Ymir's decision and background

[vanihba2000]

What we know :
1) She can transform into a Titan and this was unknown by all people.
2) In chapter 46, we see that Reiner and Bertholdt are following the ape titan to reach their 'hometown' which seems to be outside of the walls. Also, Ymir has surprised those two by knowing a bit too much about the Titans. She knows that there are others who are involved in the conspiracy against humanity and reside in that 'hometown'. The ape-titan is a part of that town. Ymir deduced that Reiner developed a split personality by living as a spy among humans. He being a spy for the other titan-shifters makes sense because he called humans 'fools' and blamed them for his disorder.
3) A Titan outside Wall Maria was worshiping Ymir.
4) She can read old text on the can.
5) Ymir seems to have attacked Reiner and Bert when they were young (probably before the attack on Wall Maria?) and seems to have eaten their friend. Why exactly?

Her decision
Now let's ponder over the decision she took in chapter 46 :
She had three choices :
1) Side with the Warrior faction in an attempt to protect Christa. So, how exactly will Reiner go about this? Assuming that their goal is to destroy humanity,(the very reason they talk of 'saving' Christa means that they are going to attack other humans) how are they going to save Christa? It is possible that they will separate her from the rest of humans or give her Titan powers. Then that would be a violation of Christa's martyr complex and Christa will no longer remain happy. She might reject Ymir and in Ymir's point of view, I still don't see a reason to believe completely in Reiner's abilities. Overall, this won't be such a good decision on Ymir's part.
2) Refuse, Eren Style. Which ofcourse she didn't do.
3) Accept Reiner's offer and back-stab him later. Well, Reiner's offer must have been the perfect opportunity for Ymir to pry out some information or locate their 'hometown', kill those two while they trust her and escape when things get dangerous. This seems more 'Ymir-like'.
We have seen her deductions, observational skills and tactical manipulations before :
a) Breaking down the tower to destroy the other Titans
b) Observing her surroundings in the Forest of Giant Trees.
c) Deducing Reiner's split personality.
d) Suspecting Reiner and Bert's involvement with the ape-titan.

Ymir is a crafty chess player and will play an important role in figuring out more about the Titans.

Her Background:
We know that Ymir has been outside the walls before she enrolled herself in military training, because of a Titan worshipping her. Remember that this was the 34th expedition which was an year before (according to Riviaille) the 56th and 57th. And about Connie's mother welcoming him back, it's similar : The titan recognizes Connie and said those words.
Then it seems : Ymir seems to be a noble/Queen or something and some transformed human recognized her and praised her.
The fact that she can read a dead language probably points to this. She maybe part of an outside town/district out of which some were converted to Titans and Ymir escaped that town and took refuge within the walls.
Her relationship with Christa : She claims that Christa is similar to her in someway. Since Christa was put-down by her family, Ymir may have been an outcaste or put-down by her people too. That maybe because she can transform into a Titan.

 

[kannazuki]

So you also think Ymir and Ilse Langner are probably the same person (and that she must have had a split personality like Reiner for a while)? They certainly have features in common and it fits Ymir's comments about how she was once a lot like Christa (different name and attempts to be thought of as someone who does "good" for the world; willing to die without putting up a fight), but do we know for certain that they are one and the same? I lean toward agreeing with you, but the one problem I have with this is to wonder why no one recognizes her. Or maybe Smith (who seems to have a good memory) has never seen Ymir and all the other people who would have seen Langner have died?

It looks likely to me that what Ymir claims to be "hated" for is that she is a titan that is known to have eaten people (something we haven't seen/heard of RBA doing as of yet). I wouldn't be surprised at all if there were more to it than that, but I have absolutely no idea what at this point. Not enough info yet.

 

[kkck]

What? We saw ilse being devoured though, and pretty much at the time ymir was already a trainee elsewhere. The giant probably was someone to whom ymir was important enough to bring back a shred of his old self when seeing ilse who resembled ymir somewhat.

