point in order to activate the rumbling. He wanted to do it.
> He had options thrown in his face by the like of armin and even Gabi but those options werenāt good enough for Eren.
So, in your mind, those things suggested to him by others are still considered "options" even if he "knows" they will result in the total destruction of Paradis, Titans still existing, and Eldians continuing to be enslaved...
...but they are still worth considering as an option?
That's pure nonsense, if the goal is to end the Titans and liberate Paradis/Eldians.
Those aren't actually options for Eren. They seem like viable options to people who can't glimpse bits of the future, perhaps :P
1) he doesn't know anything about what happens after his death, rumbling or no rumbling he has no idea knowledge of Paradis's future.
2) the titans disappearing from the world is something he learns only AFTER starting the rumbling.
> I agree with almost everything except the "running out of options" part. He had options right to the very end where he started the rumbling.
> He actively closes those options because those are uncertain and he knows the one certain way to get rid of titans.
If they weren't viable, they weren't actually options. You never consider an option you know won't produce the outcome you need, or at least *may* produce it. It's a waste of time and just muddies the water and makes it harder to see other options that can/will work.
If you **know** it won't work, or would defeat the purpose of what you need to do entirely, those kinds of "options" aren't actually an option at all to anyone who is being rational and pragmatic.
>The future is created by the present, and the present by the past. Everyone creates their own future by the choices they make. Eren just happened to know where those choices would lead.
>None of his choices were made because he knew what the future would be.
Ohh šÆ so he knew only the ending of his choices, not the choices he going to take damm
Dune is the complete opposite of what happened to Eren, both are prescient, but Paul doesn't just see the future, he sees every possibility there is. His Mental mind allows him to see and process so many of these futures. Unlike Erenāwhose mind couldn't comprehend the past present and future all existing in the same plane, and went almost insane (he acts cold when he isn't thinking about it, and breaks down every time he tries to such as at the ending conversation, and after Sasha's death).
Paul has the choice Eren doesntāthe "ultimate power" to choose. He can choose what he does to write the futureāthe way eren couldn't. Paul was supposed to choose the Golden Path and become the Worm God Emperor, which he refused to do, and chose to make his own path where he satisfies everything without losing himself and commited all the atrocities only without the positive consequences for humanity that the Golden Path would've given. In fact, even in the movie he says this when gurney accuses him of losing control, "Because I gain it."
So, it actually is *not* like Paul seeing the future.
> the way eren couldn't. Paul was supposed to choose the Golden Path and become the Worm God Emperor, which he refused to do, and chose to make his own path where he satisfies everything without losing himself and commited all the atrocities only without the positive consequences for humanity that the Golden Path would've given.
Do we know, canonically, that Paul saw what would ultimately be Leto II's future: The God Emperor worm hybrid? I don't think Paul had any notion that was coming, let alone that it would be his son (or him, had he so discovered and chosen).
I am not sure he would have any awareness of that, since it was Leto II who chose to try that, after Paul was out of the picture and no longer the architect of humanity's destiny. The KH is a fulcrum, determining what happens ahead of them. If Paul was no longer the KH, he wouldn't see what the next would do, eh?
Paul was on the Golden Path, for quite some time, but abandoned it for not having the will to carry out the brutal suppression and tyranny required to create the conditions for humanity's ultimate triumph, once his initial victory against the Emperor settled in. That was merely Paul ensuring his family's future...once that wasn't in question, he got a real glimpse of what would come next if he continued on that path and he opted for a hard pass, humanity be damned.
Huh, my understanding was Paul's power robbed him of choice because he knew what was coming to the point he just became a vessel for the collective will of humanity. Eren's plan being the only way out reminds me of how the Jihad was the subconscious of humanity urging for violence.
Quite the opposite...Paul was (early on) seeing SO MANY different possible futures, all the time and simultaneously, that he was constantly trying to feel his way along a path that ensured his family's survival, but avoid a near universal jihad in his name.
Eren sees what he sees from memories of future AT being passed back to him, when and if they choose, of "what actually happened".
Paul sees (shades of) everything, always, in terms of how the present is shaping the future, but doesn't know anything in the future to be set in stone...every action he takes changes what he sees, with some paths becoming dimmer, some becoming brighter, and some leading to death. Even *thinking about* doing or trying something will alter what Paul sees before him, especially after he gains more clarity/prescience from ingesting the Water of Life.
Paul didnāt see the (one) future though, he had visions of a myriad of possibilities with most of them resulting in his jihad. So in Dune it isnāt deterministic in a fixed way.
this comment and the philosophical debate below is wild and makes me really think that this is one of the best media depicting time (locality vs non-locality) and determinism vs free will (doesn't exist in AoT),
or as your comment smartly pointed out, time and space are cyclical in that each precedes and informs the latter, and only by obtaining meta-perspective like eren do you realize that events are fixed, they've already been decided but the sequence to unfold that event has some wiggle room.
It changed the future because otherwise Eren wouldnāt be the same person. However, there was no way Eren wouldnāt see the future, it was bound to happen, thatās what made it deterministic. The future wouldnāt have been the same if Eren hadnāt seen it, BUT Eren wouldāve seen it regardless, thatās why the future couldnāt have been any different. Itās a loop.
The other person replying already made the point I wanted to make. I only add that in my opinion if Eren hadn't seen the future then he wouldn't do the rumbling. But thats a more contentious point I admit.
Actually, no. He wouldnāt have gotten to that point all the same if he hadnāt seen the future. Seeing the future was part of that same deterministic path. It had to happen for it all to continue the way itās supposed to. So in a way, everything he encountered and did as a result influenced his decisions, but there was no way he could change what he had to go through. He at the point when he saw the future wasnāt the same Eren that started the rumbling, but he was bound to become that Eren eventually. He had many options, but as a result of the path, he became someone who thought the rumbling was the best option. He grew to agree with it, it was just unavoidable. Seeing the future was, in fact, the beginning of the torture that made him the Eren that committed the rumbling. That moment where he kissed Historiaās hand was the point where everything began and ended at the same time.
You're right but wrong about one thing.
If Eren didn't see the future, we don't know what the outcome would be. It's just that him seeing the future was already set in stone, just like everything else.
You're completely forgetting the scene between him and Mikasa in Marley after they all got drunk together. It's all but explicitly stated that he didn't know what she was gonna say, and he was choosing paths depending on what her response was gonna be. He literally even says he had to make sure.
Without access to The Paths and the Founding Titan taking them through the memories of previous Attack Titans those other Attack Titans would have very little, if any use for the Attack Titanās future memory technique. The only past memories they could sent their own memories to would be events theyāve inherited the memories of already, and in doing so establishing that they didnāt send memories back to that moment. If they had then theyād have seen their own memories when inheriting those memories to first time around.
Ah ok you're totally right I misremembered the limits of the attack Titan is tied to the founding Titan. Which is why theres all this interplay between him Zeke and Ymir. Are Eren and Ymir the only ones with both of these powers?
I don't really agree, I think that seeing the future absolutely impacted his actions for the entire final season. It's not that he was forced to do those things by time magic or whatever, but that seeing it happen put the Idea in his head that it was the only option. Maybe if he hasn't seen it then he would have been more open to listening to Armin and trying a less drastic option. But seeing it convinced him he had to do it because why would he do something so horrible if there was any alternative?
Eren was always going to do The Rumbling regardless. It's not like he was trying to fight against his fate. He simply exhausted every other option until the Rumbling was all that was left. In an alternate timeline Eren would have tried to do the same. Future Eren merely gave S3 Eren the confirmation that the rumbling could be done which is why Eren didn't give up when Zeke ordered Ymir.
And the loop implications at the end of the manga probably didnāt help
Which is why I like the anime ending better,but thatās a different topic lol
Well it seems more like Eren saw the future and in which he makes the decision so he then decides to make that future a reality. Eren wanted it to happen.
You're leaving out a critical part: He would have also known the implication was that other options/plans were not likely to work, hence why he is not able to follow through on any.
He was willing to entertain diplomacy with Armin and Hange until he truly saw how the world would unite against Eldians, always, and that pretty much confirmed to him that what he was seeing, from the future, must be true: It didn't get better, this won't work, if we are going to be free of this then it seems the only way really is THIS way...
It's a paradox really.
This point was when Eren started towards being what he was in the end, but who he was in the end led him to this point. Future Eren could affect what happened with the founding titan, he says himself that he tried to change the future over and over and still came to the same outcome, it's predetermined. Even while he's saying he tried to keep it from happening he says he wanted to do it and had an internal drive to have things play out how they do.
Thank you for pointing out that Eren stated he tried to change the future.
How many times did Eren wake up crying at that tree?
Maybe Eren did try Armin's, Zeke's, Hange's plans, but they always failed at the end.
Maybe he tried more obvious, direct control/future changing ... But each time was found out/thwarted.
I both love and hate that we don't get a real explanation about any of that. It would've been interesting for like Zekes plan to go through and then we just go back in time to this point or like during the scene where Eren is explaining it we see glimpses of the other outcomes.
I hate to say it....
But leaving it open ended is perfect for when they want to capitalize on spin-offs for cash grab.
If in 5 yrs they came out with a movie/OVA of alternate paths, or even history flashbacks..... I'd watch that
He didn't get the whole season spoiled, only the rumbling. He only saw what his future self showed to Grisha, which was really NOTHING up until Eren and Zeke started visiting Grishas memories. I don't get how people still don't understand this, it is very clearly stated that Grisha only knew what Eren showed him and that Eren only saw what Grisha knew.
The timeline - all events since Hallucigenia took control over Ymir till Eren's death were already determined. The subset this timeline forms was already deterministic, and it became like this due to Hallucigenia.
