I'm Rafael, psychologist, And now I know how EREN feels, because after reading the MANGA of SHINGEKI NO KYOJIN, I watch the episodes ALREADY KNOWING WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN. DETERMINATION, PSYCHOPATHY, DEPRESSION, DILEMMAS. Today is the day for the SECOND REFLECTION on EREN YEAGER.
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THANKS! Understanding HOW EREN'S BEHAVIOR WORKS is counterintuitive in itself. IT IS NOT SIMPLE.
First, trying to understand what is going on in his MIND if he were in OUR REALITY is something at the very least, CURIOUS and quite COMPLICATED, for one simple reason — MEMORIES. We are talking about someone who has MEMORIES of many OTHER PEOPLE. The PERSONALITY of someone like that would certainly NOT BE THE SAME for a long time.
We, COGNITIVE THERAPISTS, know how much MEMORY AND THOUGHTS affect our life, our BEHAVIOR, the way WE ARE GOING TO FEEL. EREN has MEMORIES of things he has NEVER LIVED and MEMORIES change our PERCEPTION of the world. A SIMPLE FEELING can make us MAKE A DECISION.
A DREAM that we have INTENSELY, for example, can MODULATE OUR BEHAVIOR in the day. He comes out INSIDE THE WALLS and what he sees are even bigger WALLS. EREN, after understanding that the world outside WAS NOT WHAT HE IMAGINED, begins to deal with the world in a very DIFFERENT way.
And EREN, to SUPPORT all this, looked at himself in a very DIFFERENT way, looked at the WORLD from a ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE. He understood VARIOUS VIEWS —different from the ANCIENT EREN—, and chose HIS OWN PATH, a path full of DILEMMAS. Our MEMORIES can be IMMENSELY POWERFUL and for people struggling with MENTAL HEALTH CONDITIONS, that POWER can be a BURDEN, as MEMORY keeps a RECORD of what has made someone UNQUIET or BORED.
A person with DEPRESSION, for example, may have relatively WEAK MEMORY there for POSITIVE EVENTS and STRONG MEMORIES for NEGATIVES and relatively GENERAL rather than SPECIFIC memories about personal experience. And DEPRESSION has been associated with REDUCED VOLUME IN THE HIPPOCAMPUS, a part of the BRAIN that is important for MEMORY. Psychologist DANIEL KAHNEMAN made the following distinction about how EXPERIENCE and MEMORY affect our FUTURE BEHAVIOR.
He says that, in fact, WE DO NOT CHOOSE between EXPERIENCES, we choose between MEMORIES OF EXPERIENCES. And even when we think of the FUTURE, we don't think of OUR FUTURE, usually as EXPERIENCES, we think of OUR FUTURE as ANTICIPATED MEMORIES. This literally happens with EREN, who gradually receives MEMORIES OF THE FUTURE, from other people.
Of a very DETERMINISTIC FUTURE, where he doesn't have much POWER OF CHOICE. The main DIFFERENCE from the ANCIENT EREN to the CURRENT EREN is clear. I would say that the CURRENT EREN knows more about their own EMOTIONS.
He knows the TRIGGERS that TRIGGER them and with that, he starts to have a LESS REACTIVE BEHAVIOR. Remember that EMOTION is derived from THOUGHT. If we find ourselves experiencing STRONG EMOTIONS, it is helpful to examine the THOUGHTS that preceded that EMOTION.
So ask yourself the question: “ Are these THOUGHTS based on the TRUTH, or my PERCEPTION OF TRUTH? ” Finding the TRIGGERS that activate our EMOTIONS is one of the best ways to NOT TRY TO GET DRAWN by them, hence the importance of KNOWING YOURSELF. EREN, before, was in a clear process of EMOTIONAL DYSREGULATION.
If REGULATION OF EMOTIONS is the process of CONTROLLING EMOTIONS, keeping them in BALANCE and away from extremes, DEREGULATION is the opposite of that—GOING TO EXTREMES overnight. EREN is not like that anymore. And for me it is the main point of EREN'S EVOLUTION.
He understands who he really is—regardless of who he is. EREN is a PRISONER. Despite wanting FREEDOM, EREN is a PRISONER, but he is not a PRISONER of his own EMOTIONS.
