This is an in-depth analysis of the relationship between Eren Yeager and Historia Reiss in Attack on Titan. I will be delving into their relationship, covering absolutely everything of importance to the pair (be it foreshadowing, moments where their stories interconnect, etc.) which will explain how Eren and Historia could’ve easily been canon. The much needed evidence will all be provided from the story and AoT’s additions (such as side-stories and AU’s which are approved by Isayama). This analysis is written to prove to many that Isayama had actually managed to give them a very proper development.
Despite Chapter 139 “debunking” the ship, this long analysis is meant to explain that EreHisu didn’t exactly come out of nowhere but could’ve easily been hidden in plain sight like most of Isayama’s mysteries in AoT (such as Reiner, Bertolt and Annie being the Armored, Colossal and Female Titan respectively; humanity not existing only inside the Walls, etc.).
If you’re one of those who hates this ship, please AVOID this analysis and I mean that from the bottom of my heart. I’m sure you have better things to do than actively seek out the things that you hate. If you’re one of those who is genuinely curious, then feel free to stay and sate your curiosity.
HEAVY SPOILERS AHEAD! If you’re an anime only, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Table of Contents:
- Setting The Stage: Contrasting (Yet Awfully Similar) Backstories And Mirrors
- Growth: Royal Government Arc (Uprising Arc)
- The Sins of The Father + Surpassing The Father
- The “Mystery” of Historia’s Pregnancy
- Eren’s Duality Post-Timeskip Explored And What It Means
- Historia As Ymir’s Antithesis
- School Caste AU And The Implications Within it
- A Little Story For The Children (Smartpass)
- Bonus Section: Distress OVA, Paralleling ED’s, Memory Lane and More
Setting The Stage: Contrasting (Yet Awfully Similar) Backstories And Mirrors
Eren and Historia don’t exactly start off as being friends — which we learn was mostly due to the fact that Eren disliked Historia’s fake persona (Krista). These two, in fact, don’t even interact before the start of the Uprising Arc (Chapter 51) but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we cannot start from the beginning.
Characters grow through experiences and writers know that in order for a character to connect well with another character and have a unique bond, they need to have either similar or contrasting experiences. Contrasting experiences serve well for characters because then a character could provide what the other one is lacking. This appears to be the case between Eren and Historia who, even if starting off as opposites, are in fact one of the same kind and share similar values.
While re-reading AoT, a vast amount of things have caught my attention when it comes to certain characters that share close bonds with Eren and Historia respectively, as well as the seemingly contrasting backstories which almost serve as steps necessary for them to collide perfectly in the Uprising arc.
Mothers (Family)
Eren and Historia’s mothers both die on the same day — the day that Wall Maria falls.
In Historia’s case, she is shunned by her family so when her mother, Alma, is killed by Kenny Ackerman, she gets drafted in the military with a new name gifted to her by Rod Reiss. She has no home to return to and must live in hiding.
In Eren’s case, he is very much loved by his family (even though he didn’t know how to appreciate it at the time) so when Carla is eaten by the Smiling Titan (Dina), Eren swears revenge on all Titans, fueled by grief and rage. He had a home to return to and a family that loved him but that was taken away from him and hence he joins for revenge.
Both of them join the military for a different purpose, one fueled by death of his loved ones and the other just trying to survive because she was shunned by her loved ones. The idea of ‘family’ appears to tie them both right at the start of the story and there’s a contrast between them (loved by his mother / hated by her mother) which is made abundantly clear.
This doesn’t seem important to some of you, but these two life-changing experiences (death of a mother) happen to both characters at the same time which I find very interesting. The chain of events also bring them to meet as cadets. If Historia was accepted by her family, she would’ve went with Rod into hiding and it is quite possible both of them wouldn’t ever cross paths.
Frieda and Armin
Both Historia and Eren had a lonely childhood.
Historia had been severely bullied by kids her age and had never left the farm to socialize because of it. Meanwhile, Eren had never made friends outside Armin and Mikasa, being considered as an outcast due to his unusual behavior. Grisha comments on Eren’s behavior preventing him to form a friendship during the flashback in Chapter 5.
Fortunately, the two of them had a person who inspired them and gave them joy and that was Frieda (in Historia’s case) and Armin (in Eren’s case).
Frieda was Historia’s half-sister, keeping her company on the farm when Historia thought she was alone. She was also the person who was responsible for Historia’s Krista persona because she had shown Historia a book in her childhood which inspired her to act like the girl from the book who was ‘kind and always thinking of others’. The book in question represents a girl offering an apple to a cloaked figure represented as the devil and the moment is also shown at the beginning of Ymir’s backstory in Chapter 122, but I’ll open that can of worms much later.
Armin, on the other hand, was the first kid Eren had ever befriended and the one who sparked Eren’s desire to be free and his rage at the situation all people inside the Walls were forced to be in. This came from Armin showing him a book about the outside world.
A thing to remember is that before that, both Historia and Eren were content at being where they were and were living normal lives.
With the introduction of Frieda and Armin, both of them were pushed towards something.
Now, you may have noticed that I’ve inserted an image at the beginning of this entire section where Historia and Eren appear to be daydreaming and pointed out that they were living quite normal yet boring lives before being introduced to Armin and, in Historia’s case, remembering Frieda.
With the way Eren talks about Armin’s dream in Chapter 73 (a few inserts of it in the image above), it almost appears like Eren would’ve been living aimlessly if it wasn’t for Armin appearing and ranting about the world outside the Walls. The same could be said about Historia, who was unaware that she was unable to leave the farm because of Frieda. During the moment of hesitation where she was about to inject herself with the Titan Serum, Historia recalled her sister yelling at her for crossing the fence.
I’ve stated that Historia had been bullied and her reasoning for not leaving the farm were because she considered the other children dangerous. This was before her memories were unlocked by touching Eren:
Curiously, it almost seems like Frieda was making Historia stay in the farm and not cross the fence, certainly for Kenny and Rod to find her later on so she could be given a new identity (Krista Lenz). This is something which I find particularly interesting, seeing as this moment was removed from the anime. If there was something interesting hiding behind the reason why Historia was forced to live in the farm and never cross the fence, we don’t really know considering it was never explained why Frieda was acting so strangely, but this is a classic case of an inciting incident and it’s curious how their stories kick off in an extremely similar way.
All this aside, though, the way Eren and Historia are always there to reveal something about the mysterious world of AoT is something quite noteworthy.
Freckled Ymir and Reiner
Going into the military brings Historia and Eren to two people who will, in future, sadly betray them (all for the sake of character development): Freckled Ymir and Reiner Braun.
Both Freckled Ymir and Reiner are characters who come from Marley and completely understand Historia and Eren respectively. Freckled Ymir is a perfect mirror of Historia and Reiner of Eren.
As cadets, it is Eren who approaches Reiner first to ask for training while Freckled Ymir approaches Historia. They both form close bonds with them and later on get betrayed in the same arc. The first one who witnesses the betrayal is Eren in Chapter 42, while Ymir betrays Historia near the end of the Clash of the Titans arc (Chapter 50) by not staying by her side and instead going to help Reiner and Bertolt fight off the Titans.
Chapter 42 opens up with Freckled Ymir being lifted up and soon, a panel of Eren follows helping up Reiner.
What follows right afterwards is Historia explaining to Hange why Freckled Ymir outed herself as a Titan shifter, and I kid you not, a couple of panels afterwards is where Reiner starts acting strangely and outs himself as the Armored Titan (as well as outing Bertolt as the Colossal Titan).
It’s very interesting how focused the chapter is on the dynamic of Reiner/Eren and Freckled Ymir/Historia. In fact, Clash of the Titans arc as of whole will continue to put both of these relationships in focus until the end where both Eren and Historia would lose the good relationship they shared with Reiner and Freckled Ymir respectively, leaving them to end up alone at the same time.
This is perhaps why Eren later on inquires Historia about Freckled Ymir (“You still want to save her?”) in Chapter 51 while Historia inquires Eren about Reiner (“You want to kill him?”) in Chapter 70. This makes it seem that both Historia and Eren were quite aware of the others’ relationship with Reiner/Freckled Ymir and how much it impacted them.
Freckled Ymir also served as an antithesis to Historia while Reiner served as an antithesis to Eren and so both of these characters do a lot to push both of them towards character development, but also push them one step closer to each other. Of course, I’m not stating that this is their only purpose, and not everything had to be about them both, but in the cyclic story such as AoT, the experiences Historia and Eren go through are perfect to bring them closer to each other.
A moment in Chapter 46 which I have to mention (considering just how bizarre it is, both out of context and with context) is Eren getting pissed off at Reiner’s breakdown only when he mentions marrying Krista while Freckled Ymir, the girl who wanted to marry said girl, stays conveniently silent. What’s terribly funny is the fact that Eren tells himself that he needs to suppress his emotions minutes before this yet only stops Reiner’s weird rant after he says that particular line.
Many people have said this shouldn’t be taken seriously; that it was not the Krista line that got Eren to show his teeth. It was just that Reiner was yapping about getting a promotion in the Scouts like he hadn’t just straight up fought with Eren a couple of hours ago and this rightfully made Eren snap. Many people, however, fail to notice that Eren had still stayed silent at Reiner’s long rant and chose to speak up the second he mentioned Krista being into him — which was, like, a lot of sentences before the eventual Krista line.
He stays mute at Reiner droning on and on about the events which had happened before he revealed himself as a traitor and yet snaps at him when he mentions a girl being into him. He could’ve easily just stayed quiet to that as well, right? Hadn’t he said he “must suppress his emotions”? He was doing quite well, considering he remained silent the entirety of Reiner’s rant which already outed that something was wrong with him.
We know that Reiner is romantically interested in Historia (although this did come from his split personality formed out of immense guilt for the island, because the Warrior Reiner never once mentioned her) and coupling in the fact that Eren was stating “We’re the same” to Reiner later on in Marley… We can reach a very interesting conclusion.
All of this aside though— both Freckled Ymir and Reiner each play a very important role in Eren and Historia’s teenage years. As I’ve stated, they serve as antitheses of the then underdeveloped Eren and Historia. Ymir’s betrayal leaves Historia alone to be back to her true, disinterested and boring self. Reiner’s betrayal leaves Eren in a need of some encouragement because we see him struggling to take on the weight of the information he had picked up after his fight with him. Eren will be looking for an antithesis of his own afterwards, having cycled in character since the beginning of the story without managing to change a thing and that is when the Uprising arc happens and everything slowly starts being put into place.
Like Frieda and Freckled Ymir were to Historia, Armin and Reiner were to Eren and let us not dwell on the fact that Reiner and Freckled Ymir, characters which share clear parallels with Eren (image at the beginning of this section), are both interested in marrying Historia.
Growth: Royal Government Arc (Uprising Arc)
Isayama had been carefully preparing these two characters to meet properly and it isn’t that noticeable mostly because we are being fed new information about the story every chapter or so. If you go back and re-read the manga, you will see how each step Historia and Eren take somehow manages to get them to compliment each other.
To better emphasize what I am saying, take Chapter 50 as an example. Even if Historia and Eren won’t interact properly until a few chapters later, both of them go through the same experience in the very same chapter at the same time (just like when Wall Maria fell). Historia scolds Freckled Ymir for thinking about saving her without caring about herself, while Eren manages to save Mikasa and the Survey Corps from being ripped apart by Titans.
Funny thing is that this chapter opens up with Carla scolding Eren about being reckless and telling him that he’s a boy and should act like one by protecting Mikasa while we get Historia complaining about Freckled Ymir’s tendency to disregard her life in favor of keeping Historia secure and her instead directing Freckled Ymir to live for herself.
