Eren Yeager

"I want to see and understand the world outside. I don't want to die inside these walls without knowing what's out there!"

- Eren Yeager

"When we're born, all of us are free. People who reject that, no matter how strong they are, don't matter. The burning water, the land of ice... any of those. Anyone who saw those things would be the freest person in the world. Fight! Who'd value their life over something like that? It doesn't matter how terrifying the world is. It doesn't matter how cruel the world is. Fight! FIGHT! FIGHT!"

- To himself as he seals the breach in Trost

Eren Yeager is the main protagonist of the anime/manga series Attack on Titan. He is a young boy from Shiganshina District, the southernmost town of Wall Maria, the outer wall of Paradis His adopted sister Mikasa Ackerman and closest friend Armin Arlert have both joined the military with him 2 years after having their town annihilated by the Titans. He holds a personal vendetta against all Titans and his goal is to wipe them all off the face of the Earth. He is ranked 5th in his class. After a near-death experience, he discovers that he possesses the mysterious ability to transform into a Titan, inherited from his father, Dr. Grisha Yeager. This leads multiple groups to vie for him, viewing him as the key to humanity's fate. Eren is the current holder of the Attack Titan and the Founding Titan's power.

He is voiced by Yuki Kaiji in the Japanese version of the anime and Bryce Papenbrook in the English version, both of whom also voice Meliodas.

Human Form
Eren, seemingly of German origin is a young man of average height & build. He's got a fairly long face, brown hair, and large, round turquoise-green eyes (the brightness of his eye color varies depending on the lighting). His skin seems slightly more tan than that of the other characters. His short hair reaches the nape of his neck and falls middle-parted in front of his forehead in sort of a "curtain" style. His eyes are very sizable and expressive. Being as passionate as he is, his brow is often furrowed, making him appear angry or annoyed. He is first seen wearing regular townsfolk attire which consisted of brown pants, a green shirt with a string holding the collar together and a maroon vest. Later, he is seen in the typical Scouting Legion uniform. He always keeps the key given to him by his father dangling around his neck on a string.

Titan Form
As a Titan Eren's appearance changes quite drastically, yet there are a few qualities that make him recognizable. Along with a massive increase in height, his hair grows to about chin length and his eyes become long and thin as opposed to his normal eyes which are round and wide. His tongue, nose, and ears become more prominent and pointed and his teeth become dagger shaped, multiply and form two rows. Compared to the majority of other Titans, Eren's Titan form seems much more physically fit and stronger, bearing lean muscle rather than a belly.

Personality
"I'll erase their existence from this world... I'm going to kill them all! Not even a single one of them will be left!"

- Eren making his vow to destroy the Titans

Eren is best described as hardheaded, strong-willed, passionate and impulsive, which are all attributes of his strong determination to protect mankind and eventually escape the Walls. As a young child, he was so intent on joining the Survey Corps that he argued with and shouted at his mother, referring to the people in the village as "silly" and compared them to complacent livestock. He cared deeply for Armin, his best and only friend before he met Mikasa, and most importantly his family, risking harm and even death in order to help them. This quality was most often demonstrated in the form of Eren taking on the larger boys who would bully Armin without hesitation; and more tragically when he desperately attempted to lift the rubble crushing his mother during the Titan's assault in Shiganshina. In contrast, Eren is also capable of displaying very violent behavior in the defense of people he does not even know. This is highlighted when he brutally slaughtered two of the human traffickers who captured Mikasa in order to rescue her, despite the fact that they were total strangers at the time. Since witnessing his mother's gruesome demise and losing contact with his father, his fierce protectiveness to those he has left has only intensified.