EREN basically incorporated that RADICAL ACCEPTANCE that I mentioned in LEVI's video, which LEVI takes as a philosophy of life and that had passed on to EREN, at the beginning of the series. The time he spent in LIBERIO reflecting on everything bad that was going to happen, made him kind of ACCEPT that. EMOTIONAL ACCEPTANCE refers to the WILL and ability to ACCEPT A NEGATIVE EMOTION, to experience it, to recognize it, to absorb it.
It offers several ADVANTAGES on its own, advantages that were fundamental for EREN. First, by ACCEPTING YOUR EMOTIONS, you are accepting the TRUTH about your situation. It's raining, it's snowing, there's going to be this, there's going to be that.
This ACCEPTANCE means that you don't have to SPEND ENERGY TRYING TO TAKE AWAY THAT EMOTION. Instead, once the EMOTION is ACKNOWLEDGED, you can then turn to PURSUING BEHAVIORS that align with your GOALS AND VALUES. But seeing that circumstances WOULD NOT CHANGE, he realized that crying, complaining, or fighting her WOULDN'T WORK.
HE ACCEPTED HIS SITUATION and, with that, DIMINISHED HIS SUFFERING. MEMORIES AND PERSPECTIVES of other people may have contributed to EREN'S UNDERSTANDING OTHERS BETTER. He can totally understand FALCO, and especially in the conversation he has with REINER.
There it is shown how much, at that moment, he showed himself to be someone who UNDERSTAND THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE OTHER - something that the EREN OF OLD HAD HUGE DIFFICULTY. THE BEHAVIOR of the one he swore to kill in a cruel way, was no longer STRANGE for EREN. And here we see a BIG DIFFERENCE between the two CHARACTERS: REINER still feels GUILTY for what he did.
This RUMINATION completely affects the REINER'S COGNITION, a BLAME so great that even he thinks about TAKE AWAY HIS OWN LIFE. He was REMINDERING it, which seems to have driven him into DEPRESSIVE DISORDER. REINER demonstrates some traits of people who suffer from DEPRESSION.
EREN is in a state of RADICAL ACCEPTANCE. REINER knew he had done something WRONG, but he did it anyway. Just like EREN who KNEW also that he was close to doing things that he also considered WRONG, but that he would also DO.
EREN knew that THERE ARE GOOD PEOPLE ON THE OTHER SIDE, he in no way saw the world as a place where there were only BAD PEOPLE, but he, anyway, had a SIDE and he wouldn't give it up. He ends up there transforming into a TITAN and killing and fulfilling his function in LIBERIO, KILLING PEOPLE INDISCRIMINATELY. An interesting point is that he is questioned by MIKASA, she says “EREN, YOU KILLED CHILDREN, CIVILIAN.
” EREN doesn't answer anything, doesn't regret, doesn't blame himself , he just doesn't know what to say at that moment. And with that, EREN enters ONE OF THE BIGGEST DILEMMAS OF THE SERIES. The only certainty he has in this DILEMMA is that he decides to PRIORITIZE THE PEOPLE HE LIKES, the people of the island he was born, INSTEAD OF THE WHOLE WORLD.
It's a decision that generates a LOT of debate. A lot of people DON'T AGREE with EREN's decision, but a lot of people believe, in fact, that he made THE RIGHT CHOICE and a lot of people just UNDERSTAND what he did. In the late 1990s, JOSHUA GREENE and JONATHAN COHEN began a line of research inspired by the “TRAIN DILEMMA”, which was originally posed by philosophers JUDITH JARVIS AND PHILIPPA FOOT.
What is this “TRAIN DILEMMA”? It is an experiment of ETHICAL THINKING, where there is a TRAIN that is totally UNMANAGED and in the way of this TRAIN there are basically 5 PEOPLE STRESSED. They are UNABLE to move and are about to DIE.
You, who are seeing that situation, have the option of PULLING A LEVER, diverting the train tracks, but, consequently, it will HIT ANOTHER PERSON. There is another person on the other side BOUNDED. And if you pull, you will SAVE 5 PEOPLE, but you will KILL THAT ONE PERSON.
