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Eren Jaeger’s Final Words

So there are many people unimpressed with the final statement given by Eren’s character, either finding it inconsistent with the build up to this point, or too ambiguous a motivation for trampling all over the world. I’m not really here to talk about the quality of the story, whether it was good or bad, because I don’t really care. However, I think it’s fascinating what the text is trying to say about Eren’s character and his motivation. 

This is why, “I don’t know, shrug” is both an answer and not an answer to why Eren did what he did in the end. For making my point in this analysis, I’ll be talking about Eren’s character from Marley on showing both the Eren that appeared before Reiner, the one that talked to Zeke, and finally the one Armin saw are all the same person. 

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Eren wants to forget. Mikasa chooses to remember.

If Eren really did send all these alternative universe visions to Mikasa, he wants to turn her back so she won’t follow the same bloody path as him. Eren sees their desire to be together as selfish one, because instead of fighting alongside with others and doing something great, they are choosing to live a peaceful life in mountains.

Eren loves his friends, but he is ready to sacrifice his love and humanity for a greater good. He doesn’t want them to remember him and bring them so much pain with his actions. He wants them to forget him so they won’t suffer as he did, when his close ones died.

But Mikasa sees it as the motivation to keep fighting and saving. She chooses to live so she will remember and the memory of her loved ones won’t die with her.

“Once I'm dead, I won't even be able to remember you. So I'll win, no matter what. I'll live, no matter what!”

Actually, before I thought that it was either because of her triggered anxiety, when she loose people she loves or when Ymir/Eren changes something in the timeline, but now it’s because Eren sends her alt. visions that should stop her from following him, but she still continues to move forward and stay by his side. Since she chooses to remember, Mikasa is technically opposing him and when she does, Mikasa gets a headache.

Mikasa’s selfish desire to be close to Eren saved so many people from Yeagerists and titans. Mikasa could simply die back in time and let herself be eaten by a titan. But her desire to love and remember pushes her to fight and simply live. Because of her Gabi wasn’t killed, Louise and her mom weren’t eaten by a titan, Kiyomi and her people didn’t die from hands of Yeagerists and much much more.

For Mikasa, love is a motivation. For Eren, love is a sacrifice.

Unless a Grain of Wheat Falls and It Dies...

Or, why I am pretty optimistic about the fates of Jean, Connie, Gabi, and all titanized people this chapter, which is also an excuse for me to talk about SnK’s allusions to Russian literature. 

There are strikingly parallel ideas The Brothers Karamazov and Attack on Titan, as well as parallel plot points and imagery to the point where if it isn’t deliberate, it’s uncanny. (NB: before people yell at me about comparing a Japanese and Russian work, Isayama has used Russian names since the start of SnK–Shiganshina is a Russian name.) In particular, there are narrative allusions to a portion of the novel known as “The Grand Inquisitor,” which is a short story within a novel. The central thesis of “The Grand Inquisitor” is as follows: 

nothing has ever been more insupportable for a man and a human society than freedom. 

This parable is told within the story by Ivan Karamazov, a character whose intellectuality is his gift and his curse. He tells his brother Alyosha that the motivation for creating this parable is precisely the evils done to children (oh look, a major SnK theme) and specifically cites an example which was unfortunately taken from real life in Russia and which Isayama has an uncanny parallel:

I want to see with my own eyes the hind lie down with the lion and the victim rise up and embrace his murderer. I want to be there when every one suddenly understands what it has all been for. All the religions of the world are built on this longing, and I am a believer. But then there are the children, and what am I to do about them? That’s a question I can’t answer… If all must suffer to pay for the eternal harmony, what have children to do with it, tell me, please? … if it is really true that they must share responsibility for all their fathers’ crimes, such a truth is not of this world and is beyond my comprehension. Some jester will say, perhaps, that the child would have grown up and have sinned, but you see he didn’t grow up, he was torn to pieces by the dogs, at eight years old…

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SNK 137: To see the world in a grain of sand

A story that traverses 2000 years of history, across the vast expanse of time and space, war and empire, great despair and fragmented hope, legends of gods and devils.

SNK features immense scales that can evoke sheer awe, from its temporal and thematic scope to its pure visual spectacle, all the way to the world’s destruction.

And yet in the midst of the breathtaking, terrifying magnitude of the end of the world, it has culminated here, in the memory contained within a single leaf minuscule as a grain of sand against the death marching across seas and continents.

A leaf that contains a childhood memory utterly insignificant, utterly meaningless in the futile battle against geopolitical conflict, human nature, the curse of Ymir that becomes fate itself.

Yet it is also a memory that means everything. 

The fate of the entire world, contained within a single leaf half-buried in the eternal sands transcending time and death.

“The reason I was born…” was not to save the world, or to be a hero; the reason was to simply exist in these moments when one can feels distinctly, ‘I’m here, and I’m glad to be alive.’ Approaching the end of this two thousand year story, Armin’s quiet affirmation captures fundamentally what freedom is, and what it is to want to live in the world.

Arguably without exception, everyone experiences at least once in their life such moments. Even when in the depths of despair, depression, or apathy, still suddenly, if only for one fleeting instant, we feel intensely that maybe it’s okay to be alive when experiencing such trivial things as the sunlight through the trees, a glimpse of the achingly blue sky, or the certainty that we have made a connection with someone through a word, a touch, or a smile. These distinct moments are interspersed as small, flickering lights strung together through the darkness of life’s struggles.

This is Armin’s answer to Zeke’s questions: “You know that to live… means to one day die, does it not?” Where is the freedom in the endless struggle to avoid the punishment of fear and suffering we confront when life’s empty, frantic quest to multiply is threatened? What is the purpose of perpetuating one’s days of suffering without ever knowing if it means anything at all?

Armin’s answer is not convincing or changing Zeke’s mind as such, rather he is merely reminding Zeke of what he has already experienced, of what he already knows, unconsciously: that somehow, there is meaning in feeling the wind against your skin, in the repetition of throwing and catching a baseball back and forth with someone you call family.

Or to be more precise, perhaps there is no logical meaning in these moments at all, but that doesn’t stop these moments from being meaningful. 

“in our bewilderment we see no rule by which to guide our steps day by day; and yet every day we must step somewhere.”

It’s not a perfect answer; perhaps it’s not an answer at all. Yet it is enough to convince us to take another step forward, because unlike logical reasoning or Zeke’s scientific rationalizations, the feeling of life in such trivial moments carries an irrefutable personal certainty of gratitude for being alive.

SNK generally prioritizes the grand over the trivial or strictly ‘relatable’, but we get here something so purely and immediately human, grounded in an intimate, even mundane way that is interwoven with the cosmic realm in which they are having this conversation.

It feels indeed that put upon a simple leaf, of a baseball, is a uniquely cosmic weight, as the weight of everything, all this history and eternity, is resting on this quiet reflection.

To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour

- William Blake, “Auguries of Innocence”

SNK 139.5: Towards the Final Pages with no Final Answers

The final pages of the updated ending are bold, but I think ultimately more evocative than the original preliminary ending.

Even after the intensely polarized reader reception that took issue with the lack of storytelling precision and clarity when it was most needed, SNK chose to end with a decisively ambiguous symbol. In literature, a symbol is something that clearly means something -- but with the most "literary" symbols, their meaning cannot be absolutely defined; any attempted answer as to what a symbol represents has no finality or certainty, and interpretation will remain ever open to debate. A symbol both invites and resists interpretation.

Naturally, the immediate response to the symbolic tree on the final page is to try answering the invitation to the question, "What does it mean?"

One prominent answer I've seen is that it symbolizes the continuation of the cycle of war and violence either because a) of the symbolic parallel to Ymir or b) on a more literal level, that it implies the actual potential revival of new era of Titans. A reasonable interpretation either way, but also, I think, an incomplete one.

The first reason for this is that "the endless cycle of war" was already clearly and powerful represented in the preceding panels:

The cycle of war was already continuing in the decades or centuries before the child arrived at the tree. A culminating image symbolizing the persistence or resurgence of an era of war as the final panel would thus arguably be redundant and unnecessary.

Furthermore, the chapter is entitled "Toward the Tree on That Hill." If the tree were simply a symbol of war, by implication the chapter could equally be called 'toward the endless cycle of war'. But such a relentlessly bleak and tonally flat ending sentiment would be firmly incongruous with the story's recurrent conviction in the equal cruelty and beauty of the world -- a conviction that I believe it has been faithful to all the way to its end.

The Long Defeat

But while on this topic of war, let's linger a moment on the "cruelty" side and the consequence of this wordless construction and subsequent destruction of a city -- the most bold and possibly controversial additional panels that are also my personal favourite additions.

One objection that has emerged against this brief sequence of Paradis' apparent destruction is that it renders the entire story to be "pointless". Eren's 80% Rumbling, Armin's diplomatic peace talks between the remnants of the Allied Nations and Paradis, and before that, the proposal of the 50-year plan and Zeke's euthanasia plan... everything, to the very beginning to the Survey Corps' dreams of some kind of freedom; was it all for nothing? All that striving, that hope, that final promise bestowed upon Armin: was it all a pointless story? Even more radically, is the story suggesting that Eren might as well have continued the Rumbling to 100% of the earth? Was Zeke's euthanasia plan the cruel but correct choice all along? What was the point of rejecting the 50-year plan if that had a greater chance of success at preventing this outcome?

I think Isayama suddenly pulling back to such a long-term view of history to the scale of decades or even centuries into the future calls for a reorientation in attitude towards exactly what kind of story we have been reading. Yes, if the metric is Paradis' survival, maybe it was indeed all "pointless". But that's also to say that, on the broadest scale, SNK is a story about futility, that it is a deliberate representation of the struggle to make one's actions historically meaningful.

In the long view of history, all the events, from Grisha running beyond the wall to see the airships and the first breaking of Wall Maria to Erwin's sacrifices, Paradis' discovery of the outside world, and finally to the Battle of Heaven and Earth, it would all merely be a handful of chapters in the history textbooks of the future. A future in which war and geopolitical conflict will continue even without Titans. That does not mean that all paths to the future are equal -- the 50-year plan would not have put an end to Titans, and Zeke's euthanasia plan distorts utilitarian ethics into just another form of oppression; there are better and worse decisions that lead to more and less degrees of suffering, but no decision can ever be the final one.

