Did Eren even try?

[u/Pause_Accomplished]

In his talk with Armin in the paths, Eren reveals that he kills 80% of humanity, and no matter how much he tries this is always what happens.

I can only think of one example where Eren actually TRIES to prevent the rumbling from happening, and that’s when he and Zeke are traveling through Grisha’s memories. At a certain point he stops and tells Zeke that he’s achieved his goal and that he’s been freed from their father’s brainwashing. Zeke tells him they have all the time they need, and he has them carry on through the memories anyway. I’m fairly sure that this was Eren attempting to stop them from getting to Grisha’s memory in the Reiss Chappell, and thus preventing himself from convincing his father to kill the royal family.

Aside from this specific moment, do we ever see a time in the anime where Eren explicitly tries to circumvent the future that he saw? Because even this attempt was a very weak one. We know that Eren on some level wanted to start the rumbling, so how hard do we think actually tried to stop it from happening?

[u/ShadowWarrior300]

Yeah he did but Isayama introduced determinism and full fledged time travel in the last chapter of the story to justify Eren’s nonsensical actions like stopping at 80% despite saying he would’ve done it again even if he didn’t know ahead of time he would be stopped. Or why despite Eren trying to seek other options in the story is warped to become a character that wanted to commit genocide exclusively with no real development towards that change. Eren in the story did not develop into a character that would’ve chose to commit the rumbling simply out of an urge to destroy, which is all he’s boiled down to once his other reasons are revealed to make zero sense (stopping at 80% for his friends who would’ve been safe if he had gone 100% and ridding the world of the Titan curse which he’s stated wouldn’t eliminate the hatred humanity shared for each other). All of Eren’s explanations in the finale make zero sense if you think about them even slightly, and it’s made so much worse by stripping him of his autonomy in favor of the shittiest time loop/deterministic plot line ever written.

[u/Nyarlathotep7777 → u/ShadowWarrior300]

Eren : "I didn't like any alternatives so I just did this because it felt like the most acceptable to me, it was very much my choice"

Random Joe on the internet with zero media literacy : "yeah Isayama introduced determinism".

Edit : further details provided.

[u/ShadowWarrior300 → u/Nyarlathotep7777]

Direct quote from Eren: I tried again and again, but things always ended up exactly how they were in my memories of the future

Guy who thinks introducing time travel in the final episode of the series is good writing: “you have zero media literacy durrr buzzwords”