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| “ | The only truth in this world is that there is no truth. Anyone can become a god or a devil. All it takes is for people to believe it. | „ |
| ~ Eren Kruger |
Eren Kruger is a supporting character of the Attack on Titan anime/manga series.
Hiding his identity as an Eldian, he was an officer of the Marleyan military's Public Security, eventually serving as the right-hand to Sergeant Major Gross. Having deceived the law with fake blood results years before, he secretly became the inheritor of the Attack Titan. Kruger formed the Eldian Restorationists, a rebellious criminal organization from the Liberio internment zone under the anonymous codename of The Owl.
He is voiced by Yasunori Matsumoto in the Japanese sub and by Ray Chase in the English dub, who also voices David Shield from My Hero Academia.
Appearance[]
Kruger was a middle-aged but somewhat substantial and well-built man. He had blond hair that was brushed to the side and had blue eyes. Kruger wore the uniform that Marleyan troops and officers are required to wear, although he only wore the hat when he was confronting people. He had a very thin face and prominent cheekbones.
Kruger's Titan form was immensely muscular, with long blond hair, and sunken eye sockets. He did, however, retain some distinctive facial features from his human form, such as his prominent cheekbones.
Personality[]
Likely due to years of suffering and being forced to kill his own kin as an Eldian mole, Kruger is a very stoic man who rarely displays emotions. He had no qualms about beating a young Grisha Yeager to a pulp and showed no remorse when learning Faye had been killed by Gross. In truth, however, he feels extreme remorse for the murders he has commited, though still seeing is as necessary for Eldia.
One aspect of his personality is that he denies the concept of objective truth and believes the world relies on relativism or people's opinions.
Biography[]
Young Kruger watches his family die.
Eren Kruger was an oppressed Eldian born in the continental mainland of Marley, in one of the Eldian internment zones. As a child, Kruger had stayed hidden in a closet in his parents' house as he witnessed his own family getting burned alive by the Public Security Authorities, for his father's crime of being part of an unsuccessful revolutionary army led by remnants of the Fritz Family, the royal family of Eldia. Luckily, he was taken in and rescued by friends of his father. For a long time in his youth, he felt a deep hatred for Marley and the entire world, due to the injustice and tragedy.
At some point in his life, he would fake his blood results with the help of a doctor and become a legal Marleyan citizen, escaping his native internment zone and living a new free life around regular humans who were not Subjects of Ymir. He received his military education somewhere in the country, and eventually joined the Marley Public Security as a spy, planning to infiltrate deeper within the government. By the time of the year 817, Kruger was stationed and working in the city of Liberio. During his years of service, he became a partner and trusted friend of another fellow soldier, Gross.
During 817, Kruger and his colleague Gross ran into a young Eldian boy, Grisha Yeager, who was running out of Liberio's internment zone with his sister, Faye. When Grisha didn't have an exit permit for this specific trip in the Marleyan city, Kruger gave the boy the choice of either doing labor or take a beating as a punishment. Not wanting to trouble his parents, Grisha chose the latter; one beating for himself and another one in Faye's place. Kruger accepted Grisha's request and delivered the punishment, while Gross took Faye back home.
The next day, the Public Security Authorities and the Yeager family found Faye's lifeless and mauled body in an isolated area of Liberio, near the river, outside the internment zone. Due to the murder, Kruger and Gross showed up at the Yeager family's house, and the former stood by as Gross reprimanded Grisha's parents for letting their children roam free. Kruger had noticed the anger in Grisha's eyes and would remember this for many years. Either on the same year or sometime later in their lives, Gross confided to his friend Kruger what really happened to Faye, telling him how he brought the girl to his sons and how the four of them together fed her to their dogs for sport. Due to the fact that Faye was an Eldian, the authorities of Marley, including the other comrades and superiors of MPS, did not bother to conduct a proper investigation of the murder, and thus the culprit Gross was never exposed and punished for the crime, and Kruger kept the secret.
During 819, Kruger would obtain the Attack Titan from an unknown predecessor. Presumably from his father's accomplices, he also knew the identities of the last members of the Fritz family, which would later use to gain a person with Eldian royal blood on his side. Throughout the many years of service, Kruger would torture and kill thousands of fellow Subjects of Ymir, including women and children, to keep up a guise and and rise throughout the ranks of Public Security. It is also heavily hinted that he took part in many of his friend Gross' illegal atrocities and abuse of power, sometimes done towards Eldian citizens that were not even criminals. To maintain his cover, Kruger never reported any of Gross' abuse of power and out-of-line behavior. Throughout the years, both Kruger and Gross would continue to gain promotions and rise within their military's ranks, eventually becoming involved in the government's secret affairs and learning in advance information before the public did.
