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NOTE: This article is about the 145th King of Eldia. You may be looking for information on the King of Eldia from 2,000 years ago.
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If Marley grows strong and attempts to take the lives of the royal family or its Founding Titan... I will accept it. If Marley decides to exterminate all Eldians, I will accept it. That is how grave the crimes of us Eldians are. They can never be atoned for. Eldians... Titans... they never should have existed in the first place. I will accept the responsibility of righting this wrong. Only, until the day that this retribution comes, I want to live inside the Walls... I want to enjoy this brief paradise, this world without conflict. Please, I ask that you only grant me this.
~ Willy Tybur quoting Karl Fritz's last words to the world.
There is meaning in every catastrophe. Whether humanity is fated to die, or survive...that decision is in God's hands. My mission is to summon God back into this world and offer my prayers to her.
~ Rod Reiss preaching Karl's ideology and intending to "bring him back" through Historia Reiss.

Karl Fritz, the 145th King of Eldia, also simply referred to as King Fritz and later King Reiss, is a major antagonist in the Attack on Titan manga/anime series. He is the creator of the Wall Titans and the overarching antagonist of the Royal Government arc and Grisha Yeager's confrontation against the Reiss family. He was an Eldian king who, unlike his ancestor was said to have disliked Eldia's imperialism and wanted to end its oppression over the descendants of the nation of Marley and other cultures.

He eventually succeeded, caused the downfall of the Eldian Empire, and brought "peace" in the world by instigating and ending the Great Titan War a century ago, freeing the world from Eldian domination. He finally took as many Eldians as he could to Paradis Island, where he moved the kingdom's capital and built the Walls, made out of enormous Titans, but also erased most of his subjects' memories to maintain this peace, making them believe humanity beyond the Walls was extinct, completely wiped out by the Titans.

This was done not just so the King could enjoy his peace, but also to leave the Eldians vulnerable to Marley and any other nation's retribution, as Karl Fritz believed Eldia could never be redeemed, despite the fact that their descendants would have no involvement in Eldia's crimes. He later changed his name to Reiss, while the rest of the Fritz members that had not fled with the others to the island remained in the continent of their crumbling empire during the Great Titan War, where they suffered defeat at the hands of the Marleyans. The royal Eldian family became split in two branches and the last member of the side from the continent was Dina Fritz. Her son Zeke Yeager is the last descendant of the Fritz branch on the continent.

Personality[]

Karl Fritz was a man who was deeply guilt-ridden and ashamed of the actions of his family and his empire of Eldia, including its warmongering, brutality, lust for power, and the racial supremacism of the Subjects of Ymir. During the Great Titan War, Karl took the side of an uprising to restore the ancient nation of Marley and conspired with the Tybur family to bring about the downfall of his own empire, because he had developed a philosophy of defeatism and self-hatred, believing that the world would better off without Titans and Subjects of Ymir (Eldians) by extension existing.

Despite this ideology, Karl still appeared to want to have a sense of peace among his people, so he gathered a small handful of Eldians and retreated to an island that would later be named "Paradis" and used the Founding Titan to erase his people's memories of the world, thus forcing his ideology through the vow renouncing war. By doing so, Karl condemned his people to a life of nigh-solitude and prevented any technological advancement, believing that should his people eventually be slaughtered by the world's retaliation, which he deemed justified and righteous, it should be accepted, as he believed that all Eldians were sinners, guilty of centuries-long crimes, thus in need to repent. As such, despite taking Eldians with him to the island of Paradis he did not hesitate to transform thousands of them into Colossal Titans to form his the three Walls surrounding the island further showcasing his lack of care for his people's wellbeing.

Karl's selfish and self-righteous nature is evident by the fact that he even altered the Founding Titan so that his descendants would unwillingly inherit his self-hating/self-destructive ideology, forcing them into slaves to his will and be unable to utilize any of the Founder's power for self defense. Karl appeared to be too arrogant and egotistical to realize he himself was oppressing his own people, but he refused to admit his faults in this matter and allowed all the blame to fall onto his people. This can actually be a sign of narcissistic personality disorder.

