The Nine Titans are the nine Titan powers that split from Ymir Fritz after her death roughly 2,000 years ago: the Founding, Attack, Armored, Colossus, Female, Beast, Jaw, Cart and War Hammer Titans. Each carries one unique ability, each inheritor dies exactly 13 years after receiving it, and the power passes only by being eaten.
Heavy spoilers for Attack on Titan follow, including the final arc.
Most explainers stop at the ability list. The more interesting part of the system is what it implies — that the body belongs to the power rather than the person, that the 13-year curse is not an arbitrary number, and that there were almost never actually nine. All three are below.
The Nine Titans at a glance
| Titan | Height | Signature ability | Final holder |
|---|---|---|---|
| Founding Titan | 13 m | Commands Titans and rewrites Subjects of Ymir; needs royal blood | Eren Yeager |
| Attack Titan | 15 m | Receives memories from past and future inheritors | Eren Yeager |
| Armored Titan | 15 m | Hardened plating; retractable armour and climbing claws | Reiner Braun |
| Colossus Titan | 60 m | Immense steam emission; controllable transformation blast | Armin Arlert |
| Female Titan | 14 m | Inherits other Titans’ abilities; hardening; summons Pure Titans | Annie Leonhart |
| Beast Titan | 17 m | Animal characteristics; Zeke’s throwing accuracy | Zeke Yeager |
| Jaw Titan | 5 m | Fastest; teeth and claws that break Titan hardening | Falco Grice |
| Cart Titan | 4 m | Quadrupedal endurance; near-unlimited transformations | Pieck Finger |
| War Hammer Titan | ~15 m | Builds weapons from hardened flesh; remote control from crystal | Eren Yeager |
Where the Nine Titans came from
Around 2,000 years ago Ymir Fritz obtained the power of the Titans and became the first Titan — the form later called the Founding Titan. Thirteen years later she died. Her three daughters, Maria, Rose and Sheena, were forced by their father to consume her remains, and the power divided between them. It split further over time into the nine individual Titans, inherited by nine of Ymir’s descendants.
Those Nine Titans destroyed the ancient nation of Marley and built the Eldian Empire across the continent. Two millennia later the arrangement had inverted: Marley held most of the Titans and handed them to Eldian “Warriors” as weapons, while King Karl Fritz took the Founding Titan to Paradis Island and raised the Walls out of thousands of hardened Colossus Titans.
The Curse of Ymir: why 13 years
Every inheritor of one of the Nine Titans dies 13 years after gaining the power. It is presented as a curse, and readers usually take the number as arbitrary. It is not.
Ymir Fritz received the power of the Titans and lived 13 years with it before dying. Every one of her descendants gets exactly the span she got. The curse is not a rule the world imposed on Titan shifters — it is Ymir’s own lifespan, copied onto everyone who inherits a piece of her, over and over, for 2,000 years. Once you see it that way the name stops being decorative: it really is her curse, in the possessive sense.
How a Titan power changes hands
There are two routes, and both require eating.
- A Pure Titan eats a shifter. A Subject of Ymir injected with a shifter’s spinal fluid becomes a mindless Pure Titan. If that Pure Titan then devours a Titan shifter, it reverts to human form and inherits whichever of the Nine it consumed. This is how the powers were normally passed down deliberately.
- A shifter eats a shifter. One holder can take another’s power directly, stacking them. Eren ends the series holding three — the Attack, Founding and War Hammer Titans.
If nobody takes the power before the 13 years expire, it does not vanish; it resurfaces in a randomly born Subject of Ymir. The system cannot be ended by attrition, which is a large part of why the story goes where it goes.
Every Titan’s ability explained
The Founding Titan
The keystone. By screaming, the Founding Titan can turn Subjects of Ymir into Titans, control the minds of existing Titans, and alter the memories and even the bodies of Subjects of Ymir. It is connected to every Subject of Ymir through the paths. The catch is the constraint that drives most of the plot: the inheritor must have royal blood, or be in contact with a Titan of royal blood, to use any of it. Eren’s version is named the End Titan.
The Attack Titan
Its power is informational rather than physical: it receives memories from past and future inheritors. That second direction is the one that matters — it means the Attack Titan can be steered by things that have not happened yet, and the series builds its ending on that loop. Held by Eren Kruger, then Grisha Yeager, then Eren Yeager.
The Armored Titan
Covered in hardened, armour-like plating everywhere that movement does not require flexibility. Reiner Braun can control where the armour sits, shedding it for mobility or sharpening his fingers and toes into claws to climb sheer surfaces such as the Walls.
