For those that don't know what the big reveal was in last month's chapter, it was the secret inside the basement. As it turned out, there were three books inside a desk shelf Eren had to open in that room. In the first book he opened, it showed a picture of a family. The back of it had Grisha's handwriting, explaining that this picture is called a photograph and that Grisha came from outside the walls where humans lived a refined existence. Basically, this confirmed that humanity isn't extinct at all, and that the people outside the walls are far more technologically advanced than those inside the walls.
So what does Chapter 86 reveal? These two areas of focus:
- Almost the entire history how the Titans and the walls were created
- Grisha's backstory when he lived in that "refined existence" outside of the walls
Both of these are explained in the first of the three books discovered in the basement.
Let's take care of the first major reveal:
Reveal #1: The history of how the titans and the walls were created:
Around 2,000 years before the events of the Attack on Titan universe, A person named Ymir Fritz made a contract with the "the Devil of all Earth" to gain a power: the power of the titans. She became the first Titan, and she used her powers to bring prosperity to the world by cultivating wastelands, building roads, and constructing bridges between mountains. When she died, her "soul" was divided among nine Great Titans. The chief among them inherited Ymir's role as the "Progenitor Titan." These nine Titans built the kingdom of Eldia, and Eldia then proceeded to wage war and successfully conquer the neighboring kingdom of Marley. From there, the Eldians, also called "the people of Ymir", deemed the other peoples as inferior and thus started to oppress those in Marley. The means of oppression involved taking away lands/possessions and eugenic cleansing against the Marleyan people in order to increase their own numbers; this ethnic cleansing lasted for roughly 1,700 years. There also came a point where the eight Titan clans fought against each other, but the power of the Progenitor Titan kept the kingdom of Eldia in order.
182 years before the beginning of the events in the AoT series, the 145th King of the Fritz family (who would later be known as the first Reiss King) inherited the powers of the Progenitor Titan, and at the same time, the people of Marley managed to steal 7 of the 9 Titan powers, turning the tide of conflict to their favor. This led to the Great Titan War, where the kingdom of Eldia lost its territory on the continental mainland. This war lasts for eighty years, and by the end of it, the 145th King of the Fritz family, his family, and most of the Eldians retreated to the island of Paradis, Eldia's last remaining area of undisputed territory; from there, King Fritz used the Progenitor Titan's power to cause Colossal Titans to form into three sets of walls. He then wiped out the memories of all the remaining Eldians inside. The reason King Fritz did all this was to escape fighting, secure Eldia in its last stand, and make sure the remaining Eldians wouldn't remember anything about what happened prior to the walls' construction.
The Eldians who didn't flee overseas to Paradis were eventually conquered by the Marleyans. From there, those Eldians were treated as low-class citizens, locked up in ghettos separate from the Marleyan population similar to what happened to the Jews leading up to World War II. Any of those Eldians who committed a serious offense against the Marleyans were turned into mindless titans, and they were left to wonder Paradis for the rest of their lives in this tortured state.
Here's a map of the AoT world revealed in this chapter:
That island that the finger is pointing to is Paradis Island. This very island is where the walled kingdom is located. The rest of the continent is what the Marleyans control now. It's also worth noting that if you were to flip this map upside down and mirror it, it strongly resembles the bottom portion of the African continent.
With that out of the way, here's the second major reveal. This is where we reach even bigger mind-blowing territory!
Reveal #2: Grisha's backstory when he lived in that "refined existence" outside of the walls
The chapter starts out with Grisha as a child, and he used to have a younger sister named Fay. The two are heading out to watch a hydrogen blimp fly in the sky before it overpasses the ghetto walls. Fay comments about how she wishes she could ride it. Once the blimp leaves, Grisha decides to take Fay outside the ghetto (named the Liberio Internment Zone) to watch it land despite their mother telling them not go past the walls. They go past the ghetto walls and walk the Marleyan streets, following the blimp until it lands near a river. There, they are found by two Marleyan soldiers who demanded to see their written permit for leaving the ghetto. Unfortunately, Grisha didn't bring one, so he gets kneed in the gut twice by one of the soldiers while the other takes Fay home. The soldier that beat Grisha up lets him stay to watch the blimp. Fay is discovered to be dead by the river bank, later confirmed that the soldiers executed Fay by feeding her to the dogs.
