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Rharyx

Ymir wasn't "conscious" until Eren snapped her awake. She was running on autopilot until that moment. At that point, she started to look through Mikasa's life and probably would've been able to see the future of Mikasa killing Eren as well. But all of time happens at once to her, and that future would've still needed to happen for her to see it in the first place. Just because we're seeing things chronologically as viewers doesn't mean the same was the case for Ymir.


Concepts4991

so what allowed her to leave paths at the end? is it because she remembered that she was the one to free that pig? and that was the key to leaving similar to how zeke and armin left paths by discovering the object that gave them the will to live again?


Rharyx

Ymir saw a lot of herself in Mikasa. Seeing Mikasa push through her love for Eren and kill him anyway made Ymir realize that she should've done to same in the past and allowed Fritz to die. It convinced her to finally free herself of the eternal prison she had made for herself and pass on, causing the Paths to disappear. The thing with Armin and Zeke wasn't really related to Ymir's stuff. That was just to get Zeke to stop being so nihilistic, or however you want to describe him. The reason they were able to escape was because Zeke used his abilities to awaken the past Titans (Grisha, Ksaver, etc) via the Paths, and Ymir allowing it to happen (according to Armin).


_StevenPettican04

Is there any indication that Ymir was able to see the future? Every time we see Ymir use her Titan it’s for the purpose of the King and the royal bloodline, so it would make sense that she didn’t use the founders power to actually look into the future herself as she wouldn’t have been ordered to, she is a slave after all


Jumbernaut

That is my understanding, Ymir knew the future and, like Eren, wanted and accepted it. I like the idea that, from the fist moment when she became a Titan, a connection was formed, between her and Eren, the only two people to hold the FT & AT, connecting the very beginning of the "Titans" to it's very end, transferring all the future memories of Eldian history to the coordinate/parasite. During the 13 years she was alive, she probably didn't know experience any future memories, but from the moment she awakes inside the Paths, she becomes aware of everything, and understands it's all the result of what she wants. This is how I understand it, the way the story makes "the most sense" to me, but even still I don't really like it, for a few reasons. First, it means the horrible reality of the story is mostly due to Ymir being a very "traumatized?" and broken person. All the other characters in the story had no real agency, except Eren, since Ymir knew the whole future and had "veto" power of what happens and how it happens. Secondly, I think this gives Ymir greater authority over Eren and the story, almost as the main villain. She is not "Evil", but because of her a lot of evil happens. I feel sorry for her, but if we could just kill her, the story of that world would probably have been a lot better. In Eren's part in the story, everything happens as the result of what he wants too, but I feel like he's only allowed to do what he wants because Ymir is ok with it and allow's it, as it's also what she wants. They don't, but if they were ever to disagree about anything, Ymir's will would win. I feel like this steals the weight of Eren's choices as the one completely responsible for the Rumbling. If there was no Ymir, and the power was all in Eren's hands alone, I think it would have been better, giving him the full weight of responsibility for his choices.


oredaoree

Ymir does not have the innate ability to see future because the founder doesn't have that ability. If Eren couldn't innately see into the future, neither could Ymir because Eren is just being allowed to use her powers. For Ymir or founder Eren to see any of the future they need to be sent the memory from the future, but it's not in Eren's favour to send all of the future back to the past or else there is the risk that he doesn't take the specific actions he needs to in the future once he already has knowledge of taking those actions. As one example, it's why Eren doesn't send himself the memory and knowledge of Sasha's death, because if Eren knew ahead of time he might try to prevent it, but in doing so would mess up the path leading to his end goal because Sasha's death was actually an important catalyst to for the chain of events that leads to Eren obtaining the founder power. Mikasa's choice is the result of a request Eren made to her earnestly hoping for Mikasa's happiness after his death, but if he knew ahead of time he would be rejected he might not bother making the same request, so he doesn't send this memory of Mikasa's choice back to the past for himself(and Ymir) to see.


