The Ending Of Attack On Titan Season 4 Part 1 Explained
This is it. The final season of "Attack on Titan" is underway. The long, convoluted tale of Eren's revenge is finally coming to a close. But before we can say goodbye to Eren for good, there are still plenty of things Eren has to accomplish. After all, this is only the first of three parts in the series' final season.
But while the wielder of the Attack Titan still has much to do, he and his cohorts certainly get things started with a bang. In the wake of the Season 3 finale, Eren and the others have successfully departed Paradis Island for the mainland. There, they do what they do best by making their first offensive strike against their Marleyan foes in centuries.
However, this aggressive approach to diplomacy doesn't go over well with everyone in Eren's camp. The history of the Eldian-Marleyan feud is not so cut-and-dry that Eren's "kill them all and let God sort them out" approach seems like a proper solution, though the revenge-obsessed Eren couldn't be told otherwise. As we see with Gabi, Falco, and the other soldiers of Marley, however, there are no real monsters in this scenario. And as we see at the end of Season 4 Part 1, Eren's approach did nothing to dispel the inevitable war between Eldia and Marley.
Has Eren gone too far?
Eren's surprise attack at the beginning of Season 4 may have only provoked further Marlean wrath, but at the end of the day that was pretty much Eren's intention. As he said at the end of Season 3, all Eren sees beyond the scope of Paradis Island is a world of enemies, enemies that must be destroyed for Eren and his friends to live peaceful, happy lives. Peace, in Eren's book, was never really an option.
Furthermore, Eren also isn't going to suffer fools who disagree with him. Eren's attack was done without the blessing of the Eldian government, and when his superiors get snippy about Eren completely bypassing diplomacy in favor of war, he and his followers swiftly stage a coup. This occurs much to the chagrin of even Eren's closest friends, who are starting to see that Eren's vengeful attitude might be going somewhat overboard.
Fans who have read the manga or already watched the later parts of Season 4 are certainly laughing now at the prospect that Eren might be getting a bit too carried away. Sure, he may have provoked war (granted, one that was probably going to happen anyway), invited the dangerous and untrustworthy Zeke on the Eldian doorstep, and overthrown the government, but he would never be so recklessly cruel as to completely conquer and destroy everything outside of Paradis, right?
The cycles of revenge continue
Since we're following much of this story from Eren's perspective, it can be difficult to see the full scope of his actions. From his point of view, and his point of view alone, everything bad that has ever happened to Eren and his friends, from the collapse of the walls at the beginning of the series, to the death of his mother and father, happened because of Marley. Because of that, a war may seem justified, at least to Eren.
What Eren may not find justifiable, however, is that he is inevitably doing to others what the Marleyans did to him. Among other things, Eren's attack does more than further provoke Marley, it personally provokes Gabi, one of the ethnically Eldian soldiers fighting on behalf of Marley. After watching all of her friends, who we are introduced to in the very first episode of Season 4, die in Eren's attack, Gabi is the first to go revenge-crazy and actually ends up killing Sasha. If Eren keeps going like this, he may have another enraged teen just like himself barking at his heels.
There's no time to think about the lives of individuals, however. As a child soldier for Marley, Gabi wasn't too fond of Eren anyway. Besides, at this point it makes no difference. The machinations of guys like Eren and Zeke are already in too deep for them to back out now. The war that Eren predicted in Season 3 is finally upon them.