The moment Eren Yeager made physical contact with Zeke, the sequence of “Memory Shards” in Episode 78 shattered our understanding of the Attack on Titan linear narrative by combining all of the in-universe stories across various creative mediums.
By meticulously deconstructing these blink-and-you-miss-it fragments, we can see that Mappa isn’t just animating the adapted manga story; they are potentially confirming the Multiple Timeline Hypothesis and the long-theorized Anime Original Ending (AOE).
Fragments of the Founding Titan: Decoding Eren’s Memory Shards in Episode 78
From the jarring appearance of Goth Mikasa and Nerd Armin from the School Castes timeline to the manga-only panel glimpse of Falco’s Jaw Titan at Fort Salta, this deep dive explores the evidence that the anime is a distinct cycle from its predecessor.
We are moving beyond the surface-level flashes shown in the anime to analyze the psychological weight of erased memories and bird symbolism in the series, ultimately asking whether Eren is finally using the power of the Founder to break Mikasa’s time loop for the final (and complete) tragic Akatsuki no Requiem (AnR) ending.
The Timeline Glitch: Seeing the Manga Through the Anime
Alright, so let’s take a look at Eren’s Memory Shards from the Manga:
In the manga, Eren’s memory shard panels often showed memories he had already experienced in that timeline, a few from the anime timeline (occasionally), and never-before-seen timelines and events like Floch smiling and Nerd Armin and Goth Mikasa, who only appear in the School Castes timeline – a spin-off series from within the manga narrative.
If you’ll remember, memory plays a very vital role in the Attack on Titan story: Eren awoke in chapter one and episode one of the series after having “a long dream” about events yet to come – including Dina Fritz smiling titan eating his mother Carla, and Willy Tybur’s children’s toys from Marley years before it even happened.
I have theorized before that Eren even sent Jean memories of his marriage to Mikasa after the Battle of Heaven and Earth, Armin is the narrator of the series because he is recounting “their story” after the war for future generations, as he promised.
Mikasa’s headaches (and the Lost Girl’s OVA) are literally her timeline-shifting power manifesting, and then the conflicting timelines and a “mess of memories” give the crippling headaches that she ignores while simply pulling her scarf (the manifestation of her bond with Eren) tighter around her in order to block it all out.
Due to the nature of Eren’s memory shards in Attack on Titan Episode 78 contianing a mixture of events that Eren did not experience in the anime timeline, I want to propose that this will hint at an eventual AnR or AOE for the series.
The Historia Conspiracy: Erased Memories and the Secret Plan
As we know from the anime, Zeke and Eren made plans to meet and touch, entering PATHS together. Gabi decides to ruin all of that by blowing off Eren’s head, and Zeke catches it before his consciousness fades.
The Yeager brothers enter PATHS together, and Eren sees a flash of memories that would be unfamiliar to anime-only viewers. For manga readers and theorists, however, it opened the floodgates to theories like the “tilting panels” theory and the theories surrounding Eren’s coat and Mikasa’s scarf color, signifying the shift in timelines.
Eren sees a vision of Mikasa wearing the red scarf (which looks partially blue or violet due to the lighting) on the day Eren usually wakes up from his long dream underneath The Tree on That Hill, on “That Day”.
Let’s refer to this as Eren’s ‘Restart day’.
A close-up of Eren’s green eye with white tinges appears onscreen, similar to his eye’s appearance whenever he used the Founder’s power, or even the Warhammer Titan in the manga.
Through visual cues like this in the anime and manga (remember the subtle hint of light in Eren’s eyes when he acquired the Warhammer Titan power?), it recontexualized scenes where we see the visual manifestation of the Founder’s powers.
Notably, we can specifically think back to Frieda erasing Historia’s memories of their visits together, and the conversation Eren had with Historia where he offered to erase her memories after he “tells her everything” about his plans and what he saw in the future.
The Historia Conspiracy: Erased Memories and the Secret Plan
Eren mentions he can erase Historia’s mind to make her “keep quiet” about his true plans, then the manga panel shows his eyes lighting up as they would when accessing the Founding Titan’s power.
The “Vacant Look”: Did Eren Use the Founder to Protect the Queen?
