Who are the giants in the anime Attack on Titan?

Giants, or "Kyojin", are giant hominins that act as both stimuli and enemies in the Attack on Titan series. At the beginning of the events depicted in the series, giants appear outside the city walls where the last humans live. Whatever information we have about the giants at the beginning of "Shingeki no Kyojin", it's all the Survey Corps was able to gather during their many costly journeys outside the walls.

The giants have consumed humans and their only motive seems to be to get inside the walls so that they can devour the rest of humanity. They could only work in sunlight and showed no interest in devouring any other living creatures or animals. They did not need food or drink to survive.

People who lived inside the walls believed that the man-eating Kyojins first appeared about 107 years ago and drove humanity to extinction.

The Three Great Walls were the only things that prevented the giants from entering the last human settlement and eliminating them completely. But as the series progresses, we get more and more information about the giants and who they really are.

Who are the giants in the anime Attack on Titan?

The next part consists of a burn of all seasons of Attack on Titan, if you haven't watched the series and don't want to spoil the experience we suggest you stop here.

As Season 1 progresses, we discover that Eren Jaeger has the ability to transform into a Titan, which suggests that the other giants out there must have had some connection to humans. After all their appearance, with their limbs and features, they greatly represented naked humans.

Towards the end of Season 1 and over the course of Season 2, we understand that Eren isn't the only one who can transform into a Titan as he pleases and there have been other humans who have managed to do so (at least five including Annie, Bertholdt, Rainer, Ymir, and Giant Beast). It is not yet clear their motives or where they came from.

The main revelation comes in Season 3, when the Scout team, along with Eren Jaeger, managed to retrieve the three books that had been locked away by Grisha Jaeger in his basement, which contain a secret about giants.

Giants artificially transformed from humans!

By the end of Season Three, we realize that the Giants are humans who have been artificially transformed against their wishes by the Marley people and left to roam freely on Paradise Island.

According to the books found from the basement of Eren's house in the now-destroyed "Shiganshina" area, there are humans living outside the walls as well. Marley is a nation found beyond the wall across the ocean from Paradise Island.

Only people of a certain gender can turn into giants. They are subjects of Ymir, or Eldian. The Eldians used the power of giants to conquer other nations including Marley and build their empire. However, when their empire fell after the Great War of the Giants, most of the Eldians followed their King Karl Fritz and settled on Paradise Island across the ocean guarded by the walls.

However, some Eldians remained in enemy territory. They were invaded by Marley and treated as inferior to Marley's citizens. If the Eldians are accused of working against the Marley Empire, they are turned into pure giants and left on Paradise Island to wander forever. These giants are pure and clumsy and appear to be brainless.

How did Eldian turn into giants?

Subjects of Ymir, or Eldian people were able to transform into giants by injecting the spinal fluid of the giants inside them. The injection of the liquid caused their instant transformation. Thus the giants that formed were very similar to their original human form.

Marley, who took advantage of this technique, used it to forcibly transform the Eldians into giants and used them in battles to conquer other peoples. Those who disobeyed or acted against the Marley Empire were the ones who were punished and left to roam forever as pure giants on Paradise Island, which was referred to as Marley's Heaven.

Who are the smart giants?

The intelligent giants are also Eldians. However they were recruited by Marley's army to work from the campaign of the nine mighty giants. Annie Leonhart, Bertholdt Hoover, and Rainer Brown were Eldians who lived in Marley and were drafted into their army so they could use them as weapons against enemies.

They are able to turn into giants by inflicting harm on themselves.

In the series, they are tasked with finding and returning the founding giant, whose power Marley wanted so that they could better control the pure giants and also obliterate the Eldians living on Paradise Island.