THAT Attack on Titan Ending

The series has finally concluded, and I, for one, am still left pondering.

A decade after its premiere, I am shocked to say that I am writing this having finally finished the legendary series, Attack on Titan (AOT). Starting the saga in middle-school, which was probably not healthy for a developing child’s brain, I have had an inconsistent relationship with the series. After season one, years passed until I was able to see where the story went next. Sadly, this hiatus sucked my passion from the franchise until it returned for its final season. In my Sophomore year of college, I returned to Attack on Titan and fell in love. Up until the final episode, it has blossomed into one of my favorite series of all time. Telling what I believe to be truly one of the greatest stories of all time, I have never physically or emotionally reacted as much from experiencing any tales as much as I have with AOT. The experience was, quite literally, visceral. After having finished the highly controversial finale, I can safely say, to some of your surprise, that the series still stands as tall as the colossus titan itself.

The final episode is as fiery in its action as it is its themes and storylines. Culminating a decades worth of a franchise and hundreds of years of in-world lore, AOT’s scope has exploded to levels unforeseen by any reader. And while the twist and turns that the series masterfully handled are what made it so beloved, many fans felt the finale went too far towards its extremes, leading to a conclusion that was uncharacteristically rushed and sloppy.

Now, before I continue, I have to politely ask you to STOP READING if you haven’t watched the show. A first run through is truly an experience you only have one shot of enjoying to its fullest. Do not ruin that for yourself. 

Ok. Now I can safely say that I, in some ways, disagree with what was so long the majority opinion. From some brief research, I’ve determined some of the fan base's common issues with the ending, and wanted to explain my reasoning as to why, at least in the anime, the ending is more solid than I’ve been led to believe. 

Before going over the commonalities between the manga ending and anime, I have to touch on the final episode in particular. Good lord. What a ride. The animation has reached its peak with some of the most climactic moments in the saga being realized with wonderful fidelity and passion. After finishing the episode, I turned to reddit to see what others had to say. One user commented they would be rewatching on .75 speed in attempts to catch every detail the animators masterfully crammed into this hour and a half behemoth of a finale. 

I would suggest dropping that to .5.

The amount of stuff in the series’ final moments is chaotic and relentless in its delivery. Every second a character is juggling a dozen different issues, all with the stakes of all of humanity weighing on their shoulders. At the same time, our main cast is also reeling with their individual arcs and personal relationships, all while the episode still has to depict the sheer horror the rumbling causes. It’s, admittedly, a lot, and while the episode is shockingly well structured for what I’ve been led to believe by the rumors, with a near symmetrical five act structure and each act perfectly having its own inciting incident and crisis, that doesn’t mean the film disguising itself as an episode doesn’t feel rushed or confused. I’ll admit, having to take notes and keep track of the dozens of important characters and plotlines, the constant setbacks the crew encounters, be emotionally engaged for the most tense or depressing moments of the franchise all in another language certainly added to the difficulty of tracking the show’s plot, but that has always been one of the joys of AOT. The story has never been simple, just as it’s never been one sided. Funnily enough, it seems like that’s where most of the controversy comes from: fans reducing the ending to fitting their desired outcome. However, I don’t think that is purely their fault.

A google search, rabbit holes down reddit threads and a few video essays have told me that the common issues with the finale come from expectation. From my understanding, this is somewhat understandable. While the manga released on a weekly basis, the final chapter took months to release, with the author Isyama apparently giving an interview before the finale’s release that hinted at a panel people started speculating over. However, that panel was false, and thus, fans had built up an ideal ending in their heads that, even if founded on a strong base, would be impossible to meet. Meaning, AOT’s finale was doomed from the start to be hated, but Isyama’s storytelling decisions only motivated further conflict amongst fans. 

AOT has always been about mystery, but never at the sake of introspection. However, the final chapters saw a departure from the series’ traditional storytelling framework in that it removed the audience from Eren’s perspective. The quite literal world altering reveal that the entire story up to this point took place on Paradis island and that an entire country exists just beyond the sea also saw the audience taking a less grounded role in the narrative. Now, even more perspectives added more nuance. A new world meant new characters, new narrative techniques and storytelling rules. Eren became the antagonist, a brilliant one at that. I never thought I’d seen such a nuanced character in all of fiction. Fans agreed, and this is where the first common complaint I’ve seen comes from: Eren and Armin final confrontation. 

