This writing contains spoilers, but I bet whoever stumbles upon this has already watched or read AoT. Anw, this is a mere shitpost.
Attack on Titan (進撃の巨人 Shingeki no Kyojin) is a remarkable Japanese dark fantasy animated series (2013–2023) based on a manga of the same title, written and illustrated by Hajime Isayama. The manga was serialized monthly in Kodansha’s Bessatsu Shonen Magazine from September 2009 until April 2021 with its completion of 139 chapters. The anime has finished as well.
The problem that ensued from his mother’s death led Eren to accentuate his hatred towards Titans. Unexpectedly, he himself turned into a Titan. The power of titans had been existed for 2000 years. It had been inherited generationally through the Eldian people after the death of Ymir Fritz until the death of Eren Yeager.
Two thousand years before the main story began, Eldia’s ancestor Ymir Fritz obtained the power of the Titans. She entered a mysterious tree, fell into it, and drowned in what is suspected to be the source of the Titans’ power. After her death, her daughters Maria, Rose, and Sina were forced by King Fritz to consume their mother’s corpse. The king believed that if they consumed their mother’s corpse, the titan powers would continue to exist. Subsequently, after Ymir’s death, her powers were divided into separate parts. Leading to the emergence of the Nine Titans.
Out of boredom while scrolling through my X timeline, I came across a journal that discussed cannibalism. After meticulously perusing the journal, I concluded that this world is totally insane. Even before we were born and even after we were born, there are just some events that blow my mind. Humans have a lot of wacky beliefs, and honestly, I’m not really surprised. It’s just that if we perceive something as bizarre, there are people out there who don’t think the same.
King Fritz forced his daughters to consume his wife’s corpse in an attempt to gain her powers. Long time ago, (according to the source) some people practiced it as a cultural tradition. However, cannibalism is now viewed as an aberrant and repugnant behavior. In some aspects, cannibalism was believed to have the power to transform the individual. For example, the Aztecs believed that if they ingested a human who had become a god through sacrifice, they too would become divine for a short time. According to Lestringant, a tribe named Tupinamba had a ceremony involving the sacrifice of a boy. On the day of the event, the boy was killed and immediately afterward, people approached the corpse. People touching it with either their bare hands or sticks. The pivotal part of the ceremony and how it concluded was the ingestion of the boy’s flesh. Each household took a portion home and made a broth that even infants could eat. This ceremony was believed to have the power to make a person more powerful. Through killing and consuming human flesh, the consumer was believed to attain a new identity.
When a human intends to transform into a Titan, they eat a human who possesses Titan powers so that the powers can be inherited. A human who turns into a Titan gains new powers as well as a new identity. This new identity brings them into a new world, the cursed one.
The powers of the Titan actually existed thousands of years before the characters were born yet their lives are still heavily influenced by their ancestors, not only by the terror of the Titans, but also by the massive hatred they got just because they are an Eldian. For thousands of years, the Eldian people have continued to live in the same way: consuming humans who possess Titan powers so that the powers can be continually used and the Titans can rule the world forever. Imagine the cursed world they must live in because of the greed of ancestors whose existence they don’t even know.
The practice of cannibalism has a tight connection to Attack on Titan. It actually blows my mind when the first time I knew the background of a titan especially Eren. It had me flabbergasted. He… really ate his father… this is completely fucked lol. Been wondering how did Isayama-sensei come up with that idea.
