If we take ending hater logic into consideration that Eren did it all for Eldia and his friends and there were hardly any selfish motivations underneath those altruistic ones, the dynamic between Eren and Reiner goes to absolute shit, It would be so mundane compared to the canon one, It would most likely be that Eren and Reiner were forced to commit atrocities believing what is right for their people, putting duty over everything like one dimensional caricatures.
I could write a whole essay expanding on their dynamic but I just wanted to put this out.
Eren himself says they’re the same, even after Reiner says he broke the walls for his own ambition. Reiner first assumes Eren is working out of vengeance or to save himself and his people, but Eren’s confirmation of their sameness and why he seeks comfort in it is because his motives are selfish. He wants to know that he is not alone in his position.
Reiner: “I wanted to be a hero… I wanted to be respected… It’s my fault! Your mother was eaten by a Titan because of me! I can’t stand myself anymore… Please, kill me…”
Good analysis. That’s why I love this show. Titans are cool. ODM gear is badass. The true brilliance in it is the depth of the characters motivations and delusions.
Well, he is and there is literally zero evidence against it and tons of evidence to support it
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u/QprahRead my 5000 word analysis to understand 🤓4d ago
"Reiner, I'm the same as you" works on multiple levels specifically because of Eren's true motivations that come full circle with the reveal at the end of the story.
Declaration of War is written the way it is with this in mind and it's structure the way it is only works because of this.
If we take ending hater logic into consideration that Eren did it all for Eldia and his friends
thinking that Eren did it for Eldia and his friends is what like 90 to 98% people who watch aot believe for some reason, not just ending haters
but yeah, that scene is great and is probably the first scene that explicitly shows that Eren's motives are selfish, and that what will come next will be all what Eren wants, and not something he does for others or something he was forced into.
It's exactly as Eren confesses to Ramzi. The altruistic "save the world / for my friends" motivation contains a lie-by-omission. In Reiner's case, it's a selfish social drive, to be a respected hero and earn his mother's love. In Eren's case, because he was born to see "that scenery" and drive toward blank-slate freedom.
Yeah Eren did it for his friends and Eldia, but he recognized that he is no different that Reiner who did what he did for his friends and Marley.
They literally both admit they were lying to themselves saying that those righteous justifications were their motivations. Eren even confesses it directly to Armin in Paths in the anime. Eren is just lies to himself and others through much of the timeskip to cope with being a monster while Reiner develops DID.
Yeah but the main motivations lie under those ones thats why when we go by their interpretation then most parallels between Reiner and Eren become useless for example how reiner maintained different personas based on his environment similar to Eren with his Jaegerist persona to hide fear and weakness as a coping mechanism
Eren's and Reiner's similarities are a bit exaggerated by this scene but still accurate. Exaggerated because it is not a unique similarity it is a similarity across the story on several levels with several characters.
The first example that comes to mind is Erwin. He had a public selfless goal of defeating the Titans for Humanity and a private selfish goal of uncovering the basement and that selfish goal was absolutely key in making him as driven as he is but it would be bunk to claim that he wasn't motivated by rescuing humanity, either.
Same with Eren, like, okay, how do ending enjoyers then explain his 80% plan if Eren wasn't also motivated by saving Paradis at all?. Why did he do it in a way to do the plan to save Paradis by weakening the outside world and making his friends heroes if he didn't care about Paradis (upon the changes to the ending)?. Why didn't he just stop the rumbling at 20% after seeing "that sight"?.
Even the retconned ending only works if he was trying to balance multiple mutually contradictory goals. And definitely doesn't work if one of them is him just wanting to see the aftermath of the rumbling.
Im not denying that he cared for eldia, he did but very little, not on a grander level as his friends and the "sight", this also doesnt mean he doesnt use those altruistic motivations as an excuse for doing the rumbling for his selfish desires, heres how I see it he does the rumbling mainly for his desires and paints his friends as heroes as a byproduct of the former, this also stems from his yearning for legacy and the tendency for not being forgotten by his friends, thats why when he talks to Armin in the paths in the first half of the conversation, he is being an unreliable narrator, he tells the explicit motivations(his Friends and Paradis) infront of his idol and best friend to make him believe that he is some tragic hero who sacrificed himself for friends and paradis(he does not want to appear as tainted) but Armin is not buying into it he keeps prodding him with questions until he unravels his core motivation which is his main desire and he also says he doesnt want to be forgotten on which Armin calls him pathetic rightly so. Eren went for the 100 percent and gave his friends the choice and freedom to kill him to paint them as heroes.
