Attack on Titan ending explained: Does Eren die?

Aparna Ukil
A still from Attack on Titan ending

Attack on Titan anime bid us adieu by coming up with the most emotional finale episode any anime fan would have ever witnessed. So, let’s talk about the final moments of the anime.

Attack of Titan is one such series that has introduced us to the most complicated narrative to date. Not only the storyline but the series also comes with characters whose personalities can bend your mind.

With the second episode of AOT Season 4 Part 3, a whole era came to an end, which obviously doesn’t feel good as we won’t be able to hear anything about the series in the coming time.

Well, every series has to end someday, and so did Attack on Titan, leaving every fan crying their hearts out for their favorite characters.

Warning: The Article contains heavy spoilers from Attack on Titan final episode

Does Eren die in Attack on Titan final episode?

Yes, Eren dies in the final episode, that too at the hands of his childhood sweetheart Mikasa.

The episode started from where it left off in Special 1, which was released in March 2023. We saw the intense fight between the Survey Corps and the Titans who stood between them and Eren.

Ymir continues to help Eren by bringing back the old versions of the Nine Titans, but Mikasa kills Eren, which somehow frees Ymir from her shackles. On the other hand, in the space where every Eldian can connect with each other, The Paths, we see Armin and Zeke conversing with each other. Zeke reveals how Eren manipulated Ymir and convinced her to give her powers to him. Basically, Eren knew that Ymir was seeking freedom from the king’s slavery, and he assured her exactly that.

In the final episode, we also learned that there was no one other than Eren who started everything from the very beginning. After Mikasa severed his head inside his gigantic founding titan body, everyone, including Armin and Mikasa, remembers talking to Eren in The Paths. We see him sitting with Armin in an isolated place, where he slowly talks about his desires and what he has already done. Eren says that he was the one who let the titan eat his mother. Shocking, right? Well, this is not it, as there is so much more.

Eren says that he wants to free the people from hatred, and to create a perfect world, he decides to eradicate 80% of the population. However, he also knew that he would die in the end at the hands of Mikasa and Armin. Hence, the fate that Eren got was what he had already seen, and he happily sacrificed himself so that his friends could become heroes and the people of Eldia get respect in the world. Apparently, Eren told all this to everyone before they assembled against him, but he erased that conversation from everyone’s mind and told them that they’ll remember it when everything is over (when he dies at the hands of Mikasa).

In short, Eren was a slave of freedom and the powers of Attack Titan. He knew how the future would unfold when he touched Historia’s hand in the third season, but he was the puppet of fate and couldn’t change anything despite knowing everything. In the end, Eren acted according to what he saw and ultimately became the villain so that he took away the Titan powers from the Eldians.

You can check out our Attack on Titan coverage here, and other anime coverage here.

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About The Author

Aparna is a Writer at Dexerto and focuses her content on everything Anime. Besides this, she also enjoys watching the latest TV shows and movies explicitly falling under the horror genre. She started her professional journey in the retail industry but her admiration for films and TV shows pulled her into the field of entertainment writing where she has experience writing for various well-known publishers including Otakukart, Sportskeeda and Game Revolution.