 

[vanihba2000]

So you also think Ymir and Ilse Langner are probably the same person (and that she must have had a split personality like Reiner for a while)? They certainly have features in common and it fits Ymir's comments about how she was once a lot like Christa (different name and attempts to be thought of as someone who does "good" for the world; willing to die without putting up a fight), but do we know for certain that they are one and the same? I lean toward agreeing with you, but the one problem I have with this is to wonder why no one recognizes her. Or maybe Smith (who seems to have a good memory) has never seen Ymir and all the other people who would have seen Langner have died?

It looks likely to me that what Ymir claims to be "hated" for is that she is a titan that is known to have eaten people (something we haven't seen/heard of RBA doing as of yet). I wouldn't be surprised at all if there were more to it than that, but I have absolutely no idea what at this point. Not enough info yet.

No, they cannot be the same person since Ilse was eaten up while Ymir was still within the walls. About how she got her Titan ability, I see 3 possibilites :
1) Originally from that Titan town. Was discriminated maybe because her Titan form wasn't perfect. She escaped, ate Reiner's and Bert's friend and took refuge within the walls. Then why would she not know the existence and location of such a town? Or does she?
2) From a different settlement outside Wall Maria, given Titan serum and held captive/discriminated because of her Titan ability. She escaped and took refuge inside the walls.
3) Originally inside the walls, and Grisha(or someone else) gave her the serum. This seems ridiculous since how would a Titan outside know her then?

 

[ImmortalZodd]

Since Ymir doesn't know where Reniner and Berth are from, that means she is from another village/town outside the walls. Perhaps that town had the tehnology to make titan shifters. Ymir was presumably nobility, and certain (maybe all?) nobles from that town were shifters. Then, Reiner's and Berth's town perhaps attacks and takes over, or there is an internal coup d'état. Either way, now Ymir is exiled or she simply escaped, her people are transformed into titans (the Titan from Ilse's chapter) like those in Connie's village.
Also, Reiner's and Berth's village obtains the titan shifting technology, but it can only be used on children. That's why they train children soldiers (Berth, Reiner, Annie, fourth?) to attack the walls, since they had no other shifters at that point.

Now, the time and location when Ymir attacks Reiner, Berth and fourth? is also questionable. Was it before they attacked the walls, or was it during those two years between the first attack and their recruitment in the army? Was Annie present?
Something tells me Annie was a replacement for the fourth that got killed by Ymir, which would explain why Reiner and Berth seem better 'friends' since they met Annie last. And Annie was trained by her father alone, while it's probable that Reiner and Berth trained together.
And does that mean that Ymir knew that RBA were titanshifters all along? Like, holy shit!

And why is Christa so important to Ymir? It obviously has something to do with her also being nobility, but what does that have to do with anything? And I don't think Ymir just likes her and feels emphatic towards her, no, she is important in some way. Ymir even said it's because of her family.
http://www.mangahere.com/manga/shingeki_no_kyojin/c037/36.html

Of course, this is all just speculation xD

EDIT: And remember, Ymir found out about Christa while eavesdropping on two priests, so she probably heard some pretty secretive stuff.

 

[kannazuki]

What? We saw ilse being devoured though, and pretty much at the time ymir was already a trainee elsewhere. The giant probably was someone to whom ymir was important enough to bring back a shred of his old self when seeing ilse who resembled ymir somewhat.

We saw Ilse's head getting bitten. My supposition after looking at that a while back (when I first noticed the two of them look similar) is that the exact moment the storyline was cut off in the journal (and therefore the manga flashback), Ymir dropped the false identity of "Ilse," remembered who she was (assuming she even forgot), and lived on as the person we recognize after killing that titan. I think it's a reasonable possibility, considering all else that's happened.

No, they cannot be the same person since Ilse was eaten up while Ymir was still within the walls. About how she got her Titan ability, I see 3 possibilites :

Do we have any evidence Ymir was already within the walls a year ago? Ilse Langner "died" at least a year (very possibly longer) before the present point in the story (see below). I doubt Ymir was in training (as herself) with the others for over a year.