The additional panels remind us that in history, there never exists a singular "Final Solution". The reason there are readers who vehemently support Eren to have flattened 100% of the world, and the reason the Paradisians supported the oppressive, authoritarian, proto-fascist Jaegar Faction under Floch and even after the Rumbling, is that because they want to believe that a Final Solution to end conflict exists and will work. They resist the fundamental uncertainty and complexity of the situation, instead preferring a singular, unified, and coherent Answer to Paradis' struggle to survive. I'm reminded of the scholar Erich Auerbach's theorization of why fascism appealed to many people during periods of political and social crisis, change, and uncertainty. Writing in exile after fleeing Nazi Germany, he observed that:

"The temptation to entrust oneself to a sect which solved all problems with a single formula, whose power of suggestion imposed solidarity, and which ostracized everything which would not fit in and submit - this temptation was so great that, with many people, fascism hardly had to employ force when the time came for it to spread through the countries of old European culture." (from Mimesis p. 550)

This acutely describes the Jaegar Faction's rise to power and continued dominance in Paradis. But their promise of unity, of a single formula to wipe out the rest of the world either literally through the Rumbling, or to dominate them with military force, is a false one. Even if Eren had Rumbled 100% of the world instead of 80%, history would still go on. The external threat of the world may have been eliminated, but internal conflict and violence would still continue onward throughout the generations born on top of the blood of the rest of the world. Needless to say, out of all the options, Eren's 80% Rumbling is the very epitome of perpetuating the cycle of violence as it creates tens of thousands of war orphans like Eren once was, and it would justify employing violence for one's own self-interest to an extreme degree. For the generations to come that would valourize Eren as a hero, it would set a dangerous precedent for what degree of destruction is acceptable for self-defence -- nothing short of the attempt to flatten the entire world. It is no surprise that Paradis would meet a violent end when its founding one-party rule of the Jaegar Faction has their roots in such unapologetically bloody foundations.

Neither the 80% Rumbling nor the militaristic, ultra-nationalistic Jaegar faction that come to govern Paradis are glamourized as the "correct" solution to ensuring Paradis' future. (This can also put to rest any accusations of SNK's ending as "fascist" or "imperialist" propaganda, since the island's modern nation that they founded ends in war. All nations must fall eventually, but not all do in such blatant destruction). Importantly, neither is Armin's diplomatic mission naively idealized as that which permanently achieves world peace. No singular or unifying formula can work because reality is complicated. Entrusting oneself to seemingly simple Answers is simply insufficient, even if they are ideals of peaceful negotiation; that method may work given the right conditions, but the world will always eventually complicate its feasibility.

After all in the real world, there's the absurd irony that some in the West had called the First World War "The War to End all Wars". These days, WWI is merely one long chapter in our textbooks just a few pages away from the even longer chapter of the Second World War that is followed by all the rest of the conflicts that have followed since then even with the establishment of diplomatic organizations like the United Nations. In this sense, showing Paradis' eventual downfall is perhaps the only way to end such a series that is so concerned with history, from King Fritz's tribal expansion into empire, the rise and fall of Marleyan ascendency, and finally of the survival and apparent shattering of Paradis.

From its beginning to its end, SNK has poignantly evoked J.R.R. Tolkien's conception of history as The Long Defeat. In one character's words, "together through ages of the world we have fought the long defeat". That is to say, "no victory is complete, that evil rises again, and that even victory brings loss".

No heroes, only humans

Eren's desperate, fatalistic resignation to committing the Rumbling, along with the characters' rejection of all the rest of the earlier plans to ensure Paradis a future, are merely the actions of human beings to that began with the need to find not even necessarily a Final Answer, but at least an acceptable and feasible one for the time being. But the characterization of Eren's confusion, childishness, and regret in the final chapter is startlingly real in how it demonstrates how, all along, we have been dealing not with grand heroes, but simply people who have no answers at all. SNK has always been about failures - and often ironic failures; it has always been a story about painful and frequently futile struggle.

People make mistakes, they can be short-sighted, selfish, biased, immature, petty, and irrational, and I think the ending follows through with depicting the consequences of that.

Erwin's self-sacrifice before being able to reach the basement (and his regression to a childhood state in the moments before his death), Kenny's futile chasing after that universal compassion he had seen in Uri, Shadis never being acknowledged by history despite his final heroic action, and so on -- these stories of ironic, futile failures are still meaningful in their mere striving. Eren's ending and Paradis' demise despite Armin's endeavour to ensure them a peaceful future are entirely consistent with this.

SNK certainly follows the shounen trope in which young individuals are bestowed great power and correspondingly great responsibility, and must then reconcile the burden of possessing that greatness on which the fate of the world depends. Yet it is equally defined by its representation of the state that us normal human beings confront everyday: the struggle against the apparent powerlessness to enact any meaningful or lasting change at all. Simultaneously, this helpless state does not exempt us from the responsibility to act in whatever small capacity we are able to resist oppression, ideological extremism, and the perpetuation of violence.

Towards That Symbol

That was a rather long but vital digression about the additional "construction and destruction" pages. To return to the issue of the symbolism in the final panel, here I will turn from seemingly affirming the tree as symbolizing the cycle of violence, towards what I think is the greater complexity of what the tree might "actually" symbolize.

As I've said above, I don't believe that the final chapter title is synonymous with 'toward the endless cycle of war'. In tone, theme, and characterization, SNK has always been defined by the tension between cruelty and beauty, the will to violence and the underlying desire for peace, and the rest of the contradictory impulses that all simultaneously coexist. The end of SNK as a whole commits to a similar lack of closure, ambiguity, and interpretive openness.

So far I have rambled on about only a view of the perpetual "cruelty" of history. Where, then, is the "beauty"?

In short, the "tree = cycle of violence" interpretation is obviously based on how that this tree recalls the original tree in which the spine creature, as the source of the power of the Titans, resided. But it's worth first considering, what exactly is this creature? We seem to get our answer in the chapter that most precisely crystallizes the dual "cruelty and beauty" of the world:

The spine creature might be said to be life itself. Or more specifically, the will of life to perpetuate itself, for no reason at all but for the fleeting moments in which we feel distinctly glad to have existed in the world.

The creature at the source of the Titans, and in extension the Titans themselves, is neither inherently a positive or negative, "good" or "evil", creative or destructive force. It's both and all of those at once. As with any power, the Titans were merely a tool that was put to use to oppressive ends.

So as I now suggest that the tree at the end is symbolically a "Tree of Life", I don't at all mean "life" in the typically celebratory or optimistic sense: rather, I mean it in the ambiguous, ambivalent, uncertain, and complex sense that has been evoked throughout the above discussion of the inevitable continuation of war.

The title "Toward The Tree on That Hill" is derived from its associations with Eren and Mikasa, but more specifically of course, from Armin's affirmation of existence. However, the tree as a symbol of existential affirmation is undercut with the revelation that, despite Armin's diplomatic mediation between the Allied Nations and Paradis, the island nation never escapes war just as no nation in the history of the earth has ever fully escaped war.

The image of Armin running toward that life-affirming tree by the end becomes twisted and complicated, as the image of the anonymous child approaching the Tree of Life evokes both awe at its beauty and grandeur, and a deep dread at the foreboding of its cyclical return to Ymir's tree that signalled the beginning of a bloody era.

And I think that is precisely it: Life is not some idealized, beautiful vision that we always want to run toward; it is also ironic, complicated, and dreadful. It is ambivalent. Like a literary symbol, the meaning of life cannot be pinned down absolutely. The tree therefore becomes itself a symbol of uncertainty, of an open future that is cyclical both in its beauty and war.

As a final observation, it is surely no coincidence that, the small, black, birdlike silhouettes of the war planes destroying the city from the sky is replaced by the similarly small black silhouettes of birds in the final panel.

If the birds represent freedom from war, the irony is that the immediately surrounding land appears to be one completely empty of people save for the exploring child; it is a freedom attained only without people's presence. Yet at the same time, a child from some existing civilization has reached it; perhaps it is freedom that they have reached, perhaps it is something else that they see in the tree. What is it that they were looking for? What does the tree and its history represent for the child, and what does it mean for their future? Alternatively, does the child-in-the-forest imagery negatively recall the warning that the world is one huge forest of predator and prey that we need to protect children from entering?

Rather than providing answers, this tree embodies all of the potential questions, and all of the potential answers. These possibilities will unfold themselves into an uncertain future beyond the chapters of history that Eren, Armin, Mikasa, Zeke, Erwin, and all the rest of the characters were part of and left their mark on; and whatever future this child will witness or create, it will similarly be one of the struggle against futility, as the journey begins anew with each generation in every new era. Neither - or both - hopeful or despairing, the final image of this tree, just like life itself, contains those innumerable irresolvable tensions as it gestures towards all possibilities, both oppressive and free.

This is just me trying to make sense of how the chapter title of 139 is connected to the extra pages so this might come off as more of a stream of consciousness than an organized post.

The first thing I noted was that the tree is constantly growing admist the growth/development of Eldia and its subsequent fall and destruction. I'm not sure whether there's any intent behind it, but from what we know this is the site where Eren was buried and it may be interpreted as the fruits of Eren's actions being displayed. In the first panel the leaves are barely covering the tree and it may be seen as the long lives of Eren's friends being the first fruits of his actions. They all live long lives with their families and grow to old age all the while keeping him in their hearts as exemplified with Mikasa.

Next, we see War in Heaven sorry I couldn't resist it. The tree grows a bit more and the seeds of Eren's actions are shown more exhaustively. His actions have brought about war, a continuation of the cycle and ultimately, Paradis' destruction. All the good has faded away and the development has crumbled. The Eternal Return, Moira, Ananke, Fate and the Cycle are bound to the world. It almost serves to validate Reiner in 117 and Zeke from 137. Striving is futile, and despite the efforts of Eren and the Alliance, this is the destiny of the world.

Then there are the final pages.

I think there's something quite hopeful about them. Despite the fact that the story ends with the grievance of a child wandering in the forest, seemingly destined to repeat the titanic tragedy from the ages before, there's also a sort of hope.

This child doesn't seem injured or depraved like Ymir was, he seems curious and almost in awe. And I think this rekindled the spirit with which the Survey Corps faces the cruelty of the world. If we don't know we'll see, if they don't know us, we'll show ourselves to them.

So though things are left slightly ambiguous, the parallel to Ymir serves to show us that this boy's Will will shape the new age, our will in the face of cruelty will shape the direction of the world. So as Nicolo said, though this devil may lie within the heart of humanity, we still need to strive our hardest to leave this forest of our making.

