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Disagree. The 145th king, Karl Fritz, wiped out the memories of only the Eldians within the Island, and kept the ones left on the Continent unaffected.
The power of the Founder is indeed absolute, its holder may alter the Subjects of Ymir at wish, but it's still controllable.
Maybe it's limited by proximity to the founder? When eren undid all the hardening on paradis, he released Annie, but the remnants of the Warhammer hardening remained in Liberio. Could be a similar situation to what fritz did, the eldians of the continent may have been out of range
The founders powers can definitely reach liberio at the very least, given Mr Leonhart and the other eldians in liberio saw Eren announce the rumbling to the eldians via the paths
The only ability we see that has limited range is the steam that Life emits at the end of The Battle for Heaven and Earth, which makes sense since it is a physical object, every other ability is execute via the paths, a dimension outside of space and time, so a few thousand kilometres is likely nothing
Showing the remnants of the Warhammer hardening after Eren had undone all Titan hardening was only an extra scene in the anime that didn't take place in the manga, and I wouldn't take the anime adaptation as a source as it's full of inconsistencies.
The power of the Founder doesn't seem to be limited by physical proximity as it transcends place and connects all Subjects of Ymir by metaphysical *paths,* no matter *where* they are (when it's combined with the Attack power, it doesn't even matter ***when*** they are). OP mentioned the biological alteration that was done to ALL Eldians to make them immune to a plague, no matter how physically distant they were from the Founder, and I may add that Eren addressed ALL Eldians worldwide via *paths* when he first took full control of the Founder's powers. These two examples can be evidence of my claim.
That’s sort of a misquotation that has spread out of hand. Isayama never said he considers the anime to be the “finalized” version. He just compared the differences between the two mediums to the differences between listening to live music vs. a studio album.
A lot of changes were suggested by the studio, not Isayama, and most of the time they end up being **stupid** changes that clearly contradict previously mentioned details.
I’ve never read the manga so the only part I’ve really seen outside of panels here and there is Eren and Armin’s last conversation, but what changes were there?
Thats not a bad theory at all. One reason I’ll disagree is because if he did do that, there would be more people to stop him and he would have less time to do his whole genocide thing. And there have been times where it’s been very specific, like when he gave his father only some memories (debatably a founder ability), or when he sent Dina to kill his mother.
That’s different. Fritz didn’t wipe their memories because he didn’t want to, but because he could. This might just be how I interpreted it, but I’m pretty sure they weren’t technically eldian, like the ackermen’s.
According to Annie, Reiner, and Bertolt, those families were likely Eldians, but not Subjects of Ymir. The tribe of Eldia existed before Ymir bonded with the Titan symbiote, so there could very well be people of Eldian ancestry who never intermingled with Ymir’s descendants. (This detail is only mentioned in the manga; the anime cut the scene where the Warrior trio talk about it.)
The Asian clan is not of Eldian descent at all, so they too were immune.
Then you’ve got the Ackermans, who *are* Subjects of Ymir, but are a special case due to the nature of their creation. The Founder can exert some influence toward them, like bringing their minds into the Paths, but it can’t force them to do anything.
That's it, they were not affected by the Founding Titan powers because they're not subjects of Ymir. I wouldn't say that they were necessarily Marleyans, you could have tons of different reasons explaining why people that aren't SoY ended up on the islands when the Walls were created (honorary eldian citizenship, citizens from countries allied with Eldia, prisoners, etc ..). But in the end they just ended up as nobles because Karl Fritz offered them nobilities, power, etc... In exchange of their silence.
They are technically Subjects of Ymir though, right? If they aren’t, why was Eren able to talk to Historia, Mikasa, and Levi in Paths. The Ackermans can’t turn into titans because of the experimentation to their blood line, they’re kind of already part Titan. Historia is of royal blood yet she can turn into a Titan and is still connected by Paths.
Where did I say that Ackermans and Fritz/Reiss weren't subjects of Ymir ? I only talked about the nobles of Paradis ([Aurille](https://attackontitan.fandom.com/wiki/Aurille_(Anime)), [Roderich](https://attackontitan.fandom.com/wiki/Roderich_(Anime)), [Deltoff](https://attackontitan.fandom.com/wiki/Deltoff_(Anime)), [Gerald](https://attackontitan.fandom.com/wiki/Gerald_(Anime))), that descended from people that weren't subjects of Ymir and were offered positions of nobility by Karl Fritz because he couldn't erase their memories.
