The second part of the final season of Attack on Titan has started with a blast! As MAPPA’s top-notch animation of the much-awaited fight sequence between Eren and Reiner proves, this finale is worth the hype.
While action-thirsty anime fans got their fill in Episode 17’s battle between the Attack, Armoured, and Jaw Titan, some were left quite baffled with Zeke’s bizarre recovery in a strange land with the assistance of an unassuming girl.
With a new character on the scene, everyone’s in a tizzy, all asking the same questions – Who’s the new girl? And where exactly had she taken Zeke?
As seen in Chapter 120 of the manga, she is Ymir Fritz, the original Founding Titan and the progenitor of the Titan transforming Eldians.
She had taken Zeke to the land of the Path, which is an intangible realm that connects all Eldians, Titans, and Titan Shifters.
Who is Ymir? What’s her story?
Ymir is the ancestor of the Titan transforming Eldian race. She was the first person to obtain the Power of the Titans, which transformed her into the first Titan, known as the Founding Titan.
Even though her story gets the plot of Attack on Titan rolling, it has been skewed by both Eldians and Marleyans over the years.
While the Eldians formed cults and worshipped her as a goddess who brought prosperity to the land, the Marleyans labeled her a devil dealing girl who brought ruin and destruction to them and the rest of the world.
But in reality, neither of those stories was true. For starters, Ymir wasn’t even an Eldian. She was a slave who served the Eldian King Fritz, who had attacked her village 2000 years ago.
She later got into hot water by releasing a few pigs from a pen, resulting in the penalty of being hunted down by the King and his men.
Injured and scared, she sought refuge in a hollow tree which, unbeknownst to her, contained the Anomaly or Source of All Living Matter.
After its fusion with her spine, she transformed into the first Titan. Fritz later abused her unstoppable power to conquer the lands beyond, devastating the rest world, specifically their archenemy Marley.
However, he faced a minor setback when Ymir took a spear to the chest in a bid to save him from being skewered. In desperation to preserve her power, he ordered his daughters to consume Ymir and continue this “tradition” long after he passed away.
Thus, her powers were split into Nine Titans that continued their rampage and expanded the Eldian Empire until Karl Fritz made the war-renouncing vow.
But Ymir’s story doesn’t end there. Following her death, her soul found itself in a vast expanse of sand-covered land known as the Paths, where she’s forever enslaved to create Titans or use her special Founder powers whenever ordered by the Royal Family.
What Exactly are the Paths?
We saw the Paths way back in season 2, where they were shown to be nine aurora-like streaks of lights running across the star-covered sky converging at a point.
They were initially seen by Ymir (the scout), who inherited the Jaw Titan from Marcel when she awoke to find herself in what appeared to be a snowy desert with the Paths overhead.
Finally, in season 3, we get a rundown of their importance from Eren Kruger, who described them as invisible channels that connect all Eldians, Titans, and Titan shifters.
1. What do they do?
Besides being a network that shares the memories and wills of all Eldians, it also serves as a ‘Path’way for the flesh and bones needed to form Titans and Titan Shifters.
While Titan crafting may take years, the Paths make up for it by transcending time and space, resulting in the swift and epic transformations we see in an instant. The same also goes for their regenerative and hardening abilities.
Since the realm of the Paths lacks any physical form, not everyone can see it or use it to its full extent. But members of the Royal Family seem to have special privileges, as Zeke could access them, though with the heavy price of a near-death experience.
However, the holder of the Founding Titan can reveal them to every Eldian when directly addressing all of them, as seen with Eren’s horrifying declaration of genocide during the Rumbling.
While the Paths are an integral part of the lore of Attack on Titan, they still work in tandem with the actual arsenal of Titan power– The Coordinate.
2. The Paths vs. The Coordinate
The Coordinate is the intersection of all the Paths – the Founding Titan itself. While the Paths are merely channels that connect the intangible realm to the physical world, the Coordinate is the center of control over the entire populace of Eldia.
Often seen as a giant glowing tree, it can be used to do pretty much anything to the Eldian race – Change their anatomy, alter their memory and control titanized humans.
But there is a catch: the Founding Titan holder must be of royal blood. This necessity stems from the Founder Ymir’s loyalty to the Royal Family. As a result, their wills and commands are given first preference.
The Founding Titan’s scream immediately signals Ymir to lend them her power, as she works behind the scenes in the land of the Path to fulfill their commands. However, a loophole was discovered when the Coordinate was introduced in season 2.
During Eren’s confrontation with the Smiling Titan, he unknowingly activated it on contact with a titanized Dina Fritz, who was of royal blood. Following this, he was granted brief command of the surrounding Titans that dogpiled and ripped her apart.
Since he had the Founding Titan and Dina was rendered speechless as she was a Pure Titan, Eren could call the shots. But this plan backfired with Zeke, as he was a Shifter and still had a mind of his own. So Eren had to change tactics by swaying Ymir with a choice of freedom.
3. What are its origins?
Since the entire lore of Attack on Titan rides on the coattails of the Anomaly’s fusion with Ymir, its origins would also explain the birth of the land of Paths. The fandom has long theorized the Hallucigenia creature as an extraterritorial or parasite.
But since it represents Earth’s earliest forms of life, it’s unlikely it came from space. While the parasite theory can explain why only Eldians are affected, it falls short in the case of the barriers of time and space crossed in the Paths.
However, this opens up the possibility of the Anomaly being a celestial entity or connected to one. Using the Eldians as an anchor, it may intend to expand its existence as a dominant life form on Earth.
But this can quickly be shot down when the matter of life after death is brought into the mix. With Ymir’s and the previous Shifters’ souls that seem to be trapped within the land of the Path and her curse surrounding the Shifters, mystical powers could be the only explanation here.
Why and how did Ymir save Zeke?
Following Zeke’s desperate attempt to flee from Captain Levi, he detonated the Thunder Spear lodged within his torso, which sent them both flying. While Levi only faced the explosion’s impact, Zeke was already at death’s door given the severity of his injuries.
Fortunately, Ymir decided to step in and save him. Sending a titan that engulfed him inside its belly, she sculpted his body using the sand from the land of the Path. He then later emerged from the Titan’s bones completely unharmed.
It’s possible the Titan was either used for its flesh or maybe as a connection to the Path or as temporary protection while Ymir worked on Zeke in the intangible realm.
As for her motivations for lending a hand, it’s a no-brainer – he is of royal blood, and hence Ymir saw it as her duty to heal him. Since she was enslaved by the shackles of love for King Fritz, she was loyal to all his descendants.
While her love may be unbearable and forced after years of toiling away in the Path, she has no choice but to succumb to it since she refuses to let go.
About Attack on Titan
Attack on Titan is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Hajime Isayama. Kodansha publishes it in the Bessatsu Shonen Magazine.
The manga began serialization on September 9th, 2009, and ended on April 9, 2021. It has been compiled into 34 volumes.
Attack on Titan follows humanity settled within three concentric walls to protect themselves from the terrifying titans that prey on them. Eren Yeager is a young boy that believes that a caged life is similar to that of cattle and aspires to go beyond the walls one day, just like his heroes, the Survey Corps. The emergence of a deadly Titan unleashes chaos.
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