Eren Yeager (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
titanhunter) wrote2013-09-05 06:27 pm
titanhunter) wrote2013-09-05 06:27 pm
Entry tags:
Character Info
Personality:
At first glance, Eren might appear to be your usual cookie-cutter shonen protagonist, given how stubborn and impulsive he is. However, underneath his relentless shonen spirit, there are deeper levels that set him apart from other male manga heroes. While Eren is very argumentative and quick to anger, sometimes he knows when to let something go and see the situation from another angle. This trait was evident even when he was a boy at the start of the series. The first example of this is when he got angry with Hannes and the other guards for drinking on the job when he was around the age of ten. He yelled at them for a little, but then suddenly reins himself in and walked away, likely realizing how pointless it was to get them to see things the way he does. This kind of insight into other people is developed beyond his years though it can be overpowered by his temper in many instances. However, most ten-year-olds are still in that “the universe revolves around me and my needs” kind of mindset. But Eren is able to view the world as a place that is unfair to all humankind, saying that the fact that they live inside walls makes them no better than cattle and it is no way to live. And his insight into the mindset of the guards shows that he is able to catch on to other people’s inner workings and needs even if he disagrees with them.
Five years later, when he’s having an argument with Jean he even more expertly reigns in his anger; his inner thoughts showing that he recognizes that Jean was just reacting to the stress of the matter they were arguing about, just like him. Though, instead of walking away, he uses martial arts to incapacitate Jean and calmly say his piece with his usual conviction. Then, much later, after he becomes a member of the Scouting Legion, Reiner and Bertholdt confess to him that they were the armored and colossal Titans respectively to which Eren hesitates just a moment before acting like they were just tired and not thinking straight instead of exploding into a rage. Right after that as he is battling the armored Titan in his Titan form, he manages to cool his head enough to fight using precise martial arts rather than the frenzied and blindly angry way he was going about it before. He also tends to be very serious about things rather than goofy and carefree. He’s determined and driven to succeed and in the process of reaching his goals, there is no room for messing around. Sure, he can relax and smile and joke a bit when the situation allows it, but generally he’s got a spotlight on his goals and never turns away from his intended path.
While others have noted in the series that he has little natural talent for combat beyond his notable physical strength, he graduated from the military academy ranking fifth in his class and his martial arts scores put him only second to Mikasa and Annie. It was thanks to his intense drive and focus that he managed to become as skilled as he is. It was also this drive and focus that allowed him to save Armin from the jaws of a Titan, showcasing his impressive tolerance for pain and an ability to place mind over matter when he did so with his leg amputated from the knee down. This hardheaded drive and relentless spirit of his is also infectious. He has the ability to inspire others with his talk of humanity still having a chance to win if they keep fighting. Eren is not naïve, though; he has seen the horror that Titans cause with his own two eyes when one ate his mother and he witnessed the chaos all around his hometown. A Titan also devoured him after he saved Armin and even after that he still holds onto humanity’s chances to not only survive but also defeat the Titans and finally live outside the walls. It’s not that he’s not afraid of Titans, it’s that he has the courage to face them despite fearing them, even taking on the colossal Titan on his own.
A lot of other characters call him an idiot with a death wish for his reckless actions and views, but again, it’s not that he doesn’t value his own life or not fear Titans or that he doesn’t understand the threat they pose. Eren needs to believe that life can get better than glorified cattle or what is the point of his life or anyone else’s? He has a strong sense of justice, duty and loyalty, and has had it from a very young age. However, despite all his virtues, he’s a very terrifying person because on some level he isn’t very stable. When he was eight to nine years old, he killed two men with nothing but a pocketknife and a broom in order to save Mikasa. He showed no hesitation, and had even planned the whole thing out beforehand, pretending to be a frightened child at their door before stabbing one, and then luring the second outside where he ambushed him with the knife tied to a broom. And he didn’t stop there; he stabbed the second man over and over in his righteous fury. As he grew into a teenager, these moments of unstable bursts of violence as well as calculating and planning how to tear his enemies apart have happened a couple more times. Most notably was when he was fighting the female Titan in his Titan form. He had her pinned to the ground, but his violent, sadistic and vengeful thoughts and emotions overtook him and he began to twitch uncontrollably with the bloodlust. However, he’s well intentioned. He never does anything violent and insane without a just cause.
There is also a sense of doubt about him later on in the series after he first transforms into a Titan. His philosophies on fighting Titans are as strong as ever, but his understanding of himself and his own abilities has been shaken. He surmises he is definitely a human being, but he has no idea how the Titan powers work and a lot of people are treating him like a monster and he feels like one too. Then, when he’s accepted into the Scouting Legion, he’s treated like a bomb about to go off and someone who needs to be protected at the same time. When being chased by the female Titan, he struggled with his desire to do something and his doubts about his Titan powers and other abilities. When the squad he was with kept telling him he was inexperienced and his Titan form was unpredictable, it only reinforced this. The only one who was neutral on the matter and entrusted him with the ability to make his own decision was Lance Corporal Levi. Later, when he resolves to believe in his comrades to win and take care of themselves and as a result they all die, he realizes he made the wrong choice; that if only he had believed in himself and turned into a Titan he might have been able to save them. It was Levi who reiterated him that the only thing they can do is to believe they won’t regret the choices they make and nobody can know the outcome of their decisions.