There is a VARIATION of this DILEMMA where there is no lever, but HAVING TO PLAY A PERSON who is on top of a bridge on the track and, with that, STOP THE TRAIN. In both situations you have THE CHOICE TO SAVE MORE LIVES. THE DIFFERENCE is that in this one you would have to be even MORE ACTIVE, since you are PUSHING someone else.
So, WHAT WOULD YOU DO? This situation is very similar to EREN'S SITUATION itself. He obtained the FOUNDER'S POWER.
He had ONE CHOICE: save his FRIENDS and ALLIES, or simply DO NOTHING and let things go towards the DESTRUCTION OF PARADIS ISLAND. This is PARADOXICAL, since if he didn't choose to do anything, he would already be CHOOSING. The philosopher Kant said that we should always treat people as an END IN THEMSELVES, never just as a MEANS TO OUR OWN ENDS.
This is known as the “ENDS PRINCIPLE”. It's pretty obvious that if you PUSH the man off the bridge to stop the tram, you're purely using him as a MEANS. To treat him as an END would be to respect that he is, in fact, a FREE AND RATIONAL person to explain the situation to him and SUGGEST that he SACRIFICE HIMSELF to save the lives of those connected to the track.
Of course, THERE IS NO GUARANTEE that he would be PERSUATED and this discussion could go on for a long time and the TRAIN could have already HIT people. EREN, choose to save YOUR FRIENDS, YOUR FAMILY. A choice that would cause the death of EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD.
Clearly he goes into COGNITIVE DISSONANCE, because he knows from the number of people, IT MAKES NO SENSE. When he thinks about saving RAMZI, an immigrant there, they know that the boy, in his view, would have a STORY LIKE HIS, but EREN doesn't want to think about it, he doesn't want to "PLAY THE HERO", as he says. .
Eren resigns himself to saying he's WORSE THAN THE REINER, he tells himself he's a HORRIBLE person and starts to BEHAVE LIKE SUCH, even minutes later, crying and APOLOGY to that child. EREN has a DISILLUSION WITH THE WORLD. The world was not what he imagined, the world was not what he imagined along with ARMIN.
EREN didn't exactly care about ELDIA, he cared about his COMPANIONS, the people who FIGHTED BESIDE HIM, who shared his PAIN, who suffered with him from the beginning. Neuroscientist JOSHUA GREENE, along with his colleagues, investigated WHICH PARTS OF THE BRAIN ACTIVATED when people considered the FIRST 2 VARIATIONS OF THE “TRAIN DILEMMA”. They observed that the FIRST VERSION OF THE DILEMMA, that is, the one that just PRESS THE LEVER, activated our LOGICAL AND RATIONAL mind and, therefore, if we decided to PULL THE LEVER, it was because we intended to SAVE MORE LIVES.
However, when we consider PUSHING the person, our EMOTIONAL REASONING gets involved and therefore we feel DIFFERENT ABOUT KILLING ONE IN ORDER TO SAVE FIVE. The same thing happens if the ONE PERSON BOUNDED was also a RELATIVE of yours, a CLOSE PERSON. And this is where the DILEMMA most resembles EREN'S CHOICE.
It's like the world is the 5 PEOPLE and that ONE PERSON is the IMPORTANT people to him. For many of us, the logic, THEORETICAL, would be to PULL THE LEVER so that the train hit ONE PERSON and with that, SAVE 5 LIVES, but what if that single person was a RELATIVE of yours, a close person? EREN went through exactly that.
His ACTION caused DEATH with the PURPOSE of SAVE other people. EREN had to HIDE BEHAVIOR, HIDE EMOTIONS and now, to understand more the OTHER POINTS OF VIEW, he ended up taking advantage of this and committing more MANIPULATIONS: manipulated YELENA, FALCO, ZEKE, GRISHA, FLOCK, YMIR —ME. He HID EMOTIONS from ARMIN and MIKASA — where he basically tried to make them both FEEL BAD, make them at the same time DISCONNECT HIM MORE EMOTIONALLY, as well as how to MOTIVATE THEM TO DEFEAT HIM IN THE FUTURE.
