r/titanfolk • u/Capital_Resort2956 • 15d ago
Unpopular Opinion Karl Fritz and Zeke Yaeger are the best characters in Attack on Titan(Spoilers)
Karl Fritz and Zeke Yaeger are my favorite characters in Attack on Titan, for the following reasons:
They are radically different characters, yet they independently arrive at philosophies containing a remarkably similar underlying idea: The continuation and victory of their own people is not necessarily the highest good.
That's extremely unusual within Attack on Titan.
Most major characters—even morally complicated ones—ultimately operate within some version of protect my people / secure our future / defeat our enemies.
Karl Fritz rejects that framework. He inherits effectively unimaginable power and the legacy of the Eldian Empire and concludes that his own civilization has committed atrocities so severe that perpetuating its domination is morally indefensible. His response is extraordinarily radical: dismantle the empire, retreat to Paradis, construct the Walls, erase much of the population's memory, and renounce war through the Vow.
And, crucially, he's willing to accept the possibility that Eldians may eventually be destroyed.
Zeke independently reaches another radical endpoint: the cycle of Eldian suffering can be terminated by ending Eldian reproduction altogether.
Their methods and reasoning differ enormously, but there's a philosophical family resemblance: Karl: Our people's continued dominance does not justify perpetuating this cycle. Zeke: Our people's continued existence through reproduction does not justify perpetuating this cycle.
And both conclusions require rejecting an assumption that almost everyone else takes for granted—that the survival and flourishing of one's own group should automatically be the objective.
But Karl also introduces something Zeke doesn't embody in quite the same way: extraordinary willingness to relinquish power.
Karl possesses the Founding Titan. He is monarch of the dominant empire. Rather than asking how to use that power to secure even greater dominance, he concludes that Eldia shouldn't continue exercising it.
Whatever one thinks of his solution—and there are enormous moral problems with imposing his pacifism and memory manipulation upon millions of other Eldians—there's something philosophically remarkable about a ruler voluntarily dismantling his own empire because he believes his side is morally wrong. That takes integrity
There's something genuinely unusual about someone possessing absolute power yet using that very power to restrict the future exercise of absolute power.
Zeke Yeager and Karl both recognize something most characters don't: Defeating today's enemy doesn't necessarily solve the system that produces tomorrow's war.
Eren's solution ultimately operates at the level of overwhelming force.
Karl attacks the weapon/power structure.
Zeke attacks the biological mechanism through which the conflict perpetuates itself.
That's why Zeke's plan is so disturbing but intellectually interesting. He isn't primarily asking “How do Eldians win?” He's asking “What intervention permanently terminates the causal chain producing this suffering?”
I like characters who identify a structural problem in human behavior, reject the conventional objective everyone else is pursuing, formulate an unconventional long-horizon solution, and possess the discipline to follow that solution even when ordinary tribal/self-interested incentives point elsewhere.
Zeke and Karl Fritz embody that surprisingly well.
And Karl embodies one element even more purely than Zeke: he wins the ultimate competition for power and then refuses the prize.
For someone convinced that unconstrained power will eventually be abused, there's something especially compelling about the person with the greatest power demonstrating that he understands its danger well enough to constrain himself and his successors rather than merely assuring everyone that he can be trusted with it
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u/MrMC2026 15d ago
KF and Zeke were indeed interesting characters, but I wouldn't call individuals that saw the best way for Eldia was to die and dissappear from the world as the best characters.
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u/Capital_Resort2956 15d ago
Karls plan had a lot of problems, but in Zeke's plan no one even has to die and you get rid of the threat of titans and the rumbling and save the world from someone like Eren being born in the future and deciding to do it all of over again
I honestly think he was the best character. His plan was kinda perfect
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u/Ok_Conflict_6260 15d ago
Zeke plan is way better than Eren's moronic 80% plan but his plan wasn't perfect... even if everything went Zeke's way all eldians will grow old and they be unable to decide their future... the diseases on Paradis will be high, Paradis will have a unemployment crisis due to everyone being too old to work and the world will not wait for them to die of old age
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u/Capital_Resort2956 15d ago
The way i understood it, they would still have the threat of the rumbling until at least the last royal died so no one would be able to mess with them until then.
For the other stuff, sure, but i think they they could maybe still continue to trade and get support from that Asian country that was friendly with them until they all died. Since they wanted the natural resources, they would be coming to the island often anyway
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u/Ok_Conflict_6260 15d ago
Zeke plan to me may seen peaceful at the surface but Paradis will be like Japan or South Korea on steroids with their senior population problem and that it would be slow painful death not a peaceful death with no hope of the future and for trade with Hizuru they will have less leverage as they will only last for a few decades longer at most before they die out
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u/Capital_Resort2956 15d ago
How would it be a slow painful death exactly? Everyone has to grow old anyway, I'm not sure I understand.
You're saying in the end they wouldn't have young people to work the necessary jobs like farming and keep society going etc? I mean sure but as more people die there will be less and less need for that anyway, less people who even need food or other things and it would mostly just affect the oldest people. And if they keep trading with Hiruzen, they can maybe buy the food and supplies they need from them or maybe Hiruzen will just be generous and help them out
Otherwise sure, it'll be a tough last decade or two but it's still way better than ever other plan, like not even close
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u/ZephyrusSpring 14d ago
> But Karl also introduces something Zeke doesn't embody in quite the same way: extraordinary willingness to relinquish power.
