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| “ | Hear me, all Subjects of Ymir. My name is Eren Yeager. I now speak to all Subjects of Ymir by way of the Founding Titan's power. Every wall on the island of Paradis has been unhardened. All of the Titans buried within them have begun to walk. My goal... is to protect the people of Paradis, who bore me and raised me. But the world desires the extinction of the people of Paradis. Over countless years, their hatred has grown beyond this island. They surely will not stop until they have killed every one of the Subjects of Ymir. I reject their desire. The Titans of the Walls will trample and rumble all the lands beyond this island. Until the lives there... are eliminated from this world. | „ |
| ~ Eren announcing his plans to the Subjects of Ymir. |
Eren Yeager (also known as Eren Jaeger in the anime version) is the main protagonist of the Attack on Titan franchise.
He is a former member of the Survey Corps, the leader of the Yeagerists, the last inheritor of the Attack Titan and later revealed to be the Founding Titan as well. Later in the story, he becomes the inheritor of the War Hammer Titan. He serves as Reiner Braun's archenemy and is the half-brother of Zeke Yeager.
While initially presented as an heroic protagonist in the beginning, Eren gradually becomes more of a morally ambiguous anti-villain by committing several violent acts for the sake of Eldia, causing most of his friends to turn against him. In the end, he became the final antagonist of the series.
He is voiced by Yūki Kaji in Japanese and by Bryce Papenbrook in English, who also voices Zeldris and Meliodas from The Seven Deadly Sins. He was played by the late Haruma Miura in the live-action film adaption of Attack on Titan.
His Evil Ranking[]
What Makes Him Heinous?[]
- He does have some comedic moments sometimes in Season 1, 2, and 3, but until it was subverted in Season 4 as well as the final season, he lost all of his humor and is played very seriously after he became evil.
- When he was child, he killed two kidnappers who wanted to sell Mikasa by repeatedly stabbing them with a knife and calling them animals. Despite his intention to protect Mikasa, he showed no remorse, instead stating that they deserved to be killed. This demonstrates his unstable personality and violent tendencies even as a child.
- He is very savage and bloodthirsty when fighting his enemies. When he fought the Female Titan in the forest, he briefly and partially lost control of his Titan and intended to cut Annie Leonhart's Titan in little pieces and devour her, smiling with sadistic delight.
- In the anime, when fighting Annie a second time, he completely loses control of himself, ripping Annie's body apart and intending to devour her alive, plus causing collateral damage, mass destruction, and manslaughter within Stohess District.
- Upon meeting his grandfather, he indirectly reminded him of his traumatic past of losing his son and daughter, which sent him into a traumatic episode. While it's possible he did not intend for this, he showed no remorse afterwards, although it was never revealed how he felt. It is possible he wanted to avoid feeling any attachment, since his grandfather was going to become one of his victims in the Rumbling.
- After Willy Tybur’s speech in the Liberio internment zone, he brutally smashed Willy Tybur until his body was shattered and he had eaten Tybur, assuming Willy might have been the War Hammer Titan’s inheritor.
- And in his Titan form, he ran to the stands so fast that he killed many of Marley’s military executives who were there, several ambassadors who were present, including numerous civilians because of his actions. Among the victims he killed at the zone's plaza was also the child soldier and Warrior candidate Zofia.
- When he fought with War Hammer Titan, before its holder Lara could transform into her Titan form completely, he brutally punched her many times to try to crush her nape and kill her.
- After he defeated War Hammer Titan, he used Porco’s sharp jaws to crush her body and devour her. He smashed Porco’s Titan into the ground while cutting off his arms and legs so he could eat the Titan as well before being prevented by Reiner, who rose from his dilemma.
- After he broke out of his cell, he founded his own based terrorist group, Yeagerists, and he recruited many members who didn’t trust Paradis' military anymore, as well as Floch Forster, his former rival who was also willing to do heinous things so his goal would be achieved. His faction has done many heinous things such as blowing up Zackley’s office, kidnapping many members of the survey corps and brainwashing them, and ruthlessly executing those who oppose them by shooting them.
- When he and Zeke saw one of his father’s memories after his father's request to help Paradis civilians was rejected by the Reiss royal family, he goes mad and manipulated his father to massacre the whole Reiss family, including the children, with the exception of Rod Reiss.
