[Attack on Titan] Why Do Titans Eat Humans? The Link Between Humanity's Dark History and "Attack" Through Rituals of Cannibalism and Succession.

Hi everyone, this is Osamu. Today, I want to dig deep into the biggest and most physiologically repulsive mystery in Attack on Titan: "Predation"—analyzing it from historical and occult perspectives. Why do Titans eat humans? It’s not for nutrition, as they lack digestive organs. They simply kill, and when their stomachs are full, they vomit it back up. This "meaningless slaughter" was the greatest terror planted in us at the beginning of the series. However, the truth revealed as the story progressed was sadder and far more rooted in sorcery.

1. The Innocent Nightmare: "I Want to Be Human Again" The reason Pure Titans eat humans is driven by an all-too-desperate instinct: "If I eat a successor of an Intelligent Titan, I can turn back into a human." They wander through an endless nightmare, unconsciously putting humans into their mouths in search of "salvation." This is very close to the ancient concept of a "curse." In a document I read previously called Nabonidus and the Curse of the Moon God, there was a description of a Babylonian king who, cursed by a god, was transformed to crawl in the wild "like a beast" and eat grass. The fear of being stripped of human reason and roaming as a beast is a primal fear humanity has held since ancient times. The true identity of the Titans was exactly this: our "cursed brethren."

2. Cannibalism and the "Succession of Power" The other aspect is the succession of the "Nine Titans." The ritual of ingesting spinal fluid—in other words, "eating the predecessor"—to inherit their power. To us in the modern day, "cannibalism" is the ultimate taboo. However, from the perspective of cultural anthropology and mythology, it is also a symbol of "love," "respect," and "eternity."

• Omophagia (Eating Raw Flesh): In ancient Greek Dionysian cults, there were rituals of eating the beast (seen as an incarnation of God) raw to assimilate its life force and divinity into one's own body.

• Funerary Cannibalism (Endocannibalism): In the past, some tribes ate their deceased relatives to allow their souls to continue living within their own bodies.

The succession system that Eren and the others bear is based on this most primitive magical thinking in human history: "Taking power into the body = Eating."

3. The Tragedy of Maria, Rose, and Sina At the core of the story, when the Founder Ymir died, the First King Fritz gave an order to his daughters (Maria, Rose, and Sina): "Eat Ymir." This was the beginning of all the tragedies. What lies here is not just cruelty. It is the King's obsession with "never letting the Titan's power die out," and the human karma of wanting to perpetuate domination. Looking back at history, it is not rare in ancient Chinese or Middle Eastern folklore to find accounts where the flesh or blood of those with special powers was treated as "medicine" or a "source of immortality" (a darkness that also connects to lore found in the Dictionary of Fantastic Places).

Summary: The "Connection" Behind the Cruelty The predation depicted in Attack on Titan is not merely a grotesque performance. It can be said to be a magically deformed representation of an absolute rule of the biological world: "Next life and power can only exist upon someone else's sacrifice." To "eat" is to "inherit." Eren's figure, continuing to move forward while bearing that karma, might be thrusting an inescapable "history of blood" right before our eyes.

This was Osamu.