Karl was also ruthless toward rebels and traitors, as either himself directly or through one of his successors, he would also go on to order the persecution and extermination of certain rebel and traitor families within the Walls who would start to oppose the his law and will. As the members of these rebel families were not composed with Subjects of Ymir, but instead were descendants of other races (except the Ackermans, who were Subjects of Ymir with altered DNA), and thus were immune to the Founder's body-altering powers, the King of the Walls wanted all the family members executed, although through Uri Reiss he also viewed the families' desire for vengeance as justified.

Biography[]

Background[]

Karl Fritz, a prince of the Fritz royal family, was deeply guilt-ridden, disgusted and ashamed of Eldia's atrocities and imperalistic oppression repeatedly committed against various races and cultures across the world throughout centuries. He was particularly sickened by the constant oppression of the Marleyans, who back then they were non-Subjects of Ymir citizens of Eldia. After eventually inheriting the Founding Titan, it is implied that he also viewed past atrocities of his empire via the memories of the past from his predecessor family members.

Over a hundred years ago, by then the 145th King of Eldia, Karl lived in a time period when the Eldian Empire was no longer challenged by enemy nations, and thus the nation's rulers and nobility were constantly fighting each other for power, although the Fritz royal family always solved every matter and dispute by altering the minds of their people. As soon as Karl inherited the Founding Titan, however, he avoided using its power to maintain order within his realm and instead started scheming for its downfall.

Despite being the King of Eldia, Karl wanted to ally himself with with the many peoples oppressed by his empire, especially the people descending from the fallen nation of Marley, out of pity. He was said to have felt disgusted at the history and actions of the Eldian Empire, and more than anything he felt awful for the endless oppression of the Marleyans. In response to the atrocities committed by his predecessors and ancestors, he started to conspire for the fall of his family's own empire. He made a secret alliance with one of the eight overlord Eldian families, the House of Tybur, whose head (or another member) at the time is historically labelled the "Savior". Karl and Tybur instigated the already existent infighting, rivalries and hostilities between the Empire's political factions and noble families, whilst Karl personally and deliberately neglected to use the Founder's power to control them and keep them peaceful. At some point, Karl and Tybur destroyed any remaining stability within the Eldian Empire's government with their manipulations, engulfing the flames of infighting between Eldia's factions. Eventually, the ruling noble families holding eight of the Nine Titans ended up waging open war against each other and ultimately started the civil war known as the Great Titan War.

To hide the truth of their actions, Karl and Lord Tybur fabricated the Marleyan hero Helos to give to give hope to the descendants of Marley (implied by Grisha's father to have been labeled Eldians or Marleyan Eldians during those times), while starting the Great Titan War and causing the Marleyan uprising themselves, as Karl felt that the Eldians deserved punishment for their inhumane treatment of the Marleyans. Using the image of Helos as their leader, the Marleyans started their own uprising and faction and joined the war against the other split fighting factions of Eldia. The Tybur family and their loyal forces joined the Marleyan side of the conflict, aiding them with the power of the War Hammer Titan against the other Titans under Eldia's control.

Leaving the Marleyans under Tybur's leadership, Karl took part of his family and as many Eldian subjects as he could with him to relocate on a remote island north of the continent, which was the last undisputed territory of Eldia under his full control. Karl moved the capital and banished himself with his remaining subjects on Paradis Island, leaving the rest of the Eldians on the mainland for Marley to do as they please and entrusting the rest of the war to the Savior of Tybur. The rest of the Fritz family kept fighting in the war, leading their own faction without their Titan power. Humanity believed that Karl had been defeated by the Marleyans, specifically by Helos and the Tybur Savior, and that he had been forced to flee.

Karl brought with him within the Walls his sworn protectors of the Ackerman family. Also amidst the chaos, a retinue from an Asian country named Hizuru and one member of the Shogunate's ruling family, the Azumabito clan, ended up stuck in the Walls's society and for some reason they were not allowed to leave to return home.

During the war, Karl created the Walls, then changed his last name and created the Reiss bloodline of Kings, splitting the royal bloodline in two family branches. Karl, the "First King of the Walls", then erased all the knowledge and memories of all history of the world from the minds of the Subjects of Ymir within his Walls, through his scream with the power of his Founding Titan, in the hope of creating his perfect utopia. The only people immune to his mental manipulation were several bloodlines, including the Ackerman and the Asian Azumabito Clans. The First King made all these bloodlines into the highest ruling classes of nobility, while the Ackermans were already a family of warriors serving directly under the royal family.