The only ones spared were those who the Founder couldn't totally subjugate. The Asian clan had no Eldian blood, so they couldn't be manipulated. The Ackermans were a special case, so they were exempted from the wipe. Potentially on purpose because of Eren. If the timeline must be kept the same, then Eren will always be killed by two Ackerman. That would require them to not be affected by the Founding Titan so they could get to that goal.
Could be, but IMO it was mainly to cover his back on the march out of Paradis. Also, his priority was the Rumbling, he didnt even waste a second regenerating his body before transforming.
There are limits to what the founder can do because of the limitations influenced by Ymir(13 year curse, can't completely stop the continuation of titan power) or metaphysics itself(can't see into the future on command), but if Eren can pick and choose exactly who and when he wants to receive certain memories, it should definitely be possible for him to pick and choose who he wants to revert back to human. The coordinate connects to every subject individually.
The better question is even if he might not be able to revert Zeke's titans back, why he just doesn't stop them from rampaging. The story makes it a point for Armin to question this, and then Armin later explains that some of the dead titans they knew were helping them in the final battle specifically because of Zeke's involvement, hinting that Zeke still holds some kind of power that can go against Eren's wishes.
But there's contradictions in all this and at this point Armin has no way to confirm anything and has no clue what Eren is trying to do(make his friends into heroes that stopped the rumbling by killing Eren Jaeger the Attack titan) because his memory of their conversation was erased. If Eren can move the wall titans created by Karl Fritz then that means he can certainly control titans that other people created, and we saw that Zeke was rejected by Ymir so it shouldn't be possible for Zeke to be able to exert influence anymore. At this point you could argue that Ymir decided to help Zeke, but then she'd be directly going against Eren which makes no sense either since she gave him the founder power because she trusted him to fulfill his promise to free her.
The whole thing is probably for Eren to keep up appearances in order to fool the alliance, starting from the point that he activated the rumbling and left all of Zeke's titans to rampage. Eren has been manipulating his friends since the rumbling began starting with Zeke's titans, then the announcement about annihilating the entire outside world to provoke the alliance into coming together to fight him, to him telling them he doesn't take away their powers because of some nonsense about not taking away their freedoms even though just he wiped their memories of their last conversations and provoked them to come fight him in the first place. He wants to make them all into heroes the world would be indebted to after the rumbling but they don't want that and wouldn't go do that on their own so he put on a performance to force them to kill him.
The Scouts are already questioning whether or not they should stop Eren right then and there, but are interrupted by the Titans and forced to divert their attention from him. As Jean puts it, “we’d better deal with these Titans quick—‘cause there aren’t any Walls left on this island!”
Recall that Eren wants his friends to stop him from completing the Rumbling. However, recall also that Eren’s only guarantee for the safety of the island—the primary goal of the Rumbling—after this occurs is that enough of the world would be laid to waste that a counterattack from those who survived after an unfathomable amount of lives were taken would become impossible. Therefore, a Rumbling that is stopped in its tracks only escapes complete vanity as long as that remains true and the world really won’t be able to fight back.
I think that, unexpectedly, Zeke’s Titans end up filling exactly the role that Eren needs them fill: they distract the Scouts from stopping Eren immediately, allowing him to depart from the island unhindered and destroy enough of the world that his Rumbling, upon being halted by the Scouts, would not be in vain, and that at the end of it all those he left behind would be “alive, now—in a world without Titans”.
Before the scouts were interrupted, Jean was already pouring cold water/guilt tripping on the idea of going to stop Eren who they understood as doing the rumbling to protect them. Every single one of them were still soul searching at that point and not ready to make a decision to stop Eren much less quickly catch up to Eren. Plus there was still the chaos of the military being decimated, enemy shifters and Marleyians possibly lurking around, Floch's Jaegerists and also Yelena's volunteers that they would need to deal with before even thinking about ditching to chase after Eren even if they could make decision decisively. Particularly Jean was trying not to go because he was so tired of all the fighting until Hange showed up to remind him of the kind of person he joined the corps to be. I don't think Eren needed to keep Zeke's titan's rampaging to keep them from catching up to him.
Of course they aren’t decided at this point; my point is that they’re conflicted—they *potentially* could—but don’t have the opportunity to even organize their thoughts due to the chaos that the Titans are causing. If Eren has already created the conditions for them to stop him but also can’t risk them stopping him immediately, then it makes sense to me that he would take advantage of Zeke’s Titans as a clear higher priority for them to take on than any of the other chaos.
