Eren Yeager - Character Analysis

by PlatinumInk -ed

This is not a story! This is me writing a character analysis essay for school and it ending up to be 12 pages in font size 12 in real life so I decided to put it up as a work. Please note that this is my impression of his character. If I messed anything up, please tell me to I am able to correct it, if I agree with your note. Please give credit if you use my work or I'll sue you.

Characterisation of a fictional Character

Eren Jäger (Yeager)

Eren Yeager is an incredibly complex character with a long and painful journey of Character development. From his early life to adulthood, he has been put on many trials and challenges which resulted in not only affecting his mental but also his emotional state, causing his character to develop rapidly in the first three seasons. A quick author's note, or respectively a disclaimer: I am not done with all four seasons yet and since the Anime is expected to release the last episode in spring 2022, it is literally impossible to be done at this current point in time. I will therefor only characterize Eren Yeager up to that point in time but trust me, there is enough to say about him and his journey of loss, betrayal and redemption.

Firstly, I will present some common knowledge like appearance. The character we chose to characterize is called Eren Yeager, who is the protagonist in the Anime Shingeki no Kyojin, which translates to Attack on Titan and Shingeki! Chuugakkou, translating to Attack Junior High. In this characterization, we will concentrate on Shingeki no Kyojin. When Eren is first introduced in the Anime, he is 10 years old, being born on the 30. March 835 and looks rather boyish with a mop of brown hair, big green-blueish eyes and tanned skin. At that age he was 1.4 meters tall. He wears an olive colored T-Shirt normally meant for an adult to wear and a brown too big jacket on top, some grey shorts and a pair of worn out boots. This changes though after a short time skip after Armin Arlert, a very smart boy who was Erens first friend, suggests joining the military after they reached their legal joining age in one years' time. I will later come back to Arlert. Eren from then on wears military issued clothes and 3DMG (also called ODM-Gear). Those include white loose pants, knee high leather boots, a T-Shirt chosen by each individual soldier (in Erens case his olive colored T-Shirt that was meant for an adult from the start) and a khaki jacket that goes to the waist and which is embroidered with the emblem of the regiment which you belong to. The last asset would be the 3DMG (3D Maneuver Gear), which is also called ODM-Gear (Omnidirectional Maneuver Gear). It consists of multiple leather straps and plates that run over your entire body so you can be exposed to forces over 20 G without having to worry about occasional habits like health problems or fractures. In enables soldiers to be the most agile as possible so they are able to subjugate the enemy as quick as possible and cut their nape to finish them off since cutting a Titans nape is the only way to kill them fast enough before they regenerate their body parts. In season 4, the viewer experiences a time skip of approximately 4 years. By then Eren changed forces and therefor his looks after infiltrating the enemy and using a child that is currently trained to kill him in case he was found, to send letters to his old comrades Armin, Mikasa, Levi, Jean etc. and enables himself to have a talk with Reiner Braun, his hidden enemy since season 1 episode 1, who revealed himself due to mental health issues in the 6th episode of Season 2 (which is exactly mid-season). Reiner played a big part in twisting Erens mental stability to make him the man he is today, even if only unconsciously. More of that later. Eren wears at that point military issued clothes from Marley, which can be identified as the China today that is currently in war with almost the entire rest of the world and winning, since they hold the powers of 7 out of the 9 titan shifters as far as I have watched it. The place where season 1 to 3 takes place is by the way todays Japan, which is called "Paradis-Island" in their timeline. After the time skip, Eren has grown long hair that goes down to his shoulders. He prefers to wear it either loose or in a bun tight to the back of his head (He looks so hot). By then his character has changed drastically after we saw a short excerpt of his already broken mind in the last minutes of the last episode of season 3, where he finally gets to see the ocean, which doesn't make him happy in one bit since his conception of the world was horribly shaken and moved, after finding out that Titans not only were once human but also after finding out that they were made by mankind from Marley out of people that called themselves people of Ymir, who was a goddess holding all 9 Titan powers, including the Founding Titan everyone wants to take from Eren, after he ate his father who subjected himself to recover said Founding Titan but hadn't had enough time left to complete his goal, given by one Eren Kruger, the former holder of the Attack Titan, the Titan power Eren inherited from his father, since one has only 13 years left to live after first transforming since a Titans spinal fluid destroys the blood system from the inside out after first injected. This only happens with ´Titan shifters though since pure Titans (humans that have been injected with spinal fluid but weren't able to eat a person with shifting powers after that happened, may live forever as a Titan until they are being killed by the Recon Corps, cutting 10 centimeters of flesh out of their nape, using 3DMG). Eren wears a white uniform with a red armband on his right biceps, indicating that he is an Eldian, which is basically a person that is an ancestor of Ymir and therefor a person able to turn into a Titan in the first place. If Titan spinal fluids would be injected into an Marleyan or any other person, one could not turn into a Titan at all. His hair is loose and he misses an eye (whose socket he hides with some bandages around his head) as well as his right leg, which he could just grow back with his Titan healing abilities but doesn't because it is part of his disguise (More of that later). He doesn't wear 3DMG anymore (which now has a new style after being updated by the technical Regiment of the Walls of Mitras that includes actual armor, especially over the vital organs, as well as a place to store thunder spears, which are weapons to penetrate the armored Titans armor to be able to kill him, even though Reiner, the holder of these particular shifting abilities, already wants Eren to kill him for a reason I yet have to find out, though I expect it to be guilt or regrets. In my opinion Levi Ackerman could teach him something about choices). That is all to Erens appearance as well as common knowledge.

