Characters
Zeke in Attack on Titan
The war chief who commands the Beast Titan at Shiganshina and gives the Warriors their orders.
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Complete record: Zeke
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Profile
A bearded, bespectacled man who waits on Wall Maria with Reiner Braun and Bertholdt Hoover and gives them their orders. Unhurried and faintly amused, he speaks of ending a cursed history as though the outcome were already written, and treats a battlefield like a pitch.
Raised for the Warrior Programme
Zeke was born in Marley to Grisha Yeager and a wife of royal blood, and raised on the true history of Eldia his parents meant to restore. Pushed toward the Warrior programme so that cause could reach the Founding Titan, he handed both of them to Marley's Public Security instead, and saved himself and his grandparents.
The Plan He Owed a Dead Man
The euthanasia plan is not his invention: it is the end of a sentence Tom Xaver started in an alley over a game of catch. Use the Founder to sterilise every Subject of Ymir and the Titans end in a century, without one more death. He needs royal blood and the Founder in the same place — and he needs Eren to agree, which matters more to him than he admits.
He Ate the Man Who Taught Him to Throw
On an underground altar in 842, Marley turns Zeke into a mindless Titan and gives him Xaver. He eats the only adult who treated him as a child and inherits the Beast Titan. The glasses he wears afterwards belonged to Xaver; the power, the research and the promise to find a sympathetic holder of the Founder now travel in the same body.
The Village He Turned
Years before Shiganshina, he walked onto the island with Pieck carrying the supplies and a handful of Marleyan soldiers. They released a gas laced with his spinal fluid over a sleeping village, and then he screamed. Everyone in Ragako stood up as a Titan, which is why Connie has no mother.
War Chief on the Wall
On Wall Maria, the man who holds the Beast Titan reassures Reiner and Bertholdt about Annie, then asks whether they still have the will to finish this. Their single objective, he tells them, is the Coordinate — and with it the end of a cursed history.
A Perfect Game
With the horses trapped and the district ringed by Titans, Zeke begins hurling stones at the soldiers as though pitching. Each throw breaks the sound barrier and erases whole rooftops of Scouts; between them he has boulders set down within reach and complains about his own aim.
The Soldier He Was Warned About
Zeke wipes out Erwin Smith's charge and is still lamenting the waste when the Titans flanking him drop. Levi takes his arm, his eyes and his legs apart before he can harden, tears him out of the nape and pins him — and only a rescue saves him.
Victims of the Same Man
Carried into the ruins, Zeke finds Eren Yeager holding Bertholdt hostage and speaks to him almost gently: they are both victims of Grisha Yeager, and Eren has been brainwashed. Staring at a face that resembles his father's, Eren is told he will be rescued one day.
The Wine on the Survey Ships
Every ship the Volunteers brought to Paradis carried more wine than any crew could drink, and the order was that the senior officers be served first. Three years later most of the island's command has his spinal fluid in them and does not know it. He does not need to invade a country he can turn into Titans with one shout.
The Price He Set on Historia
Zeke buys Hizuru's interest with the iceburst stone under Paradis and sends them a fifty-year plan. A partial Rumbling will protect the island while it modernises; then Historia must inherit his Beast Titan and bear royal heirs to keep the deterrent alive. It is the public future he offers the island while hiding the euthanasia plan meant to make those heirs impossible.
The Artillery That Fell Out of the Sky
At Fort Slava he ends a stalled siege by standing where nothing can reach him and throwing: leftover shells crushed in his hands and put through the Mid-East fleet. When their guns finally answer, the Armored Titan is destroyed getting between him and the shot. Marley calls him Wonderboy.
A Ball Instead of a Handshake
Before the raid, Zeke meets Eren secretly in a Marleyan hospital. He lays out the euthanasia plan and hears his brother agree that never being born is the only release. They keep royal blood and the Founder apart, sealing the agreement with Xaver's baseball instead of a handshake. Zeke leaves believing he has finally found the brother he promised to rescue.
The War Chief on the Enemy Airship
At Liberio he stands against the Scouts until Levi kills the Beast Titan on cue. Gabi boards the departing airship and finds her war chief alive among the enemy: Zeke helped plan the raid on his own city and used his apparent death to defect. Marley has lost its strongest Warrior before it understands that he changed sides.
