spoiler warning for attack on titan eren
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[Music]
hello Internet
welcome to film theory the only show to
recognize that the best way to stop a
skyscraper tall Titan isn't building a
stronger wall it's lining the outside of
the city with Legos look at those bare
feet like was gonna be more effective
than a bike pant anyway as you can tell
today I'm taking another look at
everyone's favorite action horror anime
attack on Titan now if you're unfamiliar
check out the last video that we did
about it or quite frankly just watch the
series if you're new to anime and
overwhelmed by which shows you should be
aware of this is definitely one of them
it's one of those franchises that'll
just remain a must watch anime for years
to come
kinda like Death Note and Full Metal
Alchemist anyway to give you the three
sentence rundown for a hundred years all
of humanity has been living in fear
locked in cities protected by towering
stone walls designed to keep out the
man-eating Giants known as Titans one
boy named Eren Yeager becomes a soldier
and years later discovers that he has
the ability to turn into a Titan at will
with Aaron's new power humanity finally
has a fighting chance against their
ancient enemy but reclaiming the world
will still be enough he'll battle
especially when you consider that Eren
tends to get kidnapped more often than
Princess Peach now it'll come as no
surprise that the biggest reason I love
watching attack is that it's packed to
bursting with unsolved mysteries mystery
is like what the heck was in Aaron's
basement why the heck would the colossal
Titan knock down the wall in the first
place and how long will this
newly-introduced character last before
oh wait never mind they just died but
there's been one question that's been
hanging over the series since the very
beginning one that is the single biggest
driving mystery of the entire plot what
exactly are the Titans where did they
come from now I see you running down to
the comments to shout Titans are people
and yeah I am very well aware that at
the core of every Titan there's a human
nervous system piloting it it's like
some kind of horrifying zombie flesh man
but that doesn't tell us what they're
made out of what their origin is because
well the human body can do some amazing
things one thing I'm pretty sure it
can't do is suddenly grow to 20 times
its size at least not on its own the
laws of physics are pretty clear about
that one you can't just create matter
from nothing so in Aaron and the other
humans
form into titans all of that instant
Titan has to come from somewhere
something has got to be making that
happen and by analyzing the physical
characteristics of the Titans we can
figure out exactly what it is solving
the show single biggest mystery before
it's ever revealed now the most
obviously unusual trait for the Titan is
of course they're freaky bases so right
after that the thing that stands out
most about them is their size excluding
abnormal Titans like the colossal Titan
and the beast Titan from season 2 Titans
range in height from 4 meters to a
whopping 15 meters tall or about 13 to
50 feet that is pretty darn enormous how
big did you get 21 feet 65 stop bragging
about yourself ant-man we heard you the
first time or at least those of you who
watched my recent theory about ant-man
and wasp erdan and if you did you'll
remember that due to the square-cube law
increasing a human body's size by that
scale dramatically changes the ratio
between its weight and effective
strength making it much harder for the
body to move and support itself that's
why at 60 feet tall Scott Lang's
movements have to be so much slower and
were careful his body is supporting much
more weight than it's designed to and
since Titans have bone structures that
are very similar to humans you would
expect them to be a lot slower than the
humans fighting them but that's not
actually the case in the anime we
frequently see Titans running towards
their human prey and picking them up
with the precision and agility of a
regular-sized human even at a full 15
meters tall Aaron's Titan form is
capable of breaking into a sprint and
using hand-to-hand combat techniques
made for a human a tenth of his size the
reason for this is explained in episode
15 by Hans OA the show's resident Titan
expert and apparently digi destined with
those goggles are any indication I'd
kicked the severed head of a three meter
Titan out of spite
it weighed next to nothing contrary to
the appearance of density and great mass
the severed limbs were the lightest
tree-bark despite gaining a lot of
volume when they transform Titans don't
gain an equivalent amount of mass
they're lighter than they should be
which both explains how they can move so
quickly and points towards an
interesting conclusion when Titans
transform
matter is being added to their bodies
but what's there is also expanding like
a balloon or a loaf of bread rising in
the oven that's the only way they could
be increasing in size without also
increasing proportionally in weight and
as strange as it sounds the bread
comparison might not be that far off the
thing that causes bread to rise is yeast
a single-celled fungus that to put it
very simply eats sugar eating sugar no
papa telling lies
and then poops out alcohol and carbon
dioxide through a process called
fermentation this trait makes these
invaluable in the production of beer and
wine and has made it a vital component
in baking for thousands of years the
gases created by yeast create pockets of
air inside a bread dough that causes it
to rise and gives the final baked good a
light fluffy texture or at least that's
what I've learned from binging five
seasons worth of the Great British
baking show and yeast is also what's
caused the Titan epidemic in the anime
your that right the true villain and
