Uri Reiss (Anime)

Uri Reiss (ウーリ・レイス) was the younger brother of Rod Reiss and the uncle of Frieda Reiss. He was the true king of the Walls for some time until the year 842 and was Kenny Ackermann's best friend. He inherited the Founding Titan from his father, and passed it along with the crown to his niece, Frieda Reiss.

Appearance
He was a frail man who usually wore a simple light colored robe. He had neck length, dirty-blond hair. He also had light, weary eyes; with a calm, wise beyond his years type of expression. After inheriting the Founding Titan, Uri's eyes would change between their normal light color to a dark, vacant look, which meant he was bound by the will of the First King. Like most of the Reiss family, he was also rather short.

Personality
Despite his upbringing and his responsibilities, he disagreed with his father's policy to keep humanity in bondage to the Titans, believing that their family should use their power to eliminate the Titans and return the world to mankind. He was brave enough, and held his ideals strongly enough, to volunteer to be the one to inherit the Founding Titan from his father, despite the risk of becoming possessed by his ancestor's ideology.

History
Uri was the second son of Mr. Reiss and younger brother of Rod Reiss. As their father was the inheritor of the Founding Titan, the "invincible power" that could stop the terror of the Titans once and for all, Uri and Rod pleaded with him to free humanity from their encagement, but he always refused to do so or to explain why he would not.

Sometime later, Uri volunteered to be the next Founding Titan with the full intention to use it to stop the Titans, and according to Rod, he requested him to pray; as the amount of power the Founding Titan would give him would effectively make him a god.

However, after Uri inherited the power of the Titans and memories of the world from their father by eating him in the succession ritual of the Reiss family, Rod could tell by his eyes that he had inherited that same ideology; and as Mr. Reiss and all the other kings before them, Uri refused to either stop the Titans and to tell everyone the lost memories of mankind.

Sometime after this, Uri was chained hand and foot underneath the Reiss Chapel as his successor, Frieda, sobbed and injected herself with the Titan syringe. The rest of his family witnessed his death. He smiled as Frieda transformed into a Pure Titan and ate his upper body, inheriting his position, the power of the Titans, memories of the world, and will of the First King.

The Uprising arc
Many years later, as Rod is trying to convince Historia to eat Eren and become the next Founding Titan, he tells her about Uri, their unsuccessful attempts to convince their father to stop the Titans, and how Uri had requested him to pray before receiving the Founding Titan. Rod prays to Historia in the same fashion, but she does not believe his story and throws him to the floor, calling him a liar.