Analyzing Eren`s view of freedom

Concepts, ideas and philosophies are abstract phenomena which do not technically have any physical form. However people like to depict these ideas in different ways. For example the idea of justice is depicted by a goddess, who holds a scale and is blindfolded. The reason why I bring this up, is because AoT volume 33 visualizes the idea of freedom. In a beautiful yet haunting spread panel, the reader sees a young Eren high up in the sky. The sky, clouds and overall horizon seems to stretch into eternity, and at this high viewpoint there is nothing that binds Eren. In one hand this vision is Eren`s dream, the outside world that Eren dreamed about all those years ago. It is this dream among his loved one`s that Eren wishes to retain/pursue, by using the Rumbling. However since Eren describes the view as “freedom” and the person who has seen it as “the freest person in the world”, I think it encapsulates what Eren thinks freedom is. In this post I`d like to examine what this possibly means.

One mention has to be made. I have read up till volume 33 and so I do not know how the story ends. Because of this I cannot comment on some possible revelations that happen after this point. I will start the post by dissecting Eren`s vision into different elements. Then in the final portion I will go over what problems this vision has. The structure will be the following one:

- Limitless horizon and the state of nature

- Chasing a mysterious and unknown horizon

- The vision of a child – Problems with Eren`s view of freedom

- Conclusion

Limitless horizon and the state of nature

Eren`s vision of freedom is constructed from several building blocks, some more complex than others. In its basic form when one thinks about the society and world where Eren was born in, this vision is a stark contrast to that. The place Eren was born in was small, cramped and binding. As he himself tells in volume 33, from the day Eren was born those massive walls were always there. The walls obscured the horizon and made it hard to see what was past them.

They were a constant reminder of Eren`s nature as a caged being. Because of this Eren`s dream and idea of freedom has to be different from a visual perspective. Here there are no physical boundaries obscuring the horizon, and the sky stretches as far as the eye can see. The outside world is an expansive place, something that must be ten times bigger than Paradis. At this high position it is as if Eren has become the bird or obtained the wings, that have always been depicted to symbolize freedom. He can go where-ever he wants and only sky is the limit.    

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Destruction versus change

The world of AoT is entrapped within a vicious, bloody conflict. What began as a violence committed by monster with no reason behind it, has been revealed to be something much more complex and difficult. The world and its characters have been imprisoned inside a cycle of hate. This hate generates revenge and thus by the attacked person striking back, the cycle is continued into the end of eternity. The origin point of this hate that generates revenge, can be found from a bloodstained history. What makes this especially dangerous is that within this context, hate has a wide range. A painful memory or an event can be from something that happened 3 years ago, or a terrifying time period, which occurred during an almost mythological past. People draw from this past and thus are unable, or simply unwilling to forgive and look ahead.

What can the characters then do? Are they forever trapped within this bloody cycle, or is there a way for them to break free? The series presents two solutions to this problem, one shown by Eren and one shown by the Allied forces of the Survey Corps and Marley. In this post I`d like to inspect these two methods and ponder what they mean. Eren`s solution could be viewed as destruction, and the Allied forces method is change. I will start by focusing on Eren`s solution as the first section, and then in the second section inspecting the one proposed by the Allied forces. 

Two quick side notes are in order before we dive into the heart of the analysis. I am aware that the manga has concluded, but I am still behind two volumes/9 chapters. I do not know how the story ends. This post has been made with the information, that has been revealed up to chapter 130/volume 32. I would also like to thank @aspoonofsugar​​ for giving me feedback and helping with the post! 

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Zeke Yeager and the life of an Eldian of the Continent (and a few parallels with Erwin, Hange, and Levi)

Like many AOT characters, Zeke is both appreciated and hated.

The things he went through when he was a little kid made a lot of people pity his adult form. The things he did to the SC and Levi were definitely horrendous and hurtful, and for sure made a lot of people absolutely hate Zeke for all he did to our favs.

I don't follow either of these takes, though. I like the complexity of Zeke's character. And as a fan of his story, I don’t pity him or see how his character really needs it (except while he was a kid abused by his parents). Also, rationalizing Zeke’s character is not about finding ways to forgive him, but rather delving further into AOT’s storytelling. Which is why I’m writing this post: to see things through non-Paradisians perspectives.

Zeke Yeager was the Captain of the Warriors, and it's said he was written to be the equivalent of Levi's mighty soldier character to the Eldians of the Continent. But we have many hints that Zeke is not only like Levi's other side of the “hero” spectrum but also Hange's and Erwin's too.

Putting it simply, Zeke had within his character building the most known traits we’ve seen in the SC Veteran trio:

- Like Levi, Zeke was born with inhuman power hidden in his blood, had a unique grow up (and not only because of Grisha), but he became his country's 'Boy Wonder' (chapter 93) and was even considered their strongest Warrior (according to Reiner);

- like Hange, Zeke had the biggest knowledge of the Titans' powers and biology, and he was one of the most intelligent characters of AOT (with 11/10 smartness stats according to the 1st AOT guidebook);

- and like Erwin, Zeke got his father tortured and sentenced to death for conspiracy against the government, carried a secret dream shared his 2nd father (Ksaver) and that he had no one he trusted completely to share, and had a smart way of dealing with high-up military figures as well as of gambling and manipulating events and people to achieve his ultra-secretive goals and dream. 

At the same time though Zeke also had some of the most antagonistic characteristics of the veterans post-RtS alive:

- he saw death/non-existence as a type of people's “salvation”, liberation, or some kind of freedom - opposing Levi;

- he was adamant he had the best and only solution to save both the whole world and his people - opposing Hange;

But these few points don’t even scratch the surface of Zeke’s character. And while the Vet Trio is thoroughly dissected in the fandom, that Zeke is their particular main antagonist but hardly "meta-ed" is something kinda strange. Especially because ignoring Zeke leaves some events in the manga lacking some important and intriguing discussions!

Like, how nicely written was to have a glimpse of Zeke’s mind right after the chapter of Erwin's last passionate speech and sacrifice (chapters 80-81). And how nice it's to parallel chapters 136 X 137 - where Levi is almost on the verge of "giving up" on killing Zeke but struggling heartbroken at the thought of the Devoted Hearts' meanings still left open X where Zeke, the man who saw everything as meaningless, lets himself be killed by Levi (being probably aware of what that action meant to his archnemesis).

So, it will probably sound like I'm playing the Devil's advocate, but there are some very interesting things to highlight about Zeke’s journey!

Since interpretation varies from reader to reader though, I just ask anyone who may join the discussion to keep the talk civil even if you fully hate Zeke. Or Levi. Or Isayama.

1. Zeke Yeager was one of the TWO last Royal Bloods of King Fritz’s lineage alive

Much like our special bloodline-born Ackerman duo, Zeke and Historia were the last two living Royal Bloods of AOT. This might sound pretty obvious, but I see the implications of this fact are quite overlooked.

Zeke and Historia were the only characters still capable of making use of AND giving others some access to the Founding Titan’s powers. But out of the two last living Founder “Controllers”, the 29 years old Yeager was also:

1. the one with the most knowledge about Ymir Fritz and the Titans powers + the Eldian history

2. the only one possessing a Titan Shifter

3. the one who had lived his whole life in the “real” world

4. the one about to die (had less than 1 year alive)

5. the only Royal Blood who could be used as the full mediator between the Founding Titan possessor and Ymir's powers

6. the only Royal with access to Titan serum (which means that even if Historia becoming a Pure Titan could help, Paradis wouldn't have the means to turn her into one without Zeke. So he was the last Royal end game indeed.)

Besides these points, though, remembering Zeke as one of the last Royal is also important because while Historia held responsibility for the Eldians of Paradis Island as their Queen by bloodline inheritance, we could kind of say that Zeke held some responsibility as a never known “king” of the Eldians of the Continent.

In fact, the Eldian Restorationist group was putting faith in Dina's royal lineage to change the Eldians’ fate (chapter 85). And if the Eldians of Marley and other countries wanted, they could have established a new ruler or king for them. This because at the moment King Fritz left the Eldians in the continents to die, their nation was divided in two: there was the Reiss family - who subsided to the Non-war Vow, and their fake Heaven in Paradis; and there was the Fritz family - who hated the flee of ancestors to Paradis, decided to stay on the continent, and wanted to save the Eldians left.

So it is pretty easy to imagine that if the Restorationists’ plan ever worked, Dina’s family with Grisha was definitely going to be placed among their people’s new rulers - with Zeke as their primal hope, and even as a prince and future king. Thus, since conception, Zeke was thought, taught, and raised to be his people's savior. The "God-Savior complex" people say he had is not just a joke LOL.

And raising a perfect Restorationist Savior was what Grisha mistakenly thought he was doing by fuelling the infancy of his firstborn with doctrines and responsibilities of adults, to say the least.

But while these facts had the utmost impact on Zeke’s life, his family's abuse during his childhood still feels oddly weak as the main reason to drive Zeke into walking down the path toward the euthanasia plan of an entire race.

And now things will get interesting...

2. What Zeke witnessed while living as an Eldian of the Continent

Contrary to well-known main “good” characters who had arcs dedicated to showing their backstory directly by their viewpoint, Zeke Yeager had the context of his life shown through other characters’ POV and multiple chapters since the beginning of the Marley arc (as well as some scenes from previous arcs, like Grisha's POV in his journals during the revelations of the basement).

But we know Zeke had his own reading of the events that happened with his parents. And after becoming older and becoming a Warrior, Zeke was also the most secretive of all characters. So Reiner, Porco, Pieck, and Colt had no real understanding of the true Zeke, nor how far he was in keeping up his pro-Marley facade. The Warriors could never even have imagined that he had been building up the stage for his Eldians' eradication plan for around 13 years.

The only thing they all genuinely had in common was the critical life of an Eldian of the Continent (EoC) and Warrior. And I want to highlight this part because it's something that furthers the implications of Zeke's statement in chapter 114:

"We never did learn to trust one another. But I can't blame you. The world I've seen was just too different from what you've all seen."

What Zeke saw as an EoC:

The Eldians of the Continent were cowardly abandoned and forgotten in the hands of their enemies by Zeke's direct ancestors, so he was born and raised in a Marleyan internment zone, a place limited by tall Walls too (chapter 94). But more than that, since he was a kid, Zeke witnessed every day how his people had been living the last 100 years being indoctrinated by the Marleyan Government (and the rest of the planet) about the unforgiving sins of their ancestors and how the Eldians were descendants of the Devil - cursed for existing, cursed to die, cursed for continuing to be born into their world (chapter 114).