The Scream That Took His Guards
Zeke runs from his forest captivity and screams. Every guard except Levi drank his wine; they fall from the trees as Titans and pursue their captain under Zeke's command. Levi kills all of them, catches the escaping Beast Titan and tears Zeke out again. The trap fails because Zeke understood the weapon perfectly and never understood what Levi could do to his own comrades.
Watch Me, Xaver
Cornered in the forest with a Thunder Spear buried in his gut and Levi closing in, he loses his glasses and finds, in the blur, the man who gave them to him. Then he sets the spear off himself, shouting for Xaver to watch — because being blown apart is survivable and being captured with the plan unfinished is not.
The Girl Who Rebuilt Him
His body dies after the blast. One of his Titans opens its own belly and encloses him; inside the Paths, a girl spends what feels like years rebuilding him from earth. Zeke emerges whole from the carcass and identifies her as Ymir, seeing for the first time the labour behind every Titan body he has commanded.
He Heard Colt and Screamed
Colt asks Zeke to delay his scream only long enough for Falco to escape. Zeke hears him out, says he understands what one brother means to another and screams anyway. Falco, Colt and every soldier in Shiganshina who drank the wine are taken by it. Shot through the Beast Titan's nape, Zeke plays dead and orders Falco's new Titan to free Eren.
The Apology He Never Expected
Zeke takes Eren through their father's memories to prove that Grisha brainwashed a second son. Instead he finds the childhood he was denied and learns that Eren drove Grisha to slaughter the Reiss family through future memories. Afterwards Grisha sees his eldest son, embraces him, apologises for being a terrible father and begs him to stop Eren. The proof Zeke wanted becomes a warning.
She Would Not Obey Him
He finally has it: royal blood touching the Founder, the war-renouncing vow void, Ymir herself standing in front of him and Eren in chains. And then his brother talks to the slave instead of commanding her, and two thousand years of obedience end on the wrong side of the argument. The power goes to Eren, and Zeke watches the world he meant to end painlessly begin to be flattened.
One More Game of Catch
In the Paths, Zeke tells Armin that life exists only to multiply and suffer. Armin answers with useless moments worth being born for; the leaf in his hand becomes the baseball Zeke threw with Xaver. Zeke remembers wanting one more game, changes sides and wakes dead holders of the Nine to help the alliance. He leaves the sand ready to end the life he has finally found value in.
He Called for Levi
He comes out of Eren's Titan and calls the name of the man who has spent the whole war trying to kill him, because there is nothing left he wants to be and only one person who is certain to do it. He notices the weather. He says he did not deserve to notice it. Levi takes his head off, and the Walls stop walking.
Titan identity
Beast Titan
Final fate
All linked characters
- Beast Titan — The war chief who waits on the wall is its holder
- Reiner Braun — Gives him his orders and asks if he can still finish this
- Bertholdt Hoover — The war chief he answers to on Wall Maria
- Annie Leonhart — Reassures the others that the warrior left behind is not lost
- Erwin Smith — Erased his charge from the field with a single volley
- Levi — Torn out of his nape and pinned before he could harden
- Eren Yeager — Sons of Grisha Yeager, raised on opposite sides of the sea
- Grisha Yeager — The father whose cause he handed to Marley's Public Security
- Quadrupedal Titan — Took the war chief in its mouth and ran him out of Levi's reach
- Grice — The boy's report handed him and the movement to Public Security
- Dina Fritz — Mother and son; she raised him to carry the restoration
- Gross — Reported his own parents' movement to Public Security
- Theo Magath — Commands the Warrior Unit he leads; neither of them says the quiet part
- Tom Xaver — Taught him to throw, handed him the plan, and let him inherit the Titan
- Falco Grice — Drank his spinal fluid by accident; his scream took the brother, not the boy
- Colt Grice — The candidate already chosen to inherit his Titan; he begged him to wait, and was refused
- Pieck Finger — Carried his supplies at Shiganshina and pulled him out from under Levi's blade
- Onyankopon — Followed him out of Marley's army; was never told about the euthanasia plan
- Yelena — Built the Volunteers around him and speaks of him as a prophet
- Kiyomi Azumabito — He bought Hizuru with iceburst stone before the island knew it had any
- Ymir Fritz — Gave her a royal order after two thousand years of obedience, and was refused
- Mr. Yeager — The grandson who kept them alive by handing their son to Public Security
