Eren Yeager: Hero or Villain? The Complete Final Analysis

⚠️ MASSIVE SPOILERS: This article discusses Attack on Titan’s complete story including the controversial ending. If you haven’t finished the manga or anime, turn back now.

No character in modern anime history has sparked more debate than Eren Yeager. The boy who vowed to exterminate all Titans became the man who unleashed genocide upon 80% of humanity. The freedom-seeker became the oppressor. The protagonist became… what, exactly?

Hero? Villain? Victim? Monster? Savior?

The answer, like Eren himself, is complicated. Let’s break down one of fiction’s most complex character arcs and try to understand what Hajime Isayama created.

Part I: The Hero We Believed In

Childhood and the Fall of Shiganshina

Eren Yeager’s story begins in tragedy. In the year 845, the Colossal Titan breached Wall Maria, and a young Eren watched helplessly as a smiling Titan devoured his mother. In that moment, his defining trait was born: an almost pathological need for freedom and revenge.

But here’s what’s easy to forget: young Eren was genuinely heroic. He:

Saved Mikasa from human traffickers at age nine (killing two of them)
Possessed unwavering determination to protect those he loved
Dreamed not of power, but of seeing the outside world
Refused to accept the “cattle within walls” existence

His famous declaration—”I’ll destroy them all… every last one”—seemed righteous at the time. Titans ate humans. Eren wanted to kill Titans. Simple heroism.

The Survey Corps Years

Eren’s early military career reinforced his heroic image:

He was willing to sacrifice himself repeatedly
His Titan transformation was used exclusively to protect humanity
He fought alongside comrades with genuine loyalty
His goals aligned with everyone else’s—defeat the Titans, reclaim Wall Maria

During this period, Eren embodied the classic shonen protagonist. He was hotheaded, determined, and morally uncomplicated. The audience was meant to root for him without reservation.

The Turning Point

Everything changed when Eren touched Historia’s hand in the Crystal Cave and again at the medal ceremony. These contacts with royal blood activated glimpses of the future through the Attack Titan’s power. What did he see?

The Rumbling. His own future actions. The genocide he would commit.

From this moment, the Eren we knew began to die, replaced by someone burdened with terrible knowledge and an apparent inability—or unwillingness—to choose differently.

Part II: The Descent Into Villainy

Marley Arc — The Transformation Becomes Visible

When Eren infiltrates Marley alone, operates without telling his friends, and orchestrates the Liberio attack, he crosses several moral lines:

The Liberio Declaration of War: Eren attacks a civilian population, crushing innocents beneath his Titan transformation and killing members of the Tybur family. His justification? They declared war first. But he clearly manipulated events toward this outcome.

Manipulation of Friends: Eren uses Mikasa and Armin’s genuine concern for him to force the Survey Corps into supporting his operation, giving them no choice but to rescue him and fight.

Alliance with Zeke: Secretly working with his brother while hiding his true intentions from everyone.

The Eren who returns from Marley is cold, distant, and strategically cruel. He tells Mikasa her love is merely Ackerman instinct. He calls Armin useless. He beats his oldest friend bloody.

The Table Scene: Breaking Bonds

Perhaps no scene crystallizes Eren’s apparent villainy more than his confrontation with Mikasa and Armin. He:

Tells Mikasa he’s always hated her
Mocks Armin for being influenced by Bertholdt’s memories
Physically defeats both when they react
Shows zero remorse

At this point, viewer/reader sympathy often breaks entirely. This isn’t the Eren we followed for years—this is someone monstrous wearing his face.

The Rumbling: Mass Murder Made Personal

When Eren activates the Rumbling, he commits what is objectively the largest mass murder in human history (within the story):

80% of humanity outside Paradis is killed
Countless civilian populations are exterminated
Children, families, innocents—none are spared
The death toll is in the billions

No moral framework can easily justify this. Eren’s actions meet every definition of genocide, crimes against humanity, and mass murder. By any conventional measure, he became one of fiction’s greatest monsters.

Part III: The Defense — Was Eren Justified?

Despite the atrocities, a significant portion of the fanbase argues Eren was either justified or sympathetic. Let’s examine these arguments honestly.

The Threat Was Real

Paradis faced genuine existential danger:

Marley was preparing full-scale invasion
The world’s nations viewed Eldians as devils deserving extinction
Diplomatic solutions had failed
Partial measures (destroying military forces only) would invite future retaliation

Eren didn’t invent the threat to Paradis—it existed independently of his actions. His people really were facing genocide themselves.

The Euthanasia Alternative

Zeke’s plan—sterilizing all Eldians to peacefully end the Titan curse—was presented as the “humane” alternative. But was it better?

It still meant the extinction of Eren’s people
It denied future generations the right to exist
It accepted that Eldians were the problem to be eliminated

Eren rejected sacrificing his people’s future. Whatever his crimes, this motivation wasn’t purely selfish.

