Armin Arlert is the narrator of the Attack on Titan series simply because:
The events of the series have already happened, and these are his memories of those events.
There is a lot of talk concerning “a mess of memories” that Eren seems to see all at once due to the founding titan’s power and his “dreams”.
There are certain “beats” to the story that must happen for a certain outcome, least they (humanity) or Eren (himself) repeat “the same mistakes” over and over.
Although there are a vast amount of spin-offs, spoofs, one-shot manga, movies, video games, anime, and live action series – for the most part they are all cannon to the Attack on Titan story.
Attack on School Castes, hidden in the pages of the original manga itself – is arguably the most important of these, directly followed by Mikasa’s Lost Girls ova/manga one-shot.
Through analysis of the main story line – the manga, and then the anime – we can fill in the gaps between ours and Eren’s memories, and try to fully figure the story out. Again, since things are purposefully told out of order, there are hints and foreshadowing spread everywhere throughout this 10-year saga, namely:
- The importance of Eren (Kruger) telling Grisha (and then himself) to start a family and love somebody in the walls (in order to save Mikasa and Armin)
- The plot device of an Eldian baby being born with titan powers when a shifter dies without passing their titan on
- The pact between the Earth Devil (Eren) and the Goddess (Ymir) and the “Cattle-Farming Goddess” Historia
- The same mistakes being made over and over, causing the events of the series to repeat in perpetuity
- And finally, the “mess of memories” caused by Mikasa’s constant wishes to see Eren again – restarting the time loop through her will (symbolized by the red scarf – “red scarf of fate”).
You can read more about Mikasa and the time loop in my Mikasa the Butterfly Goddess theory post.
Armin Arlert as Helos, the Savior of Humanity
Today, I wanted to talk about one of the chief mistakes made in the series that prevents Eren from breaking the time loop – chiefly Armin, and Eren’s continued trust in the “savior of humanity”.
In the final chapters of the Shingeki no Kyojin manga, there is a lot of emphasis on the Alliance of Good Eldians – now dubbed “Ambassadors of Peace” going around to the surviving nations and settlements to “tell their story” and “what they witnessed” during the Battle of Heaven and Earth – and beyond.
While I haven’t watched the second part of the Special Chapters yet, apparently it now focuses on Gabi, Falco, Levi, and friends planting “That tree on That Hill” and not Levi being pushed in a wheelchair by Falco as Gabi and Onyankopon accompany them to London.
This is the tree that Eren, Mikasa, and Armin run to, and why Armin says he believes he was born “just to run toward that tree” in chapter 137 while stuck in PATHs with Zeke.
One of the earlier Attack on Titan openings in Season 1, titled “Great Escape” by Cinema Staff showed the seed of a tree rolling down pavement with key panels of the manga juxtaposed and overlayed in the anime. Like many opening and endings throughout this series, the visuals and lyrics tell the tales of what is yet to come.
(I will go over those at another time!)
Armin Never Learns From the Past
Armin – despite being named as one of the smartest characters in the Attack on Titan series – fails to learn from his mistakes. His driving force seemed to be “seeing the ocean” and everything after that became a moot point. In his defense – Armin had changed.
He died, was reborn, and inherited the stoic but arguably docile and self-detrimental ideology of the colossal titan and its former inheritor – Bertholdt Hoover.
Now as we can make the argument for whether or not Armin always liked Annie, and whether or not Annie spared Armin during The Female Titan Arc due to a school girl crush – we cannot deny the importance of passed down “sins” or ideology between titans.
In my Was Zeke Yeager Targeted by Tom Xaver to Inherit the Beast Titan post, I made the argument that Zeke was specifically targeted and chosen to inherit the Beast Titan in a plot between Xaver and Eren Kruger – both (secret) Eldian Restorationists. There is even a hint of Xaver – the doctor who faked his blood tests to marry a non-Eldian woman and start a family – being the one who helped “the owl” fake his Eldian blood test to enter the military as a Marleyan soldier.
Aside from Eren needing Kruger to approach Grisha, and for Xaver to approach Zeke, I would also like to think that Eren’s will allowed Armin to be Helos – the Champion of Humanity – just once.
Note/Recap:
- Eren sends Attack Titan will forward to past inheritors as the Last Titan. “I just keep moving forward, until my enemies are destroyed”.
- Beast Titan ( at least at Xaver’s time) sends/passes along self-loathing and hatred of Eldians onto future inheritors.
- Jaw Titan sends need to sacrifice self for Reiner (the Plot Armor Titan) to inheritors that at least applied to Ymir, Marcel, and Porco but not Falco because Falco has unlocked a new form thanks to Eren’s memories sent during the ‘Shock’ ED and ingesting Zeke’s spinal fluid (I will explain this in more detail at a later time).