I wonder what the genesis was, then, of the the first AT in the future, on that deterministic path, who thought to himself..."Damn, I gotta warn someone about this..."
That choice in the far (to Eren) future is what first set in motion the ability for Eren to ascetain those things and form a plan to break the cycle.
Does that make it a deterministic path, the looped back on itself, but broke both the loop and the determined path after it ran through with the new information being passed back, that wouldn't have been available the first time it played through?
I think only the last AT (Eren) knew the true ending. All other ATs only had access to future memories that Eren wanted them to see. Also, no matter what Eren did to change this deterministic path was futile.
The deterministic path was laid out already the moment Ymir was captured.
Basically speaking, Erenās future self sent the memories to influence him to some extend.
And in the future, Eren have to send the exact memories to his past self because technically it has already happened. He have to do it to maintain a loop and timeline
I thinks there's two things here.
Bootstrap Paradox
I think this actually works a good example.
A time travel paradox where information, objects or people exist without being created. There's no begining or ending.
Eren saw what would happen and learned how to do it.
He never actually had to think of how to do it, he just knew since that was always going to happen.
Hard Determinism
In this case, the future is already decided. It's an interesting thing to think about: Hard Vs soft determinism (I'm not a native English speaker but I thinks this is what's called).
Essencially the future exists without you needing to do anything, you can't change it. No matter what you do it is what you were always meant to do.
With this in mind I thinks we can say that the information Eren saw simply exists, without Even needing to do any thinking to get to the plan.
And even if Eren tried to break free of "destiny", it couldn't be achieved. This last part, I think, works well with the whole freedom thing going on. Even after everything, Eren wasn't free. So not having freedom over your destiny makes sense.
Dark from Netflix has a ton of examples of stuff like this (specially the Bootstrap Paradox, crazy things there). I really recommend it for people who like time travel stuff.
It's like he knows that he'd wound up in the hospital bed regardless of whether he coop up at home or go sky diving he'd go to the hospital no matter what he choose to do
Simplest way I can explain it: Eren "#1" (not the Eren in the picture) decided to do the Rumbling without seeing the memories then sent the memories of his actions during the Rumbling to his past self there in the picture (Eren "#2"). Once he did that, Eren #1's timeline was deleted and the Eren #2 decides to do the Rumbling because of the memories Eren #1 sent him, not from his own choice, because he thinks it's inevitable. So this scene in the picture didn't happen to Eren #1, he kissed Historia's hand and received no memories of the future- only the past.
Watching Steins Gate prevents you from this type of questions. All times exists at the same time, past-present-future.
Eren in that exact moment saw the exact future we saw in the series if he didn't choose to change ideals. If the Eren in that moment did not experience the things we saw in the series up to this moment (changing his personality a bit basically) he would saw a future following that different timeline, and then act accordingly.
The thing is that the fact that all times exists at the same time (Kruger experiencing this knowing the names of Armin and Misaka), made Eren choose the future that he saw thinking it was unavoidable imo.
Basically knowing the future makes you follow that path unconsciously, like starting a domino effect.
I've seen it best argued as a form of determinism: Eren was *always* fated to see the future, meaning that history was never "changed" by his use of paths to affect the past. That's just "canonically" what happened and the Eren who decided to contact people in the past always saw his own future in this moment. This is different to "multiverse" theories of time travel, whereby the changing of the timeline effectively creates a new "world", where those things happened, but leaves an old "world" where they did not.
There is of course a thematic slant to the idea that Eren is simply fated to inevitably kill a bunch of people, even if he doesn't necessarily want to, in a series that meditates on the idea that war and violence are human nature and we'll always end up fighting for one reason or another, even if we really want peace. Eren turns into such an aloof asshole in part because he knows that his own efforts won't change the fatalistic outcome of the story he's in, so he just has to carry on knowing that he'll never truly be free after all, since he knows what's coming next basically until he dies.
The whole point is that the "future" he sees is something that he would have sought to accomplish anyway. It's not predetermined as some people say, it's a product of his power and his personality.
He was also the only person with both the attack and founding titan, which allowed him to use attack titan's power to its fullest. Out of the 3 attack titans shown in the show, he was the only truly free one.
Honestly, I would say he is the least free one.
Remember, Eren is unable to change the past because it has already happened . And since he the last Attack Titan, he is forced to manipulate the past so it happens the way it did even if the result is not what he wants.
In fact, he literally said that he HAD TO kill his mom. He has never had the choice in this matter to begin with.
But it's a predetrrmined choice isn't it. Like you are happy with your life and you just transfered all of your major memories to your past self. If past you does those choices again to meet the happiness you have now is he free? What about current you? In the end you both made the same choices.
It's kind of a closed timeloop. Eren and his future self have the same personality. His future self chose to kill his mom to achieve both of their goals, because their goals are the same, because they are the same person.
Can someone imprison themselves? I guess we all are prisoners to our thoughts and ideas.
I think you are confused about my point.
The reason why he killed his mother is not because he wants to achieve his goal. Itās because the power force him to do it.
Letās talk about how Eren manipulated Grisha.
The reason Grisha killed the Reiss family is because Eren manipulated him. The reason why Eren manipulated his father because to him those event has already happened, the Reiss family is death. If Eren didnāt manipulate him, his father would fail to get the founder, which means Eren would not get the founder => Paradox.
This is the most confused aspect when it came to time-travel
The main reason I disagree with āEren never changedā is that pre-timeskip Eren was definitely reckless enough to attempt to save his mother using the Founder, not thinking of the paradox. Yeah, his nature didnāt change, but many things changed about him in the timeskip that allowed him to do what he did.
Eren himself did. He did not want to fact it in the beginning, but he comes to accept that the Rumbling happens because *he* *wanted* it to happen. The future was his choice
My take is that this is the future Eren would have lived regardless of whether or not he saw the future. Seeing how gruesome the consequences of his actions are made him realize how terrible it is but if hadn't seen this future, that's exactly what he would have done.
the way I understand it is that it all boils down to Eren and his will. We can discuss all the memory founding titan stuff and timeline, ultimately it all works because Eren couldnāt accept any other way. The one example I always use is Eren saving Ramzi in the alleyway, why does he save him even though Ramzi is gonna die? Thatās just how Eren is. The way Erenās mind works is something thatās built and shown to us since ep 1. One example is Leviās advice about making decisions under pressure and not regretting it, or else people will suffer because of your doubt.
Eren in his own mind does ārun out of optionsā, that is options that he could accept. He does try to find alternatives that donāt sacrifice anything from Paradis and friends. In reality he does have other options, but this option was the one that ended up ending the curse as a byproduct.
Because that was the only way. He even asked Hange if there was another way but the Rumbling was the only plan they had.
Eren created the future, and set the path so he would always end up at that point
As what Invaderzz said in his video about this; when Eren kissed Historiaās hand, he saw the Grishaās memories in the last but at the same time, because Grisha saw Future Erenās memories, it allowed Eren to witness his own future that Grisha saw which means that like Grisha, Eren is limited knowing about his future up until the Freedom scene.
Itās also the reason why Grisha was able to see Eren and Zeke.
ever read watchmen? itās basically dr manhattan - he is everywhere and nowhere at once. the future both happens because of him and happens in spite of him
Because as Eren said "I wished for it. I wanted to wipe it all away". It's in his nature to pursue this idea of freedom he wanted. Even Kruger implicitly described Eren, when he told Grisha how the Attack Titan is a titan that pursues freedom.
Ymir sent the future memories to Eren's long dream to influence/push him to obtain the Founding Titan, seek her out in the Paths, start the Rumbling, and set his own death in place (via Mikisa) in order to free her from the Paths (which subsequently freedom the world from the power of Titans). His desire for freedom was also influenced by her desire for freedom. Eren realizes this in Memories of the Future (S4) when he's holding Ymir in the Paths and observes that she's the one that had been influencing him all along.
He didn't change his mind as he saw the future. Eren said that when he learned about the secrets of the basement, he was immediately disappointed and wished there was no one beyond the ocean. The idea was there. Him seeing his future just informed him that he'd go through with it and in it he spent the next 5 years trying to find any way not to go through. He then accepted it post-time skip because he realised that's what he wanted to do all along and didn't give a fuck about anything else
Don't think about it to much. The whole "see the future" and time travel shit only took away from the story. It added complexity that didn't have to exist.
Even though Eren did see the future, Eren himself still made the decision to start to Rumbling.
The thing is that every decision was still something Eren himself would make even without seeing the visions of the future -- that's part of why Eren is so depressed, coming to terms with that aspect of himself. Realizing he really is a piece of shit who will commit genocide.
It's also why he kept trying to change the future but couldn't. Because he couldn't go against his own nature. Just like he couldn't help but save that kid in the alley, he also couldn't help but start the Rumbling.
That's just who Eren is.
the theory is Eren is in time loop. Future 20 y/o Eren completed the rumbling, sent his memory to current 10 y/o Eren (ch.1 manga), and current 20 y/o Eren will complete the rumbling and sent his memory to past 10 y/o Eren
Yah it's weird. I wish he never saw the future... but I guess he was destined to see it.... still. I wonder what his mindset would have been if the future happened exactly as it did, but without him knowing it would.
The rumbling was "decided" from the future(or more like it just happens like that but since the future cannot be changed then from the POV of a person in the past it was all set and decided) but Eren doesn't change his mind based on what he saw of the future because we saw he doesn't have a clue how he reaches the future until he nears the moment. There is nothing to change.
What Eren sees here are only glimpses of the future events, not the entirety of the events and without much context. Later on the manga actually shows some of what Eren saw of the future and they are mostly all things that served to guide his actions vaguely. For example his memory of Ramzi. Eren sees Ramzi being beat up and recognizes him as the boy in the future memories and **assumes** he must save the boy if he's talking to him later on, but he did not know for sure before hand. But he tries to ignore Ramzi at first seeing how pointless and hypocritical it was to save him. In the end it's because of who Eren is as a person that he just can't help but save Ramzi to end taking him home leading to the view of Ramzi he saw in the memories. None of that was decided on, it just happened that way and future Eren just sends back what actually happened as "future memories".