[Side note: Historia’s words to Freckled Ymir about living for themselves eventually lead to her killing a Titan. This scene nearly directly cuts to Eren witnessing Hannes’ death because he failed to kill the Smiling Titan. If you don’t believe me, read Chapter 50 for yourself and pay attention to each scene and the order in which they show up. It really is interconnected.]
As we all know, both Freckled Ymir and Mikasa have strong feelings for Historia and Eren respectively and both would easily give their lives for them, regardless of any consequences. Historia and Eren practically go through the same situation — having the ones who care about them about to sacrifice themselves for them, uncaring for the consequences and their own life. Carla’s words about Eren acting like a man for once are answered with Historia standing up to protect Freckled Ymir (it chronologically happens first) by telling her to live for herself first while Eren follows afterwards and stands up for Mikasa by insinuating they will live because he’ll always be there to wrap that scarf around her.
Moving on to the Uprising arc now, Historia and Eren’s first real interaction happens precisely at the beginning of it — Chapter 51. There’s an ominous panel teasing Volume 13 with a sketch of Historia saying, “Eren, let’s hurry and go to the other side of the Wall.” and Isayama’s cheeky comment on the side that she holds the key to the world’s greatest mystery. This is certainly one interesting way you can kickstart a new arc of your story — by stating to the audience that one of the side characters is about to be an extremely important puzzle piece.
Historia introduces herself by her real name and almost collapses while seeking help from Eren in order to get Freckled Ymir back. What could be considered of interest is that Eren doesn’t even stop to question what she is talking about but is instead insisting that Historia lies down because she’s injured and even notices that Freckled Ymir cared a lot about Historia (which is strange, considering he couldn’t realize Hitch’s crush on Marlo later on and, also in Chapter 51, would still gawk at Jean’s outburst when it comes to Mikasa).
It’s soon revealed to us that Historia was actually a descendant of the royal Reiss family and that Eren and her are being hunted by the Military Police’s Anti-Personnel Control Squad whose mission is to capture them. Historia is of royal blood and the only heir left for the throne, and Eren, aside from the Attack Titan, also carries the Founding Titan. Interesting that both of them are presented as a form of hope for humanity now, right?
The two of them find themselves alone in a cabin in Chapter 54 and have a heart-to-heart, where Eren confesses that he had hated the Krista act because it seemed forced and unnatural, telling her that he had liked her better now because she was a girl who was stupidly honest all while having a weird grin on his face.
But what comes before this is important because, despite them not even interacting, Eren had noticed a lot of things about Historia.
The moment leading to their heartfelt conversation was Historia waking up from a dream of Frieda and telling Eren about it. Eren, as we know, has been having dreams as well (and has a vision about the same person Historia was dreaming of a chapter before — both are unaware that these ‘dreams/visions’ were actually memories).
Eren tries to strike up a conversation with Historia afterwards and looks a bit nervous in doing so, seemingly (to us) agitated over the situation the two of them were in because the Survey Corps were risking their lives for them. The attempt fails. Historia just sits there, staring at him quietly. Eren then, instead, opens up about what was bothering him and decides to apologize to Historia for failing as a Titan.
Now, it’s very strange that Eren cared that much about Historia’s relationship with Freckled Ymir because the two of them rarely even talked before for him to feel the need to be responsible about it and even apologize. Eren was apologizing to her (someone he barely even knew) for being unable to what… reunite her with Freckled Ymir? Remember — Eren and her had a short conversation in Chapter 51 and Historia was also there when he learned that the experiments were fruitless in Chapter 53.
Eren didn’t mention his frustration for being unable to achieve any results to anyone but let his mouth run loose now to a person he hadn’t knew at all over his own close friends. Fun fact is that Historia will remain the only girl Eren opened up to and will be the only person we see Eren opening up to after going rogue and turning his back on his friends (Chapter 130).
So… why is Eren suddenly pouring his heart out to Historia when he barely knew her? Well, we can only guess and it actually isn’t that hard to put 2 and 2 together if you have been paying attention to our protagonist.
Eren hadn’t been able to come to terms with his mother’s death and had told himself he needed to become stronger in order to protect the one he loves. He had thought it would be easy after he trained hard and was no longer a kid unable to do anything, mostly because of his new-found Titan powers. Yet even those powers failed him in the end when Hannes stood in front of the Smiling Titan.
And this is the great conflict Eren faces in this arc: He’s rapidly losing belief in himself due to failing to save a person he greatly cared about twice now.
It wasn’t just Eren who was confused and felt defeated. Historia had opened up to him and said she was as well which is why Eren stated that he understood her. Both of them were left alone to deal with everything by themselves. Eren was betrayed by Reiner and Bertolt and lost Hannes while Historia lost Ymir at the same time and again, both of them are in the same situation they have been in before.
Historia also expresses that she envied that Eren always knew what he wants. She’s unaware that Eren was actually struggling the same way as her, which is why he understood her in the first place, going on to express they need to do something, not just dwell around and feel conflicted.
This little conversation in the cabin is enough to conclude that the two of them shared a mutual type of understanding for one another, and one which runs deeper than it seems. Eren didn’t have a conversation with any other girl in AoT with this level of honesty. He had also actually paid attention to Historia as I have frequently mentioned here and even apologized when there was nothing to be sorry about.
After this, the two of them are then set up as bait to get to the true King of the Walls in Chapter 56, and here is where we have Eren liking the idea of Historia smacking Levi even though he would warn her against it later on in Chapter 69 (Note that him liking that idea was in Chapter 56 — before the cave scene — so him arguing against it is probably a result of his changed mindset).
And, of course, how can I not mention the infamous cave scene where Historia saves Eren and dons her mantle as an Enemy of Humanity/Worst Girl in The World (Chapter 65–66).
So the reason [Eren] emerged from the abyss was Historia, after all?
Isayama: “My own entire existence, from my birth till the day I die, has been determined by my father… I think it’s amidst this despair that Eren witnessed Historia, who was in a situation close to his own, release herself from binding spell/yoke known as Rod Reiss and made up his mind to face his duty. You could say he finally understood what he himself had to do.” — SNK Guidebook 2016, (source)
The cave scene is immensely important to Eren’s growth as a character but also serves to deepen the already rapidly growing bond between them. Historia is the one who saves him mentally and pushes him towards believing in himself, something which he could never find the strength to do before. Eren had wanted to die (exactly like Historia felt before because of her family) and Historia noticed it.
She was willing to go and eat Eren, in order to wipe out all Titans and save humanity (just like Eren had sworn to himself back when he was a kid), but not before confessing to him that she was really happy when he called her a normal girl.
What pushes her to avoid eating him, however, is the memory of Frieda under the influence of the Will of Karl Fritz. She also recalls Freckled Ymir telling her to live a life she was proud of and so decides to go against her father who was intent on using her. This is the Sins of The Father theme which is present in AoT (most noticeably with Eren and Historia) and I’ll explain it in detail in a different section, don’t worry.
Some people think that what Historia says to Eren is a bit over the top and doesn’t exactly sound as consoling which is why many people don’t find the cave scene that much important when it comes to the two of them.
What some people fail to realize is that Historia’s behavior was what Eren needed at the moment. He didn’t need tears nor empty words but needed a push because it was not the time for him to whine when whining was all he ever did. If you go and look at Chapter 50, then everything would be clear to you. Eren was bothered by his uselessness and he was convinced that the world was better off without someone like him, and this won’t officially change until he talks with Keith in Chapter 71, but until then, Historia’s words spoken with determination is what helped motivate Eren to try and believe in himself.
Historia’s speech is, in fact, so important to Eren that he will actually quote it to Ymir Fritz later on in Chapter 122. If he wasn’t as moved as you think he was, I doubt he would remember Historia’s words, or for that matter, even confess to her that she saved him (Chapter 130) in the first place.
In Chapter 68, Eren acknowledges Historia’s strength and actually realizes the faults within himself which he wouldn’t have done if it wasn’t for her.
Chapter 70 includes another heart-to-heart that leads to a compliment (“You’re amazing”) and teasing (“Although you did say that humanity should be wiped out in that cave”). What most people overlook is the fact that Eren could perfectly explain and understand Historia’s point of view, while the others all preferred Krista over Historia and are still unable to understand her as well as he could.
Historia goes alone with Eren and talks to him about the hardening experiments and even prompts him about Reiner and Bertolt.
It’s very interesting how fast and natural their relationship had progressed from strangers to close friends. If you don’t take a moment to stop and ponder about it, it is very easy for the thought to slip and get lost. That’s why re-reads are necessary and why I’m gathering all clues in one place (also mapping out their relationship and their progress as characters in the meanwhile) via this analysis.
Eren proceeds to give Historia a compliment for what she had achieved as the Queen of the Walls, making her blush, and then goes on to tease her because of her words in the cave.
I don’t know if you have noticed, but the reason why Historia said that she got “carried away” is because she was intent on making Eren feel better. If you recall, Eren was begging Historia to eat him because he believed he had never needed to happen, how humanity should be saved by Historia, and her dramatic speech addresses Eren’s thoughts with great care even if indirectly. She basically said, “Who cares about humanity? If humanity requires you to be sacrificed, then I’m humanity’s enemy. You’re not in the wrong, the world is.”
I refrained from mentioning this in the cave segment because the elaboration from Historia comes in Chapter 70. Her getting “carried away” with her speech indicates that Historia also cared a great deal about Eren as she went on to ally herself with him and stand up for him against the world if need be, in the cave. It is no wonder her speech affected Eren to an incredible amount of degree.
So! Now that I’m done with breaking down important moments between them in the Uprising arc, I can finally turn to my thoughts. It must be undoubtedly clear to you by now that Historia and Eren are seemingly connected together as important figures of the story, are both one of the same kind, and had managed to form a very deep bond. Best of it all is that they had developed quite naturally and neither of their moments felt forced or out of place.
I’ve already pointed out a lot of things which are of interest and let’s not forget that Eren will grow to become very protective of Historia by the end of the Return to Shiganshina arc, straight up withholding important information (how he managed to activate the Founder) that could’ve benefited Paradis from everyone, including his childhood friends (Armin and Mikasa). Hell, he won’t even tell Historia, who has the right to know and decide what to do with that information. If this isn’t a giant, unmissable red flag about the depth of his feelings then I don’t know what it is.
Keep in mind that his behavior and actions here also happened before he kissed her hand, meaning he’s doing this without any future memory shenanigans. He wasn’t influenced by the memories or anything like that, he just genuinely felt very concerned and felt the need to keep it all to himself, all because he didn’t want to risk Historia’s safety.
Before I close off the Uprising arc, let me just insert a brilliant meta written by @jeanandthedreamofhorses for an old EH fanzine titled “Enemies of Humanity: Submission and Self-Belief” because I think all people need to read it.
The Sins of The Father + Surpassing The Father
The children in the AoT universe had been burdened to shoulder the sins of their parents and were used for that purpose which is essentially what Sins Of The Father theme is all about. Instead of children being protected and cherished, they are used as a means to an end or eventually pushed onto a path where they will value other things instead of their family. The Sins of the Father theme makes its official introduction early on in the series with Grisha Yeager and Rod Reiss and Isayama himself is the one who is the first to point it out.
Rod Reiss and Grisha Yeager, as we know, were willing to use Eren (as well as Zeke) and Historia respectively as a means to an end because they weren’t strong enough to shoulder the burden of their responsibilities by themselves in order to protect their family. Instead of simply loving their children they brought into the world, they instead pushed them into a role by wanting them to inherit the weight of the entire world at such a young age.