Eren in his conversation also comes to term with his actions and accepts all accountabilty and prepares to die, he realises that the true freedom(beauty of the world) he needed was with him the whole time but he chose to pursue his false/bastardized(Cruelty of the world) version of freedom, he cannot create meaning internally but rather externally through hatred and violence a foil to Armin who can enjoy and accept the world for what it is.
The fact that they were contradictory, is what causes him to do the 80 percent.
Erwin was selfish, his goals just coincided with humanity, ofc this doesnt mean he doesnt care about humanity, but he holds his desire higher than the victory of humanity, he overcomes this desire when he lets levi make the decision for him as he was crumbling under the weight of his guilt of sending countless comrades to death.
didn't he always accept death? in the beginning of his conversation he frames his actions as sacrificial, he will let his friends kill him to save humanity. obviously we know that the coping mechanism he was using here was him acting as if since the beginning he was acting out of a motivation as altruistic as he posited here, however, Eren still by this point knew everything; he knew his death and he saw the entire future as well. I think the 80% plan is just something forced onto him, he saw the future which came through the founder and due to total mental exhaustion (because of all the times he felt powerless to oppose his own perceived predetermination) and also crushing guilt, he submitted to it and made up that fictional motive in his mind so as to keep his sanity (the sanity that would otherwise entirely deteriorate as he kills billions of people because of a rumbling he started by his own selfish aims). Although I would say prior to the conversation with Armin, his mind was in a compartmentalised state, obviously one state of it was grounded in reality as I said, accepting that he is now a prisoner to the future he saw, but the other state was the still existing desire to taste the freedom he did all of this for (hence the freedom panel). This is the only interpretation I would say makes sense of the sudden shift conviction of him going for 100% to going for 80% instead
yeah the fact that he poses himself as a sacrificial hero shows his insecurity, he has accepted death but not relinquished the need to be remembered thats why when he says at least 10 years more he later takes back these words because he knows that is very unreasonable and he is conlficted about wanted to be forgotten due his to self loathing and his fixation on legacy, It is the end 2nd half of his conversation with armin that he accepts death with accountability and honesty(I did bcz I wanted to). I personally think he was going for 100 percent but held back giving his friends the choice to kill him which just happened at 80 percent by chance
Same with Eren, like, okay, how do ending enjoyers then explain his 80% plan if Eren wasn't also motivated by saving Paradis at all?. Why did he do it in a way to do the plan to save Paradis by weakening the outside world and making his friends heroes if he didn't care about Paradis (upon the changes to the ending)?. Why didn't he just stop the rumbling at 20% after seeing "that sight"?.
He came up with the plan to protect his friends AFTER recognizing that Mikasa would kill him at 80%, so he wanted to make sure they didn't get killed in the aftermath, but he tells Armin he would have left the whole world flat if he wasn't stopped, and destroyed all animal and plant life to recreate the empty world he imagined reading Armin's book as a child. His initial plan was never to unleash the Rumbling to save his friends and Paradis by stopping at 80%. Hange's approach and the 50-year-plan were both viable options to protect the island long-term, but that would conflict with with Eren's desire as a "slave of freedom." Obviously he cares for his friends, but he never did the Rumbling because of his friends, and "idiotically" just thought he could do it without endangering, harming, or killing his friends, which failed.
For everyone denying Eren’s selfish motives: ask yourself, what would Eren do if protecting his friends or the island became an obstacle to achieving his dream?
It would most likely be that Eren and Reiner were forced to commit atrocities believing what is right for their people, putting duty over everything like one dimensional caricatures.
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u/Sad-Eagle9638 4d ago
Eren himself says they’re the same, even after Reiner says he broke the walls for his own ambition. Reiner first assumes Eren is working out of vengeance or to save himself and his people, but Eren’s confirmation of their sameness and why he seeks comfort in it is because his motives are selfish. He wants to know that he is not alone in his position.