Springer family

Rooted in the village of Ragako inside Wall Rose, the Springer family becomes the center of one of the story's grimmest revelations. The mindless Titans that suddenly appear during the Wall Rose invasion are no invaders at all; they are Ragako's own transformed inhabitants, and Connie Springer's family stands among them.

Connie leaves Ragako in 847 for the military, aiming for a Military Police posting that would make his mother proud and earn him the villagers' respect. He graduates in 850, fights in the battle of Trost District, and joins the Survey Corps instead despite his terror of Titans.

That same year a mysterious Beast Titan passes through Wall Rose, and Ragako's people become mindless Titans. Riding home to check on the village, Connie finds his house crushed beneath an immobile Titan that, as he departs, rasps out a greeting welcoming him back. Reiner Braun hurries him along, but Connie cannot shake how much the creature resembles his mother. He later hands Hange Zoë a portrait of his parents, and the likeness, combined with Hange's research into Titan physiology, confirms that the Titans inside Wall Rose were Ragako's villagers. Connie weeps upon grasping that the portrait and the Titan on his roof are everything left of his family.

During Marley's assault on Shiganshina, Connie abducts Falco Grice, who has just gained the Jaw Titan, intending to feed the boy to his mother's Titan and restore her. Armin Arlert foils the plan by offering himself in Falco's place, forcing Connie to save his friend instead. He accepts that his mother, who told him to become a great soldier, would never have wanted her freedom bought with a child's life, and he rededicates himself to protecting people beyond the island. When Eren Yeager dies and the power of the Titans disappears, his mother returns to human form; three years after the Rumbling, Historia Reiss takes her in for protection alongside Jean Kirstein's family.

Five members are known. Connie serves through the war with the Survey Corps and its Special Operations Squad, and his mother survives her years as a Titan. His father and his siblings Martin and Sunny die without ever being restored. The family name is the German term for the knight piece in chess.