However, before closing the Walls, Karl Fritz was reached by members of his family who had come from the mainland to have him return to defend his people. Karl refused and instead left a final ultimatum message to the Fritz family and the Marleyans on the continent, warning the entire world that if anyone would ever interfere with his paradise by attacking his kingdom, the tens of millions of Colossal Titans which made his Walls would be released to flatten the entire world. However, this was never Karl's intention and was just a deterrent to keep the world's other nations away from the Walls, which allowed for a brief age of peace within the Walls. The King firmly believed that Eldia could never make up for what they had done, as the number of lives ruined or stolen was too much. Accordingly, he felt that Marley would be in the right to eliminate all Eldia, should they choose to. As a secret part of his last message, he told these feelings to the new Marleyan rulers, who were not to reveal them to the people. However, he also asked for Marley and the rest of the world to wait with their retribution for some time, wanting to enjoy the "peace" of Paradis.

To ensure this would never change, Karl used the power of the Coordinate to create his sacred vow renouncing war and force it on the Founding Titan to ensure all his successors would inherit his ideology and never try to restore Eldia or fight for its survival against the world's retribution. As humans are weak to power, Karl declared that the Founding Titan would never go in the hands of weak people ever again, and one day the Subjects of Ymir, the sinners, would have to face the world's judgement and accept it as atonement and justice.

Karl changed his family's last name into Reiss, officially posing as another noble family of regional lords in northern Wall Rose, with little connections to the Royal Government's ruling nobility. As a front for anyone who would try to steal the Founding Titan for any purpose, the Reiss family gave the name Fritz to one of the ruling noble families who were not Subjects of Ymir, making them figurehead kings to rule over the Walls in the Reiss' stead. This would direct anyone seeking for the Coordinate to a false track, seeking for the Founder within the Interior while the real royal family would be in the north. The Walls' new Fritz noble family was still part of the royal assembly and rulers of "humanity", secretely under the Reiss authority.

By retreating to Paradis Island, Karl Fritz willingly brought an end to the centuries-long reign of the Eldian Empire. Eventually, the Great Titan War would be won by Marley, finally ending the Eldian Empire after almost 1,900 years of global domination. With Eldia's downfall, the nation of Marley was reborn on the mainland, whilst the other countries of the continent and others across the globe regained their independence.

Over the time, some of the Walls' ruling noble families who were not Subjects of Ymir or simply immune to the Coordinate's control, including the Ackermans and the Azumabito, rebelled against the King and his ideology, resulting with them being hunted down to be wiped out even after Karl's death and throughout a century, leaving only five families immune to the Coordinate's power loyal to the Reiss family in the end. Over the century, the descendants of the Walls' noble ruling families, who were not Subjects of Ymir, would not retain any knowledge of humanity's true history and the world outside, and those who tried to rebel were always executed due to the Reiss family being unable to control their minds.

Legacy[]

Karl's war renouncing vow would be passed down to all his Founder inheritors of the Reiss royal family for 100 years. Also Karl's religious beliefs, teachings and ideology became part of the Walls's society and law in the Royal Government. Distorted versions of the history of humanity and Eldia remained present in the history books of the Walls, which all insist that all humanity outside perished, without any room for discussion. The law of the Royal Government is loyal to King Reiss's ideology and discourages society from having any interest for the outside world. Showing too much interest towards the outside is viewed as "heresy" by the population and it is extremely unpopular, due to the fear of the Titans surrounding the Walls. Starting to speculate too much about the outside will likely result in the "mysterious" disappearance of the individuals involved.

To the knowledge of the descendants of the Reiss family, 101 years ago humanity was on the brink of destruction, until an Intelligent Titan known as "the First Reiss King" emerged, with the mysterious power of Coordination. Instead of destroying the Titans, the First King dreamed of a world in which mankind was ruled by them. The protests and oppositions of the Ackermans and the other noble families who originated from other countries led to years of persecution on all rebel groups, eventually leaving both Ackermans and Azumabito nearly on the brink of extinction and forced to hide. Years before the year 845, the Ackerman persecution finally ended through Kenny Ackerman swearing allegiance to King Uri Reiss, resulting with the unaware Mikasa Ackerman being able to use her last name in public.