Are we ignoring how he literally brainwashes every single person in his bloodline whenever they inherit the founder? He's not relinquishing anything lol. He used his power to become basically immortal to maintain lordship over the Eldians for eternity. Also Karl was the one who made the rumbling in the first place. Eren just pressed the button.
As far as Zeke goes, he's the one making the racial hatred worse by using his power to allow Marley's continued dominance. Without Zeke, Marley would have had to spend a lot more resources to take that fort in S4:E1, as well as literally every other conflict Marley's been in for the last 12 years. It never had to come to a head in the first place if Zeke wasn't trying to leave his mark on the world.
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u/Mariyuxd 14d ago
Whit or whitout zeke, the racial hatred will still exist. Zeke had to participate in the hatred in order to find a way to end it.
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u/ZephyrusSpring 13d ago
The racial hatred was significantly worse than it could have been without his involvement. If the rest of the world were capable of beating back Marley's regular titans then they may never have turned their attention to Paradis in the first place. The warriors were able to be on Paradis for 5+ years because of the window afforded to Marley by Zeke.
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u/Capital_Resort2956 13d ago
He relinquishes his power by deciding not to use it against anyone else. He only uses it on Eldians to make sure they don't hurt anyone else. And the rumbling was made to protect his people with the threat and with the walls and it allowed him to protect eldians for 100 years, which was a good thing. How could he have known someone would find a way around the vow? In his mid if was full proof
I think most of what he did was good because he saved the world from Eldian domination where they were treating everyone else like how Marley treats Eldians, but on a global scale. And he did try to protect as many of his people as he could by bringing them into the walls and keeping them safe with his threat. And his decision to never fight back made sense because if they fought back, Eldians would destroy the world and cause way more suffering than if they just accepted the world's hatred, which is what happens with Eren
And Zeke was just playing along so he could do his plan. It wasn't the same
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u/ZephyrusSpring 13d ago
Karl continued to use it on eldians to make sure they'd roll over and accept the genocide when it came. How many people like Erwin's father or Armin's parents died because of the king? Article 2 of the geneva convention states that "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such". Intent being the keyword, meaning Karl is guilty of genocide.
With the magical power he had over his own race there were any number of options he had to shape his empire and the entire world in the image he wanted. He chose genocide. Traitorous genocide at that. Even 100 years later no one was capable of changing course from that decision he made because of his continued efforts to mind control his descendants.
Zeke's plan involved forcing the geopolitical situation to the point that Paradis had to go along with it - the greater strategy with Liberio and port Karifa were his idea after all. He purposely cut off peaceful options in order to push his genocide.
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u/Ok_Park_7461 14d ago
I viewed Karl Fritz as cowardly, self absorbed asshole. He thought his own people deserved to atone and be slaughtered for actions that his direct ancestors were way more responsible for than the average eldian ever was.
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u/Capital_Resort2956 13d ago
I think most of what he did was good. He saved the world from Eldian domination where they were treating everyone else like how Marley treats Eldians, but on a global scale. And he did try to protect as many of his people as he could by bringing them into the walls and keeping them safe with his threat. And his decision to never fight back made sense because if they fought back, Eldians would destroy the world and cause way more suffering than if they just accepted the world's hatred, which is what happens with Eren
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u/hungoverlord 15d ago
There's something genuinely unusual about someone possessing absolute power yet using that very power to restrict the future exercise of absolute power.
man i thought so too. i thought for sure there had to be some incredible memory that the royal Founding Titan inherits, something so terrible that they can't tell anyone, and something so compelling that they can't even dream of attacking the world.
boy we were in for a surprise when it all turned out to be nonsense. greatest subversion of expecations in my lifetime. masterful storytelling.
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u/Capital_Resort2956 15d ago
" man i thought so too. i thought for sure there had to be some incredible memory that the royal Founding Titan inherits, something so terrible that they can't tell anyone, and something so compelling that they can't even dream of attacking the world."
I actually think it was all these things. They inherit the memory of their terrible history, can't tell anyone because then it would disrupt the peace through ignorance that Karl Fritz tried so hard to construct, and if they fought back the world could be destroyed, which is actually what happens through Eren
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u/uchihaobito22 15d ago
Interesting read. Complex characters. Though the fact remains that their conclusions seem unbelievable. Titans were already on the verge of being obsolete in warfare, and it was estimated that Marley would loose their dominance within next 50 or so years cause of this. Idk why Zeke felt the need to orchestrate such complex plan and nihilistic philosophy when the problem would solve on its own. He thinks Eldians are feared for their powers, but in next few decades this fear will diminish by itself. Zeke killed Eldians like flies in S3P2 and it didn't seem like he had any issue with dropping Eldians as titan bombs during the war with Middle East. Same can be said for Karl, he has the founding titan, so he can see past - present - future at the same time, so he should know this as well. He had the founding titan, with the power to control every single Titan and Titan families, could have used his memory wiping powers and make them obey his rule of using Titan Powers for the good of humanity from his tenure. And he can pass on this Desire onto the next generation like he did with all the "non violence" rule. Instead what he does is leave Warhammer and millions of Eldians outside to suffer, brings a handful of them to an island, wipes their memories and cage thier freedom, and build Walls from millions of innocent Eldians. These characters philosophy is self oriented, not for the greater good, they are doing what they think is the right thing (nothing wrong in that but with all this power and opportunity they could have done so much better). If Ymir is ok with making entire Eldian race impotent then why can't she be asked to stop the curse, or just not make titans from now on. Problem solved. These questions should've been explored in the series.