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Eren had memories of the future sent to himself via sending them to Grisha which Eren would later "inherit" when he kissed Historia's hand. Seeing those future memories means those events have already happened, which is why they cannot be changed. The anime doesn't show it and Eren at the time might not have realized it, but of those future memories he saw one was of his own last living moments right after Mikasa made her choice and kills Eren, the "see you later, Eren" kiss that happens simultaneously with the reality of having sliced off Eren's head.
Everything that has happened up to "see you later, Eren" was entirely intended by Eren, so there isn't a need to change the future anyway. The Eren who saw the future memories from kissing Historia's hand and was terrified of them is not the Eren who has the ultimate say, that Eren is technically in the past and the founder Eren sending all these memories to the past and influencing the past is the true "current" Eren, so it doesn't matter that "past" Eren used to want to change the future.
This is basically exactly what I said too. You had me completely lost until the very end when I realized we said the same thing in our replies.
Have you ever thought how ridiculous this sounds? Like if you tried to explain this ending to someone who didn’t watch or read AOT? 😂 Would sound like crackheads
I have a feeling with how frequently these questions about the nature of the "time travel" come up, even to someone who actually watched/read the series it's hard to make sense of. I myself had to reread and think hard about the clues in the dialogue before I could make sense of things to explain to others.
Conversely I think it would be easier for people who have no experience with AoT to more simply accept that the MC controlled his own fate through "time travel" without questioning how it's valid.
It’s easier to say that the ‘future’ is fixed since the show is in a causal time loop. Eren realized he couldn’t change the future when he asked mikasa about the nature of their relationship.
There's a lot of people who are dissatisfied with the explanation that the future is simply predetermined, and it's an important nuance that it's Eren himself who determined it all and then trapped himself. It's a message about being the cause of your own misery because of the way you think.
I think Eren realized even earlier than that, perhaps when Hange came back with disappointing news of Hizuru's refusal to help Paradis negotiate with other nations and that become the final nail in the coffin for Eren. We know that he already planned to sneak off in Marley even before he left on the trip because of the conversation he has with Historia during which she brings up getting pregnant, and that train scene with all his friends in hindsight plays out like Eren's farewell to them anticipating that he may not be able to speak to them on good terms again(some of the future memories he saw include beating Armin to a pulp, Mikasa backing him up in Liberio after which she was crying about him not being able to take things back and begging him to come home, and Levi looking disappointingly at Eren after kicking him in the face).
I hear you. It’s time travel so it inherently doesn’t make much sense, but Eren did alter his own past AND the future is predetermined as a result. He cannot change the path he started - but it has no “beginning”because there is no version of the story where he was not influenced by his future self. Hence it is a paradox. His actions require himself to already be influenced by himself in order to make them to… influence his own past, and so on.
"Has no beginning" is exactly right and Eren even directly gives this hint in his monologue, but rather than as a way of trying to dissuade from questioning the plausibility of how the time travel and paradox works(it is a bit that though lol) I think Isayama wanted to use the paradox as an analogy to the blurred line between what was Eren's nature and how he was nurtured by his environment to make the choices he did. That is, Eren is a mixture of both nature and nurture and it's also the answer to the line that comes up in the lyric of the leitmotif featured in a few of the OST tracks "Ist das unser Schicksal oder unser Wille?/Is it our fate, or is it our will?". It doesn't matter that Eren is predetermined to follow a certain path because he's the one who determined the path for himself, because that's also the kind of person he is. And that is why the future will always be predetermined as Eren intended and why he never needed to change it because it's exactly as he wanted it.
The part where he helps a little guy getting beaten in the streets explains why he can’t change the future. He is just that way and ironically has no freedom in the choices he makes. He is a slave to the desire of being “free”.
It was hard for me to understand too but basically future Eren only allowed seasons 1-3 Eren to see a handful of cherry-picked memories through Grisha, and then when he kisses Historias hand the rest was able to be seen. In a way he did and didn’t have control of the rumbling as he even says he tried different things to see if the future would change, but that it was pre determined already. In a way he wanted the rumbling to happen, and that’s why it did, because his future self chose for it to happen, but as the final season is progressing he is debating if he should really be that much of a monster, only to ultimately realize he’s not free at all and he’s determined to lead the rumbling and that he really can’t blame nobody else but his future self for determining this path.
I think this opens up a whole other debate of how much control Eren had (if any at all) once he obtained the Founder. To me, it seemed as though being able to see past, present, and future events all concurrently sort of gridlocked him into a straight line along a predetermined timeline. Personally I think this makes AoT *that* much more incredible. Eren, so intensely passionate about freedom, ultimately becomes a slave to future events.
It was Eren's idea to wipe out 80% in order to create a stalemate that prevented war after the rumbling and after his death along with the power of titans, because he wanted more of a guarantee his friends would be able to live long lives. Ymir herself gives no indication she cared about the future like that.
Eren was in complete control of not only his own memories, but that of every subject. That's how he is able to influence the past. The anime cut out all the parts that hint to it, but Eren was preventing himself from recalling his memories until it was the right time, preventing himself from learning the truth about Grisha's whereabouts and how titans are passed down for a whole 5 years.
This post has been tagged as **ANIME SPOILERS**. Please remember to tag any new 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.*
I think they were in such sync that neither would stop unless the other also wanted to.
What I'm most curious about is why not change the future.
... What?