Eren has a number of defining traits that date back to his childhood. He came to share his friend Armin's awe of the lands beyond the Walls after the latter showed him a book depicting the wonders of the outside world; and decided to see it all for himself. This led him to develop a scornful attitude to anyone content to live and die within the Wall's confines without ever setting foot outside. This very contempt may have been the reason he did not easily make friends with his peers. He resented both the Walls that "caged" them in like cattle, and the Titans that had driven humanity to erect them in the first place. As a result of this, he greatly admired the soldiers of the Survey Corps, regarding them as "heroes", and wishing to join their ranks as soon as he became eligible for enrollment. He easily took offense when anyone spoke badly of the Legion, and his determination to join caused friction between himself and his mother, as well as to Mikasa. Eren also has an incredibly short temper; when he was younger, he got annoyed by people not taking the military seriously and frequently got into fights with bullies over trivial things. Nowadays, just about everything makes him mad, but nothing more than the Titans; merely mentioning them is enough to make his blood boil.

Eren had a marked lack of self-restraint that often led him into trouble, causing both his friends and family to worry over him. When sufficiently provoked, his anger could drive him into a frenzy, accompanied by horrific levels of violence. Like many children, he tended to view the world in terms of black-and-white; having great compassion for humanity and its plight, but deeming those individuals who deny others their freedom as worthless scum unfit to be left alive. He also had the habit of thinking with his heart rather than his head, even in situations where his own life was in danger. Whilst assuming his Titan form, Eren seems to become more savage, bloodthirsty, and all-round uncontrollable. Though he is able to consciously control his Titan body after the Battle of Trost, he can very easily become caught up in the pleasure of slaughtering his enemies, indulging in thoughts so brutal he gives the impression of being insane, though he is shown to not be completely stable even as a human. There are times when it seems that Eren is not in control of himself in this state however such as when his Titan form was attempting to write about his father from a subconscious memory.

His characteristic qualities have become more highly pronounced since his mother's death. He now focuses his destructive rage on the Titans, holding a virulent hatred for them, with the goal to one day rid the world of Titans. He vowed to brutally kill his former friends Reiner Braun and Bertolt Hoover who were revealed to be the Armored and Colossus Titans respectively, regardless of their past together. Fueled by vengeance, he vowed to personally wipe every single one of them out and restore mankind to its rightful place. Though he feels great remorse for quarreling with his mother till the very end, he still continues to go against her wishes by seeking entry to the Survey Corps. So strong is his desire to exterminate the Titans, he was plunged into despair when it seemed he could not even master the basics of the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment during training, when his failure was in fact due to faulty equipment. He is unafraid to voice his intentions of leaving the Walls to eliminate the Titans, and is so consumed in his hatred that he seems not to fear them at all; earning him the nickname "Suicidal Blockhead" from the other Trainees.

He possesses great amounts of selflessness, perseverance, fortitude, and a vigorous determination; managing to graduate fifth in his class despite his lack of natural talent. He refused to give up on his goal to exterminate the Titans even after being dismembered and eaten alive, took on the Colossus Titan alone and attempted to fight the 14-15 meter tall Smiling Titan while in his human form. He greatly appreciates and/or admires his comrades, and will swiftly fly into a rage if one of them is injured or killed in front of him. He prizes human life, but his personal sense of justice dictates that anyone who steals away the freedom and dreams of others deserves to die. As the identities of the Titan Shifters are revealed, his disbelief quickly gives way to a burning desire to deal each a slow, agonizing death for their crimes. Though his ordeals since the Battle of Trost have taught him to conduct himself a bit more carefully, Eren still tends to behave quite rashly, and speaks his mind even when he knows he should not. This has put him in grave danger on numerous occasions, and he often finds himself having to be rescued.

Eren however tends to lose confidence in himself when confronted with how he could do little to nothing in situations. This includes when Eren put his trust in the Special Operations Squad when he could have fought the Female Titan himself and they all ended up dying. This weighed heavily on Eren and drove him to protect those close to him unless the threats were people he was once close to including the Female Titan who turned out to be Annie. This was shown again when Eren was about to sacrificed to Historia to reclaim the Reiss family's power. Regaining his memories of killing his father as a Titan while taking his powers weighed heavily on Eren, this only worsened when Grisha was revealed to have killed nearly the whole Reiss family to obtain a power that supposedly could only be used by the Reiss family to potentially eliminate the Titans. Eren was overcome with despair by this and had only thoughts of being devoured in order to save humanity. It took a lot of encouragement from the friends Eren had left to overcome this despair and regain his passion.

