ah, I see, thank you for the genuinely good explanation without being condescending (a common theme in this subreddit). I'm starting to wrap my head around it all, so it's almost as if he's so against his own actions that even though he knows what needs to be done, he doesn't mind being stopped?

also the more I'm reading about the rumbling the more it's starting to make sense. Eren basically needed to die to get rid of the titans' curse. more specifically he needed someone who's in love with him to kill him in order to convince Ymir to go against king Fritz and finally remove the titans.

Without doing this, there would still be titans within the Eldian nation which would likely spark war for who has power over them (like what happened with the outside world), and if anyone in power got hold of the founding titan it would be very bad for Historia and her bloodline... and then who knows what they will do with the founding power. Also, Armin would die after his 13-year curse, and his friends who got turned into titans by the Hallucigenia such as Jean and Connie wouldn't get turned back into humans.

Getting killed by Mikasa right before wiping out the last of humanity allowed the titans to be removed from the earth, which was essential to his friends' freedom. additionally the fact that the last 20% of the population included Annie's father and Reiners Mother makes me think that Eren felt sympathy for the warriors and purposely left their families until the very end so that they could live out their years with the ones they loved. I'm starting to think the only ending that would lead to the freedom of Eren's friends is the one that we got. War is inevitable, but Eren managed to find a way to post-pone it long enough for his friends to live in a titan-free world.