Dirk Reiss

Bright eyes and a shaggy mop of black hair mark Dirk as unmistakably his father's son, traits he shares with his older brother Urklyn. He is fourteen years old, and at gatherings of the Reiss family he dresses as the other males do, in a pale robe layered over a dress shirt and dark trousers.

The manga never explores Dirk's temperament. His one living appearance shows him standing quietly among his relatives while the family's gravest ritual plays out, watching the succession unfold without a word.

Dirk grows up inside the hidden main branch of the royal family, the youngest boy among the five children of Rod Reiss and his wife, with Frieda and Urklyn above him and Florian and Abel below, plus Historia as his half-sister. In 842 he stands with his relatives in the chapel as the power of the First King changes hands, silently observing while Frieda's Titan consumes their uncle Uri.

Three years later, on the night Wall Maria falls, Grisha Yeager forces his way onto the family's grounds and transforms into a Titan, slaughtering nearly the entire household to seize the Founding Titan. According to Rod, the hand that crushed Dirk killed his younger sister Abel in the same motion.