“Loki” and “Attack on Titan” are about the same thing
Warning: The following article about Loki and Attack on Titan’s take on friendship and sacrifice contains spoilers for both.
It doesn’t seem like that attack on Titan And Loki have a lot in common. However, as the credits roll on both series, it becomes clear that both very different projects have something important to say about friendship and the lengths people will go to to ensure the safety of their loved ones.
Starting with the Loki everything is easier since it was introduced in 2011 Thortwo years earlier attack on TitanThe anime debuted. Even though Loki was a god, fans initially fell in love with a complicated character who felt like his family couldn’t understand him. And later he would learn that his feelings were justified because his father had lied to him about his parentage. This revelation led Loki to steal the Asgardian throne and attempt to oppress the people of Asgard and Earth, a place his brother Thor had grown fond of. Although he was ultimately unsuccessful, the fear he instilled in the people of New York was unleashed in recent years The Avengers was a feeling attack on TitanEren Yeager was all too familiar with him.
Eren was born in Wall Maria, one of three structures that protect humanity from the threat of the Titans. He lived an uneventful life until he saved a girl, Mikasa, from a group of men who tried to abuse her. He killed two of them without remorse and instructed Mikasa to take out the last one if she wanted to survive. At that moment, Eren’s quest for freedom began, but his need to obtain it by any means began when the Colossal Titan destroyed Wall Maria, resulting in his mother’s death. When he grew up, Eren joined the Survey Corps and began his mission to eradicate the Titans.
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When Eren began his career as a scout in 2013, Loki was still reeling from the defeat at the Battle of New York Thor: The Dark World. He was stuck in an Asgardian prison with only his mother Frigga showing him affection. But just like Eren, Loki would lose his mother, and that put him on the path to redemption. He helped his brother defeat the Dark Elves and Hela before dying at the hands of Thanos in 1991 Avengers: Infinity War. It seemed a fitting end for the God of Mischief as he sacrificed himself for a noble cause, but Loki’s story was just beginning. Meanwhile, Eren’s life was becoming more and more complicated.
After becoming a Boy Scout and making a close circle of friends, including Mikasa and his childhood friend Armin, Eren discovered that he was a Titan Shifter. And if that wasn’t enough, he learned that three of his allies were also shapeshifters and were ordered to return him to their home. However, Eren would not go down without a fight and defeated the traitors before setting out to retake Wall Maria and discover the truth about his powers and the outside world. The Scouts prevailed, albeit at the loss of their leader, and learned that humanity still existed beyond the walls. However, the rest of the world blamed all of the world’s problems on the people of the island, which they called “Paradis”, and oppressed the people known as Eldians. This made Eren realize that freedom was not as easy as destroying the Titans, and after gaining glimpses of the future through his Titan abilities, he realized that he was burdened with a destructive goal.
As Eren screamed for freedom, Loki was again deprived of his freedom. When the Avengers carried out their time heist Avengers: Endgame, a version of the God of Mischief from the Battle of New York, escaped in the Tesseract and was captured by the Time Variance Authority, an organization tasked with holding the Sacred Timeline together. Loki was what they called a “variant”, a version of a being that shouldn’t exist. He was on the verge of being destroyed, but was spared because another version of himself was on the loose and wreaking havoc. In the first season of his Disney+ series, Loki helped Agent Mobius track down his variant Sylvie, but along the way they discovered the truth about the TVA and how she wasn’t what she claimed to be.
It was led by a being called “He Who Abides”, who founded the TVA to keep the Sacred Timeline intact and prevent its variants from starting a multiversal war. However, Sylvie didn’t like what He Who Remains had to say: she killed him and unleashed the multiverse, giving free will to everyone who lived in it. Eren could of course understand Sylvie’s decision, as he also made difficult decisions in his quest for freedom.
After taking the fight to his enemies in Marley, Eren enlisted all of his friends in the conflict, ensuring that the world would never see Paradis as anything other than a threat. However, it soon became apparent that everything that happened was part of Eren’s plan, as his memories of the future led him to set in motion the very vicious circle he was trying to break. It culminated in him starting the Rumbling, unleashing countless Colossal Titans upon the world to wipe out any threat to Paradis and its inhabitants. However, instead of standing idly by as their friend destroyed the world, Mikasa, Armin and the rest of the Survey Corps formed an alliance with Marley and the Titan Shifters and made their own difficult decision to stop their friend.
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After the death of He Who Remains, Loki also had some problems with his friends in Season 2, as he was sent into the TVA’s past where no one remembered him. He began to slip through time and realized that time had become unstable and the TVA was in danger of being lost. Together with Mobius and the gang, Loki stops rogue TVA agents from destroying the multiverse and almost creates a stable multiverse with the help of Victor Timely, a variant of He Who Remains. But it turns out it was never that easy, as He Who Remains built in a failsafe that ensured the Sacred Timeline would never be in danger. Coincidentally, this failsafe also led to the destruction of the TVA. This was something Loki would not allow, as he openly admitted that his friends were the most important thing to him.
Eren expressed a similar sentiment after his friends involved him in the battle between Heaven and Earth. He told Armin that after running through all the scenarios, he discovered that the conflict could only end if his friends killed him, finally ending the Titan threat and being seen as heroes of the world. It was never about destroying all of humanity, but about giving his friends a long life. The Rumbling, the Yeagerists, and everything else were stepping stones toward the ultimate goal of freedom. But it was a freedom that Eren knew he would never experience. In this way, Eren shouldered the burden of his purpose, just as Loki did.
Eren and Loki started out as opposites, with one wanting to oppress while the other wanted to escape oppression. But through their travels they realized what was really important to them and became comparable figures. As Kenny Ackerman so aptly put it attack on TitanAs the third season states, “Everyone had to be drunk on something to carry on.” Loki and Eren made friendship their drink of choice.