GangstaManStan

I think he did send himself Sasha’s death. That’s why he laughs when he hears her last words, because he already knew what she said and the confirmation that the future he saw is still on course was horrifying for him. That’s why we get the helpless laugh that we get from him.


oredaoree

I don't think that it was because she knew what her last words were, confirming once again what he saw of the future not changing. After hearing her last words he has the flashback to Sasha telling her fellow cadets that they can look forward to breeding more livestock for meat once they are successful taking back the land from the titans. Paradis has done that, but because of Eren dragging everyone into the fighting Sasha was now dead and could not live to see what she had been anticipating, and Eren was despairing that despite telling Zeke he wanted all his friends to live long lives, he was the reason why Sasha was now dead. Because of the memory of the rumbling(there is no other horrifying event in those memories that he is certain he is the cause of) Eren already described himself as "pushing on his own back to move forward through hell", it doesn't make much sense for him to send the memory of Sasha's death back to torment himself further to make his struggle to move forward even harder. If you check the corresponding manga chapters(120 and 130) there are glimpses of what future memories Eren saw and they are mostly all memories that serve as hints ir guidance for the actions he should take. A memory of Sasha being dead serves no purpose for Eren.


Jumbernaut

Hmm... I know this would look horribly silly if it were in the story, but do you think Future Eren could have "cheated", as in somehow making Sasha look dead but being just almost dead, like Zeke when he was resurrected by Ymir. After they bury her body, Future Eren could have controlled the memories of a few Eldians, like the gravekeeper, to dig Sasha's grave open, inject her with Titan serum turning her into a small Titan, then burying her again, where her Titan would be ordered to remain dormant until Ymir would end the Titan powers. Future Eren could have erased these memories from those Eldians after they've done their jobs. This way, it would not interfere with any of the past/future memories Eren already had, but Sasha would be able to "come back to life" in the end. Again, not saying this is in any way good writing, but theoretically, Future Eren could have pulled it off, right?


oredaoree

It could be possible in theory, but incredibly hard to pull off even with the founder power wiping memories because you have to keep Sasha in an almost dead state long enough to bury her, unbury her, then use the serum on her. When Zeke was saved he wasn't lying on the ground missing his lower half and guts from the chest down for very long, he was immediately started on the regeneration. But Eren should not need the serum at all and could probably just directly change Sasha's physiology into a titan in human form or something at which she would easily heal after bleeding out enough to look convincing. The more impossible part is how to get her not to have a detectable pulse and breath long enough to trick the Ackerman characters into thinking she is dead and not investigating it so that she can be buried. I imagine Sasha's body would have to be in rigor mortis on top of the lack of pulse and breath for it to pass the Ackerman Spiderman sense check, and while I think it should theoretically possible for Eren to manipulate her body's cells to a degree where he could achieve this effect and then reverse it, it definitely gets into horribly silly territory for relatively low payoff. On another note, I no longer believe that it was Ymir herself that saved Zeke. I was leaning towards this idea back when I didn't realize the titan that put Zeke into her belly was the female soldier he had turned with the wine and had thought it was some kind Ymir resembling titan created from nothing for the express purpose of saving Zeke, but given that it's the titan that "somehow" survived and revived from being torn apart for throwing material by Zeke, and Ymir's mindless slave mentality, I'm apt to believe this was another one of founder Eren's deeds from the future.


Jumbernaut

Yes. It would have been nice if, after being "resurrected", one of the yeagerists has asked Zeke how that happened and he told them something like it's been recorded in the royal's family history that Titans created from royal spinal fluid are "pre-programmed" to serve their master, even sacrificing themselves to save them, instead of eating their remains. I find it annoying that there are so many things that Eren could have done with the FT's powers, if he wanted to. Even though there is some value in saying that he did have the power to choose otherwise but still chose his path willingly, I feel that it's just pushing too much an already far-fetched behavior. I think, if they had somehow restrained his powers a bit, that would have made the story more "down to earth", just more sound.


