Attack on Titan Mystery

[Sonatah]

So I recently watched Attack on Titan, and loved it. There's certainly a lot of mystery involved all around. Namely...what Are the titans?

Today during a hike, I noticed that in the late evening, ants were really sluggish around their hills. It was then that I realized that their activity is driven by the sun. That made me think about the titans and how they're literally powered by sunlight. I got to wondering about the insects on an evolutionary perspective; they're like machines running on solar power. From their perspective, their anthill is not unlike the human's experience of their walled city in the anime.

Do you suppose there's an intended connection between the titans, humans, and ants?

My mind drifts to something Hangi said to Eren - that the titans they perceive and the titans of actuality may be very different things. I think that this revelation is very important.

[DarkeSword]

Ants aren't machines that run on solar power.

I haven't seen the anime, so I don't know how far it's adapted the manga, but there are revelations about the Titans later on that indicate something more going on than just the idea that they perceive us as ants/insignificant beings.

You're making a lot of weird assumptions and leaps in logic here.

[Sonatah]

Leaps of logic are my speciality. It's what I do. :3 They're really fun at times. Also, they're kind of necessary for perceiving the world in metaphor like I do. I feel it's very possible that the manga creator's intent is for the titans to actually be something else entirely, and the humans only see giant, grotesque versions of themselves. This is a very real psychological phenomenon (mass hallucination?) where everyone agrees they see a certain thing, when in actuality it's something else entirely, even to the extent that they witness the illusion together.

[Meteo Xavier]

Ants aren't machines that run on solar power.

Maybe where you live...

[Sonatah]

Ants aren't machines that run on solar power.

Will you describe your logic?

[The Damned]

Ants are insects. Insects are animals. Animals derive their energy from ingesting food. Animal eats something, they digest it, they get energy from it.

Solar energy is obtained either through photosynthesis, which on this planet, is the sole domain of plants (which animals aren't) or electrical technology, like solar cells, that generate electricity when exposed to light.

So unless you're going to tell us that ants are plants, technology, or both...

[Brandon Strader]

Without the sun ants would die (as would we all) therefore ants are powered by the sun.

[DarkeSword]

Will you describe your logic?

Ants are insects. Insects are animals. Animals derive their energy from ingesting food. Animal eats something, they digest it, they get energy from it.

Solar energy is obtained either through photosynthesis, which on this planet, is the sole domain of plants (which animals aren't) or electrical technology, like solar cells, that generate electricity when exposed to light.

So unless you're going to tell us that ants are plants, technology, or both...

Yeah, basically. Humans also get tired at night; that doesn't mean we're "powered by the sun," it just means that we have circadian rhythms that we're adjusted to which line up with a day-night cycle. Incidentally, we can adjust our circadian rhythms if we want to sleep during the day and do things during the night, and we'd be just fine. Animals aren't "powered by the sun." That's photosynthesis, and like The Damned said, that's what plants do.

Leaps of logic are my speciality. It's what I do. :3 They're really fun at times. Also, they're kind of necessary for perceiving the world in metaphor like I do. I feel it's very possible that the manga creator's intent is for the titans to actually be something else entirely, and the humans only see giant, grotesque versions of themselves. This is a very real psychological phenomenon (mass hallucination?) where everyone agrees they see a certain thing, when in actuality it's something else entirely, even to the extent that they witness the illusion together.

Okay but that's not what's happening in Attack on Titan. There is absolutely nothing in the series that actually suggests that everyone is experiencing mass hallucination. The horror of the Titans is very real and is something that characters throughout the series witness individually. People are actually being eaten, destruction is actually happening. There are more things that happen in the manga that suggest what the Titans actually are, and misconception and mass hallucination don't play into that.

[The Damned]

I haven't seen the anime, so I don't know how far it's adapted the manga

Scene for scene, word for word so far.

Can we apply a spoilers tag to the title? Because if we're going to discuss this show/manga (which is still going, and not everyone has seen all of yet) we're going to start exposing a lot of stuff.

Potential Spoilers:

The one theory that makes the most sense is that the world of Attack on Titan is actually our world, centuries from now, after a massive war. The Titans are actually bio-tech weapons that have since run a mock, and the city is the last refuge of humanity because whatever the war was, humanity lost big time.

We know that the 3D maneuvering system and the swords are remnants from the past, as stated in the story. The knowledge needed to make sturdy, razor sharp blades of quality, but also mass-produced, is a technological hurdle that would require a highly industrialized civilization. The cables for the gear are light, thin, and ridiculously strong for the use of constantly being shot around and pulling a human being at high speeds. The gas-powered system for shooting the cables... hell, the targeting system for the cables, on the swords, is well beyond the abilities of their current technology level.

They mention how there used to be Asians (as in, the people we have in our world) until most of them were lost to Titan attacks (and unfortunately, human trafficking). The majority of the city appears to be mostly European in appearance and naming. It's possible that the location is actually in Europe and any non-European heritage is simply the people that were stuck in that part of the world at the time of the war.

The technology used to create the giant walls of the city would have required massive efforts to engineer and build with just human power and basic engineering like wooden cranes. But with things like modern cranes, heavy-lift helicopters and material engineering, it would be a lot easier and faster. I do recall something about when the Titans first attacked, they "built the city as fast as they could". It took 40 years for the Great Pyramid to be made, and it's a fraction of the size and mass that the city walls would require. It makes sense that the world of Attack on Titan is actually a post-apocalyptic world recovering from massive losses of technology and civilization.

Finally, we have the lack of knowledge of the Titans themselves. It's entirely possible that whatever government or organization that built the city didn't have the time or means to properly archive their information on the Titans. If there was a war, and it was a brutal enough defeat that they had to hide behind walls, it's entirely possible that the people that knew the most about the Titans simply didn't survive long enough to share that info. Combine that with a few centuries of isolation, with a pinch or two of loss of general scientific knowledge, and you get a civilization that has high-tech weapons, but has to use horses for transport and cannons for defense. They simply don't have the means or knowledge anymore to do better.

The only question that is left is... who? Who started the war? Who created the Titans? Who used them?

But as I said, it's just a theory.

[Sonatah]

What of the giant trees? Also, when I speak of ants being machines, I'm speaking entirely metaphorically - in the same way we can say that a transit system is a circulatory system, and freight trucks are red blood cells.

[The Damned]

We certainly don't have giant trees right now, no-sir-ee. Can't imagine what already old giant tress would be like without industrial lumbering would grow like. Maybe into even bigger giant trees? And, like, lots of them, since there's no one to cut them down any more? You know, because of all the people that would harvest them being dead for centuries. Those giant trees might have a long time to grow uninterrupted.

Also, when I speak of ants being machines, I'm speaking entirely metaphorically - in the same way we can say that a transit system is a circulatory system, and freight trucks are red blood cells.

One does not speak of statements, only to claim metaphors afterwards.

Edited July 27, 2014 by The Damned