Attack On Titan: Eren Is The Worst Sort of Villain

Attack On Titan’s end is nigh, and with the final chapter of the manga only hours away, there’s no better time to continue breaking down the characters of the dark epic created by Hajime Isayama, particularly when it comes to the character of Eren Jaeger. With Season Four giving us a very different take on Jaeger, following his attack on the nation of Marley, it’s time we did a deep dive into why Eren has become the worst kind of villain in both the anime and the manga for what is one of the most popular anime in the world today.

Warning. If you aren’t caught up on the manga and don’t want the remainder of Season Four spoiled for you, you might want to steer clear of the rest of this article.

How have you felt about Eren’s character development throughout the course of Attack On Titan? Feel free to let us know in the comments or hit me up directly on Twitter @EVComedy to talk all things comics, anime, and the world of the Titans.

Turns His Back On His Friends

In one of the final episodes of the first half of season four, Eren goes a long way into rubbing salt in the wound of his closest friends in Mikasa and Armin, especially with the former. Though the youngest Jaeger brother had originally helped save Mikasa’s life, he essentially throws that back in her face during a terrifying hostage situation where he keeps his best friends under threat of transforming into the Attack Titan and killing all their friends. Essentially throwing Mikasa under the bus, Eren can’t contain his hatred for his former friend, causing Armin to unleash a torrent of blows at Jaeger, justifiably so.

With Eren bringing up Mikasa’s lineage as an Ackerman, he breaks down her character to the point where it shatters her emotionally, and while he might be able to justify this action is in his mind, it is a terrible action that destroys his relationships. 

Murders 80 Percent of the Population

This is really the big one obviously. As fans of the manga know, Eren takes the “Euthanasia Plan” to an insane new level wherein he unleashes the Rumbling upon the world and kills scores of innocent people, many of which had never seen war before that point. In one particularly disturbing scene, the Colossal Titans bring their feet down on Marleyian refuge children as Eren gleefully shouts about freedom into the clouds. It’s enough to get any fan’s blood boiling and proved that Jaeger was too far gone to be redeemed, regardless of the reasoning behind his actions. 

Listens To No One

One of the most annoying parts of Eren’s fall into straight-up villainy was the fact that he took no advice from his friends and didn’t listen to anyone outside of his own thought process. Creating his own division of Jaegerists and murdering fellow soldiers even before he started his insane plan of crushing eighty percent of the population beneath the feet of the Rumbling, it was clear that Jaeger wasn’t going to hear anyone else’s take on what he felt was the right thing to do. Though he originally followed Zeke’s plan, he then revealed that he was using his brother as a means to an end as well to gain access to the power of the Founding Titan. 

Time Travel Shenanigans

When Eren and Zeke accessed the power of the Titans, it gave them a chance to meet their father long before his death, but the youngest Jaeger took the opportunity to bend his father’s mind to his will essentially, setting everything on the horrendous path we now witness. Jaeger believes that in eradicating eighty percent of the population, he has saved the world and justified manipulating his own father. Grisha was certainly no saint in his own right, but Eren’s manipulation of himself took things to a shocking new level. 

He Thinks He’s Right

On top of every other sin that Eren committed, the fact that he never had any sense of introspection or shared his plans with any of his most trusted friends and loved ones just proved that Jaeger was so headstrong and uncompromising that it transformed him into the ultimate villain. There is no redemption for Eren Jaeger when Attack On Titan comes to a close, and he should definitely be remembered as one of the most detestable villains that the medium of anime has ever created.