Like I said, expectation leads to disappointment, and with the removal of Eren’s perspective came his presence as a seed of contention for fans. Now, the fanbase argued, and they had the time to. Was Eren in the right or wrong? Honestly, while Isyama’s storytelling decisions motivated this split, I find it to be far too simplistic of a way to view this series. I mean, seriously, did every reader expect a one note, easily defined, morally concrete ending from one of the most convoluted stories of all time? Isyama had people arguing for the safety of a genocidal mass murderer, and I can’t even blame them! The nuances are what make Attack on Titan so spectacular, and why so many people lauded its ending for being riddled with “lazy plot holes” and “bad character writing” that seemingly went against everything Isyama had established. 

Key word: “seemingly.”

Armin and Eren stand in an ocean of blood. Eren did it. He decimated the world’s population down to just 20% of humanity remaining. And Armin…thanks him? This is reflective of what many see as a consequence of separating audiences from Eren’s perspective; it resulted in too many characters viewing Eren in a positive light. In the manga, fans held issue with Armin’s appreciative lines towards Eren’s true intentions, which was apparently to purposefully become the villain in order to raise his friends to the status of heroes. If we had known this from the beginning, there would have been less nuance to Eren’s character, but it is hard to say if this twist really deepened his arc or reverted it. Eren has always been committed to his values of freedom, does pioneering his friends as heroes fit into that mold? Then there is simply the matter that Armin quite literally thanks Eren for committing genocide. I don’t have many narrative complaints here, it’s just…icky, and comes off as admittedly a bit short sighted for one of the smartest characters in the excellently written series. To cap off this controversial encounter, fans hated to see Eren admit his pathetic, selfish desire to have Mikasa starve after him for years even after his death, claiming this is a complete departure from his established character.

Now, within the context of the manga released over two years ago, I could maybe see these complaints as valid, but I honestly found the anime’s interpretation to be more thought provoking than annoying or inconsistent.

First, there is the simple fact that characters change. If Eren was the same person from the beginning to the end, we just wouldn’t have a story. What fans have trouble recognizing is the subtext and intricacies within Eren’ character that make thi ending actually in line with who he has been. 

While it does seem to come out of left field that Eren’s true intentions were to save his friends, he only admits to this when stating why he chose to do so: because he changed. Eren realized, after all of this time, he was a slave to his own philosophy. He was a slave to freedom, and to save those he loves, he lets go of that belief. This is a man that has, seemingly, seen some wrongdoing in his actions. This is where Armin’s controversial line…was changed. Instead of his more simplistic appreciation for Eren as in the manga, anime Armin and Eren now collapse in each other’s arms, promising to meet each other again in hell. That’s the only place they belong. I found this change to be thematically sound and emotionally striking, as it connects the two friends once again on the thematic basis of the entire show: there are no heroes, and for that, these two, seeming to represent antagonist and protagonist, are actually one in the same. That is what AOT has been about this entire time, not picking a morally correct side, but living with the grayness inherent in humanity. Part of that grayness is inconsistent. Interesting characters hide and reveal in their lowest moments, which Eren does when confessing his love for Mikasa. I have to ask, legitimately, if anyone believed Eren truly hated Mikasa with all of his heart. If anything, that seems out of character for the emotional protagonist gifted with unlimited power. Eren has lost his mind, literally, and fans expect him to remain completely readable. Personally, I even question if he meant those final words regarding his feelings for Mikasa, or if it was spurred on by what would be a familiar spout of emotion from the consistently “speak before he thinks” protagonist. If anything, I found Armin and Eren’s final conversation to be fitting and aligned with both characters. Armin, the ever loyal friend and coward, now accepts his role as villain alongside Eren, the confused, pretend tough hero who finally admits his own pathetic selfishness for attention and negative adherence to freedom after being subject to both of these personal ills. With the rewritten line having Armin thank Eren for showing life outside of the lifes rather than mass genocide, and I would say this conversation only came off as mildly confusing at worst instead of series-tainitng like some believe. Eren has always wanted love, specifically from Mikasa, but he was always just too tough to show it. He said that if he kissed Mikasa in that fateful season 4 episode, he didn’t know if he would be able to complete the rumbling. After making his decision, and realizing how it actualized his own weakness, he drops the facade that motivated his flawed beliefs and shows himself as he really is: desperate, unhinged, complicated, and certainly anything but a hero.

