Taking A Look Into

Eren's Free Will

y.y.
Nietzsche
• "What is known as 'freedom of the will, ' is essentially the
emotion of supremacy in respect to the one who must obey: '
I am free," he " must obey' - this consciousness is inherent in
every will, and equally so that tense alertness, a direct gaze
concentrated exclusively on one thing alone, the
unconditional judgment that' this and nothing else is
necessary now, 'an inner certainty that obedience will follow,
and whatever else pertains to the condition of giving
commands."-Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

• " In as much as in any given case, we both command and

obey, and when we obey we know the sensations of coercion,
impulsion, oppression, resistance, and agitation that begin
immediately after the act of will; inasmuch as, on the other
hand, we are in the habit of ignoring or disregarding this
duality, and to deceive ourselves about it by means of the
synthetic term 'I, ' a whole series of erroneous conclusions,
and consequently of false assessments about the will itself,
has become attached to the act of willing - to such a degree
that he who wills believes firmly that willing is enough for
action."-Friedrich Nietzsche
Eren
• A very consequential piece of dialogue to notice is that when Eren
talks about the people who are coerced by their environment, he
relegates himself as part of the people who move forward by their
own free will through his " moving forward" stance however in
authenticity he's part of the former.

• Eren's ambiguity between " I am free" (Nature) vs " He Must

Comply with / He Must Obey" (Nurture) is essential to
understanding his dialogue.

• When Eren kisses Historia's hand, he commences to follow his

predetermined future even while it stems from his own desires. In
Eren's view, people who have free will are able to make their own
choices through their own innate nature and not be coerced into
making choices by their environment.

• However, Eren believes that he has free will, believes that he's
part of the people who push themselves forward through their
nature while in reality, he's coercing the part of him (He Must
Obey) who has accepted Eren's predetermined path of life and (I
am Free) believes that he's free to push forward through his own
will.
Eren
• Consequently, Eren is in reality, part of the people
who are coerced by others or their environment ( I
Am Free ).

• "I Am Free " is the component of Eren who is

plenarily fixated on his sole task of achieving freedom
and to keep moving forward because he believes as
long as he moves forward, he'll be able to achieve his
freedom. If he wills himself to move forward, if he
pushes himself, he'll be able to achieve the thing he
wants.

• Eren is quite literally blinding himself from from "

He Must Obey " and acting as a singular individual,
disregarding the other facet of himself in his notion
that he has free will and we see this depicted when he
regards the people who push themselves forward as a
single being with nothing else affecting them
 Causa Sui
• "The CAUSA SUI is the best self-contradiction that
has yet been conceived, it is a sort of logical violation
and unnaturalness; but the extravagant pride of man
has managed to entangle itself profoundly and
frightfully with this very folly" - Nietzsche

• Causa Sui is the idea that a thing can be its own cause,
is a self-contradiction.

• What Nietzsche tries to convey is that a person A

cannot be responsible for his existence, there is no
potential way the person can cause his own existence
and only can the person follow their given
deterministic path. Humans from birth cannot choose
where they are born, how they are born, what their
identity will be like and hence Nietzsche critiques the
idea of Casua Sui, a person cannot will their existence
and by following determinism, we will never be able to
achieve freedom.
 Determinism
• Nietzsche questions the idea that we have freedom in its
totality, and also the idea that we are completely
constrained by our predetermined destiny. He believes that
the truth is somewhere between the poles of these extremes.
(To quote one of Nietzsche's aphorisms: "everywhere
people see opposites where there are only degrees"). The
"unfree will" is the idea that we are completely constrained
which is a further elaboration of the concept of
determinism.

• There are various bifurcations of determinism. Every event

(i.e. "effect") is caused by a previous event according to the
laws of nature, stretching back to the beginning of time.

• It seems then that our actions are constrained, inevitable

because they are always caused by preceding events. How
can we be free?