Here's the timeline constructed by members of this forum (note: I combined bullets from two lists here:

Spoiler

Spoiler: History of the manga and events concerning the overall plot

• Year 738 - the year titans showed up
• History of humanity before the walls
• Year 844: Mikasa receives a clan tattoo
• Year 845 - Collosal and Armored titan attack Shiganshina, and break Wall Maria.
• Year 846 - Failed recovery of Wall Maria #2
• Year 847 - Eren, Mikasa and Armin leave the landfills and join the trainees squad
• Year 849 - Ilse Langner expedition

This is Hanji's line when she and Levi found Ilse's diary out in the forest, if correctly translated on MR (I will keep checking for raw text; can't find it so far for ch 16): "This belonged to a soldier who died a year ago," as in a year before she found the journal itself. Who knows how much longer now.
From the manga;

Spoiler

1) Originally from that Titan town. Was discriminated maybe because her Titan form wasn't perfect. She escaped, ate Reiner's and Bert's friend and took refuge within the walls. Then why would she not know the existence and location of such a town? Or does she?
2) From a different settlement outside Wall Maria, given Titan serum and held captive/discriminated because of her Titan ability. She escaped and took refuge inside the walls.
3) Originally inside the walls, and Grisha(or someone else) gave her the serum. This seems ridiculous since how would a Titan outside know her then?

I don't think we know nearly enough to speculate where she's from. I think something to do with a special lineage is a good guess, considering the way the titan reacted and her feeling of kinship with Historia, but I wouldn't immediately assume that lineage was noble. If anything, she would be loved and not hated (as she claims to be) if her lineage was noble, considering how things turned out in this fictional world where only the richest, most powerful people were able to get on the boats and survive the titan onslaught by sailing to the "New World." Rather I'd think she's from some kind of outcast tribe if I were to speculate. But apparently one that is either revered by some titans, or who managed to make certain titans loyal to them.

I'm ignoring the rest of the stuff about a "titan serum" or "nobility" of Ymir until we have more concrete information.

EDIT: And remember, Ymir found out about Christa while eavesdropping on two priests, so she probably heard some pretty secretive stuff.

Indeed but recall that she knows a language that so far we don't know if anyone else knows. Obviously she has information beyond whatever she learned from Historia's family cult.

 

[Katea]

Of course, this is all just speculation xDIndeed but recall that she knows a language that so far we don't know if anyone else knows. Obviously she has information beyond whatever she learned from Historia's family cult.

Yeah, but the can of food with the foreign language was stored inside the wall, which means that some people inside the wall Rose know the language as well......

Judging by this page and the one that follows http://www.mangahere.com/manga/shingeki_no_kyojin/c038/27.html Ymir seems to know exactly what happened to Connie's home and his Mom, the way she tried to shut him up was really suspicous.


All in all though, since Ymir's titan form isn't as big and as strong as the Ape one or even Annie, I kinda have the feeling that there are other reasons why she is /was whorshipped by other titans...

 

[kannazuki]

Whoops it seems I accidentally cut off the (later) quote attributions earlier. Just fixed it...

That there are old cans in an abandoned castle does not necessarily tell us that other people still know the language. The people who could read it may or may have taught it to the next generation(s) after them but we just don't know yet. If anyone knows it will probably be the royalty/higher ups in the religious cult. Otherwise, who knows.

 

[kkck]

We saw Ilse's head getting bitten. My supposition after looking at that a while back (when I first noticed the two of them look similar) is that the exact moment the storyline was cut off in the journal (and therefore the manga flashback), Ymir dropped the false identity of "Ilse," remembered who she was (assuming she even forgot), and lived on as the person we recognize after killing that titan. I think it's a reasonable possibility, considering all else that's happened.

Do we have any evidence Ymir was already within the walls a year ago? Ilse Langner "died" at least a year (very possibly longer) before the present point in the story (see below). I doubt Ymir was in training (as herself) with the others for over a year.

Well, the flashback could not really have gone on beyond the point where ilse's head was bit off. It would be an exceptionally weird development. ANd we do have ymir's flashbacks from when she was a trainee, she was with eren and the gang from the start. So ymir has been within the wall for at least 3 years. Even then, we actually saw well more than her head being bitten off. The titan did devour her whole.
http://www.mangapanda.com/shingeki-no-kyojin/16/17

Something perhaps even more important though is the fact that ymir has been a titan for years at the bare minimum.
http://www.batoto.net/read/_/145464/shingeki-no-kyojin_v10_ch40_by_tdx/44

Here we see her saving reyner and berholt when they were kids. Quite significant IMO.

 

[kannazuki]

OK well if Ymir was seen in training three years ago then that fact rules out that they could be the same person by itself.

Other than that, if you'll look again although we see do the titan gnawing on her head, and there are cracking/crunching sounds, we do not see Ilse Langner eaten whole.

BTW are there rules against embedding images from other manga reading sites on this forum? Why does everyone only post links? I don't know what page # the batoto one is for but I already embedded page 17 of chapter 16 two pages ago.

 

[Utsune]

I'm cutting into the convo here to go back to the canned herring problem lol, sorry. (I don't think Ilse and Ymir are the same person. Ilse got her head crunched up.)

First of all please look at these two pages:

http://www.mangapanda.com/shingeki-no-kyojin/38/30
http://www.mangapanda.com/shingeki-no-kyojin/38/31
http://www.mangapanda.com/shingeki-no-kyojin/38/32


The common explanation for this is that, Ymir accidentally gives away the fact she can read the language (I think it is an accident judging on the panel layout.) Reiner plays along with her by pretending not to be able to read it, and in reverse is testing her for her loyalty.


But, I'll try some other explanation given in [brackets]:

Ymir: Oh hey look, found something. I guess I have no choice, I don't really like herring that much.
Ymir: ......! [oops, people inside the walls probably haven't eaten herring for 100 years...... I messed up. OR: oops, people can't read this language. I messed up.]
Reiner: Find something else then? Lemme take a look. [You don't like herring? find something else to eat. Lemme see the herring. (Notice he didn't say "Herring? What's that?")]
Reiner: So this is canned food? [The original line could either suggest "Oh, so herring is canned food?" or "Oh, so the herring you found is canned?"]

(I'll force some unconventional explanation from here on, ignoring the usual interpretation.)

Reiner: ......! [Herring......! Shit, I just acted like I knew what herring was. Need to cover up.]
Reiner: What's this character? I can't read this [I don't know this "Herring" phrase]
Reiner: It says "Herring" ? ["Herring? what's that?"]
Reiner: You... can read this... no problem eh... Ymir... [You know this "Herring" word pretty well]


Summaries of different interpretations include:
- Ymir read "Herring" in her own language, and Reiner let slip his knowledge of that language, and so pretends not to know how to read.
- Ymir let slip she knows the different language (explained above.)
- Ymir let slip she knows what Herring is, assuming people haven't eaten them in ages because of accessibility. (If the government is banning on knowledge of the outside world as Armin says at the beginning, then saltwater fish such as Herring would be extremely uncommon under the ban.) Reiner obviously knows what herring is because, in reply to Ymir's dislike for herring, he tells her to find something else instead of asking "What is herring?"

The question really comes down to, do people still eat herring? (Assuming it's always a saltwater fish, there is no way the people inside the walls can get their hands on them if what Armin says at the beginning is true as explained above.) If people don't eat herring, then Ymir's "......!" could possibly be about "letting slip of her knowledge of herring" rather than the language. And Reiner accidentally let slip HIS knowledge of herring too, but plays like he doesn't know how to read.

The thing is, the language on the can of herring is (probably) written in the same language as Ilse's journal ---> Hanji & Levi reacting to Ymir's name means they can read her journal and deduce what is written, meaning the language is consistent on her journal as on the canned herring (see the Language thread for more detail.)

