Let’s be clear: Eren Yeager didn’t become a villain because he had no choice. He made choices. And every time he had a sliver of humanity left to cling to, he torched it. Fans like to pretend he’s a victim of circumstance, a puppet tangled in the strings of fate. Nonsense. Eren grabbed the strings, yanked them down, and decided if he couldn’t be free, no one deserved to be. The Rumbling wasn’t a tragedy. It was a temper tantrum scaled up to apocalyptic proportions.

And yet—unbelievably—there’s a chorus of fans who treat Eren like some misunderstood anti-hero. They say he’s doing what he must. That his hand was forced. That we’d all do the same in his place. No. Speak for yourselves. The moral gymnastics people perform to justify Eren Yeager would make Simone Biles blush. The man flattened civilizations. He stomped the planet to make a point—and people are out here calling it tragic heroism?

He is polarizing not because he’s complex, but because too many fans want him to be something he’s not. He’s not a symbol of rebellion. He’s not a martyr. He is a cautionary tale. A war crime in slow motion. And if you’re still defending him, you’re not watching the same show. You’re watching the fantasy you want it to be.