Fritz (Figurehead)

White hair, long and straight, frames a face buried in wrinkles, with small eyes and a thin beard covering both chin and lips. His dress is as regal as his role demands, though the crown that comes with it usually sits somewhere other than his head.

Extreme age has hollowed out whatever ruler Fritz might once have been. The nobility privately regard him as senile; he drifts through official proceedings looking bored and feeble, struggles to hold his concentration, and leaves the actual work of governing to the nobles who act in his name.

Reiner, Bertolt, and Annie piece together his secret while planning the Paradis Island Operation: the man on the throne is a stand-in, belonging to a family with no connection to the genuine Fritz line. They speculate that his household consists of Eldians outside the Subjects of Ymir, handed their borrowed authority by the concealed royal line as payment for staying loyal and silent. The Walls' real ruler during this period is Rod Reiss.

During the Royal Government arc, the old man presides over a conference of nobles with his crown parked on the table beside a bottle of alcohol. At what is intended to be Erwin Smith's final hearing he never speaks, leaving the nobles to conduct the proceedings. When the military turns against the government, one noble openly brands him a senile, useless fool, and the king, oblivious to the coup unfolding around him, asks whether it is time to eat.

After the uprising succeeds and Rod Reiss dies, the puppet loses his seat, and Historia Reiss assumes the throne he pretended to hold.