Hajime Isayama's Attack on Titan is one of the best-selling manga series in history, with over 140 million copies sold to date. Fortunately, the anime adaptation of the manga series enjoys the same popularity for its dystopian future and profound character arcs. Eren Yeager is the main protagonist of Attack on Titan and perhaps the series' most complex character. His character growth and the shift from an eager young man to an anti-hero who shapes the future are outstanding, albeit devastating for the world.

Eren's childhood trauma, combined with what he faces in the field against the Titans, plays an undeniable role in his resilient personality. The events of Attack on Titan's final season show Eren Yeager is in possession of three Titans. He gained the Founding and Attack Titans from his father, while he came in possession of the War Hammer Titan after consuming Lara Tybur. Each Titan has its own abilities, especially the Founding Titan, who is practically a god-like figure in Isayama's dark fantasy world.

Updated on February 7, 2024, by Ajay Aravind: Attack on Titan isn't for the faint of heart. The sheer violence engendered by Eren after he activated the Rumbling is an apocalyptic nightmare. That said, the world would have probably been a safer place had it not been for the Founding Titan. As such, we've updated this article with some more relevant information.

Who Was The First Founding Titan?

Ymir Became The First Founding Titan By Accident

The history of the Founding Titans is filled with blood and political backstabbing and dates back as far as two thousand years. It all started with Ymir Fritz, a slave fleeing the atrocities of the Eldians. In her attempt to escape from being hunted down like an animal as punishment, she comes across a strange tree with an opening. Trying to hide, she fell into an underground water cave and came across an unknown alien-like creature with a spine. Ymir bonded with the creature and transformed into the first Titan.

Ymir came out of the tree bestowed with incredible abilities, and that's when King Fritz developed the plan to exploit her powers by marrying her. She bore three children for the king, and the true power of the Founding Titan was passed down to the Fritz dynasty. According to lore, even when Ymir died, the power of the Titans lived on through the Nine Titans as they are essentially fragments of her soul. She can pass down those fragments by her will, but she is the only true Titan who can wield all powers. However, after her death, the Nine Titans used their powers to conquer the kingdom known as Marley.

As time went by, the Marleyans fought back, seized seven of the nine Titans, and drove most of the Eldians out. The 145th King, Karl Fritz, who was heartbroken by the misdeeds of his people, sent numerous Eldians to Paradis Island and built solid walls around it. Karl Fritz later conspired with the Tybur family to incite the Great Titan War. Only the Tybur and the Reiss family remained as the last Eldian households with their Titans. In the year 845, Grisha Yeager took Frieda Reiss's Founding Titan and, thus, began the story of Eren Yeager.

How Did Eren Get The Founding Titan?

He Ate His Father Grisha, Who Had Acquired The Founding Titan From Frieda Reiss

Eren Yeager always had a strong sense of purpose, and that was even before he turned into a Titan. The was always left with burning questions about why Eren was chosen and what made him special. Eren inherited his Titan power from his father, but more specifically, he transformed into a Pure Titan because his father injected him with a Titan Serum. However, not just anyone can inject themselves with the serum and use the Titan's powers.

This privilege is only bestowed upon the descendants of Ymir, and the Yeagers were one of Ymir's subjects. When Eren was injected with the serum, he became a Pure Titan – a creature that needs to consume another human being to obtain the Titan's power. Eren ate his father Grisha and became the most powerful Titan in the world by consuming the abilities of both the Attack and Founding Titans.

What Does Does Eren's Founding Titan Look Like?

A Monstrous Creature With A Bizarre Skeletal Body

Eren's Titan form is the most ferocious and powerful of all, and that's thanks to him gaining full access after he convinces the soul of Ymir Fritz to give him power. Eren's Founding Titan has a physically different appearance than the rest, and it's by far one of the largest Titans in the series. The viewers also noticed that Eren's Titan has a strange skeletal body – more like a monstrous spine, and there's a reason why it's like that. When Eren gained the Founding Titan, he had already been decapitated, and through self-preservation, the Founding Titan connected Eren's head back via the spine.

However, since the head was far away from the body, the spine started to grow uncontrollably during the connection – resulting in a Titan form that had a large spine-like structure and looked more like a monster than a humanoid. Most Titans' bodies are a manifestation of their human counterparts. But in Eren's case, the spine played the basis for the transformation because of the severed head, making Eren's Founding Titan more like a collection of bones with a spinal cage.

Eren's Founding Titan's Powers, Explained

The Founding Titan possesses several destructive abilities demonstrated by each possessor according to their will. But for Eren, the scale of his powers surpasses any of his predecessors as he holds three Titans within his body.

Titan Control

Before Eren, King Karl used this ability to control an army of 50-meter Colossal Titans to build the three walls surrounding Paradis. He commanded them to harden their bodies and enclose the remaining Eldians within the structures. Eren used Titan Control to influence all the Titans for his fight against Dina Fritz. That said, he doesn't use this power very often. By the end of the story, Eren commanded the Colossal Titans to emerge from the walls and begin marching around the world.

Telepathic Communication

The Founding Titan has the ability to telepathically connect with all the Subjects of Ymir, wherever they may be. The Founding Titan does that through the connection of the Paths, a series of mysterious channels that only the Eldians can access. In fact, the Founding Titan can talk to every Eldian in every corner of the world and even experience everything they're going through. Eren already showcased this ability when he announced his plans to every Titan and Eldian in the world for the upcoming Rumbling.

Titan Creation

This uncanny ability enables the Founding Titan to turn any Eldian into a Titan, and it doesn't even require its spinal fluid for the process. King Karl demonstrated this ability when he created an army of Colossus Titans and turned them into a gigantic wall. Even though Eren specifically didn't "create" any Titans, he used the Founding Titan's powers to release the Wall Titans for his plan. He then created a Titan body of his own that's unfathomably large, exponentially bigger than the Colossus Titan.

Anatomical Manipulation

An Eldian King used this ability 600 years ago to make the Subjects of Ymir immune to an epidemic. The Founding Titan can manipulate the body composition of any Subject of Ymir, just like how Zeke wanted to strip the Eldians of the ability to give birth. It was part of his grand scheme of freeing any future Eldian from the curse of the bloodline. If this plan had succeeded, then the world would have lost every Eldian after a few decades. To most people, this sounds like a better alternative than allowing 80% of the world's population to die in horrific ways.

Clayvoirance

Clairvoyance is the Founding Titan's ability to access time — past, present, and future all at the same time. Eren uses this ability to talk to Armin in the realm of the Paths. He admits to him that he used this ability to influence Dina Fritz's Pure Titan, but it indirectly caused his mother's death. This confirms the limitation of this ability, as it only allows the user to manipulate past events in order to preserve history, not change it. As a result, the user has no choice but to go along with the events that they've witnessed, even if they don't want them to happen.

The Rumbling

The Rumbling is actually not an ability, but an indication of the end of days. King Karl spread the rumor when he enclosed his people on Paradis Island that if anyone disturbs their peace, he'll unleash the wrath of the Titans. Ironically, in the final episodes of Attack on Titan, Eren indeed unleashed the Rumbling by freeing the Colossus Titans from the walls of the island. Traumatized and eventually angered by the atrocities caused by the Marley, Eren set out to do the unspeakable and with a Titan form like no other. He wanted to destroy the world and anyone in pursuit of hurting the Eldians, and would have fulfilled his macabre mission if not for his friends. The final part of Attack on Titan Season 4 aired in November 2023, concluding the worldwide phenomenon of Hajime's dark saga.