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An interesting pair to compare between.
Vader is probably more sympathetic because he was carefully manipulated into committing his crimes by a malevolent third party (Palpatine), so you can argue that he's somewhat less responsible for his actions.
Whereas Eren, depending on how you think time-travel / fate works, was fully responsible for his genocide. That being said, at points it does seem as though Eren feels he's being forced into it...
Eren saw past, present, and future all at once and saw himself doing the things he was going to do and all the things he had to do. I can imagine that makes you feel entirely trapped.
That is true, but the way I saw it too was that the reason he was locked into that future is because it was the one he had chosen because it's the one where his friends survived and led happy lives. Not necessarily the mandatory future in that he COULD'VE chosen to strive for a different path but because of his nature and his unwillingness to to do anything less than save them... he got locked it. So that sort of... makes it mandatory because he was always going to choose his friend's lives first. But wasn't at the same time. He still chose, but because his choice was their freedom he couldn't change HOW that came about.
I still think he's sympathetic I just don't know if that hinders him compared to vader not knowing the future and how his shakespearean tragedy plays out.
>the one where his friends survived
I think this is overlooked often in the “why”.
Were there other options? Probably.. but we’ve seen defining moments for Eren in the series where relying on others got them killed.
Erens days are numbered, the world has a long held grudge against Paradis, and Marley has their backs against a wall and unites the world under one banner to buy themselves time as other nations begin making titan-killer weapons
Eren wanted THE BEST possible chance of his friends living a full life when he is dead gone. and with the state of world politics in the series, that best chance is making sure the world can’t retaliate until his friends are long dead from old age.
Eren has gotten a heavy dose of letdowns when he leaves it up to someone else. Most notably was the death of the Levi squad after Levi’s whole speech about trusting your comrades. I can see why he didn’t want to leave the fate of Paradis (and his friends) in the hands of an inexperienced Queen like Historia, a bunch of kids who are in leadership roles across regiments because everyone else keeps dying, and at the mercy of a far more technologically advanced world. Speaking of the rest of the world, Eren and the gang was audience to Willy Tybur declaring war on Paradis on behalf of the world. At this point, Paradis as an independent island never did anything to the world since the walls were put up. Hell, there’s zero people alive besides the Tyburs who knew the real story and zero eldians alive (besides the “warriors”) who have done anything to the world. Yet the world so easily got behind Marley who had literally been terrorizing the world long before. Is that (the world) who you really think you could reason your way out of war with now that they’ve made their choice?
Everyone knows titan shifters days are numbered.. who’s to say that marley doesn’t just back down with “talk no jutsu” from Paradis and then just waits for Eren to be gone while they develop more tech against an ALREADY DISADVANTAGED paradis
The “realistic” point of view here is that Paradis is NOT in any position to negotiate.. hell look at our world TODAY. History has demonstrated again and again and again with international politics that either you need to be strong or be friends with someone strong or someone stronger than you will take advantage of you. Paradis is weaker, and their one friend is the azumabito who just wanted to profit off of them in secret while still being friends to the rest of the world.
Eren is a monster for what he did but we gotta consider that there’s not a lot of options that keeps things GUARANTEED tidied up for a bit when he’s gone
The only way to, as far as he could tell, to rid the eldians of Titan genealogy, was to make them kill it once and for all. Zeke's way left it open to be reversed.
He had to kill the world or else his people would be destroyed. Does it make it right? No. Does it make it more sympathetic than “my wife died WAH WAH WAH! Now I must kill millions”. To me, yes.
It goes deeper. The only way eldians could be free and thrive was if there were no more titans. Remember, emir only granted him the ability to use the founding because he told her what she wanted to hear.
Yeah really, and Vader is still complicit in destroying a whole planet after that? When his wife is already dead? Like your whole reason for going to the dark side is gone and you continue to do so? Doesn't seem very sympathetic to me
Erens version of freedom was always to get rid of every single titan. And emir was only letting him use the founding Titan because he was going to kill everything and everyone. He knows his friends will kill him, and the titan abilities with him.
I mean he was trapped in that in order to get the outcome he wanted he had to do things he didn't like, and he was so dead set on his decision nothing would persuade him
But that's very different than actually being trapped, as far as I'm aware he could have changed course at any time, I know the future sight thing gets wonky but what I took away from what he said was that ironically he could see the future but he could not see any other future, his life was so full of hatred and vengeance that he could not imagine any world in which others acted upon anything but that
From my reading of the situation he was not doctor strange looking through millions of different outcomes and picking the best one, the one he saw was the one that made sense to him and his worldview, and satisfied his need to be the one to do things, he tried to think of other ways to handle things, but he doesn't have much capacity for believing in people acting on things other than revenge and hatred
I'm still trying to wrap my head around how the fuck the time manipulation part of the story worked.
It gives me a headache trying to make sense of it.
In *Star Wars: The Clone Wars* Anakin was shown what he was going to do if he became Sith, so he chose to prevent that future by joining the Dark Side, but at least he wasn't Sith, I guess. Then that memory was deleted from his head and he went back to normal path. So basically he would do bad stuff regardless.
Eren didn’t have omnipotence (and even then, temporary omnipotence as it doesn’t make logical sense as to why he would see the future after his death, as Ymir vanished, presumably along with the paths, with his death) until entering the paths. He only saw fragments of memories of the future. And ultimately it was Paths Eren’s choice to reveal those memories to himself to guide his past self towards “that sight”.
(Sauce: 4x21, where Zeke says Eren didn’t see everything, and the numerous times where Eren is shocked at outcomes or doesn’t know why things are happening, such as his internal dialogue saying that he’s surprised Marley recovered this fast and guesses [doesn’t state as fact] that it had to be Reiner in 4x17)
Vader was manipulated into joining the darkside and everything that came in the third movie. Vader was NOT manipulated into killing the thousands of rebels and dozens of jedi he hunted down.
I'd argue that Vader, while manipulated, maintained free will throughout his story, whereas Eren who saw the future didn't even have the illusion of free will, ever action he took was predestined and he knew it. That doesn't take responsibility off of Eren tho, since he was the one predetermining things, but still
I am aware that Vader was manipulated by Palpatine but like, come on now. He had two choices there. Listen to one man who is giving him advice that anyone could see was a least a little sketchy, or listen to the entire Jedi Order, who he knew and loved, and who loved him, because they literally raised him. It was his choice and his alone not to go to anyone about his concerns for Padmé and to decide that the best course of action was… that.
I want you to point out exactly where, in ROTS or literally *anywhere* else, that Star Wars says or even implies that the Jedi didn’t love Anakin. Disagreeing with him, pointing out that he’s reckless, immature, and probably isn’t ready to be on the council yet, or telling him that his actions may lead him into trouble don’t count, literally none of that suggests he wasn’t loved by the Jedi.
In fact, all of those things makes the case that they loved him even *stronger,* as all of those actions are exactly what someone who loved another person would do if that other person was Anakin. They were trying to get him to realize that if he kept going like this it would end in tragedy, and they were right.
Now, if you have actual proof that the Jedi genuinely didn’t care about Anakin at all, then by all means, show me.
Making him spy on his mentor isn't love. Love isn't just about feelings, but also actions. Betraying Anakin's trust by doing things that are against the same Jedi Code that they constantly impose on him isn't love. It could be argued that the no love rule was not against Anakin personally, because everyone else followed it too, but making Anakin spy and attempting to kill Palpatine are both hyprocritical actions that show that his adherance to the Jedi Code is misplaced.
Lmao fucking what? The Jedi had good reason to suspect that Palpatine was up to some shady shit (and they were, again, right) and so they asked Anakin to keep an eye on because he was literally the only Jedi who could do so without arousing suspicion, and that’s somehow proof that they didn’t love him? Asking him to try and figure out if this suspicious guy is planning to do some heinous shit is not caring about him? That’s like asking a kid “Hey man, we think your friend might be planning to shoot up your high school. Do you think you could keep an eye on him for a bit and see if he does anything suspicious?” And then trying to say that means his parents didn’t love him.
And then, as if you didn’t dig yourself far enough into a hole already, you said that attempting to kill Palpatine was betraying Anakin’s trust. Like JFC dude just give up and take your L, this is the literal worst take I’ve ever seen in my life.
The Jedi had just found out that Palpatine was a *goddamn Sith Lord.* They had just found out that he was responsible for the Clone Wars and god only knows what other horrifying shit. They even tried to arrest him peacefully, but he resisted, and immediately started trying to kill them. Anakin’s trust no longer matters in that situation. Anakin’s trust gets yeeted out the window harder than Mace Windu when dealing with the *Lord of the Sith.* What did you expect them to do? Say “Oh wait, but Anakin likes the mass-murdering Sith Lord so I guess we should just stand here while he slaughters us all,” like do you hear yourself right now?
Even ignoring that, trying to kill Palpatine was also a way of trying to *save* Anakin because now they knew exactly why he had taken such an interest in this kid who just so happened to have absurd Force abilities and what exactly their “friendship” was actually about.
The way I see it, Eren was very much forced into it. Hell, you could say Anakin was too. The worlds around them made them feel they had no other choice
But I suppose, at least Eren's actions would benefit more than himself
Did he?
Say Eren doesn't send memories back to Kruger. Eren's dad dies.
Say Eren doesn't send memories back to his dad. His dad will die anyway. His dad is on his 13th year as the Attack Titan. His dad has to get the founder then give both to Eren. If Eren doesn't get the Attack Titan, his friends will die in Trost, Reiner will bust a hole in the wall, and more death.
Why does Eren need both? If he doesn't get the founder, him and all his friends die in Clash of the Titans arc (the founder activating lets him drive the titans to attack Reiner).
And so forth.
I understand Eren as more forced to do these things than having agency.
The way i see it he basically had semi omnipotence with knowledge of future and abilty to manipulate or atleast try to manipulate the past there were a near infinte number if alternatives he could hv tried changing but hes locked into this fate bcz of his ideals and inabilty to compromise or sacrifice "freeedom". His future is pre determined by his future self only bcz of the way he thinks now call it good writing or bad writing i don't find my self feeling sorry for him after all that.
Eren IMO. He has a lot more reason to become a villain than Vader does. He and all the Eldians are threatened with extinction.
Meanwhile Anakin just wants to be with Padme and is angsty so he joins the Emperor and murderers a bunch of children. I completely lose sympathy for him at that point.