Now I will give some details about his home, his language and his profession. Eren was born in year 835 in a little district called Shiganshina, southern of the capital. Shiganshina is part of the Walls of Mitras which I will now explain, as well as the function. The Walls of Mitras describe 3 Walls built in three huge circles to protect the people living inside as well as they can from the outside. They were built by King Franz, the Person trying to save his race from the Marleyans who also held the power of the Founding Titan. He ordered many Colossal Titans (with a height of at least 60 meters) to stand shoulder on shoulder and then ordered them to use a power they have called Titan hardening to build walls. The wall all the way in the middle, containing the Kings' Castle and every rich person is called Wall Sina. The second Wall for middle class is called Wall Rose and the last Wall for the other low class people is called Wall Maria. Under Wall Sina are the remains of an underground project that was to be a place to hide if the Walls would've proven to be useless but since that never happened, the Underground project was stopped and every scum, thug or homeless was locked down there and a fee was instituted so they would not just come back out. This resulted in many casualties, health issues and Vitamin problems but it worked for the government as an alternative than sending everyone outside the Walls.

Every wall has four districts just outside with a gate to them so one can change Walls or enable the Scouting Regiment to leave the Walls for an expedition. Not every district was given a specific name in the Anime though the following were included in the Anime since the characters spend more time there than just thinking about them. The southern district of Wall Maria where Eren, Armin and Mikasa grew up is called Shiganshina, the other names are unknown since they had to abandon the district as well as Wall Maria in season 1 episode 1 after the Colossal Titan, a Titan shifting ability held by Berthold Hoover, and the Armored Titan, held by Reiner Braun, broke both the gates of Shiganshina and Wall Maria and let the Titans in which also resulted in Erens mother Carla to be eaten in front of his eyes by the smiling Titan, who is actually Erens Step-mother if one pays attention to all the Titans that were made by the Marleyans about 14 years ago, since Erens father Grisha Yeager was actually an Eldian living on Marleyan before his son Zeke Yeager snitched on him and his mother Dina Fritz, who was Grishas' first wife and a direct descendant of Ymir and the royal family of Reiss, meaning she was one of the only people left with actual untainted royal blood. Next are the districts in Wall Rose. Three names are known. The northern one is called Utopia District and as well as in Karanes District, which is located on the eastern side of Wall Rose, no special scenes take place in them. The last known district is Trost district, which is on the southern side of the wall again. The second attack of the Colossal Titan took place at this district. Right at the beginning of the battle, Eren is really extatic and can't wait to kill the Titan (more of that later) but gets his left leg bitten off about 5 seconds after joining the battle. His best friend Armin Arlert freezes in shock as he sees every person on his squad getting eaten by Titans and can't move, even when a Titan picks Armin himself up to eat him. Eren is the one to save Armin though, pulling him out of the Titans mouth and then reaching for him. The Titan closes his mouth though and amputates Erens left arm while he's at it and swallows Eren whole. Eren later saves himself by accidentally transforming into a Titan and later sealing the broken gate with a boulder he carried all the way there in his titan form. Later he almost gets executed for not being human but instead is given in the hands of Captain Levi Ackerman, Squad Leader Hanji Zöe and Commander Erwin Smith of the Recon Corps after they fought for Eren being humanities last hope and a valuable asset to humanities triumph against the Titans. Unconsciously they too play a big role in breaking Eren apart as well as holding him together. All districts of Wall Sina are known, though the eastern Stohess District is the only actually important one, since an entire arc of the Anime/Manga plays here in season 1. It is mentioned multiple times in season 2 and 3. The other ones are Ehrmich District in the south, Yarckel District in the west and Orvud District in the north. Eren Yeager experienced one of his first actual panic attacks on the wall when they were to kill Rodd Reiss, who is Historia Reiss' father, after only recently was found out that she was being forced to join the military under the pseudonym Christa Lenz for her fathers' crimes though considering the only other option was execution it was a good deal for her since she also found herself a girlfriend called Ymir whose last name is unknown. Later it is to be found out that Ymir is also a Titan shifter after she accidentally ate a shifter after she was transformed into a pure Titan more than 7 decades before her retransformation. Titans are attracted to great human masses since they want to eat them, hoping to regain humanity and as Ymir described it: "To escape the never ending nightmare". That is why the King made those districts so the Titans are bound to go to the districts