Which is where my criticism of the finale does come in. I think that the show does still frame Eren in too much of a positive light. While I enjoy that Mikasa does eventually leave Eren, her subjugation towards him even after death is simply hard to watch. At the same time, AOT was also never about simple, happy endings. Ymir was also a slave to her love, which when Mikasa lets go of by killing Eren, inspires Ymir to do the same. Eren actualized his plan: he freed his friends, and Ymir is free as well. If anything, this ending seems to align our main characters thematically on the basis of letting go of your ghosts, trauma, beliefs, and other elements that one could become an unknowing subject to. 

Similarly, the final episode builds a fantastically, and might I add thematically aligned, fatalistic ending for the show. While characters in the final episode preach that they must keep fighting, with many symbolic actions and elements representing hope for the future and a willingness to live in the face of impossible odds, the final extended panels complicated this theme, as well as the ending’s reception. 

In the final, final moments of the series, we see flash forwards into who knows how many years into the future. Eventually, the population grows, advances, and evolves. Humans are past titans, but just as Eren feared during his climactic talk with Armin, and Zeke pondered in his discussion with the same brainiac, humans are not past conflict. Three years after the titans were eradicated, the Jaegerists formed a military to attack Marley and the rest of the world. The remaining outside Eldians returned to Paradis, hoping to convince them to stop the fighting. However, as we leave our cast to the distant past, the audience is presented with a characteristically AOT ending: the war never ends. Instead of canons, we see rail guns decimate futuristic skyscrapers. Humanity rises and falls, until the post-apocalypse arrives. This already gave fans a bad taste, “you’re telling me this was all for nothing?” Get ready, because the cycle is seemingly set to continue when we see another young boy enter the tree Eren was buried under in the same way Ymir did. Another deal with the devil. Another era of titans seems to be on the horizon.

War is never ending because humanity won’t allow it to be.

Bleak, I know, and admittedly a bit disappointing. No matter what the story, having it be reduced to the scope of an ant in a matter of on screen seconds while the credits roll will always prove unsatisfying. However, that doesn’t mean it isn’t resonant with the rest of the series. While Armin and Eren’s conversation may have supposedly muddled Eren’s character motivations, and while the final panels may give a doomer ending that left fans dreadful, I have to again ask, is that not what Attack on Titan is about? 

Immoral. Imperfect. Complex. Nuanced. Humans are all of these things and more, and as Isyama has shown, they are also beautiful. Loving. Kind. Just like the world of Attack on Titan. Armin is able to convince Zeke to assist the crew by showing him this light within the dark. Isyama may be telling his fans that violence is inherent and humans will never cease the endless fight, that we are the monsters inside of the titans, but that at the same time, that doesn’t mean life isn’t worth living. Conflict will never end, but neither will beauty and hope. This thematic ambiguity and complexity has generated legitimate plot holes that I am probably too confused on to even try to explain or comprehend, but I will say that the ending was thematically aligned with the rest of the show, and just as satisfyingly thought provoking. It is telling that the first thing I did after finishing the series was sit down and write about it. I didn’t want to idly walk away from my computer, I didn’t want to move onto the next piece of content. I wanted to think about what I just saw, and for a series as complicated as AOT, I believe that was the show’s intention. 

In that way, AOT’s ending remains a success in ideas, but even from a fan’s eyes, a bit sloppy in execution. I don’t think Eren needed to be redeemed or forgiven for being a mass murderer, and luckily, the show attempted to fix this. I don’t think Eren’s declaration of love was executed with the same depth of the rest of the series, but I also don’t agree with many of the complaints facing the ending. It is consistent with the series, be it you interpret the ending as fatalistic, hopeful, or neutral. Mikasa’s parallel to Ymir makes narrative and thematic sense. Eren overlooking his masterplan, to me, seemed to be the point instead of a plot hole. In fact, returning to my earlier thesis, it seems like a lot of fan’s complaints have more to do with execution and expectation than ideas. Fans expected one ending and got another with execution not quite as up to par as the rest of the series, but not nearly as awful as “fans” claim. Is the ending to AOT perfect? Not in the slightest.

But neither is humanity.