Theory A theory on Titans in the Walls

[kannazuki]

Re: A theory on Titans in the Walls (Spoilers)

He used publicly available data to determine the circumference of the walls, I believe:

This image states:
Distance from Maria to Rose: 100 km
Distance from Rose to Shina: 130 km
Distance from Shina to Centre: 250 km
So the radius of Maria is ~480 km. Multiply that X2 for diameter: 960 km. Multiply that by pi for circumference of Maria:
Maria's circumference is actually ~3015.9 km.
radius squared (230,400) X pi = 723,823 km2 for everything (including inside the other walls) within Maria. Yeah that's a large area, and they were *supposed* to have a land rich in resources...? Perhaps resource distribution is especially uneven...

 

[Brother Coa]

Re: A theory on Titans in the Walls (Spoilers)

radius squared (230,400) X pi = 723,823 km2 for everything (including inside the other walls) within Maria. Yeah that's a large area, and they were *supposed* to have a land rich in resources...? Perhaps resource distribution is especially uneven...

For example, the entire territory of Zambia is 752,612km2 total. ( wikipedia )

I mean, the Mankind Territory is MASSIVE.

 

[ImmortalZodd]

Re: A theory on Titans in the Walls (Spoilers)

True, the radius in kilometers was only introduced in anime IIRC?
Cause seeing that picture from manga

Spoiler

it looked way way smaller.

 

[kkck]

Re: A theory on Titans in the Walls (Spoilers)

He used publicly available data to determine the circumference of the walls, I believe:

This image states:
Distance from Maria to Rose: 100 km
Distance from Rose to Shina: 130 km
Distance from Shina to Centre: 250 km
So the radius of Maria is ~480 km. Multiply that X2 for diameter: 960 km. Multiply that by pi for circumference of Maria:
Maria's circumference is actually ~3015.9 km.
radius squared (230,400) X pi = 723,823 km2 for everything (including inside the other walls) within Maria. Yeah that's a large area, and they were *supposed* to have a land rich in resources...? Perhaps resource distribution is especially uneven...

Ahh, I see. I didn't notice the numbers were actually kilometers. However if those numbers are accurate it does not really explain why humanity had to forfeit on 200000 people when they lost the war. There should be enough territory there for them to actually be able to feed everyone. I guess starting from scratch to produce food for 20000 people is not easy and actually quite time consuming though.

 

[Brother Coa]

Re: A theory on Titans in the Walls (Spoilers)

I guess starting from scratch to produce food for 20000 people is not easy and actually quite time consuming though.

From what we have seen they have primitive trade society which means that they have no industrial might. That means that hey cannot produce food for 200.000 people overnight, and as such they needed to sacrifice some so that the others may live.
That or the ruling minority didn;t want to share their own food stores so they let them die anyway...
All in all - Grimdark....

 

[kkck]

Re: A theory on Titans in the Walls (Spoilers)

From what we have seen they have primitive trade society which means that they have no industrial might. That means that hey cannot produce food for 200.000 people overnight, and as such they needed to sacrifice some so that the others may live.
That or the ruling minority didn;t want to share their own food stores so they let them die anyway...
All in all - Grimdark....

As far as we know they do have some degree of technology. They make the blades for the scouting legion, they have steam boats, they were not really surprised at canned food.... They are not precisely primitive. I think the issue here would be that setting up crops for 200000 extra people overnight would take more than a few years.

 

[Utsune]

Re: A theory on Titans in the Walls (Spoilers)

@kkck, ImmortalZodd and Huesoman

To be honest I'm pretty surprised those numbers were chosen, because it is no small thing. Also, as Huesoman suggests in a post before, they manage to ride horses around 1/8 of the second ring in 9 hours (they split into two teams going from west→south, south→west.) I will be using this piece of information to determine the validity of the size of the community. In that case, I'm dishing out references:

http://www.wwwestra.com/horses/history_travel.htm
http://www.cartographersguild.com/reference-material/19730-how-far-horse-travels-one-day.html
http://www.teviscup.org/

Not necessary to click on them, a summary of the links is, medieval knights on horses ≒ 60 miles per day. In current day, special Arab horses for competition's sake do 100 miles in 17 hours (rugged terrain, no baggage.)

