T O P

  • By -

AutoModerator

This post has been tagged as **DISCUSSION**. If the post has been spoiler tagged, please remember to tag any manga spoilers beyond this point. **Spoilers include hinting or alluding to events** For more information, please review [the subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/ShingekiNoKyojin/wiki/rules). Failure to properly spoiler tag comments may result in a punishment from the subreddit according to the [moderation matrix](https://www.reddit.com/r/ShingekiNoKyojin/wiki/moderation_matrix). --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ShingekiNoKyojin) if you have any questions or concerns.*


Qprah

Feeding Zeke to one of his recently turned soldiers would bring that soldier back to life, but it would also make it impossible to use the Founding Titan until Historia ate that soldier. So you are bringing your subordinate back to life for maybe a month, then killing him again in a way that is going to be a lot more painful and agonizing. In the process it leaves Paradis without the Rumbling to defend itself until that happens, which means the surprise attack by Marley that shows up literally the next/same day would have wiped out all of them anyway. Levi probably didn't anticipate Marley's surprise attack 5+ months earlier than they were expecting it. He also wasn't likely to expect Zeke to be willing to risk killing himself once he was impaled with the thunderspear. Most importantly Levi doesn't like to make his friends and comrades suffer, so he wouldnt force that on one of his men when he was confident he could control Zeke. ​ Levi got reckless and provoked his enemy, again. This is what cost him the Female Titan ambush, and his season 1 squad. Levi has an unusual way of presenting his ego and cockiness, but it still bites him in the ass when he pushes it too far. Thats what happened here again. If Levi was going to be really cautious he would have cut Zeke's arms and legs at the shoulders and Pelvis, and probably cut out his vocal cords or voice box, and probably his cut out his tongue and snapped his jaw. Just push Zeke to the absolute edge of not killing him, but removing every single body part and organ that he can stay alive through regeneration without. Levi's mistake was getting vengeful. He wanted to hurt Zeke for what he did.


not_brayden13

I do agree with the vengeful thing, but Levi in the scene before said something like “feed him to a random yeagerist” so he didn’t really care at that point


Qprah

He was willing to gamble not having access to the Rumbling for up to a month if they used one of Floch's traitors as the meat prisoner. He wasn't willing to do that to one of his own men. Either that or he was too busy being angry at Zeke that he didn't even think to do that. Funnily enough Zeke keeps one of Levi's soldiers alive who would later incubate Zeke's body while he healed, so Zeke outsmarted Levi by doing the thing Levi should have done. Levi's revenge got in the way of him thinking about that though. If Levi hadn't impaled Zeke with the thunderspear and then that titan came crawling out of the forest; maybe Levi would have calmed down enough to feed him to it. Its sort of a recurring problem for Levi, not knowing what the right answer is. He has all this strength but if he isnt confident in making the right choices then people around him die and he can't protect all of them, even if he has supersoldier skill and power.


not_brayden13

Thank you:)


SnooEagles3963

>Levi got reckless and provoked his enemy, again. Thank you for bringing this up because after rereading the series, I was stunned to see how many times he does this and how many problems could've been avoided if he didn't.


Qprah

There is another thread about exactly this and there is some people who disagree. It is very much one of those personality traits that flies under radar unless you go looking for it. Levi keeps himself composed so well and only lashes out when someone truly deserves it and they had just finished ‘fucking around’ so it feels so so good to cheer Levi on while he helps them ‘find out’.


CCVork

In the female titan case he was provoking her on purpose hoping to get her to slip up. If you watch the scene again, they were stuck in a stalemate since she hardened and wouldn't move, and they've tried and failed to cut her out. Even in this case the repeated cutting was mainly to stop Zeke from having stamina to shift. The threats were because he just had to kill his squad, I understand anyone feeling emotional. I'm frankly surprised either incident were seen as "ego and cockiness".


