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When we compare the last scenes of Chapter 140/139.5 with the scenes of Ymir falling into the pit, we start seeing a lot of parallels.

There's a big-ass tree with a cave-like structure right at the roots of the tree.

There are two kids, one out of the two fell in because she was escaping from the soldiers but we don't know about the other one.

Now, I want to point out the difference in situations and what they might signify.

The picture of Unidentified-Kiddo depicts them stumbling upon the tree.

They probably found the tree on accident or actively seeks out the tree on their own.

They seem like they're pleasantly surprised to find the tree.

In contrast to Unidentified-Kiddo, Ymir was in a comparatively worse situation:

She had an eye gouged out and soldier and hinting dogs were set after her to kill her.

She was scared and in her trial to survive, she found the tree and out of curiosity she ventured into the cave-like structure and ended up falling into the pit.

That occurence gave her contact to the "source of all life".

I feel as if the contact of humans with the "source of all life" is kind of like an unending cycle. First Ymir then the Unidentified-Kiddo.

My guess is that after or during heavy conflict, someone makes contact with the source of all life and gains some kind of extraordinary power. Just like Ymir gained the power of the Titans, Unidentified-Kiddo may gain the power to restore world peace or something? (I don't know I'm speculating :P).

However, keeping in mind their different circumstances I feel as if Unidentified-Kiddo would have a more life-giving and gentler power bestowed upon them if it were to occur. I feel as if Ymir gained access to such a destructive power because she hated how she was treated.

But, the very transition of power of the Titans might be a cycle too! So, Unidentified-Kiddo might be the next Ymir!

I’ve got to be honest with you Anon, I’ve never even attempted to get my head round the whole Attack Titan wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff.  It’s all just so much hand waving as far as I’m concerned.  Which is fine, I’m happy to just gloss over certainly parts of the story, particularly if it involves the Yeagers. I know there are fans who love pouring over the minutiae of this stuff and trying to figure out whether it all makes sense, but honestly, my life is to short for that kind of thing.    

Some of you may be familiar with my previous writings - I usually try to stay as collected as possible, but today’s post will be different. Ever since the chapter came out, I’ve been reblogging a lot of rants and memes about it. Those of you who follow my blog (thank you so much, really happy to have you here! ❤) know that I didn’t really enjoy this ending. I want to elaborate more on that in this post - my only advice is to buckle up, because today we may get a bit heated (I apologize in advance for the sassy approach - I usually try to stray away from that, but guess today’s post is more of a stream of conciousness/rant) :’D

I’ve always been on the side of “the Rumbling is justified”, but this chapter takes away all the reasons I viewed it as such. The character motivations and circumstances that made it so were completely erased by the stuff Eren was made to say and the reveals on how PATHS apparently work. 

See, I think the Rumbling is justified if it’s done as a last resort to self defence (given the context of the conflict in the story, the situation was globally tipped enough to warrant that), a slap to wake up the rest of the world to the consequences of their discriminatory actions, a plan to end a centuries-long conflict by giving the people the common enemy they wanted and forcing them to work together, so that future generations don’t have to suffer. 

But in this chapter, it was presented as being done just because Eren felt like it, because he was somehow destined to become a mass murderer, because it was his dream, because he only cared about like, 5 people and he was apparently an incel at heart.

So yeah, despite saying he did it to unite the world against him in order to end the conflict, it doesn’t come off that way at all considering Eren did nothing to stop Paradis from falling back into the cycle of hatred/supremacism (when he could have simply by revealing their history) and the root of the discrimination was simply deleted from existence instead of being addressed. All the Rumbling really did in the end was change who had the most military power and establish a new oppressor.

Hello anon,

Historia is referring to the whole world, which is now without titans. She finds herself having to take care of a country where there is a very strong extremist faction that she has to slowly defuse.

She is not supporting them, but if anything she is trying to limit the damage they are doing. For example, she is protecting both Connie and Jean’s families.

Historia’s power on the island is not absolute and if she were to act carelessly she might very well end up killed herself. Still, she is working quietly and slowly to reach some kind of peace with the rest of the world.

