What Are the Nine Titans in Attack on Titan? Every Power Explained

The Nine Titans are the nine inherited Titan powers at the center of Attack on Titan. Unlike the wandering Pure Titans that terrorize the people inside the Walls, their holders can transform while retaining their human intelligence. Each power has a different battlefield role, from the Colossal Titan's destructive transformation to the Cart Titan's extraordinary endurance. Together, they explain much of the struggle between Eldia, Marley and Paradis.

This guide identifies all nine, explains what each can actually do, and names important inheritors. It also covers how the powers pass between people and what happens to them in the ending. Major spoilers follow for the full anime and Hajime Isayama's completed manga.

What are the Nine Titans?

The nine are the Founding Titan, Attack Titan, Colossal Titan, Armored Titan, Female Titan, Beast Titan, Cart Titan, Jaw Titan and War Hammer Titan. Their powers descend from Ymir Fritz, the first person to possess Titan abilities. The historical revelations in Kodansha's Attack on Titan Volume 22 overturn the early belief that Titans are simply monsters appearing outside the Walls.

The names describe specialties, not a strict ranking. The Armored Titan can withstand attacks that would destroy a less protected form, while the Jaw Titan trades bulk for speed and cutting power. A holder's skill, experience, circumstances and inherited traits matter as much as the type. That is why apparently weaker Titans can still change the course of a battle.

1. Founding Titan: Control, memory and the Paths

The Founding Titan has the broadest influence over the Subjects of Ymir. Its abilities include commanding Titans and altering the memories and even bodies of Eldians connected through the Paths. However, access to its full power is restricted by royal blood and the unusual conditions surrounding contact with someone of royal descent. Simply inheriting it does not guarantee unrestricted control.

The power passes through the royal Fritz and Reiss line before Grisha Yeager takes it from Frieda Reiss. Eren later inherits it from Grisha. The central conflict of the final season turns on Eren's effort to use the Founder despite lacking royal blood himself, particularly through his connection with Zeke. Kodansha's Volume 30 specifically describes the need for Eren to contact Zeke to activate its true power.

2. Attack Titan: The power of future memories

The Attack Titan is a formidable combat form, but its most distinctive ability is its relationship with memories. Inheritors can receive fragments associated with future holders, producing the series' unsettling revelations about Eren Kruger, Grisha and Eren. This is not unlimited foresight, nor does every holder freely browse the future. What they see can be incomplete and shaped by the circumstances of transmission.

Eren Kruger passes the Attack Titan to Grisha, who eventually passes it to Eren. The revelations about Grisha's choices are inseparable from the Paths and the Founding Titan. Our linked explanation of Eren's future memories examines why this is not ordinary time travel.

3. Colossal Titan: Size, heat and explosive transformation

The Colossal Titan towers over most other forms, making its arrival a strategic disaster. Its transformation can produce an enormous explosion, and its body can emit searing steam that keeps attackers away. The drawback is that such overwhelming scale and heat are not well suited to every situation. Sustained steam emission also consumes the Titan's muscle mass.

Bertholdt Hoover uses the Colossal Titan during the fall of Wall Maria. After the battle to retake Shiganshina, Armin Arlert inherits it. Armin's use of this destructive power creates a striking contrast with his reputation for careful planning and his reluctance to sacrifice lives.

4. Armored Titan: A living defensive weapon

The Armored Titan's hardened plates protect most of its body, turning it into a battering ram against gates, fortifications and enemy Titans. Its protection is not absolute. Joints remain vulnerable, concentrated attacks can penetrate the armor, and its weight can limit movement. Reiner Braun's repeated survival owes as much to resilience and tactics as to his Titan's plating.

Reiner is the principal Armored Titan holder followed throughout the story. His role in the initial attack on the Walls gives the armor a clear visual identity long before the audience learns the truth about Marley and the Warrior program.

5. Female Titan: Adaptability and selective hardening

The Female Titan is a versatile fighter with speed, endurance and precise movement. Annie Leonhart demonstrates selective hardening to defend vulnerable areas and strengthen attacks. Its scream can attract nearby Pure Titans, though drawing them in is not the same as commanding them with the Founder's authority. The story later suggests that the Female Titan can manifest traits associated with other Titan powers under certain conditions.

Annie's identity makes the Female Titan one of the first major mysteries of the anime. Her combat training and strategic choices are important: the form's effectiveness does not come from a single unbeatable special move.

6. Beast Titan: An animal form with a dangerous wielder

The Beast Titan's appearance can vary by inheritor. Zeke Yeager's ape-like version is particularly lethal because he throws rocks with devastating accuracy. His royal ancestry also enables abilities involving people exposed to his spinal fluid, including transformation and a measure of control. Those capabilities should not be mistaken for powers every Beast Titan holder automatically possesses.