Wall Rose's Diameter is (250+130)km ｘ 2 ｘ π ≒ 2300km ≒ 1500 miles. Which means, each of the two teams ride ~190 miles. But they did it in 9 hours, with the last hour slowed down considerably due to nighttime visibility.

Suppose they travel on flat land, and also with this picture (LINK) showing they didn't exactly start from the south-most part, I would put the estimation at 90 miles for each of the two teams. It isn't impossible, it's double the distance of the "special Arab horses" mentioned above (but unlike the real world Tevis Cup, they don't have to travel rugged terrain.) In conclusion, the SnK community have really really good horses, but that's no surprise because they need them to increase survival rate.

With the Wall-breach horseriding issue calculated, I think the Wall Rose diameter is pretty accurate. Also, even though if it were only for the anime, there had to be communication between Isayama and the staff concerning this information, so I'm pretty confident with the numbers they have given.


Moving onto kkck's point about the availability of territory. I think the problem is, there are only limited number of built towns/communities in Wall Rose. Regardless of how pack the people actually are with the increased population, suddenly (at least) doubling the population would provide serious management issues. Reducing the intake of all civilians within Wall Rose by a half to feed the new population is a lovely thought but not practical. This would throw their economy into chaos, and there is no way the pride and self-interest of Wall Rose citizens would agree to that. We can assume food production within Wall Rose only provides for themselves for the past 100 years, so there is no way they have the resources for a doubled population of what they're supposed to feed. Also, as much as you can tell the people to live off somewhere in the wild away from towns (within Wall Rose,) there is even less chance of finding a sustainable food source enough for the great number of refugees.



Btw, also looking at ImmortalZodd's image, I forgot to mention a very important issue. I don't know if Isayama intends to draw the walls jagged (basically not a perfect circle.) But if the walls really aren't that smooth, please expect the population of Titans within the Walls to DOUBLE. Lol.

Edit: Actually, with the same picture as posted about (LINK) you can definitely see the jagged part of the Wall. You can now expect wall-Titan population increase to maybe at least 750 000.

 

[kkck]

Re: A theory on Titans in the Walls (Spoilers)

We actually have pretty detailed information about the horses the scouting legion uses. From what I read they are an almost magical breed although I could be wrong about that one. I think the page said the scouting legion horses can maintain a pace of 35 miles per hour for long times and for shorter times go even faster. I can't remember where exactly the page was though....

 

[Utsune]

Re: A theory on Titans in the Walls (Spoilers)

We actually have pretty detailed information about the horses the scouting legion uses. From what I read they are an almost magical breed although I could be wrong about that one. I think the page said the scouting legion horses can maintain a pace of 35 miles per hour for long times and for shorter times go even faster. I can't remember where exactly the page was though....

Hmm thanks I completely missed that. Real horses go at 30 mph on average, too. Race horses can probably go at 45 mph, and I'm assuming SnK ones are just similar to real horses, but can endure greater distances, which I wouldn't say anything to that just yet until I find the data page lol, because real horses really only go for at most an hour or so at your standard pace... But we know a great deal has been invested into horses. The ability to whistle-command your horse is a prime example, other than breeds.

190 miles would be near 6-7 hours worth of journey @30mph assuming no break; 90 miles would take 3 hours. Either way, yes very accurate indeed, the community with the Walls is massive lol, no doubt about it now. Horse-wise, I'm usually a bit lenient when it comes to fictional breeds, given a generous estimate of at least 8 times the endurance of real horses, but you could also think of it this way: Humans going at half their max speed can run for 4 hours, and SnK horses have kinda taken the marathon path only with more speed relatively.