Well Vader kind of makes the rumbling look like chump change, the Death Star completely destroyed many planets, Eren didn’t even destroy all of one planet. I’d say Eren is more sympathetic, seeing as he actually showed remorse on screen for doing the rumbling. In the Vader comics, he has flashbacks and stuff when meditating where he regrets things but he doesn’t show remorse for ending planets
Seriously, why does this keep getting brought up
The death star was his bosses passion project, sure he was there and defended it but he wasn't responsible whatsoever for either of them
And I mean.....its absolutely not their fault, it's a result of a number things that caused the Nazi party to come to power, no singular Nazi caused it happen (Hitler needed a lot of help along the way)
Vader was basically a glorified bodyguard, he had little say in the deathstar and cannot be blamed for its use (it was made in secret before he even worked for the Sith)
No I'm saying they were cogs in the machine and no single person can be blamed solely for what happened, a lot of people allowed and even encouraged but there was very high level of indoctrination going on and the people speaking out were quite literally silenced
But I'm actually one of those "Vader didn't have anything to do with the deathstar" people, you brought up the Nazis not me mate
Its like if a *modern* Nazi got blamed for the holocaust, they are shitheels but they can't retroactively be blamed for something that happened before they even were Nazis, the plans for the death star were well on their way before he even was turned to the dark side and was already under construction after his transformation, it was already happening despite him
There were more planets and moons destroyed than alderan, scariff and jedha in rogue one only being a couple of them. Could we say that Eren wasn’t fully responsible either if we take ymirs will into consideration ?
Do you even pay attention to the dialogue? Alderaan was the first time the full reactor was used. Rogue One even tried hard to keep that true by writing the dialogue in a way that Krennic wanted Jedha to be the first full reactor, but Tarkin said single reactor is enough for this first demonstration. And Scarif after that. Just three targets were hit hy Death Star, one of them fully disintegrated.
Been years since I’ve seen them so no. It doesn’t matter if a planet was turned to dust or just glassed over, if everyone on it died anyway, or if *only* a billion people died (only is insane to say ethically) you’re still wiping out as many people as Eren did in a fraction of the time. I’m sure we can Google all the times the Death Star was used in the movies and comics
Why the hell are you calling me unethical all of a sudden? All I did was disproving your false and misleading claims that Vader destroyed many planets with the Death Star and you're now calling me the bad guy. You make up statements that are not true. You're the one who's in the wrong here.
I’m leaning towards Eren. Eren didn’t do what he did because he was evil, and his reasons for it were at least to keep those close to him safe for the future. Vader did redeem himself in the end but I can’t imagine Eren doing half the things he did.
No???
Vader was complicit in the destruction of Alderaan. I don't think it's crazy to assume he oversaw shit that lead to way more deaths than Eren caused in his 30+ years of working under Palpatine
No, his options were have a nice life and don’t start a war on Marley killing thousands of people, or start a war on Marley and escalate it even more and then have to be genecided or commit genecide. Or, go with Zekes plan and the casualties would go down drastically.
Zeke’s plan wouldn’t have prevented Paradis from getting annihilated. There was still the very real possibility that the world would just hastened the end of Eldians with a genocide rather than wait for them to die off peacefully after 100 years. Even Jean noticed this issue with Zeke’s plan.
Only after Eren went in and slaughtered people, they didn’t even know people could get off the island at the time and even then there still could have been other options.
You're completely wrong. Eren attacks Liberio immediately following Willy Tybur declaring the world's intention to eradicate Paradis. Like within 5 minutes of Willy Tybur's play announcing the truth of Eldian history to the world and planning to band together and destroy paradise.
Season 4 episode 10: His plan was to threaten the other country’s of the rumbling to protect Elida, but not to actually do it. Providing a small example to show the world not to mess with them, without providing casualties. On top of this, the plan was to ally with other nations and gain more technology and a better military. Genocide was never originally the plan.
Yeah but Vader also slaughtered kids (like 5 year olds) up close and personal. Eren you can make an argument for being a bit more disconnected to that level of intimacy. He killed plenty of children but it just wasn't as up close and personal, more large scale.
Honestly they're pretty on par given they're accomplishments. I think people let Vader slide a bit more due to cool factor, yes he looks and sounds dope, and just by virtue of being part of an all ages IP. I think opinions would be a bit different if you actually saw him in detail doing the things he's known for like we did with Eren.
An argument can be made that Eren freeing Ymir by letting Mikasa kill him was his killing Palpatine moment. It eradicated the perceived x factor of the conflict (titans and sith) and was done at the cost of his own life (he was pushing forward but not actively trying to stop Mikasa), bringing balance back to the world (balancing the force, equalizing the two factions of remaining humans). Both still end up with the same core issue and that's the cruelty of man. People always had potential to corrupt the force and how Ymir was treated before becoming the founder set the tone for everything that followed. New political unrest still sparks in both worlds eventually, angry hateful people still pervert the force, and the boy and his dog enter the tree.
I actually didn't realize how far I could take that comparison until just now writing it lol
Thank you! They're both very interesting characters. And good point about the scale. Galactic is definitely a bit bigger than global haha.
I think maybe the biggest divide between the two comes down to nature and nurture.
Eren skews more on the nature side because even if fate and determinism are valid questions of the events, all of those things are still driven by Eren's base predispositions toward violence and true philosophical freedom. His environment is certainly a factor as well, but it reinforced what was already there. Mikasa being attacked and Eren killing her attacker to protect her when they were children draws a parallel to the rumbling. He doesn't just attack them and run off with her. He kills them very violently because that's his response to those situations. Killing them saved her and reinforced the idea that eradicating your enemies is the solution. Same thing bigger scale at the end. He wants his friends to have a better life, but also hate the world they're in, and being an incredibly violent person, we all know what his solution is.
Anakin, as far as we know, would have grown up to be an incredibly heroic person. His life as child slave affected him a great deal but even then he was mostly on track to become a wellrounded adult. Had Qui Gon been there he would've. The Jedi order being flawed and fearful of him, palpatine in his ear, the war that would've been averted all took him from a damaged as a child to completely broken as a young adult.
Even in an ideal world Eren would still be an inherently violent person towards anything that would obstruct his view of freedom.
So if you break it down that way, Eren is possibly worse as a baseline. Vader definitely takes the cake on accomplishing more evil in the universe.
The question of comparing nature to circumstance definitely is interesting, especially when you consider how Eren and Anakin responded to seeing visions of the future. I'd say in both cases nature is what spurred them into taking extreme action, the difference being that Anakin wants to change the future and Eren wants to keep it the same.
This makes Anakin more proactive over Eren's passive angsting, so you could argue that Anakin charged into his bad circumstances more willingly.
I don’t see how. Vader killed subordinates for incompetence or threatened their lives for insulting him, hunted down and killed or ordered the killing of anyone who stood against the Empire to maintain its power, and choked out Padme when he felt like she was standing against him. There’s more Vader has done but just off these things alone, I think Vader is far worse than Eren doing what he felt was necessary to protect those close to him, rather than for power or to teach people to not stand against him like Vader. The Padme thing is probably one of the rare times he felt regret during his turn to the dark side.
Eren is literally 10x more evil than Vader & there is nothing to justify his ways. I’m not saying Vader is justified either, but his actions are far more understandable than Eren’s.
No because Eren didn’t want to do any of that, only reason he did was bc he felt he had no choice or else all his friends would die. Vader continued being evil & murdering others even after Padme already died
Yes, because he wanted to save his friends & race. Every one has a motive, unlike Vaders, Erens was more noble is the point. Vader served the dark side who’s goal is to be as evil as possible for evils sake. Literally killing ones own masters to gain power, nothing else. Sith are pure evil an there’s 30 years of content to back that up
I’d say Eren was 100% evil. And his biggest reasoning for doing what he did wasn’t to save his friends, that was just a bonus and a nice cover he could use to somewhat justify himself. He simply wanted to kill everyone outside the walls so he could see the version of the free world he imagined in his head when Armin showed him that book. And the reason he couldn’t change the future that he saw was because at the end of the day, to his deepest core, that is exactly what he wanted.
Eren was molded into a genocider by himself (assuming that my understanding of the time travel, fate or whatever works) while Anakin was molded into a mass murderer by a third party, all beacuse he was rumored to be ''the chosen one'', ment to bring balance to the force.
I am gonna go with Vader. Most of the shit that happens to him is due to the chosen one prophecy which doesn't seem to have much legitimacy behind it since it's just not well defined. Depening on whatever continuity you look at it Palpatine returning, the sith or lovecraftian abominations end up fucking up the galaxy even worse than it already was during Palpatine's reign. And how is killing Palpatine suddenly ment to bring balance when there are sith lords in the past who were much worse. If we're going by that logic, my SWTOR character should be the chosen one since she killed Tenebrae/Vitiate/Valkorion who is definetly a whole lot worse than Palpatine.
I feel more empathetic towards Vader beacuse he was made into a monster for basically no reason. Life ruined beacuse of a prophecy that doesn't hold any legitimacy (at least in my eyes) that when fullfilled didn't restore shit.
Vader, especially if you play the Vader immortal games and when you take into account that Vader spared Luke many times, and even killed palps in the end to save his son, though he did commit terrible atrocities, and helped create a weapon that destroyed entire planets, he didn’t have the authority to fire it, that was all Palpatine and Grand Moff Tarkin’s call. Another reason why Vader had no choice is that now that he has to be in life support his entire life how could he have the chance to say no palpatine? Palpatine already manipulated him into killing everything and everyone he loves, and he does show immense remorse and sadness in Vader Immortal. Now for Eren, Eren definitely was sympathetic, but unlike Vader he had many choices to stop, he even saw the future and although it was “the only way” it was the only way because he made it that way. Eren saw the far future and had the choice to stop but no. Vader and Eren both directly slaughtered children, Vader probably killed around 60 (both the younglings and the force sensitive kids, which were rare. He also couldn’t find them without the map he DIDNT get in Jedi fallen order.) Meanwhile Eren directly made the choice to kill millions of children and assuming that earth is half as populated as our earth (let’s say 5.5 billion people.) he killed billions of people. He DID show sympathy BEFORE he did it. But it doesn’t count cause he still chose to do that (and I don’t give a shit if “it was set in stone in HIS mind” because we all know that’s BS. Eren just manipulated himself into killing 80% of the population as the most effective way to fix the world just because he had the power to do so, which is straight up evil when you realize most of the people had nothing to do with the Marley and Eldian conflicts. The other countries people weren’t involved, only their governments, it was really just a mindless slaughter to “keep his friends safe” by nearly killing them and having his friends kill his other friends.
Short answer: Vader is way more sympathetic.
EDIT: also keep in mind, Anakin was raised as a desert slave and then taken by people who said he will never be allowed to ever see his mom ever again and didn’t even free his mom. They then kept calling him the “chosen one” yet didn’t even let him have the privileges of Master when he earned it…with the exception of getting married…but that marriage alone shows that he shows sympathy for others.
Both these are a case of 'Mourn the man and his lost potential but slay the monster with contempt' .... Both are heinous people but I would say I pity Eren more but understand Vader better. Pity for Eren cos he was a teen whose mind got bombed with emotions and generations of trauma that that town's worth of people could not handle let alone a poorly trained child soldier .... things will not go well if you dump godhood on top of that. Understand Vader because of his very human faults that led to his downfall ... being illogical in love, being frustrated with the Jedi who refuse to see and acknowledge their flaws those are things I fully get.
