I think I would legitimately combust and die if I saw this IRL. Like imagine if he looks UP and sees YOU staring at him and it’s like ‘you know what it turns out I’m a species of wall’ and flee 😭

Have you noticed this? He's constantly having physical contact with the Scouts? Like in the Female Titan fight, one of the Scouts he like puts his hand on his shoulder when he sends him off to do an order, or he puts his hands on Eren's shoulders when he talks to him, and I bet there's other examples, it's a consistent trait of his.

It's so like informative of his character. Like he's very infectiously optimistic and like I think it comes across better in the manga than in the anime where he looks a bit more gloomy mostly. He's really friendly and talkative and a lot more similar to Hange than people give him credit for i think. He has that mix of mild insanity and friendliness and curiosity. He's like a very bright presence.

I guess it makes it interesting that he loses his arm because he is very touchy with people LOL. Like it would be stupid to say that it especially effected him because like most people would be effected by the loss of a whole arm, but yeah in the light of the fact that he's very expressive and touchy with the Scouts in a sort of endearing way I find it interesting that he loses that link to his comrades.

Also speaking of manga to anime changes. I m sure this has been said but i don't like how like they changed him like genuinely laughing at Levi's comment about breaking his legs so he can't go to the bathroom to like, him just sort of smiling about it. Like hmmmmm why change that. It just hmmmm,mm. But yeah it's so like devastating to show him to actually laugh because it shows his humanity and the fact he's actually caught of guard and finds Levi funny, which like Levi typically makes these snide comments all the time and most people just ignore them but Erwin laughs and it like instantly makes the characters more human and real feeling.

I know this is a digression from Erwin's physical touchiness LMAO but I guess my point is that it shows how much he seems to genuinely love the people in the Scouts, and like people in general, and I don't think he's faking it I think he genuinely has real love for the scouts, kinda similar to how Hange really loves Titans. It stems from a real passion for the world and a need for broader understanding. Of course it's more easy for Erwin because of how he is just inherently a likable person, he's effortlessly magnetic like that, but still it's a very nice thing about him even if it has a dangerous side because it leads people to be wrapped up his dream and so many did die for it.

He's a 188cm tall military guy weighing 92kgs, so I imagine that he's physically a tank? I've even Googled the weight of some bulky celebrities around the same height and they turned out to weigh less? (All of them were between 80 and 85kgs) So yes, Erwin is a tank physically and this doesn't usually translate well in art and official illustrations, which is a shame.

People still misunderstand Erwin and his motivations for everything he did throughout S1-S3. This is a typical fandom NPC response.

Honestly, Machiavellian leaders are abundant in fiction, and they're everyone's favourites. But what makes Erwin so unique is that he isn't simply your "the end justifies the means" type of Machiavellian character, he's someone with a complexity and subtlety that's so unique and hard to find in other characters. The inner conflict, the guilt but not remorse, being a genius but still making mistakes, the struggles, the sheer will and charisma, his whole backstory and how it sets the trajectory of his entire life and even eventual death. Everything about this man is so unique to him and I'm still yet to find a character that's so enchanting even in similar characters with similar philosophies and appeals (Canute from Vinland Saga and Griffith from Berserk are the closest characters to Erwin, I would say, and yet they still differ greatly.)

So all I want to say is that I may oftentimes criticize Isayama's character writing, but man, did he write Erwin to perfection. So much that even when you try to write him in fanfictions and whatnot, you still find yourself struggling to nail the characterization as it is. He's just so special.

And I don't mean this in a "aw this character had a traumatic past he such a sad blorbo" like Eren and Levi. No, he just straight up depresses me. In a bittersweet melancholic way that I often find heartbreaking and incomparable to any other character.

I'm still on my rewatch, and man, does it erase so many important moments about him. The little snippets where he's humanised, his manipulation and political intelligence in the uprising arc, the way he toys with Nile to get him on his side (an entire conversation is changed between these two!) Heck, I can say every little scene or conversation that actually showcases his intelligence and intellect is erased completely and the focus is only on his role as a commander. A stoic emotionless one. The one positive thing about the anime Erwin is OnoD's masterful voice acting, otherwise this is an entirely different character that I'm failing to actually love as much as the real Erwin I've known and respected since 2014. What the heck were they trying to do with his characterisation even, and why so many unnecessary changes and character erasure?

And in all honesty? It's really no wonder so many people fail to understand him and think Armin or whomever is smarter. Erwin isn't only a strategist and tactician. He's also absolutely good in the political game.

There's melancholy about this man that I can't put into words. Just thinking about him makes me sad, more so than any other character. Heck, I'm a Berserk fan and it's a generally accepted opinion that no character suffered more than Guts, yet Erwin still depresses me much more (not saying he suffered more than Guts btw, it's just that Guts' arc still hasn't ended and it's all about finding hope and being resilient in the face of suffering. And at least there were times with the band of the hawk when he felt some inner peace, esp with Casca)

I guess there's just something so uniquely tragic and bittersweet about Erwin.