rather to some random place in the wall to breach it and attack, which makes it easier for the military to kill them. That much about his home. Eren Yeager speaks Paradisian which can either be an entirely new language or another name of today's Japanese since the Anime not only plays in Japan for the first three seasons but also is originally Japanese. One could also say that Eren speaks German since he is supposed to be from Germany (or at least his ancestors). Saying everything about these conspiracy theories would take ages though and since this is about Erens past, present and character I will not go deeper into that. Considering his profession, many would say "of course he is a soldier" which is of course partly true but he is actually more and less than that. Eren was indeed a soldier for about three episodes of season one. After he and all the others found out about his Titan abilities, he was stripped of every human right he had as well as every right as a soldier. He was only an asset to be moved around to destroy what his superiors ordered him to destroy. Not everyone knew this but Eren did, since it was pretty obvious after he was formed to spend the rest of his time sleeping behind bars, locked in a cell with his wrists chained because nobody trusted him enough to stay in a normal bedroom. He also had to undergo multiple experiments on his body arranged and done by Squad Leader Hanji Zöe who proved multiple times not to only be an exceptional soldier but also a mad scientist trying to look at titans from a different point of view, which included performing multiple inhumane and unethical experiments on pure Titans but also on Eren after he was handed over with mixed results. Even though Erwin held high respect to Eren before his death and even after Levi warmed up to him after beating Eren to oblivion in court during Erens trial, it still impacted Eren a great deal which also resulted in breaking him a little.

Moving on to Erens personality, his attitude towards obvious topics, his relationships, popularity as well as his character development throughout the seasons of the Anime. Eren is very determined. He is also very impulsive, not always thinking before he acts. He is shown to be very brave, sacrificing himself to save Armin during the Trost arc that I have mentioned earlier. He can be described as hard-headed, strong-willed, passionate, impulsive and even depressed with his weak mental state as you can see in season 3 episode 6 nearing the end of the Reiss arc, which is the first or second arc in the third season, depending if one recognizes the section with Levi's past as his own arc or as part of the Reiss arc, although Kenny Ackerman, Levi's uncle on his mothers' side, who was Kuchel Ackerman before she died of an illness resulting in Levi almost starving at the age of what is believed to be ten before he was found by Kenny, has his own history with Levi again, which is also internalized in several episodes. With an exception of the depressed trait, all these are attributes of his strong determination of protecting mankind and eventually escaping the Walls with the family that he has left. Even as a young child, Eren was very intend on joining the Recon Corps that he argued and shouted at his mother, referring to the people inside the Walls and especially in the districts as "silly" and compared them to complacent livestock. Armin Arlert was Erens first and only friend as a child so he cared very deeply for him and after he met his adoptive sister Mikasa Ackerman, he met his second friend and constant that would help him throughout live to at least keep his sanity longer than he would've without them. One can see how deeply he cares for those he considers family, risking harm and even death in order to help them. Eren always stays true to them and tries his best that these constants remain, though he obviously notices that Mikasa is in love with him. The quality of caring for his friends and trying to keep them safe at all cost was often demonstrated in the form of Eren taking on the older and stronger boys bullying Armin, because of his preaching about the world outside the Walls since not talking about the outside or leaving the walls was an unspoken rule. That was demonstrated in season 3 when Erwin Smith, commander of the Scouting Regiment reveals that his father, who was a teacher, was executed for telling the students that the history books were most likely wrong since many things didn't add up and were very vague. It is also shown more tragically during the arc where Wall Maria was first attacked by the Colossal Titan when a boulder landed on top of the Yeager residence and crushed Carla Yeagers legs, trapping her inside. Eren tries everything to lift it and refuses to leave her when Hannes, a soldier of the Garrison Regiment and friend of the family appears to help and Carla asks him to take her son and her adoptive daughter to safety and leave her. This is also the point in time where Eren watches his mother get eaten by his step-mother as a Titan. In contrast to that, Eren is also capable of displaying very violent behaviour in the defense of people he does not even know. This is especially highlighted when he brutally slaughtered two of the human traffickers who captured Mikasa in order to rescue her, despite the fact that they were total strangers at the time. Since witnessing his mother's gruesome demise and losing