How Future Eren controlled Dina Titan? What's the Founder's power?
How did Eren control Dina Titan? Why did Eren kill his mother Carla?
In conclusion, Eren did not intentionally control Dina Titan. He only found out later that it had already happened and admitted that he was the cause of it.
The rough explanation is that the cause is a causal loop brings about by the Founder’s power.
If we dare to focus, the activation of the Founder’s power in chapter 50 determined Dina Titan’s ignoring Bertolt in 845. This is because the only appropriate way for Eren to learn about this through his memories(ch130) is through his contact with Dina Titan at this time.
More to the point, all of these and every other event was predetermined from the beginning.
Eren doesn’t have the ability to control the Titans that exist in the past from the future at will.
If Eren is able to control the Titans across time at will without any restrictions, the story would fall apart. It would become very boring. It would also ruin the brilliant trick in episode 121.
But it isn’t. There are proper restrictions.
In medal ceremony, Eren only learned the truth after the events that transpired.
Eren’s contact with Dina Titan and activating the Founder’s power means that he has to acknowledge Carla’s death. This is because these events are determined simultaneously.
If Dina Titan eats Bertolt, she won’t be able to appear in front of Eren as an Pure Titan. Eren would, in effect, have made the choice to kill his mother in order to save Mikasa, Armin, and his friends. Obviously, he in 850 does not know this.
Eren did not intentionally control Dina Titan. It is that the influence that the Founder’s power brings about, which was activated in 850, determined that the 845 Dina Titan would ignore Bertolt. So Eren said something to the effect that he himself was responsible for the outcome. needless to say, he didn’t time travel to that day and place in 845 to command Dina titan.
What did Eren say? What does that mean?
In chapter 139, Eren said “the founder’s power has made it so that there’s no past or future… it all exists at once.” *1 *2
“the founder’s power” is just that the power of the founding titan. It is not Ymir the founder’s power.
A more appropriate Japanese translation would be…
The influence that the founder’s power brings about have no past or future… they all exist simultaneously.
simultaneously exist is the influence that is brought about.
When Eren activates the founder’s power, it will surely affect both the past and the future.
It would brings about a causal loop. In short, the future(past) determines the past(future).
The work Attack on Titan (Shingeki no Kyojin) is built on a fixed timeline. That’s why the founder’s power is designed to take advantage of this plot.
So Eren is not some kind of overseer who monitors the timeline and makes corrections to it. The story is not the absurd scenario where Eren actively looks back into the past and thinks, “Okay, so I need to control the Dina Titan, save Bertolt, and kill my mother. All right, let’s do that.”
Eren simply has no motivation to go back and intervene in the past. The same applies to what happened with Grisha in Chapter 121. The journey through Grisha’s memories was an event initiated by Zeke, and Eren’s immediate objective was to change Zeke’s perception of Grisha and thereby derail the euthanasia plan. The fact that Eren telling Grisha, “Stand, Father,” ultimately led to the retaking of the Founding Titan should be understood as a byproduct of that sequence of events, rather than as Eren’s original objective. He already knows that the Founding Titan will ultimately be reclaimed, because his present state itself proves that this outcome will come to pass.
*1. The line itself does not particularly suggest that he is perceiving the past, present, and future simultaneously. The inheritors of the Attack Titan, who can see memories from the future, already have a form of temporal awareness that comes close to this, so there is no particular reason to emphasize it here. Indeed, since there is no time constraint in Paths, there is no need for Eren to see the various memories en masse. If he were to see memories, he would have seen each one in turn, slowly.
*2.“Messed up” is almost a mistranslation. It is not correct to read the relationship as “the effects brought about by the Founder” causing him to become mentally messed up. Rather, he is confused and struggling to make sense of the fact that the effects brought about by the Founder exist simultaneously in the past and the future.
Eren’s choice to die Carla
In chapter 50, Eren recalled that Carla told him to “protect Mikasa.” Why is this flashback inserted?
To Eren, Dina Titan is not only an enemy who ate Carla. At this moment, Eren is essentially faced with a choice, both from the past and from the future. Do you accept your mother’s death?
That means accepting his mother’s death and standing up to protect Mikasa. And that would automatically mean killing his mother.
Because the influence that the founder’s power brings about have no past or future… they all exist simultaneously.
…
* Since I felt the intention might be hard to convey, I will revise it as follows:
Eren’s choice to accept Carla’s death
In chapter 50, Eren recalled that Carla had told him to “protect Mikasa.” Why is this flashback inserted here? (Also, the panel immediately before Eren’s revelation in Chapter 139 features a depiction of Mikasa from Chapter 50.)
At this moment, Eren does not yet know what will happen in the future (or, in a sense, the past), nor does he consciously understand the connection between Dina Titan and Carla’s death. He is simply confronted with the immediate situation before him: Dina Titan is approaching, and he decides to fight back and protect Mikasa.
Yet, in the context of the fixed causal loop, that decision has a consequence that Eren himself does not understand at the time. By choosing to confront Dina Titan rather than simply remaining helpless, Eren’s actions become part of the causal chain that ultimately leads to Carla’s death.
In this sense, Eren is “faced with a choice” not because he is consciously choosing Carla’s death or altering the past, but because his decision in that moment—made without knowledge of its future consequences—effectively becomes a decision to accept the circumstances that will result in his mother’s death.
Because the influence that the Founding Titan’s power brings about has no past or future… they all exist simultaneously.
How can Eren understand that Carla’s death was caused by him?
Eren activates the Founder’s power upon coming into contact with the Dina Titan. (Chapter 50)
At the medal ceremony, Eren sees a fragment of a memory showing Bertolt from the Dina Titan’s perspective (or the Dina Titan passing by Bertolt without eating him). Eren could only have accessed this memory through his contact with the Dina Titan. (Chapters 90, 130)
Eren comes into contact with Zeke and, through the Founder’s power, enters Grisha’s memories, where the Attack Titan’s characteristic of past inheritors seeing memories of future inheritors becomes part of the causal loop connecting Eren and Grisha. Through his interaction with Grisha, Eren comes to understand the nature of the Founder’s power. (Chapters 120–121)
Thus, Eren realizes that he was the one who caused the incident in 845, when the Dina Titan ignored Bertolt and headed toward Carla.
That is why Eren told Armin, “the influence that the founder’s power brings about have no past or future… they all exist simultaneously.”
Founder’s power examples
The phenomenon of the founder’s power generating causal loops has appeared in past episodes.
Zeke and Eren and Ymir the founder
The reason why Ymir the founder resurrected Zeke was because Zeke activated the founder’s power.
It was the founder’s power that Zeke activated that brought about the events in Grisha’s memory that occurred in chapter 121. Of course, this is only possible because of the capability to see the memories of the future inheritors of the Attack Titan.
The distant cause of Eren’s inheritance of the Founding Titan and the Attack Titan was Zeke’s activation of the Founder’s power. And because of that, a causal loop was created.
causal loops
What the phenomenon means to the story?
At the medal ceremony, Eren learned that the Dina Titan had ignored Bertolt because of his own actions.
On the other hand, he knew that he was going to hurt Grisha, but he still had to do it.
It means that Eren has been shown painful memories from both the past and the future.
Eren pushed himself into hell. He accepted that all these events were his responsibility.
He wasn’t just working for revenge for his mother’s murder, nor was he just forced by his father to take on the power of the Titans, but everything he did was by his own choice.