English Dub Review: Attack on Titan “Sole Salvation”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

We learn about Zeke’s perspective of being raised by Grisha and his first wife as they conscripted him into their resistance against Marley. Zeke struggles to keep up with his fellow recruits, making his chances to become a Titan bearing Warrior look slim to none and gaining more pressure and ire from his parents. However, he meets a Warrior that takes a liking to him, Ksaver, who plays catch with him and praises him. Eventually, it seems like his parents will be found out for their crimes, so Ksaver tells him to rat them out so that at least he and his grandparents will survive. Years later, he learns that Ksaver used to have a wife and child, but after hiding his Eldian status from them for so long, she killed herself and the child, showing him that Eldians didn’t deserve to live. Zeke decides to find the Founding Titan to rewrite the biology of Eldians so that they will no longer give birth, but he’ll need Eren’s help to do it. He then takes Ksaver’s Beast Titan and later runs into Eren in Season 3 and even later, talks to him about the euthanization plan, with the two agreeing to enact it.

In the present, Levi is taking Zeke to be eaten, but Zeke activates the Thunder Spear in his stomach to horribly injure both himself and Levi.

OUR TAKE

Wow. Woooooooow. This really clenches it when it comes to sad villain backstories in this show, as well as giving us a pretty clear picture of all of Zeke’s actions up until this point. Back near the end of Season 3, when we first got a glimpse of Marley and Grisha’s youth there, we did get a glimpse at his time raising Zeke with his wife before Eren’s mother, but it was comparatively a pretty small footnote in the grand scheme of things that were being explained at the time. Essentially, Grisha joined the resistance to avenge his sister and his people, met his wife there, then they had Zeke join to infiltrate the Marley army and take another Titan for the resistance, but Zeke was turned and ratted Grisha and his wife out, leading them to go to Paradis where Grisha would then meet Eren Kruger, the then-current holder of the Attack Titan, who would pass it down to him, leading him to meet Carla and then have Eren.

Zeke’s story obviously starts a little further down that timeline and ends up overlapping with scenes that happened between seasons and episodes. It also wasn’t as simple as him being turned by his loyal grandparents like Grisha thought, but rather that the pressures of being part of dangerous cause he didn’t understand while also getting approval and warmth from Ksaver that he didn’t get from Grisha. It’s fascinating seeing how both his grandparents teach him things about their culture that are then immediately contradicted by Grisha and his faction, though who knows if either is right. And then, once he learned that Ksaver once had a wife and child who died because he was Eldian, Zeke took from that this that all Eldian’s would die, proof that his own brainwashing is solidified and he sees the only way to save the world is to get rid of Eldians. Ironically, this is why he sees Eren has brainwashed and tries to recruit him, since he understandably suspects that Eren was treated the same by their father as he was.

What Zeke doesn’t understand is that Grisha actually changed quite a bit after he was supposedly killed, and that Eren’s time becoming a soldier on the other side was radically different than his own, and Eren even more so changed as he gained a better understanding of things. This leads me to believe that Eren is not showing all of his cards when we see him go along with Zeke’s plans, but it sets the stage up quite well for the mid-season finale next week.