The implication is that Historia and the Alliance have organized some kind of event, so that Armin and Co can reveal the truth of what happened to the people of Paradis.

Basically, it is the same and the opposite of what Tybur did in Liberio. His event started a war, while hopefully the one organized by Historia will lead to peace, even if the path is going to be very long.

I feel so bad for MAPPA for the hate they got animating AOT and now we are looking to them for hope. Personally, I do not think the ending will be changed like the essence of it. I think they will give more clarity to certain scenes like what happened to the worm, how it died. Where did Ymir go? Maybe give Eren extra dialogue when Eren speaks with Armin. Some people are saying Eren killed his own mom while others say Ymir did so hopefully there will be clarification on that. Yes, I agree Mappa will add more content. 

Eren had to fool everyone or else they wouldn’t turn against him. However, Eren still cared about them and didn’t want them to continue thinking badly of him after he died. That is why he went to talk to them and explained himself- Eren cared about their perception about him. Eren is a caring and loving person. He loved so much that he was willing to die for them. Selfless love till the end and it breaks me too :(

Yeah, Eren broke down because it was too much for him yet he continued to push past his pain and desires. He walked forward. The scene where he says fight in the mirror makes more sense to me because he is giving himself the determination to carry on. 

My heart wants for MAPPA to give me a scene where Eren is alive inside the paths. Maybe Ymir decided to save him. You know how all Titan shifters after death will be in the paths so I hope that Eren went to the paths after death. Eren had one last encounter with Ymir before Ymir disappeared and decided to leave him inside the paths. Eren was given a chance to live again but he is sleeping under the tree inside the paths so that is why after 3 years he hasn’t been able to reunite with everyone. After 3 years, we see Eren wake up making a parallel to the scene where Eren woke up from a dream as a kid. This is what I would want but I don’t know how okay Yams will be with Mappa changing his ending. 

I’m still processing the final chapter, so these are very much my initial reactions…

My first thought is that I have no doubt that this is exactly the ending Isayama always intended.  It’s contradictory, ambiguous, and frustrating, and in many ways it leaves us with more questions than answers, but it’s entirely in keeping with the rest of the story.  In many ways it’s exactly the kind of ending I expected, and while I appreciate it in the context of the story, there’s a lot there that I can’t condone or pretend to like.

My feelings for Eren haven’t changed at all.  There can be no justification for genocide.  Eren didn’t save the world, he destroyed it.  I guess to his credit he does acknowledge this, he knows there can be no forgiveness for what he’s done, however he never answers Armin’s question about whether it was necessary to go so far. His vague excuses that he was following a pre-ordained path, and that past and future all existed at the same time, don’t really cut it as justification for wiping out 80% of humanity.  To be honest though, one of the things that disturbs me most about Eren and Armin’s conversation is Armin’s willingness to forgive Eren.  I’ve never warmed to Armin, primarily because I’ve always felt that he had a deeply ambiguous moral compass and this chapter has only strengthened that conviction. There is no question that Armin is complicit in this genocide, for him then to set himself up as the one who killed the Attack Titan and saved the world is repugnant.

I’m not sure what to say about Ymir and Mikasa, I don’t really understand what message we’re supposed to take away from Ymir’s story.  That we can’t choose who we fall in love with?  That love can only lead to pain?  That Stockholm Syndrome is a thing? (It’s not, it’s highly contested at best.) And as for Mikasa herself, I had really hoped that she would be able to move on from Eren, but I guess that was never going to happen, she’s an Ackerman after all.

I’m equally bemused by Historia’s arc.  I still don’t understand her actions, unless Eren mind wiped her along with everyone else. Perhaps she just wanted to have a child to give it the love she never experienced as a child herself? Who knows.  

It’s depressing to see Paradis overrun by fascist extremists, but at the same time it’s not at all unrealistic.  Extreme violence can only ever lead to extremism. Even Eren acknowledged that he is responsible for making “all of Paradis Island start killing each other”.  Although I appreciate the realism of the political situation on Paradis, I do worry what message people will take from this.  From my perspective, nothing in Isayama’s story promotes extremism as being a Good Thing, countless characters have spelled this out, even Eren himself, who acknowledges those on Paradis Island who opposed what he did and kept their humanity.  However Isayama’s messages can be ambiguous at best and obscure at worst, and I’m concerned that there will always be a hard core of fans who strongly identify with the Jeagerists and who will use this story to justify their own intolerance and extremism.

