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Ymir Fritz, also known as the Founder, is the overarching protagonist of the Attack on Titan franchise.
She was the first human to be able to transform into a Titan, as the one who gained the original Power of the Titans roughly around 2,000 years prior the story, after coming into contact with an anomaly. She was also a slave of Eldia and a concubine to King Fritz, who used her as a weapon to build the Eldian Empire, defeat his enemies, and begin a global conquest. After her death, her spirit was split into the Nine Titans.
As a result, she is an ancestor to Karl Fritz, Rod Reiss, Dina Fritz, Zeke Yeager, Historia Reiss, and all Subjects of Ymir in the world. Being the spirit who produces every single Titan transformation in the story, she is responsible for all the events of the series, along with her family.
She is voiced Chiyuki Miaru in Japanese and Apphia Yu in English.
Personality[]
Ymir's true character has been susceptible to many different interpretations because she is a legendary figure from ancient history and mythology. Ymir was characterized by the tale books from the Walls as a compassionate girl named "Christa", who was constantly considering others. The nation of Eldia used to hold Ymir in the highest regard and extol her achievements for their people, mistakenly viewing her as a goddess and Queen of Eldia. The Marleyan propaganda, on the other hand, claims that Ymir was a tool of the Devil with whom she had struck a bargain. Eldian propaganda treats Ymir as if she had been perfect and flawless, while Marleyan propaganda treats her as a purely vile and power-hungry figure.
In truth, she had no free agency and was a slave, however she had an understanding and sympathy for those that yearned for freedom as she allowed three pigs to go free despite the consequences. She lived in accordance with the Eldian king Fritz wishes, helping him establish his empire, ruthlessly eliminating his rivals, and having offspring for him. Ymir even went so far as to give up her life in order to save his. For over 1,990 years in the uncharted Paths surrounding the Coordinate, her soul continued to be hopelessly obedient to the Eldian royal line.
Eren claims that Ymir loved Fritz despite his mistreatment of her and his accountability for ruining her hometown, which resulted in the passing of her parents, despite his inability to truly comprehend her. As she waited for someone to save her from the pain of love, she was also eager to carry out his wishes for generations.
Biography[]
Background[]
Over 2,000 years ago, Ymir was born to unnamed parents growing up within a small yet peaceful tribe. One day, Ymir's village was violently raided by the Eldian tribe led by King Fritz, where he and his subjects proceeded to massacre the natives, with Ymir's parents being among the casualties. Shortly after, she was captured along with some survivors, and were all enslaved while their tongues were cut out. One day while tending to a fence of pigs, Ymir took sympathy on the animals and allowed them to go free. Fritz caught wind of this and rounded up the slaves demanding to know the culprit lest they have their eye's gouged. As the other slaves pointed to Ymir, she was released within the woods to be hunted to death. While injured and she eventually stumbled across a large caved in tree. While attempting to hide in it she stumbled into a ravine below, and began to drawn where she would make accidental contact with an anomaly. The anomaly recognized Ymir's fear of death and desire to have a body that would feel no pain and be greater in size, and as a result the anomaly bonded with Ymir and transformed her into the very first Titan.
With this newfound power, Ymir returned to the Eldian tribe and went about strengthening it into an empire, with her being pardoned for freeing the pigs as a result. For the next 13 years, she used her power to build roads, cultivate the wastelands, and build bridges between the mountains. At the same time she would use her Founding Titan form to lay waste to Eldia's enemies, primarily the Marleyan Empire, as a "reward" King Fritz "allowed" Ymir to bear his children (essentially making her a sex slave), with three daughters named Maria, Rose and Sina Fritz. For the remaining years Ymir Fritz continued to wage war on Marley and other countries, eventually conquering much of the mainland and establishing Eldia as a global super power, taking over cities and cultures and restructuring it as their own. However, Ymir herself was still regulated as slave as even when taking care of their children Fritz would openly flirt with and keep other mistresses around him directly in her presence. One day, a faction of surviving Marleyean soldiers surrendered to King Fritz, with Ymir and their three children being among the attendants. However one of the Marleyans attempted to kill Fritz on the spot by concealing a spear within the dirt and throwing it to him. Ymir rushed to protect Fritz and took the blow in his place. While Maria, Rose, and Sina cried out for their mother, Fritz was unmoved and demanded that Ymir regenerate her injury and continue serve as his slave for all of time. Ymir did not heal the wound and effectively committed suicide, allowing herself to bleed out as a refusal to continue suffering a fate of continued slavery.
