The discussion about this has turned downright stupid. Everyone is crying about poor Erwin this and poor Erwin that. Okay, I get it. Y’all like Erwin. Me too! Which is why I’ve given him lots of thought. Because a complex character like Erwin Smith cannot be boiled down to ‘he feels guilty’ & ‘that’s sad! what a tragic figure.’
Erwin has every right to feel guilty for asking people to sacrifice themselves for humanity when all along he’s only wanted to know the secret of the world. If you want to dig even further down, it’s starting to seem like he doesn’t even want to know this to save humanity! HE JUST WANTS TO KNOW BECAUSE HE WANTS CLOSURE. FOR HIMSELF. (This is because of his father. He needs to know if his father was just a whack conspiracy theorist put down to avoid civilian panic, or if he was really onto something for real all along and silenced because of that–because Erwin opened his big innocent mouth and told all his friends. But because he feels guilty about opening his mouth, we know that this is 100% something he’s in for for himself.)
Erwin’s admirable trait isn’t that he feels guilty: it’s that he knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s very self-aware.
What people should be asking is this: does Erwin really feel guilt for what he’s done?
The answer is yes, but the next question is: what does this guilt mean?
And the answer to that is: nothing.
The reality is as follows: the guilt has always been overshadowed by his longing for the answer he’s sought most of his life. Because of this, he will sacrifice all his friends and subordinates for his own selfish goal. And he’s aware that this is what he is doing. He’s aware of the people he’s hurt–that have died for him. People he liked and trusted (Mike, Nanaba, Gelgar). Yet his caring is not enough to overthrow his obsession.
Because obsession is what it is! He’s literally at a point in his life where he needs to know the truth of the world before he dies and he doesn’t care about anything or anyone else–not enough, anyway.
Erwin has been consumed by his end goal. THAT is what’s sad. Not his guilt.
His guilt is nothing in the face of his obsession with wanting to learn the truth about the world–in seeing his father’s theory proved true (or not, but we know he thinks it’s true).
I won’t deny that he’s sacrificed a lot for this…but some of what was sacrificed? Was not his to sacrifice.
And we can argue day and night about how those who join the SC are adults and can make their own choice, but were tricked into it (to an extent). They believed in his speech. Hell, he admits that sometimes he was able to believe in it, too–in his own constructed myth of what the Survey Corps meant under his command. He admits that he took a position of power and used it for his own selfish gains–just because they are not monetary gains doesn’t mean any less. He fooled even those he considered his friends (I mean come the fuck on he tricked LEVI into believing it! Levi! Who watched his friends die in front of him!!!!) and encouraged people to lay down their lives not for humanity’s sake as they believed, but for Erwin Smith’s sake. So he could reach his goals.
This is not an attempt to discredit Erwin. The Survey Corps was beating their head against a wall (pun intended I guess) for too long. They needed Erwin’s long-range scouting formation because ultimately it did save lives. They needed his fresh ways of doing things.
And it’s not as if he was in this mindset all the years of his command, either; for a very long time he had nothing to go on. His first hint of something was Eren. After that point is most of what we (the readers) see of Erwin, and so really only in the last handful of months has he truly been acting with selfish intentions in mind. Before this, his goal aligned pretty much with everyone else’s in the Survey Corps: fight for humanity (because in doing so I may learn the secret of our world that my father died for)!
But after Eren’s abilities are shown, Erwin’s obsession manifests itself–and quickly. It’s hard to hate him for it, even though it’s terrible of him to be so absorbed in his own fucking world at this point that he doesn’t even involve his ONLY living friends (Hange, Levi–hell, even Nile). The reason for this is probably because we know why he gets obsessive. We know about his past–about his father, about that pre-existing guilt and the desire that his father not have died for naught.
And like I said: no one can deny that he did the Survey Corps a world of good. When his arm was ripped off, he was ready and willing to die, telling a soldier that he was ‘replaceable.’ Erwin doesn’t take pleasure from the deaths of his subordinates. So it’s not as if he is 100% selfishly obsessive.
But right now in Chapter 76, that’s exactly what he is. Go look at it again. He’s standing there: this mission might fail BUT at least I’ll probably have time to see MY GOAL accomplished. Okay. I get it. Wow. No thanks. Come on, man. Really?
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