Attack on Titan's final season ending explained
Attack on Titan: Final Chapters Special 2 spoilers follow.
Attack on Titan Final Season: The Final Chapters Special 2 (try saying that five times fast) has dropped, completing the journey of Eren, Mikasa and Armin.
A lot has happened over the course of the series. The Titans attacked and the Survey Corp fought back, we met humans able to become Titans, learned about the Reiss Royal Family, the Nine Titans, and discovered the shocking truth about the world outside the walls.
And now the Attack on Titan series finale put to screen what fans have been waiting for – the ragtag crew facing Eren as the final 'big bad' of the series. So grab some potatoes, meat, or whatever you can find in honour of Sasha, and get reading as Digital Spy breaks down everything that happened in the ground-breaking finale.
Attack on Titan's final season ending explained: What happened to Eren, Armin, and Mikasa?
Attack on Titan Final Season: The Final Chapters Special 2 picks up where we left off: the few survivors have made it to Eren and have engaged the Beast Titan, while Annie, Gabi and Falco remain on a steamship.
The episode kicks off with Reiner immediately transforming into the Armored Titan, tearing Zeke from his connection with Eren's body. The remnants of the army located at Fort Salva see the Titans clash and Pieck recognises that Paradis Island is fighting against, not with, the Rumbling.
The Survey Corps regroup ready to take on their former friend, knowing that talking may not be an option anymore, and the battle begins in earnest as Reiner stands over the decaying body of the Beast Titan.
Things don't get off to a great start as Armin is gagged by a Titan in the form of Okapi, holding him hostage in its mouth, while former Titan Shifters from the series are resurrected to fight for Eren and easily overwhelm the other soldiers.
Pieck then attempts to sever Eren's head with explosives but only makes it as far as wrapping ammunition around his neck before becoming incapacitated. The battle rages on, and the years of intense battle Connie, Mikasa, Levi and Jean have seen keep them from falling. Armin, still incapacitated, sees his former friend and ex-Colossal Titan Bertholdt shedding a tear in front of him - before reaching out to Reiner and nearly tearing his head off.
The rest of the soldiers are beginning to flounder in battle. Jean narrowly manages to save Reiner, but their gear isn't powerful enough for the two of them and Reiner, ever craving death, tells Jean to let him go. Meanwhile, Levi rescues Connie but receives a crushing bite to the leg.
In the fray we get a singularly epic moment as Mikasa calls out and wings sprout out behind her, revealed to actually belong to Falco's Jaw Titan. Our team of heroes regroup and Falco, now able to soar around the battlefield, drops Reiner and Jean onto Eren's spine so they can target the detonator left behind by Pieck.
Around the world, we see people praying and animals fleeing the Rumbling as it destroys whole cities and countries, leaving no survivors. Then, just when things seem hopeless, the impossible happens and the episode pivots to showing us exactly what was going on with Armin.
You see, Armin wasn't just out of commission - he'd actually been transported to the realm of the 'Paths'. Here he meets Zeke and they discuss Ymir and Eren at length, before a host of former Titan wielders appear around them, seemingly ready to join the battle for humanity.
And it's just in time - as things weren't going well for our gang. Luckily, the resurrected Titans (or the spirits of their wielders) arrive and Gabi, with the assistance of Levi, is able to shoot that pesky Okapi Titan and free Armin from its grip.
Finally, the Colossal Titan can join the fray! Annie and Armin reunite, and Zeke appears, sprouting from Eren's body ready to die - a courtesy offered to him by his long-time rival Levi. With Zeke's death, the Rumbling stops, as Titans worldwide fall.
With the help of the Titans, Jean finally makes it to the detonator and pulls the trigger. Eren's head falls while the Shining Centipede, the source of all Titans, attempts to reconnect. Armin, in a move similar to the one he pulled at Liberio Port, attempts to destroy Eren with his transformation-induced explosion.
Unfortunately, it doesn't do the job, and Eren emerges from the flames in a new Titan form. If that wasn't enough, the Shining Centipede releases a gas that turns the remaining Eldians, Jean and Connie (!) into Titans. Reiner takes on the Centipede alongside Annie and Pieck, and the remaining Marleyan Warriors attempt to slaughter the beast together.
Meanwhile, Mikasa finds herself in the Paths with Eren, able to live a peaceful life together far away from conflict in this new timeline. They hold each other, knowing this time is fleeting.
Then we're back in the real world as Mikasa returns, dons her trademark scarf, and prepares to kill Eren. She approaches him, now immobilised by Armin, and with the help of Levi finds his true body in the mouth (standard Attack on Titan stuff).
Eren locks eyes with Mikasa as we briefly see them back at the cabin in the woods, before she stands, holding his decapitated head, and gives him one final kiss as Ymir looks on. It's a profound and moving moment. The two of them started this story together, with Mikasa vowing to always protect Eren, and it's only right that they would end it this way.