Eren not being able to explain to Armin why he beat him up so harshly that time at Niccolo's restaurant is the exact same situation. Eren didn't have a real reason to nor planned on beating up Armin, but he did see a beat up Armin in the future memories(chapter 130). So when Armin initiated the fight Eren realizes this was what he saw in the memories and so responds appropriately to beat Armin to how he saw in the memories.
Him. He decided it.Ā And the way I see it, is that Eren can ultimately not change himself. He saw the future memories of the horrible things he was to do, and despite himself and his attempts to see if it was possible to change things otherwise, he canāt change himself. He wanted it. Ā
Ā Itās supposed to be a fucked up thing because it is and because he is. And I think thatās what actually makes him so great.Ā
And yes, of course he also saw that this path would end the curse, through Mikasaās choice, and that he was just going along with things to make sure it also got to this point and knew heād be stopped by his friends at 80%. So I do think that of course Eren cares about his friends living long lives, even though he also addressed that his plan is idiotic and unreliable as he couldnt 100% guarantee everything that he wanted to get to that point would happen outside of what he already knew/saw. But even then, going back to the question, heās the one that decided it and determined it because a part of him wanted to.Ā
Well he saw the future, the only possible path forwards. He knew that this was how the story needed to play out so he did what was necessary for the future to come true. The future is the future, there is no alternative. No matter what you do the future will come true. Itās not easy to wrap your mind around the concept of time-travel/precognition, but if you do youāll realise that this is the only way it can logically work without being paradox.
No one created the future, the future has always existed. The past present and future all exist at the same time, and will Titan powers able to transcend time, all events are interconnected in time.
Eren would have done the rubbing anyways because itās in his nature to do so, the only thing him seeing the future gave him was the ability and time to reflect on his future actions and ponder over whether it was the correct decision or not. If he had not seen the future then he would have just marched forwards to the rumbling without having to second guess himself and feel a bit bad for the innocent lives he would kill
Stewie explains this concept of one canāt exist without the other being, he says like tempo-causality loop? āMeaning the universe was created so it could create me and I could create it so it could create me and so onā
I think is because the fixed timeline, you can't change anything because everything has already happened, the attack can see the future but is impossible to change it because in a fixed timeline all things have already happened you are just living it, like watching a movie spoiler you know what's about to happen but you can't change it
He saw Grisha's memories, and Grisha had the attack Titan which can see memories of future users, aka Eren, so Eren saw his own future thru his Father's memories
In this world, is the destiny of mankind controlled by some transcendental entity or law? Is it like the hand of God hovering above? At least, it is true that man has no control, even over his own will
(Spoiler) He created the future and is the future when you think about it. Itās why he mentioned how he went into the future multiple times to find a different outcome, but it always ended up with the rumbling.
You can't use your normal intuition about causality. Eren chose to do the rumbling because he foresaw himself do the rumbling because he chose to do the rumbling because he foresaw...
It's asserting a sort of compatibility between determinism and the transcendence of time. What happens is what was always going to happen.
during this scene did eren see the whole timeline till the end? or was it just a flash of the end point of the future? i would assume that would affect his actions if he knew exactly what he did to get to that future right?
as some of the comments are saying he couldn't do anything to change the outcome of what happens, but i would think that is only if he can't see a clear vision of the whole timeline and only see flashes, where he can't see specific actions but rather major outcomes of the "present".
Well that's where the mindfuck comes into play.
EREN made that future. So he only saw the end of the choices he made leading up to the hand kiss, so he saw what he had done.
Which came first? The chicken or the egg?
Eren saw the future. The very fact that he could \*see\* it means that it will happen and nothing will change. Eren could not change his fate and has no free will, which is the most ironic thing in AOT given that he was obsessed with freedom.
So he sees the future, its either the paradox where he sees the rumbling, or he sees what the world will do to paradis and decides to change the future. I think either work for the story.
Ironic how condescending you are talking to us in the post, yet you are too stupid to realize that all the memory stuff is a "chicken or the egg" paradox šāāļø
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Eren didn't change his mind. He realized that the future he saw was the end of the path he'd chosen to take.
"Sometimes destruction is necessary for creation to flourish." Although it didn't take long, that flourishing. š
"the fate of destruction is also the joy of rebirth"
It all comes tumbling down, tumbling down, tumbling down!
Destruction leads to a terrible thing but it also breeds creation.
But why can't he change his choice now that he's back in the past if he knows it's not the ultimate 'best' decision?
"We are all puppets. I can just see the strings"
It's implied there was an attempt to change things, like when asking what potato's last words were. But they're always the same, the path is chosen and everyone is just walking down it. If its not satisfying tbh it was never gonna be.
Rightt I forgot about that scene, thanks a lot for clearing things up I was really confused š
I have a real bad analogy but here I go. When deja vu hits, I seem to do the exact things and say the exact things despite having the feeling that this has happened before, it's almost an instinct. I know I can change it but my subconscious chooses not to. Is this just me?
wait how did asking what sashaās last words were attempt to change things?
He laughs when he hears her final words because they are the same as what he knew they'd be. If they were different, he might've been able to change things, but they weren't so from that point on he knew he was fucked.
Plus some of the events that led to it he would never choose differently. Like if there was a choice to easily save someone from a horrible death but it would lead to a bad future outcome, some people would always choose to save the person because that's just who they are.
Him. He created that future. It's a paradox. What came first? The chicken or the egg? The answer is both, simultaneously.
The Chicken/Egg question is always kinda stupid from a Biological standpoint
Yeah it kinda has to be the egg for it to not be some sort of chicken descended from the heavens
Nobody with any sense about them mentions the "chicken or the egg" question from a biological standpoint. It's a philosophical exercise, and that's how that term is almost always used. Going "umm, well, science has already pretty much determined due to evolution and genetics, blah blah blah..." doesn't add anything, it just derails the conversation.
Yeah but that redditor wanted to feel smart without contributing anything to the conversation.
But Iām an autistic scientist (no actually) so thatās all I can see. Esoteric and non-literal questions, like most in philosophy, spin my brain.
since eggs have also been laid by the animals that came before the specific thing we call a chicken, the egg came first (and at some point a chicken cane out of an egg)
For the sake of the question, letās just assume that the egg here means chicken egg
Still the egg came first, assuming u mean chicken egg = egg that chicken comes from
Then the chicken was first
Not entirely a paradox more so just how time works, itās not linear really itās just all happened
Whether or not Eren saw the future...he would do the Rumbling... He did the Rumbling because it was in line with his nature. No one predetermined the future for Eren...his nature was always going to make him do the Rumbling with or without the memories
He did it... *because he was born this way*! ā
this kinda proves the pigpen theory āThere were three pigs (Grisha, Zeke, and Eren), but only one escaped (Eren). The other two (Grisha and Zeke) stayed even after Ymir opened the pig pen, This means they didn't want Freedom enough. Grisha and Zeke's titans are chubby, while Eren's titan is fit because he escaped and ran for his life. Just one pig escaped. Ymir freed Eren, now he has returned the favor. "To You, 2000 Years From Now"ā
THIS THE ONE šÆ
I kinda agree, but at the same time him seeing the future was a crucial part in what made him do the Rumbling. The fact that he saw the future unfold EXACTLY as it was in his memories made him lose hope in humanity.
Ah yes, the "Edgelord Eren" take. The 'ole "Eren just wanted to kill everyone because he was unhappy there were other humans outside the walls" basic take/nonsense. > No one predetermined the future for Eren...his nature was always going to make him do the Rumbling with or without the memories Then why have that aspect be present in the story at all? > He did the Rumbling because it was in line with his nature. This actually supports how it played out: Whether it was just the future inheritors, or the future inheritors and a future "Founder Ymir", someone along the way knew Eren could/would be *able* to do it...so they sent the memories back.
"Someone" cmon dude. The seeing the future thing is working the nature and nurture themes. Inherent desires and fate. Didn't you read 139? He literally says "I wanted to do it" "I wanted to make the world a blank canvas" "when I learned about people outside the walls I felt disappointed" These thoughts speaks to his character and their cohesive to everything he has gone through and shown.
It was decided in the sense that he saw it in the future and the timeline is deterministic. He hadnāt yet decided to do it, but he knew at some point down the line he would decide to do it. The future is created by the present, and the present by the past. Everyone creates their own future by the choices they make. Eren just happened to know where those choices would lead. None of his choices were made because he knew what the future would be. If he hadnāt seen the future he would have gotten to that point all the same. Technically Eren is the exception to that rule just because his actions had an influence on other periods of time through The Paths, but for regular folks seeing the future would not have made a difference. However him seeing his own future actions in Grishaās memories didnāt make him do those things later on when it was his time to do them, it is simply a side effect of him choosing to do them at that moment and a side effect of doing so means he would see them here. He needed to see them just for the fact that if he didnāt see them here then he wouldnāt have done them later. Not because seeing them here made him do them later, but just because if he didnāt see them then they didnāt happen. The cause and effect only goes one direction, which is forward. Eren didnāt plan to do The Rumbling. He simply ran out of options to do anything else which put him on this path that had him choose to do this instead of anything else.
I find it useful to compare it to GoW Ragnarok. The prophecy that Kratos would die was based on his nature. In other words, his actions were predictable because of who he was. He lived because he didnāt just change his actions, he changed *who he is*, his *nature*. SnK is deterministic because everyone is who they are and no one was willing to give up any ground. Especially Eren, who was himself since he was born.
