I read AoT chapter 139 for the first time and I have... feelings. Overall I liked it because I felt it addressed the necessary details and gave some food for thought but there's a lot of cracks and the execution was WEIRDDDD so it's only natural to be thrown off & upset.

I always considered this self-sacrificial end as a possibility, though I know many were also strongly opposed to this kind of end but I think the details somewhat line up.

One of the first things that come to mind is this and how Eren's plan here is a direct contradiction of what he says here, but the context of the conclusion gives his argument a little more credibility.

By the end of this conclusion 80% of the outside world is still wiped out so what Eren did is removed the potential for military overpowering of Paradis. They're still not "united" & gearing up for war but they have power & options. This was the saving grace of the ending for me.

I also noted in my previous thread how the survivors on the continent all witnessed the Alliance taking down Eren, and since the Tyburs were loved generations after by the whole world despite being Eldians because they "defeated" Fritz, I think it's not wholly unprecedented.

And by making the alliance ambassadors for peace negotiations they can actually do something with that. Willy could've likely helped Eldians' position too but he was also racist against Eldians and believed Paradis deserved to die.

And going back to the Declaration of War again, Eren came to listen to it because he knew the future. Eren wanted Willy to give his play because he told the truth about Fritz and that Paradis aren't the world-ending threat they'd believed, instead it was Eren alone who was.

When Willy told the truth that their hatred had been built on a lie you could see them being affected by it, but instead all that hatred was put onto Eren specifically for having stolen the Founding Titan, thus making the threat of the Rumbling a reality after over 100 years.

It's established that the reason for the world's hatred of Eldians is really another form of the fear of titans, & they saw eradicating Paradis as the only way to wipe titans from the world but in this ending Eren found another way to erase the power of the titans from the world.

But even after erasing the power of the titans they don't just hug it out immediately and end up in one more confrontation with Secretary Muller, and this scene actually parallels the scene with Captain Felman in chapter 11, when Armin convinced them Eren wasn't an enemy.

Even the line "Are you human or are you titan?" is a callback, just a nice detail but of course Isayama would do any callback imaginable I don't wanna just use that as justification for everything alone.

The idea that Eren wanted someone to stop him was also brought up in the story and was one of the main theories for the last couple years so my reaction was a little like "Oh, so it did turn out like that after all" I wasn't really shocked because it was always on the table.

It obviously brings certain comparisons to another famous series which was the main reason I would've preferred something else but I don't think conceptually it's a bad or stupid idea, that "other series" is one of my favorites too and it's specifically praised for its ending.

I also don't think it has to be so out of character. Eren has a wide variety of motivations and development over time, and one that this fulfills is of course the idea of ensuring the future of those he cares about, as well as "discard your humanity to overcome".

Another motivation is "to exterminate all titans/remove the terror of titans from the world" which he did, he destroyed both the birdcage they were in, and the monsters that had oppressed them.

Another main thing Eren has been motivated by is the need to prove all their sacrifices weren't for nothing, that it had meaning, and carrying that burden has always been part of his character, down to the Atlas imagery of him symbolically carrying the world.

I know what most people associate Eren with is that instinctual, unstoppable desire for "freedom" that keeps moving forward, but maybe that's the point? That in the end he lays down his life to protect the freedom of his friends instead, in classic Survey Corps fashion?

This is actually one of the reasons I really loved this scene of Levi, not just because it's a very deserved conclusion for his character, but Eren called a united world "optimistic" and Levi also said the only way they could push on was believing in that idealistic world.

Eren got his hand on "freedom" in chapter 131 when he made 80% of the world into the civilization-free landscape he always dreamed of, and maybe the fact that decision was his own, and dying with that result was freedom in its own way.

And the fact this conversation between Eren and Armin took place in and recontextualizes chapter 131 when Armin first got into paths (which was unexplained but now makes sense since Eren called him there) puts it into perspective with Eren's "freedom" & this both being one event.

I think both sides can be true at once. Eren wanted to wipe the world clean & start over, but he also knew he would inevitably die so the 80% was enough. He says as much in the chapter, if he didn't know Mikasa would end up killing him he would've wiped away the world completely.

I guess kind of like Fritz wanted a brief "paradise" in the walls before their deserved reckoning, Eren had his brief "freedom" of an outside world with no people before his own. Eren's sins were just as severe as the old Eldian Empire and he knew it better than anyone.

Since Willy Tybur's speech also briefly flashes back to this scene between Uri and Kenny I feel it's worth bringing up too. Just like Uri, Eren knew he didn't have long left, but he will live on in their memories and creates a "paradise" for the remnants of humanity left in a way

The idea of "living on in their memories" that Uri brings up also goes back to this scene of Mikasa which I always imagined would play into the ending where Eren dies for Paradis' sake.

