Attack on Titan: The Founding Titan, Explained
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This article contains major spoilers for Attack on Titan. Alternately known as the ‘Founder’ or the ‘Coordinate,’ the Founding Titan is a near-omnipotent entity in Hajime Isayama’s acclaimed dark fantasy manga Attack on Titan, along with its ongoing anime adaptation. Said to possess powers on par with that of a god, the titan — and its many wielders over the centuries — have essentially moulded the course of history as it plays out in the world they inhabit. As a pivotal part of the plot, the Founder’s abilities are the primary catalyst behind the conflict between the Eldians of Paradis Island and the rest of the world, with many players competing for its coveted power.
In essence, the story of Attack on Titan is that of the Founder’s journey itself, from its first holder, Ymir Fritz, to its last one — the manga’s protagonist Eren Yeager. As the guardian deity of the Eldian race, and the sole being with the knowledge of the true history of the world of Attack on Titan, as well as the conflict between Eldia, Marley, and the remaining nations of the world, the Founding Titan’s power has been a carefully guarded secret passed down millennia along the Fritz and Reiss bloodlines, with its true abilities only accessible to direct descendants of this noble house.
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The First Titan
As the progenitor of all nine titans, the Founder was first held by Ymir Fritz, who was once a persecuted slave serving the tribe of Eldia, ruled by the original King Fritz. Having initially transformed into the Founder after her encounter with the ‘Source of all living matter’ inside a massive tree, while attempting to flee from her captors, Ymir’s newfound power grew to become an invaluable asset for the expansion of the Eldian tribe 2,000 years prior to the start of the story.
After cultivating lands, building infrastructure such as roads and bridges, and trampling the rival forces of Marley, Ymir then became King Fritz’s concubine and bore him three daughters — Maria, Rose, and Sina — whose names would one day christen the walls of the Eldian settlement on Paradis Island. Following her untimely death, 13 years after her first transformation at the hands of a Marleyan soldier, Ymir’s power was passed down to her children and she came to be viewed as the common ancestor of the subset of the Eldian race known as the ‘Subjects of Ymir,’ who are the only ones capable of transforming into titans. Every titan shifter since Ymir has been doomed to meet their end within 13 years of acquiring their powers, in a phenomenon dubbed the ‘Curse of Ymir.’
In her titan form, Ymir’s stature dwarfed all that stood before her, and exerted power that borrowed traits from all of the nine. From the appearance of the Female Titan, to the size of the Colossal Titan, and the claws of the Jaw titan, among other features. In the aftermath of her demise, King Fritz ensured Founder’s power was passed on through the gruesome act of forcing his daughters to consume her corpse. Commanding them to continue this tradition after bearing children of their own, Fritz made certain of the endurance of his bloodline along with the empire of Eldia, consolidating his legacy as well as that of Ymir.
Convergence Of The Paths
Over the centuries that followed, Ymir, and the Founder by extension, were seen as gods, whose immeasurable power guaranteed the expansion of the Eldian empire. However, the overwhelming might possessed by the titan also facilitated many atrocities committed by the Eldians during their global conquests, sparking off widespread resentment towards the race as a whole, which would become a crucial factor in global geopolitics at the time of the main story.
On meeting her end while protecting the king, Ymir found herself in the world of the paths, which inter-dimensionally linked all Eldians through the power of the Founding Titan, bypassing barriers of space or time. In this realm, she was forced to blindly obey the will of each successive holder of the Founding Titan as well as the other eight titan shifters, sculpting their bodies from the endless sands that lined the ground in her new reality. The paths, manifested as an ethereal, fluorescent version of the very tree that housed the ‘source of all living matter,’ also provided a conduit for Ymir and subsequent Founding Titans to communicate with subjects of Ymir, create new titans to do her bidding, ‘scream’ to either create and control nearby pure titans or startle titan shifters, alter the memories of Eldians, or change their bodily compositions as required.
Since time in the world of the paths was dilated in comparison to the real world, it is likely that Ymir’s time in the realm was far greater than the 2,000 years that had elapsed outside it. This non-linear perception of time also extends to those in possession of the Founder’s ability, where they perceive past, present, and future occurring all at once, which severely complicates how they experience events unfolding. Hence, the memories of holders from both the past and future can influence actions in the present, allowing shifters who are both living and dead to communicate with one another through these recollections, evidenced in Eren’s manipulation of his father’s actions in the Reiss family chapel.
The Power Of The Fritz Bloodline
Since the Founder’s ability could only be used by those belonging to the royal Fritz bloodline, there were significant hindrances to its seizure by external forces. Whereas a number of the other nine titans fell into Marleyan hands shortly before the start of the story, it is quite likely that a major reason for the Founder remaining in Eldian hands throughout the narrative stemmed from this very restriction. Moreover, each successive Founding Titan, though extremely powerful in their own right, could not even begin to hold a candle to Ymir’s own might, due to her direct link with the ‘source of all living matter.’
However, there were methods to bypass this restriction to a certain degree, as seen in Eren’s case. Despite not being a member of the royal family, he is able to briefly draw out either the memories and abilities of the Founder when in contact with a human member of the Fritz bloodline — in Historia’s case — or the pure titan form of a Fritz descendant, as observed when he is able to trigger the Founding Titan’s scream after touching Dina Fritz’s pure titan. Furthermore, the Beast Titan, Zeke Yeager — who was coincidentally a Fritz descendant — was able to manifest aspects of the latter ability to create pure titans from those injected with his spinal fluid, without actually holding the power of the Founder.
Vow Renouncing War
One hundred years before the start of the main story of Attack on Titan, the 145th Fritz king, Karl Fritz, was disgusted by the actions of his ancestors, and decided to put an end to the heinous crimes of the Eldian race. Taking matters into his own hands, he used the power of his Founding Titan to abandon the Eldian empire and shift some of his people to Paradis Island while erasing their memories of the world beyond. Fashioning massive walls from the bodies of innumerable Colossal Titans, Karl Fritz sought to isolate this sect of Eldians from potential persecution at the hands of the empire’s former subjects, after Marley’s triumph during the Great Titan War.
Issuing the empty threat of a Colossal Titan rumbling to the rest of the world, the king, who was an avowed pacifist, exerted his will upon every Founding Titan that succeeded him, overtaking their personality and forcing them to direct their efforts solely towards creating a ‘paradise’ inside the walls. This facet of his ideology, known as the ‘Vow renouncing war,’ would endure in every member of the royal bloodline until Grisha Yeager’s seizure of the Founding Titan, which he then passed on to his son Eren.
Hence, Grisha unwittingly laid the groundwork for the vow to be broken by Eren, who, by virtue of not being part of the royal bloodline, was able to enter the world of the paths untainted by Karl Fritz’s beliefs by coming into contact with his half brother Zeke. Furthermore, Zeke himself was able to break the vow as he visit the paths without the influence of the king’s ideology. Eren’s final appeal to Ymir served to break her centuries of servitude, effectively ending the bloodline necessity to hand over full control of the Founding Titan to him. The massive skeletal form he then triggered is the Founding Titan’s last avatar, sometimes referred to as the Doomsday Titan, whose manifestation triggered the catastrophic events of the ‘rumbling.’
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