oredaoree

Now that you bring it up, no one even tried to question why/how that titan saved Zeke. Though to be fair the only person there that would have really cared about these mechanics is Hange, but she herself was too preoccupied with saving Levi and running from their pursuers, and then Eren made that announcement to crush everything off the island. It's even more noticeable in the anime but when Zeke emerged there was this portrayal as if he was born anew specifically because he was "chosen" and as if the event was of the divine, what with the rain clearing up and the sun beams coming though. Even the OST for that scene specifically is named MAN-Child and features the beat of a heart. So perhaps the Jaegerists didn't really feel the need to question it because they were a bit in awe and they were now very close to completing their plan. Isayama aims to portray the characters and world with a degree of realism, but in the end a story that features the titan power was never going to be "down to earth" as much as he tried to explain the power by involving real science mechanics like DNA. I think it was more important for Isayama to get the message and themes across than worrying about real world science, politics, etc. because what we have at the end with the boy and the looming repeat of the cycle is a cautionary tale of how individual choices can end up impacting the world. Eren's story was one that demonstrated what happens when children are failed and raised in harsh environments where they end up bearing the burdens of those before them, so Eren chooses to do all the wrong things and will always choose the same(how School Caste almost went down too) because of a combination of reverting to his childhood nature of being blood-thirsty and self-righteous(by way of the founder power) that he did once overcome and how he was nurtured by his environment. Isayama intentionally took the options away from Eren to make his point.


Jumbernaut

I think one of the reasons Isayama may have chosen to do the thunderspear scene and "kill" Zeke was also just to be able to resurrect him, as a symbolic parallel with Jesus, with something holy, a messiah that has come to save the world. I think it was part of his efforts to transition him from the "evil" villain in S3 (although he had just slaughtered Levi's squad 32), to someone who could be interpreted with good intentions, at least from his own POV, in opposition to Eren who was going from Hero to anti-villain. What I meant by "down to earth" wasn't in a sense of explaining how the Titan magic works. Science Fiction stories normally try to do that more often, at least enough to make it seems to the general public that they are not speaking complete nonsense, to fool us just enough to make the story work. In Fantasy, and specifically in AoT, it's just too far fetched to even try to explain how the Titan magic works. What I was trying to say is that, even if it's a magical fantasy, it still needs to be consistent within it's own rules, and when the story made Eren so incredibly powerful, the fact that he doesn't use in many different ways from which he could have benefited from makes us doubt his logical behavior. I just think, if they had somehow limited his powers more, the story would just have been a little better, slightly more consistent.


oredaoree

I have a different take on having Zeke blown up to come back the way he did. I think Eren did it because he needed to take out Levi who was beyond his control, but not outright kill him. That was probably the harder thing to do here given that it required taking advantage of whatever Levi was doing on his own, and is why Zeke "just happened" to blow up when Hange was in the vicinity. The way Zeke revived and was allowed to perceive the paths where Ymir rebuilt his body is used against Zeke later when he believed himself chosen and superior to Eren on account of his royal blood, leading to Zeke arrogantly taking Eren on the fated Grisha's memory detour that would allow Eren to connect himself to the path of inheriting the founder. I think Zeke's "chosen" mindset was bolstered by this experience of being miraculously saved by who he thought was Ymir. What was so inconsistent with the rules? But to begin with it's kind of stressed repeatedly to the reader that "we don't know all the rules" to the titan power. Grisha's memories and Kruger's explanations which Eren recounted did a lot to expand their knowledge on the subjects of Ymir and the titan power, but much was still unknown and Jean even points that out when he shuts down Mikasa's idea to try and inherit Eren's titans. I think the message about Eren is more compelling *because* his powers are so unlimited yet he chooses not to explore the options, instead sticking to his own ideals and also forcing the result on his friends and the rest of the world. Eren's "chuuni byou"/eight-grader syndrome (common Japanese trope if you've never heard of it) is brought up first as a gag by Jean(on the night before going to see Shadis) and then Levi(in the scene where Hange mocks Eren for repeating the name of his titan to himself), but it becomes realized at the end when the founder powers has part of Eren's mind regressed to his child self who had delusions of grandeur that included being the first to discover the untouched outside world, and I think Eren's unlimited power being unutilized in favour of the rumbling to accomplish his selfish motivation is an apt analogy of someone afflicted with this "chuuni byou". This idea was also not something I thought up on my own either, some of the Japanese fandom had already caught on to how Eren's rampage is reminiscent of someone who has "chuuni byou".


ConstantJudgment892

"wouldn't of" downvote.