 

[kkck]

Re: A theory on Titans in the Walls (Spoilers)

http://www.batoto.net/read/_/89456/shingeki-no-kyojin_v5_ch21_by_gantz-waitingroom/42

I found the page. Anyways, the horses are not as super as I thought although they still seem reasonably special. The cruise speed the page describes is not much although it seems they are actually capable of significant speeds, more so than your average horse. I did get confused with the whole miles and kms thing, I did not remember what measures they used. To bad there isn't a better translation though, I get the impression this one is a tad iffy.

 

[teioh]

Re: A theory on Titans in the Walls (Spoilers)

As that page said, Isayama consulted some "specialists friends" for this and other stuff (3d gear) he put in SnK. Then it's normal to find accurate calculations about wall lenght, horses run overland etc.

Nice job by the author. A lot of others mangaka are lost with much less.

 

[Utsune]

Re: A theory on Titans in the Walls (Spoilers)

Ah I see now. Thanks for the find, I obviously wasn't looking in the right place. Hmm it seems speed-wise it is just as expected. Their height and size are as standard as they can be compared to real world counterparts. But as mentioned before, their endurance really is out of the ordinary. No comment on your description "magical" lol, but I'd definitely at least call it a dream breed when it comes to their docility.

That aside, I've used your link to find and compare the original, the translation appears to be fine, so you can confidently rely on it.

---------- Post added at 03:20 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:14 AM ----------

@teioh
Good observation. I've seen the names Kodachi and Miwa popping up as Isayama's "setting collaborators" for a lot of "Data files" in the manga. They are both freelance game designers and writers (Miwa is also an occult specialist,) and no doubt have the experience and knowledge for in-universe designs.

 

[kkck]

Re: A theory on Titans in the Walls (Spoilers)

Well, speedwise it seems they are still better than real life horses. In real life only exceptional horses seem to make it to the 85 km/h mark while in turn every horse in the scouting legion seems to get to those speeds. And on top of that it seems they are able to maintain them for longer times than real horses.

The part that seemed iffy about the translation was the height of the horses. It seems like they would be taller than 160 cms... But then again that girl in the picture could be really short.... I notice that recently there have not been any more pages with information available to the public. Any chance we might find more?

 

[Utsune]

Re: A theory on Titans in the Walls (Spoilers)

I think "that girl" is actually Christa :P I know she sometimes has an identity crisis, at least among certain depictions of her :P She's something like ~145cm? The horse in the picture is at least two heads taller than her, which is about 40cm I'm guessing. Slightly taller than the stated 160cm, but if you use real world horses as a reference:

Real horses average height = 15 to 17 hands (1 hand = 4 inches = ~10 cm)
(145+40)cm = ~18 hands

Taller than your average by 1 hand, which isn't too big of a deal.


And yeah, I haven't seen any more of those data things either, I found a blog which is pretty up-to-date with the volumes, as of July there are only 14 files altogether it seems. I'm actually looking forward to more details about the Walls, because Armin mentions something about not having "brick joints" and "traces of peeling." But I guess if there ever were information in this aspect, it would have to be pretty late into the story.

 

[SarcasticIndeed]

Re: A theory on Titans in the Walls (Spoilers)

I think "that girl" is actually Christa :P I know she sometimes has an identity crisis, at least among certain depictions of her :P She's something like ~145cm? The horse in the picture is at least two heads taller than her, which is about 40cm I'm guessing. Slightly taller than the stated 160cm, but if you use real world horses as a reference:

Real horses average height = 15 to 17 hands (1 hand = 4 inches = ~10 cm)
(145+40)cm = ~18 hands

Taller than your average by 1 hand, which isn't too big of a deal.


And yeah, I haven't seen any more of those data things either, I found a blog which is pretty up-to-date with the volumes, as of July there are only 14 files altogether it seems. I'm actually looking forward to more details about the Walls, because Armin mentions something about not having "brick joints" and "traces of peeling." But I guess if there ever were information in this aspect, it would have to be pretty late into the story.

