Threads of Hope: Courage, Sacrifice, and the Legacy of Meaning

Before I begin, you must agree to one thing, dear reader: grant me this indulgence. Suspend, for a moment, the practical anchors of reality, and let your mind wander. Picture yourself standing on the precipice of humanity’s last hope, where every choice–every word– is a weighty thread in the fragile fabric of survival. Imagine that the fate of countless lives (humanity at large!) has been entrusted to your hands. In the minuscule hope that salvation might be actualized, not only must you persuade your comrades to charge to their deaths, but you must also lead them—yourself included—into the jaws of inevitable demise.

Before we delve into the heart of this exploration, let me point you to a pivotal moment—the speech referenced here. It serves as a cornerstone for the ideas discussed, and you may find it helpful to revisit it as we navigate through the narrative.

“I think that if one is faced by inevitable destruction—if a house is falling upon you, for instance—one must feel a great longing to sit down, close one's eyes and wait, come what may..."—Dostoevsky

If we were to entertain this possibility—if only for the sake of thought—how would you do it? Allow me to contextualize.

Indeed, the impossibility of adequately contextualizing Attack on Titan rivals the challenge of capturing the sheer profundity and vigor of Erwin Smith, Commander of the Survey Corps. Essentially, the Survey Corps are humanity's last bastion against annihilation, a vanguard of explorers and warriors who plunge into the unknown, facing death not for personal glory but for the fragile hope of securing a future for those behind the walls. They are the embodiment of humanity's relentless will to confront despair with action, even when the odds verge on absurdity.

"Hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting."—Barack Obama

Humanity lives behind towering walls—monuments of both protection and imprisonment—erected to shield them from the Titans, monstrous humanoid beings of mysterious origin who devour humans without reason or remorse. For over a century, these walls have served as humanity’s sanctuary, but also its cage, fostering a fragile peace that is shattered when the Titans breach their defenses. This invasion sets the stage for an existential battle, forcing humanity to confront its deepest fears and its most desperate hopes.

"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you."—Nietzsche

In my effort to zero in on what I believe to be one of the most salient and profound speeches in anime history, I will spare you—though it pains me to resist the temptation—the intricate details that render Attack on Titan a masterful work of human ingenuity and Erwin Smith, in particular, a character of unparalleled depth. Suffice it to say, it is a marvel of storytelling whose true brilliance we have yet to fully fathom.

Here is what you need to know for now. When Commander Erwin Smith stood before his comrades to deliver his speech, the Survey Corps was at a precipice. The Beast Titan, a monstrous foe of both intelligence and cruelty, loomed in the distance, raining death upon them with a relentless barrage of boulder-sized projectiles. Humanity’s survival rested on a single, desperate gambit: to create a diversion, an opening so narrow it bordered on impossibility, for Levi Ackerman to launch a surprise attack on the Beast Titan.

"Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward."—Søren Kierkegaard:

Erwin’s task was to compel his soldiers to embrace certain death—not as a possibility, but as a certainty. To become bait, to draw the enemy’s fire, to run headlong into annihilation for the slimmest chance of victory. This moment encapsulated the essence of leadership and sacrifice, and no context could ever do justice to the weight of it. Yet, here, the task is not merely to recount but to analyze—a speech so profound it transcends the bounds of its fictional world. 

Now, since you earlier granted me the indulgence, I ask you to envision the moment of truth—a scene where Commander Erwin Smith, standing before his weary and terrified comrades, confronted the ultimate and most formidable task: to lead them, with himself at the forefront, in a charge toward their certain death!

Now, considering my potential overread and passion towards the above, I hesitate to analyze every sentence, for I risk losing you (if I have not already). As such, I will focus on three salient parts of this fiery speech. After all, how much more powerful can it be than to persuade tens of men and women to charge to their own death?