contact with his father, who left Shiganshina just mere hours before the breach for some very vague business inside Wall Sina, his fierce protectiveness to those he has left only intensified. Despite his habit of pushing people away with not only his attitude and words, he does keep those he considers allies close to him where he can protect them best. Many of Erens defining traits date back to his childhood, even before he got to know Mikasa. He came to share Armin's awe of the lands beyond the Walls after the latter showed him a forbidden book he found in his grandfather's possessions, depicting the wonders of the outside world, and they promised each other to see it at least once in their live together. Note that this is one of the reasons Levi decides to save Armin instead of Erwin in the end of season 3 after he was badly burnt and barely hanging onto life after sacrificing himself for Eren to have enough time to seal the broken gate of Wall Maria with his Titan hardening abilities in the last arc of season 3 which is the arc of retaking Wall Maria. This also led Eren to develop a scornful attitude to anyone content to live and die within the confines of the Walls without ever setting a foot outside. This very contempt may have been the reason he did not easily make friends with his peers and that his relationships with other people almost always starts out rather negative. He resented both the Walls that "caged" them in like cattle and the Titans that had driven humanity to erect them in the first place. The latter is also the reason why Eren so greatly admires the soldiers of the Recon Corps, referring to them as the "heroes of humanity" and wishing to join their ranks as soon as he became eligible for enrolment. He often easily took offense if anyone dared to insult the Scouting Regiment and his determination to join their ranks caused tension between himself and his mother, as well as to Mikasa who pledged herself Erens personal guard and protector, claiming he wouldn't survive without her. This dependency on Erens backup may have been caused when Eren saved her from almost being sold as one of the last Asians alive, since almost every one of them was exterminated by Marley. Eren encouraged her to fight and defend herself, saying and I quote in the English translation: "Fight! You have to fight and defend yourself! You can't win if you don't fight. You will only keep losing until you have nothing left so fight for what you have and your freedom! Fight!". Eren had a marked lack of self-restraint that often led him into trouble as well as fights, causing both his friends, peers and family to worry about him. His limited self-control extended to his temper, and as a result, it is short at best and murderous at the very worst, considering how he so often pledged to kill all the titans. His temper is also a cause for his personality in season 4 since he so often pledged himself to kill all the titans to protect humanity, while not only being half Titan himself but also having found out that he was actually killing former humans that did nothing wrong but prayed to the wrong god. When sufficiently provoked, his anger could drive him into a tantrum, hardly coming out of it again, accompanied by horrific levels of violence. He tended to view the world in terms of black-and-white, having great compassion for humanity and its plight, but deeming those individuals who deny others their freedom as worthless scum, not fit to be left alive. He also had the habit of thinking with his heart rather than his head, even in situations where his own life was in danger. This is the reason why many of his peers, who are more or less his friends, call him by his nickname rather than his actual name, it being "suicidal bastard". But while one can indeed see some character development during the first three seasons, one can barely recognize the protective, short-tempered, determined boy from before. I for instance hadn't guessed that Eren would have matured so much and gotten his temper, anxiety and depression under control in only four years of emotional anguish and torture. When one looks back to the Uprising arc, where Eren and his comrade Historia a kidnapped by her family, descendants of the original King of the Walls. Their goal being to retake the power of the Founding Titan back from Eren Yeager, who himself had taken it by the willing self-sacrifice of his father, Grisha Yeager, who took it from Frida Reiss, the last holder of the Founding Titan by eating her alive after she refused to help all the Eldians still trapped on Marley being suppressed and dictated. Despite them being rescues eventually by Squad Levi and the other iconic allies of Eren, the experience both humbled and traumatized the young soldier, who had up until now believed that he was the key to the salvation of mankind and humanity within the walls. The truth of how he came to possess his powers causes him to become more cooperative and appreciative of his comrades and leads to the Recon Corps victory over the Titans on Paradis. Yet this victory holds no peace for Eren, as he has now become aware of the true enemy over the sea, the nation of Marley. It's during the time skip of four years between then and the Battle of Liberio, which is a little town in Marley that Eren undergoes his change. It is easy to assume that Eren has always been a monster, even as a child, as he showed a