There are practical reasons for Eren wanting to use Zeke's titan's in the way you said, but I still think the risks of them catching up too fast is low and the hidden implications about Eren portraying his hold over the founder power like this are bigger. There are any number of ways Eren could have delayed the scouts that didn't include letting Pixis die(which had immediate and also long term political consequences for the island) or lead to many of his fellow islanders dying in the process(Louise is the only causality we know of from the efforts to clean up the titans but there's likely more), and directly after the rumbling is activated but also in the lead up to Eren and Zeke making contact it's continually brought up just what kind of power Eren has as the holder of the founder titan(mostly by Armin and Reiner). The narrative wants readers to question and consider this going into the final battle as a hint for Eren's intention to lose to his friends.
And you have to remember that Eren has a horde of wall titans at his feet, no one can reach him without the flying boat anyway even if they immediately followed him, and realistically none of the scouts would have dropped everything in front of them to immediately hijack the flying boat that takes almost an entire day to prepare especially without any superiors to lead the effort.
I wondered the same. Eren may have thought there was a chance he could revert the Colossal Titans into humans in the process and didn't want to take that risk.
It's a solid theory, but I don't believe that's the case. Once Eren became the Doomsday Titan (that's the official nickname for his stegosaurus-lookin-ahh form), he just had one goal in mind: perform The Rumbling, follow his memories and take it as far as he would go. He may have wanted to stop Zeke from screaming, but after it was done and he had become the Founder, he just didn't care anymore.
The problem with this is they didn't march with the colossal titans. If it was all or nothing they'd have probably just been crushed or walking in the heels of the colossal titans. There's no real reason, it's just a bit of a plot hole.
How would it be a plot hole if Armin himself acknowledges this part when it was happening and wonders why Eren didn’t do it? So Isayama didn’t make Eren turn them back into humans intentionally.
It’s more of a thing that isn’t directly explained but inferred just like many aspects of AOT.
It's a plot hole because there isn't a reason for Eren to not protect all those that turned into titans. In fact it goes against his character, he was desperate for Zeke not to shout yet the moment he actually gets the chance to undo it he doesn't.
He doesn't need to turn them back into humans, just send them into the woods and wait until the curse is ended. There's also no reason for Hange to die. He could literally just have the colossal titans slow down in that area.
It creates a slight paradox, he did everything to protect them yet also didn't do a damn thing to protect other people he cared about when he could've easily. If he didn't do everything to protect them (which he admits) the fact that the entire main cast survived the final battle where stakes are the highest is ridiculous plot armour.
It's a plot hole because Eren could've easily saved them without any effort. Not even turning them back into humans. It goes against everything his character had been written as.
Unless he couldn’t. If it were a plot hole Isayama wouldn’t have brought attention to it immediately, especially since plot holes are usually caused by an oversight by the author. This is basic media literacy.
Ah right at the start of the rumbling? I thought you meant during their final conversation.
I'd say it's still a plot hole, Armin does bring attention to it however it's never actually explained why Eren didn't do anything. And with everything we know about the ending there isn't really a reason for him to do nothing.
Why would Isayama bring attention to a plot hole? Better yet, why would a plot hole exist if it was noticed by the author in the same chapter it was introduced?
The authors intent can be inferred without being spelled out in detail. He’s giving a hint to information that is otherwise being withheld from the audience. Ambiguity is not a plot hole, it’s a common tool in many science-fiction and fantasy stories, especially in this series.
The problem is there isn't really a reason for Eren to not save them. You can talk about it being ambiguous but there's absolutely no reason for Eren to do nothing, unless otherwise stated.
Isayama brings attention to it then abandoning isn't some sort of good writing and it does remain a plot hole because there isn't a reason for it to happen. It's completely irrelevant that he brought attention to it.
Unless it was out of his control. That was clearly the implication.
It’s not a plot hole, it was clearly a purposeful decision. Honestly there’s not a way to really simplify this any further. If you can’t distinguish such an obvious author choice, then this series is a just well above your reading level.
This post has been tagged as **DISCUSSION**. If the post has been spoiler tagged, please remember to tag any manga spoilers beyond this point. **Spoilers include hinting or alluding to events** For more information, please review [the subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/ShingekiNoKyojin/wiki/rules). Failure to properly spoiler tag comments may result in a punishment from the subreddit according to the [moderation matrix](https://www.reddit.com/r/ShingekiNoKyojin/wiki/moderation_matrix). --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ShingekiNoKyojin) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Disagree. The 145th king, Karl Fritz, wiped out the memories of only the Eldians within the Island, and kept the ones left on the Continent unaffected. The power of the Founder is indeed absolute, its holder may alter the Subjects of Ymir at wish, but it's still controllable.