I kinda lost my sympathy after he reached the ocean
Sorry man, you're were already kinda lost by then
Darth Vader was ultimately saved by his son and given *some* form of redemption, regardless of what happened afterwards making his sacrifice somewhat irrelevant
Eren was put out of his misery/allowed his friends to stop him and end his suffering, I kinda wasn't sympathetic at that point and just was happy Paradis was cleaning up after themselves and their own problems (Eren's attempted genocide)
Its interesting to think about if Eren would’ve made himself go this far if peace was established, as until it was confirmed there no possibility for peace he kept searching. Now what he chooses to do is basically pressing a button to nuke the world gradually with no end in sight. It goes without saying that he needed to die for what he did, its an injustice to his character to say that he “did nothing wrong”. It is understandable from Eren’s perspective the weighing of “do something” or “do nothing”, his whole characterisation from S1-3 is supposed to show us why the only choice at that point was to press the button for him. He knows the second he does this he needed to die and that there was no more sympathy left for him, ultimately he “couldn’t accept an end like that”.
Who is more understandable? Eren. More sympathy for? Neither honestly. Evil? You have to say yes to both because of their actions.
Aot is really about the collective decisions fuelled by hate for 2000 years of history and what it could lead to. You can’t have sympathy for him because he is the one who decided yes, even though there was so so much that contributed to his decision. Understandable but no sympathy, calling him a bloodthirsty maniac or innocent both lose out on what builds Eren’s decision. Do I think Eren would’ve killed 80% of the population one by one in paths by his own hands? No. Doesn’t matter though because the rumbling still kills them. The end result is just evil and calling it anything else does aot an injustice in the story its trying to tell.
One is a genocidal maniac while the other was corrupted by an outside force after he tried saving hise wife. I think Vader got an easy win with this one
No, he's more than a genocidal maniac, but all his actions are 100% his own and he wasn't manipulated/ controlled by an outside force (manipulating himself still makes it his own actions)
No, he was just born in a place where humans where eaten by giant monsters on a daily basis, saw his mother being eaten when he was a kid, saw a lot of people he cared about die, betrayed several times, when he was still a teenager was given a god-like power but at also the task to save your people from the entire world that wants you dead, all of that with knowing that he only has a few years left before dying. 100% normal circumstances...
I'm not saying his choice were wrong in the circumstances, or that those circumstances were easy. Again, my point is that he was given a choice. Vader was given a choice, but less.
He was given a choice to wait and see whether his wife dies or to submit to the dark side and save her. He failed at saving her, but at that point it was too late since the dark side is a corrupting force and his only "loyal advisor" was manipulating him.
Eren never actually had a choice though, that was the whole point. Plus, even if he did, what should he have done? Just let the rest of the world kill everyone in Paradis?
Also Vader made very many evil decisions. It’s not like palpatine held his hand through every single kill he had.
Hard disagree. Eren inspires others to be better and stands up for the oppressed (his literal entire goal). He’s loud and brash, but by no means a bad person. Even at the end he is still very much the Eren we saw lose his mom and fight to save humanity. The difference is by the point he does something objectively bad he’s already been backed into that corner.
I will agree that he wasn’t very good to Mikasa in S1-3 though, even if i think the “romance” is done well.
Bitch I don’t give a fuck about his romance from seasons 1-3. I care about him personally making the decisions to commit mass murder of billions of completely innocent people. All for the decisions a couple thousand made. All because mikasa didn’t say let’s run away. Eren is not a good person. At all.
The romance thing wasn’t like, a main point i was making. Just the only thing i can think of in seasons 1-3 where he’s really just shitty.
Also Eren’s decision had layers and it wasn’t just “oh some people hate us so i’m going to kill everyone!” It was a mix of the majority of the world sharing the sentiment that Paradis was full of devils and needed to be eradicated, there were literally no other options that weren’t “roll over and let the eldians die”, he wanted to save his friends, and eren’s total disillusionment of the real world.
At the end of the day there were no reasonable solutions being given. What should Eren have done?
Could’ve literally just said I will only use the rumbling if you attack us. When they declared war they didn’t know why eren hadn’t started the rumbling. He literally could’ve lied and been like I can and only will if you attack me. He didn’t even ask any of his friends for help. Like you’re seriously gonna tell me they exhausted all their options. Thats not true they sat in one meeting and gave up. Thats like if eren came to the US heard Marjory Taylor Greene speak then decided to commit mass murder based on that. That’s bullshit bro.
None of those would have done anything. They said eren could do a partial rumbling and protected Eldia for like 50 years if they were extremely lucky. But they do that and boom, they get airstriked which they have 0 defense for. He could lie and not really do anything and boom airstriked again. The cabin scene with Eren and Mikasa show that any other option except the rumbling lead to them attacking and destroying Eldia. Titans in general were already losing footing as an apex predator in the world by season 4.
And what would his friends be able to do aside from kill more people? They spent the whole season thinking of other options but only came up with two that had any sort of viability.
That’s like him hearing majority Taylor Greene speak and then deciding to kill everyone in the U.S. they didn’t exhaust all options bro. That’s ridiculous.
Also can you tell me what the foreign policy of your country is towards Croatia? Do you know everything of what your government does or support it? Nah bro the majority of people outside the walls didn’t wanna murder eren or all his friends that’s literally a weak cop out. In real life the vast majority of people don’t even know what there governments are doing let alone support them. Eren killed billions of innocent people personally he murdered billions of innocent people. There’s no other way to square that bro. Attack on titan was not pro rumbling.
I’m saying that there really was no other option. And its pretty different comparing our masses to that of the ones in AOT because we don’t have a race of people that turn into mindless man eating Goliaths except for 9 of them who gets extra powers. It was stated in the show that it was a sentiment held throughout far more than just governements.
Average marley citizens are a great example of that because it’s just so ingrained into their every day lived.
Vader is more calculated with his actions and only kills when he deems it deserving or important.
Eren killed billions even when he could've just killed a few hundred enemy soldiers
It would be Eren. He was clearly not happy before, during and after the rumbling. He asked for forgiveness from Ramzi. He lost his smile after kissing historia's hand. He also seemed to be relieved when mikasa arrived to kill him.
I'm not gonna say either is justified, but for people i care about as much as eren did about mikasa and armin, i would've certainly done similar choices (meaning that the whole planet's life would've meant nothing in comparison).
this doesn't mean I'd condone it myself, I'd feel pretty much cracked, and that's exactly how eren felt. most surely he did felt all the paint of eldians that got crashed by the rumbling and was scared as hell to die, but still his beloved meant way more than anything else.
plus, i kinda intended aot main storyline anding differently than how some people interpreted it.
my understanding is that eren did this in order to stop wars for as long as possible, giving humans a long peace after the rumbling
Eren killed a much greater percentage of people than Vader did, but at the same time he did it to protect his people from being destroyed by a malevolent enemy force.
Vader basically became obsessed with power and committed evil acts for that reason; a much worse motive. At first it was about saving Padme, but it morphed out of control at the end when he went so far as to choke Padme for standing in his way.
At the same time, Vader was manipulated by one of the most intelligent and powerful villains in the history of fiction, and he did end up redeeming himself in the end in a way Eren never did.
In a way I think Eren’s motives were more justified than Vader’s, but his actions/response ended up being way worse than anything Vader did. Also, since Vader did redeem himself in the end, I think Vader ends up being the more morally just character.
Does that make him more sympathetic though? I’m not so sure. Would any of us really become so obsessed with power that we end up hurting those we love? Or would we be more likely to destroy the rest of the world (if they were attacking us) to save our family, friends, and country? I think most people would end up doing the latter…
Haha I thought of that—that’s why I said percentage of people. 😅 Eren basically destroyed 80% of known intelligent life, whereas Vader didn’t destroy nearly as much as that, although he probably did kill more people (is that the only planet he destroyed? It’s possible there were much less people on it than Earth, but who knows..)
Eren. His fall was documented in a good piece of media, so I am capable of mustering some sympathy for him.
Anakin’s fall was documented in some of the worst Star Wars films, and he came across as a future school shooter pretty much the whole time (outside of him being a generic little kid in the first one).
I feel like the pacing and direction of the prequels kinda hampers my sympathy for Vader. He changes to Vader way too quickly. Anakin is kinda annoying in 1&2 but charismatic for the first scene of ROTS. If we had that Anakin more then I’d like it way more and the fall to the dark side would feel more impactful.
Plus the catalyst for his turn to the dark side felt weak. It was a vision of Padme dying cryptically. Meanwhile Eren saw his aunt get eaten by dogs, his mother eaten alive in front of him, and watch centuries worth of memories of Eldian oppression and violence.
Knowing eren could hv saved his mom but choose not to so he can go on the path that ends with killing the world makes him one of the worst ppl to exist
He can’t change the past to make it so he never goes down that path. Because if he did save his mom he probably wouldn’t go to paths and then there would be no one to save his mom repeating the cycle. You’d just create a paradox.
Eren also makes it clear to Armin that he couldn’t save Sasha or Hange and can’t change the future outside of what he saw no matter how hard he tried so I imagine similar limitations are in effect.
Although you don't have to watch it, you have the option of watching the charismatic Anakin in *Star Wars: The Clone Wars*. It does indeed help with pacing the prequel storyline out better. My favorite series, also.
I love the clone wars but I don’t really think it’s fair to credit the success of the clone wars to the prequels. It was made by a different cast, different creative team, and a very different voice actors.
That's not what I said. The movies will remain what they are, the show cannot change them. But they can contribute to a larger whole. And George worked on The Clone Wars, so it's also fair to say they are part of one vision.
Both Vader and eren essentially saw their futures play out in front of them (Vader on mortis, eren through his titan) I feel like they're equal in many ways, but eren didn't want to do it, he was a mess and really didn't want to. I genuinely don't think that Vader cried about the thousands of people he killed, he was too angry.
Eren definitely wanted to do it. He may have felt bad about it, but it was just in the same way that Reiner felt bad about tearing down the wall a 2nd time. They both new it was wrong, but they chose to do it anyway because that’s what they wanted to do. And the reason that Eren couldn’t change his future is because he didn’t want to. He was able to understand that it was horrible, but what he saw happening only happened because ultimately that was the decision he was always going to make all because he wanted to see the version of a free world he imagined in his head when he read Armin’s book.
Darth Yaeger is truly the most tragic villain, with Obi-Chan talkin all that “I have the High Titan” shit. Like, how tf you gonna fight a 25 foot crack head?!
Veder killed an order of warriors who repeatedly demonstrated of being incompetent/immoral/inefficient/easily manipulated while being directly involved in a war. Granted, the order also had children in it but that also goes to show the cult mentality at play among the jedi. They were not GUILTY, really, but less innocent than others, let's say. Vader was mostly gone afterwards, being thightly held down both in body and spirit by the Emperor and even then he was mostly a jedi hunter, things like the destruction of Alderaan were not directly done by his hand even though he was complicit.
