Board Thread:Manga/@comment-5774380-20151209012906/@comment-26932251-20151213084746

If I can just briefly express some "sympathy for the devil"...

It's not that Erwin doesn't care about other people and he doesn't care about saving and bettering the lives of the world within the wall, it's just he doesn't share a worldview.

This is because he knows most people around him are living an illusory existence. He knew it from an early age because the theories of his father hit so close to a nerve that the royal government was willing to kill him for it. He doesn't have proof yet and he doesn't know the existence but he knows that most human beings are living a lie.

And what I believe is happening with Erwin... if he knows that most people are living an illusion, it's not to say he doesn't care at all about them, Erwin I believe is a very complex man with conflicting motives, it's just he can't bring himself to ever invest in the world as it's presented to him the way other people can and do. And so, when given the choice, he does see himself capable of making immense sacrifices in pursuing his curiosity (which, in his defense, I would argue harmonizes with the interests of most human beings alive. For instance, if Erwin had somehow become king, then he would not have thrown nearly all of the Wall Maria people out to the titans because it wouldn't have served his goal of curiosity about the true nature of the world.) because quite frankly he sees the world not necessarily as it exists to serve only his interests, he's not a sociopath by a longshot, but rather possessing an inescapably arbitrary facade.

Also, I think he just has an overblown case of survivor's guilt. I mean, the surveyors are not conscripts, they are mostly people dedicated to knowing the world beyond the walls and eventually conquering the world beyond the walls. I feel Erwin is too hard on himself and feels guilty merely because he's alive when so many like him who share his goals, if not his degree of existential awareness, have died and have died at his orders. If I could talk to him I would tell him that he owes the fallen the successful acquisition of the objectives of finding out the truth about the world and eventually using that truth to make the world safe for humans again, which is what nearly everyone who has been killed in action in the survey corps would have wanted. At the end of the day, if he can clear that hurdle, then he's as alright as he can be given his circumstances.