THEORY ON REINER, BERTHOLDT, AND ANNIE’S TRUE OBJECTIVES







WARNING- THIS THEORY CONTAINS HEAVY SPOILERS

DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU ARE FULLY CAUGHT UP ON THE MANGA UP UNTIL CHAPTER 75

We know the short story of Reiner, Bertholdt, and Annie’s true objective: to obtain the coordinate and kill all humans within the walls, although it seems that they no longer want or need to do the latter.

Reiner, Bertholdt, and Annie all seem very morally ambiguous: they kill many people, but they have shown great care for people as well. The only logical conclusion would be that they have a much more noble goal in mind (at least they think they do), but they can’t tell people within the walls for some reason. Not only that, but Grisha Jaeger, who we know is a very nice and caring man, chose not to tell anyone about whatever he had in his basement: the people who know the truth about this world choose not to tell others, and for a good reason, NOT because they are evil. Supported by that along with plenty of evidence and logic, my theory, summed up, is that Reiner, Bertholdt, Annie, and the Warriors’ true intention is to turn all titans back into humans.

I will elaborate on why they can’t tell the people living in the walls this, but keep in mind that this goal makes a lot of sense; it would be worthing kill off a portion, or even everyone inside the walls if all titans could turn back into humans and humanity could regain control of the world. But let’s start from the beginning with everything we know: we know that their part of their plan was to kill all of humanity inside the walls, but that is no longer necessary:

However, their true objective is much more noble than what it may seem.

First off, we know that these “Warriors” seem rather desperate for the Coordinate, as they are willing to kill their own comrades and many other people to get to it. Even the Beast Titan seems to think that obtaining it should come before all else.

Off of this fact, we are going to assume that the Coordinate’s powers are even more powerful than the Beast Titan’s powers- after all, why would the Beast Titan and the other Warriors be so desperate to get the Coordinate if nobody is using it and they already have something more powerful?

And just what are the Beast Titan’s powers exactly?(we’re assuming that the Coordinate has at least all the same powers as the Beast Titan, and likely more)

We know that he

can turn humans into titans, as shown by the Ragako village incident

and can also command other titans to do as he wants.

However, he also has an ability which we have not directly seen, but can be deduced by using logic. Given everything we have seen so far, it is clear that the Beast Titan can not only turn humans into titans, but titans back into humans as well. And in order to deduce this, we have to look at the most recent story arc: the battle of Shiganshina. Here, we can see that he gathered an army of non-shifter titans.

As we can see in the first picture, there is a line of explosions right where the titans appear.

From what we’ve seen all throughout the story, it is rather obvious that those explosions were humans transforming into titans.

These titans look rather deformed and show no real signs of being shifters. From this we can deduce that these were humans that the Beast Titan transformed into titans, similar to what he did with Ragako village.

Now the question becomes, where did Zeke(Beast Titan) get all these humans? Did they come along willingly? Were they forced? Are they Warriors, or from the same village as them?

To answer these questions, we have to look at how they were arranged in the formation, and when they got into formation.

The titans are clearly arranged by size, alternating inbetween small ones and large ones:

this means that either the Beast Titan knew what their titan forms were ahead of time, or that they knew what their forms were ahead of time and told him.

As previously concluded, it is highly unlikely that they are shifters, so they most likely did not know what their titan forms looked like ahead of time, as they would have no way of knowing.

It is also possible that the Beast Titan intentionally turned some humans into large titans and others into small ones, but there does not appear to really be a reason why he would turn humans into 3 meter titans as opposed to 15 meter titans, so we can rule that possibility out.

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This means that the Beast Titan somehow knew what their titan forms would look like ahead of time, and not the humans themselves. And since they aren’t shifters, the only plausible reason of why he would know what their titan forms are beforehand is that all these humans were previously normal, mindless titans.

The Beast Titan has clearly transformed the titans in the surrounding area into humans, and then back into titans once the battle started.

This explains why the Survey Corps couldn't’ find single titan in the area once they reached Shiganshina:

There is also more evidence to support the idea that they were previously normal titans in the area, but were transformed into humans and then back into titans, but it is a whole separate theory on its own, but what it comes down to is that a titan who has been a titan for a long period of time, but then becomes a human, will have a titan form of their original, deformed titan; like Ymir, while Eren’s very first titan form (when he hate his father) and his new titan form are completely different, like how his new form is muscular and well formed. You can look at the same thing with other shifters, and there is more evidence to support it, but I will not get too off track into it. The point is, it makes sense that these titans were titans for a long period of time, were turned into humans, and then turned back into titans.

Even without that side-theory though, it is still rather clear that these humans were originally titans in the surrounding area.

And if that’s true, then that means that the Beast Titan can transform titans into humans. And with what we previously concluded- that the Coordinate’s powers are even stronger than the Beast Titan’s powers-

then that means the Coordinate can turn titans back into humans as well.

This is the reason why Reiner, Bertholdt, Annie, and Zeke are so desperate for the coordinate: they want to turn all titans back into humans.

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But if the Beast Titan can already turn Titans into humans, then why doesn’t he just do that already?