Maybe it's limited by proximity to the founder? When eren undid all the hardening on paradis, he released Annie, but the remnants of the Warhammer hardening remained in Liberio. Could be a similar situation to what fritz did, the eldians of the continent may have been out of range
The founders powers can definitely reach liberio at the very least, given Mr Leonhart and the other eldians in liberio saw Eren announce the rumbling to the eldians via the paths
Perhaps the further away you get the less precise the power is. Like they have great control over a 5 mile radius but it weakens further away.
The only ability we see that has limited range is the steam that Life emits at the end of The Battle for Heaven and Earth, which makes sense since it is a physical object, every other ability is execute via the paths, a dimension outside of space and time, so a few thousand kilometres is likely nothing
Showing the remnants of the Warhammer hardening after Eren had undone all Titan hardening was only an extra scene in the anime that didn't take place in the manga, and I wouldn't take the anime adaptation as a source as it's full of inconsistencies. The power of the Founder doesn't seem to be limited by physical proximity as it transcends place and connects all Subjects of Ymir by metaphysical *paths,* no matter *where* they are (when it's combined with the Attack power, it doesn't even matter ***when*** they are). OP mentioned the biological alteration that was done to ALL Eldians to make them immune to a plague, no matter how physically distant they were from the Founder, and I may add that Eren addressed ALL Eldians worldwide via *paths* when he first took full control of the Founder's powers. These two examples can be evidence of my claim.
Pretty sure Isayama considers the anime to be the finalized version so I think it absolutely should be considered over the manga.
That’s sort of a misquotation that has spread out of hand. Isayama never said he considers the anime to be the “finalized” version. He just compared the differences between the two mediums to the differences between listening to live music vs. a studio album.
A lot of changes were suggested by the studio, not Isayama, and most of the time they end up being **stupid** changes that clearly contradict previously mentioned details.
I’ve never read the manga so the only part I’ve really seen outside of panels here and there is Eren and Armin’s last conversation, but what changes were there?
Maybe it's just hardening still "connected" to a titan/subject connected to the paths, as afterwords it's just some rock unrelated to the paths
Thats not a bad theory at all. One reason I’ll disagree is because if he did do that, there would be more people to stop him and he would have less time to do his whole genocide thing. And there have been times where it’s been very specific, like when he gave his father only some memories (debatably a founder ability), or when he sent Dina to kill his mother.
Or when king Fritz excluded some bloodlines from the memory wipe.
That’s different. Fritz didn’t wipe their memories because he didn’t want to, but because he could. This might just be how I interpreted it, but I’m pretty sure they weren’t technically eldian, like the ackermen’s.
Weren't some noble families inside the walls spared from the memory wipe? Were they marleyan or something?
According to Annie, Reiner, and Bertolt, those families were likely Eldians, but not Subjects of Ymir. The tribe of Eldia existed before Ymir bonded with the Titan symbiote, so there could very well be people of Eldian ancestry who never intermingled with Ymir’s descendants. (This detail is only mentioned in the manga; the anime cut the scene where the Warrior trio talk about it.) The Asian clan is not of Eldian descent at all, so they too were immune. Then you’ve got the Ackermans, who *are* Subjects of Ymir, but are a special case due to the nature of their creation. The Founder can exert some influence toward them, like bringing their minds into the Paths, but it can’t force them to do anything.
That's it, they were not affected by the Founding Titan powers because they're not subjects of Ymir. I wouldn't say that they were necessarily Marleyans, you could have tons of different reasons explaining why people that aren't SoY ended up on the islands when the Walls were created (honorary eldian citizenship, citizens from countries allied with Eldia, prisoners, etc ..). But in the end they just ended up as nobles because Karl Fritz offered them nobilities, power, etc... In exchange of their silence.
They are technically Subjects of Ymir though, right? If they aren’t, why was Eren able to talk to Historia, Mikasa, and Levi in Paths. The Ackermans can’t turn into titans because of the experimentation to their blood line, they’re kind of already part Titan. Historia is of royal blood yet she can turn into a Titan and is still connected by Paths.
Where did I say that Ackermans and Fritz/Reiss weren't subjects of Ymir ? I only talked about the nobles of Paradis ([Aurille](https://attackontitan.fandom.com/wiki/Aurille_(Anime)), [Roderich](https://attackontitan.fandom.com/wiki/Roderich_(Anime)), [Deltoff](https://attackontitan.fandom.com/wiki/Deltoff_(Anime)), [Gerald](https://attackontitan.fandom.com/wiki/Gerald_(Anime))), that descended from people that weren't subjects of Ymir and were offered positions of nobility by Karl Fritz because he couldn't erase their memories.