ALL Eldians were seen as this:

(chapter 87)

Besides being seen as inhuman, as monsters in human skin, all generations were also stigmatized that the Eldians of Paradis were "Devils who turned the world into hell and built their own utopia on top of a mountain of corpses" (chapter 94). And the Eldians of the Continent (EoC) also had to indoctrinate their descendants into doing the same with their children and other members of their families. That, OR they would pay the price for disobeying and betraying Marley by being sent to “Heaven” in the form of horrible undying monstruosities (chapters 86 to 92).

So throughout his infancy + 10 years as a warrior candidate + 12 years as the Beast Titan, Zeke watched his people being heavily brainwashed into believing how they all should do everything they could to repent for Eldia's past crimes by:

being used over and over again as Marley's disposable soldiers in their many wars (mentioned in chapter 136), and in the trenches (dangers and consequences seen in chapters 91-92, 94);

offering their own children to the Marleyan Military so they would become cursed-13 years long-suicidal pawns while being turned into giant bioweapon warriors;

being turned into and used as mindless maneater monsters in the Marleyan wars, and bringing an infamous glory to Marley by spreading utmost terror over other nations (chapter 94)

At the same time, the EoC were seen as the Devil’s spawns themselves for any other non-Eldian person. Kid Zeke sees the "light" version of it in the enraged eyes, words, and harsh treatment his family receives at the top of the building (chapter 114). Future Warrior Zeke hears it as candidates are called many names during training (descendent of pigs). But Marleyans’ utter prejudice, hatred, and animalistic view toward the Subjects of Ymir are dramatically shown in the way the Marleyan Police fed Faye to dogs, which might have been told to Zeke by how he reacts talking to Grisha about the possibility of him dying like her (chapter 114).

Then, the Marleyan's hatred was horribly reinforced when we learn Eldian’s blood was considered such an abomination that Ksaver’s wife killed herself and their child when she discovered he was Eldian (chapter 114). Through Ksaver’s memory, Zeke certainly saw (and felt) the pain of that to his adopted father.

After inheriting the Beast Titan, and during his last 12 years alive, Zeke saw that not even after granting victory to Marley for so many years against multiple enemies the look of unhappiness and disgust in the Marleyan civilians' face became a bit sympathetic toward his people. Like, when the Warriors come back to Paradis after fighting for them in Fort Slava, the surviving soldiers were stared down with hate and disgust, as if they were utter indeed shit (chapter 94).

The Eldians living in the internment zones outside Marley were treated worse than the ones in Marley according to what Udo says in chapter 98. And the world was so paranoid about Eldians that they kept doing constant blood tests on the population to spot Devil’s blood right away, and everyone suspected of being one certainly were in grave danger (chapter 123).

This chronic aversion to Eldians certainly turned increasingly worse as Marley used to send back to their enemies their psychologically traumatized soldiers who had survived the horrors of facing the Pure Titans after seeing their fellows being crushed, dismembered, minced, eaten alive, and etcetera. And, at the same time, the other nations used these survivors as “mascots to show the whole world how inhumane titan weaponry is”. (chapter 93). And if a 12 yeard-old kid like smart Udo knew that, Zeke definitely was aware of that too...

*One side note: Far from the war zone, we reader also saw a Marleyan soldier mocking the minds of traumatized Eldian soldiers who dug the war trenches, making fun of them with the sound of bombs and guns, and guffawing as the sick soldiers fall scared and scattered on the floor (chapter 94). Later, in the same hospital that Zeke's grandfather is treating his mental illness, Eren mentions, "I've been thinking every day since coming here. How did things turn out this way? Ruined minds and bodies... People with no freedom left... People who have even lost themselves... What kind of person would want to go to war... if they knew they were going to end up like this?" And again, if Eren - an outsider - noticed this, imagine Zeke - who grew up in that war zone environment... *

BUT something BIGGER than this all was the growing tension over the horrible upcoming destiny of the Eldian race as the time was approaching when Titans would have no more use for Marley.

In chapter 93, Udo questions the other Warriors Candidates about what will happen with their special group and the rest of the Eldians of the Continent as the anti-titan artillery was soon going to overcome both the Shifters’ and Pure Titans’ power, almost implying the reason why the humans still let Eldians alive would thus be over. Zeke also discusses this in chapter 95 with the Warriors, reaffirming that the entire Eldian race was in danger and that the world had already set their mind in that “it’s meaningless to speak about the human rights of Eldians”. Pieck, Colt, Reiner, and Galliard agreed with him that the present future was a real threat to their race.

In chapter 98, after the Marleyan Military group humiliates all Warriors in the discussion about how to invade Paradis, we see Pieck questions the same thing Udo did, and tells further that the Eldians are in danger because soon they will lose their value to Marley as bioweapons. And this is also why the Tybur finally cared to join the “party” and tried to act as Eldia's saviors-world mediators. Willy just did what he did because he saw that their race was truly in grave danger. Meaning that the living future of all Eldians of the Continent was at stake even before Zeke’s plan of euthanization.

So after seeing all of this depicted in the manga - and without even digging into the personal and familiar struggles of Reiner, Annie, and the other warriors - it doesn't seem "far fetched" to see that what Zeke witnessed beyond Grisha and during his whole life also had some impact on his mind.

But there is still more to see! And now we will dig into Zeke’s personal life.

What Zeke lived:

Another side of the demented world in which Zeke lived, witnessed, and actively participated is the one where he was raised to become one of the most important figures of the Eldians of the Continent as the Titan Shifters’ Captain, and Marley and Eldian's Boy Wonder: The Warrior Program.

But first, a little resume:

Zeke was enrolled in it by Grisha at the age of 07 years old. In the beginning, Zeke didn’t want to be a Warrior or fight for Marley (chapter 114). He couldn’t care less - to the point he was failing the Warrior Program despite the high expectations Grisha and Dina had in him. Magath and Ksaver saw this clearly too, and this lack of will catches the bespectacled Beast Warrior's attention.

But Zeke was already a very smart kid - he understood well the weight of the consequences of his actions at that time. So kid Zeke acted as a double agent: pretending to his grandparents and the Marleyan Government that he was fully loyal to Marley, and pretending to his parents he was fighting for the Restoration of Eldia. At that time, though, his true self was the one who just wanted to play with his father. Yet, kid Zeke could only have mental and emotional breakdowns silently and by himself in his room.

This lasted until Zeke found someone with whom he could finally trust and be himself, Mr. Ksaver. But Ksaver changed Zeke’s life forever not only by saving him when he would become a Pure Titan in the Island of Devils, but also by wrapping the final shackles in Zeke's depressing view of life. (If you want to see this perspective, there is this incredible meta post done by @.yaboilevi here.)

So, for the greatest part of his life, Zeke was never "purely" seen or treated as someone with intrinsic value. He was born to become an instrument to save Eldians from a 2000 years world hate war; to the government, he was a sinful devil that should fight for Marley’s sake; he was first "adopted" by Ksaver to replace the loss of his son that died because of Ksaver’s lies; due to his blood, he was the key to someone else use the Founder's power; the final tool of Eren's plan of Rumbling.

And cementing this life of you've no intrinsic value in you, you are just a manipulated tool for ends beyond you with Zeke's already growing nihilistic view of the world and Ksaver's influence over never being alive was the answer… it doesn't surprise Zeke sees nothing but meaninglessness in life.

Resume done

Now, let's see what is interesting is the life of Zeke and Ksaver as Warriors and Beast Titan inheritors: the manifestation of their Animal Titans.

It’s a known fact that we don’t have conclusive information about how the animals of the Beast Titan are defined, but we definitely have some big hints as to what could be the reason for them. So in this part, I’ll take a more particular view/interpretation while listing the facts.

It's possible that the Beast Titans' bodies were linked with the inheritor’s strongest desires and qualities manifested in their animal forms. Falco is the one who is cleared as to hint this since he wasn’t the actual Beast inheritor, BUT through Zeke's blood mixed with the Beast, Falco's Jaw form became a bird. And besides the foreshadowing in his name, Falco's Titan form manifested something really deep within him, shared in chapter 91: he sees the bird flying over the Marley warzone and tells it to use its wings and fly away. Falco wished for a way to find freedom from the place/situation where he was, and birds are a very strong symbol of that in AOT.

In Ksaver and Zeke’s case, the manifestation of their titans doesn’t seem to be so different from what they desired to do the most.

Ksaver’s Beast: The Bighorn Sheep/Ram

“I became a warrior... because I wanted to kill myself in the grandest way I could. That was all.” Ksaver, 114

From the beginning of human history, it’s been registered that rams were used as sacrificial animals in many cultures. But as we know there are some Hebrew references in AOT, it’s also nice to point out this bit: the people of Israel (ancient biblical time) had different rules for animal sacrifices. Lambs (babies), sheep (female), and rams (male) were sacrificed to symbolize different things. Lambs were for fellowship offering (Leviticus 3), while sheep were for a sin offering (Leviticus 4), and rams were for guilty offering (Leviticus 5).

“With the ram of the guilt offering the priest is to make atonement for him before the LORD for the sin he has committed, and his sin will be forgiven.” (Leviticus 19:22, New International Version).

So, since Ksaver decided to become the Beast Titan to kill himself out of his "sins" and guilty feelings, it is no wonder his titanic animal takes the form similar to one of a bighorn ram/sheep 🐏. Firstly, because he held a deep regret and pain for what had happened to his wife and son since his lies had led her to kill herself and the kid because of his “sinful blood''. Secondly, because, as he had told Zeke, there wasn’t much sense in devoting his life to die for the Marley country. So as Ksaver also had no real will to fight, his Beast accordingly turned out considered unfit for battle (114). And thirdly, Ksaver wanted to kill himself in the grandest way he could. Being a mighty war bioweapon, cursed to die in 13 years devoured alive by the next Titan inheritor while tied to an altar of sacrifice surely counts a hell of an impactful way to die. His Beast made the perfect sin/guilty ram in its ritual of sacrifice.

As a side note, there are three random curiosities that we might pick up from the bighorn Ram Titan:

This version of the Tarot Card Number 15, aka “The Devil”, reminded me of this scene:

While the animal in the Devil card is a goat, though, in the manga we have the ram, which is very fitting even though Isym must not have done this intentionally. But if it was a goat titan, it would immediately be associated with the real Devil, and indirectly mean that the Eldians were but pure demons after all. On the other hand, if it was a male lamb titan (the baby/young ram, without horns), it would be 100% opposite to the goat/Devil in religious Hebrew meaning as the lamb represents Jesus.

