To Mr Hajime Isayama

I recently began to dream of becoming a writer. It wasn’t my dream at first. Becoming a writer is actually a dream of a friend that I used to cherish a lot. I don’t actually know if it’s still her dream anymore. I wish she would become a writer some day though, her writing is beautiful.

I know you’re a busy man, and I don’t think you will ever read my words, but I decided to write this because Attack on Titan itself changed the way I viewed the world and gave my life more meaning. More meaning than I would ever get from trying to find happiness in pouring a cup of coffee in the morning (and all the other little things I am supposed to be euphoric about).

I am still amazed at how someone could come up with AoT. I wonder what are the thoughts that must run through your head everyday. I wonder how did the idea even come about. I wonder what you wanted us to remember from this story. I wonder if you wanted us to learn to love villains, and realise that our heroes are the villains of others. I wonder if you wanted us to learn what it means to be free. I wonder if you wanted us to be better. To be the good. But what is the good?

I hated the ending at first. I wasn’t angry at you or anything, but in my feelings I realised that what I wanted was a perfect solution. A perfect solution that could answer my own doubts of our humanity in our world. I wanted the characters I love to both get happiness, but also to not get away free from the suffering they’ve caused. But that’s just it, isn’t it? How can one be happy and suffer at the same time?

I wanted an ending that would tell me how to better live, or what is the right way to live as a human. One that would tell me how I should embrace humanity and all its faces. To stare at the eyes of cruelty, and still make the right and good choice.

I didn’t understand Eren back then. But now I do, and I can’t imagine any other ending that would make sense.

There is nothing I appreciate more than new perspectives, or rather to really understand the unknowns of the world. And in particular, of people.

It was hard to digest. The fact that in the end, there were no monsters with deformed faces and bodies, just evil lurking in the people that look just like us.

In the end, to me the wall’s only significance was “us” VS “them”. How we are always so fixated on the “protagonist” and the “antagonist”, and how willing are we to fit ourselves and others into these roles. Do we feel that much more comfort if there is a good and right side that we are on, and a evil and bad side on the other end? Do we need to feel like a hero for our lives to have meaning? What are we fighting for?

“Perhaps peace is not for humanity.” is what I thought. “I don’t want to just live too.” And I still don’t.

I wondered if Eren would’ve made the same choice if he hadn’t seen his future. But he could never take that back, and knowing what is to come means he would never be free. Every step would be akin to following his “fate”, and straying away at any point would lead him down a path that he wouldn’t know what the outcome will be. He wanted a gurantee, and that’s why he did as he was told.

It’s hard to stray from a story that you’ve already read. A story that you understand. A story that you’ve guranteed what you wanted the most, or rather, what you feel that you deserve at least: freedom for the ones you love. He felt that he could ask for that much.

I wondered is Ymir felt justified that she doomed Eren to a fate that would keep him away from a person he loved. It was crucial to have Mikasa be the one to end Eren, for what it signified was a courage to pick the right and good, over love and suffering. And that’s what Ymir desperately knew that she needed to be free.

I know she suffered for 2000 years. But I never understood suffering for others. When everyone has to pay the price for sins that were not yours, but of your people.

I don’t understand that.

For it would mean that we could be born into the world already a sin.

And that… I think there is nothing more cruel than to force someone to be responsible for the sins of others.

In the end, Eren was fighting against Ymir. That’s what I believe anyways.

In the end it was their hurt vs our hurt. Our rights vs their rights. Our freedom vs their freedom. In the end, no one had any bad intentions. We all fought for the right reasons, is just that “right” has different meaning to different people. And that scares me a lot.

Having the seasons be spread out over the years, it was easy to forget what suffering they’ve been through. So much so that when Eren decided to destroy Marley, the first thought was “is this necessary? Do you have to be so extreme?”

But in the end, we are the reflections of the world we are born into. And the one that they faced was one with more hatred than love.

I don’t think I would’ve made a different choice.

I don’t think Eren is good, nor is he bad.

I don’t think he was free, and much of it was “fate”, but I believed that he could’ve chosen differently as well. But he didn’t want to embrace the freedom he had.

I think in the end he got what he wanted. He got the happiness from freeing those whom he loved into a world that will finally be able to accept them, and he got the suffering that he chose as well. Not just a death, but a lack of future that could’ve been.

I would be disappointed too. When all your life, you’ve known that there are these titans out there that are the main cause of your suffering, and you could hate them freely, for they are simply monsters deserving of hate.

But in the end, the realisation that every act of cruelty was a choice by another human… the realisation that the people who could choose, chose this for you. It was no titan, the monsters were just another person.

If there was more despair waiting beyond the walls, if it was what he expected — to see titans inhabiting the beautiful landscapes that he dreamed of seeing, then it would’ve been better.

But in the end, it was “us” condemning “them”.

Afterall, it hits different if someone dies to a tiger, then when someone dies to another person. The expectations are different. You expect a monster to kill. But not a human to be a devil.

At least, if it was me, I would feel better if beyond the walls, it was just endless titans waiting to devour any piece of human meat. I think I would have more hope in a better future.

It would just mean that the world is cruel, but not that humans are cruel. And that is so much more straightforward. I can hate on the titans endlessly. I won’t feel bad, I won’t feel conflicted. And that would make it clear: what’s right, what’s good, where hope lies, and what I should be for the world.

In the end, on either sides of the wall, were just people that were born into a world to fight against each other. There is no hero. There is no villain. There is only the past that controls that present and dictates the future.

And that is what needs to be stopped, and that is how we move forward.

Thank you for the great story. I hope that one day… that one day I can write a story that you will enjoy reading as well. One that will make you discover more about life, one that will make life have more meaning for you. I want to return the favor, some day.

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