And even with MIKASA's REACTION regarding this, he remains FIRM in what he's saying. EMOTION REGULATION refers to MODIFICATION OF FREQUENCY, INTENSITY, DURATION, or TYPE OF EMOTIONAL RESPONSE. There are several different strategies to REGULATE EMOTIONS and that's basically THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PAIN AND SUFFERING.
EREN, yes, was FEELING PAIN regarding the actions he was going to take, but he was AVOIDING SUFFERING. We may FEEL PAIN in an UNCOMFORTABLE situation, but HOW WE RESPOND to that painful situation determines whether or NOT WE SUFFER. It's not just EREN that does that, okay?
WE DO TOO. We choose to appear to respond with LESS EMOTION, sometimes, for example, we may choose to CRY when we are watching a movie alone at home, but we try to HIDE THAT CRY when it happens at CINEMA, for example —Too specific, huh? Well, my case.
EREN didn't want to have said THOSE WORDS to his FRIENDS. At the end of the series, this is very evident, but if he didn't say IT WOULD MAKE NO SENSE for the context he was creating, for the context he was convinced was RIGHT. EREN is far from UTILITARIANISM, which is a family of CONSEQUENTIALIST THEORIES, defended mainly by JEREMY BENTHAM and JOHN STUART MILL, who say that ACTIONS ARE GOOD when they intend to PROMOTE HAPPINESS in the MOST GLOBAL way possible.
A MEGA UTILITY person can find MEANING IN THE DEATH OF NEAR AND DEAR PEOPLE. After all, one of the basic principles of UTILITARISM is that EVERYONE'S HAPPINESS counts EQUALLY. As JEREMY BENTHAM said, “Everyone counts as one, none for more than one”.
It is at this time that many people believe that UTILITARISM makes no sense, it is totally UNREAL. Not only do we NATURALLY tend to favor our OWN FAMILY over STRANGERS, but many think WE SHOULD DO THIS, as LOYALTY is considered a VIRTUE. It has always been like that.
So, in the eyes of many people, SACRIFICE FAMILY FOR STRANGERS goes against our NATURAL INSTINCTS and our most fundamental MORAL INTUITIONS. This UTILITY THINKING doesn't quite match EREN'S SITUATION, which PRIORITIZES PEOPLE CLOSE TO HIM ABOVE ANYTHING ABOVE EVEN HIMSELF. He wanted his FRIENDS, the people closest to him, TO LIVE AS LONG AS POSSIBLE, and he knew he WOULD NOT PARTICIPATE IN THAT.
For a long time, he had to CONVINCE HIMSELF that others WERE NOT HUMAN, that they didn't deserve to LIVE. He MANIPULATES THE FLOCH, telling HALF TRUTH. He says he's going to "EXTERMINATE ALL THOSE ANIMALS".
To make ANY SENSE in his head of what he was doing, he had to SEE PEOPLE OUTSIDE THE ISLAND as being LESS THAN HUMAN. THE JUDGMENT we make OF OURSELVES, NEAR people, or FAR people, is VARIABLE and different. We usually attribute an OTHER BEHAVIOR to an INTERNAL EVENT, that is, that person did such a thing because he didn't control himself, or didn't study, or was weak, but when we were wrong, we tend to BLAME EXTERNAL EVENTS like the rain that got in our way.
going to that test, the people at home who interfered with us studying, or something like that. In the case of EREN, it is very similar. If we are ON HIS SIDE, we judge his BEHAVIOR as much by WHAT HAPPENED around him.
ALL THE EVENTS THAT HAPPENED HIM. If we are AGAINST him, the JUDGMENT is that he is someone CHILD, a SADIST person and, most of the time, we tend not to find a BALANCED THOUGHT for that. Hence, the DIFFICULTY TO DEFINE IT.
Many will say that he was just someone simply CHILD, who had not been able to DEAL WITH THE FRUSTRATION OF REALIZING THAT THE WORLD IS NOT LIKE HE IMAGINED and, with that, he did something that even though he knew it was UNJUSTIFIABLE, he ended up doing it anyway, causing huge DAMAGE AND KILLING INNOCENTS, people who had nothing to do with the situation. Just like other people will say he is a SAVIOR, he fought for what he BELIEVED and decided to welcome all these DAMAGE he was going through FOR THAT GOAL. REFLECT is the only option in this case, it is a total training of EMPATHY.
