As the Survey Corps close in on the traitors Ymir remembers her past and comes to a fateful decision about her future as well as Historia's.
Tropes:
- Adaptational Early Appearance:
- Much like last episode this episode reveals information about the past of a character that hadn't been revealed into a few arcs from now in the manga. In this case Ymir's tragic backstory.
- The solders that invade Ymir's cult weren't even shown until two arcs from now. Likewise the implications for their existence was also not hinted at until said arc.
- Adaptation Expansion:
- Ymir's backstory, while leaving out some elements, provides a lot more insight into her backstory before she became a Titan. Likewise we actually get to see how she snuck up and ate Marcel in this version; of special mention is that this happened a couple of months earlier than when it was actually shown in the manga.
- Annie is shown in Ymir's flashback having travelled with Bertolt, Reiner and Marcel whereas it was left unclear in the manga if she was originally part of their group or if she only joined up with Reiner and Bertolt after Marcel had been eaten.
- A Day in the Limelight: The episode focusus almost exclusively on Ymir, focusing on her tragic past as a cult figurehead, her time as a Titan, and giving credence to why she cares so much for Krista.
- Black Comedy: There's something pretty funny about Eren desperately punching Reiner with his stumps in an attempt to kill him as well as him gnawing on his arm in a futile effort to transform. Especially since Bertolt and Ymir don't even bother to look at him while Reiner is struggling to knock him out and instead have their own serious conversation.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Ymir's backstory is revealed in (almost) full and oh boy is it a doozy. Starting life as an orphan on the streets she was picked up by a couple of conmen who gave her a new identity as Ymir and told the people she had the blood of "the king" running through her veins. Seeing how happy she made others Ymir played her role as the cults figurehead and was allowed to enjoy the comforts she never experienced before. That is until a mysterious band of soldiers invaded her cult and rounded up the members with one of the conman who found her claiming that she made them believe her story. Frightened for her life but wanting to help her cult Ymir claimed that those statements were true. In the end all this got was Ymir and her followers getting marched down the street, stoned, and then turned into Titans with Ymir stating she was in that state for sixty years. It's no wonder she became such a cynical and selfish person later on in life.
- Determinator: Even when stuck in his human form and not even having any hands, Eren still struggles futilely against Reiner.
- Everyone Can See It: According to Reiner Bertolt did not make his attraction to Annie very subtle considering he stared at her all the time and tells him to confess to her after she is rescued.
- Funny Background Event: While Bertolt and Ymir are having a serious conversation about her eating Marcel, and how long she was stuck in her Titan Form beforehand, Eren's feet can be seen twitching in the air as he is futilely trying to escape from Reiner. It's funnier then it sounds.
- Grey-and-Grey Morality: With the almost explicit implication that every Titan, not just the ones from Connie's village, were at one point human it makes the conflict between humans and Titans a lot more murkier then it was before.
- Internal Reveal: Moblit returns to Connie's hometown and puts two-and-two together on something the audience had already guessed for a while now; that the Titan sitting on Connie's house is in fact his mother.
- Luminescent Blush: A downplayed example but Bertolt is shown to be quite flustered and blushing when Reiner tells him to tell Annie his feelings for her once they rescue her.
- Really 700 Years Old: Turns out that Ymir has actually been stuck in her Titan body for about sixty years before she ate Marcel thus making her about seventy five years old currently.
- The Reveal: One of the most reveal heavy episodes in Attack on Titan's history:
- Reiner and Bertolt are searching for something called the Coordinate and they need Krista's help to find it due to her connection with the Order of the Walls.
- Apparently Titan's can only regain their sentience when they eat a Titan Shifter which Ymir did after she ate Bertolt and Reiner's friend Marcel. This also implies that Eren at one point had to eat someone.
- Ymir was stuck as a mindless Titan for about sixty years before she ate Marcel.
- Ymir's backstory is revealed and it makes explicitly clear that their appears to be a second group of humans out there turning other humans into Titans.
- Moblit's research and Ymir's backstory explicitly implies that all Titans were once humans that were forcibly transformed into their state.
- It's shown exactly how Ymir's titan was able to get a drop on Reiner and the other Shifters as a child.
- And of course one of the biggest twists of all...Bertolt has a crush on Annie!
- Shipper on Deck: Reiner seems to encourage Bertolt to confess his (alleged) feelings for Annie.
- Shoot the Shaggy Dog: In Ymir's backstory, when the solders ask if she was the leader of the cult, Ymir said she was when she saw how frightened her followers were wanting to sacrifice herself for their sake. In the end the rest of her cult suffered the same fate as her, to be stoned and forcibly transformed into Titans.
- Wham Episode: Arguably one of the biggest in Attack on Titan's history with many reveals and implications for the future of the series.
