Beast Titan

Where most Titans read as warped humans, this one reads as a creature, and its animal cast shifts with each holder. Past forms glimpsed during the final battles resemble birds, crocodiles, elk, bulls, wolves, snakes, rabbits, dinosaurs, okapis, and goats, and Falco Grice speaks of a winged Beast Titan that once existed. Tom Ksaver's version carried bighorn sheep traits. Zeke Yeager's stands seventeen meters, furred and long-armed like an ape, a design fans note resembles cryptids such as Bigfoot, the Yeti, and the Yowie; Isayama based it on the fighters Rich Franklin and Forrest Griffin. Zeke's spinal fluid even stamps falcon characteristics onto Falco's Jaw Titan. Early chapters drew the ape form with white, human-like eyes before the art settled on black sclerae lit by a single bright point.

Royal blood and a pitcher's arm make Zeke's Beast Titan unlike any predecessor, with powers whose nature approaches the Founding Titan's. His signature weapon is the throw: crushed boulders leave his hand with devastating speed and accuracy, a technique that annihilates the Survey Corps charge at Shiganshina and wipes out the entire Mid-East Allied fleet at Fort Slava. Marleyan analysts describe the pitching assault as without precedent.

More strategically frightening is Titan creation. Any Subject of Ymir dosed with Zeke's spinal fluid transforms when he screams, within a limited range, and the resulting Pure Titans crudely follow his commands: marching at night without fatigue, holding back from eating, or standing frozen in place, though some individuals partly resist his orders. Marley builds tactics around this, from parachute-dropped Titan airstrikes to smuggling a few hundred prepared Eldians into enemy territory before a single roar overruns it. Zeke uses the power on Ragako village, triggering the Wall Rose invasion, and later on thirty Survey Corps soldiers who unknowingly drank wine laced with his fluid. He can also harden his nape, but Levi beats the attempt both times, the second by driving Thunder Spears clean through the hardened layer.

The power arises with the other eight after Ymir Fritz dies and falls to Marley during the Great Titan War. Tom Ksaver inherits it in 829, spending his tenure on memory research rather than combat and rarely leaving Marley, then passes it to Zeke thirteen years later. During the Paradis Island Operation, Zeke stays home as a deterrent against rival nations, and Warrior candidate Colt Grice is eventually selected as his successor.

In 850 Zeke crosses into Wall Rose, transforms Ragako's residents, and interrogates Mike Zacharias about vertical maneuvering equipment before letting the Titans he restrained devour the man. That night he bombards Utgard Castle with chunks torn from the Wall, killing Lynne and Henning. Later, after thrashing Reiner's Armored Titan in a brawl over strategy, he decides the Warriors will wait at Shiganshina for the Survey Corps. There his rock barrages erase Erwin Smith's suicide charge down to a single surviving recruit, but the sacrifice lets Levi ambush him, carving the Beast Titan apart before Zeke can react; the Cart Titan drags him to safety.

Four years on, his airstrike and artillery throwing decide the battle of Fort Slava, with Reiner's armor absorbing the naval counterfire that would have killed him. During the raid on Liberio, Levi blows open the Beast Titan's nape a second time, and the truth emerges aboard the airship: Zeke has been collaborating with the Survey Corps all along. On Paradis, plans for Historia Reiss to inherit the Titan stall over her pregnancy. Zeke's forest scream turns thirty soldiers into Titans to cover his escape, and at Shiganshina his rooftop barrages shield Eren from Marley's assault until Theo Magath's cannon knocks him from the Wall. His Titan rises a final time at Fort Salta against Marley's bombers before being destroyed, and the Beast Titan ends for good with Eren's death. It ranked third on the series' Titan popularity poll.