I hit the tweet limit so take this for now

The fact Eren had been pushing his friends away on purpose was something I was saying for a while, and when you think about it the only way that makes sense is if he knew he would die, otherwise he wouldn't make preparations for them to forget him and move on.

It's actually weird how clear it was that Eren was always planning to die at the end of all this, I don't know why one would expect him to want to go on living after the rumbling. In 138 too he was telling Mikasa to forget about him, live and be happy, because he knew.

It was always my personal wish for Eren to be redeemed in some small way and I'm happy that came to fruition. Eren has always had morals and a sense of responsibility which has come in conflict with his desire for revenge and freedom.

I never wanted Eren to become a full-on villain and lose that sense of the person he was pre-ts because that wouldn't make sense with his character to me, but I had to come to peace with that being a possibility too, but this last chapter proved to me Eren is still the one I know

I'm not saying he was handled perfectly in the chapter but compared to the cold, emotionless, dead-eyed Eren of post-timeskip you can actually see that this was the original "crybaby" Eren, and I think that's only right.

I gotta say while writing this thread I'm also coming to peace a lot more with what Isayama decided to do and liking the chapter more.

Eren says in this chapter that he doesn't know what will happen after he dies (because there is no next Attack Titan because he erases the curse of Ymir),

so what he said in Marley about "Beyond that hell there might be hope or there might be another hell" refers to the world we see at the end here, where Paradis' Jaegerist militia is ready for war but Historia and the Alliance have the opportunity to build a peace finally as well.

It's worth noting that they aren't ambassadors for Paradis going out to the world to broker peace, they are ambassadors for the world going to Paradis to broker peace, showing they've already been accepted, and they have the support of Historia too. Peace isn't far out of sight.

All this time, from Marco to Armin, there's never been an opportunity to "talk this out", because Paradis had no means of engaging with the governments of the world, open dialogue was impossible even if it would solve, but now finally, talking it out is actually a possibility.

I don't know how I can stress this point enough if you haven't read all my other threads but the "We haven't even talked this through" motif is very important, and I think most people dismiss it as simple naïveté, but it's been naïve because of the situation they've been in.

"Talking it out" with the world was impossible for Paradis because they don't have the knowledge, technology or power to influence the geopolitics of the world. Because of the propaganda they've been fed, & their ignorance, that's why discussion was impossible, until this moment.

Idk if there's more to be said about Eren's motives and plan so now we'll get on to the rest that I feel more mixed about. "Ymir loved Karl Fritz" I think this is meant to be a parallel to Mikasa. Eren called Mikasa a "slave" because of her love, Ymir is a literal slave to Fritz.

And because Mikasa managed to become independent and kill Eren who she loved to a similar unnatural degree, it sort of gave Ymir a reason to move on herself. Why did she love Fritz? Maybe because to him she was special, she was a slave but also more than a slave.

The next big twist is this, actually explaining why Dina Fritz ignored Bertholdt "that day", and why Eren could see it in his memories. This is another theory I was surprised to see pan out but I also understand why it would be controversial so let me explain how I see it.

I don't think Eren "planned" for his mom to get eaten, I think it was more like the unexpected consequence of what he had to do which was keep Bertholdt alive, because what's happened already happened & the past, present and future will go the way it's been layed out, inevitably.

We all know Eren loves his mother & I don't think he would choose to kill Carla if at all possible not, it was either an impulse thought when everything was happening in his head at once to tell her to walk away from Bertholdt, or it was an unavoidable event because of causality.

This scene I feel like I could've just done without so we could have the "you are free" panel be a whole page instead of such a small little panel.

I've always loved Isayama's facial expressions because they're often not easy to put into words but in this case that might be the weirdest thing about this. I can't tell if Armin is smiling, frowning, cringing, or maybe all of them. But it makes this line conflicting in tone.

It's just this emotion I guess

I do love how sentimental and intimate Mikasa and Armin's farewell to Eren is. He deserves to be treated with care and respect in death.

Historia's child subplot sadly wasn't really as big as many of us thought it would be but before I read the chapter I actually thought about their conversation in 130 and I think the point really was just to save Historia from being turned into a titan and eat Zeke, & she didn't.

And then all that's really left is this final scene of Mikasa at Eren's grave 3 years later by the tree where we saw them for the first time. This is a very beautiful send-off to the series imo with the tree, scarf & bird symbolizing freedom. Is Eren the bird? I don't know at all

It's been 7 years for me since AoT changed my life and introduced me to anime and the world of fiction and for that I'll always be grateful. #ThankYouIsayama

Attack on Titan completed: