⚔️ AOT: END OF AN ERA | Final Chapters Special 2 Review + Series Wrap-Up 🕊️

I don't think I've seen anyone mention this, but Isayama had the ending planned from the very start. In the manga, the 1st page is literally the scene of Mikasa saying "I'll see you later, Eren." WIT completely changed that scene. MAPPA did the best they could and started special 1 with that scene but unfortunately it's not as impactful. Also, in the manga, Zeke briefly explains what the Ackerman's are. They are byproducts of human/titan experimentation. That is why they are so freaking strong. Basically titans in human form. That is also the reason why they are immune to brainwashing and can't turn titan. When Mikasa gets her headache at the end and then enters that alternate reality, that's all Eren's doing. Eren spoke to each of his friends in the paths, but like Armin, he erased their memories. They only regained those memories AFTER Eren died. Mikasa on the other hand is an Ackerman who we know can't be brainwashed. So, Eren waited for the last minute to bring her to the paths and show her a world where the 2 lived together for Erens last 4 years. I know I'm late but I really hope you see this! Binged y'alls reaction in like 3 weeks 🤣 one of my favorite reactions!

My impression of the Ymir/Pig pen scene is that the pig is symbolic of Ymir herself. As a slave, she relates to the pig. They’re both victims of circumstance trapped in “cages” who lack the ability, physically and mentally, to free themselves. So in a spontaneous act of free will she opens the gate and frees the pig in a way she can’t do for herself. That’s why she smiles. Additionally this shows that, similar to Eren, Ymir also has an innate desire for freedom. However, the consequences of her action here explain why she ultimately relinquishes her free will and concedes her life to one of a slave. Because the only time she ever acted of her own volition she experienced massive trauma. It takes someone in Eren to break that mentality, or curse if you will, as he’s the first person in her whole long life to ever humanize her. With this in mind, Ymir’s story, desires and motives become a little more clear. For me at least anyway.

Like a book to movie transition the manga to anime transition cuts a lot of detail. Things like the workings of the beast titan, what the Ackermans are, etc just get kinda skipped in the anime. My only real complaints about anime changes is how frequently mikasas lines or moments are given to other chracrsters. None of the changes the anime made to Mikasa were positive.

Ymir had some seriously bad Stockholm syndrome. It’s actually so sad😭

The which titan would you be segment was so funny👌🏽😂 and so true😂

Aot will always be my goat but there’s so many amazing anime that definitely compete with it, excited for the next journey

1. Hange- badass bitch, curious, smart & nerdy, great moral compass, someone I aim to be. 2. Annie- morally gray, knows clearly what shes fighting for, she knows when to back up or fight, someone who I relate to very well. I didn’t always like Annie but after rewatch -seeing s1 on a different perspective I started to actually resonate with her character 3. Eren- complex tragic character 4. Armin- smart, strategic, emotionally intelligent 5. Erwin- smart, strategic, morally gray & I will always wonder what AOT is gonna be like if he didn’t die on that roof Special mention faves for their character growth: Reiner, Gabi, Jean, Grisha, Zeke Favorite design: war hammer titan My titan: flying beast titan Meesh - Annie (RBF) 🤪 Dee - Mina Carolina (yes she died early) 🤪 AOT is truly the GOAT anime but when it comes to a well written MC in all anime based on their complexity/ moral compass vs decision making etc Eren only comes 2nd for me… ultimately this comes down to preferences, I love morally gray characters but also those who are decisive, determined and whose judgement/ choices aligned with their characters perfectly no matter how hard it is

my top 10 favourite characters of AoT: 1 Eren Yeager 2 Floch Forester 3 Erwin Smith 4 Pieck Finger 5 Armin Arlert 6 Jean Kirstein 7 Grisha Yeager 8 Willy Tybur 9 Reiner Braun 10 Zeke Yaeger fav titan: War Hammer Least fav character, (not because i hate them or anything, but just scored low perhaps cus i don’t relate much) 96 Yelena 97 Karl Fritz I (ymir’s husband- not the one who took the eldians to the island) 98 Gabi Braun 99 Rod Riess 100 Sergeant Gross