At some point during the last century, a military branch named the Survey Corps was created within the Walls, with the intention to discover the true nature of the Titans. The Royal Government decided not to oppose it, assuming they were never going to achieve anything anyway and just die, as at the time the lands outside were completely overrun with Pure Titans. The more the Survey Corps kept existing and persisting, the more the government started to gather political opposition to cut all funds for the branch's expeditions. Still, the Reiss family dismissed the Survey Corps as a threat to the peace and elected not to alter their memories with the Founding Titan.

For an entire century, technology within the Walls never developed and no weapons to fight the Titans back were ever created. The Royal Government always executed anyone who developed any form of better technology, but instead of destroying new discoveries, the members deep in the government kept them hidden from the public to enjoy them for themselves. When better guns were created, the inventor was murdered, but the weapons would be used by the Military Police's First Interior Squad.

As Karl's history teaches humanity within the Walls that all their records have been lost, history behind the last century is vague and a complete mystery. When a teacher named Smith was found suggesting that the First King might have had some form of power to alter the memories of the people in order to create civilization within the Walls, a royal soldier of the MP's First Interior Squad, Djel Sannes, questioned the teacher's son Erwin and later he and his comrades kidnapped, tortured and killed the teacher on the Royal Government's orders, to protect the Reiss's peace and paradise at any cost. Any possession of books containing possible information or speculation about the outside world is illegal.

The Arlert family owned one book like that, which resulted in Armin Arlert's parents creating a hot hair balloon and using it to fly outside the Walls to explore the world. The couple's intentions were discovered by the government, and both were killed by MP soldiers of the First Interior Squad including Djel Sannes, in order to protect Karl's utopia. For years Armin and his grandfather believed that the couple never returned due to both of them being devoured by the Titans outside the Walls.

An old song narrates a legend telling the world before the Titans was once filled with many different human ethnicities and cultures all constantly fighting against each other in wars over different ideals and beliefs, until one day "someone" wondered "what if humanity had a common enemy", and the Titans appeared in the world to wipe out most of the human races until the remaining humans left were sheltered by the Walls and rebuilt civilization in the only human territories left. These legends and songs narrating about humanity having to be united and peaceful might originate from Karl's ideology of peace and utopia and his contempt for human conflict. A lot of Karl's preaching about the paradise and humans being sinners who must stay inferior to the Titans is part of the religious teachings of the Church of the Walls.

However, the Church still claims that the Titans are evil demonic beings and pests who must not defile the holy Walls, nor enter the human territories. Beliefs regarding the Titans' origins vary, and some believe that they were sent by God and the Heavens to punish humankind for its sinful nature, giving them another species on top of the foodchain and forcing them to live caged and no longer be the species ruling the world. The Church and the Reiss family view the Walls as a creation of God, and as such the Royal Government prays the Founding Titan's will of the First Reiss King as God himself.

The majority of the world would never know the truth behind the Great Titan War and Karl Fritz's actions for more than a century. To most people's knowledge, King Karl simply left an ultimatum to the Marleyans and the remaining royal family on the continent, warning them to never attack his kingdom within his newly created Walls on his island, or else the tens of millions of Colossal Titans which made these Walls would be released to flatten the entire planet. Thus, the island was never attacked, and according to Marley's scholars the only reason why the world was never attacked by the Rumbling is pure luck. However, the world believes that the Eldians within the Walls wish to rule the world once more and seek revenge against the "inferior human races" who turned against their supremacy, and they still plot and dream to restore the Eldian Empire and bring genocide to the rest of the world. Thus, the Motherland Marley must save humanity by wiping out the devils of Paradis Island, retake the Founding Titan and put an end to the threat of the Rumbling. The Marleyan Warriors must be sent to destroy all the devils within the Walls, bring the world's judgement upon them and save humankind, possibly redeeming the "Good Eldians" in the world's internment zones from their sins.

Roughly 101 years after the foundation of society within the Walls, "judgement" came for Eldia when the Colossal Titan appeared and destroyed Wall Maria in 845. There is still a belief in the world, especially prominent in Marley, that Eldia will try to rule the world once more, and the people of the Walls seek revenge for the Great Titan War and wish to bring genocide and death upon humanity and the globe by releasing the Rumbling. The rest of the world outside Marley, however, is mainly busy hating on the Subjects of Ymir who live in the internment zones in all nations and consider them a danger to society who should be exterminated once and for all.