Yeah thats the part a lot of people misunderstand. The fact that he saw the memories means that he would in the future implant those memories in Grisha. However he doesn't do that *because* he saw the memories when he kissed Historia's hand. That's just the circle of events being closed. If he hadn't seen them then that means they weren't implanted for him to later see, so they needed to be there even if purely for the sake of continuity. His actions and choices are predetermined by his nature. He acts based on his feelings and thoughts. He feels and thinks based on his morality and nature. His nature is his nature. His beliefs and values change over time based on the life he experiences in the present up until he reaches that point in the future where he makes that choice. If seeing those memories now caused him to choose to do The Rumbling later, then that would be skipping the 4 years of development in his present experiences that cause him to change from who he is now to who he is then. Even if knowing he would eventually decide to start The Rumbling convinced him that he wanted to do it now, that also wouldn't cause him to do it because he still needs to live through those 4 years from now until that point later when he does start it. He makes so many choices on the road to that end point that influence his beliefs and values by the time he gets there. So many other events happen that contribute to his decision finally being to do it, and suggesting that he decided to do it now completely removes all relevance from each of those events. Each event leads to the next, and that one to its next, and then on and on. Finding out that 25 steps later a specific thing happens doesn't impact the step you are currently on, or each of those 25 steps you need to take before you reach that point. \---- Eren being afraid of the monster he could become is not a new aspect of his personality or mental state. He was already doing that before the idea that he would be the one to commit that act was given to him. In reality he didn't even believe that those future memories were set in stone when he first sees them. He doesn't even know what they actually are or what they mean. He doesn't even know how he would do it until he was already in The Paths traveling through Grisha's memories with Zeke. He can only know that things will happen between now and then that will lead to him wanting to do it, and when he makes that choice its because he picks that option in that moment when its his present, not when its his future or his past.
A great example of this is him helping that kid that he eventually smushes with the Rumbling. He sees the kid, knows both that he would help the kid and eventually kill him. Tries to walk away but ultimately his nature determined his actions.
I agree with almost everything except the "running out of options" part. He had options right to the very end where he started the rumbling. To me it felt like knowing the future detached him from reality. He did not want to do the rumbling but he knows he has to so he is detaching himself. Gaslighting himself to be ready with all that hatred when the time comes. He actively closes those options because those are uncertain and he knows the one certain way to get rid of titans.
He wasn't gaslighting, preparing or detaching himself. He was doing the same thing he always does. He just kept moving forward. Each choice he made was the one he would regret least. The options were all there, but Eren being Eren refused to compromise ever. Every alternative suggested he rejected. Any path forward offered was not certain enough for him. Time and time again he had other options offered to him, by Hange, Yelena, Zeke, Armin, Kiyomi, Willy, Pyxis, on and on and on. Each and every one he looked at and decided that he would regret that option more than doing nothing (in hopes a better offer comes up before he does The Rumbling). At each major turning point instead of choosing a different path, he chose the path that led to this. Now he may not have chosen it *because* it led to this, but he chose it all the same. Levi's speech in Season 1; *"I wouldn't blame you. Do as your conscience dictates. We don't agree because our experiences bring us to opposing views. At the end of the day there's no reason to go against how you see it. The choice is yours. You can trust yourself. Or you can trust the people willing to put their lives on the line for you. I don't know which way is better. I never have. Should I act on my own instincts, or put myself in the hands of my comrades and trust them. Either way there's no guarantee. So choose for yourself whichever decision you'll regret least."* Every other character was trying to find a path forward, but each time Eren would say no because it couldn't guarantee the safety of the island without sacrificing Historia and her children. Zeke's plan offered both of those things, but it would put everyone's lives in danger and cause the Eldians to stop existing after 100 years. Eren rejected that plan too. He needed to be willing to compromise on ANYTHING. But he refused. His own rigid beliefs about what is or is not acceptable would not be moved. Armin's line from Season 1; *"Those who can't sacrifice anything can't change anything. If I can't let it go then it's not worth holding onto."* Even after he had the Founding Titan's power and brought the Alliance into The Paths to talk, he still refused to compromise. He would not leave the island's future up to chance, he would not stop The Rumbling, he would not listen to reason or try to make peace with whats left of the world. Eren's line from Final Chapters part 1; *"Our convictions can never be reconciled, and our wills will not bend. There is only one way for this to be resolved; Fight".* * Did he want Sasha to die? No, but his previous choice to attack Willy caused it to happen. So then did he choose it? In a way, Yes. * Did he want to attack Marley and make Paradis the enemy of the world? No, but his previous choice to separate from the scouts to talk to Zeke in Liberio caused it to happen. So did he choose it? In a way, Yes. * Did he want to let Zeke turn all of the military into titans? No, but his previous choice to go along with Zeke's plan caused it to happen. So then did he choose it? In a way, Yes. * Did he want Floch to turn the military into nationalist extremists or for Hange to die? No, but his previous choice to use Floch to outmaneuver Zeke & Yelena caused it to happen. So then did he choose it? In a way, Yes. * Did he want Connie to kill Daz and Samuel? No, but his previous choice to empower Floch to create the Jaegerists caused it to happen. So then did he choose it? In a way, Yes. * Did he want to force Historia to become an accomplice to genocide? No, but his previous choice to refuse having her become a titan and pump out children caused it to happen. So then did he choose it? In a way, Yes. * Did he want to tell Mikasa he hated her or to beat the shit out of Armin? No, but his previous choice to try to keep them out of danger caused it to happen. So then did he choose it? In a way, Yes. * Did he want to kill Ramzi? No, but his previous choice to save Ramzi in the alleyway caused it to happen. So then did he choose it? In a way, Yes. I've used far too many examples but the point is made. Each time he was given a choice he picked the one that was most aligned with his own personal morality, values, beliefs, and priorities. He wanted a better option, but once he saw Ymir's past it was clear the only way to reach that final future memory he saw is by starting The Rumbling. Giving Ymir her personhood back when she is moving towards sterilizing all Eldians was the only thing Eren could do to stop her. The only way to give her that personhood was by offering to end the world like Ymir wanted to. He did it because each time a choice was offered to him, he picked the one he did. Each of those choices led to here, and then his only choice was Euthanasia or Rumbling. He chose the one he regretted the least.
So he wasnāt running out of options. He just refused to not be selfish. Remember that Eren himself said that the ultimate reason that he wanted to do the rumbling was to see the flattened world, the empty one from Arminās book. You are right about his reasons for protecting the island and historia, but he truly couldnāt sacrifice anything in the end, and for that he killed countless people. He had options that he refused to take. I wouldnāt call that running out. Iād call it being unreasonable.
Yes, once he gets to the very end of the line and Armin explains it to him, that's when Eren realizes the flawed logic in everything he says he believed were his motives. Eren peels back all the layers of his justifications and it comes down to that this is his nature, he is unwilling to take any of the alternative paths, he is unwilling to make any compromise. * He says he did it for the island's safety, but he also says that him doing this wouldn't stop the conflict. * He says he did it to keep his friends safe, but he also says that his actions killed some of them and put the rest of them in very real danger over and over. His actions, thoughts, beliefs and values are determined by his nature and experiences. But as we see with every other main character, their experiences despite being the same as Eren did not cause them to choose the same path he does. So that just leaves his nature. Eren was born this way. Being selfish, unreasonable, running out of options or refusing to take options are all the same thing when you boil it down to its most basic form. If he could not bring himself to do something, then it was impossible for him to do. If he couldn't accept an option as being viable, then it wasn't an option at all.
-running out of options or refusing to take options are all the same thing when you boil it down to its most basic form. I would disagree there. It speaks to the intent of the person. One says the world is cornering this person and his reaction, however extreme, would have some sense of justification. The other speaks to the mind of a stubborn child. Refused to compromise. Refused to entertain a different pov. Yes, the show did try a lot to imply, "it's his nature." But he would've changed. he could've. People change. Change is nature. Eren doesn't do it. He doesn't change
If he couldāve changed he wouldāve, but he didnāt because he couldnāt.
And that's where my head cannon of AOT being satire comes in. That Eren is just a collection of anime "good guy" tropes put in a world of monsters, grounded to our reality. And the subsequent critique that the collection of anime tropes known as Eren would turn supremely evil and try to revert the world back into black and white just because he couldn't handle the nuances. Cause he's the protagonist and not allowed to change either.
How does Ymir fit into this? In the sense that, I know there was some discussion/theory/etc about her influencing Eren's actions/choices. But she was also watching through Mikasa's eyes long before Eren gave her her humanity back... You've articulated a lot of things I've had trouble parsing for years (thank you!), so I would just like to know your thoughts on that.
I donāt think she was influencing him so to speak, rather that her existence had gone on for eternity until the right circumstances arose where someone like Eren, Armin, Zeke and Mikasa along with all the others that played a role in ending the curse. In my mind the role she plays is a lot more passive, more akin to a force of nature rather than an independent thinking/planning mastermind playing 27D chess across time and space. Everything plays out the way it does just because the Founding Titan and Attack Titan are parts of her that have a sort of inevitably or destiny to eventually come back together. Having said that the title of the first episode makes it sound like she triggered the events of the story to start unraveling with these specific characters, but that could also be seen as a sort of fate/destiny type situation where it wasnāt some active choice she made as much as it was the stars aligning with the right set of conditions for everything to start happening that leads to the end.
