Right now I’m most leaning towards him believing in Zeke’s goal, though, which also fits thematically, as, thirdly, there is also once again a callback to the moment with Petra in the forest. Maybe it’s some combination of any of these (I feel the third option in particular has ways to be combined with the first and second options) or, again, anything else entirely.
The third option is the the old “he has his own plan entirely and plans on sacrificing himself”. This option also opens up the possibility that Eren was acting with Armin and Mikasa, something Eren has done before as a kid with the slave traders and with Reiner back in the trees.īoth of those times the acting was made pretty obvious, though, which is why I’m not entirely certain about this option, but at the same time, it would fit because he is ignoring Yelena here. So, with the continuing flip-flopping, I’m now leaning towards Eren going along with Zeke’s plan:Īnother option here would be that he didn’t really expect Zeke to arrive and expected him to be held back by Levi, meaning he was actually manipulating Zeke to get all the shifters where he wanted to kill them/eat them while Zeke was gone.
I saw Eren’s reaction at the end of the chapter as being helpless and thus relieved to see Zeke because his scream distracted the other shifters and saved him. Secondly, Eren’s stubborness and will to fight are still there as well, but unlike at Trost, when he had to lift the boulder to help humanity, they are possibly in service of harmful goals, again, if he really is planning to go along with Zeke’s plan, which, again, is still not entirely clear. I suspect this might be a part of why Eren is acting the way he is - along with him now being extremely powerful, everyone following him like that and telling him that he’s special might’ve influenced him to start thinking like that again, despite him taking steps to let that attitude go by the end of that arc: There are several thematic ideas the story continues to return to in this chapter - this seems to be a trend these last few chapters (and probably the biggest indicator that there probably is a plan to end the story at some point in the nearer future rather than farther).įirstly, Yelena sees Eren as special and directly addresses him as special, calling back to the idea of seeing yourself as special that was introduced back at the end of the Uprising arc. We still don’t know, but at least as of this chapter, everything is all laid out fairly simply in the most basic plot sense. I really appreciate a straight-forward chapter like this after all the flip-flopping around what the true motivations of all the characters are.