I think it just let the reader know that the walls were not built under normal circumstances (and now we know ey are a bunvh of titans who solidified their skin and morped it into a wall structure). I don't think we are going to get any more official info on the walls unless it is revealed directly through the story. If they did, it would likely be in numbers. Would be fun to see calculations similar to yours appear in the manga.

 

[Nanozom]

Re: A theory on Titans in the Walls (Spoilers)

I am posting this here since I was told to put this in the right place.

A theory of titan armor and the purpose of the Walls.

I think it´s a gender question there. The male shifters have rock and hard metals as armor while the female shifters gets crystal
Or it could be a question of eye color that determines what kind of mineral that is used for the titan armor. The Female titan has ice blue colored eyes, hence she gets transparent crystal. The armored titan has strong golden eyes and what does his armor look like? Yes, a golden knight (or quarterback) and its permanent. I swear, if we see the Wall titan and it has dark grey eyes, then we know what kind of mineral that one could produce from its armor.
And that would mean that all the wall titans have the same color on their eyes, meaning that a race with that specific trait chose to put themselves into slumber for the sake of saving mankind. And considering the racial traits in this setting, who is the only person that we seen this far with dark grey eyes?
That´s right, Mikasa.
Meaning that the wall titans might be asian titan shifters that traveled to the country from the other side of the ocean, built the walls for a colony of their people, but due to some unknown circumstances never made it to the colony. This left the wall titans sleeping in ignorance about their failed mission with a empty settlement until the Europeans, (or germans, considering the name setting) showed up and took the already established settlement for their own. The walls are not a trap, it is just the remains of someone else´s home that the germans "occupied" (Scavaged) for their own.
I bet the wall titan that opened its eyes upon the reveal was really happy when it saw Mikasa and the town below.
I mean just imagine the relief and satisfaction it must have felt over that its and its brethren´s mission to save their people was "supposedly" a success. (not knowing that the place is occupied by the Europeans.)
I swear, if anyone else been there when it woke up, then it would have not been pleased. It would have got out and all the walls would been broken when they learnt about their failed mission.

Back to the armors.

It makes me wonder if Eren is going to have a glowing emerald armor if he ever figures out how to use that ability in the first place.
If so, then a berserking Emerald armored Eren might be a really awesome thing to see. or oddly bizarre.

Resume: It´s the eye color that reflect the state of the armor.
That is my theory.

 

[Utsune]

Re: A theory on Titans in the Walls (Spoilers)

I am posting this here since I was told to put this in the right place.

A theory of titan armor and the purpose of the Walls.

I think it´s a gender question there. The male shifters have rock and hard metals as armor while the female shifters gets crystal
Or it could be a question of eye color that determines what kind of mineral that is used for the titan armor. The Female titan has ice blue colored eyes, hence she gets transparent crystal. The armored titan has strong golden eyes and what does his armor look like? Yes, a golden knight (or quarterback) and its permanent. I swear, if we see the Wall titan and it has dark grey eyes, then we know what kind of mineral that one could produce from its armor.
And that would mean that all the wall titans have the same color on their eyes, meaning that a race with that specific trait chose to put themselves into slumber for the sake of saving mankind. And considering the racial traits in this setting, who is the only person that we seen this far with dark grey eyes?
That´s right, Mikasa.
Meaning that the wall titans might be asian titan shifters that traveled to the country from the other side of the ocean, built the walls for a colony of their people, but due to some unknown circumstances never made it to the colony. This left the wall titans sleeping in ignorance about their failed mission with a empty settlement until the Europeans, (or germans, considering the name setting) showed up and took the already established settlement for their own. The walls are not a trap, it is just the remains of someone else´s home that the germans "occupied" (Scavaged) for their own.
I bet the wall titan that opened its eyes upon the reveal was really happy when it saw Mikasa and the town below.
I mean just imagine the relief and satisfaction it must have felt over that its and its brethren´s mission to save their people was "supposedly" a success. (not knowing that the place is occupied by the Europeans.)
I swear, if anyone else been there when it woke up, then it would have not been pleased. It would have got out and all the walls would been broken when they learnt about their failed mission.

