06.15
Ten episodes and a shocking revelation later, I think it’s about time we do some Attack on Titan dissecting.
Anime protagonists in general come off as being constantly set at an intensity of 11, but Eren Jaeger takes the cake when it comes to such. Without having even seen a Titan before the attack on his hometown (at least to our knowledge), a young Eren is already roaming the streets telling off army officials about how they better not take such times of peace too lightly. And while such a statement is understandable enough, it can be difficult to be taken seriously about a topic on Titans when they’ve been successfully kept at bay for 100 years. People as old as Eren’s grandparents (arguably, great-grandparents, assuming an understandably short life span given food shortages) have lived inside the wall, leaving well enough alone, so who is someone like Eren to suddenly become curious as to what’s out there?
Enter Armin—a close friend of Eren’s who just so happens to have a grandfather who owns some contraband books on the world outside the wall. Suddenly knowledge as seemingly minor as the existence of a sea full of salt water leads to Eren developing something of a “there must be more than this provincial life” syndrome. He has a sense that the world has so much more to offer, but rather than villainizing his world’s rulers for keeping a cap on the spread of certain facts, he grows to direct his hatred towards the more prominent reason preventing humans from venturing outside the wall: the Titans. This hatred is slowly brought to a violent boil when Shiganshina is attacked, and Eren’s own mother is killed by a Titan during the chaos.
But there is more to Eren’s rage and overall plight than even that traumatic event.
Upon further investigation, you’ll notice that the flashback of Eren and Armin reading about the outside world has a severe lack of Mikasa. And considering that the three of them were all essentially joined at the hip during their childhood, it is safe to assume that the flashback in question took place before either Eren or Armin met her. Another factor to take note of during the flashback would be the lack of Eren defaulting to an angry face or screaming about the cold harsh truths of the world. As far as we know, the first time chronologically we have seen Eren at his default max intensity would be when he saves a young Mikasa, killing two grown men with an unrelenting fury comparable to that of well… a kid all hopped up on mysterious serums that even the manga hasn’t fully explained yet.
I mean... I don't think you can get away with calling it "just a phase"
What I’m trying to get at is that with the exception to the serums he’s apparently been injected with, Eren’s true strength doesn’t come from his book-smarts like Armin, or his brute strength like Mikasa. Rather, Eren has been built up to be the type of character that is able to get by regardless of (and probably due to) his shortcomings. His intense hatred for Titans as well as his underplayed curiosity of what lies beyond the community walls is what pushes him to do his very best, even when his very best clearly doesn’t hold a candle to the other army members.
So imagine my disappointment when all that character building is essentially tossed out the window when it’s revealed that Eren has the ability to transform himself into a Titan.
The twist itself is interesting enough and provides a sense of surrealism in a world that’s come off as decently planted in reality (or y’know… as “reality” as a world full of giants would be). But the fact that this ability has been granted to Eren—a character that up until this point has been moving forward based on his own merits (or lack of them)—seems incredibly contrary to what he’s been built up as. In terms of squad usefulness, Eren isn’t the first person to come to mind, but with his newfound abilities, he has instantly reached god-like status with outsiders either willing to roll with him or are irrationally against him. And if it weren’t for the handful of seconds-long flashbacks with Dr. Jaeger waving a hypodermic needle in front of Eren’s face, I would have called this a deus ex machina from the get-go.
That’s not to say that this new kink to the plot hasn’t grown on me. Keeping up with the manga (46 chapters as of this post), I will say that future Titan lore has been written in such a way that Eren’s transformation feels less forced and obnoxious. And of course there’s also the possibility of the anime taking things in a different, equally positive, direction as well.
Regardless of where you stand with Eren’s Titan powers, I will say that the series as a whole handles their cast of characters in such a way that meets and exceeds most anime fans’ shonen expectations. In the long run, Eren still remains the brash, overly intense shonen main character with enough unique bumps and bruises to separate himself from the ever-growing list of anime protagonists.