Description: Who opened the pig pen, why did the slaves point at Ymir, and what do Zeke and Mikasa have to do with it? The manga's revelations, with theories clearly separated.
A few pigs escape. King Fritz gathers his slaves. Every finger points toward one girl. Her punishment is to be hunted like an animal. That is an extraordinary royal response to a livestock problem. Somehow, this tiny incident connects to two thousand years of tragedy.
Was Ymir actually responsible?
In chapter 122, the slaves point to young Ymir. At first it looks like a convenient scapegoat. But chapter 135 flashes back to Ymir opening the pen herself. The strongest reading is that she deliberately let the pigs out. Three pigs appear in the scene; the exact number that escaped is not separately confirmed. The crowd may have identified the culprit correctly, but Fritz's punishment remains appalling.
How did everybody know?
The synchronized pointing is almost comically efficient. Did the village have a pig-escape reporting network? Maybe someone witnessed it, maybe rumors spread, or maybe frightened people followed someone else's lead. The manga shows their collective accusation, not how each person learned the story. To Fritz, the offense may have been less about livestock prices than a slave disobeying his control. He turned a barnyard incident into a display of terror.
Why open the gate?
A compelling interpretation is that a girl deprived of freedom wanted to offer it to confined animals. Ymir never states that motive outright. The bitter irony: she could open the pigs' gate, yet even with Titan powers remained bound to Fritz's will. Eren also pursues freedom and ends up crushing other people's freedom. The desire to be free does not settle what actions are right.
Was Zeke helping Eren during the Rumbling?
Not by endorsing Eren's plan. Zeke wanted to prevent future Eldian births through his euthanasia scheme. Eren used Zeke's royal blood to reach Ymir, who responds to Eren in chapter 122. During the Rumbling, Zeke is caught within the Paths situation. After a conversation with Armin in chapter 137, he emerges and Levi kills him; the marching Wall Titans stop. The brother trying to save Eren became a critical component in Eren's disaster. A family collaboration gone catastrophically wrong.
Did Ymir watch Mikasa's past after seeing her future?
In the extra pages of the collected final chapter, Mikasa recognizes Ymir as someone who had long been looking into her mind. That links Ymir to Mikasa's recurring headaches, though their physical mechanism is not explained. Ymir remained attached to Fritz through love and submission. Mikasa loved Eren but chose to stop him herself. Her decision shows that love need not mean obedience. A fascinating theory is that Ymir knew Mikasa's final choice first, then looked backward through her childhood. Time in the Paths does not work normally, so the theory makes sense. The manga does not confirm that order.
The astonishingly small beginning
The gate, the pointing fingers, Zeke's loss of control and Mikasa's choice all revolve around the right to decide. Still, King Fritz might have saved everyone a long meeting by fixing the pig-pen latch.
