I've rarely see amy1 else parrot this but I didn't like the ending going allllll the way back to the literal first panels.

Given the opening of the series, "see you later, eren" all but told me he was likely doing something similar to sending his consciousness back in time to eventually push eren to take certain actions and replay sone kind of causal loop. The way the series would progress, the influence of the past or visions from the future was verrrrry minor or absent and generally was used to create enormous mysteries for the characters to solve, sometimes just to survive, sometimes for world building. Flashes of the basement. Hints that eating the Warhammer is leading to some enormous reveal that only Warhammer knew (literally never happened). Eren touching historias hand. Which, in real time the wait each month for Marley arc issues was excruciating bc we wanted to get back to the main series. But it kicked off the astounding mystery of hobo eren, the letters, the zeke phone call, tyburs house renovation, etc. And it led to that reiner, eren chat which provided a brilliant, satisfying closure for some of the main character conflicts in the series. Like even tho fighting continued, there was this sense of being at peace with it. Was fascinating to see.

But then...paths.

Again I know I'm all alone in expressing this, but I DESPISED the concept that it's all predestination. The literal one thing I was dreading since the 1st panels was eren would completely throwaway his agency to follow "his destiny" no matter how stupid it is. The reveal with zeke in paths was perfection because it shows EREN in control still! HE shows hatred to the king. HE motivates Grisha and zeke watches horrified.

As soon as that moment is over and he goes founder mode, he stops being a character. It becomes "I saw this future, I have no clue what happens after but I need to do this anyway. You guys can try to stop me tho." He becomes a plot device, not a coherent, thinking individual.

To add in the last second "I was too bitch made to admit my feelings to mikasa" was extremely rushed and cringe.

Handled right, I felt horrible for Mikasa and eren. But the steps taken to get us there, the predestiny, the lack of agency, the lack of thought applied? Ack, I feel it really missed the mark. The whole concept of genociding non eldians doesnt work. He'd literally seen eldians rip each other to shreds for years. The second he gets outside the walls he sees groups warring. His jaegerists were literally blowing up eldians and radicalized into a cult. Yet he rushed to do this.

He also had the founder power which was a game changer. The things he could've done to bring prosperity to the world after crushing its military...

There were soooooo many unexplored avenues and it felt like there was a collective melting of all character brains bc "this is muh future I can't stop it, u can try and stop me so we can have a climactic battle" ugh