However, Ymir still felt attachment to the world and yearned to escape into a land that brought "freedom", manifesting a subspace beyond time with the power of the Titans that would be known as "Paths". Paths would allow Ymir to continually be connected to all future descendants of her bloodline beyond the mortal realm. Additionally, either subconsciously or intentionally, Ymir enacted a "curse" that would have any future holder of the power of the Titans die within 13 years like her, no matter the circumstance.
Roughly at the same time of her death, Maria, Rose, and Sina were forced to consume her corpse by their father, King Fritz, in an attempt to keep her power and the result was successful, as Ymir granted them the power of the Titans and sculpted their Titan forms. Upon Fritz's death, his and Ymir's daughters would be ordered to breed more children to expand the Eldian Empire for all time. As Ymir's descendants continued to grow and Eldia would extend its power, Ymir still held an attachment or "love" for Fritz and sought freedom from it, looking to the future to see when that day would come eventually finding someone suitable to do it. Additionally, however, she held resentment toward the world that would cause her to enact another person to bring about most of its destruction.
Over nearly two millenias, Ymir would continue to craft Titans within Paths and split the powers into Nine individual Titans as her people continued to rule. The Nine Titans would be held by Eldia's most powerful noble houses. Roughly around 100 years before 845, one of Ymir's descendants, Karl Fritz, the 145th King of the Eldian Empire sought to end his people's reign on the world out of shame and disgust for their atrocities they've committed upon humanity throughout centuries, as well as to end the constant infighting among Eldia's ruling families for the Nine Titans, instigating the Great Titan War, which would cause the downfall of the Eldian Empire and the Marleyan Uprising. King Karl took as many subjects as he could and brought them with him to a small and secluded island.
On this island, Karl ordered Ymir to craft "tens of millions" of Colossal Titans out of his subjects to make a new walled territory, which would become what is left of Eldia as a nation and be isolated from the rest of the world. Ymir then went about building the Colossal Titan forms in the Paths and additionally accepted Karl's War Renouncing Vow on the Founding Titan, which would force future Founder inheritors of royal bloodline to also inherit his will and be forced into never waging war and never using the full power of the Founder. As Marley was reborn and taking revenge on the Subjects of Ymir, the state crafted propaganda claiming that Ymir made a deal with the Devil to attain the power of the Titans. Following Eldia's fall, humanity ended up using the labels "Subjects of Ymir" and "Eldians" interchangeably.
During the next century of Marley's domination and conquests across the globe, and in the years beyond, Ymir would continue making Titans for both Marley and Eldia whenever the two factions required it, regardless of reasons and allegiances.
War for Paradis Arc[]
In 854, Ymir makes her presence known in the Paths to Zeke Yeager, one of her direct descendants, as he lays bleeding to death from his injuries. In the Paths, Ymir always appears in the form of a child. Ymir proceeded to personally sculpt Zeke a new body, saving his life in the process. Later, when his younger brother Eren Yeager makes contact with him, they are both taken to the Paths and meet Ymir. Zeke reveals that by commanding Ymir, their shared goal of sterilizing all Eldians can be made a reality, but Eren rejects this proposal, opting to have Ymir lend her his strength for his own. Ymir ignores Eren initially and kneels to Zeke, who reveals this was a ploy to test Eren's true allegiance and that no matter what Ymir will always give servitude to an Eldian with royal blood and as result has partial control of the Paths and the Coordinate, and creates chains to restrain him. During a trip into Grisha Yeager's memories, Zeke grows horrified of Eren's true intentions and orders Ymir into sterilizing every Eldian on the planet. Eren then frees himself from his chains and catches up to Ymir before she can reach the Coordinate to obey Zeke's command and sees into her memories, proceeding to tell her she doesn't have to listen to Zeke or anyone's order and to make her own choices for herself, to either stay in the Paths or work together to destroy all the earth's life outside Paradis Island. Despite Zeke's protests, Ymir sides with Eren and grants him full access to the Founding Titan, while using Zeke as a conduit initiating the Rumbling.
