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 Island, he is also the childhood friend of Mikasa Ackerman and Armin Arlert, the trio 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, Grisha Yeager. This leads multiple groups to vie for him, viewing him as the key to humanity’s fate. Since the second episode of the first season, Eren is the holder of the Attack Titan and the Founding Titan’s power.
While he serves as the main focus character of the story, he also shared his main role with Reiner Braun and Ymir during the first half of the Clash of the Titans arc and he was not the central character during most of the Royal Government arc, as the story focused on Levi Ackerman and Historia Reiss’s perspectives and lives. In the penultimate arc of the series, the Marley arc, little is shown of Eren’s perspective, as Reiner and Marley’s perspectives are the main focus.
Human Form
Eren is a young boy 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.
Titans 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.
Eren is best described as hardheaded, strong-willed, passionate, and impulsive and kindhearted boy, 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.
Powers of the Nine Titans
In general, Eren Yeager has access to the basic power and abilities of a Titan. Having access to the Attack, Founding and War Hammer Titans, however, Eren also has special abilities granted from these three Titans.
- Superhuman Strength: As a Titan, Eren has displayed strength far beyond human capabilities on multiple occasions. Some of these include carrying a massive boulder over his head and punching the Female Titan with enough force to send her into the air. He was also able to break the Armored Titan’s armor at one point, relying on his martial skills. In regards to opposition, Eren´s Titan form is evenly matched against the Female, Armored and Jaw, with few exceptions like the Colossal, War Hammer and Zeke’s version of the Beast Titan.
- Superhuman Speed: Eren in his Titan form can move at speed surpassing human capabilities. His speed has shown to rival with that of the Female Titan.
- Superhuman Endurance: Eren in his Titan form has shown to take heavy hits from the likes of Reiner and Annie and stand back up on his toes quickly from them, despite having his jaw destroyed and being punched hundreds of feat. During his first transformation, he defeated 20 Pure Titans with moderate difficulty. His endurance improves during his time in Marley, when he turns into a Titan three times in a row after consuming energy.
- Regenerative Healing Factor: Eren can heal from serious injuries and wounds as both a Titan and as a regular human. He has also shown to be able to stop the regenerating process and hold it for a long period of time, most notably being when he cut off his own leg and gouged his own eye out to play off as an injured Marleyan soldier.
- Healing Withdrawal: As briefly mentioned, Eren can withhold his regenerative healing for months during his infiltration in the Marleyan military, like Reiner does during his time in Paradis Island’s Walls’ military.
- Crystal Hardening: After drinking Rod Reiss’ bottle of “Armor”, Eren has gained the ability to harden his Titan form. This ability ranges from hardening his fists to his entire body. His hardened fists are strong and durable enough to break the Armored Titan’s armor and can hold massive structures together in place.
- Structural Hardening/Creation: With the powers of the War Hammer Titan, Eren is able to create various solid structures made from his Titan flesh and can use them to layout traps, ambush his opponents or create weaponry.
- Future Memory Inheritance/Clairvoyance: With the powers of the Attack Titan, Eren is able to see the memories of future inheritors, or relay his memories to previous users. Eren later revealed to Armin as a negative side effect with additionally having the Founding Titan, Eren’s perception of time became non-linear and he acted with the flow of the history he was shown, and thought incoherently. However it also gave Eren a more powerful version of the Future Memory Inheritance ability, letting him take control of Dina Fritz’s pure titan 9 years into the past to ensure history played out as he remembered.
- The Coordinate/Founder: With the powers of the Founding Titan, Eren has access to the Coordinate, where all the Paths of the Subjects of Ymir converge. With the Coordinate, the Founder is able to manipulate the Subjects of Ymir (all of them connected to the Coordinate) in almost every way as they act as if they were part of the Founder’s own body itself. This allows the Founder to change the composition of the bodies of all Subjects of Ymir and could have several applications, including but most likely not limited to: memory manipulation, sickness immunity, telepathy and causing their bodies to be sterile. The Founder can also cause any Subject of Ymir to become any type of mindless Titan the Founder wishes and its control over them is completely absolute. Initially, Eren could not use the Coordinate freely because he does not have royal blood and had to come into contact with Zeke – a member of the royal family – to gain access to it, but after the soul of Ymir Fritz was convinced by Eren that she was not a slave to the royal family, she granted him the full power of the Coordinate and could finally use its full power with no restriction. However, in spite of this, the royal blood seems to still be necessary in order to keep the Founder fully active, as evidenced when Zeke was killed, which resulted with Eren’s Founder being no longer able to resurrect nor control any deceased Titan and the Rumbling came to a sudden halt, all Wall Titans collapsing at once. Nonetheless, Ymir still let Eren retain some of the Founder’s power, as he was able to create a new Founding Titan body in the shape of the Colossus Titan. Also, to protect the Founder, the ancient centipede-like parasite that brought the power of the Titans in the world emitted a gas that would turn all the other Subjects of Ymir present at the final battle at Fort Salta into Pure Titans (with the exception of Intelligent Titans and members of the Ackerman family). As soon as Eren was killed, all living Pure Titans in the world regained their humanity and fully recovered bodies, and everything related to the Coordinate, the Titan powers, the Paths and Ymir’s soul vanished from the world. With the Coordinate being gone from the world, the Subjects of Ymir became ordinary human beings.