But if Isym picked more subtle references than just Levi’s Hebrew name (and the indoctrination of children) from that documentary Jesus Camp, choosing the ram for Ksaver with his bloody backstory in mind was a nice choice. Everybody in AOT had “bloody hands”, and holy purity can’t actually be attributed to Ksaver, the Beast Titan itself, nor any other AOT character.

Ramzi was the one to whom Eren confessed and cried over killing people and later smashed horribly under the Colossus Titan’s feet in chapter 131. His name is written in Japanese as ラムジ. The katakanas ラム also seems to be commonly translated as lamb in English. Ramzi was a literal “sacrifice” in Eren’s plan, huh?

The ram is often associated with the Zodiac Sign Aries. So some people noticed how there were similarities in the way Japanese Zodiac Animals were featured in sequence (the sheep/the monkey/the rooster = the sheep-ram/the monkey/the bird = Ksaver/Zeke/Falco).

Zeke’s Beast: The Monkey

“Even if I can't leave the internment zone, I'll still be alive…” Zeke, 114, (7 years old)

“It'd be stupid for you to become a warrior. You'd shorten your lifespan, invade other countries, and kill its citizens for Marley? Why would you bother doing something as stupid as that?” Ksaver to Zeke, 114

"I will inherit the Beast Titan. Not for Marley’s sake. I'll execute the plan to retake the Founder. And I'll succeed. After I steal the Founding Titan from Marley… I'll save the world. Just you watch. I'll free the people of the world from their fear of the Titans… and I'll free the Eldians from their suffering." Zeke, 114, (17 years old)

The Monkey has many symbols for the Japanese people. In their Zodiac, it's the 9th animal. The number 9 in AOT represents the total number of Shifters, the number of points in the symbol of Eldian of the Continent arm bandage/crown of King Fritz. (And it was also the total years Eren had his titans and the time it took him to end the Titan curse = 5 pre-basement revelations + 4 after RtS battle.)

Also, in the Zodiac, it is said people who are born under the years of this animal are clever and smart. They can come up with solutions to the problems they face. However, other cultural interpretations vary a lot with time and context. In summary:

monkeys were once considered heralds or physical manifestations of God; there was a monkey God of Crossroad between Heaven and Earth; and like priests, monkeys could mediate between the humans and deities; some were to protect especially the children;

then later the monkey became a "scapegoat symbolizing dislikeable people and trickster", the negative side of human nature; it was a "lowly animal trying to be human", imitating other people, and in some proverbs, they mean "undesirable humans that are to be ridiculed";

One worldwide known proverb involving monkeys is the "Three Wise Monkeys" 🙈🙉🙊. They are known in many cultures as "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil", and two main different takes are: 1. don't give yourself to evil thoughts, and 2. be aware that you're lacking morals when you turn a blind eye and do nothing about the wrongness around you, feigning ignorance.

So, in Zeke’s case, the monkey is indeed fit to his narrative: he had a unique God-like power; for a long time, he had endured all the deadly secrets of the insurrection plans of Eldia’s Restorationists, and faked and tricked his feelings, actions, and beliefs to his parents, his grandparents, and the Marley Government to survive each situation. And his goal while inheriting the Beast Titan was to retake the Founder from enemies in order to put into practice his and Ksaver’s idea of salvation - saving non-titanizable people from the fear of Titans, and titanizable children from the pain of being born into that world. Also, Zeke's particular throw/aim skill was his best physical ability. Thus, his Monkey Beast Titan really embraced both his life luggage and the physical form required to achieve his biggest goal.

As a curiosity, The Wise Monkeys can be seen in Zeke’s life (art by perok - special permission granted for this post. DO NOT REPOST!) :

Maybe... If Zeke hadn’t seen the world in the way Grisha showed him... If Zeke had refused to listen to things the Ksaver had said in their lowest times... Then maybe Zeke wouldn’t have made use of his screams and talks to manipulate and kill people for their deadly goal.

And just as a curiosity: Isym made the design of Zeke’s monkey with darker eyes so as to make it purposely more difficult to predict where he was looking at (and why not to say also making him scarier and a little harder to read his thinking/feelings since the eyes are the windows to our souls).

What Zeke lived in the Warrior Program

Way before Levi, Zeke’s main enemy had been life itself. To be born meant to live manipulated by engraved biological drives/ actions/ reactions (chapter 137). As part of a titanizable race, it also meant that the whole world hated and feared your existence, and wished for your to vanish for good. The dangerous DNA in your body was also used as a way to manipulate the mentality of Eldians of the Continent that they were descendants of the Devil who should atone for their crimes doing anything for Marley. These two formers issues were absurdly complex problems that the Paradisians post-RtS arc also faced, and I think this gets forgettable as Zeke is actually constantly taken as the "main villain" of AOT… When in fact, he was not.

Anyway, Zeke was a kid who was failing the Warrior Program for the blonde didn't find any will to devote himself for Marley’s wars or country, contrary to the kids who wanted that to either achieve a slightly better life (as Honorary Marleyan) or to atone for the crimes of long-dead ancestors. The one thing which made him become the best was his goal of ending the existence of his people. So while paving his path as a future Titan Warrior Inheritor, Zeke spent his whole youth being harshly trained to become an important tool in Marley wars, just like Reiner and etc...

During the 10 years the Titan Curse allowed Ksaver to live, he was Zeke’s only friend, and the only one he could trust. We have no confirmation of what happened to Grandpa Yeager as to which point his mind broke, but in chapter 98, he says to Eren that the families of the Restorationists who proved that weren't involved with the plan had to devote everything to the military. And in chapter 81, Zeke also mentioned that he didn't doubt the King of the Walls would be sending "children and elderly" to death manipulated by an idea of honorable sacrifice. So it's possible he himself was pushed into the trench wars, maybe, as he was a known patient in the hospital treating other survival soldiers. Whether going or not, surely the weight of his regrets over Grisha had long broken his mind, and Zeke lived that. Zeke himself never got over his own deeds of denouncing his parents...

When he finally became a Warrior, Zeke witnessed firsthand both his people being continuously used as killing-machine tools in Marley’s wars, and by default spreading even more terror over humans about the “true nature” of the Subjects of Ymir. But another question we don't have much clarification on whether or not the Eldian were already used as Pure Titans in some of Marley’s battles. I suspect they were because after a century of battles against so many countries, the Marleyans highlighted the ability of the Beast and Female Titans to control and call the Pure Titans respectively. Also, while training to Retake the Founder, the Warriors in their Titan form must have fought against recently transformed Pure Titans to make sure they had the control to fight them.

Either way, Zeke is again used as a tool as he must have undergone scientific experiments to enhance and improve his Titan powers as it is said that the Titan Society (Marley Scientists) was out of ideas (chapter 93) to explain how the Beast could control the Pure Titans made with his spinal fluid. Colt’s specific remarks about the Beast's Pure Titans, and the fact that in the forest Levi’s titanized soldiers were faster and could climb trees - as well as the titans who attacked the Utgard Castle-, make me wonder if the biggest part of the Abnormal Titans were actually related to Beast Titans' blood in general. These types of pure titans were more unpredictable, sometimes moving more animalistic...

Also, after only one year of inheriting their Shifters, 4 out of the 6 Titans Marley possessed got trapped within the Walls in Paradis (aka the Colossus, Armored, Jaws, and Female). What resulted in only Zeke's Beast and Pieck's Cart Titan fighting in the human wars on the continents too for those five years. This certainly worsened the fact that Marley scientists used Zeke’s spinal fluid like it was juice in many battles tells that Zeke had to constantly undergo spinal cord/lumbar punctures, which is a hell of a fucking pain if you have ever had to make it for examinations.

[Another thing is that by the talks of Pieck (recognizing the 9 Titans of all times in the last arc), and Ksaver, Zeke, and Colt about the Scientific Society of Titans in Marley, as well as Eldia’s long history of playing with biogenetic and enhancing experiments, we can fill out a lot of what might have happened with all of them (Eldians and Warriors). But I know, these experimental bites will wander to the realm of headcanons, so I’ll not further it here. Imagination can roll to pretty dark places, though.]

Lastly, something that the manga depicts is that Zeke was frequently put under constant surveillance. Commander Magath stated this when he surprised both Zeke and Colt talking secretly on the rooftop in chapter 93 - “Eldians didn’t need privacy”. In chapter 95, we also see that Zeke’s rooms had wiretaps hidden inside the gramophone. And by how Porco also questioned the absence of Army soldiers in Zeke’s room, it suggests that the Yeager was most likely kept in frequent surveillance. When talking to Reiner and Berth before the battle of Shiganshina, we also see Zeke talking to his fellow Warriors with a Marleyan soldier in the room with them (chapter 115). And every time before a mission, the Warriors did an ideology checkup, as Reiner remembers in chapter 95 too.

Despite this all, back on the rooftop talking, Magath said he had watched Zeke for 20 YEARS, yet the blonde was “still as enigmatic as ever” to him. And Magath was both an experienced Marleyan Commander and Zeke’s former Warrior Trainer. So Zeke really learned how to keep his guards up and hide his thoughts and feelings.

Thus, from 07 to 29 years old = about 22 years of his life, Zeke lived everyday conscious, taught, and being reminded that:

he was born with a demonized cursed blood;

he and his people were let alive and in the internment zone because of their possible use as bioweapons and soldiers in Marley wars;

he was hated and feared by the whole world (both as a cursed Eldian and more as the infamous Beast Titan);

he lived under heavy military surveillance (that worsened as he got the Beast Titan) and in the constant risk of being turned into an almost undying maneater monster (or be eaten after inheriting the Beast) if he ever slipped up in his fake devotion, rebelled, or disobeyed Marley;

in the worst hypotheses (that will be put in the “wondering” horror thoughts) of being forced into any kind of crazy Titan experiment he would surely be submitted in the hands of Marley scientists;

he had no one to trust his Royal secret until Yelena appeared (and "enthroned" him in her own view in her own desire to be a relevant part of the Human story - discussed in chapter 127).

Then, I think it's a bit difficult for me to say that Zeke’s life was easier or less full of horrors after Grisha went to "Heaven" (which was also during the time Zeke just wanted to be quietly alive, in chapter 114). If anything, growing up in the Warrior Program, everything about the world and what it meant the worth of being an Eldian just became worse and escalated to Zeke’s character, contributing to solidifying his "Eldians need to cease existing" mentality.

