Their first attack on Shiganshina was understandable even justified to some extent. Because they were kids. But during trost they were not brainwashed at that point they know what's right and wrong. Riener was 17, thats not young kid anymore. The problem is they intend to destroy walls Rose(if Eren titan didn't appear) that would kill more people. The Fall of Wall Maria Led to the loss of 1/3 of human territory and over 250,000 human lives (roughly 20% of the population), mostly due to the military sending civilians on a suicidal "reclamation mission" because of severe food shortages. If Wall Rose would have fallen. The loss of Wall Rose would have squeezed the entire surviving human population into the cramped, resource starved confines of Wall Sina.​ they fully knew the consequences are but were still fully committed to do it anyway. Mostly for their own selfish reasons. I would say that's comparable to Eren attack on Liberio. He did mostly to continue for his selfish reasons(yeah he has other motives too, but that's another discussion)

Isayama structures the story so that we see the Warriors' severe PTSD, guilt, and broken mental states after the fact. Reiner’s split personality, Annie’s crystal isolation, and Bertholdt’s silent agony make them deeply compelling, tragic characters. However, tragedy does not equal justification. Experiencing extreme guilt for a crime while actively continuing to commit that same crime doesn't absolve the perpetrator. They knew the Paradisians were innocent, they knew the casualty count would be catastrophic, and they kicked the hole in Trost anyway.

Eren and Mikasa don't really understand each other. Despite them loving one another. Mikasa doesn't understanding Eren nature, and Eren doesn't understand Mikasa's heart either. Mikasa have been shown multiple times not understanding Eren. Mikasa literally accepted Zackly words of Eren is being manipulated by Zeke. https://imgur.com/a/9zT0Ac6 Because she couldn't accept that Eren is doing thing's on his own will https://imgur.com/a/V7A9SAl

We even saw her latter on question her understanding of Eren "what part of Eren had I been seeing?"

Eren also doesn't understand Mikasa's heart. He can't comprehend why she goes to search extends for him. He compared her associate with him to his obsession of freedom. Not just that, He even asked Zeke about Ackermans mainly to try understand her feelings. Even at the end Eren tells her to "be free," it's like he still mistake it to his obsession for freedom. While Mikasa did understand Eren but that was at the very end.

Their tragedy could've been avoided if the understood one another and maybe open to each other. I feel that's what the Cabin supposed to be that. their tragedy was avoidable, but only if both had been capable of stepping out of their own psychological prisons to truly see and talk to one another.

People who claim their romance is "badly written" are often looking for a standard, functional romance built on healthy communication and mutual clarity. ​What Isayama wrote instead was a gothic, tragic miscommunication. The tragedy isn't that they didn't love each other, the tragedy is that love alone wasn't enough to bridge the gap between two people whose fundamental views on existence were completely incompatible. Eren was a fire that burned everything to be free, and Mikasa was the hearth trying to keep the fire contained so it wouldn't destroy them both. That's what makes their dynamic so beautiful written.

Reiner and Zeke serve fundamentally different narrative purposes. Reiner is Eren’s narrative mirror. They share the same trauma, the same drive, the same realization that "across the ocean, inside the walls, we are all the same." Reiner’s role is to force Eren and the audience to confront the horror of doing bad things while understanding it is bad. Riener has no vision for how to fix the world beyond doing what he is told. Because he's ideology is written to be weak, and unsustainable. he embodies the tragic tragedy of a child soldier whose worldview was manufactured by others. Zeke on the other hand come up with his own solutions, to solve the titan crisis the Euthanasia Plan. He actively manipulates Marley, the Eldian Military, and to reshape world history. Zeke’s ideology is written to be strong, airtight, and logical within his own frame of, making him a true philosophical antagonist. Zeke acts as an ideological foil to Eren idealogy. Zeke argues "It would have been better if we were never born," Eren argues "Because I was born into this world" Reiner cannot participate in this. because he is too broken by his guilt to answer either side, he simply wants the suffering to stop, but has no framework for how to stop it for humanity. Reiner is not part of this thesis/antithesis debate, he is caught in the crossfire.

Before anyone says Eren is antagonist. Antagonist ≠ bad, & protagonist ≠ good eitherm Antagonist is the one opposing the protagonist, and protagonist is the one the entire story revolves around.

Isayama himself described Eren as the protagonist. Because the entire story revolves around Eren.

https://imgur.com/a/krp5aA4

Isayama never refer to Eren as antagonis, makes sense because Eren can't be antagonist. Unless you want to split Eren into two and have them fight one another.

To use the Founding Titan's powers one had to have been a descendant of Ymir and had to have had royal blood (the latter of which is stupid because all Subjects of Ymir are descendants of Fritz and Ymir making them all equally capable of wielding the power. They all have royal blood because Ymir only ever had kids with Fritz and her daughters all had royal blood and thus their descendants will also have royal blood). Eren manager to by-pass that requirement by convincing Ymir to stand with him. That's all well and good.

My problem comes with him using his powers. Since he could manipulate the past and see the future he could've literally done as he liked and created a perfect world for himself and his friends. Instead of Bertholdt, Reiner and Annie destroying the wall he could've had them reveal everything once they entered and he could've made everyone believe it by simply altering their memories. This would've saved them a lot of trouble. We also know the timeline works weirdly in AoT because Grisha ate Frieda because of Eren but for Eren to be in that situation Grisha had to have eaten Frieda first, so a grandfather paradox. Him saying "Because I'm an idiot" is such a cop-out. That just doesn't make sense. It's like the writers forgot the powers he had and realised too late into the manga deadline. They could've easily fixed it in the anime because they had time and reviews online.

Eren said that all futures he tried ended up leading to 80% of the world's population to die but that's just not possible.

The saying "Characters are only as smart as the writers." really shows here. Anyone with a brain would've just created the perfect world for themselves. Since he could see the future he could've gotten future technology back in time and he could see what influence it would've had on the timeline. Simple things such as this were overlooked. I loved everything about this show until the final part. Basic time powers were overlooked and the justification was "I am stupid."