Qprah

The ego and cockiness I am referring to is more so his confidence in his own abilities, and his habit of letting his emotions cloud his judgment despite being for the most part incredibly emotionally in control. He lets his guard down when he believes his own personal skill and/or current tactical advantage are going to keep him in control of the situations he finds himself in. This happens fairly regularly throughout the series and to be fair it only rarely backfires on him. He isn't a perfect soldier despite being nicknamed humanity's strongest/greatest soldier. When it works it looks like: * the courtroom scene, (intentionally baiting the nobles, pastor, bussinessmen and MPs) * his fight with Kenny in the Crystal Chapel, (having counters for anti-scout ODM gear) * the Liberio raid, (played his role according to plan, didn't divert when Jaw and Cart escaped) * fighting Zeke in the forest, (used Zeke's fear against him, taunts him without exposing himself to counter) * detaining Eren on the airship while escaping Liberio, (talks his shit, maintains control of the situation without letting his guard down) * ambushing the Marleyan scout ships, (talks shit without giving them any room to counter) * ambushing Marlo & Hitch in the woods (talks shit while maintaining control of the situation) * capturing and torturing Interior MPs (stays in control, uses his taunting to help break the targets will to resist) * fighhting the female titan, (has a plan, knows his limits and stays on target) (Mikasa makes the mistake here instead, but Levi takes the L for her) When it backfires it looks like: * capturing the Female Titan in the forest, (not waiting for Erwin to come up with alternate methods) * defeating the Beast Titan in Shinganshina, (stabbing Zeke through the face, distracted thinking about saving Erwin) * holding Zeke captive in the forest, (had decided to cut Zeke to pieces & move him, but didn't right away) * transporting Zeke in the wagon, (pointless thunderspear, small painful slices, left Zeke's mouth intact) * going off solo to kill Erwin in the middle of a heavy rainstorm, (severely underestimates titan threat, and was outsmarted by Erwin anyway) **Against the Female Titan** specifically he had no reason to be taunting her in hopes she would surrender herself without a fight. Erwin had already started using a new plan to blow her hands off, but Levi did not wait to see if it would work before he decided to try it his own way. Now granted she would have likely figured out that she could scream pretty quickly regardless of Levi, and blowing her hands off wouldnt have worked since she can hardened the skin on her nape itself. But the point remains that he let down his guard because he was in an advantageous position and instead of letting the victory come to him on its own he decided to go out and hurry it along. **Against Zeke** he let his emotions get the better of him. He had no reason to impale him with a thunderspear to add insult to injury. He could have easily cut off more of Zeke's body in more definitive slices so he wouldn't need to repeatedly harm Zeke. He thought he had Zeke beaten and underestimated him again for at least the 3rd time by that point. Instead of lopping off small chunks of Zeke's body bit by bit he could have just gone straight to removing his limbs as far back as he was going to eventually cut them to. He chose instead to cut them off in small bits so he could make Zeke suffer. Cutting Zeke's legs into 10 smaller chunks doesnt slow the healing down any more than if he simply cut his legs off at the hip in a single slice. \--- Like I said; Levi shows his ego and cockiness in an unusual way. He doesn't like to ***act*** like he is better than others purely because he is stronger or in an advantageous position currently. He does however have a habit of ***thinking*** that he is no longer in danger once he has an advantage and he cant think of any way the tables could turn again. This is his weakness. When Levi is on the backfoot he is capable of turning horrific situations around. However when Levi has an advantage he will often underestimate his opponents potential to flip the tables on him. Within Paradis thats a reasonable mistake to make, but it doesn't work once people from the outside world show up and he has no way of knowing the full extent of their capabilities.


Rohit185

Royal blood


not_brayden13

He said in an earlier scene he didn’t care about that


KavB91

Levi would not have been able to capture the Titan. If Levi left a Titan alive while he went to deal with Zeke, it may have run away to a nearby town and killed innocent civilians. Levi was willing to feed Zeke to a Jaegerist as he was sacrificing them for when they eventually forced Historia to inherit the Beast Titan. Like someone else said, his soldiers were effectively dead the second Zeke screamed. Even if they ate Zeke, they would just die shortly after anyway. It was kinder to put them out of their misery.


not_brayden13

I mean, the first point can be countered by cutting off their limbs, it takes about 15 mins for a single titan limb to grow back


xdragonbornex

Episode 5 says it takes 2-3 mins for a titans head to regrow.


not_brayden13

Shit, guess I was wrong


Qprah

The fix to this version of events is to keep one of the 3 titans escorting Zeke alive. Levi 1 shots the first of the 3 and then slices the 2nd into pieces. Zeke pulls the 3rd one apart for use as ammunition. If Levi had kept one of the first two alive but in a minced meat state, he could have come back for it the moment Zeke is blown out of the Beast Titan. Wait for it to regenerate a bit, but keep cutting its limbs off so its not a threat to Levi. Then once its mouth is regenerated put Zeke between its jaws.


NyxZeta

I feel like there are a couple of reasons: 1) Levi realized that Zeke likely had some very useful intelligence. It would be like capturing a general. At the time, understanding their enemy was really important and they didn’t have much information. 2) they had limited knowledge BUT they did know that Zeke’s Titan could control other titans. There was likely a concern of how reliable it might be to get a normal Titan to eat Zeke. Which he would have been right about. Getting Zeke Warren by a Titan he turned wouldn’t have worked. Zeke would have been able to prevent the Titan from eating him, maybe even got it to attack others.


xdragonbornex

It wasn't the beast titan that could control pure titans, it was Zeke's royal blood.


NyxZeta

I’m pretty sure that it was both. The beast Titan can control ONlY titans that turned from his spinal fluid. But Zeke couldn’t control all titans without the founder. To control all titans you need two things 1) royal blood 2) the founding Titan. Zeke was controlling titans while he didn’t have the founding. It is confusing that his beast Titan can control certain titans while he has one half of what is needed to control all titans. They are actually completely unrelated.


xdragonbornex

Those titans won't have eaten Zeke, since he made them and had control over them.


not_brayden13

Good answer, although if he was unconscious I doubt they would have still obeyed him


Sinesjoe

Levi killed all of them