Thread by @vincent5126

Ymir Fritz - The Lost Girl of Humanity
The one who was never meant to be fully understood
The one who could only find herself when she finally moved forward
The one trapped in a matrix of slavery that sums up the nature of dehumanization in Attack on Titan
A devil, a slave, a god

It is sheer brilliance for Attack on Titan to have its monsters be giants
Norse myth speaks of Armin's sights similar to the Nine Realms
And well you can see why it was also brutally ingenious for Isayama to deconstruct the creation of those Realms
In the butchering of one girl

AoT's history is muddled in so much propaganda, nationalism and limited literacy barely anyone really knows how the story began
Owl says about how we make our gods or devils
Magath says the hero Helos, who saved Marley, was an empty shell
Ymir is the same
The shell of Midgard

When we look at the story of Ymir
We see the true face of Helos
The face of a hero
Of "God"
An empty shell to make the world in anyone's image
Social construction, just as how Odin/Fritz crafted the world/Eldian Empire from a power beyond them
A power from a simple wish
To live

The thing with Helos
Or "God"
Is they are used to bring meaning to a chaos beyond us, that consumes us, to decide whether man lives or dies
But
We decided that was God's role
Not God
I also find it fitting the chapter that talks about God is entitled God. God is born from a wish

The Lost Girl of Humanity was never meant to be fully understood because we never wanted that
We wanted Ymir to be ours
That includes us fans
Will go over my overall thoughts on her writing but it does make sense that we cannot fully know Ymir
Because we never let her be herself

Why was Eren the one to reach to her
While Eren also never fully understood her
He was the first human to see Ymir's humanity
But even then, that was just step 1
To him
She was not a god or a slave
He did not decide who she is
She was just the world and we wanted it to make sense

Speaking of Eren
I observed he and Ymir were the main enigmas of the final arc
Eren was intentionally distant because he was trapped in Paths
Defined as "Chadren" by some but 131 showed us his real self
And "he did not know"
He clearly had no plan
You know who else did not know?

Ymir had no voice
Others spoke for her
She had no eyes
The world defined her gaze
What she heard were the only terms that mattered to her
But that made her a shell that had no identity
No name
She was a scapegoat without freedom
A Helos with the boulder of Eldia's ambition

Essentially, what we have is a girl who was born into this world without the ability to enjoy that freedom
Everyone is born free
But Ymir and Zeke are among some clear examples
Of why we also need a world that cherishes that freedom
Else they become lost, voiceless orphans

Now before anyone rages about this particular comparison
While we understand Grisha's reason for indoctrinating Zeke
He would later realize this was the mistake that destroyed him
He became a monster
The monster is someone who chooses your worth in life
As prey or subject

Zeke and Ymir's identity were formed from subjugation
They defined themselves based on their relations to their paternal masters
So
Zeke hated Grisha
And
Ymir "loved" Fritz for he "gave" her life but used her body to build his empire and the world WE know, the world of her body

It is a concept to think about
Historia herself was defined by her role
Until she broke from that
To live a life she was proud of
Freckles Ymir saved her
A woman who made her choice after others gave her names like her namesake
This was Mikasa to Ymir
To find a life to accept

In 122, she was given her moment to make a choice
Except her concept of freedom was based on Fritz's subjugation
She only knew of "releasing pigs"
To leave the born to the wild
But"animals" take that freedom and eat them
That's why she helped with the Rumbling
For a new pig test

When in reality
What she needed was what Eren's first step gave her
A space to choose
But even then her life world was defined by one thing
The man who stole her freedom
Fritz
There was literally no one else
Hence her love for an oppressor
That was until Mikasa showed freedom

As I said, Mikasa's demonstration was the key to ending her curse
She feared death yet was only be defined by Fritz's will
So if Mikasa could overcome her great love, not so much for an oppressor, but an actual loving guy who became a devil to others
She would be free of her wish

She could only know herself when she moved forward
During that Rumbling
She and Eren were brought to a path based on the construction of their world
The predatory conflict among humans that required that sides be erased
And the end of Paths
Was freedom
Even if it was too late

Now the last section I want to touch on would be my feelings overall about Ymir
What I said so far are what the character represents
In many ways, she is an object because her humanity has never been fully regarded or fully formed
This is a personal matrix of slavery/coloniality

I think in my reflections about this character
I can say she was probably a challenge to properly convey
Isayama's intention with her was clear the moment we saw the Krista/Ymir connection
And I mean Historia and Freckles
They were the link that created one Founder for us later

So the idea of her loving her oppressor was a headscratcher
The point of that was that there was no one else she could love but the one who took her home
Unfortunately, it was narrated by Eren, of all people, the one Mikasa kills later (139 Eren-Armin talk was in the time of 131)

Mentally, it is almost like we refuse to have our main protagonist, the central POV of our story, be related to the worst monster in history
Except we were intentionally distanced from that POV in the timeskip
For the purpose of figuring out and be in pain with all the characters

But another aspect to it is the suddenness of the reveal
There was never a point where there was any hint that she loved Fritz
In her silence, as did everyone in Ymir's life who defined her, we gave voice to voiceless feelings
Did we need a hint or was the point already there

This is what makes Attack on Titan a difficult series and in a somewhat good way
Again, we are constantly challenged by a world that is too cruel to our viewing because we want to escape into fantasy
But AoT is a constant reminder that real life is messy and impossible to control

What is clear is Isayama wanted us to get into the very motion and feeling of these terrible things
We saw the rise of fascism in Floch's Yeagerists
The deconstruction of nationalism and militarism in Uprising
The difficult to compare Eldian-Marleyean conflict
Eren's guilt

In Ymir's case, I once felt that 139 might have ruined her or given the wrong message
But the truth behind the truth for me is
Ymir represents a cruel reality
Maybe similar to how we call children our future
Except Zeke was called that
Children as reasons for why we do wrong

To simplify
Look at the story of Freckles Ymir
It is no coincidence why two Ymirs exist
Freckles was "brought" into a cult to be worshipped
She is "their future"
To her, this was love
A false name, a false life
But she was abandoned
Becoming a devil to those who once "loved" her

To sum up how I feel about Ymir
I'm glad Isayama wrote another difficult character
It was really hard to comprehend until I looked at the layers
I did not need a lot of other viewpoints
This will be an unpopular conclusion but
The extra pages saved her
A lot
So I am thankful