Character from Attack on Titan by Hajime Isayama
The Survey Corps commander who gambled thousands of lives on a childhood dream about the truth of the world — a devil in a hero's uniform who led the most hopeless charge in military history and won.
Erwin Smith is the most morally complex commander in Attack on Titan because he was never fighting for humanity. He was fighting for his father's theory. When Erwin was a child, his father — a schoolteacher — theorized that the king had altered humanity's memories and that human civilization existed beyond the Walls. Erwin asked about it too loudly, in class, and his father was disappeared by the Military Police. Erwin spent the rest of his life building an army, sacrificing thousands of soldiers, and waging a war against Titans — all to reach the basement of Grisha Yeager's house, where the truth of the world might confirm what his father guessed. This is the horror of Erwin Smith: he knew. He knew that his dream was selfish. He knew that every soldier who died screaming on an expedition died for his curiosity, not their freedom. He gave speeches about advancing humanity while privately counting the corpses his ambition produced. And he couldn't stop. Because giving up would mean his father died for nothing, and every soldier he'd already sacrificed died for nothing, and the only way to make their deaths mean anything was to keep going forward. He was a genius tactician who invented the Long-Distance Enemy Scouting Formation and reduced expedition casualties by half. He was a manipulative politician who outmaneuvered the royal government and staged a bloodless coup. He was a charismatic leader whose soldiers charged to certain death on his word alone. And in the end, at Shiganshina, with the Beast Titan raining boulders on his last soldiers, Erwin gave up his dream. He led the charge himself. He didn't reach the basement. He died on the field with a boulder through his side, whispering about his father's classroom. Levi chose not to bring him back because Erwin had finally found peace, and dragging him into consciousness would have been the cruelest thing anyone could do to a man who had been carrying hell on his shoulders for twenty years. Erwin Smith was the devil the Survey Corps needed. And the devil, in the end, chose to die human.
Tall, broad-shouldered, with an aristocratic bearing that commands attention in any room. Thick blond hair parted to the side, intense blue eyes that seem to evaluate everything they see, heavy eyebrows, and a jaw that could have been carved from stone. His right arm was bitten off by a Titan during the mission to capture Annie — he continued giving orders as he bled. The empty sleeve pinned to his chest became as iconic as any medal.
Also known as: Erwin Smith, Commander Erwin, The Devil