 

[Bandreus]

BTW are there rules against embedding images from other manga reading sites on this forum? Why does everyone only post links? I don't know what page # the batoto one is for but I already embedded page 17 of chapter 16 two pages ago.

Although you might as well embed images from external sites, I much prefer links being posted for the appropriate chap/page.

That way you don't clutter the forums and keep readability at its maximum, on top of keeping the page-load times as fast as possible for those who don't have access to broadband internet. This is especially important when multiple pages would need to be embedded/linked.

As an added benefit, linking the online reader page makes it way easier (and in a way kind of encourages) for people to actually read the few pages before and after the actually linked one, as a single page could easily be misleading when taken out of context. (this is major when one links pages to back a theory or to sprung discussion).

Not mentioning hotlinking is a bad practice, hence you would need to download the image, re-upload it to an image-hosting service and then embed it from there. Quite the hassle.

Just my opinion though, I like forum posts to be as compact as possible for maximum reading comfort. Hyperlinks really is what makes the world wide web as a medium so cool and practical, let's use those properly.

EDIT: Also to avoid being completely OT, I sort of doubt the whole Ilse = Ymir theory. Even leaving all the temporal inconsistencies already pointed out.

While it's true Ymir said (at castle utgard) that she died once in the past, making the point about Isle being eaten by a Titan actually back the theory rather than debacle it, Ymir also stated (during the Ymir-Christa flashback) that she didn't give up her name after getting her second chance.

So yeah, whatever Ymir was in her "previous life" her name was the same, so I don't see how Isle would qualify. Also, as a member of the Scouting Legion, you would expect at least someone in the higher ups (ie Levi) to recognize Ymir as the supposedly dead Soldier.

I think Ilse and Ymir might still be linked in some strange way, but as far as them being the same person... not exactly holding my breath about it.

 

[kannazuki]

Thank you for your opinion, but I already understand the pros and cons and hotlinking etiquette. I usually only link manga pages if I feel I absolutely have to. I wondered if it broke site rules because (a) on most other forums I've seen, no one has a problem posting pages within a spoiler tag (or an "image" tag for sites that have those, though I haven't used one of those sites myself), and (b) I use the Chrome All Manga Reader extension, with it set to load pages from the beginning onward (and not all at once), which means I have to go through the entire thing from the beginning if someone links to a chapter on most sites. It's also frustrating for those of us who have many browser tabs open for the purposes of ongoing research, for work, or for other reasons, to have to load a whole other website in a new tab on top of all the other tabs we've got open. Especially if you load one-image-per-page, that's far more taxing on anyone's browser than loading an image on a page the rest of which you've already loaded. You're also repeatedly sending requests to the other site's servers by doing that, so it's not like it's easier on them either.

I want to respect what people do on this site, so I won't embed pages if that's frowned upon, but I also can't click on your links and see what you want me to see. I click the link and thanks to AMR extension, I get page 1 every single time. I was going to adjust my settings for whichever website people like to link to but so far I have seen at least three different sites involved-- there is no consistency in what sites are linked except that all of them are compatible with AMR. So I give up.

Instead, in order to keep everyone happy I would like to propose that we all make sure to reference the chapter and page # in addition to linking the page, please? If you do that then at least I'll know what page to go to once I click your link. Because while some sites have the page # directly in the link, many don't, and I don't have time to literally go through an entire chapter from the beginning, trying to guess what part people are talking about without anything to go by.

As for Ymir's comment about dying, notice I didn't reference that or quote kkck on it from the "history" thread.

 

[teioh]

Wow! Sorry for the OT but thanks to teach me about that Chrome extension! Well it's pretty clear none will post chapter and page, it's faster for the ext devs to add some settings to fix that problem nope? Make some feedback I'll do for sure after adding this tool!

 

[Utsune]

@kannazuki
Usually the links are pretty clear, something like:
http.........kyojin/45/24

That'd be Chapter 45, page 24, no?

