#jaegerist

Mikasa did not free Ymir. Eren did. In the Paths. In one of the most emotional scenes that I've ever seen in my life. This scene made me cry and to see it basically just thrown in the trash for the sake of a ship that never even made sense in the first place genuinely hurts my soul.

So let's talk about it. Eren broke the chains of Paths with the power of sheer will and ran towards Ymir. He hugged her and told her that she has a choice. He let her choose whether she wants to lend him her power. He gave a choice to this little girl who has been kept as a slave her whole life. This is the moment that we finally get to see her eyes. And she's crying. This is the exact moment that she's freed.

And it makes perfect sense. This is not what the ending wants you to believe though. The ending ruined not only this moment but also Ymir as a character. Tell me why Isayama is all of a sudden trying to make me believe that Ymir has actually been in love with King Fritz this whole time? This child who has been continuously raped and abused her whole life by that same man. You might scream "BUT STOCKHOLM SYNDROME!" Stockholm syndrome would imply that the king has treated her nicely sometimes. So the victim has some hope to cling on to. None of that is shown. Not shown, not mentioned. "Well maybe it happened off screen." If it's not in the text, it didn't happen and I don't care for it. I'm not here to make up headcanons, especially not for a child being abused by some old powerhungry man.

And what is all this for? Well obviously for Mikasa to get some last second importance to the story. Because contrary to what her glazers would want you to believe, you could easily remove her from the story and not much would change.

What Isayama tried here is to make Mikasa the parallel to Ymir and Eren parallel to king Fritz. Which is just dumb as hell. The only parallel you could draw for her is almost being kidnapped and sold into slavery as a child. And you might bring up the headache thing which he tried to explain as Ymir trying to contact her. This is an asspull. We know why she got headaches. She got them everytime she thought she will lose someone she loves.

Just a few examples:

Eren's mom dying

Eren getting kidnapped

She does say she hit her head, but just with her saying "this again" it's clear that's not what she's talking about.

Armin being burnt to a crisp

So no, her headaches were never Ymir trying to get in her head. It was a trauma response of watching her parents die right in front of her eyes and getting kidnapped. She is not a parallel to Ymir. You know who is though? Historia. I want to get into how Historia, Ymir, freckled Ymir and Eren are all connected in a separate post so I will keep it brief in this. You could not miss it if you tried. Tried to be like the girl in her book, who is supposed to be Ymir. Ymir was the first titan shifter and had her power transfered down through cannibalism. The same fate they wanted to force upon Historia. And she quite literally IS Ymir's descendant. This is only a few examples. Not only is it in the text but it's also sprinkled through imagery. Like I said, I want to get deeper into this in another post.

So no, Mikasa was not originally gonna be Ymir's parallel. And oh boy, Eren absolutely wasn't supposed to be Fritz's. Eren who's whole thing is freedom is somehow a parallel to a man who is an abuser and slave owner. Yeah okay. Are you trying to imply that Eren was abusive to Mikasa? How? Is it because he headbutted her once? Is it because he might have been a bit harsh in his language towards her sometimes? I could get into the ways Mikasa is abusive to Eren but you're not ready for that conversation. You might say "uuuh, well Eren commited a mass scale genocide duhh.", Eren didn't do it because he's a powerhungry psycho. He did it to protect his home.

No, Eren is not the king's parallel. You know who is though? ZEKE! Zeke was the one ordering Ymir around in the Paths. EREN was the one who gave her a CHOICE. ZEKE is the one who wanted to have Historia, who is the actual parallel to Ymir, inherit his beast titan and birth as many children as possible in her 13 years. Zeke is out here straight up LOOKING like Fritz.

Isayama really be playing in my face with this shit. Even he doesn't know how to explain Mikasa's power of love freeing Ymir and hits us with this gem.

"Only Ymir knows that one..." Absolute cinema. People actually read this and said ah yes, this is peak writing.