Still, Zeke fought in many wars for the sake of climbing up in Marley's military ranks to retake the Founding Titan from Paradis. And as someone out of the scope of a "hero", how did Zeke survive for more than 2 decades in that damned real world? The short answer is pretending, deceiving, detaching himself from people, and lying. Traits that are morally condemned most of the time for the "heroes" tabs, and thus not by accident some of the most blazing characteristics that Zeke is known for.

3. So, considering all the things, can Zeke really just be the topmost asshole and evil character of AOT who simply wanted to bring an end to his entire race ONLY because of the abuse of his father?

Well, yes. He can.

However, there seems to be that Isayama has left these many explicit and implicit impactful layers in the life of Zeke’s character to not make him just plain made “100% good or evil”, nor only driven by a suddenly self-inflated ego born from his hate for his father Grisha. And narratively speaking, Zeke’s background was indeed unique.

Aside from his childhood with Grisha and sending his own parents to "Heaven" and become Pure Titans, there was no other aspect of Zeke's life that could be paralleled with any other character in Paradis because the life of an Eldian of the Continent was definitely different. Notice that when comparing/ contrasting Eren and Zeke’s characters, they focus more on what they had in common: their childhood with Grisha. Because except for what they both had lived at home, there wasn’t really any deep parallel to do since the power of Eren's Titan represented the freedom for Paradis, while the Warrior Shifters and the mere fact of being an Eldian were the ultimate nightmares for the entire planet.

What is more, it seems there is an overall erasure of the Eldians of the Continent's suffering narrative. Which, if not expressed through Zeke's euthanization intentions, doesn't seem to be noticed as a really heavy issue besides the personal pain it inflicted on loved characters (aka Reiner e Falco). That's why I think it's somewhat strange to believe Zeke’s character would have all that it took to become the "Devilish Savior" he ought to become (turning into a 13-years-cursed-to-die-Warrior, spending all that 22 years of his miserable short life trusting no one while also pretending to be many things he wasn’t for the people around him, and sticking to his own version of a genocidal plan) only because of what happened between him and Grisha.

Yams might have not explicitly drawn Zeke reacting to each one of the specific horrors during his Warrior times but - given what we saw through the eyes of Gabi, Falco, Udo, and the other during chapters 91-100, and in the struggles of Reiner, Annie, Berth, and Marcel - I think that if Isayama had done that, it would be kind of redundant. The Marley Arc and all Eldians of the Continent we got a close-up had already shown in different ways how ultimately horrible it was to be an Eldian of the Continent, a Warrior candidate, and a Marleyan Titan Shifter - either by just fitting into one of these classes or all at once.

In a more personal take, I also think that if we had seen more of an empathic or suffering Zeke before the events in the Paths with Grisha and Eren, it could have also added more unnecessary pity and a sense of helplessness over his character. After all, Zeke was wrong in his euthanization plan for MANY reasons. So much that he knew he couldn't even trust people "close" to him with the idea. BUT looking helpless is definitely something Zeke's character fought his whole life not to be. And his nihilistic and instrumental view of the world holds a very important point in AOT's narrative because:

Why be born and live in the world just to be forever demonized, robbed of true freedom, imprisoned in physically and mentally walled internment zones, abandoned by the only one who could help (The King/Founder), and be used as human-eater monsters or powerful bioweapons for wars that only worsened the global over your "cursed" race? And probably being allowed to live only until the Eldian race lost their instrumental use as a bioweapon and finally the world would kill you and everyone else of your race anyway?

And after everything we have seen him go through, I don’t see Zeke not being mindful of what was happening with his people and the rest of the world, or not thinking about it. Especially since with his Royal blood, Zeke knew he was the only one who could actually do something if he ever got his hands over the Founder Titan. And knowing the King's vow of "we accept to die by our sins when the World comes mercilessly judging us", Zeke opted to go for his and Ksaver’s own idea of freedom.

4. But if as an Eldian of the Continent and the last Royal capable of anything, Zeke wanted to do something for the sake of his people, why did he turn into this destructive role and come up with this murderous plan?

Because the story needed it and Yams wanted it LOL!!

Because Zeke did believe that not existing in the damned world they lived in was the painless/merciless/best option (chapters 114 and 137).

That's why on the verge of death, Zeke is finally sincere about his intentions and worldview to us readers and Levi. And I don't think this moment was another farce or trick of his character because Isym stated in the 2nd guidebook that the true nature of a human is exposed when they are in the face of their death.

By looking into the context of Zeke's backstory, in his mind, never being born meant never having to go through that unbreakable rollercoaster cycle of existence, of that inescapable human x Devil DNA dilemma. In the context outside Paradis life, it meant not being brainwashed into being seen as a demon or used as a bioweapon, nor being used as just a tool, and not living in constant fear. To Zeke, not creating more life (aka reproducing) would lead to the end of species problems (chapter 137). It would be the end of the entire race being the host of their cursed blood and the endpoint of the global horrors/fears imposed by the existence of the Subjects of Ymir and the Titans (chapter 114).

In fact, Zeke has been affected so deeply by what he lived and saw as an Eldian of the Continent that while he is killing the SC troops in the RtS arc, he gets enraged assuming that the Eldians of Paradis were going down the same path as Marley’s Eldians: with their minds wiped out and controlled by others, the SC soldiers were riding to their deaths being fooled into believing in governmental ideologies of self-sacrifice for a “greater good”, and embracing their “meaningless” death driven by a false sense of duty and honor filling their hearts.

(Zeke goes as far as mentioning that the government would send the elder and children to war, which makes me suspicious his grandpa Yeager might indeed have been forced into fighting for Marley after Grisha's betrayal…)

Interestingly, in chapter 80, Commander Erwin Smith had given the "kamikaze" Survey Corp soldier almost exactly what Zeke had imagined at that very moment. Just before this POV of Zeke in chapter 81, we had seen Erwin revealing to Levi his deep wish to just going to the basement, and how many things he had done - including sacrificing many comrades - were not purely for humanity's sake but for a hidden selfish desire to prove his father's theory was right (and all the "My father was right and innocent" validation that would come with it). And Commander Erwin had also told Levi that he would need the skills of a first-rate con man to convince all recruits to go to charge against the Beast Titan and die without him leading them. So this shows how strong it was the ideology necessary to move 200 soldiers to their horrible and certain death.

In other words, Erwin confessed to Levi that he had done many things as an SC Commander (high government position) lying and manipulating the growing pile of dead subordinates into believing that his hard and ruthless orders and actions were ALL and ONLY for the pure sake of Humanity when in reality he had his own little share of selfish dream driving him. So up until this specific part, Zeke was NOT completely wrong in believing that this SC "suicide charge" is a parallel with the rest of the world's reality. Considering ALL that Zeke had seen and lived as an Eldian psychologically manipulated by the Marleyan Government, Zeke was sure he was yet again facing another cycle of Eldian people being brainwashed, manipulated, and used as tools for other's sake.

Purposely preparing that narrative to be assertive with Zeke's mind, we see Marlowe riding to his death not thinking about some glories of sacrifice, but how cozy Hitch would be in her bed, then questioning why the heck he thought it would be honorable to sacrifice for humanity. Horror is all written in the faces of the soldiers as they ride to their apparent meaningless deaths. And Floch, the little shit, made sure to say that to Levi and the others on the rooftop, as he almost killed Erwin himself for using their lives like that.

"None of them died thinking how noble their sacrifices would be… I'm sure all they felt, at the end was... fear…" Floch, chapter 84

However, behind this all, we know things were different too. Thanks to the final talk with Levi, Erwin ended up being clearly shown walking into the right path. And Erwin’s passionate final speech is definitely something every AOT fan will probably never forget: while it clearly encouraged the soldiers into riding to their certain death, Erwin's words were visceral, beautiful, meaningful, wholeheartedly, and honest. Which means Zeke did end up missing and failing to understand the powerful force he was facing at that moment - in the sacrifices of the Survey Corps. But it's not like Zeke could ever expect something different. The world they have lived their whole life was way too different.

And, damn, that's why I think the way Yams works the worldview contrast between chapters 80 and 81 is even more BRILLIANT when revisited from Zeke's perspective more clearly now that we know what was his background. Even more as we think the way Isym makes the parallels between Zeke’s character and the Post-RtS arc last two Veterans: Levi and Hange Zoe.

With his range of philosophies, Zeke is like the antithesis of life in AOT. He embodies the extreme opposition to all that the manga had shown us about how people were great just for doing nothing but being born into this world (Carla’s beautiful speech in chapter 71); how sacrifices and deaths had meaning (Levi’s special life quest); and what it meant true freedom (not existing versus the whole dilemma of Titans and Eldians’ 2000 years cursed existence. And this last one was the hellish problem Hange - and the Survey Corps post-RtS arc - was trying to figure out an answer for!).

Of course, there is more, but just these three points already create an amazing duality that I can’t help but find fascinating. Especially their connections between Zeke, Hange, and Levi. I've written a bit into life philosophies backing these 03 characters to post here too, but as Tumblr doesn't let more than just 10 pics/post, I'll make another with the rest of my analysis of Zeke's character!

For now, I hope this has made some sense up until here, and thank you for reading it!

Consistent themes and elments in Attack on Titan

During these few weeks I have been re-reading past SNK volumes, and I have noticed how coherent and overlaying some of the elements and themes of the series are. The ideas and problems presented in the beginning, connect and resonate to the post-basement reveal world. In this post I`d like to talk about some of these consistent things.

As a side note, I have read up till volume 26/chapter 106, so I will construct this post within that context. In here I ramble about the elements that I noticed during the re-reading of past volumes, so it is likely that I have missed some. The structure of this post will be the following one: 

-  Images of monsters 

-  Good or evil - How people are viewed? 

 - David versus Goliath 

- The prevailing current and going against it 

Images of monsters 

In the beginning of the series, one of the things that makes the Titan so scary and such a hard threat to deal with, is the massive gap of knowledge about their true nature. Humanity, or the people of Paradis, have very little knowledge about the origin of the Titans, or what kind of creatures they are. This unknown nature is a perfect breeding ground for fear. Since humanity does not know about the true nature of the Titans, and for a long while did not really possess means or tools to find out, all they had as source material, was the knowledge that Titans are the natural enemy of humanity. 

