Smiling Titan - Attack on Titan
The Smiling Titan is the unofficial name of a Titan and one of the antagonists of Attack on Titan series, especially of Eren Jaeger. It is a secondary character that, although it appears only a few times during the series, has a significant role within the story. It appears in the very first Chapter of the manga and in the First episode of the anime series. This Titan is 46-50 feet tall and it is characterised by its grinning smile and its disproportionate forms.
Before acquiring its Titan form, its human identity was Dina Jaeger, the first wife of Grisha Jaeger, father of Eren Jaeger, and mother of Zeke Jaeger. Ironically, she is the Titan who killed Carla, the mother of Eren, without being aware of it during the invasion of Wall Maria. Full of anger, the loss of his mother because of this Titan was the reason why Eren decided to take revenge against the Titans.
Features
The exact height of Dina in her Titan form is unknown, although she appeared to measure between 14 and 15 meters. Like most of the mindless Titans, its appearance is masculine, despite being originally a woman. Its hair is short to the back of its neck, with a blonde hue. The most notable feature about this Titan, however, is its huge and grotesque smile, which it kept all the time because its lips were wide open permanently, always exposing its teeth and gums. In addition, it has more teeth compared to a human, a characteristic that is quite common among the Titans. However, despite its robust appearance, the Smiling Titan has an emaciated body, with several of its ribs visible through its skin, and an unusual long and thin neck.
Origins
Dina Fritz (maiden name) was the first wife of Grisha Jaeger (Eren’s father). Dina is sent by “The Owl” to join the Restorators of Eldia, introducing herself as a descendant of the Fritz family. She also explained, after the previous questionioning of the members of the group, that King Fritz did not use the power of the Coordinate to attack Marley because he did not want to continue the war, fleeing to Paradis and leaving several Eldians in Marley. Grisha upon hearing this says that his goal will be to return the power of the Founding Titan to the Eldians who stayed to fight instead of fleeing.
The couple had a son, Zeke, who later would become the Beast Titan. Some time later, the Marley government announced that King Fritz had declared war, explaining that in order to counterattack the Eldians, the government would recruit children between five and seven years old, who would bear Titan’s powers and be recognized as “Honorable citizens of Marley” with their families.
Therefore, Grisha and Dina trained Zeke from his youth to fight for the people of Eldia, as they were severely discriminated against by the Marley at first because of their “demonic past”. However, there came a time when Zeke began to think that his parents did not love him as a son, but as an instrument to achieve their own purposes. So when he turned 7 years old, he notified the Marleyan government of his parent’s rebel activities and betrayed them. Both of them were arrested and, as a punishment, Dina was condemned of being injected with titan serum and being thrown over the wall to kill fellow Eldians living in Paradis Island.
Before being transformed into a Titan, Dina promised that she would find Grisha, no matter what she would become. However, Dina could not go back to her human form and Grisha was no longer among the living after the Shiganshina attack. Instead, she could find Grisha’s new family, but she could never know it, and Eren did not know it either until much later.
In this way, she ended up becoming the Smiling Titan. She remained outside of the walls as a mindless Titan for years, until the Colossal Titan breached the wall at Shiganshina and came into contact with Eren and his mother.
5 years after Eren joined the Survey Corps, the Smiling Titan appeared again in front of Eren and Mikasa when they were outside the Forest of Giant Trees during the military’s operation of the Armored Titan. The reason why it appeared was because of the plan of Erwin Smith to put the Titans against Reiner and Bertolt.
In an attempt to eat everything in its path, the Smiling Titan killed and devoured Hannes when he was trying to save Eren and Mikasa from being eaten. Then, at that moment Eren, full of rage, hate and anger, screamed and “punched” the Titan’s hand. Activating the Coordinate ability, a power that he did not know that he had, Eren seemingly started to gain control over the surrounding Titans and they proceeded to kill the Smiling Titan.
However, many years after him eating his father Grisha (who also had Titan powers), Eren started to have access to the memories of the former inheritors of the Attack Titan. One of the memories that Eren could see was the real origins of the Smiling Titan, the previous life of his father, the betrayal of Zeke Jaeger and his brotherhood relationship with him. This discovery was very shocking for him and he eventually ended up forgiving the Smiling Titan and understood that she was only a victim of Marley.