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When Marcel was attacked by a Titan who wanted to eat him, he could have
turned into a Titan to avoid it or at least try to fight back. But he didn't
do it. Also Reiner, Annie, and Bertholdt just ran away instead of transforming
and fighting.

Why didn't Marcel turn into a Titan to avoid being eaten by Ymir?


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2019-06-26T13:36:25.410
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2021-04-04T15:21:22.253
2019-06-26T21:16:47.370
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question
attack-on-titan
Why didn't Marcel turn into a Titan to avoid being eaten by Ymir?


This is how I interpret it based on the events shown in **Chapter 95**.

During this time,

> Marcel revealed to Reiner that he wasn't supposed to be a warrior in the
> first place. As expected, this shocked Reiner. He was lost in his thoughts
> that he did not notice Ymir behind him. He only had time to look back before
> being shoved away by Marcel. [![enter image description
> here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/CbIuA.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/CbIuA.jpg)

Notice in the image how Ymir's hand is already reaching towards Marcel, who
pushed Reiner out of the way. He had no time to react at all and after being
grabbed, what I guess happened was that he couldn't injure himself. Also,
notice in this chapter how he kept looking at Reiner and his other comrades
with his mouth open, with no time to react at all or even say anything to
them, which led me to assume that the events were probably too fast for them
to handle. It was probably their first time in that situation and it's
understandable they'd give in to fear instead of thinking.

**Why would he do this?** The most probably cause is panic. Sure, they were
trained as soldiers but they were still children. That situation alone would
make anyone panic and not think properly. It's also possible that the mixed
emotions he had (guilt, for revealing to Reiner that he forced Marley to
enlist him in order to save his brother, and his hesitation of the mission)
was enough to make him lose his will to continue the mission or forget what
he's capable of.

**Why didn't Reiner, Annie or Bertolt transform?** Bad decisions due to,
again, panic and unexpected events. In **Chapter 96** ,

> after they ran away, Annie was telling them that had they not run away, they
> would have gotten hold of the Jaw Titan back. But seeing both her comrades
> running, she followed, _remarking that she did not know what to do_. Reiner
> was also still in panic and he only calmed down and thought of a plan after
> the three of them talked. It was also mentioned by Reiner, who after calming
> down, that they would not have caught the Jaw Titan anyway without Pieck's
> help _since it's faster than all of them_. There is also the risk of running
> into more Titans (they still don't know how many there are and they did not
> even expect to be attacked since their intel tells them that Titans only
> reside near the walls) and with only three of them, Reiner mentions that
> they'll just risk getting exhausted or eaten.


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2019-06-26T16:13:04.230
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answer


If you have read the manga then you would see that when Ymir attacked marcel
he really was shocked at that time and he had no time to react. He was scared
to his guts this is probably the reason that he wasn't able to transform into
a titan


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2019-06-27T04:47:50.427
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2019-06-27T04:47:50.427
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answer


When the titan shifters transform, it causes a huge earthquake and has a high
chance of killing any human nearby. So unless all 3 warriors simultaneously
reacted and transformed at the same within that moment (highly unlikely) they
would all just die. This was shown when Annie revealed her transformation in
season 1.


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