Determinism and Free Will

The Attack Titan grants future memory inheritance. Eren saw what he would do before he did it. This raises uncomfortable questions:

Could Eren have chosen differently?
Was he living out a predetermined timeline?
Does inevitability change moral responsibility?

The manga suggests Eren was trapped by his own future memories, seeing no path that didn’t end in the Rumbling. Whether this absolves him is up to interpretation.

The Long-Term Outcome

Eren’s stated goal was ensuring Paradis’s survival and making his friends into heroes who stopped him. To some degree, this worked:

The immediate military threat was eliminated
The Alliance gained credibility as Titan slayers
Paradis gained time (though the manga’s extended ending shows eventual war)

Whether this “justified” killing billions is the central moral question of the series.

Part IV: The Final Reveal — Neither Hero Nor Pure Villain

Chapter 139 and the Full Picture

The manga’s finale revealed crucial information that recontextualizes everything:

Eren knew his friends would stop him: He explicitly planned to be stopped at 80%, not 100%. The Rumbling was always meant to be interrupted.

Eren didn’t want to do it: His conversation with Armin shows a person in anguish, not a monster enjoying destruction. “I don’t want to die… I want to be with Mikasa… everyone…”

Eren loved his friends: The cruel words were lies designed to push them away, both for their safety and so they could oppose him with clear consciences.

Eren was, in part, a child who never got past his mother’s death: His breakdown about Mikasa finding another man reveals someone far more vulnerable than the cold mastermind he presented.

The Tragic Interpretation

The most sympathetic reading of Eren:

A traumatized child given godlike power he couldn’t handle
Trapped by future memories showing him his own atrocities
Unable to escape the path leading to the Rumbling
Sacrificing his morality, sanity, and life to save his friends
Dying as the devil so Paradis and his loved ones could live

Under this view, Eren is a tragic figure who bore unbearable burdens and made impossible choices with full knowledge of what they would cost him.

The Critical Interpretation

The less sympathetic reading:

Eren chose this path and could have chosen differently
His breakdown doesn’t erase billions of deaths
“Making friends into heroes” doesn’t justify genocide
The “sad backstory” doesn’t excuse mass murder
His crying over Mikasa undermines the idea of noble sacrifice

Under this view, Eren is a villain who wants sympathy he doesn’t deserve, using trauma to excuse the inexcusable.

Part V: Legacy and Ending Interpretation

What the Extended Ending Shows

The manga’s additional pages reveal:

Paradis eventually faces war again (and apparent destruction)
Peace was not permanent
The cycle of violence continued
A child discovers Eren’s tree (now containing the source of all organic matter)

This ending suggests:

Eren’s sacrifice didn’t end conflict—it delayed it
Violence begets violence, even when “successful”
The themes reject easy answers about ends justifying means

What Isayama Was Saying

Hajime Isayama has given various interviews suggesting his intentions:

He wanted to hurt readers emotionally
He didn’t intend for Eren to be simply heroic or villainous
The story is about the cycle of violence and hatred
Easy moral answers were never the goal

The Final Verdict: Hero or Villain?

After examining every angle, here’s the honest assessment:

Eren is a villain by any moral standard. He committed genocide. He killed billions of innocents. He made choices that directly caused unfathomable suffering.

Eren is also a tragic figure. He was shaped by trauma, burdened by future sight, and placed in impossible circumstances where every choice was catastrophic.

Eren is also a cautionary tale. About how trauma without healing creates monsters. About how the abused can become abusers. About how nationalism and fear fuel atrocity.

The answer to “hero or villain?” is yes. Both. Neither. Something more complicated that doesn’t fit cleanly into either box—which is exactly what made Eren one of the most compelling characters in anime history.

He is the protagonist who became the final antagonist. The freedom-seeker who enslaved himself to a terrible future. The friend who pushed everyone away because he loved them. The monster who cried for the life he couldn’t have.

Eren Yeager was never meant to be easy to classify. That difficulty is his legacy.

Where to Experience the Complete Story

Anime: Attack on Titan Final Season THE FINAL CHAPTERS adapts the complete ending. Available on Crunchyroll.

Manga: Attack on Titan Complete Box Set on Amazon

The manga contains the extended ending with additional pages not yet in the anime.

Conclusion

The debate over Eren Yeager will continue as long as people watch Attack on Titan. He’s designed to be controversial, designed to challenge your moral frameworks, designed to make you uncomfortable regardless of your conclusion.

Whether you see him as a tortured hero who sacrificed everything, a monster masquerading behind tragic circumstances, or something between—you’re not entirely wrong. Eren Yeager contains multitudes, contradictions, and the full spectrum of human capacity for both love and cruelty.

That’s what makes him unforgettable.