Grisha and The Yeager Family
Some people claim that Eren was raised to be free of that burden by Grisha but that isn’t really the case. Eren was still shoved into a role for the greater good when his father passed on the Attack Titan to him. If Eren had been truly free, he never would’ve inherited Grisha’s Attack Titan in the first place and his father would’ve passed it on to someone else (Keith, for an example).
The reason why I showed the panels above was to point out that Grisha had decided to burden Eren but only because he thought he raised him right, unlike Zeke. You see, duty over family is also a reoccurring motif in the Sins of the Father theme and specifically shown in the Yeager family.
Grisha was furious at his parents after Faye’s brutal murder and he couldn’t understand why they decided to bow down to the injustice the Eldians were facing in Marley. Thus he started detesting his father and started unconsciously leaning towards duty instead of his family.
This led to Grisha becoming so obsessed over duty more so than protecting his family that when he married Dina and had Zeke, he was intent on shoving his son towards the path of becoming a savior and looked at him as a tool, unaware that he was repeating the same mistake he had made when he decided to bring Faye outside the Wall in order to see the blimp.
This all comes back to Mr. Yeager who had tried his best to push Grisha into a role of a doctor and to force him into accepting Marley’s brainwashing about all Eldians being Devils that he hadn’t realized that he pushed his son into danger and made him betray his own family — just like Grisha with Zeke.
Even if Grisha gets handed a second chance at having a family and does his best to protect them, he still perpetuates the cycle by handing over the Attack Titan to Eren but does his best to correct his mistake by raising Eren right and not bothering him with the information he has in the basement right at the beginning.
[Side note: Keep in mind also, considering future chapters, that Grisha never offered a specific reason as to why he chose to give Eren the Attack Titan. All explanations are technically headcanons because canon never explained why he chose to give Eren the AT when he could see the future (it is, after all, the AT’s ability to see memories from future inheritors) and the outcome of Eren’s actions. If they were horrible to him and if he really was against the idea (as we were shown Grisha begging Zeke to stop Eren and that everything will go Eren’s way), he could’ve easily prevented everything by passing it on to someone else.
Because: Eren doesn’t get the AT — > Eren cannot manipulate Grisha into killing the Reiss family and getting the Founder as well — > Eren cannot make contact with Zeke and start the Rumbling]
This brings us to Eren. Eren had lost his family and lamented on it heavily right at the beginning (Chapter 2), leading him to seek revenge on Titans. Eren is, however, spared from the cycle of “duties/roles” which made Grisha and Mr. Yeager make mistakes and get their sons to betray them and their family because Grisha corrects his mistake he had made with Zeke (even though he doesn’t end up protecting his family so the cycle isn’t completely closed). Eren is still forced to bear a burden by his father, but he could easily be on the path to correct his family’s mistake and value family above duty.
Historia and The Reiss Family
The Reiss family were burdened by duty of trying to dismantle Karl Fritz’s Will. Rod’s frustration with seeing his entire family slip into maintaining peace instead of fighting against the Will of the 145th King (specifically his father, Uri and Frieda) is what leads him to, in desperation, have a child with a maid called Alma.
The fact is that Rod and Alma never loved each other but had made an illegitimate child because of Rod’s obsession over the duty he didn’t want to deal with himself while Alma went along for her selfish interest of money and power. Alma didn’t want to deal with being a mother to a child she had out of a plan which is why she loathed Historia and expressed she wished she had the strength to kill her. Rod never wanted to inherit the Titan for himself, but had hoped that his children will be the one who will succeed. Anyone but himself.
Unlike Eren, Historia isn’t raised by her family out of love and is abandoned by everyone. She was raised for a purpose of becoming a tool in Rod’s hands and her father never expressed any sort of love nor understanding towards her. With the help of an antithesis (Freckled Ymir who was coming from a situation similar to hers) and Frieda, she chooses to directly go against her father. Instead of choosing to “maintain peace” and also inheriting the Founding Titan, she chooses to take care of children that are abandoned and accepts the role of the Queen to do good for her people on Paradis, directly working against her family by refusing to keep people in the dark or become a sacrifice for the greater good.
Surpassing The Father Theme
Surpassing the father literally means being better than your father and not burdening your child with problems that they are too young to worry about nor having any expectations about your child. As we know, it was Rod’s cowardice that led to the birth of Historia to be used as a tool for his own gain and Grisha’s mistake with Zeke that eventually led to Eren’s birth and him inheriting the burden — the Attack Titan.
Both Historia and Eren do not succumb to their fathers and instead go with their own values. Historia refuses to inherit the Founding Titan and end up being used just like Frieda, Uri and the rest of the Reiss family and pushes her father to finally become the Titan which he should’ve done in the first place while Eren, on the other hand, is the one who pushed Grisha into acting by eating Frieda and killing the rest of the Reiss family, something which he didn’t want to do despite it being the duty he was supposed to fulfill since he came to Paradis from Marley.
The official closing of this theme (along with the Sins of the Father) is perfectly set up to be about Eren and Historia becoming parents to a child born out of love and completely free of any burden. There won’t be a need for their child to fight because their parents will guarantee their child’s safety and love it simply because it was born, taking on the sins and burdens on their own shoulders (unlike their own family) for the greater good of the future not just for their child but for every other child living within the Walls. Don’t forget that “being special for just being born” is Eren’s motto and that Historia values children greatly because of her experiencing a horrible childhood.
They are set up perfectly to bring a conclusion to these two themes.
Blatant Foreshadowing of Eren Becoming a Father
Isayama had greatly portrayed the Sins of the Father theme with the Yeager and the Reiss family and was making a point that children should be cherished and free of any burdens. He had also placed Eren and Historia as candidates for a perfect father and mother as both of them, despite being burdened by the weight of the world, had decided against following the path their families had walked on and instead care for the future.
Isayama goes out of his way to point out in his work that children are the future via Onyankopon, that they deserve to live in a world free of the sins their ancestors have committed (Children of The Forest theme) and has two of his characters important to the story purposely shown looking at children together.
The evidence presented to us tells us one thing — Isayama is planting clues within his story which were supposed to lead to a very clear conclusion: Eren becoming a father.
Kruger’s words about making a family inside the Walls is the panel following right after Eren stating that he isn’t willing to bring up half-baked ideas in order to risk Historia’s safety. Again, this is a pretty “in your face” type of a thing.
Many people dismiss Kruger’s words because they think he was talking with Grisha at the time, but forget that he says, “Not necessarily, someone might see them [memories] later”, even going on to mention Armin and Mikasa, finishing off with “Whose memories are these?” which are bits that quite blatantly all point to Eren.
I’ve already explained in length the strong bond between Historia and Eren in the Uprising arc and provided a lot of clues that their bond runs quite deep and I want to advise you to keep them in mind while moving forward with this analysis.
AoT post-timeskip is quite tricky to understand at a first glance and many readers succumb to the ideas presented to them at face value that they forget that what they’re reading is a blatant contradiction at times. What I mean by that is that it’s easy for the story to manipulate you into thinking that Historia isn’t that important to Eren after the timeskip and I’ll show you later on that Isayama had actually left giant clues in regards to who Eren cared about.
Isayama had obscured the timeline of events following the Scouts reaching the sea with a timeskip in place after Chapter 90 and even switched the POV from Eren to the Marley’s Eldians. The narrative is suddenly non-linear (past events then present then back to the past then to the present and so on, instead of the story following the present events firmly) and dominated solely by other characters’ words and viewpoints. We have lost contact with Eren and so don’t know what he’s thinking nor planning but that doesn’t mean Isayama had purposely made us blind with no clues in place. He had left a plethora of clues via the characters and panels.
I believe that it was precisely his intention to confuse us to hell in order to see if we can figure out what is happening and hence why there’s such a split in the fandom with those who believe in the characters’ words while the other notice the actions the characters made beforehand and question what Isayama had done.
Isayama adores mystery and he forces his audience to think by feeding them clues but also feeding them with lies (creating a visible duality). He’s used to obscuring important information in a form of a lie via a character (which happens a lot after the timeskip) or via panels all in order to make his audience think: What is actually the truth?
The reason why I’ve stated all this is because we’re finally touching upon an important topic and that is Historia’s pregnancy.
IMPORTANT NOTE: The following is the work by the user u/Dababy28193 on Reddit who wrote a complete analysis on Historia’s pregnancy and I have decided to just expand upon it and edit it because that’s large work of hunting for panels and presenting everything well out of my hands. Huge kudos to them and please go place a thumbs up on their analysis if you have a Reddit account!
The “Mystery” of Historia’s Pregnancy
The first time we see Historia outside of flashbacks is near the end of Chapter 107. She appears bored, perhaps tired and is pregnant, which is a shock to the audience. A faceless man soon appears, who we know absolutely nothing about and tells her to come inside because she needs to take care of herself. The relationship Historia has with this faceless and nameless man is unknown as of now.
The MP’s Explanation
Following her appearance, we are given an outside party’s explanation of her pregnancy. Note that we are not given a first-hand account of her pregnancy from Historia’s point of view or the father himself. It is explained from the point of view of the Military Police, who are fed the information (which is open to being obscured and manipulated). In other words, the information is not secure and could easily be disproven.
We learn that Historia and the unknown man (whose face isn’t shown nor name ever mentioned) appear to be in a relationship and that apparently, their relationship had escalated to the point that she was willing to have a bastard child with the man.
A bastard child is a child who is born to parents who are not married to each other. This is a first obvious red flag because Historia herself is the product of two people who didn’t marry each other. We know that her father had a child with a maid and that Historia was not loved by her family because she was born out of a plan which led to her being miserable and alone in her childhood.
Historia had overcame her father by telling him that she won’t be used and even broken the Reiss tradition of Founding Titan’s inheritance by outright refusing to inherit it. Why did she do all that, escape the sins of her father, only to repeat the same action as Rod? Especially since that action is having a child out of wedlock. This seems like unnecessary character regression as Historia had a lot of free time within the timeskip to marry her partner and not put her child in the same status (a bastard) as she herself is (especially if she loved the man enough to have a child with him), and their marriage would cut off any suspicions from the MP’s.
Further doubts/suspicions are planted into the reader’s mind about the nature of their relationship because the unknown man turned out to be someone (along with his friends) who threw rocks at her when they were kids.
The man she was apparently “in love with” had inflicted so much trauma (and fed into the trauma she already had) onto her that she regarded the farm animals to be her only friends and considered other children to be dangerous. She’s a queen so why go for someone who caused her immense trauma when she could have other suitors who hadn’t caused her harm? It is seemingly out of character for Historia to give a chance to a man who had abused her in her past and be with him simply because he had worked at orphanage “to ease his guilt”. We never see a single panel of this man apologizing to Historia for literally ruining her childhood and we’re supposed to believe that Historia cares for him so much that she was willing to have a baby with him? Right.
With her choice in partner, her reputation as queen is now in shambles as well. By having a child out of wedlock with someone who had abused her before, she had put her queendom into question, as we see Roeg commenting that “a lowborn could never become a queen”. Why would she do that when she knew before that she’ll have to prove herself worthy as the Queen to the people? She was aware enough back in Chapter 68.
Again, her pregnancy and the choice of her partner is not explained from her point of view, and only explained by the MP’s and as I have stated, the information could be proven to be false any time, especially considering just how many red flags there are to what the MP’s considered as “truth”.
Roeg (the speaking MP) suspects that Historia had planned the pregnancy with someone in order to avoid Titanization and we are shown a panel of what he believed. A hooded figure (suspected to be Yelena) is watching Historia apparently talking to the unnamed man and he appears embarrassed/nervous. We don’t know what they even talked about, it is after all from the MP’s point of view. It is what he suspects, the truth hasn’t been revealed yet.