Marley has spent the last century using its Subjects of Ymir as Titan war weapons to conquer other nations and expand its domination through the entire continent and its islands. By the time of the beginning of the series, the entire continent is part of Marley. To every other nation in the world besides Marley, Paradis Island is mostly a nearly-forgotten evil memory of the past, while Marley's colonial empire and warmongering and the despised Eldians of the internment zones are their real concerns. During the age of imperialism, colonization, modernization and industrialization, Marley sends four child soldiers of its military's Warrior Unit, under the pretext of saving the world from the Rumbling.

The real purpose of the destruction of the Walls have nothing to do with saving the world, as the Marleyan government is almost sure that the royal family will still not use the power of the Founder to fight back. The true purposes are to recover the Founding Titan power and to gain control of all the island's resources, both which will help the nation to submit its enemies, and maintain and expand its global and military dominance, as well as to take revenge for the vicious history between Marley and Eldia. For obvious reasons, Marley's leaders did not reveal the world nor their people the political purposes of the operation.

Karl Reiss' paradise is threatened by the mission of the Eldian Restorationists, a rebel and reactionary movement from Marley. Its last remaining member, Grisha Yeager, confronts the Reiss royal family in their secret hideout below a chapel just as Wall Maria's lands are being invaded by the Titans and the population is just receiving the news. Grisha's pleads to the Founding Titan holder, Frieda Reiss, go unheard, as Karl's ideology and vow renouncing war prevent Frieda from having any free will. As such, all Frieda does is repeating Karl's beliefs and refuses to stop the invasion, declaring that judgement has finally come for the Subjects of Ymir.

This resulted in a fight between Frieda and Grisha, but Karl's war renouncing vow shows a fatal flaw; it does not even allow the followers of his own ideology to give their best to preserve Karl's ideal paradise or his ideology that welcomes Eldia's destruction, and above all fight to maintain custody of the Founder from supporters of Eldia's restoration like Grisha. Because of this, Frieda is unable to fully use and unlock the true potential power of the Founder due to Karl's imposed limitations, as well as Frieda's own inexperience to even fully use the full power allowed by Karl. This results in Frieda being easily defeated and the royal family getting massacred by Grisha's Attack Titan, who steals the Founding Titan by eating Frieda, while only the family's patriarch, Rod Reiss, manages to escape.

Five years later in 850, following more Titan attacks by Marley's Warriors and the discovery of Colossal Titans inside the Walls, results in an internal conflict between the royal government trying to preserve Karl's peace and the Survey Corps trying to discover the truth of the world. It starts from the moment the holder of both Attack and Founding Titans, Eren Yeager, is revealed and brought victory in the Battle of Trost District. After the Military Police seizes Eren, the Royal Government controlled by Rod Reiss makes multiple attempts to recover the Founding Titan back by using the law, first by having the Military Police gain custody of Eren under the pretext of "dissection" through winning a military trial under the authority of Premier Darius Zackly, then try to disband the Survey Corps once and for all for all the failed missions and death count in their expeditions. But after the capture of one of the Marley Warriors, Annie Leonhart, a massacre in Stohess District and the reveal of Colossal Titans within the Walls force the government and the Church to prepare more drastic measures to reclaim the Founder.

After another invasion of Wall Rose by the Beast Titan and the escape of the Colossal Titan Bertolt Hoover and the Armored Titan Reiner Braun, numerous soldiers of the Military Police's First Interior Squad from Mitras inexplicably makes its sudden appearance at southern Wall Rose, especially at Trost District, officially to maintain King Fritz's peace in the panicking southern population under constant Titan threat. The Royal Government freezes all Survey Corps's activity outside the Walls and commands them to hand over Eren Yeager and Krista Lenz at once, without further elaboration. When the order is not followed, infighting between the Survey Corps and the Interior Military Police becomes direct, until an uprising between the military and the ruling aristocratic classes and King Reiss takes place. After Rod Reiss's last failed attempt to reclaim the Founder and bring "God" back ends with his transformation in a gigantic Abnormal Titan and then his death, military rule is estabilished within the Walls through Historia Reiss, ending the reign of Karl Fritz's paradise within the Walls. After the Battle of Shiganshina District and the death of Bertolt Hoover, the truth of the world is discovered from documents left by the Restorationist Grisha Yeager in his own house's basement. The truth and the concept of "nation" and the existence of things such as the ocean are disclosed to the public, which receive mixed reactions.