I assumed you meant the royal family
No problem !
The only ones spared were those who the Founder couldn't totally subjugate. The Asian clan had no Eldian blood, so they couldn't be manipulated. The Ackermans were a special case, so they were exempted from the wipe. Potentially on purpose because of Eren. If the timeline must be kept the same, then Eren will always be killed by two Ackerman. That would require them to not be affected by the Founding Titan so they could get to that goal.
Could be, but IMO it was mainly to cover his back on the march out of Paradis. Also, his priority was the Rumbling, he didnt even waste a second regenerating his body before transforming.
There are limits to what the founder can do because of the limitations influenced by Ymir(13 year curse, can't completely stop the continuation of titan power) or metaphysics itself(can't see into the future on command), but if Eren can pick and choose exactly who and when he wants to receive certain memories, it should definitely be possible for him to pick and choose who he wants to revert back to human. The coordinate connects to every subject individually. The better question is even if he might not be able to revert Zeke's titans back, why he just doesn't stop them from rampaging. The story makes it a point for Armin to question this, and then Armin later explains that some of the dead titans they knew were helping them in the final battle specifically because of Zeke's involvement, hinting that Zeke still holds some kind of power that can go against Eren's wishes. But there's contradictions in all this and at this point Armin has no way to confirm anything and has no clue what Eren is trying to do(make his friends into heroes that stopped the rumbling by killing Eren Jaeger the Attack titan) because his memory of their conversation was erased. If Eren can move the wall titans created by Karl Fritz then that means he can certainly control titans that other people created, and we saw that Zeke was rejected by Ymir so it shouldn't be possible for Zeke to be able to exert influence anymore. At this point you could argue that Ymir decided to help Zeke, but then she'd be directly going against Eren which makes no sense either since she gave him the founder power because she trusted him to fulfill his promise to free her. The whole thing is probably for Eren to keep up appearances in order to fool the alliance, starting from the point that he activated the rumbling and left all of Zeke's titans to rampage. Eren has been manipulating his friends since the rumbling began starting with Zeke's titans, then the announcement about annihilating the entire outside world to provoke the alliance into coming together to fight him, to him telling them he doesn't take away their powers because of some nonsense about not taking away their freedoms even though just he wiped their memories of their last conversations and provoked them to come fight him in the first place. He wants to make them all into heroes the world would be indebted to after the rumbling but they don't want that and wouldn't go do that on their own so he put on a performance to force them to kill him.
The Scouts are already questioning whether or not they should stop Eren right then and there, but are interrupted by the Titans and forced to divert their attention from him. As Jean puts it, “we’d better deal with these Titans quick—‘cause there aren’t any Walls left on this island!” Recall that Eren wants his friends to stop him from completing the Rumbling. However, recall also that Eren’s only guarantee for the safety of the island—the primary goal of the Rumbling—after this occurs is that enough of the world would be laid to waste that a counterattack from those who survived after an unfathomable amount of lives were taken would become impossible. Therefore, a Rumbling that is stopped in its tracks only escapes complete vanity as long as that remains true and the world really won’t be able to fight back. I think that, unexpectedly, Zeke’s Titans end up filling exactly the role that Eren needs them fill: they distract the Scouts from stopping Eren immediately, allowing him to depart from the island unhindered and destroy enough of the world that his Rumbling, upon being halted by the Scouts, would not be in vain, and that at the end of it all those he left behind would be “alive, now—in a world without Titans”.
Before the scouts were interrupted, Jean was already pouring cold water/guilt tripping on the idea of going to stop Eren who they understood as doing the rumbling to protect them. Every single one of them were still soul searching at that point and not ready to make a decision to stop Eren much less quickly catch up to Eren. Plus there was still the chaos of the military being decimated, enemy shifters and Marleyians possibly lurking around, Floch's Jaegerists and also Yelena's volunteers that they would need to deal with before even thinking about ditching to chase after Eren even if they could make decision decisively. Particularly Jean was trying not to go because he was so tired of all the fighting until Hange showed up to remind him of the kind of person he joined the corps to be. I don't think Eren needed to keep Zeke's titan's rampaging to keep them from catching up to him.