Hmm, it's quite difficult to rank my favorite characters, but I would say: 1) Reiner, 2) Gabi, 3) Jean, 4) Floch, 5) Pieck or Erwin Reiner, I always liked his character even before the 2x6 revelation, especially his big brother side. After the revelation, I was in a bit of denial, so I immediately tried to figure out the reason behind his actions. The discovery of his split personality to protect himself from guilt is so tragic but so well suited to this type of character. Then season 4 really brings him to the forefront. The episode “The Door of Hope” (4x3) is one of my favorites: his mother's dream, his father's love, becoming a hero, his legitimacy as a warrior, everything that drives Reiner to fight, his motivation has been taken away from him... and then being saved by Marcel, someone more deserving than him... He remains a deeply broken person. As for the rest, I think Dee explained it very well! Reiner wants so badly to stop everything, but he can't, not yet. He too must move forward

All eldians are connected to the Paths, whether they were titans or not. But his connection to the path would have been stronger than any other eldian because he's one of hte nine EVENTUALLY. So that's why he was seeing these visions . It's no different than how eren and miaksa were sometimes seeing visiosn of things that might not have happeend yet bceause they're connected to hte paths. And that whole foreshadowing of him flying with the scouts was a subliminal message throughout the paths, almost like demon slayer's inherited memory thing, so that falco always be thinking about flying, and fefeling like he belongs while flying... so that when he eventually inherited the jaw titan with beastlike serum steroids on top manifesting, then he would feel intuitively that he belongs in the skies Also it's implied that Eren has created endless amounts of timelines trying to "find a solution" by constantly brute forcing decisions (even to the point of sending a titan to his own mother to fuel younger eren's anger and save berthold's titan for armin's comeback). So it's very possible that in anotherr timeline, AT THAT TIMESTAMP in that parallel world, falco could have been alraedy flying as a titan, or was the warrior titan instead of jaw titan, or was watching the scouts attack liberio EARLIER (if they didn't attempt to go to the peace rally) etc, and when Falco hit his head during the battle, and was knocked out, those other parallel timeline memories bled through to him through paths. So it may look like a "future vision" or it could be a "previously on, another timeline" situation. It's unclear, but that's the point, they both served the same purpose of feeding into falco's instinct of flying for the final battle.

Annie was eating parts of the other titans, that's waht they were implying tha tshe ate. Also Falco didn't TURN to a beast titan. He was still the jaw titan, but the FORM of the jaw titan manifested beast-like feathers because that titan juice he got was from the royal blooded beast titan zeke, and not just a run of the mill pure titan with nothing to inherit from. :)

If mikasa and levi weren't ackermans, they would have turned into titans when the vertebre spine thing turned everyone into titans. Levi cleared the way for while armin was fighting eren, creating a clear direct path for mikasa for her to kill eren. Any other fighter wouldnt be as capable as these 2 ackermans, but also they would have simply turned and we already know that armin can't hold his own against eren alone in a 1:1 fight, so that's why the whole ackermans thing mattered for both levi and mikasa, they were strong enough to survive, only these 2 were able to make it to the final stretch at the end to stop eren.

1:24:00 IT WAS future Eren tht commanded dinah to eat his mom , because he's hte future titan with founder powers, able to tap into all present past future at same time, like how he manipulated his dad in the past while beingin the fturue. 1:42:00 until the rumbling, original ymir didn't "Create" the other pure titans just to slaughter humans. She just...existed. It was king fritz that forced her body to be dececrated and consumed by her daughters and every single descendant until they started using hte spine injections etc to force eldians into pure titans. As for why the pure titans were eating people? it was because they're subconsciously "playing the lottery", hoping to instinctively eat a titan shifter (one of the 9) so that they can be reverted back to human, quite literally what happened with baddie-ymir and the jaw titan. Original founder Ymir was just watching and slaved to that will. In fact, she spent an eternity just building titans because the PEOPLE were creating titans (whether shifters or pure), and she had to slave away to just do work work work , building so many titans with nothing but a bucket of water and her pale for the sand, for all eternity.

you made an assumption that ymir was causing the headaches INTENTIONALLY. Ymir was just "observing" mikasa's thoughts/actions. Every time mikasa had a choice of either fulling going full love mode for Eren or fighting against the "Bad" (example when eren broke out of jail etc), ymir was watching to see what is mikasa thinking? What is she doing or feeling to be able to have those struggles of emotions vs ethicals , her love to eren vs what needs to be done or what's right, because Ymir herself doesnt know how, so Ymir was watching. But because Ymir was tapped in and watching, it's like someone who's streaming on your wifi from a neighbor, and it's slowing down your internet bandwith, causing mikasa's headaches from just being there, like a CPU for a computer running a big task in the background. So ymir wasn't giving the headaches as a sign to tell mikasa anything, mikasa is the one thinking and ymir was literally just watching it play out.

the way i saw it, is that just like how eren saw evreyone in paradis as "cattle in a cage", Original Ymir freed the pigs because she also is a seeker of freedom and releasedthe pigs from their captivity/cage so they can be freed too.

