Attack On Titan Cliffhanger Questions Eren's True Motives

Attack On Titan Final Season (Part 2) kicked off with a thrilling new anime episode that has fans on the edge of their seats – and not just because of the bloody Titan vs. Titan (vs. Titan) action we got! When we left Attack on Titan last year, the forces of Paradis Island weren't just staring down the barrel of a gun from their enemies across the sea in Marley; Paradis itself was split in civil strife, centered around those loyal to Eren Jaeger and those not. And, by the end of Attack On Titan Episode 76, the question of Eren's true motives is the one left hanging over the entire series! 

(WARNING: Attack On Titan Anime SPOILERS Follow!)  

The main action of the new Attack On Titan anime episode "Judgement" sees Eren Jaeger and his "Jaegerist" military faction battling Marleyan forces along the walls. Meanwhile, however, Eren's old Survey Corps friends (including Misaka and Armin) are still locked up in prison, where Yelena and the other Jaegerists have left them. Onyankopon has a last-minute change of heart when the bloodshed and carnage start and betrays Yelena to set the Paradis loyalists free. Connie immediately wants to beat Onyankopon to death then and there, but Armin stays his hand. 

Armin is unwilling to simply give up faith in his best friend Eren, and pleads a hypothetical on his behalf: what if Eren's true motive isn't to euthanize all the Subjects of Ymir, but rather use The Rumbling as the means to ensure Paradis Island's security for the foreseeable future? 

That leaves Eren's friends with a moral quandary in front of them: should they be helping Eren, or not? 

Eren and his Jaegerists used wine spiked with his brother Zeke's spinal fluid to turn all the Paradis soldiers who drank it into sleeper Titans. That was a betrayal that threw the entire power structure inside Paradis's walls into disarray. Things haven't slowed down enough in the surprise rise of the Jaegerists and life-or-death struggle with Marley to allow for much reflection on what Eren is up to. His alliance with Zeke and behavior since going undercover for the Marley ambush has left a lot of fans questioning and theorizing if what they are seeing in Eren should be taken at face value – or iff there's a deeper chess game afoot. 

Attack On Titan manga fans are agonizing over knowing the answer – anime fans will soon have to find out for themselves.