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 King of Eldia and was the one responsible for its downfall. After the Eldian Empire's collapse, he moved many of the Eldians to the island of Paradis where he raised the Walls, and used the power of the Founding Titan to erase the memories of the outside world from most people inside. Afterwards, he changed his family name from Fritz to Reiss and became the First King within the Walls.

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 District, 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.

Legacy
Throughout the generations, the ideology of King Reiss was carried through the monarchs of the Reiss family, and none would tell of the history of the Eldian Empire before the raising of the Walls. The King's beliefs would often manifest outwardly in his successors, such as Uri Reiss' desire for an age of peace before destruction and Frieda Reiss' view of the walled people as sinners.

Beyond the Walls, the actions of Karl Fritz inspired rebellion in Marley. The Eldia Restorationists, led by Eren Kruger under the alias "The Owl", sought to take the Founding Titan from the King of the Walls to finally rise up against their oppressors. The Restorationists believed that King Fritz was cowardly for abandoning his people in the Great Titan War, and by taking the Founding Titan they would restore the Eldian Empire to its former glory. Eventually, the movement was discovered and exiled to Paradis, though restorationist Grisha Yeager survived to carry out the mission. Inspired by Eren Kruger, who gave him his Attack Titan, Grisha entered into the Walls to begin his search for the Founding Titan.

Fall of Shiganshina arc
During the fall of Wall Maria in the year 845, Grisha Yeager visits the Reiss Chapel where King Reiss' cavern was delved. Confronting Frieda Reiss, he begs for the King of the Walls to stop the attacking Titans for the sake of her people. The vow renouncing war would not allow her to retaliate, and Grisha's pleas are refused. Taking matters into his own hands, Grisha battles Frieda's Founding Titan with his Attack Titan and steals the Founder from her before slaughtering the rest of the Reiss family except for Rod Reiss, who escapes.

Fleeing the scene, Grisha gives his son Eren Yeager a Titan injection, passing the Founding Titan and the Attack Titan to him. With no royal blood in him, the Founding Titan becomes unusable and the King's vow renouncing war is not passed on to Eren.

The Uprising arc
When Eren and Historia Reiss is captured and taken to Rod Reiss, he tells the two the history of the Reiss family and the passing of the First King's ideology through the line of monarchs in the past century, preventing the truth of the world from being known to the people of the Walls.

Return to Shiganshina arc
During the battle of Shiganshina District, Zeke Yeager laments King Reiss' decision to take the memories of the Eldians away from them after the Great Titan War, leading them to make the same mistakes of the past.

In the aftermath of the battle, the survivors of the Survey Corps discover the basement of Grisha Yeager. In the basement, they find three journals describing his life before coming to the Walls. Through his story, the people of the Walls learn of the Eldia Restorationists' attempt to take the Founding Titan from the King of the Walls to end his vow renouncing war. With this information, the military of Paradis decides to inform the people of the history that King Reiss took from them a hundred years ago.

Marley arc
One month following the conclusion of the Marley Mid-East War, Willy Tybur hosts a festival in the Liberio internment zone set to conclude with a play in which he will reveal his plan to solve the Titan crisis. In this play, Lord Tybur reveals to the world that Karl Fritz himself was responsible for the fall of the Eldian Empire. However, Tybur further reveals that despite the age of peace King Fritz wanted between Marley and Eldia, their peace has come under threat due to the theft of the Founding Titan, now held within Eren Yeager.

So long as the Founding Titan is held by Eren Yeager, Karl Fritz's vow renouncing war cannot manifest again.

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:


 * Titan Creation: Karl Fritz turned countless Subjects of Ymir into Colossus Titans.
 * Titan Control: He used this power to control the Colossus Titans to build the Walls, by making them harden their bodies and confine themselves into the resulting structures.
 * 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.
 * 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.