Rod Reiss

Rod Reiss (ロッド・レイス) was a member of the true royal family within the Walls operating from the inner lands of Wall Sina. He was the father of Historia Reiss.

Human form
Rod, like his daughter, is a rather short person with blue eyes. Though unlike his daughter, he is a slightly over weight man, with a round face, short, jagged, black hair and a thin black moustache. He typically is seen wearing a white button up shirt with a black pull over vest, black loose pants and black dress shoes.

Titan form
Rod Reiss' appearance as a Titan retains practically nothing of his human form, except for still being male-like. He grows to the point of becoming the largest Titan ever known, said to be twice as large as the Colossal Titan. However, his body is quite disproportionate, having a big long body with a small head, and very thin limbs for his size, thus being unable to stand up and needing to walk on all fours and looking down permanently. He is also notably skeletal, with most of his bones clearly visible and very few muscles. He lacks a face because the friction with the ground destroys the front half of his head, exposing even his brain. His ribs cover only the sides of his body, and the frontal lacks skin and muscles, exposing his internal organs.

Like the Colossal Titan, his enormous size makes him move slowly and generate lots of heat, always being covered by clouds of steam. The heat he produces is so high that it's impossible to touch him without getting burned, and the trees near him tend to burst into flames.

Personality
Rod often appears to have a calm, yet slightly worried demeanour. He speaks with great certainty and intelligence about the events of his daughter, Frieda Reiss, and his brother, Uri Reiss, when they obtained and lost the Coordinate power. Rod maintains a level head throughout most of his time with Historia, Eren Yeager, and Kenny Ackerman. He even gathers his composure after Kenny grabs him and begins shoving a knife down his throat. However, when Historia flips him, crushes the serum, and bashes his claims of god, he becomes erratic and panicked. After the syringe is shattered on the ground, he begins lightly crying and desperately licks it off the floor so that he may become a Titan himself.

History
When Rod was still a young boy, he met Kenny Ackerman when he tried to kill his brother and former king, Uri Reiss. Despite Rod told Uri several times that they should kill him, especially if he was an Ackerman, Uri refused and apologized to Kenny. This created a bond between the two and Kenny became a servant of the Royal Family, including to Rod.

Rod Reiss conceived Historia with Alma, one of his maids. When Historia was discovered, his mistress and daughter were exiled to a land that he leased to Historia's maternal grandparents.

On the day that Wall Maria fell to the Armored and Colossal Titan's attack, the entire Reiss family went to a chapel to pray in the underground secret area. However somehow Grisha Yeager appeared and engaged Frieda Reiss in combat. Though Frieda possessed the powers of the Coordinate, she was eaten by Grisha through the neck. Grisha then proceeded to kill the rest of the Reiss bloodline, even the children, with only Rod escaping, blindly fleeing as his family was killed.

One day Rod came to get his daughter and inform her that she would be living with him from now on. Kenny Ackerman and the 1st Brigade of the Central Military Police intervened and swarmed around Historia and her mother. Kenny questioned if Rod was familiar with the two women, which he then denied. Rod watched as his mistress' throat was slit while she denied being Historia's mother. When the former serial killer moved in to kill Historia, Rod suddenly proposed having her enroll into the Survey Corps and hopefully die in battle. Seeing this as a fitting alternative the Central Military Police agreed to his demand. This was revealed later to be just a charade invented by him, as up until that point the MP making demands of the King seemed somewhat peculiar, and later on Kenny acknowledges having gone along with Rod's plan to get her into the Scouts. Presumably Rod left with the Military Police.

The Uprising arc
Rod is later seen siding with Kenny in a plan to kidnap Eren Yeager and Historia, eventually succeeding, keeping Eren chained in a dungeon of some sort. For an unrevealed reason he says he cannot become a Shifter, but whether this is true or not, if there is something to do with the bloodline, or if it is just his personal choice is unclear. His relationship with his brother, the host of the Coordinate before Frieda who was apparently Kenny's benefactor, is unknown. He tries to convince Historia Reiss by telling her about the murder of her brothers and sisters at the hands of Eren's father ( see History) and revealing to her the true nature of the power inside Eren, the Coordinate, which would allow her to stop the Titans once and for all. Historia asks why all the prior kings and Frieda had not decided to stop the Titans even when they could. He answers her saying that no other Reiss member has ever tried to stop the Titans for unknown reasons and the only thing that a normal person can do is pray at the monarch. Rod compares being the "Original Titan" with God, which disgusts Historia and makes her reject the serum, the Coordinate, and spare Eren's life. After failing to convince Historia to inject herself with the Titan fluid and eat Eren, het gets mad. He starts screaming and tries to grab Historia but she puts him down with a hand to hand combat technique. Then he himself scrounges the fluid off the floor as he watches Historia free Eren, whispering that he will reunite with his father, Uri and Frieda. After ingesting it, he turns into a gigantic Titan considered by Levi and Armin to be bigger than the Colossal Titan. The Titan is so big that makes the whole cave crumble.

Rod Reiss' Titan then proceeds to ignore the Survey Corps members underneath the Reiss Chapel and begins crawling towards Orvud District of Wall Sina, hypothesized to be drawn by the larger number of humans in that area. Eren and other soldiers try to get its attention but it is pointless. He cannot be stopped because of the enormous heat of his body. He arrives there at dawn, when a group of Garrison and Survey Corps members are waiting for him a top of the Wall in order to kill it.

The Garrison fires a enormous barrage of cannon fire at Rod, both from the Walls and from the ground. The canons make a great damage on his back, but he withstands all the attacks and scales the Wall. The intense heat of his body and the wind change forces the soldiers to cover themselves in water to prevent burnings. His hands are blown off by Squad Levi with a modified 3D Maneuver Gear attached to a gunpowder barrel, which makes him lose balance and fall over the Wall. After this, Eren in his Titan form shoves attached barrels of gunpowder into Rod's mouth, making a enormous explosion and blowing off his head and nape. This was a plan created by Erwin, who predicted that because of his crawling movement his face would be destroyed by the friction, his mouth would be wide open and finally the great heat of the Titan would light the gunpowder by itself. The flying pieces of his body are cut by Squad Levi in order to kill Rod Reiss' human body once and for all. Eventually the piece of his nape is found and cut by Historia, beheading her father and receiving some of his memories in the process.

Relationships

 * Historia Reiss - Rod is Historia's father, though she is an illegitimate child who is not accepted as a suitable heir to the Reiss Family. Thus Kenny Ackerman was charged with her death and the death of Historia's mother. Rod came to get her to live with him, but the Military Police interfered and rather than take back his daughter, Rod was forced to propose an alternative where his daughter's chances of survival would be extremely low rather than see his daughter's death before his eyes. It is thus implied that Rod Reiss may actually care for his daughter. When Eren and Historia are captured, Rod Reiss embraces Historia with tears in his eyes, saying that he is sorry for what is happening, surprising Eren and Historia. The reason for this, may well be his intentions for one day giving Historia the powers of her half-sister.
 * Frieda Reiss - It is implied that Rod loved his daughter over all things. When Historia rejected the serum, he became furious because of the loss of Frieda's memories and powers, and when he drinks the serum, he says that he will be reunited with his family and with her.
 * Alma - At first she was Rod's servant but eventually she became her confident and her lover. When she got pregnant, she was taken away to her parent's farm. Rod thought that she was the only person that could understand for what he was going through.