Favorite Characters 1) Pieck Finger 👑 2) Ymir (the gay Ymir) 3) Pixis 4) Sasha 5) Petra Least Favorite Characters: 1) Eren 2) Ymir Fritz (Founding Titan) 3) Floch 4) Mikasa 5) Carla (Eren's mom) Also, y'all let me know if I'm wrong, but I'm quite sure you're reading into the Falco thing too much.... In 4x1, the writer had him saying all those things to show that he was out of it because he hit his head. That's what leads to the synopsis of the past four years from Gabi. That was the only function of his lines there... He was a bit delirious from head trauma. I don't think he was actually seeing legitimate visions, but they probably threw some of the "flying" stuff in there to play around with foreshadowing.

aside openings and endings, please also react to "Hiroyuki Sawano / Project (emU) "Attack on Titan" suite" Hiroyuki Sawano is the genius that composed the masterpieces music of Aot

The reason pure titans always try to eat humans is because they instinctively try to eat a titan shifter in order to become human again. You might also notice that Eren was able to do his conversation with Armin way earlier and erase Armin's memory. Meanwhile he had to do the one with Mikasa on the spot because he can't alter Ackerman's memories. Female titan power is that she is particularly good at manifesting other titans power. That doesn't mean other titans can't. She also had to swallow stuff like what eren swallowed to get the armor power

Regarding the boy at the end walking inside the tree, and why it may not be as bad as it looks. (If we assume the parasite is inside the tree) Many are rightfully quick to assume the boy is gonna restart the cycle of Titans but we must remember the rare messed up circumstances of Ymirs situation when she got it. She was a slave that was hunted and afraid of dying. The parasite granted her "wish" of staying alive by giving her a power that could save her. However she was manipulated by King Fritz to use her powers to conquer, invade, kill and slave. But when she died, the power of the Titans was suppose to dissappear woth her. However again, King Fritz FORCED her kids to eat her and keep birthing children in order to keep the power alive so that Eldia could continue to dominate. The boy we see at the end is free. He is not hunted or seems ti be enslaved. And IF he gets the power, assumingly no one like a tyrrant king would force him to use the power for evil. He may use the power for good instead. And UNLESS he for some messed up reason gets cannibalised, like Ymir, the power of the Titan will stop with him.

Regarding him having Dinah eat his mom. Kid Eren at the time obviously didnt have any powers so he didnt do or know anything. It was future eren who controlled Dinah to go towards his mom. As Eren explains it to Armin in the scene. For the founding titan, theres no past or future it all exist SIMULTANEOUSLY. Which is why he could affect titans (such as Dinah) in the past as well. And he did it, to make sure the timeline plays out exactly how Future eren had experienced it to lead him that point. That future. Kid Eren were fuel by the rage of seeing his mom getting eaten (unknown to him that it was himself from the future who did it), So future Eren had replicate that same emotion and motivation that pushed him forward.

1. Levi - Top dog, absolute unit, collected but sympathetic, ALWAYS locked in. 2. Eren - Nuanced, tragic, so emotional and angsty in S1-3 then TATAKAE all of S4 3. Armin - Beautiful balance of logical and sympathetic. Always sees the good, Bestest boy 4. Jean - Wonderful character growth, always feel for him whenever he's on screen 5. Toss up between Reiner/Pieck/Conny/Falco (cause they're all great) and yes.... GABI ! Cause her development in just 1 season is so beautiful to see