Year 844
When Eren was a child, he saved Mikasa from being sold by human traffickers. Three men, which were the killers of her parents, were in a house. Killing two of them, he was caught off guard by the third who proceeded to strangle him. With superhuman strength, Mikasa leapt forward at the man after realizing that it is a "live or die" life they are living. As Eren's father finds them surprisingly safe and unharmed, Eren gave Mikasa the scarf she always wears, and declared her a part of his family.

Year 845
With the invasion of Wall Maria after the Colossal Titan makes a path, Eren discovered the horrors of the life he is living that sets the motion for his future. Seeing the destruction of his town, mindless titans slaughtering humans, and his own mother being eaten alive as he was helpless to save her, Eren remarks that the life humans live is controlled entirely at the mercy of the titans and humans are nothing more than cattle. Being dragged away by a local Stationary Guard, Hannes, Eren swears to kill every single titan in existence with tears of frustration and hatred.

Year 845 to current
After the fall of Wall Maria, Eren, Mikasa and Armin briefly stayed in the “landfill” working on a farm before reaching the proper age to enroll in the military. Here they spent approximately four years in training, Eren placed fifth in his class upon graduation.

Story
Upon graduation, before Eren is able to formally apply for a position in the Scouting Legion, the Colossal Titan appeared the same as it did the day of the fall of wall Maria. Eren attempts to destroy it, but it vanishes in a puff of smoke after having broken the gate open.

In response to the crisis, the new recruits are scrambled and split into squads in charge of spreading to and defending different parts of the city. Eren is grouped with Armin. Upon seeing his comrades killed, Eren leaps into battle after a Titan, only to have his leg bitten off below the knee, incapacitating him. The rest of his group attacks and dies as a result. Just as Armin is about to get eaten, Eren manages to pull his friend out of the bearded Titan's mouth, effectively switching places with him. Eren is swallowed, his left arm being severed as the titan shut its mouth. It is later revealed that in the stomach of the bearded Titan, Eren’s desperation and drive to exterminate all Titans triggered his first transformation into a Titan, bursting from the bearded Titan and proceeding to wreak havoc on all the Titans he could get his hands on. In the process he unwarily saves the mourning Mikasa’s life and is baited by a team of his classmates to help fend off a procession of Titans from a storage headquarters for the compressed gas used to power their 3D movement gear.

As the Titans seem to overwhelm him and Mikasa’s group is about to intervene, a certain Titan that killed one of Eren’s team members appears and Eren’s rage powers him to throw off the percussion and destroy the Titan. As soon as the massacre is over, Eren falls to the ground and his human form emerges from the back of his Titan form’s neck (with both lost limbs back) to the shock of all the onlookers. He is retrieved by an overwhelmed Mikasa. Upon his awakening, Eren seems to only have a faint dream-like memory of his time as a Titan and finds himself cornered by the military with only Mikasa and Armin as his support. The military intends to kill Eren, thinking him an enemy. A cannon is fired at the three of them and Eren grabs onto his two friends and bites his own hand, wounding himself and partially transforming into a Titan, blocking the cannon ball before emerging from the skeleton. Eren allows Armin to try and talk them out of their tight spot with limited success until Commander Dot Pixis intervenes.

A plan is made for Eren to use his Titan form to move a huge boulder they had planned to use to reseal the gate to prevent titans from further entering, but were unable to move it. Eren is assigned to a team including Mikasa to defend him while he carries the boulder. Upon his transformation to execute the plan, though, he attacks Mikasa, who tries to communicate with him to snap out of it, unsuccessfully. Eren ends up wounding himself and his body fails to regenerate, the mission is declared a failure. Despite this, the leader of the group, with some non-verbal convincing by Mikasa, decides they must stay and guard Eren. Armin arrives on the scene and convinces Mikasa to go help fend off the Titans while he tries to get through to Eren. Eventually he is able to do so, and Eren moves the stone and is able to plug the hole in the wall at the sacrifice of the rest of the team members (with the exception of Rico, Armin and Mikasa). They are saved from the desperate situation after Eren’s transformation back to human by Levi.

