And on that day humanity received a grim reminder – of how awesome Attack on Titan is! Welcome back to the Multiversity Summer TV Binge. We will be diving, swooping, and swinging our way through Attack on Titan season two. Bundle up warm and crawl out of the rubble, because we’re about to get into season 2 episode 5: “Historia!”
1. Not an Ice Person
Ymir is a titan! She probably ate Reiner and Bertholt’s friend! Now lets flash back to a simpler time, when trainees died on frozen mountaintops.
Most of the episode is spent in flashback, back when the 104th were still in boot camp. Specifically, it follows an incident where a few trainees went missing on a snowy night hike. We’ve never seen this story before, but we get to check in with all our favorite recruits. Most of our time though, is spent with Krista and Ymir, who have been quietly getting character work for the last few episodes but totally steal the spotlight here, and to great effect!
The main takeaway is that Ymir is not a nice person. She and Krista found themselves stranded with a dying trainee, and Krista insisted on dragging him through the snow even though he was slowing them down. It’s a classic dilemma. Krista would rather die than give up on a comrade and Ymir would rather leave this guy to die than let Krista die. The thing is, Ymir doesn’t hate everyone. She really really loves Krista.
2. Look how far we’ve come
It’s kind of nice to see our main heroes when they were so young and innocent. And is that… OMG, Marco is here! Remember Marco? It’s crazy to take a moment to see how far everyone has come. Armin is a Machiavellian genius now, but back in training he a shy loser. Sasha is still goofy, but she just proved herself to be a tremendous badass! This is a time when she was just Potato Girl. Eren… well, he hasn’t changed much. He’s still intense and refuses to give up no matter what. There’s a nice moment when he’s determined to charge back out into the blizzard to find Ymir and Krista, and Sasha, Connie, and Marco throw in to help. The extended flashback not only gives a neat perspective onto the group dynamics, it reminds us of their trajectory. Eren was always going to be important even without his titan powers because Eren can do one thing no one else can. He can inspire people. Maybe not to be their best selves, but their most selves, the most intense version they can be.
3. Rejected, like a baby in the snow
The end of the flashback is quietly dramatic. Krista’s always seemed like a bit of a doormat to me. She’s been characterized by her kindness and the other characters can’t stop talking about how hot she is even though she looks like she’s twelve. Every so often though, we can see that there’s something more to her, and her steadfast refusal to rescue this ultimately unimportant soldier shows us her iron willpower. Ymir takes a drastic measure. While Krista’s back is turned, Ymir vanishes with the soldier off a cliff, and saves him.
In hindsight, we (and Krista) can figure out what happened. Ymir turned into a titan, grabbed the soldier, and jumped off the cliff. That gave Krista a chance to take the safe way down. It lives us with a lot of ambiguity such as what Krista knew and when she figured it out. We also never get an explicit motivation for Ymir. Is she doing this to save Krista? Herself? Has she been convinced that there’s a value in human life? She saved all of them, risking her most dire secret, but we have no idea why.
4. Ymir’s bloody secret
And then we are back in the present, and Ymir is not like the other titans. She’s compact. And fast! We get an amazing scene of her flipping around like some sort of super-ape, tearing apart the other titans. We also learn that Ymir was living on the streets and heard about a girl named Historia who- surprise!- ended up being Krista. There’s more to Ymir’s backstory than we’ve been told here, that is for sure.
Continued belowAnd Krista freaking loses it. She starts shouting at Ymir, reminding her of what a bad person she is. My subtitles translate part of her rant as “It’s too late for you to get into heaven!” Ice cold. Krista provokes some sort of emotional response in titan Ymir, who proceeds to start tearing the castle apart and smashing titans to bits with the falling brick. Before the tower can totally collapse, Ymir groans out, “Want… live? Grab me!” The survivors seek refuge in her hair. Ew. Awesome. Ew. That’s probably somebody’s kink.
5. Yatta! Eren’s First Kill (Really!)
The humans live, bit Ymir goes down under a wave of rubble and titans. It’s bloody and it looks like the end. Krista rushes forward, professing love for Ymir and revealing herself as Historia. Then a titan makes a move for her. She looks like a goner when suddenly…
Mikasa to the rescue! The Scouts are here and everything is going to be OK! Well, maybe not everything but things aren’t going to get substantially worse. Eren even kills a titan. And it’s his first kill! He says as much. I know, titan Eren has killed plenty but this is Eren first time using swords and ODM gear to kill a titan. We’re all very proud of you Eren Yaeger.