At some point during his time as an officer, either during 824 or earlier, he secretly formed and led a rebel and terroristic group known as the Eldian Restorationists, under the codename of "The Owl". He started gathering members, all of them discontented and resentful citizens of Marley, who desired freedom or revenge, and supported the revival of the infamous fallen nation of Eldia. Kruger guided the Restorationists as an anonymous, never disclosing his face and name to them, and only revealing that he was working in the Marleyan government as a mole, not adding anything else to them. All the Restorationists, except Kruger himself presumably, had a secret scar and wound in the shape of Eldia's star, which they used to indentify each other as accomplices and "fellow patriots".
During 824, Kruger sent the Restorationist Grice to recruit the 18 year old Grisha Yeager, who was a doctor apprentice working in his father's own clinic. Never forgetting the hatred he had seen in Grisha's eyes, Kruger personally picked him as the ideal guide of his organization (it is also hinted that Eren Yeager used the power of the Founder's Coordinate from the future to manipulate and influence all of Kruger's decisions in trusting Grisha with Eldia's future, ever since he inherited the Attack Titan two years after Faye's murder). Always as the Owl, and not showing his own face, Kruger disclosed to Grice the fact that seven years ago, Yeager's sister was murdered by a man of Public Security, by being mauled by dogs. He sent Grice to deliver this secret to Grisha, who became emotional, cried in anger, and immediately joined the Restorationists.
Later on the same year, the Owl sent a young girl, Dina Fritz, to join the Restorationists, using her as a symbol for the group, as she became in their eyes the true heir of Eldia over the branch of the royal family that lived within the Walls of Paradis Island, the surviving remnants of Eldia. At this point, the group was planning to go to the island in the future, infiltrate the Walls, and steal the Founding Titan to bring it back on the mainland, and use it to control all the other eight of the Nine Titans, in order to have them fight for the Eldians of the internment zones, especially those of Liberio, and destroy Marley once more, as their ancestors had done multiple times before. One year later, in 825, Grisha and Dina married and the Restorationists gained one more person of royal blood when Zeke Yeager was born to the spouses.
From 824 to 832, the Owl communicated with the Restorationists anonymously, giving them anonymous intel, classified affairs of state, and delivering them firearms and ammunation in order to fight for the freedom and rights of the Eldian people and start a war in the future. At some point it was becoming clear in the world that in the age of modernization and industrialization the age of Titan domination was soon going to come to an end, and the Power of the Titans would not be enough to maintain Marley's position as leader of the world in an age where military power is backed by fuel and aircraft. Marley's military began to turn its attention to Paradis Island, which was said to have massive amounts of fossil fuels, but also had the Eldian population of the Walls, whose rulers still held the Founding Titan and "tens of millions" of Colossal Titans, which were said by history to threaten mankind to global destruction with the Rumbling. As a government enforcer, Kruger was made aware of the governmental party's growing plans to send agents to infiltrate the Walls and take down its inhabitants and the Fritz family. During these times, this information was not to be disclosed to the public yet, and would remain classifed at least until the late 830s, when the Paradis Island Operation would become public knowledge.
During 830, the Marleyan government announced a reform made in the Marley Army's Eldian Unit, which always included six soldiers who held six of the Nine Titans that belonged to the nation. The newly reformed Warrior Unit this time would only accept young boys or girls from the eligible age of five or seven to become candidates to inherit Marley's Titans. Later Kruger sent a written warning to his Eldian Restorationists, disclosing to them Marley's plans to invade the Walls in the future years to come, once the new generation of child Warriors would be ready. The Owl explained to his comrades that although a huge reason for this was to gain Paradis Island's resources, like fossil fuel and iceburst stone, Marley's main objective was to steal the Founding Titan, as the nation already owned a lot of natural resources from ruling the entire continent and beyond. As the Titans were still the most effective weapons at the time, the conservative government still wished to use the Founder to enhance Marley's military might and global supremacy against enemy nations, in addition to gain the safety of the Eldians finally no longer having such power with them.
