Gunther Schultz

Brown hair gathered to a point at the back of his head is Gunther's signature. Average in height, with a slightly dark complexion, he outfits himself like any Survey Corps soldier: the short tan jacket bearing the Wings of Freedom, a dark sash at the hips, white trousers, knee-high boots, and the green cloak the regiment wears on expeditions.

Years of surviving Titan encounters teach Gunther to expect the worst, a trait Levi values enough to cite when recruiting him; that he never fully trusted Eren Yeager was, to Levi, a qualification rather than a flaw. Within the squad he plays the level head. When Eren transforms without warning, Oluo threatens to kill him and Petra frets over Levi, but Gunther simply asks for proof that Eren means no harm. He also polices the unit's discipline, snapping at his comrades for trading jokes in the middle of Titan territory. The sternness never hardens into cruelty: pointing a blade at Eren clearly pains him, and he bites his own hand alongside the others as a gesture of trust once the misunderstanding clears.

After Eren's tribunal places him in Survey Corps custody, Gunther joins Levi, Eld, Petra, and Oluo in the Special Operations Squad assembled to watch him. The squad scrubs down the Corps' derelict former headquarters, monitors Hange's experiments, and investigates the killing of the captive Titans Sonny and Bean, where Gunther speculates that the crime took at least two people using maneuvering gear. On the 57th Expedition beyond the Walls, he walks Eren through the long-range formation and, recalling the strange question Erwin posed to each of them after the Titan killings, deduces that the operation conceals an undisclosed objective.

The Female Titan's rampage proves him right. Chased through the Titan Forest, Gunther yells that escape is impossible and begs Levi for orders alongside his squadmates, then watches in astonishment as Erwin's trap pins the enemy. During the retreat that follows the capture's failure, a flare he takes for Levi's draws the squad off course; he realizes the deception a moment too late, and the disguised attacker slices through his nape, killing him instantly.

His record stands at forty-seven Titan kills, seven of them solo, and he pairs that skill with sharp judgment on the wing of his maneuvering gear. The story keeps returning to him after death: Eren names him among the victims of the stolen Founding Titan, Erwin glimpses him among the dead at Shiganshina, Hange is welcomed by him among the fallen, and his ghost stands with the Survey Corps' dead in the final salute to Levi.