To answer this question, we have to look at the behavior of the humans that the Beast Titan turned back, as well as the powers of the Coordinate.

The humans that the Beast Titan transformed from titans:

But if we look at the timing of the formation, we can see that they got ready at least…

5 minutes ahead of time- according to the ingenious Commander Erwin Smith.

But then we see that those humans were not in formation at all, and are nowhere to be seen:

There are no humans or titans in the background where they would be in at least 5 minutes. It could easily be more than 5 minutes, but not much more, as the Survey Corps was approaching swiftly. For the sake of convenience, we will say 10 minutes.

But if those humans were able to get into such an organized formation within just 10 minutes, they either must have been trained ahead of time, or were controlled by Zeke.

But how long were those humans waiting there? Well, we know that the Zeke, Reiner, and Bertholdt were waiting for at least a month before the Survey Corps arrived:

But we don’t know where those humans were hiding- and there were a LOT of them, but we see no indication of where they are: the land appears to be rather open, so they can’t hide outside in plain sight, so they are likely hiding inside of the walls like Reiner did, inside of the houses shown there, or where in the crates/barrels the Quadruplet Titan was carrying like Bertholdt. First off, there is only one barrel with breathing holes, and it was for Bertholdt:

So it is unlikely they were in there; they all probably couldn’t fit in there anyways. As for the walls and the houses: they could all fit within either of those places likely without having any problems, but could that many people all just stay inside of concentric walls for a month without any problem? As long as their minds are functioning properly or they are conscience, probably not. And if they were in the houses, then isn’t it odd that none of them are outside doing anything? It wouldn’t be if they were not conscience or were not thinking properly.

Therefore, wherever they were, the humans likely did not have much thought, memory, or were not very conscience.

It is possible that the Beast Titan could have simply summoned the titans last minute, turn them into humans, and then back into titans again, but then why would he even turn them into humans in the first place? It is also possible that he could have summoned the titans from nowhere at all, but this is very unlikely, as it does not follow physics, and there were no titans in the surrounding area, so he likely got them from the surrounding area. So if these humans did not possess much thought,then it is likely the case for ALL the humans that the Beast Titan transformed from titans. This means that the Beast Titan can’t turn titans back into normal, thinking, functioning human beings.

This is why he wants the Coordinate; to turn all titans back into normal humans who can think and function correctly.

Not only that, but the Coordinate can alter people’s memories: he likely may also plan on doing something with this.

It is possible that the Beast Titan can control the minds of the humans he transformed from titans- this could be how they got into formation so quickly. However, it is also possible that he could have simply trained them ahead of time and told them to get into formation, so we don’t know for sure if he can do that.

So the Warriors plan on taking the coordinate in order to transform all titans back into humans, and then using the coordinate for something else- perhaps altering humanity’ s memory.

But then why would Reiner, Bertholdt, and Annie refuse to tell the Survey Corps that? It is likely because the Survey Corps would object to having their memories altered, or the Warriors fear that they would misuse the Coordinate in some way. But then why did Reiner, Bertholdt, and Annie originally have to kill all humans within the walls? It is very likely that it was an attempt to get the person with the Coordinate to reveal him/herself; if they broke the walls, then surely the person with the Coordinate would transform to save him/herself and other people, right? And after they found him/her, they could just stop breaking the walls, because according to Bertholdt, they do not at all want to kill all these people. This was their plan; and it worked, too. Reiner, Bertholdt, and Annie broke Wall Maria, but nothing happened- no signs of the shifter possessing the Coordinate. For the next 5 years, they infiltrated the military and tailed Wall Cultists, trying to find information there. But when that failed, they were forced to attack Trost. This time around, it worked- a 15 meter tall, muscular titan went around rampaging, killing other titans with knowledge of their weak spot on the napes of their necks. It seemed possible, or even likely, that this titan was the shifter who possessed the Coordinate. And that turned out to be the case, therefore, there was no need for Reiner to transform into the Armored Titan and break Wall Rose. But this is just a theory, and after all, we are still lacking a huge amount of information, specifically about the Coordinate. In fact,

The Coordinate likely has much more powers than what we think it has- just like the Beast Titan. So the most likely reason of why the Warriors don’t want the Survey Corps to know their objective is that the Survey Corps likely would object to, or disagree with whatever they plan on doing with the Coordinate.

This most certainly does not mean that Reiner, Bertholdt, Annie,and Zeke are evil: they’re trying to free a huge amount of people from being titans, after all, but they also know a lot more about the titans, the walls, and the history of the world compared to the Survey Corps.

But in conclusion, we know that the Beast Titan can turn titans into humans, the Coordinate can turn titans into humans, and that Reiner, Bertholdt, Annie, Zeke, and the rest of the Warriors’ true objective is to turn all titans back into humans. If this is true, then they are certainly not at all evil, but just fighting for the greater good.

However, there is still a large amount that we don’t know about. Keep in mind that this is all a theory, and we don’t know anything for sure for the time being.

This is being written after chapter 79 has been released, but before chapter 80 has been released.

If you mention or use this theory somewhere, please give credit to me, GoodGuyReinerBraun.