This is something similar what happens in the outside world, when it comes to the people of Ymir living in Paradis. Since they live in a island, far away from the mainland, no one living in Marley has not really seen any residents of Paradis, and does not really know what they are like. This transforms yet again into something unknown, something that is filled with Marleyan propaganda. When you do not have the means to find out what the supposed “demons of Paradis” are actually like, and you`r head has been filled with enemy propaganda since the day you were born, it is no wonder enemy images manifest themselves.

Both the Titans from Paradis perspective, and the people of Paradis from the perspective of Marley, act as examples of an wonderfully constructed, external enemy, that thrives from unknown factors and propaganda.

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Did you get the Paths idea from Madoka?!

Death & Resurrection: Eren’s Harrowing of Hell

Eren…he kept moving forward to the very end. Through the opposition of the whole world, through his head being cut off twice and through the nuclear force of a Colossus Titan blast, Eren still managed to stand up and keep moving. His forwards momentum was near indomitable.

His fight for the freedom of the people he loved came at a phenomenal cost: countless innocent lives and, ultimately, the death or titanisation of many of the people he was trying to protect. But we weren’t mad for loving Eren, even in his latter days of mass murder. There was something pure in Eren. He had an ideal and he devoted himself to it entirely.

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I think he sacrificed both in some way. He was able to experience the sight of freedom at the expense of most of humanity, a grave act of injustice, but in the end he also gave up his liberty and his life to rid the world of Titans and open an avenue for peace with the remaining civilisation, an act of justice in keeping with his desire to be judged referenced in chapter 99.

Eren and his Id: Some Further Observations

Since publishing my meta on the idea of the ‘id’ in SNK, I’ve noticed some more examples of it manifesting throughout the series.

Mikasa

What Eren attributes to Ackerman mind control is really just the nature of Mikasa’s id. She acts without seeming to realise she does so, with vacant eyes in the first panel and confusion in the last. This is just like Eren’s experience in defending Ramzi: not being mentally present in the moment, his id takes over his body like an alien and controlling force.

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Eren’s Path

I just noticed the parallel between these scenes.

When faced with an outcome as horrible as the Rumbling, most other characters try to think back to a point where they could have gone down a different path or where the trouble originated from. Eren even briefly does this.

But he not only refuses to consider other possibilities, he even rejects the utility of retrospecting in the first place. To Eren, the Rumbling happening is not a problem of the right choice or the circumstances that shaped it, it's just about who he is and his "primitive desire".

So I guess in Eren's mind, the Rumbling was an existential dilemma. So long as he exists he will surely bring ruin to the world, so is it better to never have been born? Or take away his life? He couldn't possibly do so after Historia and Carla's lessons.

So he tried to change the world by facing judgement through death for his actions, or as @jeanandthedreamofhorses said, he tried to use this inherent ‘evil’ to make the world better, by gearing his desires towards their own self destruction.

But it seems to me that a curse, no matter the good brought about by it, remains a curse, 80% percent of humanity is too great a price to pay for the end that was reached, but Eren and the Alliance were at least able to prevent total extinction, and no matter when, Eren was able to temper his desires. So he may have brought about a great amount of suffering, but his final acts contain seeds of good in them.

What do you think of Eren killing his Mother? I think that's the only major part of the chapter you haven't talked about.

At first I thought it was just thrown in for the sake of shock value, but looking back at Chapter 96, it was indeed foreshadowed.

It works so far as the revelation about the Reiss massacre works, in showing that Eren is free beyond even cause-and-effect - that he in himself is the Prime Mover, in Aristotle's terms, and in that regard godlike.

Buuut this ending seems to suggest that wasn't the kind of freedom Eren was angling for in the first place. Even if it were, an argument could be made that the Reiss massacre revelation was enough to prove that.

Regardless of this twist's inherent worth, its execution was bad. It felt very crammed in amongst all the other revelations the final chapter gives us; and what's more, you could cut it out of the final chapter and change nothing fundamental about the story. It doesn't even have much of an effect on the course of Eren and Armin's conversation.

But it does provide a conclusion to this piece of foreshadowing, at least.

Looking back on Ch 90, I failed to fully appreciate this panel.

Eren’s words here echo what Levi told him back in the Female Titan arc.

Which is why the Ch 90 panel includes Levi looking thoughtful. He realises that what he told Eren back then clearly stuck with him and influenced his attempts to save Armin.

Additionally, the words ‘How can anyone know the future?’ carry an immense irony. It’s in this very chapter that Eren will see the future when he kisses Historia’s hand. From there, it is not ignorance that he struggles with, but painful awareness. Instead of trying to decipher the best option, he has to reconcile himself with a nightmarish outcome.

Eren and his Id: Some Further Observations

Since publishing my meta on the idea of the ‘id’ in SNK, I’ve noticed some more examples of it manifesting throughout the series.

Mikasa

What Eren attributes to Ackerman mind control is really just the nature of Mikasa’s id. She acts without seeming to realise she does so, with vacant eyes in the first panel and confusion in the last. This is just like Eren’s experience in defending Ramzi: not being mentally present in the moment, his id takes over his body like an alien and controlling force.

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Why Mikasa and Armin are stagnant

Letting go of the past is something a lot of the characters in SnK struggle with. At a larger level, the royal family, Mare and the rest of the world do as well. You could actually sum up the whole conflict of this manga with that idea.

As the story approaches it’s conclusion, the people are starting to realize that this impending doom that is the rumbling is a consequence of them relying on an old hatred that should’ve stayed in the past, and begin feeling regret.

But where do Mikasa and Armin come into this? As I said, they can’t let go of their past, which is largely defined by Eren’s presence, so they struggle to go against him because they’re too used to fight for and rely on him to act, which in part made things turn out this way by not confronting Eren’s dark side, leading to their regrets.

Let’s start with Armin as people often don’t notice how as dependent as Mikasa he is to Eren. That’s not to minimize his bond with Mikasa, the whole point of him becoming a soldier is so that he can be with Eren and Mikasa, but his connection with Eren is deeper because they shared the same dream of seeing the outside world, as is Mikasa’s connection with Eren deeper as he was the one to show her beauty in a cruel world.

So, until recently, Armin’s reason for fighting was to live alongside Eren and Mikasa and fulfill his dream of exploring the world with his best friend. He had to grow up to be able to accomplish this, he would have to overcome his fears, to understand that he is also important and reliable to EM, that he has to make sacrifices, that this isn’t a world of good vs bad guys. 

In the final arc, many people complain about how useless Armin got, including Eren. While I agree that he’s far less efficient in the final arc, this is obviously purposeful. Our main characters see themselves in a situation where they don’t know if Eren is exactly on their side any longer. Eren keeps them in the dark, so they don’t know how to react or what to expect. It’s much more noticeable in Armin’s case, who’s not the fighter type, and to further emphasize his passiveness, hasn’t even used his titan in the final arc yet. 

Eren is part of his dream and reason for fighting, so when this person is possibly against you and the enemy is mostly innocent brainwashed civilians, Armin is stuck, and when shit hits the fan he blames himself for things even Erwin would possibly fail to deal with as well and reverts to his insecure state. He can only draw his full potential with Eren as a friend. He may be able to sacrifice others and most preferably himself, but sacrificing Eren’s a different story.

Mikasa is the most obviously stuck by her bond with Eren. She did grew considerably, from forming other bonds, keeping her emotions in check to an extent, relying on others, being less of a 2nd mom to Eren and giving more importance to the bigger picture. Still, her powerful connection to him makes her hesitate, ignoring the problem, clinging to idealistic solutions and leaving her decision to the very last moment (curiously similar to how she didn’t act on her feelings for him) because she’s cornered to a point where she has to choose between Eren against humanity and her friends. It’s too difficult a choice to make. She has to choose between two parts of her life she grew to love, one beauty for the other. This is her ultimate serumbowl.

Clearly, EMA still have more room to grow, and what’s in their earlier lives and  personalities that hold them back. For Eren, ironically, it’s his need to break free, to not being held back by anything, for Mikasa it’s her comfort in having a family and for Armin it’s his dream, which is inseparable from Eren. 

MA are growing in the direction of altruism and becoming their own people, independent from Eren, they shouldn’t need their lives to revolve entirely around him, while the latter is going in the opposite direction by succumbing to his flaws and not letting go of the past, although I’m hesitant to call Eren immature for that due to the sheer unfairness of the situation and lack of context from his side.

It’s very fascinating how both Mikasa and Armin have almost been there in the Trost arc, even before their developments in other areas in later arcs. The fact that they could live independently from Eren was always right at their faces and ours. 

After they thought Eren was dead in the Trost Arc, they broke down, succumbed to their weaknesses, that weakness for Mikasa being not having a home to go back to and for Armin, to feel like a burden resulting in them almost giving up their lives. What kept them going was realizing they still have their comrades, that life’s not just about their connection with Eren (Mikasa to a smaller extent, given how Eren’s message was the main reason, but still). 

But Eren came back, and so MA went back to their old ways. Mikasa would still be overprotective and putting him above the world later on, Armin would still fight fueled by his dream, panic and loathe himself for his shortcomings. I can’t blame them, they were still not mature enough in the other aspects. Eren is like a wall or a comfort zone stopping them from seeing or acknowledging the bigger picture. 

Eren’s writing in the Trost arc was kinda the opposite. When he’s swallowed by Santa Titan, he didn’t succumb, he lashed out irrationally, he didn’t even question his existence as a Titan either, if it’s something that helps him fight, so much the better. He didn’t want to deal with his weakness.

His big defining moment in the Trost arc explicit that his main driver was freedom, not hate, but it didn’t present a right path for him to choose later on. It was the path he would keep walking from the beginning until the end, and it’s reflected on him coming to understand his enemies and not hating them any longer, but still choosing war all the same. 

MA hit their growth limit with Eren at the center of their lives in the Return to Shiganshina arc. Armin was able to sacrifice his life and his enjoyment from his dream, but entrusts this dream to Eren, who gives meaning to it. Mikasa lets go of her second most precious family member and puts humanity before him. While still trying not to abandon Eren until the very end, the final arc forces MA to actively choose to let go of him, unlike Trost arc that took him away from them, while Eren doubles down and refuses to let go of his past, his family and his freedom.

Ever Since I Was Born: Eren and his Id

Ironically, after writing a very long critique of the ending, I believe I have found a way to redeem it. Isayama’s comments on the manga ‘Himeanole’, as well as the analyses put forward by @twilight-paradise88 and @cosmicjoke​, led me down a very interesting path of interpretation that makes the ending - thematically, at least - justified.