• Nietzsche thinks that this sort of conundrum arises from a

"superlative metaphysical demand" for freedom.
Free From Birth
• Eren used to believe that being born makes you become
inherently free, because in his view existing itself is
freedom and people who reject this " fact" are truly the
unfree people. Even if you're strong, even if you are the
" predator", if you abnegate this " fact" that Eren
believes in, you are in reality unfree and weak. But why
precisely does Eren believe so? He only does because of
his parents. Grisha and Carla gave Eren his identity
and then proceeded to call him free hence Eren started
to believe being born was being free. Carla believed her
child was special for being born in this world. Except,
Eren ceases to realise that being denoted as "free" from
being born is another predetermined path that he was
coerced upon. Him being "free" was already
predetermined from birth as well as his name. Him
being " special" was also predetermined. He had no
cause on his supposed freedom, so him being given
"freedom" while it being already predetermined that he
would be given this "freedom" is not truly the cause of
his own free will.
Unfree
• This is the false illusion of grandeur Eren believed in until
he rejects it by saying he was never special, he was the son
of a special father.

• You are not special by a special person connoting you as

special. In actuality, they still remain special while you are
falsely classified as being special . Eren is only normal.
Eren has never been free from being born because he was
denoted as "free". This supposed freedom was something
he was unable to procure through his own free will and
this " freedom 11 was his own predetermined path. This
self - affirmation and acceptance of his unfree will shows
how he rejects Carla's and Grisha's idealistic view of him,
both of them wanted Eren to be free, wanted him to be
special but this need / want for him to be special and to be
free completely juxtaposes what free will really is. This
also ties in strongly to the entirety of the

• 139 chapter.
Eren/Causa Sui
• "Eren.. You are Free " Grisha gives Eren his identity, he
individualises him. But being given his denomination is
not of his own cause. He's being given his own
predetermined name so Grisha contradicts the
conception of being "free" by making Eren "free". In
Nietzsche's and loads of others philosopher's notion,
people can never be truly free because our name, where
we are born etc, minor yet very consequential
components of our life are all predecided and hence there
can never be veridical freedom. "I wanted to do that, I
had to "Eren had to procure freedom for himself out of
his own free will. His predetermined freedom was
something he repudiated, he could never be free via this
version of freedom. By getting to see his own idealised
view on freedom, Eren believed he could be free. "Eren,
you are free " is self explanatory, unlike other
misconceptions, Eren hasn't genuinely been free from
birth. It's the complete antithesis, Eren has always never
had his own veridical free will. His freedom and how he
composes his precedent ideal on freedom has always been
predetermined.
The Kid/Ymir Fritz
• As we know, Ymir Fritz was unfree for the majority
of the series. She had no will to resist and chose to
succumb to her fate. She was coerced to attain the
Founder, the dogs that were set on her forced her to
attain the Founder, she had no will to resist this fate.
By attaining the Founder, an unfree destiny was born
which affected everyone in the entire series making
them a " slave to something " . Ymir was the cause of
the predetermined universe.

• The kid is used to juxtapose Ymir, he's someone who

leads the dog forward of his own free will. He's
forming his own destiny, choosing his own path
unlike aforementioned Ymir. Purely because of this
free will the child depicts, the child will inherit the
Founder again but this time unlike Ymir who was
devoid of free will and created a predetermined path
of life, the child will be able to create a
indeterministic way of life.
Freedom
How is the kid able to have this free will? Because of Eren's
sacrifice, he was able to culminate the curse of the titans,
ending the entire conceptual structure of predeterminism.
Eren's tree is cemented in the ground yet the crown of the tree
is reaching up into the sky. Skies are a prevelant symbolic
representation of freedom. By understanding and accepting
that in this predeterministic universe, free will does not exist
and choosing to give up on his slavish desires for freedom, Eren
is able to procure the free will to achieve this freedom. This
realisation is what ultimately allows for him to be free. Going
back to Nietzsche's aphorisms " Everywhere people see
opposites when there are only degrees ". Nietzsche believed
that the truth of the universe can be understood somewhere
between the poles of free will and determinism which is exactly
what Eren does. He's cemented in the ground
(predeterminism ) while reaching up into the sky (freedom).
He's experiencing both of the complete opposite concepts
simultaneously and by not being blinded by either is able to
find the middle point and becomes the linchpin between the
extremes and thus achieving free will for himself and for the
world even through these antithetical juxtapositions is able to
create a world of indeterminism.