Attack on Titan: Why Was Rod Reiss So Huge in His Titan Form?

Why Was Rod Reiss So Huge in His Titan Form?
Why Was Rod Reiss So Huge in His Titan Form?
Find out why Rod Reiss was giant in Attack on Titan! Uncover the story behind his colossal Titan form.

Attack on Titan, the famous Japanese dark fantasy anime TV series, is well acclaimed by critics and is one of the bestselling anime worldwide. Even after years of release, there is much discussion around Titans, especially about Huge Titans. 

The Huge Titan is a character from Attack on Titan, and “Colossal Titan” is another name for it. Huge Titan is one of the nine titans and the main antagonist of the first three Attack on Titan series. It’s famous for its enormous size and complete control over steam emissions.

This article will talk about the giant Titan in Attack on Titans, among other related things. You may also expect answers to some of your related questions.

What Is the Largest Titan in Attack on Titan?

Rod Reiss’ Titan is an immense and one of the most powerful Titan incarnations in AoT. Rod Reiss, often referred to as Lord Reiss, was an abnormal Titan and the mighty villain of Attack on Titan. It was twice the height of the Colossal Titan, making him the enormous Titan ever known. 

Eren, a good size fifteen-meter titan, was only the size of its mouth and had to transform and stand on top of the wall to attack it. 

Rod Reiss’ Titan was so giant that half its body reached above the wall. However, its enormous body was quite disproportionate – Rodd had an enormously large torso with a small head and thin limbs. It was why it could not stand up. To move, it needed to crawl on four limbs. Scraping along the ground caused its face and torso to wear out, exposing its internal organs. 

But what was the reason behind the enormous size? Why was Rod Reiss’ Titan abnormally huge? 

Why Was Rod Reiss So Big In His Titan Form?

rod reiss titan
rod reiss titan

In the Attack on Titan manga, Erwin mentioned that Rod Reiss was an abnormal Titan due to its size and also because it seemed to ignore them and headed straight towards Orvud District and Wall Sina. So, Rod Reiss’ Titan had an abnormally huge size because of four likely reasons-

  1. Improper ingestion of the Titan serum
  2. The serum Rod used was mighty
  3. Rod was from the royal bloodline
  4. Rod Reiss’ goal

Let us explore these pointers in detail-

Improper Ingestion of the Titan Serum

A theory suggests that abnormal Titans (such as the one that is Thomas in the Trost Arc) were created because they did not ingest the correct dose of the Titan serum in the proper way. Abnormal Titans, created due to improper ingestion, exhibited different characteristics than regular Titans, like moving faster, moving in strange ways, ignoring some humans, and focusing on others.

Moments before his transformation, we saw Rod Reiss calmly forcing Historia to inject herself with the Titan serum so that she would inherit the Founding Titan from Eren. But Historia came to her senses and hit the syringe away from Rod’s hand, breaking it upon hitting the ground.

When angry Rod tried to restrain her, Historia grabbed him by his collar and threw him on the ground, where he landed on his face. So while Historia ran off to free Eren, Rod Reiss crawled to the exposed Titan serum lying on the ground and licked it.

We know that the correct way of administering the Titan serum was by injecting it at the back of the neck or injecting it directly into the bloodstream. But in this case, Rod Reiss licked the serum while it was exposed right off from the ground. It was why his Titan was enormous. Since Historia threw him, Rod Reiss’ back was severely hurt, explaining why his Titan was a crawler.

Rod Reiss did not ingest the serum properly and turned into an abnormally large Titan. When Levi confronted Kenny on the verge of death and asked why he had not injected himself with the serum considering the burns and the blood loss, Kenny replied-

“Yeah, I wonder. If I don’t inject it right, I might end up like he did (Rod Reiss), all messed up….”

The Serum Rod Used Was Very Powerful

The type of Titan produced is not random, and it depends on the attributes of the serum used while creating a Titan. For example, Eren’s Titan did not have the trait for hardening until he ate the vial of serum for that specific purpose. Rod Reiss was worried about the future of the Reiss family, and he, therefore, made a serum for a huge and powerful Titan type. Rod Reiss wanted Historia to use the vial that was labeled “strongest Titan,” so it makes sense to hypothesize that Rod made the serum to make one of the strongest Titans ever. 

Rod Was From the Royal Bloodline

The third explanation involves that Rod Reiss was from a royal blood family. There has been a popular fan theory that a Titan born from the royal bloodline is a bit abnormal.

The Smiling Titan that killed Eren’s mother Carla and appeared again at the end of Season 2 was also born from the royal bloodline, and Rod’s royal lineage could’ve also helped trigger this abnormal Titan trait.

Rod’s Objectives

The central theme of the novel is that of objectives and willpower. Rod had a strong enough drive to be transformed into something capable of achieving the goal. He was, however, a Titan in the sense that he grew in size as a result of his goal, no matter what it was.