 

[kannazuki]

That is why I already said some sites' links can be understood and some (Batoto, if I recall right, would be the hardest to decipher) cannot. I don't see what's so inconvenient about listing actual page #s with your link. Then I can go to Mangabird or somewhere that isn't compatible, considering everybody puts links from different sites (if everyone used the same site, I'd just set that site to display one page at a time) and I don't want to sit there loading the entire chapter for every single link people post. (Right now I sometimes click the link when the page # is evident, but only if I really need to see the thing to understand what someone is saying.)

 

[Georgie]

So we know that Ymir was walking around aimlessly as a Titan for 60 years (or maybe not so aimlessly). That is a very long time. As we know, the Titans like to find humans to eat, that is their thing, so what in the heck do Titans do all day? Just roam around the land until they find a human civilization to eat? Seem like it. So if Ymir was walking around this whole entire time maybe, we can assume that she is from a far away place? It took her 60 years to get from wherever she was from to Humanity? Just a thought.

 

[Bandreus]

So we know that Ymir was walking around aimlessly as a Titan for 60 years (or maybe not so aimlessly). That is a very long time. As we know, the Titans like to find humans to eat, that is their thing, so what in the heck do Titans do all day? Just roam around the land until they find a human civilization to eat? Seem like it. So if Ymir was walking around this whole entire time maybe, we can assume that she is from a far away place? It took her 60 years to get from wherever she was from to Humanity? Just a thought.

Well, it is a very long time indeed. Obviously, since we know nothing about the actual origin of Titans, it's very hard to make informed guesses at what Ymir did before being a Titan or where she is from. Maybe she went outside of the walls for whatever reason, or maybe she is indeed from outside the walls.

After all, it's been said humanity has been living inside the walls for ~100 years, but we really don't know if any significant community is/was living in another outside location. We do know she was not born a Titan, but sadly enough have no other element about what her prior background is.

Oh and by the way, the fact she has been a Titan for 60 years kind of explains why she can read the forgotten language. If she is that old, then we can assume the first/second generation of post-titan-crisis humans still knew how to read that specific way of writing. A knowledge which seems to have been long since forgotten: after all, people living inside the walls supposedly are the offspring of a lot of different lands and cultures, so it's not that far fetched to believe they kind of dropped their own individual languages and ways of writing slowly over time.

 

[kkck]

Well, if we trust ymir it does seem like she belongs to some form of royalty. Overall it makes sense.... being born into royalty implies she is born to serve others so to speak. Whether she was an actual queen or whether she was simply trying to look pretty for others remains to be seen however at large her noble origins have been at least implied. Then there is the fact that a titan mentioned specifically her. Why would a titan mention her? As far as we know the only recent titanism outbreak was the one where connie's family disappeared however other than that we have no reason to believe there had been others within the walls.

Now, the whole thing leads to ymir somehow being from outside the walls. Now, the other relevant thing to consider here is that ymir does in fact say she died at some point in the past and her only wish was to live a life for her own sake. It would seem natural that her "death" was merely her being turned into a titan and wandering for 60 years.

So what we have is that at some point in the past ymir was royalty, shit went crazy, she became a titan and wandered. The issue here would be where exactly she got her information from. How is she familiar with the warriors beyond the wall? Perhaps when she met reyner and berholt and ate their friend near to where the warriors were.... Well, her titan form is quite fast so perhaps she awoke within the wall and at some point just kinda went to check out what lied beyond the wall and found the warriors only to escape them preferring to live among humans.

Now, there is another scenario. We know from the covers and whatnot that humans came from another continent to where the walls were built. They took ships and a lot of boats went missing. What if ymir comes from the people in other boats? Perhaps they survived in a boat for a few decades until the boat finally gave out. Or perhaps they found an uninhabited island where there were no titans. Then titans got there, they tried to make it to the walls but couldn't ymir died and became a titan wandering until she somehow got to the walled human nation or the warriors.

 

[Bandreus]

The point about boats going missing and survivors taking shelter in some other unknown spot of the world is quite an interesting one, regardless if Ymir was among those hypothetical people...