Attack on Titan: Why Do Titans Eat Humans?
Since the release of Attack on Titan in 2013, anime watchers worldwide were exposed to a new brand of horror; the horror of massive, human-eating giants that have pushed humanity to the brink of extinction. Attack on Titan is a rollercoaster of emotions and plot twists. You can’t help but get attached to the characters, but you’re unsure if even the main cast will make it out alive. After all, Titans eat a lot of humans in nearly every episode. But why do titans eat humans? They don’t actually need to eat humans to survive, so let’s find out why.
Titans eat humans because they might one day consume a Titan Shifter, which would help them regain their lost humanity. Titan Shifters are humans who possess the “Titan’s power”, which allows them to transform into Titans by their own will and retain their intelligence while in Titan form.
Titans are one of fiction’s most fascinating creatures, and the way they work was a carefully guarded secret that only Isayama knew. Now that the manga has concluded and all the secrets have been revealed, we know the tragic story of the Titans, their purpose, and their interesting biology. Stay with us to learn more about the Titans’ cannibalistic tendencies.
Do Titans need to eat?
No, Titans don’t need to consume human beings. At the same time, Titans don’t eat any other organism, animal, or plant, other than humans. They also vomit humans back out after eating them.
Titans don’t gain any energy or nutritional value from eating humans. They’re powered by sunlight, and fall into an “inactive” state when they’re deprived of it. This can be seen with the wall Titans. They are immobile because of the lack of sunlight within the walls.
Us humans retain our body mass by eating things that have nutritional value to us. On the other hand, Titans’ body mass is made up of organic materials that are sent from invisible pathways that transcend space. This is why Titans don’t need to get nutritional value from other organisms as we do.
Additionally, Titans are a lot lighter than you’d expect, and a lot more powerful. A 9ft tall Titan can weigh 50lbs, but throw around gigantic rocks. This is why they’re such a big threat to the inhabitants of Paradis Island, and why they don’t need food.
What drives Titans to consume humans?
It’s unclear why Titans have an innate drive to seek out and eat other humans. Every Titan, except the chosen Nine Titans, loses their intelligence after transforming. They’ll be turned back to normal if they consume a Titan Shifter, but they’re not intelligent enough to look for Titan Shifters while in their transformed Titan state, and they seem to attack all humans indiscriminately.
It’s speculated that the drive to eat humans is purely an instinctual one. They may not know why, but their natural born instinct is to find a human and eat them.
What do Titans feel when they’re wandering around looking for humans?
The best account we have of what it’s like to be a Pure Titan, or someone who’s been turned into a Titan by being injected, is that of Ymir. Ymir was once a Pure Titan, mindlessly wandering Paradis Island.
After regaining her humanity, Ymir describes her experience as a Pure Titan as an “endless nightmare”. She stayed in this state for around 60 years, before finding and devouring Marcel Galliard, who was a Titan Shifter with the ability to turn into the Jaw Titan. Ymir then turned back into a human being, regaining her consciousness, and intelligence, and gaining the power of the Jaw Titan from Marcel.
Why can’t anyone cut the person out of a Pure Titan?
You might have seen that when Eren’s life is in danger, sometimes his friends will try to “cut him out” of his Titan form. Maybe we can help these Titans regain their humanity by cutting them out of their Titan bodies, instead of having them wander around aimlessly until they happen to devour a Titan Shifter.
Eren can be cut out of his Titan form because he is already a Titan Shifter. When Titan Shifters transform, the Titan’s body forms around their body. Their original body is located at the nape of the Titan’s neck, and they can control the Titan at the same time.
In a Pure Titan, there is no human body to “cut out”. When someone is injected and transforms into a Pure Titan, the Titan’s body and the human’s body are fused.
This is confirmed by Hange Zoë, who has sliced open the necks of many captured Pure Titans. She states that all she’s ever seen are the muscles and ligaments that make up their necks.
There isn’t even a brain or a spinal column. This is because the central nervous system of the Titan is the human being it used to be, and its human form has been fused into the Titan’s body. This was observed long before we knew that all Titans are actually transformed human beings.