The founding titan Ymir Fritz - The true manipulator of AoT

I'm going to attempt to explain to you why the story only makes sense if this is who the founding titan Ymir truly was: the devil and the true manipulator of AoT. I think I can do this by dissecting the conversation between Armin and Eren when they're in the paths. The two opened their conversation with Eren coming clean about why he was so hateful towards his own friends and got into Mikasa's head. He was to push his friends away so that it would be easier on them to go against him. Eren then reveals that his plan was for his friends to stop him, and that the world would see them as heroes, which, let's be real, isn't a great reason. Eren understands how the blind hatred towards Eldians was ingrained in Marlian culture. Even after all of that, it was still an Eldian that killed the majority of humanity. The show has taught us that people will act irrationally no matter what has happened.

Read More: Eren Jaeger

The founding titan Ymir Fritz's backstory

Armin and Eren's conversation move on. Eren tells Armin that his plan is for the rumbling to kill half of the population. Eren begins his lengthy reasoning for killing the population by talking about the founder, Ymir, where we saw her backstory and character shift back in episode from that episode. We can deduce that Ymir was a slave her whole life but deep down always had a desire for freedom, but strangely never for herself but two thousand years later. She led Eren Jaeger to be the one that frees her from herself and post-slavery, helping him to start the rumbling and to completely free the Eldians and all the descendants that are still detached from her through the paths. But in the shocking twist of the chapter, Eren explains that the reason she stayed a slave for those two thousand years is because she loved Carl Fritz, her owner, her slave master, the one who forced her to have children, and because of that fact, she needed to have their rumbling kill percent of the population to set the stage to test. Mikasa, who remembers, has no real connection to the founder previously presented in the story other than maybe the headaches Ymir wanted to see someone who was so blindly in love with someone quote unquote evil to validate her own choice.

Ymir Fritz's final decision - her slave master or humanity

This plot point just does not sit right with me. It would make sense if she tested Mikasa before freeing herself, but I guess you could say she gets the same effect because she could look into the future and see what Mikasa's answer would be, but of course then she wouldn't have been able to see that unless she was going to do it. So, then she would be a slave to herself to be able to free herself despite already knowing she wants to be free because of what Mikasa is going to do. If that last sentence didn't make any sense, then you see my point, but alas, during Eren and Armin's conversation. Eren doesn't know what Mikasa does, but then he immediately contradicts this by saying he saw the results of her choice, which we presumed to be his own death and the ending of the Titan curse.

This is followed by Eren explaining that the Founder's power messes with his head and forces Eren to move forward, which in combination makes him a slave to Ymir, but he attempts to not fight it because of the conclusion of events he saw, and then, out of nowhere and for no other reason other than to show how much of a slave Eren is to the Founder's power, he tells Armin that he was responsible for his own mother's death by sending the smiling Titan to his house to avoid her from eating Bertolt. This is the ultimate sign that Eren has no control and that every action he took after obtaining the Founder's power was not his own, similar to the valve renouncing War but Ymir's version, of course.

Read More: The sad incidents of AoT - proves of Ymir's manipulation

Conclusion:

Eren thought that he would save everyone. He planned everything and manipulated perfectly. He lived as villain and died as hero. He thought he freed Ymir. But this is all Ymir's plan. She manipulated everything, even the past and future. She wanted to be free. She wanted to validate her decision. For that, she tried to erase half of the population. In the end, she freed herself after two thousand years.

FAQ:

1. Was Ymir Fritz in love with Fritz?
Ans: Ymir Fritz was in love with his slave master Carl Fritz.

 
2. Are Ymir and Ymir Fritz the same?
Ans: No, they are not the same. They are different people. Ymir Fritz is the founding titan. Ymir is just given a name to a girl.

 
3. What did Fritz do to Ymir?
Ans: He used her power to expand Eldia. He had three daughters with her.

 
4. Who ate Ymir Fritz?
Ans: Her three daughters ate Ymir Fritz. Her powers split into three.

 
5. Why did Ymir smile when Eren died?
Ans: She won. She killed Eren. She dismissed the order of her slave master. She prioritizes humans over her feelings for Eren, titans, or her slave master.