In any case, just from the setup, Isayama already has the reader questioning the true nature of Historia’s pregnancy. There is also great irony in the title of the chapter in which the MP’s speculate her pregnancy, “A Sound Argument”, when we later discover how ignorant the MP’s truly were, from how they were drinking Zeke’s spinal fluid to the way Isayama takes their arguments/speculations and crushes them into dust, which I will explain later on.
The Other Contender
When talking about the subject of Historia’s pregnancy, we can’t forget the one and only other person, aside from the unknown man, who is directly correlated with it. That is, of course, Eren.
I’ve already explained in depth in earlier sections how the relationship Eren had with Historia had developed quite rapidly, how they appear to have a strong bond to talk openly about the people they were close to (Freckled Ymir and Reiner), and how they had even spent time in private (as we know from Jean’s comment in Chapter 70). We know that Historia had cared about Eren greatly and we know that it was mutual.
In the last of what we’ve seen from Eren’s POV, he had declared that he wasn’t willing to sacrifice Historia’s life and that he would rather give his own if he knew that it’ll change something.
Hange’s Suspicions
In regards to Eren’s attitude towards Historia, there is one character who suspects that he is more invested in Historia than he appears to be (much more than the other characters) and that is Hange. Even before the timeskip, Isayama through Hange makes the reader question the depths of Eren’s concern towards Historia.
Just before the beginning of the flashback in Chapter 107, Hange questions Eren what he’s doing at the mirror and then says that she knew he would never sacrifice Historia. She doesn’t question why he would put his friends in danger (after all, he was the one who pulled the Scouts into the Liberio battle with his letter) or for that matter, doesn’t even bother mentioning Armin nor Mikasa and if he’s concerned for them (mind you: Eren’s closest friends) but instead immediately singles out Historia, zeroing in on his concern for her. Then the flashback starts.
Throughout the flashback, Hange would stare at Eren curiously when he’s around Historia, specifically when he smiles at her and stands up for her. It’s a subtle action added in by Isayama but it’s there for a reason. It’s there to get the readers thinking about Eren’s investment towards Historia and make them go back to the previous chapters to properly analyze their relationship and see if there was more to it than a simple friendship. When the flashback ends, Hange once again ignores the fact that he put all his friends in danger in the Liberio battle, got Sasha killed, and voices the following:
So what does Eren do? He ignores the question and doesn’t say a word about Historia. Instead he rages and even assaults Hange. The first thought that could pop off in the reader’s mind is that he doesn’t really care about Historia. After all, he just ignored the question completely and didn’t give a word of thought towards her. However, to those who had paid attention to their relationship, this is a giant warning sign of Isayama trying to once again deceive the audience.
How? Well…
Eren’s Duality
Eren had been acting very protectively of Historia, going so far as to horde precious information if it meant the slightest possibility that she could get hurt. The next big case of this happens in the flashbacks of Chapter 106 and 107. Eren’s been hiding the key to activating the Founder and we don’t know how long he would have kept quiet for (to the grave perhaps?).
What changed his mind? What made him finally reveal what he knew?
It is Zeke. Zeke reveals that he knows how to activate the Founder, confirming what Eren already knew. So Eren sees an opportunity in Zeke, to work with his brother as Zeke is of royal blood, to activate what he believes to be the one hope left to the people of Paradis. He says this right in front of everyone (this is given more meaning when we later find out he indeed does start the Rumbling, a classic Isayama move of putting the answer right in front of our faces) and reveals his motive for hiding such key details.
When learning of Zeke’s “plan”, Eren makes a scene, vehemently rejects the plan, and says that they should all consider other alternatives. Just the previous chapter, Eren had stated right to our faces that he believes the Rumbling is the only hope left for the people of Paradis. He could’ve stayed quiet and let the 50 Year Plan follow through and he didn’t have to draw everyone’s attention onto him. He also could’ve used Historia to initiate the full Rumbling himself when she took on the Beast Titan if he so pleased.
So what caused him to backtrack? To lash out in front of everyone? To consider every other option possible? Even though Historia herself consented? What is the cause of this duality?
Just as Eren predicted and feared (the panel from Chapter 89 where Eren questions if the Scouts would put Historia in danger) — Historia’s safety would be compromised and she would be put in the line of fire (in her case now: Titanization) which is something he had tried very hard to avoid. Even now as the information is clear and that he was correct on how to use the Founder, he still cannot accept Historia taking on the Beast Titan.
It is unquestionable that Eren cares for Historia and one could argue that he cares for all his friends equally, that if someone like Connie or Jean was put in the same position as Historia for the 50 Year Plan, he would do the same as he is doing right now (if you take away the development Eren and Historia had in their relationship during the Uprising arc). So it is not the question of if he cares for Historia or not, it is this: How far is Eren willing to go to ensure her safety?
In Chapter 130, Isayama shows us exactly how far Eren is willing to go and we’ll get to that soon.
And what about Historia? How does she feel towards him standing up for her? Well, Isayama follows a pattern for how he makes women feel towards the Yeager men; from Dina and Carla to Grisha, to Mikasa towards Eren. Grisha stood up for Dina and saved Carla’s life. Eren saved Mikasa’s life and stood up for Historia.
Isayama does love his parallels…
The Deconstruction of the Mystery and the Build Towards the Climax
The mystery of Historia’s pregnancy takes a backseat for many chapters since its introduction. It is only talked about once when Yelena repeats the basis of the 50 Year Plan in Chapter 116.
And is given a brief mention when Levi makes a comment regarding Historia’s due date in Chapter 112.
Given the nature of her pregnancy, is what she is telling Levi (and by extension the military) the absolute truth? Could there be more to it than that? That’ll be answered soon when Chapter 134 makes its debut.
After over a year since the pregnancy’s debut, Historia’s pregnancy takes the spotlight in Chapter 130 — the chapter revolving around Eren’s POV. Bear in mind that his last POV in Chapter 90 revolved around protecting Historia and now Isayama follows up on that hanging thought.
Before Chapter 130, there were only two people who are confirmed to know the truth of Historia’s pregnancy: herself and the unknown character introduced. Eren, no matter how much he cared about her safety and her pregnancy, appeared to be excluded from the people who knew the truth. So far, other than his protective behavior shown in the flashbacks, we haven’t been shown if he’s directly involved in knowing the nature of Historia’s pregnancy. That is, until we see from his POV that he has been talking to Historia in secret on the farm turned orphanage.
It is here in Chapter 130 where Isayama answers just how far Eren is willing to go for her.
[A thing before I continue on: Chapter 130 is a direct callback to Chapter 70, specifically the beginning part also taking place on the farm turned orphanage, where Eren explains Historia’s reasonings to Jean and Armin and even tells Historia that she’s amazing for what she had done for the children. It is interesting that the conversation between Eren and Historia is also taking place there and the point of it was Eren’s refusal to sacrifice Historia and her children to the 50 Year Plan and confessing that she had saved him back in the cave. Historia brings up the famous “What would you think about me having a child?” a few panels later on and the abrupt jump from her being horrified to her asking this tells us that a chunk of their conversation is missing but we have enough clues (Eren and Historia looking at children together at the orphanage and Historia asking this question to Eren right at the orphanage) to conclude that this is a clear foreshadowing of Eren being the father.]
So! To start off, Isayama begins to deconstruct the MP’s arguments. We first learn that Yelena has no correlation with Historia. Yelena has only spoken to Eren about the MP’s. The wine plan was already in place so if Zeke was ever in any danger, then he only has to scream. In other words, Yelena has no need to even talk to Historia because she already has a plan in place. There are no panels that directly imply that the two even talked together about Historia’s pregnancy at any point.
We then find out that the person who actually warned Historia of the MP’s plan was not Yelena, but Eren himself, who suggests they fight or run. He is the hooded figure that Roeg suspected, not Yelena.
So what if she got pregnant to protect herself from Titanization? Maybe that’s what she talked to Eren about?
Well, if we consider the fact that Eren knows the wine plan is already in place, that he and Floch are gathering an army, and that he says he and Historia could run or fight, why would Eren accept her plan to get knocked up? There are so many other options available to Historia for her protection, so many routes for her to take.
There’s also this to consider.
Historia is small and petite so she’s already putting herself at risk by getting pregnant at all, which completely contradicts her wanting to protect herself. She could possibly die the most ironic death in the story. Considering she had a whole story arc to her development and overcame her father by refusing to walk the path he had intended for her, why would she then even consider repeating the mistake of her mother?
Why would she bring a child into the world that isn’t born out of love just like she was? What would it mean for the child if they find out the only reason they were born was not out of the love, but because their mom wanted to protect herself and that their father is the one she finds most convenient?
Considering Isayama’s numerous critiques on the AoT parents using their kids and not acting like actual parents to their children:
And the fact that Historia is one of his favorite characters:
Why would Isayama make her repeat the cycle in a story that emphasized so much about not repeating mistakes:
Have a character who had an entire arc to fixing her father’s mistakes, only to make said character repeat the same thing? There is no coherent sense behind that line of thought so it’s highly unlikely Historia would ever create a child not born out of love. She loves children, she has an orphanage full of them, so creating a child without love contradicts the motherly role she has. If she has the child not out of love on purpose, then she would seem hypocritical to the child compared to her treatment of the other kids.
The idea of Historia having her child for a plan also doesn’t make sense considering Eren says this:
Eren does not want her to have a child for the 50 Year Plan but apparently he’ll be ok with her protecting herself with a baby meat shield? They both end up with the same result: Historia pregnant. He doesn’t agree with the former so why would he be okay with the latter? They essentially put her in the same position; pregnant and unhappy.
This is where Isayama shows how far Eren is willing to go to protect her. It happens like this:
- Eren meets up with Historia in secret and tells her the MP’s plan, offering to run away with her or fight together.
- She doesn’t reject the MP’s plan and accepts her fate, thanking Eren for standing up for her and saying it was enough for her.
- He responds that it isn’t enough for him.
- He tells her he’s enacting the full Rumbling.
- She immediately rejects the idea and he tells her why he’s willing to go so far.
- She threatens to stop him, saying that she could never live with herself if she doesn’t.
- He offers her a memory alter once he gets the Founding Titan’s power and she asks how could she ever stay quiet until then.
- He makes a callback to the cave scene, the day she broke him free and declared herself Humanity’s Enemy.
The conversation cuts off there but here is what it tells us:
- Eren is willing to go so far as to hide the fact that he’s doing the Rumbling (at all) from all his friends, including Armin and Mikasa, yet he tells Historia everything and Floch as well (but telling Floch could be argued as more of a necessity in forming the Yeagerists).
- He has no reason to tell Historia anything, he doesn’t need her. Eren has multiple paths to take and back up plans to protect Zeke. He could’ve warned her and backed off when she accepted the MP’s plan. After all, what could she do? She hasn’t been an active fighter for over a year since she’s the queen. There’s no need for him to tell her he’s doing the full Rumbling.
- Eren is unable to threaten her in any way. He doesn’t have possession of the Founder’s full power, so he can’t actually wipe her memory any time he wants. He can’t physically harm her for obvious reasons (if you needed a reminder: she’s the queen and that would set Paradis into chaos and a manhunt for the killer). So if she decides to rat him out, then it’s over for him. The Scouts and the rest of the military are going to be all over him before he can even blink. Remember she’s had over a year to do so — to say he’s doing the Rumbling. She also can’t be guilt-tripped because she was the one who saved him in the cave, not the other way around, so if she decided she can’t handle the knowledge, then she has no obligation of any sort to stay quiet for him. After all, she had already accepted the 50 Year Plan, there’s nothing holding her back from betraying him, especially if he’s doing something as horrid as global genocide.