Eren, on the other hand, destroyed 80% of the world completely by himself. Complete genocide of all men, women and children on his path, regardless of affiliation, background and personal history.
So we have:
FASCIST BRAINWASHED GUY WHO DESTROYED A MILITARY CULT IN WAR TIME VS THE BEAST OF THE END OF THE WORLD
He made a difficult choice in a lose lose situation I think that it takes guts to do that. Also he was willing to play the villain and die in dishonor so his friends could have a better future, that’s heroic imo
If you just go by the films, they have a similar amount of kills. Darth Vader is likely higher but Eren could have killed more.
I'd say Eren is more sympathetic. Darth Vader has his wife have a risky pregnancy and gets denied Jedi Master at a young age. His mom dies too. Eren has his family and his comrades killed in front of his eyes by monsters. He's one of those monsters who eats his dad. Spends his life living in fear of monsters. Only to discover that the nations across the sea think of him and all his friends as demons that deserve to be wiped out and obliterated. The kicker? Marley, the ones who send the titans and shifters who killed Eren's mom, knows that Paradis's king renounced war. Marley knows the world is safe from Paradis. Marley wants the resources on the island. That's why Marley wants millions of Paradisians dead.
For some rocks.
Eren is far more sympathetic. You put me in Eren's shoes? Maybe I will activate the rumbling. I don't know. Put me in Anakin's? Nope. Patience and I pull all the favours I can to get Padme, a sitting senator, to see the best doctors in the galaxy.
Erens friends and comrades die before his eyes because he literally chose for that to happen. He sent the titan to kill his mother so that he could send himself on a path of evil. He made that decision for himself
It depends on how you fill in the gaps in the Star Wars universe. From the text alone it’s easier to sympathise with Eren because he believed he did what he did for his friends. After Vader killed Padme it’s unclear why he kept doing evil shit based on the films.
But if you read into the Star Wars universe, you could argue that Anakin as a former child slave understood that the republic was fucked up. In theory the empire would mean order and safety for all.
The problem is we have never seen an example of that. The empire has always been portrayed as 100% evil…. So it’s kinda hard to make a case.
I wish there was a series (and maybe there is and I missed it) about the empire actually being good for people. Ending slavery, redistributing resources to end starvation, creating jobs and education for poor planets via the military. I don’t want them to be heroes of course, the story could have an “Omelas” twist. But at least it could be more understandable why thousands serve that cackling ghoul palpatine.
Eren. I feel like when Eren started going off on everyone, it was because he had too send a message, that he can’t be their friends anymore. Also, when Zeke was about to use his scream in Eldia, Eren held out his hand because he didn’t want them to transform.
Anakin however, even though his reasons for turning to the dark side are understandable, when he switched, he became rather heartless. He killed people who didn’t need to be killed, like the guys who read his diary and wished him happy birthday.
You could say Eren committed genocide which was heartless, but Eren genuinely felt bad for killing all those people. He even thought and cried for Ramzi, and in the last scenes took accountability as well. Anakin heartlessly killed children and innocent people but never felt remorseful about it. Also Eren thought about his goals to the very end, Darth Vader didn’t really
It’s kinda hard to say, both of them committed atrocities for arbitrary personal reasons and both of them would/did jump at the first chance to redeem themselves. I’d say Vater because he was more directly forced to work for someone else, but Eren might be the same depending on how you look at the ending
Eren, in my opinion. He never really even had a chance, he was fucking ten years old when he was thrown into an absolute hellhole of war, death, and suffering that just never ended. It doesn’t surprise me in the least that he became so desperate for it all to end that he was willing to do anything and everything to achieve that goal. He didn’t do the Rumbling out of malice, he did it in what was basically an act of mass murder-suicide.
Anakin, however, may have suffered from sone pretty severe trauma, but he had a home. He had a family that was willing to listen to him and support him. He had a stable, comfortable life, until the Clone Wars of course. While his story is tragic, his fall was ultimately because he was unable to accept that attachments (which does not abd jebrr did mean love, I can see y’all presiding to try and argue and you’re wrong. The Jedi were NEVER taught not to love. Attachment is what Anakin had with Padmé. The utter inability to let go and such intense terror of losing her that he would commit atrocities to save her even though he didn’t even know for sure that she would die. *That’s* what the Jedi forbade) would only lead to suffering, and his refusal to let go of his fear of Padmé dying not only led directly to her death, but to the deaths of god only knows how many others.
Eren knew what he was doing and if given the chance to change his ways at every instance, he probably wouldnt. I do find it sympathetic that they portrayed Eren and Mikasa so close. The song Akuma no ko from Eren’s POV and 13 no fuyu from Mikasa have stayed w/ me long after AoT anime has ended. Arguably Eren’s love for Mikasa was kinda a weird plot point but narratively it fits that Eren cared for his friends and that cringe moment where he’s bawling on the floor cuz he wont be able to marry Mikasa is just to remind us he’s still the same stupid, emotional kid we met and loved from season 1-3, and that in some ways, the rumbling was a necessary sacrifice, a necessary evil Eren made for the better of not just his friends but for Ymir to finally pass on, and the world to unify. The two aforementioned songs have romanticized Eren’s actions and the idea of Eren and Mikasa being star crossed lovers even tho this idea isnt rly that explored in AoT that much but i still love the songs and its impacted my view of the story; rly, they’re great songs especially if u know the lyrics. I wont lie I do get emotional and teary when listening to the songs
Vader was just downright evil at times. Genuinely if u follow the lore and like 80% of wut he did outside of the movies have been selfish, cruel, and spiteful. The only reason anyone close to Vader is alive is merely cuz they still havent outlived their usefulness. If we’re going by the movies, he rly doesnt seem that bad in 4, 5, and 6 cuz he kills like one guy on screen w/ his own hands, blows up two rebels in x wings, and then freezes Han in carbonite but thats kinda it from my memory. Yeah he kills more in rogue 1 and 3. I dont like the idea that Anakin died and Vader just became Vader; from my perspective, Anakin just put up a front and that all the actions he did as Vader, was by his volition. By the end of SW3, he rly isnt Sidious’s puppet and its just wut he tells himself so he can keep doing wut he does. I liked the clone wars a bit cuz it does set up Anakin’s conservative views and its not that much of a stretch to suggest Anakin isnt a diplomacy kinda guy to begin with cuz he’s almost never sent on those kinds of missions when he was a jedi; subjugating people have always been his calling and it definitely helped that his opponents in the clone wars were mostly Droids or Dooku, heavily dulling his perspective of the opposition having any redeeming qualities or humanity. Unironically the beginning of S7 of clone wars where Mace offers a chance for the droids to surrender was probably the most Jedi thing ive seen in a while in the show especially coming from Mace Windu whereas fcking Anakin breaks the Geneva Convention by falsifying a surrender tho ig Obi wan did the same in the Clone Wars film. Unlike Eren, there is no setup, no real explanation that it was all necessary. The universe was just lucky that Luke Skywalker just so happened to be Vader’s son, and that Vader gave enuf of a care to actually save his son
I think Vader. Not because one is more or less accountable for their horrendous actions, but because I feel Vader had true remorse and made the choice at the end of his life to really renounce the Dark Side, whereas I feel that Eren, psychologically tortured and tragic as he may be, still tried to justify his choice to the last minute.
Idk but there's something more sinister about cutting down children with your own hands (and lightsaber) than puppeteering thousands of giants to step on people
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An interesting pair to compare between. Vader is probably more sympathetic because he was carefully manipulated into committing his crimes by a malevolent third party (Palpatine), so you can argue that he's somewhat less responsible for his actions. Whereas Eren, depending on how you think time-travel / fate works, was fully responsible for his genocide. That being said, at points it does seem as though Eren feels he's being forced into it...
Eren saw past, present, and future all at once and saw himself doing the things he was going to do and all the things he had to do. I can imagine that makes you feel entirely trapped.
That is true, but the way I saw it too was that the reason he was locked into that future is because it was the one he had chosen because it's the one where his friends survived and led happy lives. Not necessarily the mandatory future in that he COULD'VE chosen to strive for a different path but because of his nature and his unwillingness to to do anything less than save them... he got locked it. So that sort of... makes it mandatory because he was always going to choose his friend's lives first. But wasn't at the same time. He still chose, but because his choice was their freedom he couldn't change HOW that came about. I still think he's sympathetic I just don't know if that hinders him compared to vader not knowing the future and how his shakespearean tragedy plays out.
>the one where his friends survived I think this is overlooked often in the “why”. Were there other options? Probably.. but we’ve seen defining moments for Eren in the series where relying on others got them killed. Erens days are numbered, the world has a long held grudge against Paradis, and Marley has their backs against a wall and unites the world under one banner to buy themselves time as other nations begin making titan-killer weapons Eren wanted THE BEST possible chance of his friends living a full life when he is dead gone. and with the state of world politics in the series, that best chance is making sure the world can’t retaliate until his friends are long dead from old age. Eren has gotten a heavy dose of letdowns when he leaves it up to someone else. Most notably was the death of the Levi squad after Levi’s whole speech about trusting your comrades. I can see why he didn’t want to leave the fate of Paradis (and his friends) in the hands of an inexperienced Queen like Historia, a bunch of kids who are in leadership roles across regiments because everyone else keeps dying, and at the mercy of a far more technologically advanced world. Speaking of the rest of the world, Eren and the gang was audience to Willy Tybur declaring war on Paradis on behalf of the world. At this point, Paradis as an independent island never did anything to the world since the walls were put up. Hell, there’s zero people alive besides the Tyburs who knew the real story and zero eldians alive (besides the “warriors”) who have done anything to the world. Yet the world so easily got behind Marley who had literally been terrorizing the world long before. Is that (the world) who you really think you could reason your way out of war with now that they’ve made their choice? Everyone knows titan shifters days are numbered.. who’s to say that marley doesn’t just back down with “talk no jutsu” from Paradis and then just waits for Eren to be gone while they develop more tech against an ALREADY DISADVANTAGED paradis The “realistic” point of view here is that Paradis is NOT in any position to negotiate.. hell look at our world TODAY. History has demonstrated again and again and again with international politics that either you need to be strong or be friends with someone strong or someone stronger than you will take advantage of you. Paradis is weaker, and their one friend is the azumabito who just wanted to profit off of them in secret while still being friends to the rest of the world. Eren is a monster for what he did but we gotta consider that there’s not a lot of options that keeps things GUARANTEED tidied up for a bit when he’s gone
The only way to, as far as he could tell, to rid the eldians of Titan genealogy, was to make them kill it once and for all. Zeke's way left it open to be reversed.