Indeed, Ymir allows Eren full control over Karl's Wall Titans and watches as he goes about annihilating humanity outside of his island. During the Rumbling in Marley, Ymir appears as an apparition and watches the young boy Ramzi being crushed to death in his coastal hometown. Later, within the Paths, Eren summons his lifelong friend Armin Arlert to reveal Ymir's true objectives before later erasing this encounter from the former's mind, telling him that for 2,000 years she was suffering from a Stockholm like attachment to King Fritz even after his death, and yearned to be free of it, so she looked through time and guided a person to finally free her of this attachment, this person being Mikasa Ackerman and that her choices would determine what Ymir does next.
Days later, Eldians of the alliance between Survey Corps and Marleyan Warriors are taken into the Paths, where Eren's old friends plead that he stop this genocide, though he refuses and Ymir stands next to him in solidarity declaring that the opposition must fight to stop them.
Later, during the Battle of Heaven and Hearth and Fort Salta in southern Marley, Ymir assists Eren by summoning Zeke Yeager's Beast Titan to defeat the airships of the Marley Air Force, under the command of Secretary Muller, who leads a surviving contingent of Marleyan soldiers in a last attempt to save humanity. Eventually, the alliance reaches Fort Salta with a flying boat from Hizuru, landing atop the Founding Titan. As they attempts to stop Eren, Ymir watches and summons backup in the form of numerous past incarnations of the Nine Titans from the past, both from Eldia and Marley indiscriminately. Ymir uses the "Okapi Titan" to capture Armin and hold him with the Paths. While in the Paths, he meets a depressed and defeated Zeke and the two discuss Ymir, the origins of the Titans, their values, and views of life and death. The two come to a conclusion that they must stop the Rumbling, and upon hearing this Ymir decides to summon the souls of past Intelligent Titans from Marley—Grisha Yeager, Eren Kruger, Tom Ksaver, Bertolt Hoover, Marcel and Porco Galliard, and Ymir—to aid in stopping the Rumbling. This makes Armin realize that the Founder Ymir is "seeking connection" and credits Zeke for reaching the group of deceased old friends and allies.
As the liberated "ghost" Titans help the alliance fight the controlled ones, the Okapi Titan used by Ymir to hold Armin is stopped and shot by Gabi Braun, allowing Mikasa to finish it off and free Armin, who rejoins the battle. Zeke sacrifices himself by allowing Levi Ackerman to kill him, resulting in the Rumbling stopping, and 20% of humanity being saved from annihilation.
A brief time later, always at Fort Salta, the Paradis-Marley allies continues to fight the Founding Titan along with the anomaly that granted Ymir's powers. Ymir herself appears within the mouth of Eren's final Colossal-like Titan form and watches Mikasa decapitate him. Finally feeling satisfied and ready to move onwards, she relinquishes the power of the Titans all together with the anomaly presumably dying as a result. Ymir meets with with Mikasa one final time an imparts a vision of an idealized reality where Ymir did not save King Fritz and instead protected her three children, Mikasa understanding this sentiment bids Ymir farewell as her soul dissipates.
Trivia[]
- It is unknown if Ymir and her native people were of the same ethnicity as the people of Eldian tribe, the people of Marley, or another group of humans entirely.
- It was never said if Ymir's village, before falling to the Eldians, used to be part of Marley, part of another nation, or part of independent lands. Being inspired by the Roman Empire, which ruled much of Europe, it is most likely that the original Marleyan Empire was multi-ethnic and ruled much of the main continent featured in the story, with Marley's founders being based on the Latins. It is possible that Ymir was part of any culture belonging to Marleyan domains.
- Although Ymir was praised by Eldia as their "progenitor" and goddess, Ymir was never of Eldian nationality. The label "Eldians" in the "modern" days post-Great Titan War is merely used by humanity outside the Walls to refer to all the Subjects of Ymir, regardless of their ancestry. Because of their blood type and link to Ymir's soul and her parasitic anomaly, all of Ymir's descendants are connected to the Paths and can be exposed and labeled as "Eldians" by the rest of humanity, who refuse to claim them as members of any other country but the fallen Eldia.