And there you have it, Eren Yeager is dead. The hero we've followed for a decade has gone, and with him so has one of the greatest arcs of a hero-turned-villain ever seen.
But the episode's not over yet! It's a bumper 85-minute special after all. So buckle in for even more devastating reveals.
Armin and Eren are seemingly talking in Shingashina as children, as the latter explains that the Attack Titan can see through time via the Titan wielders of the past, present and future.
He can manipulate time this way and believes he saw a way for Paradis Island and the wider Eldians to escape the hate and the curse of the Titans and live a life of freedom.
To do this, the world needed a new object of hatred that was not the Eldians or Titans. Eren reveals his plan was much bigger than Armin thought. He purposely became an object of hate, triggered the Rumbling, and awaited his friends to come and put an end to him.
It turns out Ymir had bonded with Mikasa in some way and only agreed to Eren's radical plan to trigger the Rumbling if she would be the one to kill Eren.
Eren explains that Ymir was bound to Karl Fritz, despite the destruction he caused in her life, and was bound to him and his descendants for 2,000 years (it's confusing enough that even Eren doesn't fully understand). However, she begged to be free of this love in the same way Mikasa could be free of her love for Eren by deciding to kill him.
Armin finally understands the burden that Eren carried as the two hold each other in an emotional embrace. It's revealed that this conversation took place in the Paths whilst Armin was with Annie on the ship earlier, but the memory would only reveal itself upon Eren's death.
Back on the battlefield, Mikasa approaches Armin holding Eren's head. He wails and falls to the ground, recognising that Eren lost his life at their hands, with both parties trying to save some essence of humanity in their own vastly different manners.
Armin allows the Fort Salva army to believe he killed Eren, allowing Mikasa the time to leave and give Eren a proper burial on Paradis, which would not be sanctioned otherwise.
The Eldians return to human form as Titans have been extinguished from the world, meaning the wielders lose their powers. Levi faces his dead comrades, Jean and Connie find the spirit of Sasha smiling before them, and Attack on Titan fans all over the world try not to cry.
Three years later Titans have disappeared, footprints left from the Rumbling fill with rainwater and plants, and we learn that 80% of the population was sacrificed by Eren (yikes).
Historia stands as Queen of Paradis, with a new military operating under the Yeagerist banner, living peacefully but ready to face down and retaliate against the Eldians.
We see a ship coming into a Paradis port holding Armin, Annie, Connie, Jean, Reiner and Pieck, as the group acts as ambassadors for peace talks.
Gabi and Falco, looking much more grown up, are planting trees, and Levi, using a wheelchair and wearing an eye patch, shows his benevolent side by handing out candy to a child - a far cry from the fierce warrior we once knew.
Mikasa sits next to Eren's small grave, located beneath the tree he slept under in his youth. She tells him about the return of Armin and the others, asks if he's happy, and explains she wants to see him again.
A bird similar to one seen near the ship nips at her scarf before flying away, and she thanks Eren for wrapping her scarf around her all those years ago.
Birds and wings have appeared as symbols throughout the series, and here perhaps we're supposed to infer that Eren, like most birds, is experiencing the freedom he was robbed of.
During the credits, we see the same tree as the seasons pass over the years. We watch Mikasa age and grow old, bringing her family to Eren's grave before dying herself - buried in that same scarf.
What did the ending of Attack on Titan mean?
During the post-credits scene, something rather damning also happens. Paradis grows in size and becomes more modern, before eventually becoming engulfed in wars and eventually destroyed – only to be reclaimed by nature and Eren's tree.
And then, at the very end, a man and his dog explore the remains of Paradis. They come across the tree and we see it now has an entrance similar to the one Ymir passed through when she fused with the Centipede. This definitely hints that the cycle is beginning again, and the tragedy may begin anew if the Titans return to the world.
If this all seems a little depressing, then that seems to be the point.
In an interview with The New York Times, Attack on Titan creator Hajime Isayama said of the show's decidedly unhappy ending: "I guess there could have been an ending where it was a happy ending and the war ended and everything was fine and dandy. I guess that could have been possible.
"At the same time, the end of fighting and the end of contention itself kind of seems hokey.
"It kind of seems like it's not even believable. It's just not plausible in the world we're living in right now. And so, sadly, I had to give up on that kind of happy ending."
Isayama also spoke about how the show's ending and the lack of freedom facing Eren also reflect his journey in creating the Attack on Titan manga. He said:
"Writing manga is supposed to be freeing. But if I was completely free, then I should have been able to change the ending. I could have changed it and said I wanted to go in a different direction. But the fact is that I was tied down to what I had originally envisioned when I was young.
"And so, manga became a very restrictive art form for me, similar to how the massive powers that Eren acquired ended up restricting him."
Attack on Titan seasons 1-4, including Final Chapters, are available on Crunchyroll.
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