natural leaning towards extreme violence such as the incident concerning Mikasas kidnappers. Despite the somewhat shonen depiction of his anger as emo outbursts, there are moments where the true depths of his rage come out. That said, I refuse to believe that the Eren Yeager who was an angry and lost orphan is the same Eren Yeager who manipulated an early war between Paradis Island and Marley over resources. When season 4 starts, one does not get any information about Eren and Paradis island for multiple episodes before it is revealed that the broken man with one leg, one eye, amnesia and PTSD Falco, a warrior in training like Reiner and Berthold already absolved, befriended and helped to send letters is actually a very capable and very focused Eren Yeager, who gained so much control over his body's abilities over the last years that he can actually stop himself from healing altogether just to finish the entire process in near seconds at will. Eren is much more composed of himself and doesn't give into the tantrums and rants that he had been known for. When he tricks Falco into bringing Reiner to a cell underground for a talk, he had cut his hand in order to be able to transform at any time at will, blackmailing Reiner to be calm and sit down in chair Eren prepared for him, forcing him to listen to what Eren has to say is important for this reason. He's patient and bides his time, gaining information on Marley and its people. Eren even says that he does not hate them at all and acknowledges that not all of them are bad people. When the battle finally does begin, he is still surprisingly calm and composed, not going out of control as he had in the past, enabling him to recognize key moments of the battle to swing it in the Survey Corps' favour. He is completely ready to do anything in order to accomplish his goal though and therefore causes many causalities, many children included. The first time he actually does loose his cool is when he hears Sasha Brauss, a friend since his cadet years, last words before passing, being "meat". At first one could just think that Eren finally reached insanity when he starts laughing hysterically is actually a panic attack that we witnessed one other time before where another long-time family friend, Hannes, was eaten by the same titan that ate his mother and despite Eren's best efforts had been powerless to stop it. Younger Eren was not subtle in any way. He lost his composure as soon as he spotted a Titan and was always quick to yell anyone into the mud who showed a lack of commitment in exterminating the Titans. His powers only enabling his rage further, repeatedly stomping Titans into a mess of skin and blood during the Trost arc. After being kidnapped by Reiner and Berthold alongside Ymir, who died not long after going with Reiner and Berthold willingly, comrades and friends whom turn out to not only be traitors, but the very titans who caused the fall of Shiganshina, his childhood home, he swears in a very cold and murderous fashion to make them suffer "in the worst way possible." Young Eren was motivated by blind feelings, wanting to make them suffer before they died. However, I would not say that this incarnation died during his captivity with the Reiss family. Finding out that that his own father committed mass murder to gain the power of the Founding titan like Berthold and Reiner, and that he himself then devoured him in a blacked out memory puts out that righteous fury forever. From then on he is only driven by his protectiveness of his friends as he stopped believing in self-centered goals of vengeful satisfaction. His memory download from touching Historia only further distances Eren from his original self. Eren now acts only out of a sense of burden to protect Paradis and his family. Again this is why the conversation Eren and Reiner had was so important and more or less the key of understanding new Eren Yeager. No longer blinded by self-centered rage, he fully knows the consequences of what he's about to do and listens beautifully to the advice Levi-Heichou once gave him on the 57th expedition beyond the walls during the Female Titan arc, which was that it didn't matter what he decided, only that he should decide without regretting it later and living with the consequences because there were many decisions no superior could make for another person. He understands that there are innocent people in Liberio who are going to be killed because of him, which he can't prevent. He is aware that he has manipulated his friends and comrades in the Survey Corps into a battle they didn't want to fight yet or even weren't really ready to yet. He knows that they will no longer trust him and that he will no longer be considered a soldier anymore because of his actions, even though it was always painfully obvious which status he had. He may have worn a soldiers' attire for the years he spent with them but after everyone found out about his condition, he was no longer considered one since he had no rights left to protect him from certain things. He does it anyway and lives without regrets. Being haunted by memories that aren't his from all the other owners of the Attack Titan's abilities before he inherited it and maybe even from people that are yet to come, since Eren Kruger, the person owning it before Erens father, told Grisha to protect Armin and Mikasa, who weren't even born at that point. Kruger asks himself whose