Erwin Smith and the Sublimity of Meaning

Erwin Smith’s speech is not merely an appeal to courage but an exploration of meaning as a mode of existence, a force so sublime that even death appears not just justifiable but profoundly meaningful. This resonates deeply with Viktor Frankl’s logotherapy, a psychological framework rooted in the premise that the primary drive of human existence is the search for meaning (highly recommend the book). Frankl, having endured the horrors of Auschwitz, argued that meaning could be found even in the bleakest of circumstances, that suffering itself becomes bearable when imbued with purpose.

“If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death.” Victork Frankl

Erwin’s invocation of his fallen comrades is a powerful enactment of this principle. He refuses to allow death—the cessation of physical existence—to negate the significance of their lives. “They were not meaningless!” he declares, an affirmation that reclaims the value of the dead, imbuing them with a legacy that continues to resonate in the actions of the living.

Erwin’s argument does not merely rest on metaphorical or emotional grounds; it taps into something profoundly physical. From a neuroscientific perspective, the memories of those we have lost are etched into the synaptic networks of the brain. The very presence of the Survey Corps before the Beast Titan, their courage to face insurmountable odds, is in part a product of these formed synapses—a tangible, physical legacy of those who came before. While their bodies are gone, the "memory" of their existence lives on in the literal and metaphorical sense, animating the present through the courage they inspire. Death, in this framework, is incomplete, for its cessation applies only to the corporeal. The dead continue to act, through the living, as vessels of their meaning.

"For all is like an ocean, all flows and connects; touch it in one place and it echoes at the other end of the world."—Dostoevsky

Erwin transforms this principle into an existential call to arms. To stand against the onslaught of annihilation, he tells his soldiers, is not merely an act of bravery but a conscious act of defiance against the notion that death renders life meaningless. Through this lens, death itself is transcended, not denied, but repurposed into a foundation for meaning—a deeply Franklian and profoundly humanist assertion.

Memory as an Active Choice and the Role of Faith

The second layer of Erwin’s speech lies in his emphasis on the act of remembrance. “Because we refuse to forget them,” he declares, and in doing so, he highlights a profound truth: memory is not a passive phenomenon but an active, conscious choice. To keep the fallen alive in the realm of the living requires effort, intention, and faith. This choice—this refusal to forget—is, in itself, an act of meaning-making.

But Erwin does not stop there. He expands on this by placing faith in the cycle of remembrance: “And as we ride to certain death, we trust our successors to do the same for us.” Here, Erwin introduces an element of transcendence. The imminent deaths of himself and his comrades are framed not as endings but as transitions. Their sacrifice will ripple outward, their lives and struggles becoming part of the collective human story, carried forward by the successors who will choose, as they did, to remember and honor.

Faith, here, is not rooted in religious dogma but in the trust that meaning will endure beyond death. It is faith in humanity’s capacity to find value in suffering and courage, to keep the essence of the fallen alive through memory and action. This trust is critical to the psychological resilience Erwin instills in his soldiers. Without it, the weight of their impending deaths might crush them; with it, their mortality becomes a foundation for hope, a bridge to something greater than themselves.

"What is to give light must endure burning."—Victor Frankl

Nietzschean Ethos and the Human Spirit

Finally, Erwin concludes his speech with a crescendo of defiance: “Because my soldiers do not buckle or yield when faced with the cruelty of this world! My soldiers push forward! My soldiers scream out! My soldiers RAAAAGE!” This is not merely a battle cry; it is an articulation of a Nietzschean ethos.

Nietzsche's concept of amor fati—the love of one's fate—echoes here. To Erwin, his soldiers are not simply enduring the cruelty of the world; they are confronting it head-on, transforming it into a crucible through which their strength and resolve are forged. To scream, to push forward, to rage against annihilation—these are acts of affirmation. They are declarations that life, no matter how brutal, is worth living and fighting for.

In this ethos, there is no retreat, no resignation to despair. Erwin’s soldiers embody the will to power, the force that drives humanity to transcend its limitations and affirm its existence even in the face of ultimate adversity. They march forward not because they deny their mortality, but because they embrace it, using it as a catalyst to fulfill a collective ethos that binds them all. In this way, Erwin channels the universal spirit of humanity, one that refuses to yield and instead roars its defiance at the void.

"What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love."—Dostoevsky