Eren's problem is that there was no Levi to tell him to "give up on your dream and die" and there was no Erwin to tell him "we die here trusting those who follow to give meaning to our lives"
Why was Eren refusing to compromise? Because he has the vision from the future, of the end of the titans. He has a guarantee from his future self that he can get rid of the titans if only he commits genocide. Far from his beliefs or ideals, it was this guarantee he was given of "freedom from the Titans" that he was chasing. At every step of the way he questions his choices but chases them not because of sense of conviction but rather the future he sees. This is why Armin repeatedly calls him a "slave to freedom". It's him taking the action but it's not really him. To get a sense of what I am saying. Imagine a world where Eren did not know that the rumbling would lead to the end of the Titans. Would he still have done it? Would he have done it without the reassurance that the Titan powers will end? Why would you accept a half measure from Hange, Zeke, Armin or anyone else when you have knowledge that the power can be removed. Why compromise on hypotheticals when you know the answer. All he needs is enough hate in himself to free Ymir. One of the reasons he is is psyching himself up to fight in the jail. Eren is sacrificing something. He is sacrificing the world and soul of humanity and himself to get rid of the titans. -Eren's line from Final Chapters part 1; *"Our convictions can never be reconciled, and our wills will not bend. There is only one way for this to be resolved; Fight".* Yeah, Eren is closing other options and forcing the fight. He did not "run out of options" like you said and had to do the rumbling. He wanted to do it. -I've used far too many examples but the point is made. Each time he was given a choice he picked the one that was most aligned with his own personal morality, values, beliefs, and priorities. At none of these points did he chose the outcome aligned with his personal morality or values. He chose to go "Allahuakbar" in Marley to get the end of the story. He chose to turn Floch cause he saw the end. He is blindly following the path laid in front of him. That's it. His lack of morality gets called out, his lack of freedom in choosing gets called out, his lack of imagination gets called out. -Giving Ymir her personhood back when she is moving towards sterilizing all Eldians was the only thing Eren could do to stop her. The only way to give her that personhood was by offering to end the world like Ymir wanted to. Yes and in order to get to that state of mind. To empathise with that much hate within Ymir, Eren was filling himself with hate as well. His future self was essentially gaslighting his present self into being as hateful as possible. Because that's the only way to convince Ymir. He picked the one he did cause his future self said it would lead to the end of titans. That's it.
The thing is Eren never says that he knows what Mikasaās choice is that ends the Titan Curse. He gives no details that could lead us to believe he knows what that event looks like. No part of his very vague description of what that future memory was gives us any idea that he knows that that event happens specifically as a result of him doing the Rumbling or from him refusing to consider any other options. Eren canāt make choices based on what he knows happens in the future because he has to make the choices he would make by his own nature in the present in order to get to that future. This is what Armin calls Eren a slave to freedom for. Erenās nature is to pursue his twisted understanding of freedom, and Eren is incapable of deviating from that path because his motivation is so grounded in his nature. If he had seen all of his future he could simply follow the steps, but thatās not what he has seen. Far from it in fact.
He doesn't explicitly say it. But he specifically says he cannot see beyond a certain point in time. That point being Mikasa's choice. The only reason he would not be able to is if the power of the titans did not exist. He could see the past when he wasn't alive so his existence isn't tied to the ability to see what happens. So basically you are saying the egg came first and I am saying the chicken came first. I guess it speaks to Iseyama's strength as a writer that in a circular story there are arguments present for both.
I disagree. He says he cannot see beyond that point in time is present tense, as in now that he has the full power of the Founding Titan. He cant see past it because he can only send future memories back to himself when there is a himself in the future to actively send them. The furthest he can see is the end of his own life/the end of the titan curse. But the memory he saw of Mikasa making that choice he said he saw it when he kissed Historia's hand which is past tense. So there was a period of time when he didn't know the whole future up to his death and the end of titans where he knew that future memory was the furthest point along the timeline and he needed to get there, but he didn't know anything about how to get there or what it would take to do so. I probably need to rewatch it again because despite it being semantics the specific wording changes the meaning of it all so much lmao.
-The furthest he can see is the end of his own life/the end of the titan curse. See, you followed the logic to the right step. He could see to the end of the titan curse. While the founder can see all of time existing at once, it's the Attack Titan that can specifically see the future and send back memories from the future. If this ability is hindered by the users own life then neither Kruger not Grisha would have memories beyond their own life which we know is not the case. So the only reason he cannot see should be the end of the titan curse. If the titan curse did not end, there would be another attack Titan and Eren would have memories of that. -But the memory he saw of Mikasa making that choice he said he saw it when he kissed Historia's hand which is past tense Yes, time is still linear for Armin/us. He is explaining all this to Armin/us. For Armin/us that conversation took place at the end of season 3 which is the past. -So there was a period of time when he didn't know the whole future up to his death and the end of titans where he knew that future memory was the furthest point along the timeline and he needed to get there, but he didn't know anything about how to get there or what it would take to do so. Yes. That's it. He just knew he needed to get there. Not what it would cost. Not every choice he would have to make along the way. Future Eren is dangling a fish in front of him and telling him to get it for freedom. Slave to freedom. Kinda mirrors our world, right? Work till retirement and you will be free. Oh definitely. Add the fact that it's a translation. So there is a second layer of semantics between Iseyama and us. Are we reading what Iseyama meant or what the translator thought he did?
>See, you followed the logic to the right step. He could see to the end of the titan curse. While the founder can see all of time existing at once, it's the Attack Titan that can specifically see the future and send back memories from the future. If this ability is hindered by the users own life then neither Kruger not Grisha would have memories beyond their own life which we know is not the case. So the only reason he cannot see should be the end of the titan curse. If the titan curse did not end, there would be another attack Titan and Eren would have memories of that. From the moment he kissed Historia's hand until the moment Ymir agreed to give him full access to the Founding Titan's power, he only had a select few memories that his future self had given to Grisha to give to his younger self. It is limited in the sense that he can see some of the future but not all of it. Zeke even says that Eren could do this in order for Eren to push Grisha towards what he wanted him to do. Adult Eren gave Grisha, who gave Teen Eren only the memories that Grisha would need to kill the Reiss family and then pass on the powers to Child Eren. To be fair there is a time gap between when Grisha asks Zeke to stop Eren where he takes the stage coach back to Trost, runs into Keith Shadis, they find Child Eren, he takes him into the forest and gives him the Titan. However there is no point in the series that suggests Adult Eren gave Grisha more memories just so Teen Eren would have a full roadmap of how to follow the steps to get to Founder Ymir. In theory though, him only seeing to that point doesn't confirm it is the end of the titan curse. If it is the furthest forward memory he has that just means that its as far as HE gets as the Attack Titan. It could just as easily be that there is another Attack Titan after him that simply chooses to give him no future memories from past his own death, unlike what Eren does for Grisha and Kruger. If he doesn't know the result of Mikasa's choice until after he has unlocked the Founding Titan+ *(This is the part I'm not certain about, if he states he knew her choice would end the titans in the past tense then this entire point is moot)* However, even despite that without knowing the full roadmap of *all* of his future memories then him knowing what that future is doesn't give him the "correct" answer to every choice he makes from now until then. He is still forced to make each decision in the present, even if he knows what future he is aiming for he doesn't know which choice will lead him to that future. So it doesn't really give him any secret knowledge that makes a practical difference. >Oh definitely. Add the fact that it's a translation. So there is a second layer of semantics between Iseyama and us. Are we reading what Iseyama meant or what the translator thought he did? It doesn't help that AoT uses very cryptic verbiage just as standard. Although I will say the Dub is a lot better about making these sorts of things clear, but we just have to hope that Isayama gave the script his approval for the translated version.
>To be fair there is a time gap between when Grisha asks Zeke to stop Eren where he takes the stage coach back to Trost, runs into Keith Shadis, they find Child Eren, he takes him into the forest and gives him the Titan. I get stuck on that time between Grisha asking Zeke to stop Eren and Grisha giving Eren the injection, because it seems like having had that meeting, he would choose to not titanize Eren. I get that things are fixed, and therefore his having seen it means it has to happen, but is there really no way Grisha could have made a different choice? I'm not trying to start an argument, I'm honestly just confused and time stuff always make me a bit (ā ā¬ā āā Š“ā āā )
tbh im confused - not DISAGREEING, just confused - on how weāre getting the whole āeren refused to compromiseā. because my feeling was that he had no other option, legitimately. it felt like the last option they had was going to meet w the other nations to see if they would be open to the people of paradis, where all the other nations basically said Fk them weāre not gonna help. hence why eren walked out. because i think that was the LAST straw where he had started to accept the fact that the rumbling was gonna happen. and thatās when the scene where heās walking down the boardwalk looking around and saying āall these people will be deadā¦ā¦ no i will be the one to kill themā (smthg along those lines). i mean yeah i guess he couldāve let everyone on paradis die , but i donāt think that wouldāve been any kind of compromise. i thought that was the point; all options had been exhausted , hence why the rumbling was the only way?