I think Eren’s motivations are a bit more complicated than that. Yes, I agree that he genuinely wanted to do the Rumbling. At the end of Season 3, when Eren touches Historia and sees everything, that’s where he sort of flips. He obviously knows how things are going to end because of his future memories, but that’s also the moment where his whole idea of “freedom outside the walls” completely shatters. Eren realizes there’s no peace beyond the sea, and that the freedom he once dreamed about with Armin as a kid simply doesn’t exist in this reality. That’s where I feel his motivations truly stem from. Eren knows that the Eldians on Paradis will never be free from the hatred of the rest of the world, and he also knows he can’t change the future because every time he tries to make a different choice, it always leads to the same outcome. We even see him in the Paths with Armin talking about how he’s gone back countless times, only to see there’s no other way to save his home. So Eren understands that if he commits to his future and follows through with the Rumbling, he’ll: - Achieve the freedom he dreamed of as a child (even if it costs his life) - Save the Eldians on Paradis, at least for a while - Rid the world of Titans and Titan powers entirely Eren admits he didn’t want to die, that he wanted his friends to live happily and that he wished he could grow old with Mikasa. But the only way he could have all three things listed above, was through the Rumbling. So yes and no, Eren is a slave to freedom, a slave to his future self, but at the same time, he isn’t, because he always had a choice. It’s just that, in his eyes, even if the costs were so great, starting the rumbling would give him all the things he really wanted. Is that right? No, definitely not. Was it selfish ? Absolutely. But Eren’s a tragic character, doomed with the knowledge of the future, haunted by trauma, and burdened with decisions that shape the fate of humanity. We can easily empathize with how awful of a position he’s in; we love him for what he’s endured, yet we hate him for the choices he makes. Seeing him completely open up in the Paths with Armin was absolutely insane, watching him unload all the emotions he’s bottled up for the past four years, the pain, the guilt, the burden. After being so hardened and disassociated throughout all of season 4 just to see him completely break down. Such an amazing, layered character. Truly, no one else in anime even comes close. We could also talk about how none of what I said matters and he’s been a slave to Ymir the whole time lmao but that's a whole other theory !

Regarding Ymir smiling when letting the pigs out. I saw it as her, while being a slave herself and without freedom, she was able to give freedom to someone else. Even if its pigs. She was able to do something good.

I think he let his mom die because that would then give him the drive to do all the things that he would be destined to do. I imagine it went down similar to how he controlled his dad in the past. He must have gone back in time and controlled the titan to ignore Butthole probably using the founding titan's power that he now possessed.

I always thought Ymir was smiling because she thought she was doing something good by freeing the pigs. I didn't really give it much thought so I could be wrong but I still like to believe that that was the case.

Loving your thoughts on Eren! That's how I personally see him too. His main motivation has to be a selfish desire for freedom because he stated it himself – but also (and maybe I'm wrong) I don't see how something like loving/protecting your friends (which are both inherently good things) can be the main reason for someone to murder 80% of the population. Protecting his friends is one of his reasons, but it's not the whole story. There has to be more to it than that to cause such devastation. He's such a layered onion and complex anti-hero/villain character, and it's fun to dissect and think about him. Regarding your question on why Ymir is giving Mikasa headaches and how that works, this is my personal understanding of it: The headaches were a symptom of Ymir peaking inside Mikasa’s head. I don’t think she was intentionally causing the headaches, but her looking into Mikasa’s thoughts manifested in a physical response from Mikasa. I think the moments that Ymir takes a peak are crucial. They all seem to be moments where Mikasa is questioning Eren or doubting his actions. Ymir sees that and peaks inside her head, hoping to see that maybe Mikasa isn’t a slave to this love like she was to King Fritz – checking in to make sure that Mikasa perhaps is different than herself. And if Mikasa can break free, that means that there is hope for Ymir as well.

It's very tragic that our girl Ymir died. But I can understand why she did that. She was violated by marleans and manupulated by eldians. She did know all the truth about everything. But she didn't or couldn't relate for any of two sides. She wanted to live oly for herself. Not being someones tool. She did care about people around her (including Reiner, Bert) and especially Historia. In the end she did know that war is coming and as titan she would have been used if she had stayed. So when she saw that Historia had chance to survive, she saved R&B(because they gave her a second life) and died. She didn't care about sides, she cared about her friends and loved one. P.S. Also she did mentioned that 60 years of being Pure Titan was like a nihgtmare. So I assume that it must be difficult to live a normal life even after that. So death is mercy in a way. And I love how Ymirs story was wrapped up. That was a good but sad ending for her. Thats why I can't read YumiHisu fanfiction.)) It's a story that I want to stay untouched in my mind). LOOOOOVE YMIR💕she is the reason I started to realise that I'm lesbian P.S.S. I think Dee would be Hitch and Meesh would be kinda like Jean. I don't know why really🤷‍♀️

I think to say that eren did not have as a priority to save his friends is not the correct interpretation. Eren is an insane character to get so if thats how you feel that is your opinion, but i dont agree. He had 2 main goals and i dont think one is more impor5ant than the other. He wanted fo save paradis (mostly because his friends) remember his word to his friends "you are more important to me that everybody else". And secodn goal was to eliminate the titans and for that he needed his friends to kill him.