- Although it is the world that ultimately pushed Eren to have a reason to do a full-scale Rumbling, he had a personal desire to massacre humanity outside the Walls, as he was not content to learn how the real world works. He was disappointed that the world was not the fantasy free world devoid of humans he had imagined from Armin's book, and because of this developed a desire to wipe everything out.
- Because of this, he considers himself worse and more selfish than Reiner, who desired to wipe all humanity within the Walls for personal desire. He was even more disappointed when he had to accept the fact that the people of Marley and everywhere else outside the Walls are just normal humans and not deserving of indiscriminate brutal death. Before the final battle, when asked why he chose to do the Rumbling within the Paths, Eren admitted that he simply wanted to do that, making his actions more heinous and despicable.
- After Founder Ymir Fritz allowed him to use his Founding’s power, he awakened millions of Wall Titans that made the Walls and used them to have them trample everything in their paths.
- The Walls' crumbling and the Titans marching caused widespread destruction and death in Paradis via unintended collateral damage. He then sent the Wall Titans across the world, intending to destroy all terrestrial life outside the island, including Hizuru and the families of the Volunteers and the Marleyan captives who were friends with the Eldians.
- As the Founding Titan, he then personally went to Marley with the Rumbling to wipe out the entire continent. The only reason why he wasn’t successful in wiping out Marley along with the rest of the world was thanks to the main characters stopping him (which he intended to happen).
- The Rumbling is obviously the most heinous act Eren has ever committed, which involved countless deaths of billions of innocent people out there who knew nothing about the conflict, including children, women, and even newborns. The massacre dragged in all animal species, plants, entire complex ecosystems, and the environment as a whole. The Rumbling is a crime against all life, the planet Earth, history, heritage, literature, art, and culture in general, as it destroyed a lot infrastructure and human settlements, including historical places and natural wonders.
- When during the previous year Historia had told him that not everyone outside the Walls is an enemy and that most of them were going to die guiltless, not even knowing why this would happen to them, Eren understood it was the truth, but claimed that the solution to rid the world of its hateful history was to wipe put all civilization and human life. Burying history is considered an evil act, and General Magath deemed Eren's decision to trample everything as unforgivable, as he believed that history and humanity's wrong should be taught to future children, while teaching them to become better than their previous generations, instead of leaving a cruel future for them or deny it entirely.
- With his actions, Eren assumed that only his people should live and he accepted treating the rest of the world's population as enemies who threatened Paradis Island's safety. As a result, he successfully wiped out 80% population of the world's population by the end of the series, also killing his paternal grandparents in the process. He admitted he was planning to wipe out the remaining 20%, if the alliance between Marley and the Survey Corps had failed to stop him.
- In the final chapter, he revealed he prevented Dina's Titan from eating Bertolt Hoover after he destroyed Wall Maria, and instead sent Dina to kill his own mother Carla in order to set the chain of events that would lead to the Rumbling.
What Makes Him Inconsistent?[]
- He is too tragic for the following reasons.
- He was forced to watch as his mother was eaten alive by a Smiling Pure Titan because of Reiner Braun, Bertolt Hoover, and Annie Leonhart's actions of breaking down the wall to let the Titans in.
- He was forced to eat his father as a Pure Titan to inherit the Attack Titan and the Founder's power.
- He was forced to watch his comrades in Levi's squad die right in front of him at the hands of the Female Titan.
- He found out that his two close friends, Reiner and Bertholdt, had been the enemy the whole time, the ones who caused the death of his mother, and he found it out by them telling him straight to his face and then trying to kidnap him, which broke him mentally.
- He tried to save Hannes, but he watched him die the same way that he lost his mother, knowing that there was nothing he could do.
- When he kissed Historia's hand, he found out what he was destined to become and that he was the one responsible for the slaughter of the royal family. He saw that his future and destiny was to become humanity's and the world's greatest enemy. Ever since, he started to believe there was no way to avoid such a future and that it was all "already decided". He knew since then that the Founder Ymir had been awaiting for such a future for thousands of years.
- Later on, when he tried to find peaceful options to stop the cycle of hate in the world against Paradis Island, he realized that there was nothing he could do to stop the Eldians from being attacked by the rest of humanity.