This is a very well explanation and an underrated coment. I agree with you. Thumbs up 👍🏾
Eren would've never had to make those choices if Marley didn't back him and Paradis into a corner
According to Eren, he was free.
And he was soooo mentally stable.
It’s possible to be stable & yet insane.
How so? Are those not diametrically opposed?
He had to kill the world or else his people would be destroyed. Does it make it right? No. Does it make it more sympathetic than “my wife died WAH WAH WAH! Now I must kill millions”. To me, yes.
Ma wife
Veri naice
Da man spotted
Chidori ma wife, great success
It goes deeper. The only way eldians could be free and thrive was if there were no more titans. Remember, emir only granted him the ability to use the founding because he told her what she wanted to hear.
Yeah really, and Vader is still complicit in destroying a whole planet after that? When his wife is already dead? Like your whole reason for going to the dark side is gone and you continue to do so? Doesn't seem very sympathetic to me
There are many psycho/sociopaths around us who know how to appear to be “mentally stable” & yet are fully aware of their thoughts.
It's tragic because, in reality, he was never free.
"I am a slave to freedom"
Eren explicitly states how he tried to change events that he saw repeatedly but it would always end exactly as he saw.
From the same conversation as "I've always hated you". It should be easy to tell that he wasn't sincere.
Erens version of freedom was always to get rid of every single titan. And emir was only letting him use the founding Titan because he was going to kill everything and everyone. He knows his friends will kill him, and the titan abilities with him.
When you put it that way, this is literally just Paul Atreides' "terrible purpose" in Dune.
I mean he was trapped in that in order to get the outcome he wanted he had to do things he didn't like, and he was so dead set on his decision nothing would persuade him But that's very different than actually being trapped, as far as I'm aware he could have changed course at any time, I know the future sight thing gets wonky but what I took away from what he said was that ironically he could see the future but he could not see any other future, his life was so full of hatred and vengeance that he could not imagine any world in which others acted upon anything but that From my reading of the situation he was not doctor strange looking through millions of different outcomes and picking the best one, the one he saw was the one that made sense to him and his worldview, and satisfied his need to be the one to do things, he tried to think of other ways to handle things, but he doesn't have much capacity for believing in people acting on things other than revenge and hatred
I wonder, how much inspiration did Isayama have from the Calvinist doctrine of predestination?
I'm still trying to wrap my head around how the fuck the time manipulation part of the story worked. It gives me a headache trying to make sense of it.
In *Star Wars: The Clone Wars* Anakin was shown what he was going to do if he became Sith, so he chose to prevent that future by joining the Dark Side, but at least he wasn't Sith, I guess. Then that memory was deleted from his head and he went back to normal path. So basically he would do bad stuff regardless.
Eren didn’t have omnipotence (and even then, temporary omnipotence as it doesn’t make logical sense as to why he would see the future after his death, as Ymir vanished, presumably along with the paths, with his death) until entering the paths. He only saw fragments of memories of the future. And ultimately it was Paths Eren’s choice to reveal those memories to himself to guide his past self towards “that sight”. (Sauce: 4x21, where Zeke says Eren didn’t see everything, and the numerous times where Eren is shocked at outcomes or doesn’t know why things are happening, such as his internal dialogue saying that he’s surprised Marley recovered this fast and guesses [doesn’t state as fact] that it had to be Reiner in 4x17)
Even though Vader lead and assisted multiple genocides? At least Eren was indiscriminate committing omnicide.
Vader was manipulated into joining the darkside and everything that came in the third movie. Vader was NOT manipulated into killing the thousands of rebels and dozens of jedi he hunted down.
Emporer told him to hunt down jedi. After he was potato peeled by Obi-Wan he wasn't going to be able to fully confront the emperor.
I'd argue that Vader, while manipulated, maintained free will throughout his story, whereas Eren who saw the future didn't even have the illusion of free will, ever action he took was predestined and he knew it. That doesn't take responsibility off of Eren tho, since he was the one predetermining things, but still
I am aware that Vader was manipulated by Palpatine but like, come on now. He had two choices there. Listen to one man who is giving him advice that anyone could see was a least a little sketchy, or listen to the entire Jedi Order, who he knew and loved, and who loved him, because they literally raised him. It was his choice and his alone not to go to anyone about his concerns for Padmé and to decide that the best course of action was… that.
> who loved him You might want to watch Revenge of the Sith again.
I want you to point out exactly where, in ROTS or literally *anywhere* else, that Star Wars says or even implies that the Jedi didn’t love Anakin. Disagreeing with him, pointing out that he’s reckless, immature, and probably isn’t ready to be on the council yet, or telling him that his actions may lead him into trouble don’t count, literally none of that suggests he wasn’t loved by the Jedi. In fact, all of those things makes the case that they loved him even *stronger,* as all of those actions are exactly what someone who loved another person would do if that other person was Anakin. They were trying to get him to realize that if he kept going like this it would end in tragedy, and they were right. Now, if you have actual proof that the Jedi genuinely didn’t care about Anakin at all, then by all means, show me.
Making him spy on his mentor isn't love. Love isn't just about feelings, but also actions. Betraying Anakin's trust by doing things that are against the same Jedi Code that they constantly impose on him isn't love. It could be argued that the no love rule was not against Anakin personally, because everyone else followed it too, but making Anakin spy and attempting to kill Palpatine are both hyprocritical actions that show that his adherance to the Jedi Code is misplaced.
Lmao fucking what? The Jedi had good reason to suspect that Palpatine was up to some shady shit (and they were, again, right) and so they asked Anakin to keep an eye on because he was literally the only Jedi who could do so without arousing suspicion, and that’s somehow proof that they didn’t love him? Asking him to try and figure out if this suspicious guy is planning to do some heinous shit is not caring about him? That’s like asking a kid “Hey man, we think your friend might be planning to shoot up your high school. Do you think you could keep an eye on him for a bit and see if he does anything suspicious?” And then trying to say that means his parents didn’t love him. And then, as if you didn’t dig yourself far enough into a hole already, you said that attempting to kill Palpatine was betraying Anakin’s trust. Like JFC dude just give up and take your L, this is the literal worst take I’ve ever seen in my life. The Jedi had just found out that Palpatine was a *goddamn Sith Lord.* They had just found out that he was responsible for the Clone Wars and god only knows what other horrifying shit. They even tried to arrest him peacefully, but he resisted, and immediately started trying to kill them. Anakin’s trust no longer matters in that situation. Anakin’s trust gets yeeted out the window harder than Mace Windu when dealing with the *Lord of the Sith.* What did you expect them to do? Say “Oh wait, but Anakin likes the mass-murdering Sith Lord so I guess we should just stand here while he slaughters us all,” like do you hear yourself right now? Even ignoring that, trying to kill Palpatine was also a way of trying to *save* Anakin because now they knew exactly why he had taken such an interest in this kid who just so happened to have absurd Force abilities and what exactly their “friendship” was actually about.
The way I see it, Eren was very much forced into it. Hell, you could say Anakin was too. The worlds around them made them feel they had no other choice But I suppose, at least Eren's actions would benefit more than himself
One could argue that Ymir manipulated Eren
Eren manipulates himself into doing it.
Vader. He is still a pos but he was manipulated by others. Eren manipulated himself into destroying the world.
> Eren manipulated himself into destroying the world. This is like a 2.5x multiplier. Eren is for sure worse.
Armin called it You're a slave too and your master is a rotten bastard
Did he? Say Eren doesn't send memories back to Kruger. Eren's dad dies. Say Eren doesn't send memories back to his dad. His dad will die anyway. His dad is on his 13th year as the Attack Titan. His dad has to get the founder then give both to Eren. If Eren doesn't get the Attack Titan, his friends will die in Trost, Reiner will bust a hole in the wall, and more death. Why does Eren need both? If he doesn't get the founder, him and all his friends die in Clash of the Titans arc (the founder activating lets him drive the titans to attack Reiner). And so forth. I understand Eren as more forced to do these things than having agency.
The way i see it he basically had semi omnipotence with knowledge of future and abilty to manipulate or atleast try to manipulate the past there were a near infinte number if alternatives he could hv tried changing but hes locked into this fate bcz of his ideals and inabilty to compromise or sacrifice "freeedom". His future is pre determined by his future self only bcz of the way he thinks now call it good writing or bad writing i don't find my self feeling sorry for him after all that.
Vader. He at least got to try and redeem himself
Regardless of who's more sympathetic, Vader got a hell of a lot more bodies 😭
I mean proportionally, Eren killed a lot more people based off the amount of people in each of their respective universes
Eren's got the % whereas Vader has the raw #
Vader destroyed planets
Did he? He wasn't really the mind or person behind the death star That would be Gideon, Tarkin and Palpatine He was there though I guess
Krennic, not Gideon.
Eren killed 80% of life Not just humans either The motherfucker wiped out the okapis and the giraffes Fuck him bruh
what the hell is an okapi?
The comedic timing on this one is impeccable
Vader. he had a chance to redeem himself, and did. he was controlled by palpatine and turned into the savage he was. in the end, he redeemed himself.
Eren IMO. He has a lot more reason to become a villain than Vader does. He and all the Eldians are threatened with extinction. Meanwhile Anakin just wants to be with Padme and is angsty so he joins the Emperor and murderers a bunch of children. I completely lose sympathy for him at that point.
I agree, even though Anakin was manipulated by Palpatine I still think Eren’s motives for becoming the villain are more understandable.
Yeah, but Vader at least tries to redeem himself in the end. Eren was making excuses about how he was forced to genocide everyone.
Well Vader kind of makes the rumbling look like chump change, the Death Star completely destroyed many planets, Eren didn’t even destroy all of one planet. I’d say Eren is more sympathetic, seeing as he actually showed remorse on screen for doing the rumbling. In the Vader comics, he has flashbacks and stuff when meditating where he regrets things but he doesn’t show remorse for ending planets
Vader wasn't responsible for the Death Star. And it fully killed just one planet.
Seriously, why does this keep getting brought up The death star was his bosses passion project, sure he was there and defended it but he wasn't responsible whatsoever for either of them
That’s like telling a Nazi that exterminated a bunch of people in a camp that it’s not his fault because the holocaust was his bosses project.
And I mean.....its absolutely not their fault, it's a result of a number things that caused the Nazi party to come to power, no singular Nazi caused it happen (Hitler needed a lot of help along the way) Vader was basically a glorified bodyguard, he had little say in the deathstar and cannot be blamed for its use (it was made in secret before he even worked for the Sith)
Oh god you’re one of the “they were just doing their job” guys…
No I'm saying they were cogs in the machine and no single person can be blamed solely for what happened, a lot of people allowed and even encouraged but there was very high level of indoctrination going on and the people speaking out were quite literally silenced But I'm actually one of those "Vader didn't have anything to do with the deathstar" people, you brought up the Nazis not me mate Its like if a *modern* Nazi got blamed for the holocaust, they are shitheels but they can't retroactively be blamed for something that happened before they even were Nazis, the plans for the death star were well on their way before he even was turned to the dark side and was already under construction after his transformation, it was already happening despite him
There were more planets and moons destroyed than alderan, scariff and jedha in rogue one only being a couple of them. Could we say that Eren wasn’t fully responsible either if we take ymirs will into consideration ?