memories those are after Grisha asks who Armin and Mikasa are. This can only mean that the memories go both ways: Past to present, Future to present. Though through them, Eren understands that there are some goals that cannot be achieved without bloodshed and that it is extremely tragic, but that he believes is necessary. The knowledge of both past and future becomes a great burden that not only weighs on him, but also increases by the minute. The burden weights him down and he is not able to talk to anyone about it since no one has seen what Eren has seen, but they probably wouldn't want to talk about it with Eren anyway after he betrayed their trust. That while his friends cling to little sparks of hope where some Marleyans overcome their prejudice, only Eren sees with a far-sight that the majority will probably not. Especially those in power, not wanting to lose it obviously because that is what would happen if they were to give in and convert. This severity, this growing despair, is what is driving him to the familiar extremes, doing things he never would have done when he first joined the military. Yet there is no rage and anger in his violence as one would have expected from Eren like before during the Trost arc after Thomas was eaten. No tantrums, no rants and no tirades about revenge and death. This is who Reiner is confronted with when reuniting with Eren four years later. A man who knows there's no glory in what he's about to do and that he is already damned and has accepted that destiny. This is what scares Reiner when meeting Eren again after 4 years. Falco notices Reiners tension and how afraid he is as he bought Reiner down to him. Reiner was used to dealing with an emotionally constipated teen with no reason to logic. That is what scares him because Eren is not only strong but also smart and invincible if he wants to be, partnered with his determination and protectiveness as a goal to keep himself from breaking apart. His rage and temper always prevented him from reaching his full potential. Now that he overcame that, there is no stopping him from achieving his ultimate goal of freedom of his own soul. A Titan shifter only has 13 years left to live after first transforming which means when considering that his father turned him at 10 years old that he only has to live until he is 23 years old. In season 4, Eren reached his 19th year to live and has not much time left to achieve it. It is expected that Eren concentrates himself on doing exactly everything in his power to free himself by winning the war, expecting to suddenly become happy again, since one can basically watch Eren lose his smile throughout the seasons as he end up as a broken man with nothing left to hold him back, just as his Captain Levi Ackerman, who also repeatedly lost everything he managed to build himself until he broke and pledged himself to Erwin Smith, who was the last cause to break him, until his death, as well as to humanity. The irony in this is that this makes Eren Yeager more dangerous than his younger self ever was. Both personalities are motivated by an ultimate goal to achieve but older Eren is motivated by something higher and more absolute than himself, driving him to sacrifice everything he had left and once held dear like the only constants in his life and more. Whereas the younger version may have had an aversion to extreme violence, but he also had limits. As he is now, those limits are gone for of what he feels he must do to achieve his goal. I think Eren absolutely has regret but instead of dwelling on them, he just continues and chooses to move forward without holding him back. In the end he does not achieve personal freedom of the soul anyway because even though the Anime isn't done yet, the Manga is. In the 139th and last chapter Eren does not achieve his ultimate goal which can also be seen on the number the chapter is identified with. The number 140 also represents a personal sense of freedom which Eren didn't achieve. It may just be a coincidence but it is worth mentioning in my opinion.

In conclusion, Eren Yeager is a very complex and well written character that makes the story even more interesting for the person watching the Anime or reading the Manga. His character development is comprehensible and traceable and overall not too fast at a time. People don't need to empathize with the character after all he has done and has yet to do but they can understand from a certain point of view why he is doing what he is doing. Eren Yeager is not evil in any way and every person believing that does not understand Erens background. Eren is not a bad person, he is just broken (and incredibly hot) whatever happens, Eren will stay one of the fandoms most loved character after Levi Ackerman for obvious reasons (read my characterisation of Levi on reddit for reasons). Overall, Eren is still determined and protective as well as strong willed. Those traits accompanied him throughout his entire heroes-journey. He lost many friends along the way and may did some questionable things and in the end he may not have achieved his goal after all but he did all he could and that is to his credit. In the end it is always the journey and the point of view to look at something and not what the ending tells us. It's what we interpret into it and if one is not satisfied, there is always fanfiction and other fanworks to make it better for each individual person.