The True weight of this moment ...
Okay. So many people think Levi’s inner driving force in these scenes with Zeke comes from a place of revenge. He made mistakes because of his desire for revenge. He got angry, and then sloppy, because he wanted to kill Zeke to fulfil his vow but couldn’t at this moment.
These lines of dialogue though ... ‘I saved them. The lives of the children they would bear.’ Has anyone ever stopped to consider the implications of this to Levi personally? And I’m not talking about any Baby Daddy theories now - I’m talking in light of cold, hard, canon events?
Look how passionate he is. It’s canon that Levi helped Historia save the lives of parentless children. Levi cares so much about kids that he even wants to save the unwanted, unloved and abandoned ones with nowhere to belong. Of course this is because he was once one of them himself, just like Historia. But this speaks volumes about his inner values.
Zeke just told him that those kids would be better off never having been born - so what was he doing with all this time spent helping them then? It’s like Erwin all over again - hey, that thing you’ve been fighting for, it’s all a lie. Except with Zeke, he can choose not to believe that and show Zeke that he’s wrong. Every single child does deserve to live, regardless of their birth, their background, their parents ...
Levi protects the future of children no matter the cost, cause of their strife or circumstances of their births.
Zeke wants to take that future away because of the parents these children would be born to - because they are born as Eldians.
I wonder sometimes whether Kenny ever told Levi that he tried to convince Kuchel to abort him.
‘If only you’d never been born.’
But Levi was born into this world. Just like Historia. Just like Eren.
Levi’s core values come to light in this scene, in a way that shows exactly how much of an impact his own upbringing has had on him. He vents his frustrations with Zeke the best way he’s been taught how to deal with his enemies, by Kenny himself - violence.
He lives to understand why that decision to act with such violence was the wrong one. But maybe he won’t regret it, because it taught him something.
If only there was some way that this power they have - this opportunity for terrible violence given by the power of the Titans - could be taken away from future generations.
Levi’s development has been linked throughout to children and violence. He once said, he chooses the hell of people killing each other over the hell of being eaten.
What if there was a way to choose neither?
What if there was a way to remove the Titan curse from the world, bringing an end to the hell of being eaten, and time and opportunity to teach children the true cost of violence, and why history should never be repeated?
It all comes back to Levi and Historia’s shared ideology. The children who should never have been born. But were, anyway.