The Colossus Titan
At 60 metres it dwarfs everything else in the series. Its real weapon is heat: it vents enormous volumes of steam like a blast furnace, scalding anything nearby, at the running cost of its own muscle tissue. The holder controls the size of the transformation blast — which is why Bertholdt’s arrival can level a district and Armin’s can be aimed. Passed from Bertholdt Hoover to Armin Arlert.
The Female Titan
The generalist. It inherits abilities from the other Titans far more readily than any of the Nine, which is why Annie Leonhart can harden like the Armored Titan and summon Pure Titans with a scream. She can also crystallise a protective shell around her human body — the trick that keeps her out of the story for most of it.
The Beast Titan
Takes on the physical characteristics of an animal, and which animal varies between inheritors. Zeke Yeager’s ape form throws with terrifying accuracy, destroying ships and picking off soldiers at range. His ability to create Pure Titans by screaming after administering his spinal fluid is not a Beast Titan power — it comes from the royal blood he inherited from his mother, Dina Fritz. Previous Beast Titans could not do it.
The Jaw Titan
The fastest of the Nine, and among the smallest at around five metres. Its hardened teeth and claws cut through almost anything, including Titan hardening — which makes it the natural counter to the Armored and War Hammer Titans. Held in turn by Marcel Galliard, Ymir, Porco Galliard and finally Falco Grice.
The Cart Titan
Quadrupedal, four metres, and built for endurance rather than power. Pieck Finger can stay transformed for extraordinarily long stretches and re-transform hundreds of times a day without rest — something no other holder manages. Its speed rivals the Jaw Titan’s. It is the only one of the Nine designed around logistics, and it carries equipment and gun platforms into battle.
The War Hammer Titan
Materialises weapons and structures out of its own hardened flesh — spikes, blades, the hammer it is named for. Its defining trick is remote operation: the holder stays sealed in a hardened crystal some distance away and drives the Titan body through a cable of flesh. Lara Tybur held it until Eren consumed her.
Two rules the series never states outright
The body belongs to the power, not the person
Each of the Nine has a fixed height, and the host has no say in it. Eren’s Pure Titan form was four metres; on inheriting the Attack Titan it became 15. Armin’s Pure Titan was barely tall enough to see over the buildings in Shiganshina and became the 60-metre Colossus. The change runs the other way too — Falco Grice’s Pure Titan was roughly the size of the Armored Titan and shrank to five metres when he took the Jaw.
Age does not register either; the Warriors’ Titan forms stay constant from childhood into adulthood. What the host does affect is cosmetic — faces and hair differ between inheritors, and Reiner’s Armored Titan’s hair changed as he aged. The physiology is attached to the power. The person is a passenger.
There were rarely actually nine
“The Nine Titans” is a historical label rather than a running count. In 845, Grisha Yeager’s Attack Titan devoured Frieda Reiss’s Founding Titan and the two merged into a single holder — leaving eight. Nine years later, Eren consumed Lara Tybur’s War Hammer Titan, taking it to seven.
So for nearly the entire period the audience spends with the story, there are not nine Titans in the world. There are seven, three of them stacked inside one teenager. The name survives from the era it described — a quietly appropriate detail for a series about inherited history that no longer matches the present.
If you are picking the series up or returning to it, our Attack on Titan watch order lays out the seasons and films, and the strongest Attack on Titan characters ranks the holders against each other. For how this system compares with the rest of the medium, see our guide to anime power systems.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the Nine Titans in Attack on Titan?
The Founding, Attack, Armored, Colossus, Female, Beast, Jaw, Cart and War Hammer Titans. They are nine Titan powers created when Ymir Fritz’s power split after her death around 2,000 years ago, and they were passed down among her Eldian descendants ever since.
Why do Titan shifters only live 13 years?
Because Ymir Fritz lived 13 years after gaining the power of the Titans before she died. The Curse of Ymir imposes her exact lifespan on every inheritor. It is not an arbitrary limit — it is her span, repeated.
Which Titan is the strongest?
The Founding Titan, by a wide margin, because it can command every other Titan and alter Subjects of Ymir directly — but only with royal blood. In raw combat the Beast Titan is described as the strongest, and the Colossus Titan is by far the largest at 60 metres.
Can one person hold more than one Titan?
Yes. A shifter who devours another shifter takes their power as well. Eren Yeager ends the series holding three — the Attack, Founding and War Hammer Titans — though only one form’s height takes precedence.
Were there always nine Titans at once?
No. After Grisha Yeager’s Attack Titan consumed the Founding Titan in 845 there were eight, and after Eren took the War Hammer Titan there were seven. “Nine” describes the original split, not the live count.