On the same year, Grisha sent to the Owl his decision to counter Marley's plan to reclaim the Founder; he would make his son Zeke into a mole of the Marleyan military's Eldian Unit and have him infiltrate the Warrior program, in order for him to gain one of the Nine Titans and steal the Founder from both Marley and Paradis one day, in order to bring it to the Eldians of Liberio. Kruger approved Grisha's plan, and as a servant of the Marleyan government and a public official of law enforcement he would be able to give Zeke all the support and cover. However, Zeke would be required to have good grades and performances in the military academy, or else the Owl would never be able to influence the choosing of Warrior candidates by the brass and overseers in charge of the program. Furthermore, Zeke needed to show absolute loyalty and devotions to his superiors and the state. And thus, either at the age of five or six, Zeke was enlisted into the military by his parents.
However due to Liberio's Public Security Authorities discovering the existence of the Restorationists, Zeke ultimately turned in his parents, under the urging of Tom Ksaver, a Warrior of Marley and researcher of the Titan Biology Research Society. Following the exposure, arrest, dissolution, and torture of the Restorationists in 832, all of them except their shadow leader Kruger were deported to Paradis Island. There, most of them, including Dina Fritz, were turned into Pure Titans by Sergeant Major Gross, except for Grisha and Grice, the latter being used as bait to lure the new Titans away from the island's coastline. Kruger deliberately covered up Grisha's attempts to inform the Marleyan soldiers about the fact that his wife Dina had royal blood, in an effort to have her spared.
As Grisha was about to be fed to one of his own Titanized comrades, Kruger ultimately saved his life by tossing Gross down the Marleyan wharf's wall, resulting in Gross ending up in range of the newly-made Titan and getting devoured by it. Kruger revealed his identity as the Owl to Grisha, turning himself into the Attack Titan to kill all the Public Security Marleyan soldiers stationed in the area. After some conversation with a grief ridden Grisha, he justified sacrificing Dina as a means of preventing Marley from utilizing her royal blood against them (unaware about the lengths and specifics of Karl Fritz's vow, which would've made anyone unable to use the power of the Founder). Kruger further explained his actions of sacrificing the lives of thousands of Eldians, including children, as a means of eventually being able to restore Eldia and its freedom. Kruger then explained everything he knows about Titans and told Grisha that he inherited his Titan thirteen years ago, meaning he would soon die by the Curse of Ymir. Warning him that if Marley would manage to take the Founder, Eldia would be doomed, he gave Grisha his final mission to steal the Founding Titan from the royal family of the Walls of Paradis Island. Kruger then used his remaining supply of Titan serum to inject Grisha, transforming him into a Pure Titan to become the inheritor of the Attack Titan, ultimately killing him, while his memories would be passed on to Grisha.
Over 20 years later, in the year 854, during the cataclysmic event of the Rumbling started by Grisha's second son Eren Yeager, during which his eldest Zeke and Armin were trapped in the Paths of the Coordinate, Kruger's soul (among Grisha's, Kruger's, and four other Eldians from Marley) manifested in the Paths meeting the two, no longer under the control of their ancestor, the Founder Ymir. Kruger agreed to help the Survey Corps-Marley alliance to end the Rumbling in order to save what was left of humanity, including the Restorationists' fellow Eldians from Liberio's internment zone, taking control of his Titan to fight off various past holders of the Nine Titans alongside the alliance at Fort Salta, in southern Marley. This act and Zeke's death via willing suicide by Levi ultimately allowed the Rumbling to come to an end. Along with Grisha and Ksaver, Kruger provided cover for Armin while Bertolt Hoover held him to prepare for a Titan transformation, after Jean blew up the Founder's head, which caused an anomaly to appear. Afer thanking Kruger and the other Titan "ghosts" for their contribution in saving humanity, Armin transformed into the Colossal Titan, resulting in the destruction of Eren's Founder body and the dissolution of all the Titans summoned by Ymir, including Kruger. The battle outside Fort Salta went on for a while without Kruger, concluding with Eren's death via decapitation and the dissolution of the Power of the Titans.
Victims[]
- Previous inheritor of the Attack Titan (as a Pure Titan)
- At least 9 Marleyan soldiers.
Indirectly[]
- Sergeant Major Gross
- Thousands of Eldian civilians
Gallery[]
Manga[]
Anime[]
External Links[]
- Eren Kruger on the Attack on Titan Wiki
- Eren Kruger on the Magnificent Baddies Wiki
Trivia[]
- He is Eren Yeager's namesake.
- Ironically or not, Freddy Krueger, who has a similar last name as Eren's father was burned to death.
