Then that supports these questions
Dina surviving, the Attack Titan's ability, Eren killing his mother, Ymir, Paths, Kruger, the Founder, the alternate timeline, and the Rumbling all become pieces of evidence for your proposed explanation.
ATTACK ON TITAN: WHAT IF ERen WAS TRYING TO CHANGE THE PAST?
I have an alternative theory about Eren, Ymir, the Attack Titan and Paths.
I'm not saying this is canon. I'm asking whether the story's existing rules could allow another interpretation.
- The First Timeline
What if the timeline we watched wasn't the first?
Imagine an original timeline where Eren never manipulated anyone.
Events happen naturally. Grisha still takes the Founding Titan, Eren eventually inherits it, and Paradis develops—but the outside world ultimately refuses to accept them.
War comes.
Paradis is destroyed.
Eren and Dina eventually use the Founder and unleash the Rumbling.
But even after destroying the world, they realize they haven't achieved freedom.
So they look through Paths and see the possibilities.
And they discover something terrifying:
If they want to change the outcome, they have to change the past.
---
- The Attack Titan
This is where I think the Attack Titan becomes extremely important.
The Attack Titan doesn't simply "see the future."
Its inheritors can receive memories from future inheritors.
Eren's experience is different because he eventually possesses both the Attack Titan and the Founder.
So what if a future Eren used this ability to send information backward—not simply to fulfill the future, but to alter an earlier timeline?
This could explain why Eren sometimes sees things he doesn't fully understand.
It could also explain his statement that he caused his mother's death.
If Eren could influence the past, then that event doesn't necessarily prove that everything was a simple closed loop.
It could mean that a future Eren interfered with an earlier timeline.
---
- The New Timeline
In the altered timeline, Dina survives.
Grisha still obtains the Founder, and eventually he and Dina reunite.
They bring the Scouts information about the outside world.
Eren still inherits his father's Titans.
Now Paradis has something extremely dangerous:
Eren — Attack Titan + Founder
Dina — Royal Blood
Dina can control Pure Titans, and with the Founder's power there is eventually the possibility of restoring them to humans.
Instead of immediately becoming a weapon of destruction, Paradis begins developing.
The government is exposed and replaced.
The military becomes stronger.
The island becomes more civilized.
And Eren is different too.
Instead of normal cadet training, he is trained directly by Levi and the Levi Squad and undergoes extensive Titan experiments.
---
- Annie, Reiner, Pieck and Porco
Reiner and Annie are still inside the Walls.
They are trying to discover what Paradis knows and are terrified of returning to Marley empty-handed.
But they also watch Paradis grow.
Eventually they attempt to abduct Eren.
It fails.
This Eren is much more prepared than the Eren they expected.
Porco remains the Jaw Titan and participates in the operation.
Pieck remains the Cart Titan and becomes one of the people most capable of understanding what Paradis is actually doing.
Nobody has to betray Marley immediately.
They are still Warriors.
But slowly, they begin seeing that Marley hasn't told them everything.
---
- The Outside World
Paradis tries to make peace.
For a while, it seems possible.
But the outside world becomes increasingly united by fear.
Marley no longer has unlimited time to simply attack Paradis because it has problems with other nations.
Eventually Willy Tybur brings the world together.
The world decides that Paradis is too dangerous to leave alone.
And this time, Paradis knows something enormous is coming.
Eren and Dina have already seen possibilities of what happens if the world attacks them.
They still try to avoid genocide.
They prepare.
They wait.
And eventually...
the world attacks.
---
- The Three Waves
The invasion comes in three major waves.
Wave One
The world deploys its remaining Titan forces, the War Hammer, artillery and air power.
Zeke participates, but Marley deliberately keeps important information from him because they fear he may betray them after discovering that his mother is alive.
Dina transforms.
Her Titan is enormous—larger than the normal Colossal—and her transformation destroys the incoming air fleet.
She begins controlling the Pure Titans.
The Warriors try to capture Eren.
The War Hammer becomes one of the biggest threats.
Eren fights using everything Levi taught him.
Paradis barely holds.
Zeke eventually dies fighting in the war, but his death becomes one of the events that exposes Marley's true intentions.
Wave Two
The world stops focusing only on the Titans.
Now they attack Paradis itself.
The Scouts, Military Police and soldiers fight throughout the island.
Civilians are forced underground.
Erwin commands the defense.
Levi fights.
Mikasa becomes increasingly desperate to protect Eren.
Armin tries to understand what the enemy is actually planning.
Everyone is pushed toward the same conclusion:
The world isn't coming to negotiate anymore.
Wave Three
The final attack begins.
Paradis is nearly destroyed.
Eren and Dina are finally forced into the decision they had spent so long trying to avoid.
And the future they once saw begins becoming reality.
---
- Ymir
But underneath all of this is the real mystery.
Ymir.
I don't think Ymir is simply a slave who blindly follows royal blood.
She remembers the pigs she released as a child.
That may have been one of her first acts of freedom.
