Theo Magath

Magath is an aging soldier, his black hair buzzed close and a sparse beard and mustache framing light eyes. Wrinkles betray his years, though his build stays solid and healthy. On duty he dresses like any Marleyan trooper: light jacket and trousers with a dark clip at the collar, packs at the hips, suspender straps, tall boots, and a hard hat ringed by a black stripe.

Duty to Marley organizes nearly every decision Magath makes. He shares his countrymen's prejudice toward Eldians, yet he still hears out subordinates like Colt Grice and Zeke Yeager when their ideas might prove useful, a tolerance rare among Marleyan officers. Choices that look coldly expedient, like committing 800 Eldian soldiers against the anti-Titan artillery at Fort Slava while sheltering the Warriors, flow from calculation rather than cruelty; he knows Marley's might rests on its Titans while rival nations hold the technological edge. Flashes of genuine warmth slip through, as when he wishes the Warriors a safe return as they depart for Paradis Island.

He is also unusually perceptive, working out on his own that the Tybur family secretly rules Marley, and armed with a dry wit, telling Willy Tybur that the hollow statue of Helos is the nation's true spirit. He keeps viewing Eldians as lesser citizens until the Rumbling forces a reckoning; from then on he insists the old empire's crimes cannot be laid on the people now living on Paradis. At the end he confesses that nothing in his career earned his pride, that he ordered children to destroy the Walls against his conscience, and that he would have been happiest watching those children live ordinary lives.

Magath serves Marley's military for over twenty years, earning early renown among its finest artillerymen before becoming a chief overseer of the Warrior program and its candidate selections. In the early 830s he watches training beside Tom Ksaver and dismisses young Zeke Yeager as gutless, though Zeke ultimately wins both his respect and the Beast Titan. Magath selects Reiner Braun, Bertolt Hoover, Annie Leonhart, Marcel Galliard, and Pieck Finger to receive the remaining Titans, and in 845 he sees four of them off toward Paradis Island, hoping aloud that all four come back alive with the Founder in hand.

Nine years later he commands the assault that takes Fort Slava from the Mid-East Allied Forces, reluctantly letting candidate Gabi Braun blow up the armored train carrying the enemy's anti-Titan artillery before unleashing his Warriors. Victory does not blind him; he warns Marley's leadership that global weapons development is overtaking the Titans. Willy Tybur, whose hidden authority Magath has already deduced, recruits him as a partner and arranges his rise to general. Together they stage Willy's festival declaration in Liberio as bait, accepting that Willy must die on stage for the world to unite against Paradis. When Eren Yeager's Attack Titan erupts through that stage, Magath fires the first shot of the counterattack and directs the fighting through the raid that follows, which costs Marley the War Hammer Titan, much of its leadership, and Zeke, whose faked death Magath later pieces together from the Beast Titan's wreckage.

Concluding that Zeke spent years working for the enemy, Magath endorses Reiner's call for an immediate strike on Paradis. He parachutes into Shiganshina, mans the anti-Titan cannon harnessed to Pieck's Cart Titan, and cripples Eren with direct hits to the head before blasting through the Beast Titan's shoulder and nape from atop Wall Maria. Armin Arlert destroys the cannon with a Thunder Spear, and Magath survives just in time to watch the Wall Titans wake. With the Rumbling unleashed, he allies with Hange Zoë and Levi Ackerman, apologizes to the Eldians he spent a career disdaining, and breaks Yelena's arm in a fury over Liberio's doom before Hange talks him down. He then fights through the Yeagerist-held harbor so the Azumabito mechanics can ready the flying boat at Odiha, carrying the wounded Armin and Falco aboard himself. As the ship departs he stays behind to destroy a Marleyan cruiser capable of pursuit. Keith Shadis joins him in the vessel's hold; the two exchange names, Magath voices his regret over the children he turned into weapons, and together they detonate the ship.