The end of Attack on Titan and its disturbing credits explained
What should we understand from the very last special episode of the animated series? The creator of the manga, Hajime Isayama, deciphers.
The phenomenon has just ended. After ten epic years, the Survey Corps puts away its “three-dimensional” equipment and The attack of the Titans stop. The 85-minute grand finale was put online at the start of the week in France, on Crunchyroll, following its broadcast in Japan. A particularly dramatic final chapter which will certainly cause a lot of talk. Spoiler alert!
Eren Jäger, who has become the villain of the story, the destroyer of humanity, continues his genocidal enterprise with his army of Titans ravaging the world. But they are stopped by Mikasa and the others, who manage to cut off Zeke’s head, then Eren’s, stopping the massacre at the same time. Meanwhile, in the esoteric world between reality and the afterlife, Eren explained to Armin the reasons for his action, how he saw the future and could not do otherwise. He also showed Mikasa a life in which the two could have been happy, as a couple and fulfilled, far from madness. But that won’t happen. While the world heals its wounds, when 80% of men have been massacred, Mikasa returned to Paradise to discreetly bury Eren under her tree. Armin, Annie, Jean and the other survivors of the Battalion are now part of a peace force intended to calm the rest of the world’s desire for revenge, knowing that the Titans have disappeared with Eren and are no longer a threat.
Finally peace? Far from it ! In the wake of this already melancholic conclusion, the end credits (see below) prove even more dramatic. Behind Eren’s tree, we discover Shiganshina evolving, century after century, becoming an impressive futuristic megacity… which will eventually be bombed. Crushed by others. Yes, the outside world will come back to attack Paradis. The truce will not last forever and the island of the Eldians will eventually be completely razed. Nature will reclaim its rights there. Eren’s tree will grow to the sky and one day, a boy on an adventure will discover it and go inside. The series thus suggests that he will revive the power of the Titans and that life is nothing other than a terrifying new beginning.
“I guess there could have been an ending that would have been a happy ending. An ending where the war would end for good and everything would be okay. Would that have been possible?” reacts in the New York Times the creator of the manga and producer of the anime, Hajime Isayama. For him, obviously, “the end of all fighting and the end of all conflict would have seemed a bit ridiculous. Such an ending would have seemed unbelievable. It’s simply not plausible in the world in which We’re currently living off of coming up with something like that. And so, unfortunately, I had to give up on that kind of happy ending.”
Beyond the credits, Hajime Isayama had long had in mind the idea of Eren’s tragic fate. “It was all there, pretty much from the beginning. Our story is one that begins with the victim becoming the aggressor. This is something I had in mind from the start. Over time, some aspects didn’t go as planned and I adapted and expanded on others. But I would say that the end of the story hasn’t changed much…”
The creator also explains that in the final moments, Armin “doesn’t try to push Eren away for the sake of justice or anything. Rather, he wants to assume a common responsibility with him. He wants to become his accomplice in a sense. In order to become an accomplice, Armin had to use very strong words in order to be able to take some of Eren’s sins personally. And so that was the intention behind his words, when he thanked him for his actions.”
Ultimately, The attack of the Titans delivers a fairly pessimistic vision of the world and people, embodied by Eren, disappointed with the world he saw beyond the walls and which was the trigger for his murderous madness: “Eren dreamed of going to this world outside the walls where there was no one and there was nothing. There was an enthusiasm for this world which must simply be empty, a blank slate”, deciphers the creator. “I’m not really sure if that’s a good or bad thing, and I’m not sure why that was the ideal I set for Eren for the purposes of this story. But what I can say is that when he goes to the other side of the wall at that moment, he sees that the world outside is really not that different from what is between the walls of his world…”