Back to the armors.

It makes me wonder if Eren is going to have a glowing emerald armor if he ever figures out how to use that ability in the first place.
If so, then a berserking Emerald armored Eren might be a really awesome thing to see. or oddly bizarre.

Resume: It´s the eye color that reflect the state of the armor.
That is my theory.

I feel this may be a bit too specific so I'm not expecting things to happen as you say, but the Mikasa/Oriental-wall point is definitely something I would consider (inb4 Great Wall of China lol.)

Just putting it out there, in the anime instead of getting a tattoo, Mikasa does embroidery. (This is probably due to various reasons: The culture of tattooing in Japan, the image of tattooing on a small child, and the relation between tattoo and the murder scene straight after.) But anyways, I wonder if this symbol Mikasa gets would play a big role in the future, and if the disagreement between the original and the show would permanently throw the anime off-track?

In any case, I have strong suspicion that the tattoo has a lot to do with the Walls.

 

[Xemon]

Re: A theory on Titans in the Walls (Spoilers)

(This's my first post, so don't be too hard if it looks awful please.)
I've got a theory about the wall cults myself.
I think that they not only know about the titans in the walls, they know exactly how many there are and how they're positioned in each wall.
While it is a bit of stretch, the scene of the wall cult church we see before Annie crushes shows the worshipers in three circles, one inside the other.
If this's true there are 20 (Approximation, I can't be sure if there're other people blocked by the preacher or other things) in Wall Shina alone, which is much less than the estimations before.

Spoiler

I could be wrong, considering how big the walls are, but I'm feeling pretty confident about this one.

 

[kannazuki]

Re: A theory on Titans in the Walls (Spoilers)

Welcome!

I'm sure many people already see the walls represented by the three circles in that image so we'd all be right with you there, but why do you think the exact number of people in each circle is representative of the exact numbers in the walls? I suppose it could go that way, but it could just as easily be hundreds of thousands if Armin's supposition that titans could be standing side-by-side is true. :')

 

[Utsune]

Re: A theory on Titans in the Walls (Spoilers)

(This's my first post, so don't be too hard if it looks awful please.)
I've got a theory about the wall cults myself.
I think that they not only know about the titans in the walls, they know exactly how many there are and how they're positioned in each wall.
While it is a bit of stretch, the scene of the wall cult church we see before Annie crushes shows the worshipers in three circles, one inside the other.
If this's true there are 20 (Approximation, I can't be sure if there're other people blocked by the preacher or other things) in Wall Shina alone, which is much less than the estimations before.

Spoiler

I could be wrong, considering how big the walls are, but I'm feeling pretty confident about this one.

Welcome to the forum! (and take it easy haha )

Although I doubt there are only 20 believers in the inner circle to reflect only 20 Titans in Wall Sina (I'm pretty sure they just don't have that many followers since people think they're a bogus religion lol) I think there could be a lot of truth in your point "they know exactly how many there are and how they're positioned in each wall."

Well in any case, we can only wait and see what happens... But I can't ignore the fact Hanji and Armin comment that there could be Titans along the full length of the Walls, especially when Armin is never wrong (for now; I'm pretty Isayama will have him make a mistake at some point, but not now lol...) I'm sure some kind of revelation will come very soon, so I'll wait for that...!


EDIT: Yeah I agree with kannazuki, I want to know why you think that too. If the relation you draw was more or less a gut feeling, well gut feelings are guided by something too...



On a slightly unrelated note, my estimation for the number for the protruding districts needs to be totally reworked.

Spoiler

Those areas are much smaller than portrayed in the information slides lol... The number of possible Titans here is too small, so it is negligible and can be ignored...