She freed something trapped.
Then she herself became trapped for 2,000 years.
When Eren enters Paths and sees how Ymir behaves toward Dina, he realizes that she is still suffering.
He tells her:
You aren't a god. You aren't a slave. You're a person. You can choose.
Dina also treats Ymir almost like a mother would treat a child.
Ymir feels understood.
And eventually she chooses Eren instead of Zeke.
Not simply because of royal blood.
But because Eren represents the same thing she once wanted:
freedom.
---
- The Four
Eventually, the story becomes about four people who are trapped by different things:
Ymir — trapped by the past.
Dina — trapped by the fate of her people.
Eren — trapped by the future he sees.
The Attack Titan — the bridge connecting past and future.
And perhaps Ymir realizes that all four are looking for the same thing:
Freedom.
So she decides to try.
She shows Eren memories.
She allows him to see possibilities.
And the journey begins.
---
The Final Question
Maybe Eren didn't manipulate the past because everything was predetermined.
Maybe he manipulated the past because he had already experienced what happens when he doesn't.
Maybe the timeline we watched is the result of a future Eren trying to correct the failure of an earlier one.
Simple logic:
If the Attack Titan can receive memories from future inheritors...
and Paths can connect people beyond normal time...
and Eren eventually possesses both the Attack Titan and the Founder...
then there is at least a logical possibility that a future Eren could influence the past.
So instead of:
Past → Present → Future → Past
it could be:
Timeline 1 → Future Eren discovers the failure → information travels backward → Timeline 2 → the story we watch.
That would mean Eren wasn't simply trying to reach the future he saw.
He may have been trying to escape the future he had already seen.
And if that's true...
then the biggest mystery isn't whether Eren could see the future.
It's:
Who was trying to change it first?
QUESTIONS THIS THEORY RAISES
If this interpretation is correct, several things in Attack on Titan become much more interesting.
- Who determined it?
Armin asks Eren whether he could have stopped the genocide.
Eren's answer is essentially:
«"It was determined."»
But by whom?
If Eren himself didn't completely understand why he was doing it, then who or what determined that outcome?
Was it fate?
Ymir?
The Attack Titan?
A future Eren?
Or was it the result of a previous timeline?
---
- Why did Eren do it?
When Armin asks why he wanted to flatten the world, Eren struggles to explain it.
He basically admits that he doesn't completely understand himself.
He simply had an overwhelming desire to do it.
But why would Eren have such a feeling?
Could that feeling be coming from memories or experiences belonging to a future version of himself?
---
- What happens if Dina survives?
This is one of the biggest points in my theory.
If everything originally played out naturally and Dina survived, then we could have had:
Dina — Royal Blood + Colossal Titan
and
Eren — Attack Titan + Founder
That combination could completely change the story.
And if a future Eren and Dina eventually discovered that their timeline ended in disaster, they would have a reason to interfere with the past.
---
- Can the past only be changed after the future goes wrong?
Think of it like this:
Imagine you play chess.
You make a move.
Twenty moves later, you realize:
"That first move guaranteed that I would lose."
You cannot change the past from the present.
But imagine your future self could somehow send a message back to the moment before that move.
Your future self could say:
«"Don't move there."»
Now the earlier decision changes.
The future didn't change the past randomly.
The failed future created the reason to change the past.
That's what I think could have happened with Eren.
---
- Then what exactly was Eren manipulating?
Maybe Eren wasn't simply manipulating individual people.
Maybe he was manipulating the conditions that created the timeline itself.
Grisha.
Dina.
His own inheritance.
His mother's death.
The Attack Titan's memories.
Ymir.
Paths.
All of these could be pieces of one enormous attempt to produce a different outcome.
---
- And what about Ymir?
Why does Ymir remain connected to royal blood for so long?
Why does she ultimately choose Eren?
Why does she react so strongly when Eren tells her that she's neither a god nor a slave?
Maybe because Eren isn't simply giving her orders.
He's giving her something she hasn't had for 2,000 years:
the possibility of choosing.
And if Ymir was aware of the plan from Paths, perhaps she wasn't merely following Eren.
Perhaps she was trying too.
---
- Then where did it REALLY begin?
If the theory is correct, perhaps the story doesn't begin with Eren.
Perhaps it begins with Ymir's first desire for freedom.
Then the chain moves through the Attack Titan.
Kruger.
Grisha.
Eren.
Dina.
Ymir.
Paths.
And eventually reaches backward again.
---
The simplest way I can explain my theory
If you travel into the future and discover that your current path ends in disaster, you now have a reason to change the decisions that created that future.
The future doesn't need to be a closed circle.
It can be a warning.
A failed timeline can become information.
And information can travel backward through the Attack Titan and Paths.
So perhaps Eren wasn't simply following a predetermined future.
Perhaps he was trying to escape one.
And that leaves the biggest question of all:
If Eren was trying to change a future that had already gone wrong...
Was the Eren we watched actually the first Eren to make these choices?
