10 Second Anime - Shingeki no Kyojin S2 - Episode 35

Ymir decides whether to join Reiner and Bertholdt in their escape as Erwin's Scouts close in to rescue Eren and her.

Episode 35 - "Children"

Heh.

There was quite an extended flashback showing the events leading up to Ymir's first transformation into a Titan. It offered tantalizing hints at what was going on outside the walls about 60 years ago and how the politics of the time treated Titan cults and how they related to a certain "king" from an unknown era. It was quite easily the most interesting thing to see in the episode in terms of adding to the overall story, putting it up there with the revelation of a talking Beast Titan.

The Scouts investigating Conny's hometown confirmed that the trapped Titan was Conny's mom. This means everyone in the village turned into Titans. Are they the Titans who can move at night? How did this happen?

Bertholdt snapped Reiner back to the matters at hand by asking him pointedly whether he was a "soldier" or a "warrior?" Reiner got back to all business.

Just a reminder that the Ymir Titan ate Annie, Reiner, and Bertholdt's companion Marcel. It looks like it happened soon after these "warriors" infiltrated the land of Walls.

Reiner and Bertholdt's conversation also gave us tantalizing hints about their backstory. Bertholdt wants to go back home, taking Annie, Christa, and THAT with them. What is THAT?

Bertholdt has a big crush on Annie, with Reiner saying he was too obvious with all the staring at her. I don't know how he could tell, really, since Bertholdt looks like that almost all the time...

Oh, you know Eren is trying to be sneaky because he's using his words to get something out of Reiner instead of shouting and fighting.

And there goes the fighting and shouting... This scene was hilarious to me because of how Ymir and Bertholdt just kept having a normal conversation while Eren was trying to wrestle Reiner with his stumps. He was even biting his stumps to transform!

Bertholdt explained to Ymir that Titans don't remember anything from their first transformation. Considering how big Bertholdt gets, this might be problematic and dangerous for the other "warriors," unless his powers are an upgrade to his normal Titan self. There's still so much find out about how this Titan stuff works.

Ymir said she wandered for 60 years or so as a Titan before waking up again. Is this how all those other Titans running around the countryside are? This also explains how she was able to read that archaic language. She was literally from another time and place even just being barely outside the Walls.

Ymir's flashback explains a lot but also offers more questions. How did these priests, or whatever, choose among the children to worship? Her fellow orphans(?) didn't seem traumatized to see her go, just kind of sad. That little girl waving goodbye was a poignant scene.

Ymir was said to "carry the blood of the king" and worshipped by this cult. What does it mean? And what does it mean that the cultists didn't want her to tell the raiding soldiers or police that she was designated an object of worship instead of claiming it for herself?

It didn't matter, though. They all got thrown outside the walls from their tops and turned into Titans! I can see how the controlling government might not want a whole bunch of potential Titans running around their city.

She was a regular Titan, running during the day, stopping at night. And she was basically immortal, letting herself get buried by dirt over decades. It looked like a fateful meeting with the "warriors" who suffered from her Titan reflex by disturbing her slumber. She was all emaciated though, presumably from the lack of sunlight.

And then she woke up in a desert, removed from time and space from her original town. I wonder what caused her to finally wake up.

The refugee crisis let a lot of people just start over, or infiltrate an enemy population.

The point of Ymir's backstory from a character development perspective is that her friendship with Christa gives her the chance to be honest with herself. She lied to herself taking a new name when she was taken from her group of children and she lied again to protect the cultists' secret about choosing random children. She wants to stay honest with herself, which includes needing to see Christa again, even if it means betraying the land of Walls.

And the end result is that Ymir took her shot at being together with Christa, just popping her in her mouth for the escape.

Next time, we'll see whether the Armored Titan is fast enough to outrace horses and other Titans.