Four years later in 854, when the power of the Titans starts to become obsolete and humanity is finally surpassing the monsters in the food chain, the Tybur family intervenes to save Marley from the retaliation of its rival nations by revealing Karl Fritz's true personality and the real events of the Great Titan War, in order to unite the world against Paradis Island. Willy Tybur reminds the world about the threat the island represents to the world, by telling how the Warrior Unit was sent there to neutralize the threat of the Rumbling, only to be beaten back by the remnants of the Eldian Empire. And even the population of the Walls remained harmless thanks to Karl Fritz's actions, the Eldian military rebelled against Karl's ideology and destroyed it with their uprising, and now the Usurper of the Founder, Eren Yeager, who is not bound by Karl's vow renouncing war, threatens the peace. Willy convinces the world that its real enemy is neither Marley or any other country, and not even the "tamed devils" of the internment zones, but only Paradis Island and its Rumbling, who are the only reason of the world's status and problems. Using the island as a scapegoat for the world's conflicts and problems, Willy seeks to bring global stability with humanity by uniting all the nations and races against a common "evil foe", which gives Marley a chance to become a nation of heroes once more and not suffer the same fate as the Eldian Empire.

King Karl's vow renouncing war prevents the use of the Founding Titan's power in any way, including any way that supports Karl's views and helps Eldia's destruction. Back in or around 842 the Warrior and Titan researcher Tom Ksaver had discovered a way to elude and break Karl's vow; in order for it to be broken, a Titan member of the royal family must work in tandem with an inheritor of the Founder who does not have royal blood. By making physical contact with the usurping Founder, Karl's descendant will gain access to the Paths, but according to Ksaver, the right to use the Coordinate's power will still lie with the Founder, while the royal Titan is basically just the key to unlock the Coordinate. Ksaver's discovery was also confirmed in 850 by the Usurper of the Founder, Eren Yeager, who had realized this fact after discovering how he had briefly gained access to the Coordinate's power after making physical contact with the Pure Titan of Dina Fritz. Ksaver had never revealed his discovery to Marley and only confided it to Dina's son, Zeke Yeager, in order to make their Eldian euthanization plan succeed. As Ksaver had requested that Zeke found an inheritor of the Founding Titan that would understand their motives and agree to the euthanization plan, Zeke attempted bring his half-brother Eren onboard it.

In 854, Marley finally discovers Ksaver and Zeke's secret through Gabi Braun, who along with the rest of the Marleyans realize that a way for Eren to unlock the Founder's power is by making contact with Zeke, bypassing Karl's control in the process. The belief that Zeke is the key to unlock the Founder whilst Eren is the one with the full right to use it, is what makes Armin Arlert believe that Zeke will not succeed in his euthanization plan, because Eren will likely not want to do it, and Zeke will be unable to go through it himself due to not having the Founding Titan. In truth, after Zeke and Eren make physical contact, it is revealed that Ksaver and Eren's discovery was partially incorrect; the right to use the Coordinate always lied with the Titan of royal blood, in this case Zeke, whilst the Usurper Founder, Eren, was actually the key to unlock it all along. This because the soul of the deceased Founder Ymir Fritz only listens to the will of members of the Fritz/Reiss royal family who come to visit her in the Paths. As a result, Zeke is the first Titan of royal blood to enter the Paths free from Karl's brainwashing after a century. Zeke eventually manages to break Karl's vow renouncing war and gains full control of the Coordinate, whilst Eren has to try gaining the full Founding Titan power by convincing Ymir himself.

A century after the creation of the Walls, in the middle of a conflict between Paradis Island and the Global Alliance, Karl Reiss's vow renouncing war is finally nullified by Zeke Yeager, who entered the Paths of the Coordinate through his royal blood and physical contact with his half-brother Eren. Being free from the 145th King's ideology, Zeke has the soul of the deceased Ymir Fritz undo Karl's order after a long time of talking. However, Ymir ultimately chooses to ignore Zeke's orders and instead allows Eren to start the Rumbling, the thing that was merely a deterrent created by Karl to maintain his paradise for a while, and the very thing the world feared and that confirmed to them that the Eldians of Paradis were only "devils".