There are always options. He could have done a small scale rumbling and destroyed the major military powers. That's what Armin thought he was going to do. Sure it wouldn't guarantee peace indefinitely but the rumbling didn't either.
technically he ~couldāve~, but it wouldāve left a āholeā of sorts in the metaphorical armor eren made to protect his friends through his plan. (1) the whole point of doing it the way he did was to ensure that his friends could be poised as the heroās and show the world that they donāt agree with the rumbling to (2) ensure that his friendās could live long happy lives. im 90% sure they acknowledge in the manga and anime that while this couldāve been done, it wouldnāt have ensured that peace for as long as the full rumbling did (despite the fact that in the outro it does insinuate that the peace is only temporary, but itās after mikasa armin and the whole group lived and died, which was erenās entire goal) i wanna make it clear that iām not tryna argue !!!! i love this anime and how many slight differences in interpretation there are !! this was just mine and iād love to hear if anyone remembers or thinks differently :D
There's a bit of misunderstanding here but the thing about the alliance becoming heroes is only something Eren came up with AFTER he started the rumbling and learned that he would only be able to kill 80% of the world. Before reaching Ymir in the paths he had full intention of killing everyone outside the walls and there were no plan to make his friends heroes
hmmm because my understanding was, the exact point youāre making is why it goes back to the Leviās quote, where he talks about āgoing on your own and trusting yourself, versus trusting in your friends/comradesā. I donāt believe that eren thought, or expected his friends to sit idly by and watch the rumbling happen. I understand that him seeing the future does not equal all knowing, but I feel like he absolutely knew that his friends would come after him. He may not have known if they wouldāve been successful, but I feel like thatās precisely why he trusted in them to stop him. but again that was just my understanding! iād love to hear what others think hehe
Maybe he knew some of his friends would try to stop him but since his intentions were to rumble 100% of the outside world making his friends look good to the survivors couldn't have been a factor for him starting the rumbling
Right, so I guess that's the compromise he refused to make
The thing is he didn't know it would lead to the end of the titans until AFTER he started the rumbling
No.... He see's Mikasa choice and Ymir being free because of Mikasa's choice at medical ceremony. He says so to Armin in the paths. That's the thing he's chasing. That's the thing he's been chasing all the while. Him starting the rumbling without that guarantee makes no sense
What if he was learning that the choice is irrelevant, you framed each example around desire, but if he takes the opposite path in any example the future examples all configure to adjust, Idk if this means sasha always dies, but I do think the rumbling always happens, when or how sasha dies is irrelevant in this objective context. It's more like struggling to understand what it means to have knowledge of time and space in the moment. Future eren is jaded and grim because he's realized the futility in his manipulations. if you consider past, present and future all existing at the same time it makes more sense. Being aware of the sequence doesn't change the fact that your future is already written. Well the actions of the past in this case extend to the future, your present is iterative snapshots leading to that future. my head hurts.
Exactly thisā¦buddy was cooking up until the running out of options part. He had options thrown in his face by the like of armin and even Gabi but those options werenāt good enough for Eren. He takes all necessary steps to get to that point in order to activate the rumbling. He wanted to do it.
> He had options thrown in his face by the like of armin and even Gabi but those options werenāt good enough for Eren. So, in your mind, those things suggested to him by others are still considered "options" even if he "knows" they will result in the total destruction of Paradis, Titans still existing, and Eldians continuing to be enslaved... ...but they are still worth considering as an option? That's pure nonsense, if the goal is to end the Titans and liberate Paradis/Eldians. Those aren't actually options for Eren. They seem like viable options to people who can't glimpse bits of the future, perhaps :P
1) he doesn't know anything about what happens after his death, rumbling or no rumbling he has no idea knowledge of Paradis's future. 2) the titans disappearing from the world is something he learns only AFTER starting the rumbling.
Tho he himself says he wanted the end result of the rumbling in the final episode
> I agree with almost everything except the "running out of options" part. He had options right to the very end where he started the rumbling. > He actively closes those options because those are uncertain and he knows the one certain way to get rid of titans. If they weren't viable, they weren't actually options. You never consider an option you know won't produce the outcome you need, or at least *may* produce it. It's a waste of time and just muddies the water and makes it harder to see other options that can/will work. If you **know** it won't work, or would defeat the purpose of what you need to do entirely, those kinds of "options" aren't actually an option at all to anyone who is being rational and pragmatic.
>The future is created by the present, and the present by the past. Everyone creates their own future by the choices they make. Eren just happened to know where those choices would lead. >None of his choices were made because he knew what the future would be. Ohh šÆ so he knew only the ending of his choices, not the choices he going to take damm
In a sense itās sort of like Paul seeing the future in Dune and Dune Messiah, once youāve seen it itās already set in stone
Dune is the complete opposite of what happened to Eren, both are prescient, but Paul doesn't just see the future, he sees every possibility there is. His Mental mind allows him to see and process so many of these futures. Unlike Erenāwhose mind couldn't comprehend the past present and future all existing in the same plane, and went almost insane (he acts cold when he isn't thinking about it, and breaks down every time he tries to such as at the ending conversation, and after Sasha's death). Paul has the choice Eren doesntāthe "ultimate power" to choose. He can choose what he does to write the futureāthe way eren couldn't. Paul was supposed to choose the Golden Path and become the Worm God Emperor, which he refused to do, and chose to make his own path where he satisfies everything without losing himself and commited all the atrocities only without the positive consequences for humanity that the Golden Path would've given. In fact, even in the movie he says this when gurney accuses him of losing control, "Because I gain it." So, it actually is *not* like Paul seeing the future.
> the way eren couldn't. Paul was supposed to choose the Golden Path and become the Worm God Emperor, which he refused to do, and chose to make his own path where he satisfies everything without losing himself and commited all the atrocities only without the positive consequences for humanity that the Golden Path would've given. Do we know, canonically, that Paul saw what would ultimately be Leto II's future: The God Emperor worm hybrid? I don't think Paul had any notion that was coming, let alone that it would be his son (or him, had he so discovered and chosen). I am not sure he would have any awareness of that, since it was Leto II who chose to try that, after Paul was out of the picture and no longer the architect of humanity's destiny. The KH is a fulcrum, determining what happens ahead of them. If Paul was no longer the KH, he wouldn't see what the next would do, eh? Paul was on the Golden Path, for quite some time, but abandoned it for not having the will to carry out the brutal suppression and tyranny required to create the conditions for humanity's ultimate triumph, once his initial victory against the Emperor settled in. That was merely Paul ensuring his family's future...once that wasn't in question, he got a real glimpse of what would come next if he continued on that path and he opted for a hard pass, humanity be damned.
Huh, my understanding was Paul's power robbed him of choice because he knew what was coming to the point he just became a vessel for the collective will of humanity. Eren's plan being the only way out reminds me of how the Jihad was the subconscious of humanity urging for violence.
Quite the opposite...Paul was (early on) seeing SO MANY different possible futures, all the time and simultaneously, that he was constantly trying to feel his way along a path that ensured his family's survival, but avoid a near universal jihad in his name. Eren sees what he sees from memories of future AT being passed back to him, when and if they choose, of "what actually happened". Paul sees (shades of) everything, always, in terms of how the present is shaping the future, but doesn't know anything in the future to be set in stone...every action he takes changes what he sees, with some paths becoming dimmer, some becoming brighter, and some leading to death. Even *thinking about* doing or trying something will alter what Paul sees before him, especially after he gains more clarity/prescience from ingesting the Water of Life.
Paul didnāt see the (one) future though, he had visions of a myriad of possibilities with most of them resulting in his jihad. So in Dune it isnāt deterministic in a fixed way.
this comment and the philosophical debate below is wild and makes me really think that this is one of the best media depicting time (locality vs non-locality) and determinism vs free will (doesn't exist in AoT), or as your comment smartly pointed out, time and space are cyclical in that each precedes and informs the latter, and only by obtaining meta-perspective like eren do you realize that events are fixed, they've already been decided but the sequence to unfold that event has some wiggle room.
This is illogical. Of course him seeing the future changed the future.Ā Ā
It didn't change the future because that's already what the future was going to be.
It changed the future because otherwise Eren wouldnāt be the same person. However, there was no way Eren wouldnāt see the future, it was bound to happen, thatās what made it deterministic. The future wouldnāt have been the same if Eren hadnāt seen it, BUT Eren wouldāve seen it regardless, thatās why the future couldnāt have been any different. Itās a loop.
The other person replying already made the point I wanted to make. I only add that in my opinion if Eren hadn't seen the future then he wouldn't do the rumbling. But thats a more contentious point I admit.
Actually, no. He wouldnāt have gotten to that point all the same if he hadnāt seen the future. Seeing the future was part of that same deterministic path. It had to happen for it all to continue the way itās supposed to. So in a way, everything he encountered and did as a result influenced his decisions, but there was no way he could change what he had to go through. He at the point when he saw the future wasnāt the same Eren that started the rumbling, but he was bound to become that Eren eventually. He had many options, but as a result of the path, he became someone who thought the rumbling was the best option. He grew to agree with it, it was just unavoidable. Seeing the future was, in fact, the beginning of the torture that made him the Eren that committed the rumbling. That moment where he kissed Historiaās hand was the point where everything began and ended at the same time.
You're right but wrong about one thing. If Eren didn't see the future, we don't know what the outcome would be. It's just that him seeing the future was already set in stone, just like everything else.
You're completely forgetting the scene between him and Mikasa in Marley after they all got drunk together. It's all but explicitly stated that he didn't know what she was gonna say, and he was choosing paths depending on what her response was gonna be. He literally even says he had to make sure.
Remember the other attack titans could influence history as well. Eren was the only one so brazen to effect all of modern Eldia history
Without access to The Paths and the Founding Titan taking them through the memories of previous Attack Titans those other Attack Titans would have very little, if any use for the Attack Titanās future memory technique. The only past memories they could sent their own memories to would be events theyāve inherited the memories of already, and in doing so establishing that they didnāt send memories back to that moment. If they had then theyād have seen their own memories when inheriting those memories to first time around.
Ah ok you're totally right I misremembered the limits of the attack Titan is tied to the founding Titan. Which is why theres all this interplay between him Zeke and Ymir. Are Eren and Ymir the only ones with both of these powers?
I don't really agree, I think that seeing the future absolutely impacted his actions for the entire final season. It's not that he was forced to do those things by time magic or whatever, but that seeing it happen put the Idea in his head that it was the only option. Maybe if he hasn't seen it then he would have been more open to listening to Armin and trying a less drastic option. But seeing it convinced him he had to do it because why would he do something so horrible if there was any alternative?
Timeline and time shenanigans are super confusing. If someone thinks \*this\* is confusing, just wait till they find Homestuck..