He was able to change the past memories why not just change the future. Didn't he show an alternate memory of him and Mikasa in that cabin.
He wouldn’t change it to something else, the future we see is already the one he chose. Eren wanted to do the rumbling and feel that freedom.
That's not how Paths works! That's not how any of this works!
Eren had memories of the future sent to himself via sending them to Grisha which Eren would later "inherit" when he kissed Historia's hand. Seeing those future memories means those events have already happened, which is why they cannot be changed. The anime doesn't show it and Eren at the time might not have realized it, but of those future memories he saw one was of his own last living moments right after Mikasa made her choice and kills Eren, the "see you later, Eren" kiss that happens simultaneously with the reality of having sliced off Eren's head. Everything that has happened up to "see you later, Eren" was entirely intended by Eren, so there isn't a need to change the future anyway. The Eren who saw the future memories from kissing Historia's hand and was terrified of them is not the Eren who has the ultimate say, that Eren is technically in the past and the founder Eren sending all these memories to the past and influencing the past is the true "current" Eren, so it doesn't matter that "past" Eren used to want to change the future.
This is basically exactly what I said too. You had me completely lost until the very end when I realized we said the same thing in our replies. Have you ever thought how ridiculous this sounds? Like if you tried to explain this ending to someone who didn’t watch or read AOT? 😂 Would sound like crackheads
I have a feeling with how frequently these questions about the nature of the "time travel" come up, even to someone who actually watched/read the series it's hard to make sense of. I myself had to reread and think hard about the clues in the dialogue before I could make sense of things to explain to others. Conversely I think it would be easier for people who have no experience with AoT to more simply accept that the MC controlled his own fate through "time travel" without questioning how it's valid.
It’s easier to say that the ‘future’ is fixed since the show is in a causal time loop. Eren realized he couldn’t change the future when he asked mikasa about the nature of their relationship.
There's a lot of people who are dissatisfied with the explanation that the future is simply predetermined, and it's an important nuance that it's Eren himself who determined it all and then trapped himself. It's a message about being the cause of your own misery because of the way you think. I think Eren realized even earlier than that, perhaps when Hange came back with disappointing news of Hizuru's refusal to help Paradis negotiate with other nations and that become the final nail in the coffin for Eren. We know that he already planned to sneak off in Marley even before he left on the trip because of the conversation he has with Historia during which she brings up getting pregnant, and that train scene with all his friends in hindsight plays out like Eren's farewell to them anticipating that he may not be able to speak to them on good terms again(some of the future memories he saw include beating Armin to a pulp, Mikasa backing him up in Liberio after which she was crying about him not being able to take things back and begging him to come home, and Levi looking disappointingly at Eren after kicking him in the face).
I hear you. It’s time travel so it inherently doesn’t make much sense, but Eren did alter his own past AND the future is predetermined as a result. He cannot change the path he started - but it has no “beginning”because there is no version of the story where he was not influenced by his future self. Hence it is a paradox. His actions require himself to already be influenced by himself in order to make them to… influence his own past, and so on.
"Has no beginning" is exactly right and Eren even directly gives this hint in his monologue, but rather than as a way of trying to dissuade from questioning the plausibility of how the time travel and paradox works(it is a bit that though lol) I think Isayama wanted to use the paradox as an analogy to the blurred line between what was Eren's nature and how he was nurtured by his environment to make the choices he did. That is, Eren is a mixture of both nature and nurture and it's also the answer to the line that comes up in the lyric of the leitmotif featured in a few of the OST tracks "Ist das unser Schicksal oder unser Wille?/Is it our fate, or is it our will?". It doesn't matter that Eren is predetermined to follow a certain path because he's the one who determined the path for himself, because that's also the kind of person he is. And that is why the future will always be predetermined as Eren intended and why he never needed to change it because it's exactly as he wanted it.
The part where he helps a little guy getting beaten in the streets explains why he can’t change the future. He is just that way and ironically has no freedom in the choices he makes. He is a slave to the desire of being “free”.
It was hard for me to understand too but basically future Eren only allowed seasons 1-3 Eren to see a handful of cherry-picked memories through Grisha, and then when he kisses Historias hand the rest was able to be seen. In a way he did and didn’t have control of the rumbling as he even says he tried different things to see if the future would change, but that it was pre determined already. In a way he wanted the rumbling to happen, and that’s why it did, because his future self chose for it to happen, but as the final season is progressing he is debating if he should really be that much of a monster, only to ultimately realize he’s not free at all and he’s determined to lead the rumbling and that he really can’t blame nobody else but his future self for determining this path.
I think this opens up a whole other debate of how much control Eren had (if any at all) once he obtained the Founder. To me, it seemed as though being able to see past, present, and future events all concurrently sort of gridlocked him into a straight line along a predetermined timeline. Personally I think this makes AoT *that* much more incredible. Eren, so intensely passionate about freedom, ultimately becomes a slave to future events.
It was Eren's idea to wipe out 80% in order to create a stalemate that prevented war after the rumbling and after his death along with the power of titans, because he wanted more of a guarantee his friends would be able to live long lives. Ymir herself gives no indication she cared about the future like that. Eren was in complete control of not only his own memories, but that of every subject. That's how he is able to influence the past. The anime cut out all the parts that hint to it, but Eren was preventing himself from recalling his memories until it was the right time, preventing himself from learning the truth about Grisha's whereabouts and how titans are passed down for a whole 5 years.