The vacant look in Historia’s eyes after both her conversations with Eren and Frieda could suggest that Eren indeed did erase Historia’s memory to protect his secret plans.
After the storybook shows the deal between “the devil and the earth goddess“, it also flips through pages related to butterflies, and a leaf is shown blowing. Normally, this would mean nothing.
But since Mikasa is associated with the blue butterfly, just as Armin is associated with the leaf from The Tree Underneath That Hill (or Zeke with a baseball), I believe this scene may also hold significance to the story.
The Multiverse of PATHS: School Castes and Lost Girls Cameos
Goth Mikasa and Nerd Armin from Attack on School Castes make their anime debut! I don’t think Queen Bee “Stacy” Historia from School Castes was shown directly afterward, however, but the Historia from the farm before Eren erased her memories.
We then see a series of memories flash on screen from Eren’s past, Attack Titan inherited memories from Grisha and (Eren) Kruger’s past, Frieda and Eren’s memories connected through the Founding Titan inheritance, and one image that is reminiscent of Armin’s clothing in Mikasa’s Lost Girls OVA episode.
The above images include:
- Good Guy Reiner during their training days in the military.
- Grisha Yeager’s memory of his little sister Faye from ‘That Day’.
- Eren’s encounter (through the Founder or PATHs) with Frieda Reiss brushing her hair in a mirror while he sat in jail and looked through a mirror (acting as a portal?) in SnK manga Chapter 53.
- Reiner wearing his red Warrior Armband while on the ground, groveling in Liberio during Willy Tybur’s speech.
- (This scene looks different to me for some reason, but it just may be Eren’s POV that adds to the mystery. Can’t really see much in the background, and both Eren and Reiner were standing when he transformed underground…so it had to be a little before that. )
- Eren Kruger’s memory of seeing his family burned alive as a child while hiding in the closet.
Then we have a scene of child Armin smiling…wearing what looks like green clothing. This could be from the Lost Girls OVA, or just a childhood flashback of Armin running with Eren in play, or from the official art release of the trio running toward That Tree on That Hill.
More memory shards include:
A scene of the Reiss family on ‘that day’ when Grisha confronted Frieda before stealing the Founding Titan.
(Maybe the overlay is meant to signify the blending of both Grisha and Eren’s memories of that day? Since both father and son(s) were in the underground church, and influenced one another. )
It also reminds me heavily of Eren’s FREEDOM panel in chapter 131. Maybe this is a nod to Eren freeing himself from the infinite time loop by gaining knowledge of the future from interactions with Historia.
We have a shot of Levi looking sinister with his Survey Corps cape on.
There’s something to the left of him, but I can’t make it out. Unless it’s the shot of Zeke and Eren in the airship fleeing Liberio after the raid, but from another POV? It doesn’t seem like the fight scene from the Titan Forest.
This is a memory of Sasha and Connie being idiots and messing with each other’s faces. At first, I thought this one might be from when the Survey Corps went to Marley in Chapter 123, but then I realized they are still in their OG Survey Corps uniforms. I know I’ve seen it before, so maybe it’s from season one?
Falco stares at something out of the window of his jail cell on Paradis Island while Gabi tries to break free. Maybe Eren in bird form passed by Falco, and through the Founder’s influence, he somehow saw Falco with titan marks before he inherited the Jaw?
Ramzi the Thief from Chapter 131 of the SnK manga from the Survey Corps’ first visit to Marley . This looks like Eren’s POV from when he apologized before the Rumbling, and a confused Ramzi asks him, “Why are you crying?”
And finally, we have Grisha’s despair during the aftermath of murdering the Reiss family, while chatting with ethereal Zeke and Eren who hopped from PATHs memories into the actual timeline.
Sauna Reiner from School Castes Appears in the Anime
Sauna Reiner from the Bessatsu Shonen Magazine cover makes an appearance in Eren’s memory shards alongside Goth Mikasa and Nerd Armin!
The Colossal Ghost: Bertholdt’s Apparition and the Lost Girls OVA
This looks like Bert’s colossal transformation from season one, episode one – but it’s skewed. And the frame is devoid of color.