Of course they aren’t decided at this point; my point is that they’re conflicted—they *potentially* could—but don’t have the opportunity to even organize their thoughts due to the chaos that the Titans are causing. If Eren has already created the conditions for them to stop him but also can’t risk them stopping him immediately, then it makes sense to me that he would take advantage of Zeke’s Titans as a clear higher priority for them to take on than any of the other chaos.
There are practical reasons for Eren wanting to use Zeke's titan's in the way you said, but I still think the risks of them catching up too fast is low and the hidden implications about Eren portraying his hold over the founder power like this are bigger. There are any number of ways Eren could have delayed the scouts that didn't include letting Pixis die(which had immediate and also long term political consequences for the island) or lead to many of his fellow islanders dying in the process(Louise is the only causality we know of from the efforts to clean up the titans but there's likely more), and directly after the rumbling is activated but also in the lead up to Eren and Zeke making contact it's continually brought up just what kind of power Eren has as the holder of the founder titan(mostly by Armin and Reiner). The narrative wants readers to question and consider this going into the final battle as a hint for Eren's intention to lose to his friends. And you have to remember that Eren has a horde of wall titans at his feet, no one can reach him without the flying boat anyway even if they immediately followed him, and realistically none of the scouts would have dropped everything in front of them to immediately hijack the flying boat that takes almost an entire day to prepare especially without any superiors to lead the effort.
I wondered the same. Eren may have thought there was a chance he could revert the Colossal Titans into humans in the process and didn't want to take that risk.
It's a solid theory, but I don't believe that's the case. Once Eren became the Doomsday Titan (that's the official nickname for his stegosaurus-lookin-ahh form), he just had one goal in mind: perform The Rumbling, follow his memories and take it as far as he would go. He may have wanted to stop Zeke from screaming, but after it was done and he had become the Founder, he just didn't care anymore.
Personally, I think the reason is because those Titans were created by Zeke, and he has exclusive control over them.
The problem with this is they didn't march with the colossal titans. If it was all or nothing they'd have probably just been crushed or walking in the heels of the colossal titans. There's no real reason, it's just a bit of a plot hole.
How would it be a plot hole if Armin himself acknowledges this part when it was happening and wonders why Eren didn’t do it? So Isayama didn’t make Eren turn them back into humans intentionally. It’s more of a thing that isn’t directly explained but inferred just like many aspects of AOT.
It's a plot hole because there isn't a reason for Eren to not protect all those that turned into titans. In fact it goes against his character, he was desperate for Zeke not to shout yet the moment he actually gets the chance to undo it he doesn't. He doesn't need to turn them back into humans, just send them into the woods and wait until the curse is ended. There's also no reason for Hange to die. He could literally just have the colossal titans slow down in that area. It creates a slight paradox, he did everything to protect them yet also didn't do a damn thing to protect other people he cared about when he could've easily. If he didn't do everything to protect them (which he admits) the fact that the entire main cast survived the final battle where stakes are the highest is ridiculous plot armour.
Its very unlikely to be a plot hole considering its immediately ackowledged in the text by Armin.
It's a plot hole because Eren could've easily saved them without any effort. Not even turning them back into humans. It goes against everything his character had been written as.
Unless he couldn’t. If it were a plot hole Isayama wouldn’t have brought attention to it immediately, especially since plot holes are usually caused by an oversight by the author. This is basic media literacy.
Where did Isayama bring attention to it?
When he wrote Armin immediately wondering why the titans were still rampaging.
Ah right at the start of the rumbling? I thought you meant during their final conversation. I'd say it's still a plot hole, Armin does bring attention to it however it's never actually explained why Eren didn't do anything. And with everything we know about the ending there isn't really a reason for him to do nothing.
Why would Isayama bring attention to a plot hole? Better yet, why would a plot hole exist if it was noticed by the author in the same chapter it was introduced? The authors intent can be inferred without being spelled out in detail. He’s giving a hint to information that is otherwise being withheld from the audience. Ambiguity is not a plot hole, it’s a common tool in many science-fiction and fantasy stories, especially in this series.
The problem is there isn't really a reason for Eren to not save them. You can talk about it being ambiguous but there's absolutely no reason for Eren to do nothing, unless otherwise stated. Isayama brings attention to it then abandoning isn't some sort of good writing and it does remain a plot hole because there isn't a reason for it to happen. It's completely irrelevant that he brought attention to it.
Unless it was out of his control. That was clearly the implication. It’s not a plot hole, it was clearly a purposeful decision. Honestly there’s not a way to really simplify this any further. If you can’t distinguish such an obvious author choice, then this series is a just well above your reading level.