Eren again woke up, this time in a dungeon prison cell chained. Levi was there and upon hearing his motive to kill Titans says he’ll accept him on the team. Eren was left there for a time before he was escorted by Scouting Legion members to the court room where he was tried with one side calling for his decision and execution and the opposing side, the Scouting Legion, arguing to use his power to their advantage in scouting missions. After an outburst by Eren, Levi beats him accrediting his dominance over Eren’s threat and it is decided his fate will be decided after a “test” mission with the Scouting Legion.

Eren, along with some of his old classmates who also joined the Scouting Legion, train for a month, learning long distance communication formation, before they had to depart outside Wall Rose to the ruin in the region once protected by Wall Maria. Eren along with most of the group were not told the goal of the operation but were simply expected to follow orders. Eventually, a deviant “intelligent” titan known as the “Female Titan” caught up with Eren’s team and pursued them into a huge forest. Upon it’s closer approach and the death of some comrades from behind as Eren and his team simply keep running, Eren is tempted to use his Titan power and save his comrades and fight the Female Titan. Levi allows this choice, but Eren eventually decides to trust in his team, sacrificing the last remaining member of the rear guard. The Female Titan, suspected to be the same as Eren and merely a “human in titan skin,” nearly captured Eren before being ambushed and captured herself. Eren and the rest of his team excluding Levi ride out of the forest firm in the belief that the titan was captured and her human self apprehended. This is proved false as the unidentifiable human form of the Female Titan kills one of the team members before re-transforming into a titan. The remaining three team members tell Eren to go on while they kill the Female Titan. Eren wishes to stay and fight with them, but again, is convinced otherwise and retreats. The three are promptly slaughtered and a regretful Eren transformed into a Titan and engaged the Female Titan.

He ultimately loses the fight and his human self was captured by the Female Titan. Mikasa arrived on the scene in time to observe this and pursued to retrieve him, closely followed by Levi. The two teamed up to retrieve Eren, leaving the Female Titan alive and whilst they departed back to wall Rose, the mission failed and many soldiers lost. Eren is shocked when Annie Leonhardt smiled the same way the Female Titan did when she unhooded Armin. Eren is later realises that Annie is the female titan. When he tried to go into Titan form by injuring himself, he couldn't do it because of his shock and his mind was clouded. Going back to a meeting room, Eren apologized to Levi for disobeying orders to fight off the Female Titan. If he hadn't done so, they wouldn't gotten in the predicament they're in. When Mikasa and Armin prepare themselves to take on Annie by themselves, Eren eventually overcame his shock and transformed into his titan form and helps capturing her.

When Wall Rose is supposedly breached, Eren is one of the teams in the area. He was last seen on his way to Castle Utgard under squad leader Hanji Zoe in order to use it as surveillance building. Eren and the rest of the the Scouts arrive just in time to save Reiner and co, Eren kills a 7m type female titan and celebrates his first kill as a Scout. On their way back home, Reiner starts acting weird around Eren and Eren starts to panic. It is then that Mikasa realizes who Reiner and Bertholdt are and proceeds to try and kill them. Reiner transforms into the Armored Titan and kidnaps Eren. Eren calls Reiner "A fucking traitor" and shifts into his Titan form. He and Reiner then engage in battle at first Reiner had the advantage, but Eren using his martial skills was able to pin Reiner and was ripping Reiner's neck off. Berthold proceeds to body slam both Eren and Reiner. In the midst of the chaos Eren is kidnapped. Eren and Ymir are taken to the Forest of Giant Trees by Reiner and Berthold. He attempts to transform into his titan form in spite of losing his arms, but Ymir wisely tells him not to as she too is also healing from losing both her arms. While she questions Reiner and Berthold about the Ape Titan they're after, Eren broods in silence as Reiner reveals that Humanity has no hope in fighting against the titans. He and Berthold offer both him and Ymir a chance to join them in order to protect their loved ones. As she considers joining them, Eren furiously refuses and blames both Reiner and Berthold for causing him a lot of grief. He trusted them and they betrayed his trust by breaching his home and killing his mother. When he discovers that Ymir is considering joining Reiner and Berhold, Eren tried vainly to talk her out of it.

