Titan

Titans (巨人) are a race of giant man-eating humanoids that serve as catalysts for the events in the series. To the people inside the Walls, they were thought to have first appeared 107 years prior to year 850 and rapidly exterminated humanity to the point of near-extinction. In reality, they are transformed humans known as the Subjects of Ymir, and have existed for nearly 2,000 years.

Appearance
Titans greatly resemble nude humans. They are typically bipedal with the limbs and features one would expect in humans; however, they are all deformed to some extent in body proportions (enlarged head, small limbs, etc.). Many Titans have exceptionally wide mouths with an array of square teeth. The vast majority of Titans have a masculine body shape, although all of them lack reproductive organs.

Behavior
Unlike other species, Titans do not mate, nor interact with organisms other than humans; their sole purpose in life is to seek out and devour humans. They do not derive any real sustenance from humans either, as many of them did not taste human flesh for a century after the Walls were raised, but it did not affect their activity nor decrease their numbers. One explanation for this is that they seek a human who possesses the power of the Titans, for if a Titan consumes a human with it, said Titan will become human again.

Some Titans do not react to pain and all will move as long as there is sunlight. Titans do not possess a complete, functioning digestive tract; they merely have a stomach-like cavity that eventually fills up with what they swallow. After consuming a certain amount, they regurgitate the contents of the cavity before they continue eating more humans.

Most Titans show no signs of intelligence and act like mindless beasts; easy to trick, distract, and deceive. The Nine Titans are the exception: They have human level intellect due to being piloted by a human. However, some Abnormals are also able to sustain some of their former intelligence, such as the Titan encountered by Ilse Langnar and Connie's mother. These Titans can form thoughts and even communicate with humans.

Creation
All Titans are originally humans of a race of people called the Subjects of Ymir. Ymir was the first Titan, gaining the power of the Titans after touching the "source of all living matter", although Marley claims she made a contract with the Devil. Subjects of Ymir become Titans after being injected with Titan spinal fluid, triggering a near-instantaneous transformation. This is exploited by Marley after the Great Titan War, who turn undesirable Subjects of Ymir into Titans to use for war, or at Paradis Island to roam aimlessly beyond the Walls. Titans oftentimes bear strong resemblance to their original human bodies, though women who are turned into Titans lose most feminine body features. Although the organic materials that make up the Titans' bodies appears to be from nothing, they are said to be sent from invisible "paths" that transcend time and space. These "paths" connect all Subjects of Ymir to a single "Coordinate", the Founding Titan.

The Founding Titan can personally turn Subjects of Ymir into Titans. Karl Fritz created the Colossus Titans that make up the Walls this way. Zeke Yeager can mimic this ability due to his royal blood, by screaming after administering his spinal fluid to his victims. He does this to the villagers of Ragako for the Wall Rose invasion and at the Battle at Fort Slava.

Physiology
The body of Titans appears to violate several known laws of science, spontaneously generating both energy and mass. Their bodies are incredibly light, allowing them to stand and walk despite their size. Their extremely high level of activity and body temperature indicates the need for a massive intake of energy to fuel them, yet they apparently never need to eat at all. They possess and use vocal organs, but they do not need to breathe for survival. Titans draw their primary source of energy from the sun, as they become inactive when deprived of sunlight. The absence of sunlight affects individual Titans differently: During experimentation, the captured Titan "Sonny" became docile and nearly comatose after only an hour's deprivation, while fellow captive "Bean" maintained a high level of activity three hours after last seeing sunlight. However, this only applies for the mindless Titans; the Nine Titans do not need sunlight to move, and neither do Titans controlled by Zeke Yeager's Beast Titan, or presumably the Founding Titan.

Titans possess incredible regenerative abilities. Although it varies from Titan to Titan, they can regenerate lost body parts from seconds to minutes, even severed heads (unless the nape is severed with the head). The only known sure-fire way to kill them is by slicing an area one meter long and 10 centimeters wide on their nape. This is the location of the central nervous system of the Titan; in mindless Titans, it is only a spine of the human that got absorbed, but in the Nine Titans, it is an entire human body. Without a functioning nervous system to control it, the Titan dies. After death, Titan corpses rapidly evaporate to skeletal remains, then to nothing at all.

How Titans react to pain stimuli varies from one to another: Some Titans completely ignore agonizing injuries, even impalement through the heart, and attack nearby humans as normal. Others scream seemingly in agony. Humans with the power of the Titans have yet to show any signs of pain when their Titan form gets damaged.

Mike Zacharias is able to smell Titans, implying they have an odor.

History
Over 1,800 years ago, Ymir Fritz discovered the "source of all organic material", or made a deal with the Devil, and gained the power of the Titans. The Eldia Restorationists believed that she used the Titans to build bridges, roads, and cultivate barren lands. After she died 13 years later, her "soul" was split and passed down unto nine inheritors. After Ymir's death, the Nine Titans conquered the nation of Marley and established the empire of Eldia. The Nine Titans were split into Eldian noble houses. The Fritz family maintained order over the other eight houses, who were locked in constant conflict, using the Founding Titan.

However, after 1,700 years, Karl Fritz inherited the Founding Titan and chose to abandon the conflicts of the mainland. In his absence, the Great Titan War began. The chaos caused by the Eldian noble families allowed the Marleyans to rebel and take over the continent. The King and many Eldians fled to the island of Paradis, where he used Colossus Titans to construct three Walls around his territory. In years after, Marley would send undesirable citizens to Paradis as mindless Titans, doomed to wander the island.

Types of Titans
Titans are classified according to their size and abilities. The following is a list of various known Titans so far.

Trivia

 * Despite their English name originating from the of, the Titans of Attack on Titan are much more influenced by the  of . Most notably, both the Titans and the jötnar originated from an ancient being by the name of "".
 * Some Titans are modeled after friends and acquaintances of Hajime Isayama. Sometimes, he will even take requests.
 * While most Titans have a masculine appearance, a few of them possess feminine facial features, while still retaining their masculine body shape.
 * Despite not being Subjects of Ymir, the Ackerman family gained abilities through "Titan science".

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