(Could this be the Colossal Titan apparition from Mikasa’s Lost Girls OVA?)
The Akatsuki no Requiem (AnR) Connection: Mastering the Power
Grisha tells Eren that he must “master this power” of the titans in order to change all of their fates. Eren then reminds himself through Kruger’s memories that “in order to save Mikasa and Armin” he must see things through, which I would interpret as the 100% Rumbling that may or may not result in the “normal” School Castes timeline.
As I mentioned earlier in this theory, Eren has memories from different timelines in this anime PATHs vision, just as he has different reactions to events from the manga when adapted to the anime that are seemingly “reactions” to previous events, rather than organic changes.
(Ex: While Eren is lying in the rubble before the Wall Sina fight with the Female Titan Annie, he remembers failing before, and unleashes the Beserk Titan that vows to “destroy the world”. Or in the early Scouts days, Eren refused to sacrifice Historia when he previously didn’t care (as much) in the original manga version.)
Falco at Fort Salta: A POV Shard from the Manga Finale
Falco’s jaw titan is seen flying toward Fort Salta from Eren’s pov in the final manga chapters. Signifying that the Attack on Titan anime is indeed, possibly a different timeline than the manga.
Day, Night, and the Basement Key: A Dual-Shot Symbolism Breakdown
Do you remember what Grisha told Eren in the season one episode nine flashback before turning him? That he has to master his power – that is the key to everything. Thus, we have a dual shot of day and night, with Grisha’s basement key in the middle.
“Upon reaching the basement, you’ll discover the truth! It’ll be a hard and unforgiving journey, but you must succeed! If you want to save Mikasa, Armin, and everyone else, you must learn to master this power!”
The same line I already mentioned earlier, which Kruger tells Grisha in season three, which most likely came from Eren’s future memories. Maybe the ‘night’ and ‘day’ split could signify the two different timelines Eren went through to get to the final one in the anime.
The Omen of the Abyss: Why White Birds Turn to Black Crows in the Anime Timeline
The birds in Attack on Titan have been known amongst theorist circles to denote when the timelines subtly change. White doves signify the “peace route” where the Alliance wins (the manga ending), while the black crows featured in the anime since episode one of the anime would signify the ANR route, or “chaos ending”.
By combining both white and black wings, you create the Survey Corps logo.
Next in the vision, we see a scene of the ocean, with white dots in the sky. The POV of the image is then reversed, with the silhouette of a bird flying over the water. The image is now reversed, with the black crows from season one, episode one of the anime timeline, and the crows that follow Eren in season four, part two, opening.
I would like to propose that this was Eren flying as the “parasitic Jeager” that visited Armin before he confessed to Annie on the boat during the Rumbling.
Eren can be seen flying as the white dove of peace in the manga while following the Alliance boats, who end up sacrificing themselves in the steam of the colossal titans as they swam under their boats during the Rumbling.
This is a reverse from the white bird Eren sees when he is traveling through PATHs after another timeline failure, and might be the bird Falco sees in the manga (and circling overhead in the anime during the Mid-Eastern war anime-only scene) – which turns to a black crow in the anime timeline.
Finally, Ymir walks in darkness that gradually turns to light, and she seemingly transcends PATHs.
Final Interpretation: Will the Final Movie Screening Confirm the AOE?
When I first posted this theory years ago, I theorized that because the Founder Ymir was in the manga timeline with Mikasa, and then seen attending the Shingeki no Kyojin the MOVIE screening alongside Gothkasa, Nerd Armin, and Eren in School Castes, that the final movie would reveal it all.
While that technically never happened, I will take the animated footage of the modern-day School Castes timeline (and pop-up installation of School Castes in Hita) as a win and the culmination of the AnR theory in the final movie…for now. ☺︎
But, tell me your thoughts: the Attack on Titan: The Last Attack film will soon be re-released in theatres again, and a new project was teased along with a (supposed) murder mystery game – do you think we’ll finally get an AOE or ANR storyline in this new media?
Leave your thoughts in the comment section below, we’d love to hear from you! Also be sure to follow us for more Attack on Titan theories!
☆ In Asian Spaces ☆ Ephesians 6:12 ☆
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