- He felt that he really had no other choice but to commit the Rumbling. While there may have been alternatives, Eren is a self proclaimed “idiot” who was given too much power, so even if there was a better option, it wasn’t one he would ever know about.
- He has helped and done a lot for humanity within the Walls, such as helping Paradis exterminate all the Titans and using his Titan power to cover damage on Trost and Shiganshina's gates that was done by the attacks of Marley's Titans.
- He truly cared about and loved his friends and partners, especially his childhood best friends, Mikasa and Armin. When he told his friends that his Titan period was over in 4 years, almost all of his friends volunteered to inherit his Titan, but he asked his friends not to inherit it, so that his friends can outlive him.
- When Zeke's arrangements and plan presented by Kiyomi to the Eldian government required that Queen Historia inherit his Beast Titan and asked for her to give birth as much as possible, Eren gets angry and condemned such a plan for taking Historia's freedom. This shows that he was really protective about Historia's life.
- Although he had a personal desire to wipe out everything outside the Walls due to personal dissatisfaction, he initially wished to avoid resorting to the Rumbling, and throughout the entire time he was plotting to do it still hoped for someone to either stop him before it was too late, or even find a non-violent solution to protect his island, so he could live his remaining four years of life quietly with Mikasa. But in the end, he resigned to his fate and that he was always going to take the "freedoms" of all who stood against his own, even while understanding that everyone else has lives and dreams as much as himself.
- While it is constantly under debate whether Eren's actions prioritized his more evil personal desire, his wish for Paradis to survive, or simply the happiness and freedom of his close friends, he is seen admitting to being unable to accept the demise of humanity within the Walls, seeing it as taking their freedom away. Despite Eren acknowledging more the fact the he just wanted to destroy the world as his main reason, when talking to Armin, his inner thoughts and emotional breakdown to Ramzi displayed a mix of his three main reasons to start the Rumbling.
- Mikasa sometimes wonders if Eren would have given up his mission if she had confessed her romantic feelings to him, although Eren refused to be the one to express romantic feelings to her due to the fact he had only four years left to live.
- An instant before being killed, Eren brings Mikasa into a Paths place imaginary scenery where the two of them got together romantically, and as a result, decided to run away from Paradis and its conflict with Marley. In this reality, the two ended up living in isolation somewhere in a remote land in Marley, abandoning their friends and people to live quietly in peace. However, it is never confirmed if Eren would have run away from conflict to indulge his feelings and desire to complete his short life, had Mikasa confessed her feelings.
- Mikasa sometimes wonders if Eren would have given up his mission if she had confessed her romantic feelings to him, although Eren refused to be the one to express romantic feelings to her due to the fact he had only four years left to live.
- He had to face the fact that his enemies outside the Walls were as much ordinary humans as his people in Paradis, which made him more conflicted about his future actions. When he travelled to Marley, Eren only saw different kinds of people and not automatically all "evil" and saw that between humanity outside and the people of Paradis both dehumanize each other. He especially felt sorry for the Eldians living in all the world's internment zones and the discrimination they face everywhere in the world, even by his own supporters in Paradis, who were the people his father and Kruger were tried to free and were the people of Historia's deceased friend Ymir. Eren's own family originated from an internment zone in Marley.
- He became more depressed at knowing that his side, Eldia, were actually the "bad guys", historically, as Eldia spent most of its existence for centuries being aggressors who took freedom from others with the Titans and were the ones who destroyed Marley first. Eren's original vision of his people being most of humanity and the sole victims of the Titan was shattered, finding out that his ancestors were the ones who brought Titans in the world instead. Eren despised power hungry and cruel humans such as Fritz and the leaders of the Marleyan government, who exploited the lives of others for personal gain. He accepted that he was the "bad guy" and later told so to Reiner. He bluntly stated that the world was not wrong for seeing the Subjects of Ymir as monsters who could turn into Titans.
- He understood that the amount of life of the rest of the world and its needs outweighed his island, admitting that allowing all the Eldians to die would simply make the Titan problem vanish and humanity would finally be able to live in a normal world, just as Eren himself and the Survey Corps always desired. However, he was not able to accept such a sad outcome, as it looked unfair to him that the Eldians had to perish to the world's irrational hatred and resentment, without any chance around it.
