The world of Attack On Titan has intrigued many fans with its characters and the mysteries behind the origins of these humungous creatures. If anyone has read the manga, the plot twists are what drove the story to its core and changed the way we viewed certain characters and their world.
Creator Hajime Isayama has set readers up with clues before the big reveal comes out. Sometimes readers don’t see it until the very end, making these big jaws dropping moments grabbed our attention. We break down some of the biggest twists we’ve seen in the manga so far.
10 Eren Is Actually A Titan
One of the first major twists in the manga was after we see Eren get eaten by a Titan, which was a twist in itself. However, we see Eren transform into a Titan himself, something that was unheard of in the world of Attack on Titan.
We didn’t know whether humans can control or be one of these creatures, but, after the big reveal from Eren, it opened a whole new world of possibilities. We were offered a clue where Eren had a flashback of his father Grisha injecting him with something, which could somehow explain Eren being able to turn into a Titan himself.
9 Annie Turns Out To Be a Female Titan
Readers found this twist to be something they saw coming before the chapter revealed Annie’s true form. If you’ve seen her as a female Titan, you would’ve barely recognized her face since she was frequently hidden or murky. It was only when she was being chased in the forest was when we saw Annie for who she truly was.
She went from comrade to enemy after her transformation, betraying everyone around her. She was mostly a lone wolf who kept to herself, but it was Armin who kept his suspicions of her until it was too late, as everyone discovered that she was leading an attack with Titans going after Eren.
8 The Titans Are In The Walls
This twist was a game-changer to the whole series. The origin of the Titans has been shrouded in mystery. The walls have been meant to keep the Titans from attacking humans, but we never knew how these walls came to be either. We get a glimpse of one of these colossal Titans within the walls when Annie tries to climb the wall as a Titan, but she ends up damaging it to reveal the face of a mysterious Titan inside a huge chunk of the wall.
We get a back-story of how the First King used the power of the Founding Titan to form the three walls that have protected humanity. So, eventually, we know that the very creatures that are attacking humans just happen to be the ones protecting it as well.
7 Reiner and Bert Are Titans
This big reveal caught everyone off guard despite how informal it was. There were so many clues that led to this like the dialogue between them and how Reiner and Bert were placed in the story. If you look back before chapter 42, there was a ton of clues that gave away the fact that these two were Armored and Colossal Titans respectfully.
If you go deep into their backstory, you find out that they worked with Marley to obtain the Founding Titan. They along with Annie breached the Wall in order to find one of the nine original Titans. Both of these men were strong-willed yet isolated from everyone, mainly being focused on becoming the best warrior they can be.
6 The Basement
This was a huge revelation for the series as fans finally get to see what Eren’s father has been hiding in the basement of their family home. Everyone had theories of what was buried in this house. The basement unveiled the truth about the world outside the walls, which turned out to be absolutely fine. It functions just like our society, with it being more advanced than the walls.
We were offered clues that teased that this is what the basement has hidden. We see some of the warriors drinking some hot liquid substance, which turned out to be coffee. It’s normal stuff that is unknown to the walls. We also heard some baseball references from Zeke, and even Grisha’s medical knowledge gave it away. Despite these small clues, they were enough to realize that there was a civilization beyond the walls that were living normal lives with advanced weaponry.
5 The Eldians
The story of the Titans started out with these people. Only a certain group of people had the ability to turn into Titans, and that was all due to one woman over 1800 years ago named Ymir Fritz. She was among the first to obtain the power of the Titans before her bloodline was spread into the majority.
Kenny’s grandfather revealed in a flashback that not everyone was infected by the Founding Titan, only a select few were. The Eldians are actually the minority that has this ability. Living in the nation of Eldia, they are the Subjects of Ymir.
4 The Identity of War Hammer
The War Hammer Titan was one of the Nine Titans with the power to create huge structures using hardened Titan flesh. This revelation has been kept a secret for years prior to the series. The identity of the famed Titan was revealed during the Marley Arc when it turned out to be the younger sister of Willy.
She was only shown as a background character living as an Eldian noble in Marley. In her Titan form, she’s just as tall as Eren’s Titan. She has inherited the power of the War Hammer Titan as her predecessors passed it down. She later shared this with Willy, who was as shocked as many of the readers when this secret was finally out.
3 Yelana Revealed As Rope Kun
One of the surprise characters we got in the Marley Arc was Yelana, the leader of the Anti-Marleyan Volunteers who worked with Eren’s half-brother Zeke. She was sent by forces on Paradis Island to get him in order to understand his powers. By using a fake disguise, she pretends to be a Marleyan soldier in order to trap Pieck and Galliard.
We don’t get to see who was under the disguise until after the trap was laid. So, many theories went into who this person actually was, with people guessing it was Connie. There were clues leading to him being the identity, but it was a complete misdirection from the writers to reveal that it was a secondary character this whole time.
2 Eren Can See Into The Future
For the final arc, we were let into a big game-changer as we close in on the final chapters of the story. In chapter 121, we see Eren telling Zeke that he’s a double agent. This caused both men to fight against one another as they continued to search for anything that linked to their late father’s memories.
Within these memories, they find out from Grisha that an Attack Titan has the power to see into the memories of its future successors. To put it simply, it can look into the future. This was a revelation that fans didn’t see coming. After Eren betrayed the Survey Corps, it confused a lot of readers wanting to know why he went rogue. Now everyone wants to know what Eren saw in the future that prompted him to betray his team.
1 Future Eren Has Been Orchestrating Events In The Past
This was the mother of all plot twists that have been dropped on the manga. We see Grisha going crazy before his death in Paradis, and it seems like he’s only following the orders of Future Eren. He finally makes his appearance as we make a time jump and see Grisha killing Frieda Reiss.
Fans got to see this moment unfold in the pages as Grisha leaves with blood all over him. That’s when Grisha tells the Future Eren that he has killed the Reiss family leaving the father alive in the aftermath. So, this further proves that Eren has been orchestrating past events from the future. By having the oldest Reiss alive, Eren was able to bump into Rodd during the Uprising Arc and gaining the ability to see into the future.
This has left fans devastated with the idea that Eren has been looking into the future for years. It makes us curious to see how this will all end for Zeke and the nation of Marley.