Ymir was the original titan, and there’s a chance she possessed all of the known titans’ powers.
Her three daughters shared Ymir’s power among themselves.
Since each next generation of titans became weaker, people decided to stop at nine of them.
Founder Ymir is one of the most mysterious Attack on Titan (Shingeki no Kyojin) characters. The final season of the anime gives us some perspective on her past and the origins of the titan power, but there are still so many things left unsaid. And one of them is how one Titan shifter turned into nine of them over time.
Ymir is the Founding Titan
Ymir was the first one to possess the power of titans. While running from her torturers, she stumbles across a tree that gifted her the power. King Fritz used Ymir and her ability as his weapon during wars, and impregnated her later to give him three daughters. Upon her death, the king forced his daughters to eat Ymir’s body to preserve the Titan curse, and thus began the process of inheriting the powers. But how exactly did it work?
The series has nine titans: Founding, Armored, Attack, Beast, Cart, Colossus, Female, Jaw and War Hammer. Ymir was originally the Founding Titan and since she was the only one, there comes a question: could she possess all of the titans’ powers? Was she capable of controlling hardening and creating armor like the Armored Titan? Could she see the memories of future owners, like the Attack Titan? Did she have immense stamina like the Cart Titan, and could transform as many times as needed? There are a lot of various peculiarities to each of the titans, so did the Founding Titan have all of them? Or were they created with each new titan?
The titan abilities have undergone changes
Since all nine titans are derived from the Founding one, the most likely prediction is that Ymir did possess all of these abilities. Her titan was the strongest one, and its powers were divided between the nine shifters later. That’s why she was so unstoppable, and the king saw so much potential in using her as his weapon.
Another question is the number of titans. Why nine? And could there be others? It all started with just Ymir, and then her three daughters inherited the powers. If they had continued to pass it down to all of their kids, there would have been hundreds of Titan shifters. So what happened?
One of the ideas is that with each passing Titan shifters became weaker. Ymir’s titan was the most powerful one, and when her power was divided between her daughters, they were given only a third of it. By that logic, after a few more generations there would have been dozens of titans that possessed only a sliver of the original power. So they decided to stop at nine to avoid producing weaker titans.
Moreover, some fans suggest that seeing the Cart and the Beast Titans had something to do with it. They were anomalies, and people didn’t want to take the risk of reducing future generations of titans to that.
Why are there nine titans?
Summary:
Ymir was the original titan, and there’s a chance she possessed all of the known titans’ powers.
Her three daughters shared Ymir’s power among themselves.
Since each next generation of titans became weaker, people decided to stop at nine of them.
Founder Ymir is one of the most mysterious Attack on Titan (Shingeki no Kyojin) characters. The final season of the anime gives us some perspective on her past and the origins of the titan power, but there are still so many things left unsaid. And one of them is how one Titan shifter turned into nine of them over time.
Ymir is the Founding Titan
Ymir was the first one to possess the power of titans. While running from her torturers, she stumbles across a tree that gifted her the power. King Fritz used Ymir and her ability as his weapon during wars, and impregnated her later to give him three daughters. Upon her death, the king forced his daughters to eat Ymir’s body to preserve the Titan curse, and thus began the process of inheriting the powers. But how exactly did it work?
The series has nine titans: Founding, Armored, Attack, Beast, Cart, Colossus, Female, Jaw and War Hammer. Ymir was originally the Founding Titan and since she was the only one, there comes a question: could she possess all of the titans’ powers? Was she capable of controlling hardening and creating armor like the Armored Titan? Could she see the memories of future owners, like the Attack Titan? Did she have immense stamina like the Cart Titan, and could transform as many times as needed? There are a lot of various peculiarities to each of the titans, so did the Founding Titan have all of them? Or were they created with each new titan?
The titan abilities have undergone changes
Since all nine titans are derived from the Founding one, the most likely prediction is that Ymir did possess all of these abilities. Her titan was the strongest one, and its powers were divided between the nine shifters later. That’s why she was so unstoppable, and the king saw so much potential in using her as his weapon.
Another question is the number of titans. Why nine? And could there be others? It all started with just Ymir, and then her three daughters inherited the powers. If they had continued to pass it down to all of their kids, there would have been hundreds of Titan shifters. So what happened?
One of the ideas is that with each passing Titan shifters became weaker. Ymir’s titan was the most powerful one, and when her power was divided between her daughters, they were given only a third of it. By that logic, after a few more generations there would have been dozens of titans that possessed only a sliver of the original power. So they decided to stop at nine to avoid producing weaker titans.
Moreover, some fans suggest that seeing the Cart and the Beast Titans had something to do with it. They were anomalies, and people didn’t want to take the risk of reducing future generations of titans to that.
