(no subject)

[hushpiper]

Asked by Anonymous

How do you think the knowledge of his limited lifespan influenced Eren’s choices and decision making after finding out about it, if at all? How do you think that knowledge affect Armin? This was something I was thinking about after reading the latest chapter and I was curious to hear you thoughts! Would knowing there is no possible way you’d live to old age make fighting and killing easier or harder?

---

Hi anon! This is a great way for me to distract myself from upcoming spoilers, so with the standard meta writer “this is just my personal, falliable interpretation of their characters and psychology” disclaimer:

I think the knowledge of their impending doom adds to the weight of pressure and depression for both of them, but the differences in how they’d think about this really highlight the ways in which they differ as people.

Death itself isn’t something Eren fears. But my instinct with Eren is that what he does fear–deeply, desperately, more than anything else–is powerlessness and insignificance. Of dying with the knowledge that he’s accomplished nothing, that he wasn’t strong enough to change anything. So there’s no new sense of doom here: I doubt Eren ever thought he’d live to an old age anyway, or particularly wanted to. He’s just not built for peace. He’d take a short and brutal but meaningful life over a long, peaceful, unimportant one in a heartbeat. “I would happily give my life if I knew it would change something.”

All the knowledge of his own short lifespan would do is increase his sense of urgency: if he wants to make a change, well, gonna have to make it quick. He’s on a deadline. Which… could be a problem. The last thing “suicidal bastard” Eren needs is a reason to become more reckless.

Armin, on the other hand, does fear death–like any reasonable person. And unlike Eren, he’s the sort of person who would want to live to an old age if he could, even though he knows logically that his choices in life have made that possibility very slim. Armin would thrive in peace, but peace seems unlikely to come in what’s left of his lifetime. All he has left to look forward to now is the fight; he’s never going to see the metaphorical ocean. That would be a difficult blow for him to take.

But Armin has time now. Yes he’s going to die in thirteen years–but considering the death rate in the Survey Corps, he’s also more likely to live thirteen years than he was before. Shifters are hard to kill. He works best when he has time to think things through, without the pressure making him freeze up; well, he’s got time. Thirteen years. He just has to make them count.

But I suspect that we’ll find that the effect of Ymir’s curse on Zeke played a bigger role in Eren’s decisions than any worries about himself, and likely influenced Armin and other decision makers as well: Zeke is the key to a potentially war-winning weapon, and his time is very short indeed. If they’re going to use the coordinate for anything, they’d better make it quick, and they’d better make it count. The more dramatic and permanent the impact, the better.

Whatever they do, it needs to outlive all of them.