Hi mom! I know the vision Mikasa saw was probably an AU, but if it was an AU, how would Grisha take the Founding Titan if Eren never touched Zeke and "motivated" him in the first place?
We’re slowly getting a clearer picture of PATHS and OG Ymir. The appearance of Armin’s leaf and Zeke’s baseball seems to indicate that PATHS is a place where people can create what they want to see.
I think back to 131 where PATHS became a vision of Freedom for Eren, yet Armin in that same moment saw only sand and a very excited kid.
The prevailing theory in chapter 121 when Eren and Zeke took their PATHS memory walk was that they were experiencing a point in a fixed timeline. I’m not so sure that’s true now. I feel like in PATHS there is a way for the Past and Present to interact in ways that change the future.
I don’t think, for instance, that Grisha saw an aged Zeke in his basement that day and hugged him. I think that day in the basement probably passed like normal for Grisha, but PATHS allowed Zeke to step into that instance of that moment. Grisha interacted with Zeke, but it was more of a do-over for Grisha. He got to experience both instances, with the second one where he sees and hugs Zeke essentially overwriting the first.
I think Grisha killed the Reiss family and gave Eren his power in his first time instance with Eren’s direction but completely unaware of Eren’s involvement. Grisha only became aware when Eren stepped into that timeline along with Zeke and revealed it to him.
The new information about PATHS is also causing me to question the other times Eren has had visions, like the one in chapter 13 in Trost when he was struggling to wake up to move the boulder. That feels more like PATHS now.
It might be that PATHS contains many alternate realities. The tiny appearance of the Mikasa and Armin from the high school spin off that appeared in the memory shards might have been a joke. But maybe not. Maybe there had been many instances of Eren’s life and what we’re seeing in this manga is one of those iterations. Maybe Eren is aware of that.
I know this clarifies nothing, but it’s my thoughts at the moment. And I don’t think we’re going to get any answers on any of this. I think we’re going to be left crafting our theories and coming up with our own answers on how this happened.
Thanks for the ask!