Zeke's combination of long-range attacks, planning and royal blood makes him a uniquely dangerous opponent. The series also shows why identifying a Titan by its familiar silhouette is not enough to understand everything its next inheritor might do.

7. Cart Titan: Endurance and battlefield support

The Cart Titan moves on four limbs and can remain transformed for exceptionally long periods. It carries weapons, supplies and soldiers, making it indispensable for transport and sustained military operations. With specialized equipment mounted on its back, it can provide mobile fire support even when its own body is not the strongest in a direct duel.

Pieck Finger is its best-known holder. Her intelligence and quick judgment repeatedly show that battlefield usefulness cannot be reduced to raw strength. A war is won through logistics and positioning as well as dramatic clashes between giant fighters.

8. Jaw Titan: Speed and the ability to break hardening

The Jaw Titan is smaller than many of the Nine but exceptionally agile. Its jaws and claws can tear through materials that resist ordinary Titan attacks, including hardened crystal. That ability becomes crucial in the confrontation with the War Hammer Titan. Its compact build also allows rapid attacks and changes of direction that larger forms struggle to match.

Known holders include Marcel Galliard, Ymir, Porco Galliard and Falco Grice. Their versions do not look identical. Falco's unusual flying form is tied to the specific circumstances of his transformation and should not be presented as a standard power of every Jaw Titan.

9. War Hammer Titan: Weapons made from hardening

The War Hammer Titan can form hardened weapons and structures such as spikes, blades and barriers. Unlike most Titan forms, its operator can remain enclosed in a hardened crystal outside the Titan's nape, connected to the body by a cord. This creates an unusual tactical advantage but also a vulnerability if the connection is discovered.

The Tybur family secretly holds the power for generations. Lara Tybur uses it during the battle in Liberio, before Eren obtains it. Kodansha's Volume 26 describes the battle between Eren and the War Hammer Titan, a turning point that demonstrates how dangerous specialized abilities become when combined.

How are the Nine Titans inherited?

A Subject of Ymir can inherit one of the Nine by consuming the previous holder while in Titan form. A Pure Titan that gains one of these powers returns to human form and becomes a Titan shifter. If a holder dies without being eaten, the story establishes that the power can pass to a newborn Subject of Ymir. This makes succession a political problem as well as a personal tragedy.

The Curse of Ymir limits an inheritor to thirteen years after receiving a Titan power. The limit reflects the thirteen years Ymir Fritz lived after obtaining hers. It is not a countdown imposed on every Pure Titan, and inheriting another one of the Nine does not provide a clearly established way to reset the clock. Crunchyroll's official pre-final-season guide also describes the thirteen-year restriction.

Can one person possess more than one Titan power?

Yes. Eren possesses the Attack Titan and Founding Titan, and later acquires the War Hammer Titan. The nine powers are distinct, but they do not require nine separate living holders at every moment. Combining them expands a person's options without erasing each power's limitations. For instance, Eren still needs the right conditions to access the Founder's full abilities.

That distinction matters when discussing the Rumbling. It is not simply a bigger Attack Titan technique. It depends on the Founding Titan and the long history of the Wall Titans. Our separate explanation of why Eren started the Rumbling focuses on his motivations rather than repeating this guide's power list.

Are the Nine Titans stronger than Pure Titans?

Generally, the Nine have major advantages because their holders can think, plan, transform deliberately and use specialized abilities. Pure Titans are usually driven by instinct, although unusual Titans and special conditions complicate the picture. Size alone is not a reliable test: the compact Jaw Titan can threaten a larger enemy, while the Cart Titan contributes more through stamina and support than sheer destructive force.

The Wall Titans are another source of confusion. They resemble enormous Colossal Titans, but they are not nine additional inherited powers. They are part of the Founding Titan's larger history and become central to the Rumbling.

What happens to the Nine Titans at the end?

The conclusion of Attack on Titan ends the Titan power itself. Following Eren's defeat and Ymir's release from the cycle that sustained the system, surviving transformed Eldians return to human form, and the surviving holders no longer retain their Titan-shifting abilities. Kodansha's final Volume 34 frames this outcome within the larger struggle to escape generations of fear and violence.

The ending does not erase the consequences of the conflict or guarantee lasting peace. That tension helps explain why the story continues to attract debate. For a broader perspective, see our analysis of why Attack on Titan remains popular even after its ending.

The bottom line

The Nine Titans are not nine versions of the same monster. They form a connected system of inherited powers with different strengths, limits and political consequences. The Founding Titan shapes the world, the Attack Titan complicates memory and causality, and the other seven specialize in offense, defense, mobility or support. Understanding those differences makes the story's shifting alliances and final revelations far easier to follow.