@ Special 2, 1:14:45, there is a flashback of Yamir and Fritz, referencing the assassination attempt with the spear. But instead of Yamir blocking it, we see it killed Fritz, and Yamir is holding her girls. Could it be that what we saw initially (her blocking the spear) was "our memories being changed" from reality? And that Yamir never saved Fritz, lived in agony and hatred for the world, and that is why she wanted to kill everyone with the rumbling? Was it 2000 years of revenge seeking from the ones that killed her husband? I might be totally off. And then I can't explain where Mikasa's love for Eren comes into play. But that's one thing I think about a lot. The show literally changed the truth, and only after Eren and the Founders death did the reality come to light.

LOVE the podcast style. 2 hours of straight awesomeness 👌 This being my 3rd watch through of this series, I will definitely say this is a show that the more times you watch it, the more you realize things you couldn't have on the first watch through. The beginning seems more tragic. The middle, more intense. The ending, super sad. I was like Meesh- confused from the ending when I first watched it. Watching again today with you both, I resonate with Eren more than I could have before. It's the show that keeps giving. And the endless theories and perspectives creates neverending conversations. What more can we ask for?

Eren was my fave character for pretty much the same reasons Meesh gave. He’s just so interesting and complex that you could write essays about his character arc

Armin top 2 and he’s not 2.

Eren can't change the past, but he can influence it to ensure events unfold as they already have. Time is infinite in the coordinate, and he is only able to interact with the past in a way that facilitates what already happened to happen. He can't change the past at all, he can only become retroactively responsible for it. Just like he did with Grisha. Eren used the power of the Founding Titan to control Dina. The Founding Titan can control all Eldians, including Titans, across space and time. Even though he had the Founding Titan in the future. The Founder can control all Eldians across space and time and also manipulate memories. Carla's death was a crucial event that fueled Eren's hatred and motivated him to become the person he needed to be to achieve his goals. Dina killing Carla was a necessary event for Eren’s own development of hatred that would propel him towards the future events that would eventually bring him to where he eventually ends. So future Eren sent Dina to Eren's mom to build Eren's hatred and for the timeline to move to 'today's' position. Eren redirected Dina away from Bertholdt because Bertholdt needed to survive to be eaten by Armin later, which was another necessary event in the timeline.

Ymir to me was a person that embodied parts of the tragedy of AOT. Just a kind beautiful person that wanted to be loved but was born into an unfair world. Also her dynamic with Historia was well written. How she was always saying that she was done lying and would live only for herself but in reality she was lying to herself because she was always a person that would sacrifice and care for others. Then she meets Historia and thinks that she will be the one to change Historia but Historia also changes her back to being who she really was. That’s shown when she says “give me one more chance to be honest with myself” and why she sacrifices herself for Reiner and Bertholdt (That scene in Season 2 Ep 12 when she’s reaching out to the moon was also beautiful). Both Historia and Ymir needed each other and it’s such good writing.

Am still watching the video but i paused to share my thoughts on why Eren sent the titan to his mom. I don't know where i read this or even if it's canon but I believe that he did it to fuel his rage and ambition to reach where he had to be to start the rumbling. Think about it as a time paradox, if Eren's mom wasnt eaten infront of him he wouldnt have hated the titans as much, if he didnt, he wouldnt have had a grudge against reiner and the "enemies beyond the walls", and if he didnt he wouldnt have flattened the earth. I dont know if am making my point clear but its like a paradox where something had to fuel his rage to start this vicious journey for him, and because the attack titan has past AND future play at the same time he was able to control Dina's smiling titan to eat his mother AND save bertholdt (who was crucial to the story of why eren hated the outside world alongside reiner) and made his child self see the horror of his mother being eaten and fueled his own rage and ambition. hopefully i made sense okay back to continuing the video! P.S. i love your takes and videos it's been such an insane journey!

I think Ymir smiling is just as simple as she’s a happy kid who freed the pig.

No show has ever captured the tragedy of the cycles of hatred and violence that we go through like AOT. One leading to the other which leads to more of the first and on and on it goes. One thing humans have always excelled at coming up with reasons to kill each other. Really sad thing is as long as there are people I doubt it will ever stop, and AOT shows exactly where that path ends