Although he is the one who liberated the world from the Eldian Empire and finally brought freedom to the oppressed people, especially the Marleyans, Karl rejected any chance to bring positive changes in the world and improve society, and instead ended up being also the creator of the Rumbling and all the events that caused it, as well as being the person who instigated the fear for the Rumbling in Marley and most of the world, whilst Zeke tried to "correct" Karl's ideology by trying to "peacefully" genocide all the Subject of Ymir, instead of indulging with "paradises", create giant weapons of mass destruction and wait for the world's retaliation. However, Zeke and Hange Zoë still wished to use some of Karl's Colossal Titans to scare the world by destroying the navies of the Global Allied Fleet on the sea, without involving civilian deaths. Instead of simply ordering the Founder Ymir to stop building any new Titans of any kind for eternity, Karl only thought about securing his Paradise utopia and silently wait for the world's judgement for Eldia's crimes without taking any action to solve the conflicts himself, or even destroy Eldia himself.

Trivia[]

  • Among the few memories of true history that were not erased from humanity within the Walls by Karl is the knowledge that the Fritz royal family used to rule the world. In their history, the population of the Walls are taught that the royal family's Crown always ruled over humanity for over 2,000 years, long before the Walls existed.
    • Because of this, Karl's line, publicly covered by a figurehead family, acts as a symbol of human prosperity, peace, and order, with the entire Eldian civilization not knowing the royal family is the very reason why the Titans came into existence in the first place, and that the Power of the Titans is what gave the Eldian kings so much power.
  • In his kingdom's books and tales, the Founder Ymir Fritz is always referred to as "Krista".
  • The northernmost district of Wall Rose is named Utopia District. This nomenclature might refer to Karl's ideal dream of his paradise utopia within the Walls.
  • His ideology, beliefs, and some personality traits are seen being displayed by Rod and Uri's father, Uri Reiss, and Frieda Reiss, after they inherited the Founding Titan in their respective turn.
  • It is unclear whether the first Pure Titans surrounding the Walls were made by Karl or one of his successors or not. But either all or almost all of them were created by Marley, who used the island as a penal colony to punish criminal Subjects of Ymir.

Navigation[]

           AOT logo Villains

Main Characters
Eren Yeager | Reiner Braun | Zeke Yeager

Titans
Progenitors
Devil of All Earth | Source of all living matter

Nine Titans
Founding Titan | Attack Titan | Beast Titan | Colossal Titan | Armored Titan | Female Titan | War Hammer Titan

Phantom Titans
Okapi Titan | Snake Titan

Pure Titans
Smiling Titan | Jumping Titan | Bigmouth Titan | Peering Titan | Bearded Titan | Running Titan | Talking Titan | Four-footed Titan | Araki Titan | Gluttonous Titan | Portly Titan | Mr. Springer

Eldia
Royal Family
King Fritz | Ymir Fritz | Maria, Rose and Sina | The Original Nine | King Karl Fritz | Lord Rod Reiss

The Nine Titan Houses
The Ominous Colossal

Eldian Warriors
The Hunters

Paradis Island
Eldian Military: Premier Darius Zackly
Nobility: Minister Aurille | Minister Gerald | Minister Roderich | Minister Deltoff | Puppet King Fritz | Lord Xavi Inocencio
Military Police Brigade: First Interior Squad (First Interior Squad Commander, Djel Sannes, Ralph) | Anti-Personnel Control Squad (Captain Kenny Ackerman, Traute Caven)
Yeagerists: Eren Yeager | Floch Forster | Daz
Religious factions: Church of the Walls | Titan Cult
Civilians: Dimo Reeves | Niccolo | The Kidnappers

Marley
Tybur Family
Lord Willy Tybur

Marleyan Military
Governmental Party: General Theo Magath | General Calvi
Public Security Authorities: Sergeant Major Gross | Eren Kruger
Warrior Unit: War Chief Zeke Yeager | Vice Captain Reiner Braun | Bertolt Hoover | Annie Leonhart
Soldiers: Kruger | Yelena | Niccolo | Griez | Airborne Unit (Paratrooper Unit Commander) | Gas Weaponry Soldiers

Anti-Marleyan Volunteers
Zeke Yeager | Yelena | Griez

Eldian Restorationists
The Owl | Grisha Yeager | Dina Fritz | Comrade B | Comrade C | Comrade D | Unnamed Comrade

Civilians
Cult Leader

Live-Action Movies
Kubal | Shikishima

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