Martial Arts
Originally, Eren's only noteworthy trait was his natural physical strength. As he grew and joined the 104th squad, he trained extensively in hand-to-hand combat, scoring top marks in this class, being second only to Mikasa and Annie. After additional training with Reiner and Annie, Eren's prowess and skillset diversified, including the use of punches, throws, grappling and submission locks. While hand-to-hand fighting would appear useless due to the massive physical differences between humans and Titans, these skills gave Eren a powerful edge when fighting other Titans in his own Titan form.

3D Maneuver Gear
At first, it is shown that Eren is not very skilled with the gear, he tried and tried countless times but kept tipping and smacking his head on the floor. People mocked him for this. Eren pleaded for help from everyone but the only advice they could give Eren was that he needed to clear his mind and focus. On his last attempt Eren did just that and stayed upright for a short period of time before tipping over and hitting his head. The commander told Tomas Wagner to swap equipment with Eren and for Eren to try again. Eren did so and balanced with ease. Commander then told Eren that his equipment was damaged and that it was a miracle that he managed to stay up right at all. He isn't shown using the gear much, but was able to hold his own with the Colossal Titan for a short period of time until the titan disappeared. He was eventually able to slowly develop a respectable amount of skill with the use of the gear, even being capable of killing a titan on his own not too long after joining the Scouting Corps.

Titan Shifting
After being swallowed by a titan, Eren was able to turn into a titan. He is much stronger than the average titan, and is able to effectively dispatch a group of titans with ease. In this form, he is a 15m titan, with shoulder-length black hair, pointy ears, and a huge mouth. Because of his intelligence, something regular titans don't have, he is able to out-maneuver the others and quickly beat them down. While initially, having little to no control over his actions, he managed to overcome this with extensive use of his transformations. His titan form, combined with his growing experience and his hand-to-hand combat skills allowed him to kill over 20 titans in his first transformation and later manage to overpower and nearly kill the Armored Titan.

His transformations are triggered through causing physical harm onto himself while having a clear goal in mind. He can also trigger partial manifestations. Even in his human form, Eren still has some Titan-related benefits such as their accelerated regeneration capabilities.

Trivia

 * Eren ranked second in the characters popularity poll right after Levi.
 * Eren as a normal man-eating Titan was very small: 4 meters.
 * Eren was known for fighting (and losing) with the local bullies of Shiganshina. He was known for his stubborness, despite always ending up beaten up.
 * In a flashback, his father notes that as a child, Eren did not make friends easily, and that's why he had only Armin.
 * The name Eren is of Turkish origin. It can be interpreted as a "man", "saint", or "holy person". It's also phonetically similar to "Aaron" which is the anglicised form of the Hebrew name "Aharown" meaning "light bringer"
 * Eren's last name, Yeager, is similar to the German and Scandinavian word jäger, which means "hunter."
 * The opening song of the anime, Guren no Yumiya, seemingly makes reference to this in its first lyrics ("Sie sind das Essen und wir sind die Jäger!" lit. "They are the food and We are the hunters!").
 * Hajime Isayama stated in a interview that he based Eren's titan form off of the Japanese martial artist Yūshin Okami, paraphrasing it to be the "ideal physique of a middleweight mixed martial artist."
 * Guren no Yumiya (Red Lotus Arrow) is Eren's theme song.