Annie Leonhart — Attack on Titan

Annie’s apparent life as a trainee is a cover for her role as one of Marley’s Warrior infiltrators. Raised as an Eldian in Marley, she was adopted by a man who trained her relentlessly to become a Warrior and improve their prospects. She inherited the Female Titan and traveled to Paradis with Reiner Braun, Bertolt Hoover, and Marcel Galliard to recover the Founding Titan. Their mission devastated lives inside the Walls and eventually required them to infiltrate the very military they were fighting.

The first assault is not a straightforward operation. Before the Warriors reach Wall Maria, Marcel Galliard is devoured by a roaming Titan. Annie wants to return rather than continue after such a disastrous loss, but Reiner insists that the remaining three press on. Annie uses the Female Titan to lead Pure Titans toward Wall Maria, after which Bertolt and Reiner breach the Walls. The later flashback makes Annie’s involvement in the original catastrophe unmistakable, while showing that she opposed continuing the mission after Marcel died.

Her relationship with her adoptive father is painful and contradictory. The training was harsh enough that Annie injured him severely in retaliation. Before she departed for Paradis, he finally apologized and begged her to return alive. His plea became a powerful personal reason for her to survive and go home, even when her mission demanded terrible choices.

Annie’s undercover actions extend beyond ordinary espionage. When Marco Bott overhears Reiner and Bertolt discussing their secret, Annie is pressured by Reiner into removing Marco’s maneuver gear, leaving him exposed to a Titan. Her visible distress does not undo her participation. Later revelations make this one of the clearest examples of the violence and moral coercion entangled in the Warriors’ mission.

She is also implicated in the deaths of the two Titans Hange Zoë captured for study, thwarting research that might have helped the inhabitants of the Walls. The conflict between Annie’s professed wish to return home and the harm she causes remains unresolved by an easy excuse.

During the Survey Corps’ 57th expedition beyond the Walls, Annie attacks in her Female Titan form, searching for Eren. Her astonishing speed, human-like combat judgment, selective hardening, and ability to attract nearby Pure Titans turn the operation into a deadly chase. Even Erwin Smith’s trap fails to hold her: she draws Titans to devour her captured Titan body, escapes, and resumes the pursuit. She kills members of Levi’s elite squad before Eren is eventually recovered.

Armin connects Annie to the Female Titan and helps expose her in Stohess District. When a plan to draw her underground threatens to leave her no room to transform, she refuses the trap and fights Eren as the Female Titan within the city. Cornered after the battle, she encloses her human body in a hardened crystal, preventing interrogation. Her identity is no longer secret, but the Survey Corps cannot interrogate her or obtain the information she carries.

Annie spends roughly four years encased in crystal. Although unable to answer, she later explains that she remained dimly aware of voices nearby. Hitch Dreyse and Armin speak to her during her confinement; Armin’s visits become especially important to their later relationship. When Eren unleashes the Rumbling, the crystal dissolves along with other Titan hardening, and Annie emerges into a world transformed by war.

Hitch helps Annie leave Stohess. During their journey, Annie speaks about her upbringing and acknowledges the terrible harm she has caused, yet says she would do it again if that were the price of reaching her father. It is an uncomfortable admission, not a claim that her victims deserved what happened. Soon afterward, Annie unexpectedly crosses paths with Armin and Connie and leaves with the former cadets.

Annie joins the improvised alliance of Marleyan Warriors and former Survey Corps members opposing Eren’s worldwide destruction. Around their campfire, old crimes—including Marco’s death—reopen wounds that cannot simply be ignored. Annie questions whether Armin and Mikasa could actually kill Eren if persuasion fails. Her cooperation does not erase what she has done or make all the former enemies trust one another overnight.

At the port on Paradis, Annie transforms into the Female Titan to defend the Azumabito technicians and the group’s escape vessel from the Yeagerists. She and Reiner withstand attacks while their allies prepare the ship. When the two Titan shifters are nearly overwhelmed, Connie intervenes to save them. His rescue echoes Annie’s earlier decision to save Connie during the Battle of Trost, now with their positions reversed.

Her conversations with Armin become more candid. He makes clear that he visited her crystal because he wanted to see her, not merely out of duty, and their mutual attraction becomes increasingly apparent. The manga does not establish that they marry or explicitly define a later formal partnership. Annie’s wish to reunite with her father continues to shape her choices.

When Annie fears the Rumbling has already reached Liberio and that her father is dead, she no longer wants to continue killing. She leaves the main assault party and travels with Gabi Braun and Falco Grice instead. On the ship, a discussion about the Female Titan’s ability to express qualities acquired from other Titans gives Falco reason to explore his own Titan’s potential for flight. Annie ultimately returns with Falco and Gabi to assist the fighters confronting Eren.

During the climactic Battle of Heaven and Earth, Annie transforms again and helps fight the Titans raised against the alliance. She assists Mikasa and Connie in trying to rescue Armin from a Titan that has seized him, and catches Armin after he is freed. Her actions now aim to protect people she once fought, even as the wider catastrophe remains beyond any individual fighter’s control.

At Fort Salta, Annie discovers that her adoptive father has survived long enough to reach the refugees there, but a gas released in the final confrontation transforms him and other Eldians into Pure Titans before they can properly reunite. When Eren dies and the power of the Titans disappears, the affected people return to human form. Annie finally embraces her father. She survives and loses the Female Titan power along with every other Titan shifter.

Three years later, Annie accompanies Armin, Reiner, and other survivors as members of a peace delegation sailing toward Paradis. She doubts that hostile people will listen, while Armin argues that the sight of former enemies traveling together might at least open a conversation. The manga does not show the delegation achieving a permanent peace, nor does it confirm Annie’s eventual marriage or a settled domestic future.