The Big Picture
King Fritz of Eldia craved power, used Ymir’s Titan powers, and started the Reiss family’s tradition of consuming Titans to gain power. Ymir, the first Titan Shifter, remained trapped in a purgatory-like state for 2,000 years until granting Eren’s request for freedom. The Reiss family hid their power and manipulated memories, but Rod Reiss ultimately failed to protect the Founding Titan and his family.
Attack on Titan is a story filled to the brim with mysteries, and when it comes to keeping secrets, the Reiss family are masters of the art. As the mysteries in the show were unraveled bit by bit until the series’ finale last year, the curtain was slowly pulled back on the most mysterious family in this strange world where giant man-eating monsters are far from the worst of our problems. From the inception of Paradis and the Eldians’ generational trauma to the bitter end of their fight for freedom, the Reiss family have been at the center. Here is everything you need to know, from the history of the Reiss family to their hopeful future.
Attack On Titan
After his hometown is destroyed and his mother is killed, young Eren Jaeger vows to cleanse the earth of the giant humanoid Titans that have brought humanity to the brink of extinction.
Release Date September 28, 2013
Cast Marina Inoue , Hiro Shimono , Takehito Koyasu , Yûki Kaji , Josh Grelle , Bryce Papenbrook
Seasons 4
King Fritz of Eldia
Image via MAPPA Studio
Everything begins with a greedy and power-hungry king’s reign. Back in the days of ancient Eldia, King Fritz (Eizo Tsuda/Kenny James) craved the power to destroy his enemies and found such a power in a young slave girl named Ymir (Chiyuki Miura/Apphia Yu). Using Ymir’s Titan powers, Eldia expanded under King Fritz’s rule. To show his gratitude and reward Ymir for the part she played in his plight to rule the world, he took her as his concubine. The two had three daughters, Maria, Rose, and Sina, but they were far from a happy family. Upon the death of his concubine Ymir, Fritz ordered his daughters to consume her body, allowing them to gain her power, and so began the ritual of consuming each other and passing along the power of the Titans to future Reiss generations.
Ymir
Image via MAPPA Studio
Arguably, Ymir is the one who started it all. Injured and hunted, she stumbled upon the power of the Founding Titan. Though her life became much different than that of a typical slave, Ymir never got to be free. King Fritz took her as his concubine, and she bore him three daughters. 13 years after becoming the very first Titan Shifter, Ymir passed away, but her spirit remained in the paths, a place reminiscent of the tree where she first got her powers, and there she stayed in the form of the little girl she was, back before everything began. She remained there for 2,000 years in a state of purgatory until much later, when she finally granted Eren Jaeger’s (Yuki Kaji/Bryce Papenbrook) request in the name of hard-fought freedom (at a high cost).
Maria, Rose, and Sina
Image via MAPPA Studio
The three daughters of King Fritz and Ymir inherited their mother’s Titan powers after consuming her flesh. They then followed the direction of King Fritz and passed the power down to nine successors, after which the Reiss family continued the tradition. Maria, Rose, and Sina became the namesakes for the three Walls on Paradis Island: the outer wall, Maria, fell during the Titan invasion of Shiganshina; the middle wall, Rose, was temporarily breached not long after, but the gap was filled by Eren Jaeger and his Titan’s hardening abilities; and the innermost wall, Sina, protected the royal family.
Rod Reiss
Image via WIT Studio.
Generations later, the family decided to hide in plain sight as a noble family within the Walls of Paradis after changing their family name from Fritz to Reiss, setting up a false figurehead to play the part of King (and naming him Fritz, just like their early ancestor). In secret, they kept the power of the Founding Titan within the family, hoarding their secrets and manipulating the memories of the Eldians on Paradis. Though his early life was dedicated to trying to sway his father to use the Founding Titan to save their people, Rod Reiss (Yusaku Yara/Kenny Green) quickly became devoted to carrying on the family line and protecting the Founding Titan after his younger brother Uri (Toshio Furukawa/Nazeeh Tarsha) inherited the power by consuming their father.
Rod Reiss had five legitimate children; Freida (Yoko Hikasa/Dawn M. Bennett), Urklyn, Dirk, Abel, and Florian, and one illegitimate daughter, Historia (Shiori Mikami/Bryn Apprill). Following a vicious attack from Grisha Yeager (Hiroshi Tsuchida/Chris Hury), Rod and Historia became their family’s sole survivors, and Rod’s last-ditch bid to keep the Founding Titan’s power in the family led to an irreparable rift between him and his daughter. He ultimately injects himself with Titan serum and becomes a mindless Titan, never fulfilling his life’s goal.
Uri Reiss
Image via WIT Studio
When Rod and Uri’s father asked for a volunteer to be the next Titan Shifter, Uri took the mantle. As soon as he inherited the power, however, he was cursed with the knowledge of the past, present, and future, a burden that proved heavy, and he was influenced by the First King, Fritz, through the power of the Founding Titan. After making friends with Kenny Ackerman (Kazuhiro Yamaji/Phil Parsons), the man sent to kill him, Uri dutifully carried on the Reiss family tradition by willingly being consumed by his niece, Freida.
Freida Reiss
Image via WIT Studios
Before inheriting Attack on Titan’s Founding Titan, Freida was a warm and kind person. She knew of the existence of her illegitimate half-sister and would often visit Historia to spend time with her and teach her how to read. For Historia’s protection, Freida disappeared from her life and erased her memories of their encounters, a bittersweet ending to their relationship. She injected herself with the Titan serum with great reluctance but followed through on her duties of consuming her uncle, Uri, after which she gained the power of the Founding Titan and the memories of the Reiss ancestry. Not long after, however, Grisha Jaeger attacked the Reiss family and, after battling his Attack Titan, she lost both the Founding Titan and her life.
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Urklyn, Dirk, Abel, and Florian Reiss
Image via WIT Studio.
Unfortunately, there isn’t much to say about the other four legitimate children of Rod Reiss. Unlike Freida, none of them inherited any Titan powers, although they were all present during the ritual and witnessed the Founding Titan’s transfer from Uri to Freida. Upon the arrival of Grisha Jaeger, however, all four children were brutally murdered, marking the spot as a place of tragedy for the Reiss family. In one fell swoop, Grisha had stolen the Founding Titan and murdered all known living descendants of Ymir (this action by Grisha has more context than one would first assume, as shown in Attack on Titan’s final season), with the exception of Rod and Historia, who lived on in secret.
Historia Reiss
As a young child, Historia was raised on one of the Reiss family estates with her mother Alma (Michiko Neya/Heather Walker) until the deaths of her half-siblings. Her mother received a visit from Kenny Ackerman, who killed her before Historia’s eyes, and Historia was then pressured into leaving behind her family name and renaming herself Krista Lenz. With no future and a shadowy past, Historia joined the military in the hopes of dying, but she was given renewed hope through the efforts of her friend Ymir (Saki Fujita/Elizabeth Maxwell), who, despite sharing a name with the founder Ymir, shares no blood relation to the Reiss family.
After boldly reclaiming her name, Historia also reclaimed her throne with the help of the Survey Corps and became Queen of the Walls, dethroning the figurehead and leading Paradis Island. Through the course of time, Historia gave birth to a daughter, the very first Reiss to come into the world as a completely free subject of Ymir. Though their history is convoluted and tragic, the end of the family’s story, much like the end of Attack on Titan as a whole, has a light at the end of the tunnel, with the final known member of the Reiss family, History’s baby daughter, who is born into a new world where she can be free.
Attack on Titan is available to stream on Hulu in the U.S.
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