- Colossal Titan is the “hanged man” – stagnant, and indecisive about important matters at hand.
Armin Lies to Bertholdt About Annie – A Mistake
Regarding Annie, if you will remember Armin used Annie’s hypothetical torture by the military police in order to trick Bertholdt into letting his guard down long enough for a now one-armed Erwin to deliver a blow, and allow Eren time to escape after Reiner and Bertholdt’s Armored and Colossal titan reveal to the scouts.
Armin tries this same exact trick with Bertholdt during the Return to Shiganshina Arc, and fails.
Without any better options, Armin decides to sacrifice himself and entrust his will to Eren…who fights for his revival as the colossal titan because Eren knows (through future memories) that Armin will oppose him and be credited in history as Helos – the one who saved humanity in future textbooks and stories.
Commander Erwin Smith was focused on eliminating threats outside the walls before his death.
We know Eren wishes and dreams of wiping out all of the titans and then humanity across all iterations of the story (Attack on School Castes, spin-offs, Attack on Titan Junior High, the Spoof Manga where he is a Farmer, etc.) and his desires are often disrupted by Mikasa’s wishes to be with him or “see him again” and Armin’s desire/wish to see the sea, cross it, and save humanity.
Armin Arlert – the Failed 15th and Final Survey Corps Commander
Armin also inherited Hange’s will of being indecisive, careless, and reckless as well. And as any good manga reader knows, Hange literally realized she was in over her head, ran out of plans, and decided to go out in a blaze of glory via suicide by colossal titan – the exact same way as Armin.
Armin Arlert Declares He Killed Eren Yeager – Mistake Two
Coming back to the theme of not learning from the past and repeating the same mistakes, in the final chapter Armin has his pivotal moment of declaring that he’s the one who “killed Eren Yeager” (lol) before declaring that Eldians are no longer a threat, and throwing down his gear in an attempt to reason with the Marleyan general.
…And you know what? That did work, for a time.
Until maybe 2 – 3 generations later when Paradis was carpet bombed by descendants of the 20% of humanity left over, and 20,000 years later on in the anime.
So, what does this show us?
I am brought back to the words of Pixis, speaking to Eren atop Wall Rose about the futility of trying to force humanity to get along. And that although they may unite for a common goal against a supreme enemy, they would immediately go back to fighting one another when that great enemy is gone.
But wait – doesn’t that sound familiar?
Well…yes, because this is the same exact thing Armin did in the beginning of the manga and anime timeline’s story – securing a momentary sense of peace.
If you remember, Kitz Woermann was threatening to shoot Eren after he was exposed as a shifter during the Battle of Trost Arc. While trying to think of a plan hidden in a half-assed transformation of a colossal titan, Armin comes up with the half-baked scheme of faking it until he made it all the way to Survey Corps Commander.
Armin assures Kitz Woermann that Eren is not a threat to humanity(all the while he very much is) and marks a momentary truce with the military – all the while other facets of the military secretly plotted to steal Eren’s titan and replace Eren’s role as “their titan” in the military with somebody they could better control…which Armin agreed with while discussing it with Eren’s other “friends” in Marley.
As with the “ending” of chapter 139, Eren’s tree lived on – Eren still inside and alive in PATHs although decapitated, traversing memories as seen in the OPs and EDs until the time comes for Mikasa to make her final wish to see Eren again at the Tree on the Hill – thus starting the cycle of hatred and time loop over once more.
The Attack on Titan Time Loop Continues…
“The same mistakes, over and over”
Literally everybody but not all at once
In the true (and first) Attack on Titan School Castes timeline, Eren needs to “go around” Shingeki the Final Exhibition without Mikasa and Armin TWO times.
Two timelines – Manga and Anime.
We had a 3-pronged titan injection syringe in the anime, and one with 2 prongs in the manga.
Since Eren needs to “go around twice” to get things right with the third timeline being the ending, I don’t think this will be the last we’ll see of Eren, Armin, or Mikasa.
They will just be in a different form, and a different timeline – where Armin and Mikasa are “safe” but Eren is then missing. Just like how the panels for Zeke and Eren entering PATHs for the first time were reversed in anime and manga, (Loser) Eren is ‘missing’ from a reversed frame when telling Mikasa and Armin that he wants to watch the final Attack on Titan movie (about School Castes) with them.
(Remembering Isayama stated that ‘Eren is back’ when he was sitting in a puddle crying about Mikasa, I wonder if that was ‘loser Eren’ from the School Castes timeline.)
But, what are your thoughts?
Is Armin the biggest hypocrite imaginable? Would things change if Armin learned from his mistakes?
Why has Bertholdt been crying the two times Armin saw him in PATHs?
Leave your thoughts in the comment section below, we’d love to hear from you! Also be sure to follow us for more Attack on Titan Theories and discussions!
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