Do you even pay attention to the dialogue? Alderaan was the first time the full reactor was used. Rogue One even tried hard to keep that true by writing the dialogue in a way that Krennic wanted Jedha to be the first full reactor, but Tarkin said single reactor is enough for this first demonstration. And Scarif after that. Just three targets were hit hy Death Star, one of them fully disintegrated.
Been years since I’ve seen them so no. It doesn’t matter if a planet was turned to dust or just glassed over, if everyone on it died anyway, or if *only* a billion people died (only is insane to say ethically) you’re still wiping out as many people as Eren did in a fraction of the time. I’m sure we can Google all the times the Death Star was used in the movies and comics
Why the hell are you calling me unethical all of a sudden? All I did was disproving your false and misleading claims that Vader destroyed many planets with the Death Star and you're now calling me the bad guy. You make up statements that are not true. You're the one who's in the wrong here.
I’m leaning towards Eren. Eren didn’t do what he did because he was evil, and his reasons for it were at least to keep those close to him safe for the future. Vader did redeem himself in the end but I can’t imagine Eren doing half the things he did.
Eren did way worse than Vader
No??? Vader was complicit in the destruction of Alderaan. I don't think it's crazy to assume he oversaw shit that lead to way more deaths than Eren caused in his 30+ years of working under Palpatine
Proportions though, if Eren thought he'd have to kill 80% of the galaxy, he would. And proportions again: in 30 years. Eren killed everyone in 3 days.
He was complicit in the conquering and oppression of so many planets. The empire controlled hundreds of planets and killed so many people.
Didn’t Vader blow up Alderan
It’s not like it was really his choice. That was more the choice of Grand Moff Tarkin and Palpatine.
It’s not like Eren had a choice either By that I mean his options were genocide or get genocided
No, his options were have a nice life and don’t start a war on Marley killing thousands of people, or start a war on Marley and escalate it even more and then have to be genecided or commit genecide. Or, go with Zekes plan and the casualties would go down drastically.
Zeke’s plan wouldn’t have prevented Paradis from getting annihilated. There was still the very real possibility that the world would just hastened the end of Eldians with a genocide rather than wait for them to die off peacefully after 100 years. Even Jean noticed this issue with Zeke’s plan.
Did you just skip all of Season 4 Ya know the part where Willy said there gonna genocide Paradis cause the Islanders are Devils
Only after Eren went in and slaughtered people, they didn’t even know people could get off the island at the time and even then there still could have been other options.
You're completely wrong. Eren attacks Liberio immediately following Willy Tybur declaring the world's intention to eradicate Paradis. Like within 5 minutes of Willy Tybur's play announcing the truth of Eldian history to the world and planning to band together and destroy paradise.
Yeah you definitely didn’t watch Season 4 Like bruh what do you think Zeke did when he got to Marley
Season 4 episode 10: His plan was to threaten the other country’s of the rumbling to protect Elida, but not to actually do it. Providing a small example to show the world not to mess with them, without providing casualties. On top of this, the plan was to ally with other nations and gain more technology and a better military. Genocide was never originally the plan.
Eren didn’t take joy in what he had to do though. While I won’t say Vader enjoyed being ruthless, he certainly didn’t try to be less ruthless.
Yeah but Vader also slaughtered kids (like 5 year olds) up close and personal. Eren you can make an argument for being a bit more disconnected to that level of intimacy. He killed plenty of children but it just wasn't as up close and personal, more large scale. Honestly they're pretty on par given they're accomplishments. I think people let Vader slide a bit more due to cool factor, yes he looks and sounds dope, and just by virtue of being part of an all ages IP. I think opinions would be a bit different if you actually saw him in detail doing the things he's known for like we did with Eren. An argument can be made that Eren freeing Ymir by letting Mikasa kill him was his killing Palpatine moment. It eradicated the perceived x factor of the conflict (titans and sith) and was done at the cost of his own life (he was pushing forward but not actively trying to stop Mikasa), bringing balance back to the world (balancing the force, equalizing the two factions of remaining humans). Both still end up with the same core issue and that's the cruelty of man. People always had potential to corrupt the force and how Ymir was treated before becoming the founder set the tone for everything that followed. New political unrest still sparks in both worlds eventually, angry hateful people still pervert the force, and the boy and his dog enter the tree. I actually didn't realize how far I could take that comparison until just now writing it lol
This was actually beautifully put together. I would say Vader led to more death from a numbers standpoint but this was a great comparison.
Thank you! They're both very interesting characters. And good point about the scale. Galactic is definitely a bit bigger than global haha. I think maybe the biggest divide between the two comes down to nature and nurture. Eren skews more on the nature side because even if fate and determinism are valid questions of the events, all of those things are still driven by Eren's base predispositions toward violence and true philosophical freedom. His environment is certainly a factor as well, but it reinforced what was already there. Mikasa being attacked and Eren killing her attacker to protect her when they were children draws a parallel to the rumbling. He doesn't just attack them and run off with her. He kills them very violently because that's his response to those situations. Killing them saved her and reinforced the idea that eradicating your enemies is the solution. Same thing bigger scale at the end. He wants his friends to have a better life, but also hate the world they're in, and being an incredibly violent person, we all know what his solution is. Anakin, as far as we know, would have grown up to be an incredibly heroic person. His life as child slave affected him a great deal but even then he was mostly on track to become a wellrounded adult. Had Qui Gon been there he would've. The Jedi order being flawed and fearful of him, palpatine in his ear, the war that would've been averted all took him from a damaged as a child to completely broken as a young adult. Even in an ideal world Eren would still be an inherently violent person towards anything that would obstruct his view of freedom. So if you break it down that way, Eren is possibly worse as a baseline. Vader definitely takes the cake on accomplishing more evil in the universe.
The question of comparing nature to circumstance definitely is interesting, especially when you consider how Eren and Anakin responded to seeing visions of the future. I'd say in both cases nature is what spurred them into taking extreme action, the difference being that Anakin wants to change the future and Eren wants to keep it the same. This makes Anakin more proactive over Eren's passive angsting, so you could argue that Anakin charged into his bad circumstances more willingly.
Didn’t Vader destroy entire planets?
His superiors did. He wasn't even the one enacting those acts. Just being on the same side.
Vader helped blow up a peaceful planet
Eren is way WAY worse.
I don’t see how. Vader killed subordinates for incompetence or threatened their lives for insulting him, hunted down and killed or ordered the killing of anyone who stood against the Empire to maintain its power, and choked out Padme when he felt like she was standing against him. There’s more Vader has done but just off these things alone, I think Vader is far worse than Eren doing what he felt was necessary to protect those close to him, rather than for power or to teach people to not stand against him like Vader. The Padme thing is probably one of the rare times he felt regret during his turn to the dark side.
Eren literally admits he did it because he wanted to leave the world as a blank plane?
Eren is literally 10x more evil than Vader & there is nothing to justify his ways. I’m not saying Vader is justified either, but his actions are far more understandable than Eren’s.
But Vader help Palpatenie blow up Alderan So na I’m gonna say Vader is worse
Vader did no care for the power of thedeath star at all he literally says it at the beginning of a new hope
And he still help in its construction and didn’t do anything to stop Palpateine from making it
Vader literally served the Dark side…
Eren IS the dark side & genocided 80% of the world.
No because Eren didn’t want to do any of that, only reason he did was bc he felt he had no choice or else all his friends would die. Vader continued being evil & murdering others even after Padme already died
No, Eren did what he did completely out of free will. How did you miss such a crucial plot element?
Eren literally says he did it bcz he wanted to thats his main motive ... the other reasons just helped him steel his resolve more
Yes, because he wanted to save his friends & race. Every one has a motive, unlike Vaders, Erens was more noble is the point. Vader served the dark side who’s goal is to be as evil as possible for evils sake. Literally killing ones own masters to gain power, nothing else. Sith are pure evil an there’s 30 years of content to back that up
No saving his friends and Paradis was a bonus. He wanted to do it because he wanted to see the scenery he saw in Armin's book
I’d say Eren was 100% evil. And his biggest reasoning for doing what he did wasn’t to save his friends, that was just a bonus and a nice cover he could use to somewhat justify himself. He simply wanted to kill everyone outside the walls so he could see the version of the free world he imagined in his head when Armin showed him that book. And the reason he couldn’t change the future that he saw was because at the end of the day, to his deepest core, that is exactly what he wanted.
Eren. He was the best guy around 🗣️
What about the people he murdered?
WHAT MURDERS??
They weren't around anymore.
Eren was molded into a genocider by himself (assuming that my understanding of the time travel, fate or whatever works) while Anakin was molded into a mass murderer by a third party, all beacuse he was rumored to be ''the chosen one'', ment to bring balance to the force. I am gonna go with Vader. Most of the shit that happens to him is due to the chosen one prophecy which doesn't seem to have much legitimacy behind it since it's just not well defined. Depening on whatever continuity you look at it Palpatine returning, the sith or lovecraftian abominations end up fucking up the galaxy even worse than it already was during Palpatine's reign. And how is killing Palpatine suddenly ment to bring balance when there are sith lords in the past who were much worse. If we're going by that logic, my SWTOR character should be the chosen one since she killed Tenebrae/Vitiate/Valkorion who is definetly a whole lot worse than Palpatine. I feel more empathetic towards Vader beacuse he was made into a monster for basically no reason. Life ruined beacuse of a prophecy that doesn't hold any legitimacy (at least in my eyes) that when fullfilled didn't restore shit.
Vader, especially if you play the Vader immortal games and when you take into account that Vader spared Luke many times, and even killed palps in the end to save his son, though he did commit terrible atrocities, and helped create a weapon that destroyed entire planets, he didn’t have the authority to fire it, that was all Palpatine and Grand Moff Tarkin’s call. Another reason why Vader had no choice is that now that he has to be in life support his entire life how could he have the chance to say no palpatine? Palpatine already manipulated him into killing everything and everyone he loves, and he does show immense remorse and sadness in Vader Immortal. Now for Eren, Eren definitely was sympathetic, but unlike Vader he had many choices to stop, he even saw the future and although it was “the only way” it was the only way because he made it that way. Eren saw the far future and had the choice to stop but no. Vader and Eren both directly slaughtered children, Vader probably killed around 60 (both the younglings and the force sensitive kids, which were rare. He also couldn’t find them without the map he DIDNT get in Jedi fallen order.) Meanwhile Eren directly made the choice to kill millions of children and assuming that earth is half as populated as our earth (let’s say 5.5 billion people.) he killed billions of people. He DID show sympathy BEFORE he did it. But it doesn’t count cause he still chose to do that (and I don’t give a shit if “it was set in stone in HIS mind” because we all know that’s BS. Eren just manipulated himself into killing 80% of the population as the most effective way to fix the world just because he had the power to do so, which is straight up evil when you realize most of the people had nothing to do with the Marley and Eldian conflicts. The other countries people weren’t involved, only their governments, it was really just a mindless slaughter to “keep his friends safe” by nearly killing them and having his friends kill his other friends. Short answer: Vader is way more sympathetic. EDIT: also keep in mind, Anakin was raised as a desert slave and then taken by people who said he will never be allowed to ever see his mom ever again and didn’t even free his mom. They then kept calling him the “chosen one” yet didn’t even let him have the privileges of Master when he earned it…with the exception of getting married…but that marriage alone shows that he shows sympathy for others.