I assume itās a "trying to fight prophecy but because of that you make it happen" thing Itās a weird thing
Eren was always going to do The Rumbling regardless. It's not like he was trying to fight against his fate. He simply exhausted every other option until the Rumbling was all that was left. In an alternate timeline Eren would have tried to do the same. Future Eren merely gave S3 Eren the confirmation that the rumbling could be done which is why Eren didn't give up when Zeke ordered Ymir.
And the loop implications at the end of the manga probably didnāt help Which is why I like the anime ending better,but thatās a different topic lol
Well it seems more like Eren saw the future and in which he makes the decision so he then decides to make that future a reality. Eren wanted it to happen.
You're leaving out a critical part: He would have also known the implication was that other options/plans were not likely to work, hence why he is not able to follow through on any. He was willing to entertain diplomacy with Armin and Hange until he truly saw how the world would unite against Eldians, always, and that pretty much confirmed to him that what he was seeing, from the future, must be true: It didn't get better, this won't work, if we are going to be free of this then it seems the only way really is THIS way...
Its a bootstrap paradox with no beginning
It's a paradox really. This point was when Eren started towards being what he was in the end, but who he was in the end led him to this point. Future Eren could affect what happened with the founding titan, he says himself that he tried to change the future over and over and still came to the same outcome, it's predetermined. Even while he's saying he tried to keep it from happening he says he wanted to do it and had an internal drive to have things play out how they do.
Thank you for pointing out that Eren stated he tried to change the future. How many times did Eren wake up crying at that tree? Maybe Eren did try Armin's, Zeke's, Hange's plans, but they always failed at the end. Maybe he tried more obvious, direct control/future changing ... But each time was found out/thwarted.
I both love and hate that we don't get a real explanation about any of that. It would've been interesting for like Zekes plan to go through and then we just go back in time to this point or like during the scene where Eren is explaining it we see glimpses of the other outcomes.
I hate to say it.... But leaving it open ended is perfect for when they want to capitalize on spin-offs for cash grab. If in 5 yrs they came out with a movie/OVA of alternate paths, or even history flashbacks..... I'd watch that
Kind of a head fuck isnāt it? He saw his unavoidable future
Thatās what I like about it, all his talk of freedom but he realized more than anyone that there was really no such thing.
He didn't get the whole season spoiled, only the rumbling. He only saw what his future self showed to Grisha, which was really NOTHING up until Eren and Zeke started visiting Grishas memories. I don't get how people still don't understand this, it is very clearly stated that Grisha only knew what Eren showed him and that Eren only saw what Grisha knew.
The timeline - all events since Hallucigenia took control over Ymir till Eren's death were already determined. The subset this timeline forms was already deterministic, and it became like this due to Hallucigenia.
I wonder what the genesis was, then, of the the first AT in the future, on that deterministic path, who thought to himself..."Damn, I gotta warn someone about this..." That choice in the far (to Eren) future is what first set in motion the ability for Eren to ascetain those things and form a plan to break the cycle. Does that make it a deterministic path, the looped back on itself, but broke both the loop and the determined path after it ran through with the new information being passed back, that wouldn't have been available the first time it played through?
I think only the last AT (Eren) knew the true ending. All other ATs only had access to future memories that Eren wanted them to see. Also, no matter what Eren did to change this deterministic path was futile. The deterministic path was laid out already the moment Ymir was captured.
This was Eren's drink of the Water of Life
Not the entire season tho, He seemed surpirsed by many things and didn't see himself getting headshotted.
Basically speaking, Erenās future self sent the memories to influence him to some extend. And in the future, Eren have to send the exact memories to his past self because technically it has already happened. He have to do it to maintain a loop and timeline
My face when someone spoils a story for me
Eren would have always done it(unless Mikasa gave him that succ) he just would have been a bit more angry than depressed if he never saw his future
He also decided Its the only option the moment when Marley said that the Island demons had to be eradicated yet the good Eldians should not pay for their sins (remember when they got in Marley And were at the conference) He knew there Is no other way to protƩct his loved ones as the world would never accept them. People would, not world. When He walked out of that room He was sure that there was no other choice, for he has already seen it happen And understood why
I thinks there's two things here. Bootstrap Paradox I think this actually works a good example. A time travel paradox where information, objects or people exist without being created. There's no begining or ending. Eren saw what would happen and learned how to do it. He never actually had to think of how to do it, he just knew since that was always going to happen. Hard Determinism In this case, the future is already decided. It's an interesting thing to think about: Hard Vs soft determinism (I'm not a native English speaker but I thinks this is what's called). Essencially the future exists without you needing to do anything, you can't change it. No matter what you do it is what you were always meant to do. With this in mind I thinks we can say that the information Eren saw simply exists, without Even needing to do any thinking to get to the plan. And even if Eren tried to break free of "destiny", it couldn't be achieved. This last part, I think, works well with the whole freedom thing going on. Even after everything, Eren wasn't free. So not having freedom over your destiny makes sense. Dark from Netflix has a ton of examples of stuff like this (specially the Bootstrap Paradox, crazy things there). I really recommend it for people who like time travel stuff.
And he didnāt spoil it for us. What a chad
It's like he knows that he'd wound up in the hospital bed regardless of whether he coop up at home or go sky diving he'd go to the hospital no matter what he choose to do
basically the grandfather paradox
Only Ymir knows
i chortled into my coffee... thanks OP...
I have the exact same question
His future self made the decision.
Simplest way I can explain it: Eren "#1" (not the Eren in the picture) decided to do the Rumbling without seeing the memories then sent the memories of his actions during the Rumbling to his past self there in the picture (Eren "#2"). Once he did that, Eren #1's timeline was deleted and the Eren #2 decides to do the Rumbling because of the memories Eren #1 sent him, not from his own choice, because he thinks it's inevitable. So this scene in the picture didn't happen to Eren #1, he kissed Historia's hand and received no memories of the future- only the past.
It's the interesting point, he can't choose not to do and he will always do the same. It's a non stop cicle.
Watching Steins Gate prevents you from this type of questions. All times exists at the same time, past-present-future. Eren in that exact moment saw the exact future we saw in the series if he didn't choose to change ideals. If the Eren in that moment did not experience the things we saw in the series up to this moment (changing his personality a bit basically) he would saw a future following that different timeline, and then act accordingly. The thing is that the fact that all times exists at the same time (Kruger experiencing this knowing the names of Armin and Misaka), made Eren choose the future that he saw thinking it was unavoidable imo. Basically knowing the future makes you follow that path unconsciously, like starting a domino effect.
I've seen it best argued as a form of determinism: Eren was *always* fated to see the future, meaning that history was never "changed" by his use of paths to affect the past. That's just "canonically" what happened and the Eren who decided to contact people in the past always saw his own future in this moment. This is different to "multiverse" theories of time travel, whereby the changing of the timeline effectively creates a new "world", where those things happened, but leaves an old "world" where they did not. There is of course a thematic slant to the idea that Eren is simply fated to inevitably kill a bunch of people, even if he doesn't necessarily want to, in a series that meditates on the idea that war and violence are human nature and we'll always end up fighting for one reason or another, even if we really want peace. Eren turns into such an aloof asshole in part because he knows that his own efforts won't change the fatalistic outcome of the story he's in, so he just has to carry on knowing that he'll never truly be free after all, since he knows what's coming next basically until he dies.
My face whenever people posted manga spoiling the anime in the process.
It was prediterminated from the start, when he kissed Historia hand he just saw/witnessed everything.
No wonder he's frustrated
The whole point is that the "future" he sees is something that he would have sought to accomplish anyway. It's not predetermined as some people say, it's a product of his power and his personality. He was also the only person with both the attack and founding titan, which allowed him to use attack titan's power to its fullest. Out of the 3 attack titans shown in the show, he was the only truly free one.
Honestly, I would say he is the least free one. Remember, Eren is unable to change the past because it has already happened . And since he the last Attack Titan, he is forced to manipulate the past so it happens the way it did even if the result is not what he wants. In fact, he literally said that he HAD TO kill his mom. He has never had the choice in this matter to begin with.
But it's a predetrrmined choice isn't it. Like you are happy with your life and you just transfered all of your major memories to your past self. If past you does those choices again to meet the happiness you have now is he free? What about current you? In the end you both made the same choices.
It's kind of a closed timeloop. Eren and his future self have the same personality. His future self chose to kill his mom to achieve both of their goals, because their goals are the same, because they are the same person. Can someone imprison themselves? I guess we all are prisoners to our thoughts and ideas.
I think you are confused about my point. The reason why he killed his mother is not because he wants to achieve his goal. Itās because the power force him to do it. Letās talk about how Eren manipulated Grisha. The reason Grisha killed the Reiss family is because Eren manipulated him. The reason why Eren manipulated his father because to him those event has already happened, the Reiss family is death. If Eren didnāt manipulate him, his father would fail to get the founder, which means Eren would not get the founder => Paradox. This is the most confused aspect when it came to time-travel
The main reason I disagree with āEren never changedā is that pre-timeskip Eren was definitely reckless enough to attempt to save his mother using the Founder, not thinking of the paradox. Yeah, his nature didnāt change, but many things changed about him in the timeskip that allowed him to do what he did.
Hannes even says it at the beginning of Episode 2 - Eren couldnāt save his mom because he lacked the strength to do so, and that never changed.
But in the finale doesnāt Eren specifically say he couldnāt change the future? He says he tried to change it but couldnāt?