In the 2017 Bessatsu Shonen interview, Isayama says this about ‘Himeanole’:

Ultimately, I don’t think the series [SNK] passes judgment on what is “right” or “wrong.” For example, when I read Furuya Minoru’s “Himeanole,” I knew society would consider the serial killer in the story unforgivable under social norms. But when I took into account his life and background I still wondered, “If this was his nature, then who is to blame…?” I even thought, “Is it merely coincidence that I wasn’t born as a murderer?”

Does this sound familiar?

Eren, like the protagonist of that manga, is presented as being a certain way since birth. From the Attack Titan’s power to see the future, we know that Eren bringing about the Rumbling was an inevitability.

The kernel of this idea is preserved in the ending. Although Eren’s motivations become more complex, the core of his being still compels him towards that act of destruction. He cannot understand it, because it is not a logical demand. It is simply the nature of who he is.

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This reminds me of something from an interview with the editor.

When the series started in 2009, Kawakubo’s original suggestion was for Isayama to draw something “easy for the majority of the public to understand and caters to them.” However Isayama responded with “But who represents this ‘majority?’” as he preferred to create something with immense impact, even if understood by few. They continued to argue back and forth about this for an entire year.

Critique of the Ending

After an unreasonably long wait, here are my thoughts on the ending in more detail. I’ve always tried my best to decipher the author’s reasons behind their narrative decisions instead of dismissing them off the bat if they rub me the wrong way. But, in the case of this final chapter, I can’t help but find it unworthy of all that came before it.

This critique is divided into four subsections: ‘An Irresponsible Plan’, ‘Underwhelming Heroes’, ‘Wasted Characters’, and ‘A Gimmicky Solution’. The ending launched so much new information at us that I can’t cover everything, but I have addressed those errors in plot, themes, tone, and characterisation that disappointed me most.

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Eren’s Founder and Jung’s Archetypes

The appearance of Eren’s Founding Titan form, its shape and symmetry, seems very esoteric somehow. One is called to mind Jung’s theory of Archetypes, the base symbols that are shared in the collective unconscious of all human psyches. These symbols are then used in the religions and mythologies of cultures across the world.

The eery artistic power of Eren’s Founder perhaps comes from its Archetypal resemblance to figures such as the Hanged Man in the occult practice of Tarot cards. Eren’s torso looks as though it is hanging downwards in the manner of the Hanged Man.

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“They were just there wherever I looked from the day I was born. Those miserable walls.”

I think this is the most important line we need for understanding Eren. From the moment he was born Eren felt caged no matter what he did and he longed for release.

This desire was unconscious at first, but seeing Armin dream so passionately brought about the realization that Armin was seeing and believing in something that Eren couldn’t, and this brings about the realization in him that he’s restrained/caged from doing something.

He initially believes that this indignation from a sense of being caged is because of the Titans or oppressors but as time goes on and the circumstances change, Eren realises that this is something internal and the fact that it’s something that no one else experiences is one of the sources of his tragedy: he can’t communicate/share this desire.

(There’s probably some symbolism in the fact that Eren confessed his truest desires to a child that didn’t speak the same language)

At first, Eren associated release with the “sight” of the things in Armin’s book. He believed that seeing those things will give him the release and liberty he’s been longing for, though it should be noted that Eren says he doesn’t care what the particular sights *are* just that he sees them so I think he cares much more about the feeling of liberation that those things stand for than the sights themselves.

So I think that even though Eren might say that he’s disappointed that the world wasn’t what was in Armin’s book I think what he’s really sad about is that he didn’t feel liberated by the world beyond the walls, but because he associated those feelings with the sights in Armin’s book he uses them interchangeably(I think this is supported by the fact that Eren still feels caged and empty when actually seeing those sights in 139).

The reason Eren slaughters humanity beyond the walls is because from his perspective, *they* are walls/barriers obstructing his freedom. “That Scenery” is one of the most important motifs with Eren, it’s the liberty that comes with transcending or breaking a wall, but one of the ironies in 131 is that Eren is deluding himself to think that it’s freedom. Eren’s very nature demands that he cannot see beyond the “walls” and this is testified to by Eren looking unfulfilled immediately after the freedom panel and the fact that he still needs Armin’s approval. Besides Isayama deliberately contrasts Eren and Armin by saying that Armin still believes in a world beyond the walls, with a panel of Eren’s eyes closed.

Eren’s tragedy is that of a man born with the inability to look past the repression of life(or you could say he was born with the ability to see restraints everywhere). I think this solves all the contradictions I thought I saw in Eren’s character and addresses the “Problem of being a Slave” that Isayama once brought up.

Before I go there’s one last thing I have to say about the final chapter and this motif, Eren can’t see the dream Armin enjoys and he can’t see the future that lies ahead, but his love for his friend(s) let’s him transcend that nature by putting his hopes in them at the end. He won’t ever be able to see beyond the walls, that’s just how he is, but he can be at peace with the fact that his friends will.

Edit: I made this post mainly because I was tired of people rooting Eren’s actions in trauma or an ideological mistake or lack of development. Eren has developed enough as a protagonist, especially by chapter 100, his “mistakes” in the Final Arc are a result of his nature, I think that’s what Isayama wanted to convey.

I found a few interesting parallels and repeated motifs with Eren.

In both cases Armin asks why Eren would want to do such a thing, and he responds in very different ways, yet the reason is still grounded in the same fact. Eren's birth into this world.

It should be noted that when Armin asks this the first time, Eren is confused and even angry at the fact that Armin would ask such a question. He takes this as a given but he can't articulate any clear reason, and in anger he proclaims it's because he was born into this world. This time, Eren no longer feels justified or entitled, but sad and grave, and he can't even confidently say it's because he was born into this world(though the implication is clear in the flashbacks), yet he can't deny the strength of that desire, he had to do it no matter the cost.

Another callback has to do with the hope beyond the hell.

Previously Eren believed undoubtedly that hope lay beyond this hell, but after his disillusionment with the world beyond the walls, he now questions whether his struggles will lead to actual fruition or yet another hellish disappointment after so much sacrifice and strife. Eren has come to the conclusion that he'll never know unless he actually gets there. It's interesting how previously the ends were unquestionably good and so was the fight to attain them, yet when Eren says this it's in an arc that has been criticising the "keep moving forward" mentality and he's not even fully confident in the value of this end, what remains constant though-through the ambiguity, confusion and corpses-is the core drive within Eren.

"They were just there wherever I looked from the day I was born. Those miserable walls."

I think this is the most important line we need for understanding Eren. From the moment he was born Eren felt caged no matter what he did and he longed for release.

This desire was unconscious at first, but seeing Armin dream so passionately brought about the realization that Armin was seeing and believing in something that Eren couldn't, and this brings about the realization in him that he's restrained/caged from doing something.

He initially believes that this indignation from a sense of being caged is because of the Titans or oppressors but as time goes on and the circumstances change, Eren realises that this is something internal and the fact that it's something that no one else experiences is one of the sources of his tragedy: he can't communicate/share this desire.

(There's probably some symbolism in the fact that Eren confessed his truest desires to a child that didn't speak the same language)

At first, Eren associated release with the "sight" of the things in Armin's book. He believed that seeing those things will give him the release and liberty he's been longing for, though it should be noted that Eren says he doesn't care what the particular sights *are* just that he sees them so I think he cares much more about the feeling of liberation that those things stand for than the sights themselves.

So I think that even though Eren might say that he's disappointed that the world wasn't what was in Armin's book I think what he's really sad about is that he didn't feel liberated by the world beyond the walls, but because he associated those feelings with the sights in Armin's book he uses them interchangeably(I think this is supported by the fact that Eren still feels caged and empty when actually seeing those sights in 139).

The reason Eren slaughters humanity beyond the walls is because from his perspective, *they* are walls/barriers obstructing his freedom. "That Scenery" is one of the most important motifs with Eren, it's the liberty that comes with transcending or breaking a wall, but one of the ironies in 131 is that Eren is deluding himself to think that it's freedom. Eren's very nature demands that he cannot see beyond the "walls" and this is testified to by Eren looking unfulfilled immediately after the freedom panel and the fact that he still needs Armin's approval. Besides Isayama deliberately contrasts Eren and Armin by saying that Armin still believes in a world beyond the walls, with a panel of Eren's eyes closed.

Eren's tragedy is that of a man born with the inability to look past the repression of life(or you could say he was born with the ability to see restraints everywhere). I think this solves all the contradictions I thought I saw in Eren's character and addresses the "Problem of being a Slave" that Isayama once brought up.

Before I go there's one last thing I have to say about the final chapter and this motif, Eren can't see the dream Armin enjoys and he can't see the future that lies ahead, but his love for his friend(s) let's him transcend that nature by putting his hopes in them at the end. He won't ever be able to see beyond the walls, that's just how he is, but he can be at peace with the fact that his friends will.

Edit: I made this post mainly because I was tired of people rooting Eren's actions in trauma or an ideological mistake or lack of development. Eren has developed enough as a protagonist, especially by chapter 100, his "mistakes" in the Final Arc are a result of his nature, I think that's what Isayama wanted to convey.

I think both Eren and the 104th(Alliance) act in reaction to 1). The only difference is in their approach. The Alliance wants to end the cycle of violence through mutual understanding *and* getting the children out of the forest, while Eren wants to end it by crushing the opposition underfoot.

You don't seem to acknowledge that getting the children out of the forest is a direct response to ending it, for if the new generations aren't afflicted or can learn from the past mistakes it can pave a way for the cycle to collapse momentarily.

Of course, the cycle can never be truly destroyed and the forest will remain immanent but our efforts to resist it can bear fruit, even if it doesn't last. That's where beauty can shine forth in this cruel world.

Do you believe the full rumbling goes against the theme of “getting kids out of the forest?”

No, because Armin & Co. represent that side of the argument.

Mr Braus says two things: 1) He laments the continuation of the cycle of violence, and 2) He argues that the most important thing is to keep children out of it. Eren acts in reaction to 1), and the 104th act in reaction to 2).

Rather than just having the main character straightforwardly represent the moral message of the series, it's more interesting to explore the unresolvable contradictions within that moral message - that's what would have been the case if Eren and the 104th had truly been opposed. Eren would have fought to end the cycle at the cost of children's lives, and the 104th would have fought to preserve children's lives even if meant that the cycle will continue.

Of course, Eren's capability of truly ending the cycle is often brought into question - but this only adds further nuance to the series.