Season 3 of Attack on Titan confirmed a long-running fan theory as to why Titans only eat humans -- turning the creatures from evil to tragic.





Ever since it first aired, Attack on Titan has been wowing its audience with its dark, grim world; one in which Titans threaten to devour the entire human population. For many years, fans wondered why the titans needed to eat humans when they didn't even possess any digestive organs. The Titans get all their energy from sunlight, and even more mysteriously, they never attack animals. Humans seem to be the only living things titans go out of their way to attack.





The reason for this curious behavior was finally revealed on Attack on Titan's third season, although hints about it were sprinkled in since the second season. And the truth is not just horrifying, but also surprisingly tragic: they eat humans because they subconsciously hope that one of their victims will possess the power of the Titan shifters -- a power that would allow them to transform back into humans.



The first clue to this was shown when Ymir revealed her true identity. According to Ymir, she was a wandering, mindless Titan for decades until she ate Marcel, a Titan shifter and companion of Reiner, Annie and Bertoldt. After eating Marcel -- led by pure instinct alone -- she soon regained her human form back. Ymir described her memories as a Titan as a "long nightmare." Ever since that revelation, fans have theorized that Titans search for humans following a subconscious wish to regain their human form and, thus, waking up from their painful, dream-like state.





With this new information, Titans become sympathetic and tragic beings, completely unlike the evil impression they gave in the first season of Wit Studio's acclaimed anime when fans weren't aware that Titans used to be normal humans. This theory was fully confirmed on the first part of Season 3 when Rod Reiss transformed into the largest Ttitan seen in the anime so far. The episode after Rod's transformation also gave fans a glimpse into how Titans saw humans, as the camera took on Rod's perspective, and revealed a vision that only saw concentrations of glowing dots in the distance. The enormous turkey-like Titan obsessively moved towards the source of enticing light, like a moth towards a flame, unconscious and unaware of the fact that those lights were actually living, breathing human beings.