- Combining every previous point before, the fact that Eren tells her everything speaks of his trust in Historia. There is a big implication that he’s willing to put the fate of his plans in her hands. She could stop him at any time she wants and he gives her that choice. Everything that happened after their little talk at the orphanage was the result of Historia’s choice to stay quiet. One could argue that he somehow saw a future where he has to talk to Historia and guilt-trip her somehow in some way, but then why take the risk at all? Keep Historia in the dark like all his friends and he would have been fine. He’s seen her accept the 50 Year Plan (even if reluctantly) and there would definitely be backlash from her towards his true plan like Isayama had confirmed to us in Chapter 130.
So Eren is willing to go so far for her, risking everything to tell her the truth and it doesn’t make sense for Historia to get pregnant to protect herself. Isayama was careful to dissect the MP’s arguments and make Eren a party that knows the truth behind her pregnancy. So the burning questions are these; Why did Historia get pregnant at all if not for a plan? What does Eren have to do with it?
Isayama answers these questions with a very specific arrangement of panels.
The Love Conversation
Following the cut off from the Eren/Historia conversation in Chapter 130 is a conversation between Zeke and Eren. The subject? Mikasa’s love for Eren. Now, a variety of scenarios could have occurred. Eren could have thought back to him wrapping his scarf around Mikasa, her telling him “thank you” for wrapping the scarf around her in Chapter 50 — literally any sort of panels featuring Mikasa to indicate that Eren has any sort of feelings for her or is even thinking of her.
After Zeke brings on the subject of Mikasa loving him, it should be expected that Eren thinks of the subject or Isayama could’ve done nothing and let the conversation flow on… but what happens right after this panel?
Well… this appears:
Followed up by this:
Eren is no doubt thinking about Historia… right in the middle of a conversation that’s supposed to be about love and about Mikasa. If you have doubts, look at the “Hm?” from Zeke. Zeke is waiting for a response from Eren so it appears there is a break in which Eren has to think about his answer. Even if he wasn’t thinking about Historia, it is a strange move by Isayama to insert a panel of Historia and Eren between a conversation that’s supposed to be about Mikasa’s love.
So how does Eren respond? Well, he says he only has 4 years left at most. Keep in mind that what he said to Zeke does not reflect on his true feelings. Eren has lied to Zeke on multiple occasions beforehand in order to appear that he’s willing to go with Zeke’s plan.
His true thoughts on the matter of a romantic relationship are not known as of yet.
What follows after is the final confirmation that Eren is completely involved and knows the truth of Historia’s pregnancy and that is of course the panel that follows his response: The Baby Question.
It is not a “What would you think about me getting pregnant to protect myself?” or “What do you think of me getting pregnant with [insert unknown character’s name]?”, it is this:
“What would you think… about me having a child?”
In other words, it is not the objective of getting pregnant that’s important, but it is the end result: A child. A kid. An offspring.
It is not stated who she wants to have the child with, but the clues are there and Isayama is not even trying to be subtle about it. Eren is thinking of Historia specifically in a conversation about love (and another woman), who is asking what is normally considered to be a personal question (a decision normally made by the (to be) mother and father, not an outside party). If he is in love with Mikasa, then panels of her should be replacing the child question, since it is a conversation about her, not Historia.
There’s also the fact that Historia doesn’t need Eren’s opinion about her having a child with another man, she doesn’t need to ask, she can just tell him. She also knows what his answer would be if she’s having a child for a plan, since she had to listen to him say this right to her face.
What about Eren’s response? What does he think of her having a child? And why is Historia asking him?
The answer is we don’t really know yet. It’s not confirmed what he thinks. We must understand that there’s been a timeskip (for an unknown amount of time) between the end of their first conversation in Chapter 130 and the start towards the baby question. In other words, there’s a gap, a missing chunk of their full conversation that explains how Historia went from being opposed to Eren’s plan to asking him about a child.
So is there no answer at all?
Well, from what Isayama has shown us time and time again, paneling is very important and is almost never random.
Most of the clues of his mysteries are often an ‘in your face’ kind of clues. Most people don’t look close enough or they overlook the small details that act as the build-up to the reveal. The most obvious example would be the idea that people used to think that Eren wouldn’t have done the Rumbling and found a better alternative, even though the answer was right in front of our faces.
So with that in mind we can look at the ordering of the panels to first answer why Historia is asking Eren about a child. We know Eren is lying to look loyal in front of Zeke, so any suspected interests in romance on Eren’s end could lead to him opposing the Euthanasia plan in Zeke’s eyes (as wanting a relationship could lead to Eren wanting a child, thus a conflict of interests).
However, Eren’s response could also apply to Historia’s question. Eren is on a time limit and him having a child would mean him leaving said child behind in 3–4 years, making the kid grow up without a father.
So he should reject Historia’s baby question by telling her to have a child with someone who could live longer than him. Right?
No. This is how Isayama composed the panels.
Knowing how important paneling is — if Eren were to reject having a child with Historia, then the paneling to imply the rejection would be like this:
- Historia: “What would you think… about me having a child?”
- Eren: “I’ve got four more years to live at most.”
But instead it’s like this:
- Eren: “I’ve got four more years to live at most.”
- Historia: “What would you think… about me having a child?”
It is here that we instead get the answer to why Historia would ask Eren that question. Isayama implies that her question is a response to Eren mentioning his rapidly-declining lifespan, not the other way around. She asks that because of Eren telling her of his curse.
So what is Eren’s response then, what does he think of her having a child?
The composition of the panels that follow the baby question includes Eren cutting his leg to infiltrate Paradis, while telling Zeke this: “Their lives will continue even after I die…”.
The panel ordering implies that Historia’s proposal to have a kid is what causes Eren to follow through with his plan to infiltrate Marley and continue with his plan to rumble the world. It goes like this:
- She asks him the baby question.
- He responds by hurting himself, putting himself in the front line to carry out his plans.
Those are his actions, but what about his words?
Eren tells Zeke “Their lives will continue after I die…”.
The “their” can be considered to be only his friends, but given how Eren hasn’t mentioned his friends in that same conversation with Zeke, nor do any of his following thoughts show them specifically except for a brief moment in Chapter 130 with the bird flying towards the sun, then we should consider there is more to the list of people he wants to live long, happy lives. The candidates are, of course, Historia and the life she is carrying.
Chapter 130 was Isayama’s way of once again getting the reader to question what they know of Historia’s pregnancy, break down and chip away at the “absolute truth”, slowly unraveling the mystery of what’s truly going on, and of course the main question that had plagued all kinds of AOT readers alike: Who is the father of Historia’s child?
The Lie
Remember how I mentioned that Levi had said Historia would give birth in a few months, something that she told him and by extension the rest of the military? Well, she goes into labor days after the start of the Rumbling in Chapter 134. So there are only two possible options to why this happened:
- Premature birth: If this is the case then I really question the whole point of the pregnancy sub-plot. Historia has already gotten sidelined for over 20 Chapters, so why involve her back in the story only to give her a preemie kid (and possibly kill Historia off in the process)? Isayama had emphasized almost constantly on how parents should not burden their children in Chapter 134 (and previous chapters), how kids should be taken out of the forest, and wrote this. So then why would he make one of his favorite characters pop out a practically dying child after sidelining her for over a year? It’s worse when you consider that Paradis doesn’t really have the technology to handle a preemie child, much less one that’s born MONTHS early. The child would die almost instantly without proper treatment and looking at the nurses and the background, it doesn’t seem like they have anything that would handle a preemie baby.
- Historia lied about her due date: If this is the case then it really implies (if not practically confirms) the unknown man is not the father because then why would Historia lie? The unknown character is the father so there’s no need for deceit right? They do the deed at some point and Historia tells the military her due date, no problem. Well… that’s obviously not the case since she did lie to Levi. So then why? What does this mean for Eren? Eren has been confirmed to have met Historia around the same time he met Floch in Chapter 130, 10 months ago. So if we align that with the Japan Pregnancy Timeline Table, with the idea that Eren is the father and they did the deed around the time of the Chapter 130 flashback, then Historia is right on schedule, ready to give birth to a healthy child. So why did she lie? To protect the identity of the baby’s father of course. If the military believes that she’s done the deed with the unknown man months after Eren had left for Marley and is ready to give birth months after her actual due date, then it’s impossible for Eren to be the father of her child. The military won’t be able to connect the dots and Eren’s secret involvement with her would be completely safe. In short, Eren won’t be able to be traced back to her and her child. Considering Hange was already suspecting something between the two of them, any trails left behind would be bad.
Looking at the two options, it’s much more plausible to pick the second one because it plays into Isayama’s style of mystery, his careful tracking of the AoT timeline, and it adheres to the theme of children being the future. Also, it doesn’t completely and utterly humiliate Historia’s character.
So with everything set into place and all the doubts set into the reader’s mind, Eren is basically the father in everything but confirmation. What needs to now be answered is the missing chunk of Eren and Historia’s conversation in Chapter 130, what led to the baby question and Eren’s confirmed response.
Chapter 139 and the Abandonment of the Pregnancy Subplot
As you may have noticed from everything before, I’ve been writing and examining Historia’s pregnancy along with Eren’s involvement in it like Chapter 139 doesn’t exist. I’ve been doing so because I consider the final chapter an entirely different entity from the rest of the chapters Isayama has written. Isayama has written spectacular chapters to great to good to average to mediocre to bad. Chapter 139 (and by extension the extra pages), however, are on another level that I would have never truly expected from Isayama.
From the tonal dissonance (Armin’s focus of something as trivial as Mikasa’s feelings in comparison to the mass genocide Eren had done, killing countless men, women, and children), to the abandonment of themes, to the character(s) assassinations, to the choppy dialogue(s) between Eren and Armin that lacked any sort of flow, to specific words that are used to try and justify a sudden change in a certain character’s involvement with a plot point so important (and now heavily altered) that two chapters were named in a way just to set it up (Chapter 1 and 122’s titles). There are many other ways that Chapter 139 is bad as well but there are other posts/essays that explain them, and we’re here about Historia’s pregnancy so…
What happened to it?
There are really only three specific scenes that convey where the mystery of her pregnancy went.
- It turns out that Eren has had “feelings” for Mikasa all along. Which begs the question: Why now? Isayama had Eren and Zeke’s conversation in Chapter 130 to make Eren think about Mikasa (all he needed was one panel), to indicate he has such strong “feelings” for her, so much that he doesn’t want her to find another man. Instead, Isayama used it to focus on the pregnancy subplot and allure to the idea that Eren is heavily involved with Historia’s pregnancy. After so many chapters of not getting any of Eren’s insight towards Mikasa (thoughts, outward reactions, ect.) other than the vague “What am I to you?” in Chapter 123, seeing him explode at the thought of Mikasa finding love that’s not his is a complete and total whiplash (especially since he’s had many chances to be with her before he even started the Rumbling).
- There is a timeskip that shows Historia and her kid with the unknown man in the background. Her child doesn’t look like it’s born with any deficiency that one would normally expect of a premature kid, so it looks like the child was born normally. It’s been about 3 years since the start of the Rumbling and we don’t see the child as a baby, as Isayama normally shows for important characters (Zeke and Eren). Surely one of his favorite characters should get a chance to be shown holding her newborn child right? Nope. Isayama throws a timeskip and only gives the child 2 panels of screen time. We are now to assume that the unknown character in the background is the father, so that begs the question: Why did Historia lie about her due date?
