Grisha Yeager

The doctor and Restorationist whose Titan powers passed to his son Eren.

Grisha Yeager is a medical doctor, respected in the Shiganshina District after he saved it from a devastating plague, who also made house calls across the district and other towns. He is the husband of Dina and of Carla, the father of Zeke and Eren, and the adoptive father of Mikasa. His memoirs and the memories Eren inherits from him reveal that he was far more than he seemed: an Eldian from Marley's Liberio Internment Zone whose Titan power, passed to Eren, sets the series in motion.

Background

Grisha turned against his father after a Public Security officer named Gross covered up the death of Grisha's younger sister, and seven years later he joined the Eldian Restorationists. He married Dina Fritz and tried to use their son Zeke, through Marley's Warrior program, in a scheme to obtain the Founding Titan, but Zeke sold the family out, and Grisha, Dina and the other Restorationists were sentenced to exile on Paradis as Pure Titans. Eren Kruger saved him, slaughtering the Marleyan guards and handing him the Attack Titan with the mission of capturing the Founding Titan. On reaching Wall Maria he met Keith Shadis, settled in Shiganshina, became a local hero by curing the plague, and started a new family with Carla and their son Eren.

Grisha tracked down the Reiss family but made no move until the day Wall Maria fell, when he begged Frieda Reiss to stop the Titan invasion. When she refused, a future Eren manipulated him into devouring her for the Founding Titan and killing most of her family. Horrified by the future he had glimpsed, he found Eren at a refugee camp in Trost, gave him the key to the basement where he had hidden the truth, and injected him with Titan serum; as a Pure Titan, Eren devoured him. After the recapture of Wall Maria, Eren, Mikasa, Levi and Hange found three books Grisha had written in the basement, with a photograph of his first family, revealing that humanity was thriving outside the Walls, and Historia ordered their contents released to the public.

In the anime, Grisha is voiced by Hiroshi Tsuchida; the English dub spells his name Grisha Jaeger and casts Chris Hury.