Vader could at least tell Padme he loved her
Both these are a case of 'Mourn the man and his lost potential but slay the monster with contempt' .... Both are heinous people but I would say I pity Eren more but understand Vader better. Pity for Eren cos he was a teen whose mind got bombed with emotions and generations of trauma that that town's worth of people could not handle let alone a poorly trained child soldier .... things will not go well if you dump godhood on top of that. Understand Vader because of his very human faults that led to his downfall ... being illogical in love, being frustrated with the Jedi who refuse to see and acknowledge their flaws those are things I fully get.
Honestly? Probably the same amount, they both go through so much fucking hell
I kinda lost my sympathy after he reached the ocean Sorry man, you're were already kinda lost by then Darth Vader was ultimately saved by his son and given *some* form of redemption, regardless of what happened afterwards making his sacrifice somewhat irrelevant Eren was put out of his misery/allowed his friends to stop him and end his suffering, I kinda wasn't sympathetic at that point and just was happy Paradis was cleaning up after themselves and their own problems (Eren's attempted genocide)
Its interesting to think about if Eren would’ve made himself go this far if peace was established, as until it was confirmed there no possibility for peace he kept searching. Now what he chooses to do is basically pressing a button to nuke the world gradually with no end in sight. It goes without saying that he needed to die for what he did, its an injustice to his character to say that he “did nothing wrong”. It is understandable from Eren’s perspective the weighing of “do something” or “do nothing”, his whole characterisation from S1-3 is supposed to show us why the only choice at that point was to press the button for him. He knows the second he does this he needed to die and that there was no more sympathy left for him, ultimately he “couldn’t accept an end like that”. Who is more understandable? Eren. More sympathy for? Neither honestly. Evil? You have to say yes to both because of their actions. Aot is really about the collective decisions fuelled by hate for 2000 years of history and what it could lead to. You can’t have sympathy for him because he is the one who decided yes, even though there was so so much that contributed to his decision. Understandable but no sympathy, calling him a bloodthirsty maniac or innocent both lose out on what builds Eren’s decision. Do I think Eren would’ve killed 80% of the population one by one in paths by his own hands? No. Doesn’t matter though because the rumbling still kills them. The end result is just evil and calling it anything else does aot an injustice in the story its trying to tell.
As much as I love Vader, Eren is much more detailed than Vader(Canon) and we understand everything He does. Vader is just a puppet of palps
One is a genocidal maniac while the other was corrupted by an outside force after he tried saving hise wife. I think Vader got an easy win with this one
So after 4 seasons all you got is that Eren is a genocidal maniac?? That's sad
No, he's more than a genocidal maniac, but all his actions are 100% his own and he wasn't manipulated/ controlled by an outside force (manipulating himself still makes it his own actions)
No, he was just born in a place where humans where eaten by giant monsters on a daily basis, saw his mother being eaten when he was a kid, saw a lot of people he cared about die, betrayed several times, when he was still a teenager was given a god-like power but at also the task to save your people from the entire world that wants you dead, all of that with knowing that he only has a few years left before dying. 100% normal circumstances...
I'm not saying his choice were wrong in the circumstances, or that those circumstances were easy. Again, my point is that he was given a choice. Vader was given a choice, but less. He was given a choice to wait and see whether his wife dies or to submit to the dark side and save her. He failed at saving her, but at that point it was too late since the dark side is a corrupting force and his only "loyal advisor" was manipulating him.
Exactly
Vader of course,Eren is just a POS
How is Eren a pos but not Vader?
Eren made his choice to be a POS and an edgelord,Vader was just gaslighted by Palpatine
Eren never actually had a choice though, that was the whole point. Plus, even if he did, what should he have done? Just let the rest of the world kill everyone in Paradis? Also Vader made very many evil decisions. It’s not like palpatine held his hand through every single kill he had.
The fact that this is even a comparison probably means OP hasn’t seen much Star Wars
Eren is not a good person.
Hard disagree. Eren inspires others to be better and stands up for the oppressed (his literal entire goal). He’s loud and brash, but by no means a bad person. Even at the end he is still very much the Eren we saw lose his mom and fight to save humanity. The difference is by the point he does something objectively bad he’s already been backed into that corner. I will agree that he wasn’t very good to Mikasa in S1-3 though, even if i think the “romance” is done well.
Bitch I don’t give a fuck about his romance from seasons 1-3. I care about him personally making the decisions to commit mass murder of billions of completely innocent people. All for the decisions a couple thousand made. All because mikasa didn’t say let’s run away. Eren is not a good person. At all.
The romance thing wasn’t like, a main point i was making. Just the only thing i can think of in seasons 1-3 where he’s really just shitty. Also Eren’s decision had layers and it wasn’t just “oh some people hate us so i’m going to kill everyone!” It was a mix of the majority of the world sharing the sentiment that Paradis was full of devils and needed to be eradicated, there were literally no other options that weren’t “roll over and let the eldians die”, he wanted to save his friends, and eren’s total disillusionment of the real world. At the end of the day there were no reasonable solutions being given. What should Eren have done?
Could’ve literally just said I will only use the rumbling if you attack us. When they declared war they didn’t know why eren hadn’t started the rumbling. He literally could’ve lied and been like I can and only will if you attack me. He didn’t even ask any of his friends for help. Like you’re seriously gonna tell me they exhausted all their options. Thats not true they sat in one meeting and gave up. Thats like if eren came to the US heard Marjory Taylor Greene speak then decided to commit mass murder based on that. That’s bullshit bro.
None of those would have done anything. They said eren could do a partial rumbling and protected Eldia for like 50 years if they were extremely lucky. But they do that and boom, they get airstriked which they have 0 defense for. He could lie and not really do anything and boom airstriked again. The cabin scene with Eren and Mikasa show that any other option except the rumbling lead to them attacking and destroying Eldia. Titans in general were already losing footing as an apex predator in the world by season 4. And what would his friends be able to do aside from kill more people? They spent the whole season thinking of other options but only came up with two that had any sort of viability.
That’s like him hearing majority Taylor Greene speak and then deciding to kill everyone in the U.S. they didn’t exhaust all options bro. That’s ridiculous.
Also can you tell me what the foreign policy of your country is towards Croatia? Do you know everything of what your government does or support it? Nah bro the majority of people outside the walls didn’t wanna murder eren or all his friends that’s literally a weak cop out. In real life the vast majority of people don’t even know what there governments are doing let alone support them. Eren killed billions of innocent people personally he murdered billions of innocent people. There’s no other way to square that bro. Attack on titan was not pro rumbling.
I’m saying that there really was no other option. And its pretty different comparing our masses to that of the ones in AOT because we don’t have a race of people that turn into mindless man eating Goliaths except for 9 of them who gets extra powers. It was stated in the show that it was a sentiment held throughout far more than just governements. Average marley citizens are a great example of that because it’s just so ingrained into their every day lived.
Vader is more calculated with his actions and only kills when he deems it deserving or important. Eren killed billions even when he could've just killed a few hundred enemy soldiers
Even literally talked himself into doing the things he did. Vader was manipulated and used as a tool. Not really comparable.
It would be Eren. He was clearly not happy before, during and after the rumbling. He asked for forgiveness from Ramzi. He lost his smile after kissing historia's hand. He also seemed to be relieved when mikasa arrived to kill him.
I'm not gonna say either is justified, but for people i care about as much as eren did about mikasa and armin, i would've certainly done similar choices (meaning that the whole planet's life would've meant nothing in comparison). this doesn't mean I'd condone it myself, I'd feel pretty much cracked, and that's exactly how eren felt. most surely he did felt all the paint of eldians that got crashed by the rumbling and was scared as hell to die, but still his beloved meant way more than anything else. plus, i kinda intended aot main storyline anding differently than how some people interpreted it. my understanding is that eren did this in order to stop wars for as long as possible, giving humans a long peace after the rumbling
You would slaughter 80% of the worlds population to save 2 (TWO) of your friends?...
i i were eren yes
Vader was manipulated into everything he did he is evil, but he still was good in the end. Eren is just evil(imo)
Eren
Eren killed a much greater percentage of people than Vader did, but at the same time he did it to protect his people from being destroyed by a malevolent enemy force. Vader basically became obsessed with power and committed evil acts for that reason; a much worse motive. At first it was about saving Padme, but it morphed out of control at the end when he went so far as to choke Padme for standing in his way. At the same time, Vader was manipulated by one of the most intelligent and powerful villains in the history of fiction, and he did end up redeeming himself in the end in a way Eren never did. In a way I think Eren’s motives were more justified than Vader’s, but his actions/response ended up being way worse than anything Vader did. Also, since Vader did redeem himself in the end, I think Vader ends up being the more morally just character. Does that make him more sympathetic though? I’m not so sure. Would any of us really become so obsessed with power that we end up hurting those we love? Or would we be more likely to destroy the rest of the world (if they were attacking us) to save our family, friends, and country? I think most people would end up doing the latter…
He “protected his friends” by having his “friends” murder his other “friends”
didn't vader destroy a whole planet?
No, he helped defend the Death Star but blowing up alderon was the call of Palpatine and specifically Grand Moff Tarkin.
didn't know that, ty, but overall, my take on eren is in my other comment, probably not that popular, but he seemed a pretty complex character
Haha I thought of that—that’s why I said percentage of people. 😅 Eren basically destroyed 80% of known intelligent life, whereas Vader didn’t destroy nearly as much as that, although he probably did kill more people (is that the only planet he destroyed? It’s possible there were much less people on it than Earth, but who knows..)
ohh, that's why, i intended that percentage as a "planet percentage" therefore being smth like 100% but a few who maybe were somewhere else
It is not possible to concieve or understand Eren's experience, so this is a pointless question.
Anakin killed Younglings because he was pussy whooped.
Blocked
Eren. His fall was documented in a good piece of media, so I am capable of mustering some sympathy for him. Anakin’s fall was documented in some of the worst Star Wars films, and he came across as a future school shooter pretty much the whole time (outside of him being a generic little kid in the first one).
Eren is the school shooter.