EREN knew that NONE of his friends SUPPORTED this idea. He knew that his MOTHER WOULDN'T SUPPORT this either, but at the same time, he also realized how INEVITABLE, something he felt the need to do, that if he didn't do it, it would bring HARM to him and maybe he would feel EVEN MORE GUILTY, for that's his CONVICTION. I see it a lot as if I was in that “TRAGIC TALE OF OEDIPUS'', where he knew the FUTURE and as much as he FIGHT AGAINST it, he simply HAD NO WAY TO CHANGE IT.
And even though he KNEW EVERYTHING that was going to happen, he couldn't do anything to CHANGE it. He SUFFERED A LOT and also made MANY PEOPLE SUFFER. It's like KENNY ACKERMAN himself said: "Everyone needs to be DRUNK with something to CONTINUE".
For EREN it was exactly that. He CONVINCED HIMSELF that he was making THE RIGHT CHOICE and that shaped his BEHAVIOR. He would probably NOT SAVE 5 PEOPLE at the expense of SOMEONE IMPORTANT to him.
Some will see him in this DILEMMA as being the TRAIN itself. Not to mention the HATE he CULTIVATED for all this time. Cognitive neuroscience professor REBECCA SAXE says that HATE is a mixture of INTENSE ANTIPATIA, MORAL CONSPECT, and DISGUSTING—"THE MORAL REASON FOR EXTREME VIOLENCE, WHERE THE OTHER MUST BE DESTROYED TO MAKE THE WORLD BETTER, FAIRER, TO MAKE THE WORLD BETTER, MORE FAIR.
WHAT I CARE MOST. ” She concluded that HATE and VIOLENCE are not exactly caused by SOCIOPATHY TRENDS, but rather the extreme culmination of perceiving a THREAT TO THE EXISTENCE OF HER GROUP. That is, you don't exactly need someone with PSYCHOPATHY to do EXTREME ACTS.
EREN, for example, would not fit the ROBERT HARE PSYCHOPATHY SCALE, largely due to the fact that EREN demonstrates EMPATHY AND REPENTANCE for what he did - something EXTREMELY DIFFICULT in individuals who have this DISORDER. THE WORLD OF SHINGEKI is about this CONFLICT between RIGHT AND WRONG. EREN's confidence in believing he was doing the RIGHT thing moved the story.
In the often quoted here on the channel “FAST AND SLOW” by psychologist and economist DANIEL KAHNEMAN, he will call EXCESS CONFIDENCE “THE MOST SIGNIFICANT OF ALL BIASES”. If we were properly HUMBLE about PSYCHOLOGICAL VULNERABILITIES, we would be better able to PROTECT ourselves from the ERRORS to which HUMAN NATURE makes us PRONE. Rather , an EXCESSIVE FAITH IN YOURSELF and in our JUDGMENT, means that we often ignore our VULNERABILITY TO BIAS AND ERROR.
EXTREME CONFIDENCE in your IMMORTALITY leads TO DEATH, that is, certainty itself is an EMOTIONAL STATE, not an intellectual one. To create a FEELING OF SURE, the BRAIN must FILTER much more INFORMATION than it PROCESSES, which naturally greatly increases its already HIGH ERROR RATE during EMOTIONAL EXCITEMENT. In other words, THE MORE CERTAIN YOU FEEL, THE MORE LIKELY YOU ARE WRONG and maybe that explains EREN'S TRUST IN ARMIN.
That's what he says AT THE END to him, that he was THE PERSON MOST ABLE TO GUIDE HUMANITY. What was SURE IN EREN, was missing in ARMIN. But it's not just SURE that defined this character so COMPLEX, his very NATURE OF ACT.
The PAINS he went through and then the PAINS he knew he would go through. THE BLAME, THE SHAME, the pain of being MISUNDERSTANDED will be marked in his FINAL EXPRESSION. As it says in an excerpt from LAST SEASON'S OPENING SONG "Nobody knows what's inside me.
" Add it all up and we have a COMPLEX AND TRAGIC CHARACTER. After all, as the famous saying goes, “The road to HELL is paved with GOOD INTENTIONS”. Like, subscribe, share.
It's just the beginning.