Levi is someone who intimidates Eren but who Eren also has an immense amount of respect for in a strange way. After he beat Eren while he was tied up during the military tribunal to decide Eren’s fate, Eren was skittish around him even when it was explained that it was an act to save his life. This shows another side to Eren that isn’t just impulsive aggression and showcases his ability to see matters from other angles. He could have easily resented Levi for beating him, but he truly doesn’t because Levi had just reasons; he understands the complexity of the situation and actually comes to respect Levi even more later on. He also knows when he’s been put in his place and how to submit to others with more experience and authority. He isn’t some hardheaded nutcase who breaks all the rules and risks his life while not listening to anyone. Rather, he is able to recognize when he has something to learn from his superiors but he also doubts himself sometimes and that makes it easier for him to yield to others, though it is rare, the person would have to do something as drastic as Levi to achieve such a thing. Even Mikasa hasn’t been able to rein Eren in, though it was not for a lack of trying.
Mikasa and Eren have a close relationship, however on Mikasa’s end it’s very codependent. She’s lost her family and Eren saved her and taught her how to fight for herself, saying: “Fight! If you don’t fight, you can’t win!” So it’s reasonable that he means a lot to her, but Eren sometimes grows frustrated with how much she nags him and coddles him. She’s said things along the lines of: “If I’m not with you, you’ll die quickly,” and she’s said she doesn’t want to lose more family, a fact that Eren understands, but points out that with the human race on the brink of extinction, it’s not the time to think of your own selfish needs. He yearns to be respected and trusted by her, for her to stop treating him like her little brother. She does respect him in many ways, but she certainly does not trust him to make the right decisions that will ensure his survival and this is something that somewhat strains their relationship, though it is only hinted at. The only time that Mikasa threw aside reason and followed Eren’s judgment was when they were trying to save his mother, however what may have become of that attempt can’t be known because Hannes dragged them both away.
As Hannes held Eren over his shoulder and Mikasa under his arm, Eren witnessed a horror no child should ever have to. He watched as a Titan picked up his mother from the rubble she was trapped under and bite into her, spraying her blood all the way to where Hannes was running away with the children. His mother’s death traumatized him and while he’d had aspirations to join the military’s Scouting Legion already, he became very single-minded about it after that. On that day, he swore that he would drive all the Titans from the world and since then he’s not strayed from that goal.
At first glance, Eren might appear to be your usual cookie-cutter shonen protagonist, given how stubborn and impulsive he is. However, underneath his relentless shonen spirit, there are deeper levels that set him apart from other male manga heroes. While Eren is very argumentative and quick to anger, sometimes he knows when to let something go and see the situation from another angle. This trait was evident even when he was a boy at the start of the series. The first example of this is when he got angry with Hannes and the other guards for drinking on the job when he was around the age of ten. He yelled at them for a little, but then suddenly reins himself in and walked away, likely realizing how pointless it was to get them to see things the way he does. This kind of insight into other people is developed beyond his years though it can be overpowered by his temper in many instances. However, most ten-year-olds are still in that “the universe revolves around me and my needs” kind of mindset. But Eren is able to view the world as a place that is unfair to all humankind, saying that the fact that they live inside walls makes them no better than cattle and it is no way to live. And his insight into the mindset of the guards shows that he is able to catch on to other people’s inner workings and needs even if he disagrees with them.
Five years later, when he’s having an argument with Jean he even more expertly reigns in his anger; his inner thoughts showing that he recognizes that Jean was just reacting to the stress of the matter they were arguing about, just like him. Though, instead of walking away, he uses martial arts to incapacitate Jean and calmly say his piece with his usual conviction. Then, much later, after he becomes a member of the Scouting Legion, Reiner and Bertholdt confess to him that they were the armored and colossal Titans respectively to which Eren hesitates just a moment before acting like they were just tired and not thinking straight instead of exploding into a rage. Right after that as he is battling the armored Titan in his Titan form, he manages to cool his head enough to fight using precise martial arts rather than the frenzied and blindly angry way he was going about it before. He also tends to be very serious about things rather than goofy and carefree. He’s determined and driven to succeed and in the process of reaching his goals, there is no room for messing around. Sure, he can relax and smile and joke a bit when the situation allows it, but generally he’s got a spotlight on his goals and never turns away from his intended path.