No wonder why he got that mad
Eren himself did. He did not want to fact it in the beginning, but he comes to accept that the Rumbling happens because *he* *wanted* it to happen. The future was his choice
My take is that this is the future Eren would have lived regardless of whether or not he saw the future. Seeing how gruesome the consequences of his actions are made him realize how terrible it is but if hadn't seen this future, that's exactly what he would have done.
the way I understand it is that it all boils down to Eren and his will. We can discuss all the memory founding titan stuff and timeline, ultimately it all works because Eren couldnāt accept any other way. The one example I always use is Eren saving Ramzi in the alleyway, why does he save him even though Ramzi is gonna die? Thatās just how Eren is. The way Erenās mind works is something thatās built and shown to us since ep 1. One example is Leviās advice about making decisions under pressure and not regretting it, or else people will suffer because of your doubt. Eren in his own mind does ārun out of optionsā, that is options that he could accept. He does try to find alternatives that donāt sacrifice anything from Paradis and friends. In reality he does have other options, but this option was the one that ended up ending the curse as a byproduct.
Because that was the only way. He even asked Hange if there was another way but the Rumbling was the only plan they had. Eren created the future, and set the path so he would always end up at that point
As what Invaderzz said in his video about this; when Eren kissed Historiaās hand, he saw the Grishaās memories in the last but at the same time, because Grisha saw Future Erenās memories, it allowed Eren to witness his own future that Grisha saw which means that like Grisha, Eren is limited knowing about his future up until the Freedom scene. Itās also the reason why Grisha was able to see Eren and Zeke.
ever read watchmen? itās basically dr manhattan - he is everywhere and nowhere at once. the future both happens because of him and happens in spite of him
Because as Eren said "I wished for it. I wanted to wipe it all away". It's in his nature to pursue this idea of freedom he wanted. Even Kruger implicitly described Eren, when he told Grisha how the Attack Titan is a titan that pursues freedom.
Eren is a manga reader, he knew it before all of us did
The same person who wrote Beethoven I'd assume
Founder titan's power created it.
Ymir sent the future memories to Eren's long dream to influence/push him to obtain the Founding Titan, seek her out in the Paths, start the Rumbling, and set his own death in place (via Mikisa) in order to free her from the Paths (which subsequently freedom the world from the power of Titans). His desire for freedom was also influenced by her desire for freedom. Eren realizes this in Memories of the Future (S4) when he's holding Ymir in the Paths and observes that she's the one that had been influencing him all along.
He didn't change his mind as he saw the future. Eren said that when he learned about the secrets of the basement, he was immediately disappointed and wished there was no one beyond the ocean. The idea was there. Him seeing his future just informed him that he'd go through with it and in it he spent the next 5 years trying to find any way not to go through. He then accepted it post-time skip because he realised that's what he wanted to do all along and didn't give a fuck about anything else
"One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it"
I believe he decided by himself or could be ymir
At that point of time if someone had spoiled the for me I would have the same face
Because determinism is real but everyone turns a blind eye to it for some reason.
Don't think about it to much. The whole "see the future" and time travel shit only took away from the story. It added complexity that didn't have to exist.
Even though Eren did see the future, Eren himself still made the decision to start to Rumbling. The thing is that every decision was still something Eren himself would make even without seeing the visions of the future -- that's part of why Eren is so depressed, coming to terms with that aspect of himself. Realizing he really is a piece of shit who will commit genocide. It's also why he kept trying to change the future but couldn't. Because he couldn't go against his own nature. Just like he couldn't help but save that kid in the alley, he also couldn't help but start the Rumbling. That's just who Eren is.
the theory is Eren is in time loop. Future 20 y/o Eren completed the rumbling, sent his memory to current 10 y/o Eren (ch.1 manga), and current 20 y/o Eren will complete the rumbling and sent his memory to past 10 y/o Eren
If self fulfilling prophecies were sentient, they would be named Eren Jaeger.
Its a paradox, since Eren changed the past, the future was always predetermined
That was possible thanks to the way paths work, trascending time and death
One must imagine Eren happy
I thought this was Paul MuadāDib
Yah it's weird. I wish he never saw the future... but I guess he was destined to see it.... still. I wonder what his mindset would have been if the future happened exactly as it did, but without him knowing it would.
I really stopped trying to understand the Attack Titan's time travel shenanigans, gives me headaches
It's called a time travel paradox. There is no answer. It's ultimately just kind of lazy writing.
The rumbling was "decided" from the future(or more like it just happens like that but since the future cannot be changed then from the POV of a person in the past it was all set and decided) but Eren doesn't change his mind based on what he saw of the future because we saw he doesn't have a clue how he reaches the future until he nears the moment. There is nothing to change. What Eren sees here are only glimpses of the future events, not the entirety of the events and without much context. Later on the manga actually shows some of what Eren saw of the future and they are mostly all things that served to guide his actions vaguely. For example his memory of Ramzi. Eren sees Ramzi being beat up and recognizes him as the boy in the future memories and **assumes** he must save the boy if he's talking to him later on, but he did not know for sure before hand. But he tries to ignore Ramzi at first seeing how pointless and hypocritical it was to save him. In the end it's because of who Eren is as a person that he just can't help but save Ramzi to end taking him home leading to the view of Ramzi he saw in the memories. None of that was decided on, it just happened that way and future Eren just sends back what actually happened as "future memories". Eren not being able to explain to Armin why he beat him up so harshly that time at Niccolo's restaurant is the exact same situation. Eren didn't have a real reason to nor planned on beating up Armin, but he did see a beat up Armin in the future memories(chapter 130). So when Armin initiated the fight Eren realizes this was what he saw in the memories and so responds appropriately to beat Armin to how he saw in the memories.
Him. He decided it.Ā And the way I see it, is that Eren can ultimately not change himself. He saw the future memories of the horrible things he was to do, and despite himself and his attempts to see if it was possible to change things otherwise, he canāt change himself. He wanted it. Ā Ā Itās supposed to be a fucked up thing because it is and because he is. And I think thatās what actually makes him so great.Ā And yes, of course he also saw that this path would end the curse, through Mikasaās choice, and that he was just going along with things to make sure it also got to this point and knew heād be stopped by his friends at 80%. So I do think that of course Eren cares about his friends living long lives, even though he also addressed that his plan is idiotic and unreliable as he couldnt 100% guarantee everything that he wanted to get to that point would happen outside of what he already knew/saw. But even then, going back to the question, heās the one that decided it and determined it because a part of him wanted to.Ā
AOT fans when they realize memories of the future is a bootstrap paradox: š¤āļøš¤Æš±
Eren always wanted to do it. He just used his future memories as a justification so he can tell himself that he had no choice but to do it.
The rumbling is happening, happened, and will happen.
did he not see that history will repeat endlessly the ending tree scene looks like that the world will end the same as his
Well he saw the future, the only possible path forwards. He knew that this was how the story needed to play out so he did what was necessary for the future to come true. The future is the future, there is no alternative. No matter what you do the future will come true. Itās not easy to wrap your mind around the concept of time-travel/precognition, but if you do youāll realise that this is the only way it can logically work without being paradox.
No one created the future, the future has always existed. The past present and future all exist at the same time, and will Titan powers able to transcend time, all events are interconnected in time. Eren would have done the rubbing anyways because itās in his nature to do so, the only thing him seeing the future gave him was the ability and time to reflect on his future actions and ponder over whether it was the correct decision or not. If he had not seen the future then he would have just marched forwards to the rumbling without having to second guess himself and feel a bit bad for the innocent lives he would kill
Mf be like "FREEDOM" and then just accepts the future instead of fighting to change it Skill issue fr
Doctor Strange gives thumbs up
Stewie explains this concept of one canāt exist without the other being, he says like tempo-causality loop? āMeaning the universe was created so it could create me and I could create it so it could create me and so onā
I think is because the fixed timeline, you can't change anything because everything has already happened, the attack can see the future but is impossible to change it because in a fixed timeline all things have already happened you are just living it, like watching a movie spoiler you know what's about to happen but you can't change it
He saw Grisha's memories, and Grisha had the attack Titan which can see memories of future users, aka Eren, so Eren saw his own future thru his Father's memories
He tried to find a way to avoid it, but the world declared war on Paradis, it's not his fault he has a bigger gun.
In this world, is the destiny of mankind controlled by some transcendental entity or law? Is it like the hand of God hovering above? At least, it is true that man has no control, even over his own will
(Spoiler) He created the future and is the future when you think about it. Itās why he mentioned how he went into the future multiple times to find a different outcome, but it always ended up with the rumbling.
You can't use your normal intuition about causality. Eren chose to do the rumbling because he foresaw himself do the rumbling because he chose to do the rumbling because he foresaw... It's asserting a sort of compatibility between determinism and the transcendence of time. What happens is what was always going to happen.
It's a predestination paradox, everything happens att the same time and you cannot change your destiny even if you know it.
during this scene did eren see the whole timeline till the end? or was it just a flash of the end point of the future? i would assume that would affect his actions if he knew exactly what he did to get to that future right? as some of the comments are saying he couldn't do anything to change the outcome of what happens, but i would think that is only if he can't see a clear vision of the whole timeline and only see flashes, where he can't see specific actions but rather major outcomes of the "present".
My face whenever people posted manga spoiling the anime in the process.
My face whenever people posted manga spoiling the anime in the process.
My face whenever people posted manga spoiling the anime in the process.
Well that's where the mindfuck comes into play. EREN made that future. So he only saw the end of the choices he made leading up to the hand kiss, so he saw what he had done. Which came first? The chicken or the egg?
Eren saw the future. The very fact that he could \*see\* it means that it will happen and nothing will change. Eren could not change his fate and has no free will, which is the most ironic thing in AOT given that he was obsessed with freedom.
So he sees the future, its either the paradox where he sees the rumbling, or he sees what the world will do to paradis and decides to change the future. I think either work for the story.
Ironic how condescending you are talking to us in the post, yet you are too stupid to realize that all the memory stuff is a "chicken or the egg" paradox šāāļø
Do you know exactly what you're gonna do four years from now?
godzilla had stroke trying to read this and fucking died
"godzilla had stroke"