- When he went to a refugee camp in a Marleyan city, he felt sorry for how the inhabitants were deprived of their freedom and dignity, and forced to live in tents, due to the Marley Mid-East War. He compared their situation to that of the people of Wall Maria, who were also homeless and helpless. He saw that all the civilians lose their rights to a decent life because of selfish and fighting powerful people like all governments, and even himself with his future actions. He met one of the children named Ramzi and apologized to him as he sheds tears over his future atrocities with the Rumbling in the future that would make the child one of the countless victims of his heinous act.
- He genuinely lost all his hatred for his enemies and came to understand them and sympathize with them. He lived for months in Marley and even joined the country's military as part of Zeke's plan, and during the months spent on the warzone during the Marley Mid-East War, he lived with the Marleyan soldiers. Because of his experiences, ambitions and feelings, he came to realize he was the same as the Warriors, especially Reiner. While spending his last month of infiltration in the Liberio internment zone, after the war, he experienced life in a hospital and was saddened by the fate of the traumatized patients.
- He was fond of Falco and later used him as an example to point out that Marley has good people everywhere like it has lots of awful people everywhere. He was not proud at how he used Falco to deliver letters to the Survey Corps in another city outside the internment zone, explaining to Falco that he needed help to smuggle the letters out.
- He came to empathize with the burden that Reiner, Bertolt and Annie bared, and no longer hated the Warriors after learning the truth.
- Even when Reiner almost died 4 years before, Eren was more heart-broken than satisfied, and never took any pride nor sense of justice for indirectly killing Bertolt.
- When meeting Reiner again after their last fight, Eren's civilized words to him were all genuine, and told him that everywhere humanity is the same, even if they all hate each other due to their titles, instead of treating each other as people. He told Reiner to forget any promise of brutality he had made when he was a younger teenager, and understood that Reiner and all his people were the product of their environment, controlled by angry adults.
- Eren acknowledged that the Warriors were victims as much as himself, and knew he no longer had any right to judge them over anything, knowing he was agreeing with causing a massacre in Liberio and preparing for his bigger atrocity in the future. He let Reiner know he was no longer blaming the Warriors for his mother's death (and possibly already knew he himself was the one who was going to arrange for it).
- Although he physically acted like he did not care for the victims of Liberio, Eren felt bad for his actions and was aware that most of his and Armin's victims did not deserve to die like that, especially the oppressed Eldians. He simply knew they were collateral damage that was inevitable, and in his eyes, most of them were likely going to get trampled in the Rumbling anyway.
- When he successfully obtained his Founder's power, he does not use its power to control his friends and the Warriors and gives them the freedom to stop him at any cost.
- He acknowledged that he was by no means a good person and understood he had no right to live after all he did. Although he was afraid to die, he said all his billions of victims were no different and had dreams as well. He was aware he could never atone for destroying a lot of life and culture and that he was beyond redemption. Unlike Floch and his most hardcore supporters, Eren genuinely empathized with his victims and did not justify any of his actions, as watching helpless living beings being deprived of their freedoms and dreams always sickened him, even if he is the one doing the cruelty. He had already resigned himself to death long before the Rumbling, becoming the final fatal casualty of the final battle.
- His death scene was played for sympathy where before his death at Mikasa's hands, he told Armin about the hidden plan behind his Rumbling plan, namely that he wanted to make sure his friends were recognized/acknowledged as the heroes who defeated him, that the world's hatred would only be focused on him, and he ultimately let Mikasa kill him.
Trivia[]
- Eren Yeager is one of the 4 Inconsistently Heinous characters to be displayed on the background of the wiki along with Eric Cartman, Galactus and Arthas Menethil.
External Links[]
- Eren Yeager on the Villains Wiki
- Eren Yeager on the Heroes Wiki
- Eren Yeager on the Inconsistently Admirable Wiki
- Eren Yeager on the Magnificent Baddie Wiki
- Eren Yeager on the Base Breaking Character Wiki
- Eren Yeager on the VS Battles Wiki
- Eren Yeager on the Attack on Titan Wiki
- Eren Yeager on the Seinen Heroes Wiki
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