The story of Ymir Fritz, the history of the Eldian Empire, and the true goals of Eren Yeager are revealed at long last. As the battle between Marley and Paradis comes to a close, the world’s greatest fears are soon to be realized...
Tropes:
- Abusive Parents: King Fritz forced his daughters to eat their mother's corpse because he desperately wanted to retain Ymir's power. It should be noted that, at this point, Fritz had no evidence whatsoever that making his daughters eat Ymir's corpse would pass her powers to them. He was just so desperate to keep his power and had so little concern for his daughters that trying it just seemed a good idea.
- Adaptation Expansion: The anime goes more into Ymir Fritz' backstory, giving a glimpse of her life before King Fritz' army burned her home down and made her a slave as well as parts of her life after becoming a titan.
- All-Powerful Bystander: Ymir has enough power to kill Fritz and destroy everything he has ever built, but she doesn't do so. However, the slave conditioning she was subjected to played a part in this.
- And I Must Scream: It seems that Ymir has had to personally construct every titan that has ever existed by hand. Since time doesn't exist inside the coordinate, she has unlimited time and nothing to do except work endlessly to build titan bodies. Eren was the first one to actually talk to her since she died.
- Big Brother Instinct: More like, Big Cousin. When Eren unleashes the Titans of the Walls, Reiner's first instinct is to run towards Gabi to protect her.
- Bookend: The title calls back all the way to the first episode, "To You, 2000 Years In The Future".
- Breeding Slave: Ymir becomes this to Fritz and the two of them have three daughters: Maria, Rose and Sina.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The fight between Frieda and Grisha in their Titan forms barely lasts thirty seconds before Grisha is able to pin her down and consume Frieda from within her Titan.
- Driven to Suicide: It's implied Ymir died from the spear she took to protect Fritz because she had lost her will to live since as the original Titan she should have been able to heal from the wound. It's debatable if that could be the reason she took the spear in the first place.
- Empty Shell: Ymir becomes this at some point after being enslaved by Fritz and getting her powers.
- Evil Overlord: Fritz. A brutal, monstrous tyrant who established an empire through slavery, genocide, and rape, and that had no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
- Eye Scream: Ymir has one of her eyes gouged out before she is set "free" by the king.
- Extreme Doormat: At the beginning of the episode, there's a flashback of Frieda describing Ymir as a kind girl who was always thinking of others to Historia, but she was actually this because of all the slave conditioning she was subjected to throughout her life.
- Final Solution: It finally dawns on Armin that Eren intends to destroy the rest of the world when he notices that all the Titans of Wall Maria were released, when he just needed the Titans of the part of the Wall surrounding Shiganshina to trample the Marleyan troops. Eren soon confirms this is a way to protect his friends and the rest of the Eldians.
- Fingore: Eren gets free from the handcuffs binding him to the ground in the paths by pulling his hands with such strength, he rips his thumb apart from the rest of his hand.
- Frame-Up: King Fritz threatened to gouge out one eye each from all of his slaves if none of them admitted to allowing a pig to escape from its pen. They all point to Ymir to frame her as the sole suspect.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: As this episode shows the Eldians went from a once small tribe of barbarians with makeshift armour that lived in huts to a global empire thanks to Ymir's power and basically becoming the "AoT" equivalent to the Roman Empire in the thirteen years before Ymir died.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Fritz is revealed to be this. All the horrors and misery that take place in the series wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for him.
- Hidden Eyes: Even in her flashback, Ymir's eyes (much like the rest of the people) are shaded. This is averted when we see her eyes clearly as she cries in response to Eren's speech.
- Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: How Fritz punished Ymir for allegedly letting a pig run away from it's pen.
- I'm a Humanitarian: When Ymir dies, King Fritz has her daughters resort to cannibalism; eating their mother's corpse to gain her Titan power. He then orders them to eventually feed themselves to their children and so on to continue Eldian conquest, even after his death. This ultimately explains why Titans throughout the series have a habit of eating people, whether or not the victims are Titan Shifters.
- Irony: Ymir, known as the progenitor of all Eldians, wasn't actually an Eldian, but a slave brought from a village forgotten by history that was pilled and burned by the actual Eldians.
- Meaningful Name: In this episode the audience learns the three walls were named after Ymir Fritz's three daughters: Maria, Rose and Sina.
- Oh, Crap!: Zeke proceeds with his Eldian Euthanazation Plan by commanding Ymir to take away their ability to reproduce. Near the end, he sees Eren talk some sense into her and realizes too late that Ymir is no longer under his control.
- Origins Episode: How Ymir became the first to wield the power of the Titans, and why Titans eat people in the first place. It also implies why this led to the Eldians (Subjects of Ymir) in the present to be regarded as "devils" by Marleyans.
- Put Them All Out of My Misery: Everything Eren learned and suffered has led him to this conclusion: In order for the Subjects of Ymir, and all of Paradis, to live on and finally be at peace, he must initiate the Rumbling and destroy not only Marley, but the rest of the world around them.
- Taking the Bullet: Ymir takes a spear to her chest to protect Fritz.
- The Scapegoat: It's implied that it wasn't actually Ymir who let the pigs escape, but the other slaves needed someone to blame so the king wouldn't gouge their eyes out.
- Scenery Gorn: After almost ten years of storytelling the Walls finally come down as Eren releases the Titans within in all of its horrifying glory. And every single one of them share the same Colossus class that the late-Bertolt, and now Armin, possess.
- Stable Time Loop: While it was implied as such last episode this one confirms that Eren created one. Four years prior, when Eren kissed Historia's hand, he saw his fathers memories of the day he would kill the Royal family and witnessed his future self telling Grisha to do it. As such when Zeke brought Eren into Grisha's memories it allowed him to interact with his father and push him into killing the Royal family and pass the Attack Titan to his younger self.
- Tongue Trauma: After her village was enslaved by Fritz' army Ymir and the surviving villagers had their tongues cut out.
- Ungrateful Bastard: After Ymir takes a spear through her chest for King Fritz, all he says is a demand for her to get up and shrug off her injury.
- Wham Episode: Possibly the biggest in the series: Ymir gives Eren full control of the Founding Titan, which allows him to unleash the Wall Titans. He states his objective to the Subjects of Ymir: he will end all life outside of Paradis.
- On top of that, we learn the origin of the titans: Ymir Fritz was a slave girl who, while trying to escape execution, fell into a tree and fused with a strange creature that gave her the power of the titans. Despite this, she was still conditioned to serve King Fritz, who used her power to subjugate and conquer. When Ymir dies saving the King, he forces their daughters to eat her corpse, properly starting the Eldian Empire and its cannibalistic traditions.
- Year Inside, Hour Outside: Outside the plane of the ethereal paths, only mere seconds passed since the end of Two Brothers and the end of this episode.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Eren's speech to Ymir amounts to this, stating she is not a goddess, a devil, or even a slave, but a human being, and she is the only one who gets to make her own decisions. It's enough for Ymir to break down in tears and surrenders her power to Eren.
