Royal Government

The Royal Government (Ōseifu) administers the people living behind the Walls from the capital of Mitras. For roughly a hundred years its public face is a sham monarchy, with a figurehead called Fritz posing as king while the Reiss family, the genuine descendants of Karl Fritz, rules from the shadows. After the coup d'état sweeps the old order aside, the military assumes control and Historia Reiss is crowned queen in the open, though she serves largely as a symbol of the new regime.

Tradition holds that the royal bloodline stretches back some 2,000 years, predating even the appearance of the Titans. The officials surrounding the puppet king come from minority bloodlines rather than the Subjects of Ymir, which shields them from the memory-altering reach of the Founding Titan and lets them guard the kingdom's secrets; they are thought to be families who won Karl Fritz's favor generations earlier, and they jealously protect their positions, refusing outside marriages and, after Wall Maria falls, ceasing to hire new servants who might be infiltrators.

Governing duties span politics, the economy, military affairs, and society at large, together with protecting civilians and conducting diplomacy with foreign nations. In practice the pre-coup regime cares chiefly about itself. When Erwin Smith stands before the Assembly he sees men more devoted to their estates than to humanity's survival, and a staged report that Wall Rose has fallen exposes them completely: the nobles vote to seal Wall Sheena and abandon half of humanity rather than risk civil war, with one openly disgusted at the idea of refugees on his lands. That display gives Commander-in-Chief Darius Zackly the pretext to arrest the nobility and dethrone the false king. During the reign of Uri Reiss, an Assembly nobleman had revealed the family's true royalty to Kenny Ackerman; after Kenny's failed attempt on Uri's life, that nobleman lost his seat and Kenny took his place.

Under military stewardship the crown passes to Historia after Rod Reiss dies outside Orvud District, while branch leaders make the real decisions in councils chaired by Zackly, turning the Walls into an effective military dictatorship. Historia's government proves strikingly open by comparison, publishing the basement discoveries about Marley, the Subjects of Ymir, and the wider world despite the risk of chaos. It later allies with the Anti-Marleyan Volunteers on Hange Zoë's recommendation and weighs Zeke Yeager's proposal, brokered through Hizuru's ambassador Kiyomi Azumabito, to spend fifty years modernizing the island while the threat of the Rumbling deters foreign attack.

The regime's grip fails in the end. Word of Eren Yeager's secret imprisonment leaks, protests engulf the government's headquarters, and a bomb planted by the Yeagerists kills Zackly in his own office. Dot Pixis steps in as acting commander-in-chief and tries to bargain using Zeke's location, but the Yeagerists refuse to negotiate, seize a Training Corps branch, kidnap senior Survey Corps personnel, and force the military's leaders, dosed with Zeke's spinal fluid, to imprison themselves in Shiganshina. Marley's assault on the district then sees much of that leadership transformed into Titans and killed, shattering the chain of command for good.

Historia Reiss reigns as queen after the coup, succeeding the deposed figurehead Fritz. Her predecessors in the true bloodline include Karl Fritz, Uri Reiss, Frieda Reiss, and her father Rod Reiss. Kenny Ackerman once holds a seat on the Assembly, granted after his failed attempt on Uri's life, while Darius Zackly and later Dot Pixis head the military-run government that replaces the old nobility. Djel Sannes serves the regime as one of its enforcers.