In the 21st episode of ‘Attack on Titan’ season 4, Zeke realizes Eren has been manipulating their father by showing him just those memories that will eventually lead him to entrust his son with Titan power and kill the Reiss family. The anti-hero even persuades Ymir to grant him the title of Founding Titan, allowing him to create the world’s future as he sees appropriate. Eren’s chopped skull transforms into the Founding Titan in the actual world as she finally ends her 2000-year-long slavery of the royal line. Here’s all you need to know about the season 4 episode 21 finale of ‘Attack on Titan.’ WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!

Recap of Attack on Titan Season 4 Episode 21

After Grisha warns Zeke that he will no longer be able to achieve what he wants and that everything would only go Eren’s way from now on, the bemused father admits that the future will be filled with pain. As a result, he wants his son to stop Eren, whose future memories frighten him. As the half-brothers return to the unknown country surrounding the Coordinate, Zeke finally begins to see the whole picture and realizes how his brother utilized selective future memories to influence their father’s decision at the King of Wall’s Base.

Zeke wastes no time in requesting that Ymir render her subjects infertile. When the directive is given, Ymir rushes for the Coordinate, but Eren breaks free from his bonds, determined to prevent her from following out the aforementioned orders. Ymir’s hamlet was seized and burnt to the ground by the Eldians two thousand years before the events of today. Under the new king’s control, the indigenous were enslaved and subjected to brutal treatment. When a few pigs escape from a pen and people blame Ymir, she is given permission to flee so that she can be hunted down by the Eldians as punishment.

Ymir is seriously injured shortly after and falls into a pool after entering a tree with a chasm. There, she unknowingly fuses with a weird spine-like creature, transforming into a Titan. Despite the horrors she has to through, she does not revolt against the monarch. Ymir smashes the Marleyans at his command and assists the Eldians in amassing wealth and improving the infrastructure of the expanding kingdom by building roads and bridges.

The king is so moved by her commitment to the material advancement of his realm that he marries her and has children with her. Ymir dies 13 years after gaining Titan power, and her daughters Sina, Maria, and Rose consume her mother’s corpse. Ymir’s abilities are eventually divided into nine Titans, who are inherited by her subjects over the generations. Meanwhile, she continues to carry out the wishes of the royal family in the Coordinate.

When Eren finally catches up with Ymir, he begs her for her abilities. He tells her that she is neither a god nor an enslaved person, but rather a human with the ability to halt the centuries-long torment. Ymir is moved to tears as a result of Eren’s words. Just moments later, the anti-hero is transformed into the real-world Founding Titan and the rumbling begins.

Ending of Attack on Titan Season 4 Episode 21: Why Did Eren Start the Rumbling?

For a long time, the Marleyans have been determined to obtain the Founding Titan from the Eldians for their own military endeavors. They also want to exterminate the people who live within the walls, whose forefathers rained death and ruin on the rest of the planet thousands of years ago. However, before they can do so, Eren obtains the Founding Titan from his father, who has taken it from the royal family’s Frieda Reiss.

In the years that follow, the Maryleans gradually come to understand the magnitude of the menace that is looming over their heads. As a result, they begin to plan ahead of time, with Willy Tybur playing an important part. In a ceremony attended by some of the world’s most powerful people, he openly speaks about the threat Eren Yaeger poses and declares war on Paradis Island.

Eren, who had long expected such a move, murders Willy and conducts a surprise attack on Liberio with the help of the Survey Corps. It allows Eldians to regroup while the allied troops prepare to begin an extermination campaign on Paradis Island. While Willy Tybur purposefully provokes Eren’s fury in order to persuade other nations to join Marley in their battle, the holder of the Founding Titan has little choice.

Even if Tybur had not started all-out war, the Eldians’ destiny would have been terrible since Marley and other nations, along with Titan forces, would have continued to vie for the underutilized riches on Paradis Island. The inhabitants of Ymir would have been trapped in an endless cycle of battle, and due to their crude technologies, they would have been ruthlessly wiped out.

While Zeke proposed genetically neutering the whole Eldian population to cease the endless carnage and strife, Eren, who feigned to agree, was never on board. The protagonist has fought back brutally against anyone who has tried to crush his independence since he was a child, and he has not changed as an adult. So, in order to ensure that the outside world never murders another Eldian, he begins the rumble in order to permanently crush every last enemy of the Paradis Island.