attack on Titan is a bread leavening
agent bread is tightens and tightens our
people so oh god we need to stop Sasha
before she kills again
if you think that theory sounds like a
stretch well good because that's how you
activate yeast but seriously the yeast
theory accounts for some oddly specific
parts of the physiology of Titan's
firstly Titans are hot and now I'm not
talking about the female Titans exposed
muscle look that leaves almost nothing
to the imagination your minds out of the
gutter I mean that the Titan bodies give
off an insane amount of heat and the
bigger they are the hotter they tend to
be while regular Titans are hot to the
touch the colossal Titan can cook anyone
trying to attack him with a burst of hot
steam and the massive Titan that rod
just transformed into an anime is so hot
that trees burst into flame just from
being near him now look at East has East
ferments it gives off heat it's an
exothermic reaction if the fermentation
process speeds up or more alcohol is
being produced that temperature rises
bigger sizes faster growth more heat
with bigger Titans the fermentation
would be happening at such great volumes
and speeds that the resulting heat would
cook the air around them we can see
clear evidence of this whenever a Titan
is wounded or dies as their skin breaks
down and decomposes massive amounts of
gas are released all at once sometimes
with enough force to blow away the
soldiers trying to fight them this gas
would be the co2 that's being produced
by the yeast and that's keeping the
Titan bodies inflated and then there's
the way that Titans take in energy
despite having a hankering for human
flesh that rivals my own cravings for
diet coke Titans don't actually need to
eat humans for sustenance and even
consider this they were able to keep
moving around outside the walls for a
hundred years but only a few unlucky
survey Corps members to snack on nope
their fuel isn't humans the only thing
that Titans actually need to keep their
insanely huge bodies moving is sunlight
in episode 15 [ __ ] proves this by
covering our two captive Titans at sunny
and being with tarps causing them to
stop moving entirely in just a matter of
hours and the Titans discovered inside
the walls after Aaron and Annie's
wrestling match at the end of season 1
are also shown to be completely a mobile
due to a lack of sunlight you know what
else draws energy from sunlight yeast
when exposed to ultraviolet radiation
from the Sun or other sources yeast
becomes more active growing reproduce
and fermenting at a faster rate than
normal if that fermentation is truly the
source of the Titans energy that would
explain why cutting them off of sunlight
causes them to slow down and eventually
stop moving so ladies and gentlemen what
we have here is a classic case of yeast
infection okay so maybe not your classic
yeast infection and we're obviously not
just talking about normal yeast
I mean fat pet here eats a lot of bread
and not once has it inspired a global
crisis just a waistline crisis which
merits the question is yeast just an
inspiration for tighten behavior or is
it truly the cause of what we're seeing
in the anime is there any sort of
evidence that the attack on Titan
universe would have some sort of special
yeast that could produce these sorts of
effects yes yes there is it's subtle
certainly subtle enough that most
viewers would probably overlook it but
it is absolutely there in the publicly
available information bonus sections
from the manga which are then repurposed
as commercial break I caches for the
anime there's an entire page dedicated
to a unique type of yeast produced
behind wall Sina reading both anime and
manga descriptions of it we learned that
this special yeast doesn't come as a
powder it looks like a lump of fermented
soybeans the size of a human head what's
more storing it with wheat soybeans or
cured meat slows down the decomposition
process transforming the food by some
means not yet explained by science this
preservation ability provided through
the yeast allows for supplies to be
stockpiled for future use by forces
fighting to take back the walls and well
that might not seem suspicious at first
every other one of these pages is either
directly relevant to the current
storyline or provides vital world
building details covering topics like
characters battle gear details about the
walls the history of Titan attacks etc
and only 14 of these sorts of pages are
included in the original manga
these aren't throwaway details each and
every one of these pages is something
that the mangas writers felt that you
needed to know so it's strange at the
very least to think that we need to know
this weird little detail about fantasy
world food preservation unless it isn't
really about the food preservation and
you know there's one other place in the
attack on Titan universe where we see
that kind of unnatural preservation
ability in the bodies of the Titans
themselves when we find out Amir's
backstory in episode 35 we see her
turned into a Titan as punishment for
leading a cult and being forced to spend
decades out in the wilderness eventually
she gets completely buried in the dirt
before Burt old Annie and Reiner stumble
up on top of her but when she transforms
back into a human she somehow hasn't
aged a day something within her Titan
body preserved her perfectly for all of
those years in general there's something
preventing the bodies and minds of the
human hosts from aging or decaying for
years inside they're transformed States
and the only thing we know with that
property which also conveniently would
explain the Titans light way to gas eNOS
and their solar-powered physiology is
wall Cena's miraculous giant-sized yeast
so the next time you're baking bread
just make sure you eat it before it eats
you but hey that's just a theory
a film theory and cut