Tragic Tale of A Titan: Towards A Typology of an Anti-Hero Journey

The recent conclusion of Attack on Titan has ignited discussions about Eren Yeager’s character in the anime series-to say, he represents conflicting tales of being the heroic figure for the Eldians and the anti-hero driven by his anger and desire for revenge. This leads to the ultimate question: was he really a hero? Rather than engaging in this debate, the researcher first presents the classical hero typology as it was first defined and exemplified by Gilgamesh and later developed by Joseph Campbell. The next section of the analysis will follow Eren’s path in order to highlight the complicated circumstances that have created these contrasting stories. The textual analysis will then explain the anti-hero typology, leading to a suggested structure for an Antihero Journey story. This paper seeks to expand on the existing monomyth or Hero’s Journey framework by adapting the Anti-hero narrative structure ideas of Bartley (2023) & Drake (2014) and providing a more complete chassis with which to understand modern antihero narratives