Undoubtedly, Rod Reiss’ size was one of the primary reasons he was so well known. Reiss was adamant about reclaiming the role of Founding Titan, and the Founding Titan was a powerful opponent. He grew into one of the Abnormal Titans, double the size of his Colossal Titan.

Would Historia Reiss Become as Big as Rod Reiss if She Had Turned Into a Titan?

Humans become Titan through an injected medicine, and the Titan form they take is due to the type of medicine injected. So had Historia Reiss been injected with the serum Rod licked, would she have become a Titan of the same size and stature as Rod’s?

If Historia had injected the serum into her correctly, she would probably have been the same size as Rod Reiss Titan because of the “strongest Titan” serum. But she would have been an ordinary Titan, i.e., she would have been able to walk and run like regular Titans. 

The Rod Reiss Titan was abnormal. He was not able to walk correctly and dragged himself to the ground. Rod Reiss licked the serum. He would be just like a regular but mighty Titan if he injected the whole serum. We have seen from the beginning that the correct way to turn someone into a Titan was to inject them with the entire serum (Eren’s case, Rod Reiss’ family’s case). Rod Reiss also wanted to inject the serum into Historia, but Historia wasted the serum, so Rod Reiss had no option but to lick it from the ground. So if she had injected the serum, Historia might have acquired the giant Titan form but not as abnormal as Rod Reiss. She would’ve eaten Eren and taken his powers!

Rod Reiss’ Human Traits

Let us look at other significant aspects of Rod Reiss’ Huge Titan.

Human Form 

Like Historia, Rod was an average human, and he was chubby and dressed up as an eminent person. He’d put on a shirt with a pullover chest, followed by slacks and dress shoes. Most of his outfits have a black and white color scheme. During Titan rites and family meetings, Rod wears a shirt, pants, and a long coat.

Personality Traits 

Rod appears to be a calm and relaxed individual. At the same time, he has a disappointed and troubled expression on his face. Rod is a wise and educated man, and it’s clear from how he spoke about his brother (Uri) and daughter (Frieda) obtaining and then losing the Founding Titan.

Rod maintained his cool during his time with Ackerman, Historia, and Eren. He even kept his cool as Ackerman grabbed him and attempted to slit his throat. However, Rod got anxious and erratic after Historia squashed the serum. When the syringe shattered into smithereens and licked the serum on the floor, he felt distraught and cried, which shows his vulnerable side.

Huge Titan Characteristics

The Huge Titan possesses tremendous incredible traits. Let’s take a look at them-

Size

The colossal size of the Huge Titan is incredible. It is 60 meters high, high enough to see over the tops of the Walls with a squint. Its immense physical strength is due to its molecular weight. However, the essential point is that its vast bulk allows it to move at a snail’s pace.

On the other hand, the Huge Titan is powerful enough to kick the outer gate of the Wall Maria down, and it can fling entire structures into the air, as it did when Eren Yeager glided from the Wall Maria’s tip.

Armin also uses the Huge Titan’s enormous size and strength to demolish the Marleyan ships after his transformation by trampling on them.

Steam Emission

The Huge Titan has complete control over the amount of steam its titan form may produce. Most Titans create steam from their wounds, and after receiving a fatal blow, their bodies evaporate and turn into steam. The massive Titan could make as much steam as possible to keep humans away from its nape.

The Titan can use its massive steam-emitting power in a variety of ways. For starters, the pressure and intensity of producing a large amount of steam can burn and drive away anyone in the vicinity of the Titan. The heat will sear them at the Titan’s mercy if anyone is attached to the Colossal Titan.

However, the Titan suffers from overuse of its power, and it can, for example, diminish muscle mass until the skeletal framework becomes visible.

The Huge Titan could evaporate its entire body at once and vanish in rare conditions. The user becomes vulnerable, having no way to protect themselves from a fall from a high altitude where the Titan once stood. However, by wearing Omni-directional (ODM) gear, the user can overcome this disadvantage. When fighting the Titan, ODM gear allows for tremendous mobility.

Explosive Transformation

Even though all Titans produce tremendous steam and energy, the Huge Titan is more advanced. It may manipulate the energy generated during transformation to make a variety of outcomes. For example, when Bertholdt encountered Trost, his change created a wind blast, and some cadets were thrown over the wall by the explosion.

During combat at Shiganshina District, Bertholdt, on the other hand, produced an amount of energy similar to a small nuclear weapon. The power destroyed a district section and set the area on fire, resulting in the deaths of a large number of Scout Regiment officers.

In a devastating explosion, Arielt used the explosive transmutation to wipe off practically the entire Marleyan naval fleet at Liberio. The activity resulted in energy waves, which caused damage to the port.

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