While others have noted in the series that he has little natural talent for combat beyond his notable physical strength, he graduated from the military academy ranking fifth in his class and his martial arts scores put him only second to Mikasa and Annie. It was thanks to his intense drive and focus that he managed to become as skilled as he is. It was also this drive and focus that allowed him to save Armin from the jaws of a Titan, showcasing his impressive tolerance for pain and an ability to place mind over matter when he did so with his leg amputated from the knee down. This hardheaded drive and relentless spirit of his is also infectious. He has the ability to inspire others with his talk of humanity still having a chance to win if they keep fighting. Eren is not naïve, though; he has seen the horror that Titans cause with his own two eyes when one ate his mother and he witnessed the chaos all around his hometown. A Titan also devoured him after he saved Armin and even after that he still holds onto humanity’s chances to not only survive but also defeat the Titans and finally live outside the walls. It’s not that he’s not afraid of Titans, it’s that he has the courage to face them despite fearing them, even taking on the colossal Titan on his own.
A lot of other characters call him an idiot with a death wish for his reckless actions and views, but again, it’s not that he doesn’t value his own life or not fear Titans or that he doesn’t understand the threat they pose. Eren needs to believe that life can get better than glorified cattle or what is the point of his life or anyone else’s? He has a strong sense of justice, duty and loyalty, and has had it from a very young age. However, despite all his virtues, he’s a very terrifying person because on some level he isn’t very stable. When he was eight to nine years old, he killed two men with nothing but a pocketknife and a broom in order to save Mikasa. He showed no hesitation, and had even planned the whole thing out beforehand, pretending to be a frightened child at their door before stabbing one, and then luring the second outside where he ambushed him with the knife tied to a broom. And he didn’t stop there; he stabbed the second man over and over in his righteous fury. As he grew into a teenager, these moments of unstable bursts of violence as well as calculating and planning how to tear his enemies apart have happened a couple more times. Most notably was when he was fighting the female Titan in his Titan form. He had her pinned to the ground, but his violent, sadistic and vengeful thoughts and emotions overtook him and he began to twitch uncontrollably with the bloodlust. However, he’s well intentioned. He never does anything violent and insane without a just cause.
There is also a sense of doubt about him later on in the series after he first transforms into a Titan. His philosophies on fighting Titans are as strong as ever, but his understanding of himself and his own abilities has been shaken. He surmises he is definitely a human being, but he has no idea how the Titan powers work and a lot of people are treating him like a monster and he feels like one too. Then, when he’s accepted into the Scouting Legion, he’s treated like a bomb about to go off and someone who needs to be protected at the same time. When being chased by the female Titan, he struggled with his desire to do something and his doubts about his Titan powers and other abilities. When the squad he was with kept telling him he was inexperienced and his Titan form was unpredictable, it only reinforced this. The only one who was neutral on the matter and entrusted him with the ability to make his own decision was Lance Corporal Levi. Later, when he resolves to believe in his comrades to win and take care of themselves and as a result they all die, he realizes he made the wrong choice; that if only he had believed in himself and turned into a Titan he might have been able to save them. It was Levi who reiterated him that the only thing they can do is to believe they won’t regret the choices they make and nobody can know the outcome of their decisions.
Levi is someone who intimidates Eren but who Eren also has an immense amount of respect for in a strange way. After he beat Eren while he was tied up during the military tribunal to decide Eren’s fate, Eren was skittish around him even when it was explained that it was an act to save his life. This shows another side to Eren that isn’t just impulsive aggression and showcases his ability to see matters from other angles. He could have easily resented Levi for beating him, but he truly doesn’t because Levi had just reasons; he understands the complexity of the situation and actually comes to respect Levi even more later on. He also knows when he’s been put in his place and how to submit to others with more experience and authority. He isn’t some hardheaded nutcase who breaks all the rules and risks his life while not listening to anyone. Rather, he is able to recognize when he has something to learn from his superiors but he also doubts himself sometimes and that makes it easier for him to yield to others, though it is rare, the person would have to do something as drastic as Levi to achieve such a thing. Even Mikasa hasn’t been able to rein Eren in, though it was not for a lack of trying.
Mikasa and Eren have a close relationship, however on Mikasa’s end it’s very codependent. She’s lost her family and Eren saved her and taught her how to fight for herself, saying: “Fight! If you don’t fight, you can’t win!” So it’s reasonable that he means a lot to her, but Eren sometimes grows frustrated with how much she nags him and coddles him. She’s said things along the lines of: “If I’m not with you, you’ll die quickly,” and she’s said she doesn’t want to lose more family, a fact that Eren understands, but points out that with the human race on the brink of extinction, it’s not the time to think of your own selfish needs. He yearns to be respected and trusted by her, for her to stop treating him like her little brother. She does respect him in many ways, but she certainly does not trust him to make the right decisions that will ensure his survival and this is something that somewhat strains their relationship, though it is only hinted at. The only time that Mikasa threw aside reason and followed Eren’s judgment was when they were trying to save his mother, however what may have become of that attempt can’t be known because Hannes dragged them both away.
As Hannes held Eren over his shoulder and Mikasa under his arm, Eren witnessed a horror no child should ever have to. He watched as a Titan picked up his mother from the rubble she was trapped under and bite into her, spraying her blood all the way to where Hannes was running away with the children. His mother’s death traumatized him and while he’d had aspirations to join the military’s Scouting Legion already, he became very single-minded about it after that. On that day, he swore that he would drive all the Titans from the world and since then he’s not strayed from that goal.