While talking with Grisha's parents, the soldiers insist that they accompanied Fay until she returned to the ghetto, but they remind her she never should have left in the first place. They then tell Mr. and Mrs. Jaeger that Grisha must be taught the Eldian ancestors' sins; thus, Grisha's dad has to teach him shortly after. It is here we learn the first major details about the history of the world, but Mr. Jaeger primarily focuses on Ymir Frtiz's contract, the Eldians conquering Marley, the kinds of atrocities that Eldians committed following that, and Marley winning the Great Titan War. Grisha then brings up the fact the soldier was lying about Fay's death. Horrified, hid dad tries to silence him, but Grisha thinks there's no connection between what he (Grisha) and Fay did and the past Eldian atrocities. Mr. Jaeger then tells him to stay quiet about that in order to appease those who were once subjugated. Throughout all this, Grisha grows to despise his father for sucking up to the Marleyans like that.
When Grisha turned 18, he took over his father's medical clinic. Around that time, one of his patients revealed himself to be a member of the Eldian Restorationists. He tells Grisha the truth about Fay's death, and this convinces him to join their group. Grisha's main conviction for joining the Eldian Restorationists was to prove his ancestors' actions were righteous and bring back Eldia to its former glory.
We learn that the the Eldian Restorationists have an informant in the Marleyan Government known as "the Owl." This person never reveals his/herself, and he/she provides the resistance group with weapons, funding, and historical documents. These historical documents give a brighter picture to Eldian history, revealing how Ymir brought prosperity to the world. Grisha couldn't decipher the texts that well though, but he and his compatriots choose to believe what the Marleyans taught them when they were children was false.
It is then a woman arrives at the resistance group's location, having been sent by the Owl.
This woman is Dina Fritz. She is the last descendant of the Fritz royal family. As it turns out, part of the royal family chose to not to flee with everyone else because they didn't agree with the 145th Fritz King's reasoning for abandoning the fight. Dina comes from that line of the royal family that chose not to escape into the walls. She brings some information that matches up with the documents the Owl brought. Putting the pieces together, Grisha concludes that they'll need to retake the Progenitor Titan from the King and give it to Dina's family because its power to control all the Titans would easily lead to Eldia's restoration.
The following year, Grisha and Dina marry. Soon after, they had a baby boy. They named this child... Zeke.
Yes, you're not reading this wrong; Grisha and Zeke's relationship has been revealed.
Grisha was Zeke's father before he lived within the walls. You want to know what also means?
Our friend Zeke/Beast Titan here...
is Eren's half-brother! O_O
Zeke Jaeger: that's his full name.
One panel shows Grisha, Dina, and a child Zeke taking a picture together in formal clothes, matching up with the photograph that we saw last chapter.
We then learn the Marley government have started to select "Warriors" from the Eldian people to fight King Fritz, who has issued a declaration of war. They state that children between the ages of 5 to 7 will be chosen, but only a small few will be selected because they need to be worthy of inheriting the seven Titan powers the Marley government currently has. The parents of these "Warriors" will be given the title of Honorary Marleyans. Looks like this confirms that Reiner, Bertolt, and Annie are Eldians from the ghetto'd society since they too refer to themselves as "Warriors," and the manga establishes they came to fulfill these roles at a very young age.
The Eldian Restorationists wonder why would King Fritz issue a declaration of war, but a letter from the Owl reveals that this King Fritz declaration was only a fabrication in order to have an excuse for invading Paradis to extract its abundance of fossil fuels. As it turns out, technology has been rapidly advancing to the point that Titan technology will fall obsolete to it, so they want to mine for these resources to be the first to adapt in a future, struggling age. 80 years back, King Fritz also issues the warning that if anyone tried to invade the Walls, he would set all the Wall Titans loose to wreck havoc on the world. Thus, the Marley government wants to infiltrate the walls without provoking the King and take the Progenitor Titan's power.
Grisha decides to turn his son, Zeke, into one of these warriors, giving him the pride of Eldia while sending him to work for the enemy state. Unfortunately, when Zeke turned 7, he exposed his parents to the Marley government. This led to Grisha, Dina, and all the Eldian Restorationists being sent to Paradis as punishment, where they would be turned into mindless titans and left to roam there for the rest of their lives.
And that is where the chapter ends.
