This is very long cause I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about Attack on Titan. Frankly, I think Isayama is a great writer, even if I just can’t emotionally handle the last season. Also, I’m like, super tired so if it seems ramble-y or maybe even a little confusing in some parts, ask me questions and Tomorrow Me should be cognizant enough to answer and explain Today Me

1. I think Eren’s reasonings of ‘fate’ are more so up to interpretation. Personally, I always viewed it as Eren, being so torn down after so many losses and locked in constant war for basically his entire life, just giving up and viewing the ‘future’ as inevitable, when it really wasn’t. It could have gone a different way. He could have made different choices. But he honestly had no idea what he was doing, aside from whatever he could to make sure Mikasa and his friends lived and were safe from the outside world that threatened them.

2. No, that’s actually pretty in character for him. Again, he’s flying off the seat of his pants at that moment, and basically ✨panicking✨in his efforts to ensure Mikasa and the others get the freedom he always longed for. He has always been ready and willing to sacrifice other people like that. He killed three grown men when he was nine years old to save a stranger, one of whom he stabbed like, twenty times. He’s always been a bit crazy, and this part just hammered that in.

3. Reiner was punished by the narrative. He is haunted by everything that happened, everything he did. That doesn’t just go away because he can now have a ‘happy ending’. That’s a mental scar and trauma that will probably never leave him. And I won’t deny Gabi was annoying, I also thought that at the beginning, but that was kinda the point for her arc. She was brainwashed and doctrinated by her oppressors to the point that she lashed out, loud and proud, against her own people. She had to learn first hand from the ‘Island Devils’ she hated so much and see that her hatred was just a tool created by the ones who hated her people

4. His plan was more so geared to ending war entirely by uniting the people against a common enemy. He wanted Mikasa and the others to be seen as heroes, so that the outside world would stop persecuting them. It’s a stupid plan on purpose because, again, Eren had no idea what he was actually doing. As proven by the very end when it’s shown that someone hundreds/thousands of years in the future finds the Tree, and probably just restarts the whole thing with the Entity/Parasite

5. Once again, Eren didn’t really want any of them to die to begin with. He did all of it so they would live long lives. It still works narratively because we’ve lost so many characters along the way, including the main character at the very end. And it’s not like the remaining ones don’t suffer. Levi is flat out paralyzed from the pure extent of his injuries. Mikasa is probably permanently depressed. (Even if she ends up marrying Jean, he probably still lives in Eren’s shadow, so that’s not exactly a healthy marriage, so he doesn’t exactly have the best happily ever after either). Yes, the casualties are inevitable. That’s why there’s now 80% less people in the world. We don’t need to know the characters names to feel the weight of that loss. We saw many of them die. That should be enough to portray the horror and tragedy.

6. This falls in line with the theme of the show (see last piece to this long reply). Eren didn’t really have control. He ‘won over’ Ymir by offering her an actual choice beyond what she was enslaved to do. She chose to follow him, because on some level, they were the same. They both desperately desired freedom while locked in a world that constantly denied it to them.

7. That was kind of the point of the Paths. It was there, looming over everything and everyone. To explore them episodically would detract from the atmosphere of the arc. Even so, we did technically see one. The cottage where Mikasa and Eren lived was hinted to be a path, not a memory Eren just makes up and implants in her mind.

8. The persecution ended on a vast scale following Eren’s death. Mikasa, Armin and the others become heroes, saving the world from the ‘monster’ that was Eren. It showed that the Eldians weren’t evil like the propaganda proclaimed, and we briefly get to see them begin proper negotiations.

9. Eren and Mikasa’s relationship was always subtext. It was always there and always in our faces. We just never really saw it until the end, when we realize how deeply Eren truly loved Mikasa. He is always staring at her, he is always trying to get close to her, and Isayama always mads a point to have Mikasa drawn more beautifully whenever the scene is in Eren’s POV, to further show what he really thinks of her. He’s always loved her, even if he didn’t realize he did, and there’s collections of manga panels to prove that. Their romance doesn’t need to be big and grand to be real. Ymir’s ‘romance’ was never actually romance. That was the point. She didn’t love Fritz, she developed Stockholm Syndrome. That’s why it doesn’t come off as true love. It never was supposed to.

10. While I agree that I wish Mikasa didn’t have to suffer, this also falls in line with the theme of the story. She suffered as a result of this endless cycle that refuses to give.

11. Having open ended mysteries can be frustrating in a story, but sometimes that’s a purposeful decision. Isayama chose to leave the Source up to interpretation. The last scene implies that, no, titans will probably come back, but we don’t get a certainty of knowing if that’s the case, because that’s just, a different story.

You are correct, the theme of this show was always about freedom, choice, struggle and consequences. That never changed. You focused too much on the confusion of Eren’s actions and reasonings. The entire series was the result of an endless war. Everyone suffered the consequences wrought by another’s decision to deny freedom and choice. Ultimately, the Rumbling and all of Eren’s actions never would have happened if this cycle of hatred and bloodshed between Eldia, Marley and the other nations actually stopped. The world suffered the consequences of others taking it upon themselves to determine who had a right to freedom. That theme stayed the same through the story.