- A comment is made by Jean to Reiner, which indicates that Historia decided to marry the unknown character. So this means that, during the 3 year timeskip after the Rumbling, Historia’s kid was considered a bastard for no apparent reason. As I’ve mentioned in the beginning, Historia has had ample time to marry the man that she was apparently willing to have a child with. We also still don’t know why she had the child with him at all; not for a plan because of the multiple contingencies Eren had, and not for love since we never get her POV at all, we don’t know if she actually loves the man since all we see is that she’s happy on her daughter’s birthday. All we know is that this nameless man is the father of her child and she decided to marry him at some point later after the child’s birth.
So what happened between Historia and Eren?
Well, that’s the thing, we don’t know. We can only guess, imply, and form headcanons (or mental gymnastics) from what we are given in Chapter 139. We never got to see the missing chunk of their conversation in Chapter 130. We don’t know how she went from “I’m going to stop you, Eren.” to “What would you think about me having a child?” and staying quiet. There is no mention of her pregnancy in Chapter 139, we are just shown that she’s given birth and a mention of her getting married.
We never got Eren’s specific answer to her question and we can only guess that he lets her run off to the farmer while he runs off to Mikasa (which is, considering everything, a huge retcon of him). That’s what Isayama has made us done, just guess and wonder. He hasn’t given any concrete answer or shown in panels what exactly occurred between Eren and Historia, he just dropped the pregnancy subplot, stone-cold. Nothing to indicate Historia’s change in attitude (which can now considered to be a plot-hole since she was first opposing Eren but suddenly changed her mind with no apparent explanation) and Eren’s answer (which we’ll now never know without forming headcanons so it can be considered a dropped plot point).
Chapter 139 was Isayama’s way of saying he gave up on pregnancy subplot and just saying “Hey, this random NPC that got like 4 panels with Historia (two of them being in the background) is the father, not the man that has been shown to have been actively involved in her safety/pregnancy and took drastic measures to make sure she doesn’t inherit the Beast Titan. Wait, sorry what? They’ve never talked before. What do you mean Eren and Historia were in Chapter 130?” or something like that.
Recontextualization for if Eren WAS the Father
If Eren was actually the father — if the conversation between Eren and Historia was completed and we saw Eren’s answer — then a lot of scenes would be recontextualized or amplified. Previous panels and scenes will take on a bigger meaning or make much more sense.
Here’s a list of some scenes (it’s not going to be everything):
- The biggest scene that would be recontextualized and amplified would be Eren’s freak-out in response to Zeke’s command in Chapter 121. Zeke’s command was open-ended so we don’t know if it would’ve just made Historia unable to produce anymore children after she gives birth or straight up aborted their child in her. Eren obviously isn’t going to take the risk given the desperation and rage on his face as he rips off his thumbs to reach Ymir. The argument that Eren was mad because things didn’t go his way is false because he knows he will get the Founder’s power because things will go his way, from the memories he saw of the future in Chapter 90 and Grisha’s words (which also adds to the point that if the Eldians can become sterilized, Eren can command Ymir to reverse it, so if he isn’t the father, he has no reason to completely lose it).
- Reiner’s thoughts towards Eren, in which Eren being the father answers in an amazing way. It cements the idea that they really are the same in ways they both don’t know of. The reason why they stayed alive and kept on fighting despite their declining years is of course because of the children in Reiner’s case and a child in Eren’s case. It highlights exactly how much children really are the future, as they pushed two of the most prevalent characters in AoT to keep fighting, to keep moving forward against all odds (Reiner’s overwhelming depression and Eren’s will of having to Rumble the outside world to ensure the safety of his home and people). It’s a parallel that matches Isayama’s style of writing beautifully (excluding 139).
- Hobo Eren’s words and attitude in Marley: Eren has made multiple mentions of a family, specifically his, to Falco. If Eren did not have a family and what he told Falco was a lie (that he’s not the father) then he would’ve told Falco that he doesn’t have a family, and that the letter just got to his friends. Instead Eren just says “the letter wasn’t to [his] family…” (unless you consider Mikasa his family, an adopted sibling, but that also doesn’t make sense since she was included in the recipients of his letter and in the comrade/friends panel in Chapter 130). Again, this is another classic Isayama move of putting the answer right in your face which you won’t look at closely. You might pass over it, or get misdirected, unless a specific answered plot point (aka Eren being the father) leads you back to it. Eren also sought to psychologically harm his grandfather for no apparent reason by mentioning the regrets he has for his family, even though Eren knows the reason why Grandpa Yeager had done what he did was to protect Grisha, even if he was a terrible father. Eren could have left him alone and not have said anything, but he lashed out at his grandfather. Eren being a father means that he won’t put his child in the same scenario as his grandfather did to Grisha (he’s doing the Rumbling partly so his child won’t have to live in a world that hates it and wants it extinct just for existing) and it would explain why he was so angry at his grandfather (considering he’s going to be a father soon). Eren being the father makes his anger towards Grandpa Yeager much more personal.
- Hange’s suspicions are proven correct. Hange is portrayed as an often intelligent and perceptive character throughout the story. She’s the first and only one to notice and question how involved Eren was with Historia. If Eren is the father, then of course she’s right, Eren will not sacrifice Historia, as he has shown us time and time again, even with Historia’s reluctant acceptance. So Hange’s question for him will mean more than she could ever know. Historia is the mother of his child after all. Him blatantly ignoring Hange’s question about Historia makes complete sense if he’s the father. Eren deflects Hange’s question and immediately switches the subject. Why? Because right then, he’s treated as an enemy whose true motives are unknown, so the slightest slip-up, the slightest inclination of his involvement with Historia could possibly lead her and his child to being in danger. We also know exactly how far the military was going to go to stop Eren. So he has to keep his mouth shut on the subject of Historia lest he wants Hange to find out how involved he was with the queen and possibly have Historia be a bargaining chip.
- This panel makes a lot more sense now. It shows a memory of Eren’s friends/comrades being soaked in the darkness on the right, while a bird is flying towards the horizon to the left. There are many interpretations of the panel, such as the panel predicting all their deaths or Eren leaving them all behind to move towards the horizon (towards his freedom possibly). So where is Historia? Why would Isayama put a panel that’s full of his friends but not include her, the one who has saved him, who has had deep and meaningful conversations with him? Does she mean nothing to him? Considering everything we’ve seen in his thoughts and actions, she does mean something. How much? Well if we consider that he’s the father in this scenario, then she’s not included in the darkness, in any kind of memory there, because she’s in a whole separate category from the rest of his friends/comrades. She’s quite literally his family, pregnant with a child sharing their blood. Most of all, he knows she’s safe and away the frontlines, chilling on her chair.
I have more scenes on the list that could be recontextualized with Eren being the father but this post is already so long and it’s coming to an end so I’ll cut the list off here. These are the biggest examples in my opinion and it’s good to look back and see how Eren being the father would affect such scenes. I find them much more meaningful with him being the father in mind, I’ve felt the same way with many of Isayama’s other mystery reveals.
Here’s the TL;DR:
Historia’s pregnancy has a structure similar with the rest of Isayama’s mysteries. Isayama, over the course of time, poked holes into the MP’s arguments, evoked the reader’s suspicions through Hange, and portrayed Eren as someone very involved in her pregnancy. With specific panel ordering and placing, Isayama begins to lead us to an answer that should have been obvious. The result would have ended in Eren being the father but that was discarded as with the rest of Historia’s pregnancy subplot in Chapter 139. Scenes that could have been recontextualized are now dangling and some make no sense because of Eren not being the father.
BONUS
Jean mentions that Historia acts like his mom and Zeke claims that Eren started resembling their father once he meets him in Marley after a few years. Keep in mind that the conversation at the farm (and Historia asking Eren about a child) happened while Eren was still in Paradis which means that Historia was well enough pregnant when Zeke made this claim.
Funny thing about that is that he claimed before that Eren didn’t look like their father at all:
Eren’s Duality Post-Timeskip Explored And What It Means
In this section, I’ll dive a little deeper into post-timeskip Eren’s actions to provide further proof that Historia is extremely important to Eren by comparing Eren’s words and actions towards his friends and towards Historia in the timeskip. Buckle up because this is extremely interesting.
In the previous segment — “Recontextualization for if Eren WAS the Father” — there was a mention of Hobo Eren’s attitude in Marley and him mentioning family which I hope you haven’t skipped because it is important context for what I’m about to write.
Falco wanders into the hospital’s courtyard while thinking about doing something to prevent Gabi from inheriting the Armored Titan and his “chance” comes in the form of Eren.
It is heavily implied here that Falco will be used by Eren but don’t let that stop you from thinking that Eren’s words don’t matter because he’s trying to get Falco to do what he wants — which is to send the letter to the Scouts. In fact, Eren’s speech about war a bit later on seems pretty genuine because there was something which was forcing both Falco and Eren to continue fighting. Like Eren puts it, we push on because we’re forced by others or by our environment into “Hope or yet another hell…”. This is pretty consistent and lines up with his character so there’s no need to question if he was manipulating Falco completely, unlike with Zeke.
Now, let me bring your attention to this:
Isayama said in an interview that Eren was influenced by Grisha’s memories here — however, we know that memory incursion is not a cut and dry process. Basically, it is: the more Eren encounters Grisha’s memories, the more he is in turn influenced by them, opening him up to such ideas as romance.
However, in his work, Isayama had clearly portrayed that Eren knew about care outside of being influenced by memories.
Let me tackle it from the story’s perspective in order to explain.
Eren had managed to recognize Falco’s crush on Gabi which is extremely strange since there’s numerous instances where Eren failed to pick up on any kind of romantic interest before, even if it was spelled out for him.
It could be argued that Eren hadn’t actually felt romantic interest himself to notice it in others, however — in the Marlo and Hitch panel above — we can see that even the rest had noticed it. We can understand why Jean said that Marlo’s “a piece of shit” because Jean was clearly interested in Mikasa but Armin, Sasha and Connie had no romantic interests yet even they managed to pick up on it.
Maybe Eren’s just a clueless individual and has yet to grow or his idea of romance is simply different and that is why he doesn’t notice it.
The only instance where Eren managed to pick up that someone actually cared about someone is in Freckled Ymir and Historia’s case. He understands it immediately and, like I had stated in the “Growth: Uprising Arc” section of this analysis, Eren is seemingly the only one who understands Historia’s POV. Why did I just write that? Well, in Chapter 51, neither Jean nor Connie could figure out why Freckled Ymir did what she had to do. They fail to pick up that she cared a great deal about Historia’s future and that everything she had done was for her sake. Eren, on the contrary, managed to pick up on it.
The fact that he even prompts Historia about Freckled Ymir later on in Chapter 54 is proof of that. So is Eren really a clueless idiot or does he recognize care only in a specific case?
Falco doesn’t want Gabi to inherit the Armored Titan and didn’t someone who Eren cares about face the threat of possible Titanization later on turned reality?
Anyone he was very intent on protecting even before he went to Marley that he said it to her face?
I’m pretty sure I don’t need to write in great length about this. All of the upper moments happened before Eren’s departure to Marley and considering the fact that Eren didn’t manage to pick up on any of the aforementioned instances of care yet managed only to pick out Freckled Ymir’s and Falco’s proves a lot.
In fact, Falco’s words seemingly paint a picture of who that person is for Eren and help us recognize her, mostly because Falco and Gabi are seemingly parallels of Eren and Historia (dark-haired/light-haired, one wants to inherit the titan, the other doesn’t let her because he cares about her, Gabi being a literal female version of Eren and the author pointing it out). With that in mind, we know Historia was also famous because she became the Queen of Paradis by destroying Rod’s Titan and was leading the nation, and just like Gabi, declared that she will be the one to inherit the Beast Titan for the good of everyone. Yet Falco and Eren want them not to carry that burden. Why? Because they care about them.