Although, there’s a lot to criticize in this chapter, one thing I did rather like was the way Isayama employed the mind wipe.  I knew it had to come into play at some stage, but I never expected that Eren had already manipulated his friends’ memories. I’m really confused about Mikasa though.  Did Eren wipe her memories too?  I thought Ackermans were supposed to be immune to the Founding Titan’s power.

Which brings us on to Levi.  I have so many feelings about Levi’s ending. Although part of me will always wish that Levi had died and been reunited with Erwin in the afterlife, I’m happy that he got to see all his comrades, and to know that they witnessed him fulfilling the goal that they had dedicated their hearts to.  Honestly, it makes me so emotional. In a way I’m glad that Levi didn’t join the diplomatic mission to Paradis, he’s already played his part and given everything he ever had to give.  Let him go off and see the world with Gabi, Falco and Onyankopon, he deserves it.  I used to joke that I wanted Levi to have one last shining vision of shoujo Erwin before he died, and he got that, only he didn’t need to die for it.

Despite these criticisms, I still think this story is an incredible achievement on Isayama’s part and, regardless of how it ended, I am so thankful for all the friendship, joy and heartache this series has brought me.  The editor’s note at the end of the chapter says it all.

“We believe that nothing is more valuable than people being able to share in emotions that can not be put into words through a story.”

At the end of attack on titan, Levi solidified the fact that he's humanity's strongest not only in the aot world, but also in the entirety of manga world.

Levi's first introduced in chapter 9.5, and as soon as we see him we're presented to one of his most memorable quirks: being a clean freak. Levi's very indifferent to his title as humanity's strongest and seems to go as far as to feel embarrassed by it at times, since it makes all eyes go on him when the sc is passing by.

Later in the chapter, when one of his comrades Is about to die, we see Levi go against his aversion to dirt by holding his dying friend's hand. It is then that we are presented to my favorite personality trait of Levi's: he's extremely caring with those he loves.

Levi's care is shown in the ACWRN spin off in its crudest form, in a Levi in his 20s that still hadn't learned how to control his impulses, that would do anything to protect the first friends he ever made in his life.

The complexity of Levi's relationship with violence is insane, because while he despises those that enjoy violence, despises those that think blood should be spilt for fun,

He also doesn't mind becoming a monster to achieve a greater goal for humanity.

Levi was born in violence. He was raised in it, practiced it, and still, he was able to maintain the kernel of his heart intact. Levi has seen and done horrible things. He's an abnormal, and one of the most human characters in the whole series.

A moment where we're able to see Levi's pain shine through is when he kills Zeke. Levi spent years readying himself for that moment. He spent years waiting for the day he'd finally follow through with his promise to Erwin, waited so he could save humanity. And then, when he finally does it, he feels nothing but pain. Because Levi was born in violence, raised in it, practiced it, but was still aversed by it. At the end of the moment, when his promise was fullfilled, when his goal was achieved, he felt pained that this.... This is what it all came down to.

Levi doesn't say "i love you" conventionally. Instead he says "thank you", because that's the way he feels love. Levi feels love in the form of gratitude, because its in those people -his friends- that he's able to find fhe strength to fight. Levi isn't strong because he's an Ackerman, or because he's just unbelievably skilled. Levi's strong because of the love he feels for those around him.

The way Levi sees the world...

And the way he interacts with it...

All come from love, in its purest form.

Now in his 40s, Levi's the only person in all of humanity that lived the world of the walls in its crudest, most violent form. Levi's the only one that knows the stories, the faces and the names of those that made their win possible. Levi's the only one that lived every bit of it, from humanity's worst moments of dispair to its most glorious days of victory. Levi's the golden stem that connects the past and the future. He's a product of all the love there is in this world. And I'm so thankful that, even after so much loss, he's not alone in the end.