Dot Pixis

Pixis's bald head, weathered skin, and distinguished mustache made him instantly recognizable among the military brass. Deep creases sat beneath his eyes, and like fellow commanders Nile Dok and Hange Zoë he fastened a bolo tie at his collar. His usual dress was the Garrison uniform over a white button-up shirt, finished with a gold-trimmed red sash.

Eccentricity and steel coexisted in Pixis. He mused that being eaten would be acceptable if the Titan happened to be a stunning beauty, drank openly on duty, and flirted with his own escorts, yet chaos never rattled him. He read frightened soldiers with rare empathy, pardoning would-be deserters at Trost even as he talked the rest back into the fight, and his instinct for when a risk was worth taking led him to stake an entire district on an untested Eren Yeager.

Armin counted him among the few men able to discard their own humanity for the species' sake; Pixis himself said he would play the butcher if it kept mankind alive. What separated him from Erwin Smith and Darius Zackly, in his own estimation, was motive. Their revolutions served private dreams and grudges, while his loyalty belonged to humanity's progress alone, and he stated openly that he would have fought either man had their ambitions cut against survival.

Pixis enters the story at Trost, halting Kitz Weilman's kill order moments before Eren, Armin, and Mikasa are executed. Won over by Armin's reasoning, he plans the operation to plug the breach with the boulder, shames a mutinous garrison back into ranks with a blanket pardon and a warning about their families, and refuses to abort even when Eren initially loses control. The gamble ends with the gate sealed, humanity's first real victory over the Titans.

He resurfaces through the political arcs as the military's conscience and kingmaker. Approached by Erwin about deposing the government, he declines to turn soldier against soldier on another man's word, setting one condition instead: proof that the crown would sacrifice half its population to save itself. The fabricated report of Wall Rose falling supplies exactly that proof, the nobles order the refugees locked out, and Pixis throws his weight behind the coup, later bowing at Historia's coronation. After Shiganshina he argues against hiding the basement's revelations, warning that a government that deceives its people is no better than the one they overthrew.

In the war's final phase he manages the uneasy alliance with the Anti-Marleyan Volunteers, accepts the Titan serums Yelena's group stole from Marley, interrogates her over her hidden meetings with Eren, and inherits command of the entire military when Zackly is assassinated. Rather than fight the Yeagerists he chooses surrender, hoping to bargain with Zeke's location, but he has already drunk the wine laced with Zeke's spinal fluid. Leading a mounted flanking charge during Marley's assault on Shiganshina, Pixis sees his body begin to glow when the scream comes, understands instantly, and resigns himself to the change. His Pure Titan joins the swarm on the military headquarters until Armin, silently thanking his old commander for his guidance, destroys it with a Thunder Spear.