Some may argue that this doesn’t mean anything because Eren had proudly declared he will not be passing down the Attack Titan to any of his friends but keep in mind that someone he definitely had a good relationship with is missing in that panel.
This is, in fact, where Eren’s duality makes an appearance. If you haven’t picked up on it, look back at the Uprising arc section, where I pointed out to you how Eren understands and even compliments Historia on what she had done as queen while Jean and Armin are not that impressed. Each time Eren and Historia talked in great length, they were alone (notably: Chapter 52, 70 and 130) and I found that particularly curious. I also pointed out the great deal of care Eren has for Historia that he isn’t even willing to tell anything to his closest friends about his discovery because he feared for her safety.
In the Marley arc, it is even more pronounced with Eren dragging his comrades into war which results in Sasha’s death even if the upper panel exists where he’s telling them how important they are to him. Keep in mind that Eren could’ve prevented it if he had told them not to send Sasha or even told them what he saw in the first place.
AoT is not a story where an outcome is set in stone, before you start arguing, because Eren had to get Grisha to kill the Reiss family and get the Founding Titan. If he hadn’t done that, he would never have inherited the Founding Titan. Like he had stated to Zeke: “The path I’m on is possible because of you” and so we know the future can be changed and past events altered. We have seen in Chapter 138 the events which happen if Eren had chosen to run away with Mikasa and how could that happen if the future is fixed in place no matter what Eren does?
The upper panel appears because Mikasa states that Eren still cared about them… yet his words seemingly don’t match his actions very well and his friends soon start questioning themselves in Chapter 108.
Also keep in mind that while Eren is stating that they’re important to him and dragging them into danger, Historia is safe outside of battle, just taking care of herself. So was Eren’s seemingly hypocritical behavior applicable to her? Did he break his word about not sacrificing her? He didn’t. He had taken action and ensured it while for his friends, he didn’t bother doing the same by actually telling them what he plans to do. Eren passed up on the opportunity to tell his friends all about the future and had kept them in the dark. The only people he had talked to in regards to his plan are Floch and Historia, both who also decide to keep it hidden from the rest of Eren’s friends.
Also worthy of mention is the upper panel and again, curiously, Historia is seen missing from it. It is funny how he says to Zeke, who we know he had been lying to the entire goddamn time he was in Marley (even when Zeke brought up Mikasa, the panels showed Historia), that he wants them to live long lives when half of these characters we see are dead. Hange and Sasha, most notably, are dead because of him and yet he stated that he wants them to live long lives.
This is what people would say is a controversial take but it is there and you cannot unsee it. I tried to at first but then Eren’s apparent duality after touching Historia’s hand became very apparent. Both Armin and Mikasa actually (and reasonably) question who Eren actually is and what side of him had they been seeing.
This is a bit meta level and if you’ve been paying attention to Isayama’s words in regards to EMA (specifically Attack on Titan Guidebook from 2014), this won’t sound that strange to you because of Isayama’s reasonings:
He stated that despite their similar ages, Eren, Mikasa and Armin had different states of mind and that their growth might involve their possible separation and even opposing one another. Stating that he did not see Armin and Eren being best friends forever, he further explores a personal writing style of rejecting the concept of a fated soulmate regarding Eren and Mikasa, often writing ideas about how the two would separate and respectively go through subsequent development and independence.
What Isayama had wanted to portray is, symbolically, Eren growing up and the eventual separation of EMA following Eren kissing Historia’s hand and becoming more and more mature, hence their viewpoints starting to become vastly different.
With the seclusion of Eren’s POV following the hand kiss to make Eren as mysterious as possible, Isayama had clearly presented two sides of Eren:
- the one mysterious but consistent with his character growth — Eren and Historia’s immense mutual understanding portrayed in the Uprising arc, Floch’s realistic speech about the harsh reality of the AoT world and him saying that someone needs to tell the truth during the ceremony in Chapter 90 while Eren consoles Armin by their childhood dream which he knows is nothing but a naive way of looking at the world they live in as a flash of Faye being torn by dogs crosses his vision.
- the one who is considered to be in-character before the Uprising arc but in turn raises glaring plot-holes and huge character inconsistencies, because his words are not matching his actions — Eren refusing to tell his friends anything about his plan because of Historia yet he talked to them about everything before and cared about them; Eren stating they’re important to him yet dragging them into danger and getting Sasha killed; Him even stating in Chapter 139 that he didn’t know if they will survive which is just confirming the suspicion that he truly wasn’t trying to ensure their survival, unlike with Historia who he had protected time and time again.
And in his work, Isayama had it outlined clearly with Eren’s actions and words which is why I decided to compare Eren’s behavior towards his friends and Historia in the first place. Something is not adding up, and considering his development, him caring for his friends is presented to be not so true from our perspective.
I am in no way saying that Eren didn’t care about his friends before! He really did and still does but, unfortunately, he has to make a choice between them or doing his best to protect Paradis from the threat of the outside world, considering his friends do not agree with his viewpoint at all.
It was Armin’s dream which convinced him to seek a goal of living outside the Walls and being free in the first place, but even Eren admits to have forgotten about his dream during the serumbowl. Eren was the one who saved Mikasa’s life, who had grown close with Jean, Connie and Sasha as they shared multiple battles and life or death scenarios but then again… Eren also values freedom above everything (what these friends of his never really managed to understand), he wants to live free of fighting and wishes to protect his hometown (as he declared to everyone in his grandiose speech in 123) and Isayama illustrates this all quite cleverly.
The reason for this change is because Eren had matured greatly and lived for himself and focused on his own goals which is why Eren’s friends turn on him and go against him, seemingly unable to understand him quite well unlike a certain someone who had saved him in the cave, and cared deeply about him and his actions.
This is why some of us are confused about him portrayed as suddenly caring about his friends in 139. It is very bizarre to insult your friends and then later on play it off by telling them “This was destiny”. It certainly wasn’t destined for Eren to go to that length to insult Armin on every possible level and even call Mikasa a slave, was it now? Not to mention that Eren had also sacrificied Sasha and Hange and didn’t even blink an eye— yet we were supposed to believe he cared.
It was very obvious what Isayama was really hinting at — showing us glimpses of Eren with Floch, Eren with Historia and then of Eren with his friends. We had Eren’s friends wonder about his behavior which led to the train scene and we also had Eren’s POV in Chapter 130 which led to the reveal about Eren still keeping contact with Historia and the fact that he trusted her enough to reveal he’s doing the Rumbling — while his friends apparently weren’t important enough to know that.
Two of Eren’s closest friends were locked up, confused and in the dark, while Historia knew everything and had kept it a secret for over ten months.
I imagine it isn’t that hard to guess that Eren and Historia were supposed to be allies and that Historia have had a very good reason to put her faith and trust into Eren, despite being horrified at what he was about to do and then springing the baby question. Considering I already wrote about Historia’s pregnancy in huge detail, I assume you know what I’m implying.
Historia As Ymir’s Antithesis
I’ll try to be as brief as possible in this section and just mention the basic stuff. My sincere recommendation to you is to read this for a far more comprehensive look than what I’m about to present to you. Apologies, but this analysis is getting longer by the minute and, for this section alone, the analysis of both the Devil Pact and Ymir Fritz will make it about 12 pages longer.
It is of no coincidence that Ymir Fritz’s backstory opens up with Frieda and Historia reading the book where the little girl is depicted offering an apple towards the Hooded Devil. Many people have started theorizing around that time that Historia will be an important piece in regards to the mysterious Ymir who had been suffering ever since her birth and was trapped in Paths for God knows how long. Considering this and the fact Eren had quoted Historia’s words to Ymir after the flashback ends, it just sent a lot of signals towards Historia being presented as Ymir’s antithesis and also pointed to the possibility that Ymir’s endless nightmare in Paths was about to end and that she was about to be reborn as a free girl to Eren and Historia.
There are many parallels between them but Historia doesn’t exactly live like a slave unlike Ymir. On the contrary, Historia had chosen to live her life as she sees fit and we know the pregnancy sub-plot was supposed to be about that. Historia’s story does start as Ymir’s but the parallels end when Historia chooses to go against her father, not inherit the Founder and go on to become a queen, while Ymir still follows like a mindless slave. This presents her as an antithesis.
The song Kimi ga Fusawashii to Omou Daimei (A title you think is the most suitable) by Linked Horizon just seemed to confirm the theory of Ymir’s reincarnation. It was a bonus track of the album Shinjitsu e no Shingeki made for the anime and released in June 2019, just a few months before the events that occurred in 120–122. The song is sung to an unborn baby asking them what they wish for: to end their existence or to be reborn. It ends by asking them if they’re free after thousands of years and we hear a newborn baby crying. The song was clearly written for Ymir as she’s the only person in the whole story who would be in such a position.
Ymir wanted freedom. When we include the song, the pro-birth theme this series strongly promoted, and the significance of someone close to Eren who was about to give birth, I think we have enough information to see where this was going.
I’ll leave it at this. The theory I’ve mentioned at the beginning will explain everything in far more detail so I suggest you go on and read it before continuing.
School Caste AU And The Implications Within it
The School Caste AU is a series of fake previews for the Attack on Titan manga which could be found from Volume 21 all the way till the final Volume 34. Isayama had went ahead and said that this AU is actually linked to the main story.
With this in mind, we can go on and examine it more closely.
We don’t know much about Historia’s POV in canon, especially after the timeskip, but we are still teased to glimpses of her. School Caste AU, on the other hand, completely spells out something quite interesting about Historia.
The queen bee has everything she wants but she is bored beyond death by everyone around her because everyone is willing to hang around her side just because she is popular and rich. She, however, notices Eren. Yes, the uninteresting, boring Eren and she says that she understands him, even going so far to state that looking at him makes her feel calm, because she knew she wasn’t alone in feeling like this. Historia also goes out to point that Eren is like an ant, alluding to the fact that he’s just going with the flow in life and works for the sake of working.
Historia keeps trying to figure out what Eren is doing with friends, expecting him to be alone and still trying to find a justifiable reason that he is as same as her. She guesses at why he was with them and concludes that he’ll be bored quickly, that he’s forcing himself and that he, in fact, doesn’t care about them at all.
But, she quickly realizes that she is wrong.
He actually likes them, and as she points out, there’s a lot going on around there, concluding with a thought that she was indeed all alone and that it was boring. She knew that Eren was the same as her because she had seen him before but noticing Eren with the friends he had made and with how he interacts with them, she realizes that he actually cared about them, meaning that he wasn’t like her.
The “So I was all alone.” is of interest particularly because, as I have mentioned in the section about Eren’s duality, there’s a very clear outline of two Erens after the timeskip — the way Eren’s friends see him as and the way Eren was presented with Historia. Isayama had now mentioned again that the duality is present, because Historia also thinks about Eren as someone who is bored by everything and is the same as her, that he seemingly doesn’t care about his friends but wants to feel good after helping them. However, it turns out that wasn’t the case which is conveniently how the ending played out in the canon.
So Historia says that Eren did something awful to her.
In the fake preview for Volume 27, rumors began to spread about Historia and Eren, which leads to him being bullied and Historia staring at the scene, regretting her decision because she didn’t expect for it to go this far. It actually seemed like she had just wanted his attention and she’s angry at Eren’s friends who aren’t doing anything to protect him in turn.
To appease these rumors and protect Historia’s reputation, Eren lied by raising new rumors. And what does this have to do with the main story of AoT?
