Karl Fritz

"Eldians... Titans... they never should have existed in the first place. I will accept the responsibility of righting this wrong. But, 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."

- Karl Fritz's final words to the outside world, recounted by Willy Tybur

Karl Fritz (カール・フリッツ) was the 145th monarch of the Fritz family and the First King of the Reiss family. As King of Eldia, he possessed the power of the Founding Titan, which he used to created the Walls and modify the memories of most of the Eldians within them, erasing the history of the outside world.

Human Form
At the time of the Great Titan War, Karl Fritz was an aged man with long fair hair and a thick beard.

Titan Form
Karl Fritz's Titan form stood at 13 meters tall, like all other Founding Titans after Ymir Fritz. It had long, straight hair and sharp teeth. In contrast to its thick legs, the upper part of its body was quite skeletal, with its ribs visible through the skin. Its arms were thin and long, similar to those of the Beast Titan.

Personality
Karl Fritz was a man wracked with the guilt of his ancestors. Even before inheriting the Founding Titan, Karl Fritz detested the atrocities committed by the Eldian Empire since the days of Ymir Fritz. This intense guilt would lead him to conspire with the Tybur family to weaken Eldia enough for Marley, a nation long oppressed by Eldia, to conquer their nation and replace them as the mightiest nation in the world.

Karl Fritz's guilt towards Eldia would at times become a hatred for his own people. Fritz held the belief that the world would have been better off if the Titans and the Subjects of Ymir never existed who he would allow to die when the day came, and he considered his people to be sinners. Despite this, King Fritz and his successors would still desire an age in which they and the people of Eldia could live in peace before their doom.

History
Over a century before the battle of Trost, Karl Fritz was crowned the 145th King of the Fritz family and inherited the power of the Founding Titan. For many hundreds of years, various families subservient to the Fritz family were constantly at war with each other for control over the eight Titans, civil war of which Karl Fritz was ashamed. Rather than following the method of his ancestors and using the Founding Titan to maintain order in the nation of Eldia, King Fritz conspired with the Tybur family, keepers of the War Hammer Titan, to lead Eldia on a path of destruction. Fritz and the Tyburs fabricated a hero of Marley, a nation long persecuted by Eldia, whose name was Helos. While the world was led to believe Helos continued to instigate the Eldian civil war, King Fritz moved the capital of Eldia to the island of Paradis to the east of the mainland of their nation. In the King's absence, the Tybur family gave their support to the oppressed society of Marley, who took began the Great Titan War in Eldia, gaining the power of seven out of the Nine Titans and rising up against their oppressors.

While war raged on the mainland, King Fritz gathered the royal family and the people of Eldia to the island. When humanity had gathered to Paradis, King Fritz used the power of the Founding Titan to guide countless Colossus Titans in the construction of the three concentric Walls Maria, Rose, and Sheena around the last remaining territory of Eldia in which the subjects of Ymir could finally live in true peace. When the Walls were completed, King Fritz gave an ultimatum to the outside world: if any act of war was committed against the remnants of Eldia, the tens of millions of Titans within the Walls would be unleashed upon the world to flatten the entire earth. However, this ultimatum was merely a bluff to ensure a lasting peace. In secret, King Fritz sent messages to his surviving relatives on the mainland as well as the Tybur family. Karl Fritz made a vow renouncing war with the Founding Titan, ensuring that he and his successors would never use its power for retaliation in the event that the Walls would fall under attack. If the day should come when Marley's power was great enough to destroy Eldia, his successors would accept it, though his final wish was to be given an age of peace to enjoy before Eldia's final retribution. With the people of Eldia gathered within the Walls, Karl Fritz used his power again to alter the memories of all the Subjects of Ymir, erasing all knowledge about the world outside the Walls and the history before their creation. In order to protect the royal family, King Fritz renamed the royal family to the "Reiss family", who would live in hiding as nobles while a different bloodline would take the Fritz name. However, Eldians who were not Subjects of Ymir were unaffected by this manipulation, such as the Ackerman family and the Asian clan. To prevent the risk of these unaffected groups spreading information about the world beyond the Walls, King Reiss offered positions of nobility in Wall Sheena to these minority families, and most accepted the offer. However, the Ackerman family and the Asian clan rejected King Reiss' ideology and turned against him. For this reason, King Reiss ordered for these families to be hunted down and exterminated.

To the east of Orvud District, King Reiss created a massive subterranean cavern where his successors would inherit the power of the Founding Titan. Some time later, at the end of Karl Fritz's thirteen-year reign, he passed the Founding Titan to his successor. Karl Fritz had died, though his memories and his vow renouncing war would live on in the Kings of the Walls for the next hundred years.

Abilities
Karl Fritz held the power of the Titans, specifically that of the Founding Titan, and displayed many abilities related to that power; some of them at a rather advanced level. His powers included:


 * Memory Manipulation: He was capable of manipulating the memories of Subjects of Ymir. Other ethnicities, such as the Ackermans, the Asian bloodline, and the noble families, are unaffected.
 * "Titan Control": Karl Fritz used this power to control Titans and build the Walls, by making them harden their bodies and confine themselves into the resulting structures.
 * "Memory Inheriting": He was able to pass down his memories to an unknown member of the Reiss family after dying, making them the holder of the lost memories of mankind. This also happened with all of the other inheritors, who inherited the memories of Karl Fritz and the inheritors themselves. However, they and all their subsequent heirs also inherited his belief that a world ruled by Titans would be "true peace". This influence is so strong that even people that wanted to stop the Titans changed their minds when they received the power, deciding not to make a move and refusing to reveal the reason, even to their own families.
 * "Power of the Titans": Little is known about his abilities as a Titan, except for the fact that he had enough control to retain his intelligence while transformed; since he was seen surrounded by a crowd of people without attacking them, and without any of those people trying to flee.

People Killed

 * Previous holder of the Founding Titan (as a mindless Titan)

Trivia

 * Hange Zoë created the term "Founding Titan" (始祖の巨人) to refer to the ability and anyone with the power of the Titans who could master its power, including the King Reiss. Coincidentally, the inhabitants out the world beyond the Walls have also referred to the power by this name throughout history.