ghostmartyr answered:

‘Isayama described Eren as自己中心 means selfish or self-centered or egotistical. Morever, he feels empty and doesn’t have a dream so as a result, he makes decisions and acts throughout the series with the purpose of ‘self-preservation’. Isayama literally says Eren ‘always makes decisions with self-preservation in mind.’ He then goes on to say EMA will probably conflict with each other soon.’ So from beginning Eren always considers himself as the center of his world, never purely about Humanity [2] Not that I dislike the selfish part, I like Nagai Kei (Ajin) even he is such a selfish bastard; maybe the problem I have with Eren is because he acted so high and mighty in the beginning, judged other humans as worthless, looked down other cadets who chose MP over SC. Now I feel Eren himself isn’t any better than them and has no right and shouldn’t judge other people that harsh. [3]

Agh, I… really don’t care for interviews, sorry. A snapshot of an author’s view of the world and characters they have conceived isn’t anywhere as meaningful as what’s occurring in their writing.



In Eren’s case, he does have his anger issues, and can be very self-centered, and he doesn’t have a concrete dream in the sense that Armin does.

He also runs off to save a girl he knows nothing about when he’s nine. The Survey Corps, purveyors of freedom, are his heroes. He nearly dies in Trost because he’s chasing after the titan who eats Thomas. He does what he can to cheer Historia up. He recognizes how extraordinary it is that Armin can dream. He gets into fights with Jean during training because Jean is specifically learning all of the skills to fight titans so that he’ll never have to.

His disdain for the Military Police is pretty much… entirely about that. Eren thinks that Mikasa should join the MPs because she’s at the top of the class. He’s surprised that Connie changes his mind about joining them, but doesn’t breathe a word of judgment. Annie’s his friend and mentor. It’s the specific approach to how MPs are selected (and Jean’s happy exploitation of that) that infuriates him.



He has plenty of self-righteous indignation over the systems that humanity has put into place behind the walls, and his perspective, being a passionate one, does mean that he sees the world through his eyes more exclusively than some people might.

(If you just look at how he initially tries to deal with Historia’s listlessness, it’s almost painful in how much he doesn’t get it.)

He still tries.

Thinking about the world outside of how he sees it is not Eren’s strongest suit. That doesn’t preclude him from being idealistic. That doesn’t stop him from having a good heart.

Eren can be stubborn and preachy, and it’s no mistake that he only has one friend before Mikasa–plenty of people piss him off.

Conceptually, though, he believes in humanity. He believes in freedom. When Armin is waking him up in Trost, asking him about why he wants to go outside, about what it was before revenge that struck his heart, Eren says that it’s because he was born into this world. People should be free, not stuck in cages, and certainly not content with that.

That’s really why he has such a temper about certain things. With Eren, he’s the kind of kid who believes in such a pure, lofty ideal that humanity represents, he ends up lashing out when he sees something less than what it could be. Because instead of could, he sees it as should.

That’s hard for anyone to live up to, and because Eren’s just as human as the rest of the cast, he’s not always going to live up to it, either. And yeah, self-righteousness is the sort of trait that makes someone very kickable, and that only increases when they do trip up–

But Eren’s fallibility doesn’t invalidate his core beliefs. They coexist within the story and within him. As frustrating as he can be at times, an Eren who doesn’t care about humanity simply isn’t Eren.

Thanks for the asks, dude.