Volume 27 is the same volume where Chapter 108 took place. In this Chapter, the MPs were discussing Historia’s pregnancy and her relationship with the farmer and how this ruined their plans to make her inherit the Beast Titan. The rumors and false accusations they were raising about her and the fact the Eren (the hooded figure) PROTECTED her.
Putting all the information together and doing the math, we can understand the clue that Isayama left us:
“Eren did something awful to Historia” + Rumors spread about both of them + Eren lied to protect her = Eren had a relationship with Historia and, to protect her from the MPs, he raised rumors about her and the farmer. In other words, it is hinted that Historia x Farmer is a FAKE relationship. With 139 in mind though, it isn’t the case, but the clue is still there plus the clear reference to the ‘how to kiss’ meme.
I’m not going to go in depth with other panels of the School Caste AU, I had just wanted to point out some of the specific cases where the focus was on Eren and Historia and how it was somehow connected to the main story.
School Caste AU showed us a glimpse of Historia’s POV and even left a clue towards the identity of the father of her child and if you pay closer attention to it, with knowledge that it is connected to the main story, things do get interesting.
A Little Story For The Children (Smartpass)
The Shingeki no Kyojin Au smartpass is a Japanese smartphone app that launched February 2014. The app releases monthly interviews, weekly “stories”, caption contests, mission card prizes, and other content. A full character database is also an incentive of the app.
Shingeki no Kyojin: Short Stories 3, that came out sometime in 2020, featured a story about Eren Yeager which I want to talk about. You can check out the other content that Short Stories 3 contained here and to be clear, the content that comes from the Smartpass is, in fact, canon.
Full story below:
The world was made of lies and fiction. Because of the twisted history, many people were sacrificed.
From now on, what children will learn is the truth of the world and the story of the future.
As such, let’s pass it down.
Everything that has happened until now, and the decisions we’ve kept secret.
A small world surrounded by walls. In this corner of the world, there’s a farm reorganized into an orphanage.
Here, children called out to the young woman Historia, who modestly lives as a teacher:
“Hey, Historia-sensei. That guy, Eren, can he really turn into a Titan?”
“I know, I know. He turned into a Titan in Orvud District and protected the townspeople!”
“Bullshit. He never helps around and he always daydreams, I saw it.”
Next to the little boys who were busy gossiping, a little girl grabbed Historia’s hand.
“…When Eren’s a titan, what does he eat?”
Her voice is slightly trembling. It’s understandable. If we’re talking about titans, they eat and kill people and are the absolute evil, that’s what everyone inside these Walls thinks.
“He doesn’t eat people, you know. He uses his Titan power to fight.”
“Is that so, I wonder if he’s reliable.” an innocent voice.
“He might zone out from time to time, that’s true. But please, trust in him.”
Historia quietly smiled and gazed at the southern sky.
“Eeeh… So that’s what the kids talked about”
The people who had become soldiers at the same time as Historia, came calling to help at the orphanage.
After the kids fell asleep, while taking a simple meal, she informed them of the things that were said during the day.
“I’m… becoming a ‘good titan who fights to protect everyone’, huh.”
The person who generated the discussion seems to be perplexed.
“How else to explain it? If you’re thought of as an unreliable guy, it’ll be troublesome for everyone in the Corps.”
Historia nodded to Jean’s harsh accurate words (“words that looked at the whole situation” is the exact translation). Just a bit, she felt sorry for Eren.
“That’s because I didn’t want them to doubt him. Sorry for burdening you with that.”
As the “teacher” of the orphanage, Historia introduced Eren as the Survey Corps’ weapon, the hero that protects humanity. This is a necessary decision she made as the Queen who governs the walls.
“…I get it.”
Eren also seemed to fully understand that, and yet, his lack of conviction showed on his face.
Late at night
Armin came back after running many errands to find Eren still up.
“Does Historia’s story bother you?”
Judging from his childhood friend’s expression, he sensed something alarming. An emotion similar to anger, directed at a world which was beyond his control, and which he had no outlet for.
“I’m not a hero or anything like that.”
“We all know that. But, you’re still fighting, aren’t you?”
“I’m just fighting for my own sake… Destroying the enemy, in order to be free…”
What motivates Eren is the longing for freedom, and his anger towards those who do not allow it.
Armin and co, the comrades of the Survey Corps, naturally empathised and came to fight together but, could this really be said to be something universal to humanity?
“I believe your freedom and that of everyone inside the walls are connected, Eren. Do you think otherwise?”
“…I wonder.”
In that moment, Armin felt that Eren’s eyes, more distant the ocean itself, were gazing at the limits of the night sky.
When morning came, Armin was the first to head over to where Historia was. He felt some uneasiness.
“Historia. From this point on, no matter what Eren does… in any event, you’ll say that he is a hero who protects everyone?”
“As long as he keeps fighting (for us is implied), I will keep saying that. Why?”
“…Nothing. You have your own viewpoint, I understand that.”
To Armin, the path present in Eren’s future, it did not appear to be something heroic. He couldn’t help thinking that feeling like a hungry beast wouldn’t necessarily bring happiness to everyone. However, unable to articulate anything clearly now, he swallows his words.
“…I’m simply giving my own point of view. That is all.”
Historia said with a soft, yet firm voice.
“The kids here have direct contact with Eren. They might not understand now, but someday when they lose their way or find themselves in trouble, they’ll be able to understand what being human means. That’s what I think.”
The kids that will live in the future should be able to see the person called Eren with serenity, that’s what Historia believes.
“Ah, yeah. I hope so…”
The listless morning breeze of the meadow, merely shakes his anxiety, and does not give an answer.
I hope you have digested that. The english translation can be found here along with the raws.
- Historia’s reply to Armin:
[“Historia. From this point on, no matter what Eren does… in any event, you’ll say that he is a hero who protects everyone?”]
“The kids here have direct contact with Eren. They might not understand now, but someday, when they lose their way or find themselves in trouble, they’ll be able to understand what being human means. That’s what I think.”
- Historia’s reply to Jean:
[“Don’t tell me, you intend to tell the children in the orphanage the truth? That in order to change human society, we have no choice but to kill somebody as well?”]
“I think that it would not do well to forget. The orphanage was possible thanks to everyone who fought…… To us. Because from here on we fight with the people from outside the Walls, I think that it’s alright to learn of that weight.
That because somebody fought, the present self exists. That because there were mistakes in the past, the present is being corrected. Even if it cannot be understood immediately that was fine, however, if they wanted to know I want to put it in a way that can be understood.”
This little story focuses explicitly on Historia’s viewpoint on Eren and hence why I have dedicated a section for it. Historia knows that her comrades and the children in the orphanage will be able to understand if they experience a situation like that of Eren’s, who was lost and troubled. From her point of view, fighting for themselves is not wrong, they are not killing but fighting to protect themselves.
She knows that even if what they’re doing can’t be understood for now, it’s okay, because one day, they will find a similar answer as Eren if they decide to fight for themselves. Because “A person who cannot sacrifice everything, cannot change anything.” She knows that what they’re doing can’t be wrong, because they are protecting their precious things, not just killing people for revenge. They fight for their own lives, everyone has the right to live, and Eldians also have that right, regardless what their ancestors have done, Eldians of this generation have the right to live.
She knows that she will support Eren no matter what, because she experienced the same things as him too.
Bonus Section: Distress OVA, Paralleling ED’s, Memory Lane and More
We’re slowly reaching the end of this giant analysis! I have to congratulate you if you’ve made it this far because it took me a long time to properly finish each section of it.
I’ve been as objective as possible and pointed out every single instance related to these two, even talked about the story’s aspects and how they fit into it, mapped out their relationship and hopefully, proven to you that no, these two were definitely not a ship which had come out of nowhere, and yes, Eren did care greatly about Historia.
This section is dedicated to some minor things which are also of interest but aren’t big enough to deserve a section of their own and so are all grouped together here. I will also be providing links later on to some interesting analyses or videos regarding these two if you’re still interested in hearing more about them.
Distress OVA
The Distress OVA is the third OVA, Episode 3.75, of the Attack on Titan anime. It has been released in Japan with the special edition of Volume 14 of the manga (which cover Chapter 55–58 — The Uprising arc). The OVA is set in the year 848, while Eren and the rest are still cadets, and they go on a wilderness exercise mission.
You’ve probably guessed what this episode is special about because I already spoiled it for you with the image above. Yes, that is indeed a very determined Eren willing to go alone to rescue Krista. I suggest that you go and watch the OVA itself but if you’re unwilling, you can find the clip of it here.
What is very curious is the soundtrack which plays during this moment… it is Call Your Name by mpi and CASG (not the girl’s version but the male version) and the lyrics are particularly interesting:
She said she gave all her love to me
We dreamt a new life
Some place to be at peace
But things changed, suddenly
I lost my dreams in this disaster
I’m crying
Missing my lover
I don’t have the power
On my side forever
Oh, where is my lover
And I got no power
I’m standing alone, no way
Calling out your name
Paralleling ED’s
This one is pretty self-explanatory.
The ending song of S4P2 — “Akuma no Ko” (Devil’s Child) and the ending song of S3P1 — “Requiem der Morgenröte” (Requiem of the Dawn) seemingly parallel each other.
Memory Lane
Memory Lane is the 7th song on the “Attack on Titan” The Final Season Original Soundtrack and it had appeared in instrumental form but never with lyrics.
In the lyrics, there is a mention of a coat, and of meetings and coming back home… and it is awfully EreHisu.
I’ll be waiting here for you
Hope you’ll find the way
Our home, sweetest home
You will come back to meI wore the coat
The one you gave to me
Meet me here
Now, I know you will not be convinced by this alone. How is this exactly EreHisu? Well there’s two explanations, but with a theory that the anime will expand upon the unfinished story and explain the plot holes in mind. First one is here and the second is here and trust me, they are a lot to handle.
Aside from the things I’ve mentioned, and as I promised, there are a lot more interesting things you can check out:
- YumiHisu and EreHisu — about how both Eren and Ymir are equal important to Historia’s development (another one here)
- Eren’s “You saved me” explained (more here)
- Eren and Historia — a few parallels (and one more interesting thing; and another one)
- Is EH homophobic? (No, it is not)
- Did Eren manipulate Historia in Chapter 130? (No, it is just a plothole)
- Historia’s going to an exhibition with her boyfriend (Yes)
- List of reasons why Historia’s pregnancy doesn’t belong to any plan (and yes, Eren’s the father)
- Analysis of Zeke and Eren Convo in 130
- About the Reiss family massacre (touched upon briefly here)
- In the original draft, Eren was meant to save Krista from a Titan’s mouth instead of Armin (x)
- Analysis of the final draft sketched by Isayama
- “Red Swan” analysis
- Eren’s Choice: Mikasa and Historia, Between Selflessness and Self
- Norse mythology and EH
- Eren & Historia parallels with Falco & Gabi
- A list of parallels between Eren and Historia
- E+H=Y Long Thread
Aside from written analyses, you can also check out these videos:
- JP Video Supporting Eren and Historia Post-139
- Eren and Historia Are the True End Game
- Eren and Historia | Attack on Titan Relationship Explained
- Eren and Historia Were Canon
- 105 Reasons to Ship Eren and Historia
- BTW Eren’s The Father
- Why EH Works (And EM Doesn’t)
And that will be all from me! I hope you had enjoyed reading this huge, in-depth analysis which hopefully proved that Eren did care greatly about Historia, that they did share a very deep bond and that their relationship served a lot to the story and was indeed pointing towards them becoming canon.
Eren and Historia are a complete package all wrapped in one: a mystery, well-developed, something hidden in plain sight, one of the same kind, enemies of humanity, and straight up soulmates that serve way too much to the story of AoT for them to be ignored and ridiculed.