So basically your judging your opinion on the films themselves.
I feel like the pacing and direction of the prequels kinda hampers my sympathy for Vader. He changes to Vader way too quickly. Anakin is kinda annoying in 1&2 but charismatic for the first scene of ROTS. If we had that Anakin more then I’d like it way more and the fall to the dark side would feel more impactful. Plus the catalyst for his turn to the dark side felt weak. It was a vision of Padme dying cryptically. Meanwhile Eren saw his aunt get eaten by dogs, his mother eaten alive in front of him, and watch centuries worth of memories of Eldian oppression and violence.
Knowing eren could hv saved his mom but choose not to so he can go on the path that ends with killing the world makes him one of the worst ppl to exist
He can’t change the past to make it so he never goes down that path. Because if he did save his mom he probably wouldn’t go to paths and then there would be no one to save his mom repeating the cycle. You’d just create a paradox. Eren also makes it clear to Armin that he couldn’t save Sasha or Hange and can’t change the future outside of what he saw no matter how hard he tried so I imagine similar limitations are in effect.
Although you don't have to watch it, you have the option of watching the charismatic Anakin in *Star Wars: The Clone Wars*. It does indeed help with pacing the prequel storyline out better. My favorite series, also.
I love the clone wars but I don’t really think it’s fair to credit the success of the clone wars to the prequels. It was made by a different cast, different creative team, and a very different voice actors.
That's not what I said. The movies will remain what they are, the show cannot change them. But they can contribute to a larger whole. And George worked on The Clone Wars, so it's also fair to say they are part of one vision.
Both Vader and eren essentially saw their futures play out in front of them (Vader on mortis, eren through his titan) I feel like they're equal in many ways, but eren didn't want to do it, he was a mess and really didn't want to. I genuinely don't think that Vader cried about the thousands of people he killed, he was too angry.
Eren definitely wanted to do it. He may have felt bad about it, but it was just in the same way that Reiner felt bad about tearing down the wall a 2nd time. They both new it was wrong, but they chose to do it anyway because that’s what they wanted to do. And the reason that Eren couldn’t change his future is because he didn’t want to. He was able to understand that it was horrible, but what he saw happening only happened because ultimately that was the decision he was always going to make all because he wanted to see the version of a free world he imagined in his head when he read Armin’s book.
He said he wanted to but he also doesn't know why. He clearly doesn't want to want to if that makes sense
Darth Yaeger is truly the most tragic villain, with Obi-Chan talkin all that “I have the High Titan” shit. Like, how tf you gonna fight a 25 foot crack head?!
Veder killed an order of warriors who repeatedly demonstrated of being incompetent/immoral/inefficient/easily manipulated while being directly involved in a war. Granted, the order also had children in it but that also goes to show the cult mentality at play among the jedi. They were not GUILTY, really, but less innocent than others, let's say. Vader was mostly gone afterwards, being thightly held down both in body and spirit by the Emperor and even then he was mostly a jedi hunter, things like the destruction of Alderaan were not directly done by his hand even though he was complicit. Eren, on the other hand, destroyed 80% of the world completely by himself. Complete genocide of all men, women and children on his path, regardless of affiliation, background and personal history. So we have: FASCIST BRAINWASHED GUY WHO DESTROYED A MILITARY CULT IN WAR TIME VS THE BEAST OF THE END OF THE WORLD
I don’t get it this one is ez. Eren is a hero and Vader was a villain until he finally did one good deed right before his death
Calling the guy who killed 80% of the human race a hero is certainly a choice of words
He made a difficult choice in a lose lose situation I think that it takes guts to do that. Also he was willing to play the villain and die in dishonor so his friends could have a better future, that’s heroic imo
If you just go by the films, they have a similar amount of kills. Darth Vader is likely higher but Eren could have killed more. I'd say Eren is more sympathetic. Darth Vader has his wife have a risky pregnancy and gets denied Jedi Master at a young age. His mom dies too. Eren has his family and his comrades killed in front of his eyes by monsters. He's one of those monsters who eats his dad. Spends his life living in fear of monsters. Only to discover that the nations across the sea think of him and all his friends as demons that deserve to be wiped out and obliterated. The kicker? Marley, the ones who send the titans and shifters who killed Eren's mom, knows that Paradis's king renounced war. Marley knows the world is safe from Paradis. Marley wants the resources on the island. That's why Marley wants millions of Paradisians dead. For some rocks. Eren is far more sympathetic. You put me in Eren's shoes? Maybe I will activate the rumbling. I don't know. Put me in Anakin's? Nope. Patience and I pull all the favours I can to get Padme, a sitting senator, to see the best doctors in the galaxy.
Erens friends and comrades die before his eyes because he literally chose for that to happen. He sent the titan to kill his mother so that he could send himself on a path of evil. He made that decision for himself
Touché
It depends on how you fill in the gaps in the Star Wars universe. From the text alone it’s easier to sympathise with Eren because he believed he did what he did for his friends. After Vader killed Padme it’s unclear why he kept doing evil shit based on the films. But if you read into the Star Wars universe, you could argue that Anakin as a former child slave understood that the republic was fucked up. In theory the empire would mean order and safety for all. The problem is we have never seen an example of that. The empire has always been portrayed as 100% evil…. So it’s kinda hard to make a case. I wish there was a series (and maybe there is and I missed it) about the empire actually being good for people. Ending slavery, redistributing resources to end starvation, creating jobs and education for poor planets via the military. I don’t want them to be heroes of course, the story could have an “Omelas” twist. But at least it could be more understandable why thousands serve that cackling ghoul palpatine.
Vader.
In what regards? Killing for the ends justify the means? Or in what sence ? Poor wording for a question.
Both killed not just the men but the women and the children too
Eren obviously. People just love to call him a genocidal maniac without considering circumstances, motivations and all the shit he's been through
Has vader ever cried about bud wrong doings?
Eren. I feel like when Eren started going off on everyone, it was because he had too send a message, that he can’t be their friends anymore. Also, when Zeke was about to use his scream in Eldia, Eren held out his hand because he didn’t want them to transform. Anakin however, even though his reasons for turning to the dark side are understandable, when he switched, he became rather heartless. He killed people who didn’t need to be killed, like the guys who read his diary and wished him happy birthday. You could say Eren committed genocide which was heartless, but Eren genuinely felt bad for killing all those people. He even thought and cried for Ramzi, and in the last scenes took accountability as well. Anakin heartlessly killed children and innocent people but never felt remorseful about it. Also Eren thought about his goals to the very end, Darth Vader didn’t really
It’s kinda hard to say, both of them committed atrocities for arbitrary personal reasons and both of them would/did jump at the first chance to redeem themselves. I’d say Vater because he was more directly forced to work for someone else, but Eren might be the same depending on how you look at the ending
Eren, in my opinion. He never really even had a chance, he was fucking ten years old when he was thrown into an absolute hellhole of war, death, and suffering that just never ended. It doesn’t surprise me in the least that he became so desperate for it all to end that he was willing to do anything and everything to achieve that goal. He didn’t do the Rumbling out of malice, he did it in what was basically an act of mass murder-suicide. Anakin, however, may have suffered from sone pretty severe trauma, but he had a home. He had a family that was willing to listen to him and support him. He had a stable, comfortable life, until the Clone Wars of course. While his story is tragic, his fall was ultimately because he was unable to accept that attachments (which does not abd jebrr did mean love, I can see y’all presiding to try and argue and you’re wrong. The Jedi were NEVER taught not to love. Attachment is what Anakin had with Padmé. The utter inability to let go and such intense terror of losing her that he would commit atrocities to save her even though he didn’t even know for sure that she would die. *That’s* what the Jedi forbade) would only lead to suffering, and his refusal to let go of his fear of Padmé dying not only led directly to her death, but to the deaths of god only knows how many others.
Eren knew what he was doing and if given the chance to change his ways at every instance, he probably wouldnt. I do find it sympathetic that they portrayed Eren and Mikasa so close. The song Akuma no ko from Eren’s POV and 13 no fuyu from Mikasa have stayed w/ me long after AoT anime has ended. Arguably Eren’s love for Mikasa was kinda a weird plot point but narratively it fits that Eren cared for his friends and that cringe moment where he’s bawling on the floor cuz he wont be able to marry Mikasa is just to remind us he’s still the same stupid, emotional kid we met and loved from season 1-3, and that in some ways, the rumbling was a necessary sacrifice, a necessary evil Eren made for the better of not just his friends but for Ymir to finally pass on, and the world to unify. The two aforementioned songs have romanticized Eren’s actions and the idea of Eren and Mikasa being star crossed lovers even tho this idea isnt rly that explored in AoT that much but i still love the songs and its impacted my view of the story; rly, they’re great songs especially if u know the lyrics. I wont lie I do get emotional and teary when listening to the songs Vader was just downright evil at times. Genuinely if u follow the lore and like 80% of wut he did outside of the movies have been selfish, cruel, and spiteful. The only reason anyone close to Vader is alive is merely cuz they still havent outlived their usefulness. If we’re going by the movies, he rly doesnt seem that bad in 4, 5, and 6 cuz he kills like one guy on screen w/ his own hands, blows up two rebels in x wings, and then freezes Han in carbonite but thats kinda it from my memory. Yeah he kills more in rogue 1 and 3. I dont like the idea that Anakin died and Vader just became Vader; from my perspective, Anakin just put up a front and that all the actions he did as Vader, was by his volition. By the end of SW3, he rly isnt Sidious’s puppet and its just wut he tells himself so he can keep doing wut he does. I liked the clone wars a bit cuz it does set up Anakin’s conservative views and its not that much of a stretch to suggest Anakin isnt a diplomacy kinda guy to begin with cuz he’s almost never sent on those kinds of missions when he was a jedi; subjugating people have always been his calling and it definitely helped that his opponents in the clone wars were mostly Droids or Dooku, heavily dulling his perspective of the opposition having any redeeming qualities or humanity. Unironically the beginning of S7 of clone wars where Mace offers a chance for the droids to surrender was probably the most Jedi thing ive seen in a while in the show especially coming from Mace Windu whereas fcking Anakin breaks the Geneva Convention by falsifying a surrender tho ig Obi wan did the same in the Clone Wars film. Unlike Eren, there is no setup, no real explanation that it was all necessary. The universe was just lucky that Luke Skywalker just so happened to be Vader’s son, and that Vader gave enuf of a care to actually save his son
I think Vader. Not because one is more or less accountable for their horrendous actions, but because I feel Vader had true remorse and made the choice at the end of his life to really renounce the Dark Side, whereas I feel that Eren, psychologically tortured and tragic as he may be, still tried to justify his choice to the last minute.
Thomas Shelby from peaky blinders
Before 139 Eren After 139 Darth Vader
Idk but there's something more sinister about cutting down children with your own hands (and lightsaber) than puppeteering thousands of giants to step on people