Annie Leonhart

Annie Leonhart is a character from the Attack on Titans anime and manga.

Annie is a graduate of the 104th Training Corps and former member of the Military Police Brigade. Her exceptional skill with swords and unarmed combat earned her the 4th rank, but she is noted to be a lone wolf that struggles to work with others.

She possesses the ability to transform into a Titan known as the Female Titan. Trained from an early age by her father, she is selected as one of Marley's Warriors. In the year 845, she is sent on a mission to retrieve the Founding Titan, along with fellow Warriors Reiner Braun, Bertolt Hoover, and Marcel Galliard. As the Female Titan, she serves as a major antagonist prior to her defeat, in which she crystallizes herself and is left in a comatose state. She is currently being held deep underground under the custody of the Survey Corps.

Human Form
Annie is a young girl of considerably short height with a small, yet very muscular build and physique. She has moderately short blonde hair that is often tied at the back with her right fringe mainly draping over the right side of her face (though she tends to push it to the side on occasion; possibly for better visibility). She has an oval-shaped face, blue eyes, a Roman nose and pale complexion. Her hair color is noticeably paler than most other blonde-haired characters and when untied, her hair reaches down the nape of her neck. Her eyes, although of considerable size and proportion, often have a sullen vibe to their appearance. Annie's casual attire mainly consists of a hooded sweatshirt underneath a jacket accompanied by dark gray pants. She is often seen in the Training Corps uniform and then the Military Police Brigade uniform after graduation. Though Annie often wears hooded sweatshirts as part of her standard attire, she wears her signature white hooded sweatshirt as part of her standard military attire. During her missions as the Female Titan, it is implied that she always wears her silver ring which has a small, folding blade on her right index finger; using it as her primary source of causing self-injury in order to transform into her Female Titan form at any time.

Titan Form
Annie's appearance as a Titan changes quite drastically, though her overall physique and facial features remain mostly the same. Her body consists mainly of exposed muscle tissue, in which there is a noticeably limited amount of skin coverage across her body, and fingers made out of bone. Along with a massive increase in height, her face is laden with muscle lining, notably underneath her cheeks, giving her the capability to stretch her mouth far more than it seems, along with yellowish teeth. Compared to the majority of other Titans encountered, Annie's Titan form seems much more physically fit and stronger, bearing a lean build with visible muscle definition and a feminine form.

Personality
Annie is an isolated, exclusionary person; friendships do not come to her easily. She is rarely seen smiling and often has an emotionless expression. She is apathetic and somnolent, with little desire to put in any effort into meaningless disciplines or activities, and instead claims to focus exclusively on making it into the Military Police Brigade to obtain an easy life. While Annie tends to have a realistic outlook on life, she holds a fascination and even feelings of respect towards people who have a deep sense of duty and righteousness - in those people who devote their lives and even die for causes they believe in.

Annie's sense of humor tends to be mocking, sarcastic, deadpan and popping up. It also sometimes expresses a partial truth and it happens mostly in tense situations. For example, when she was cornered by the Survey Corps in front of an underground passage, she claimed that she was a feeble maiden and mocked Eren as a suicidal blockhead. Despite Annie's usual cold and calm demeanor, she is capable of expressing her feelings in various ways. At the times she does lose her composure, she usually reacts with violence. She beats up Reiner Braun for his cowardice after Marcel was eaten and for trying to manipulate her to continue a mission which had, in her view, already failed. Also, while exhausted by her spy work and constantly avoiding hand-to-hand combat training, Annie is clearly angered when he pushes her to take the training seriously, to the point she uses her fighting style on him, despite his protests and already having demonstrated it on Eren at Reiner's bidding. While outwardly callous, Annie has expressed levels of guilt and shock, most notably when apologizing to a certain corpse after the battle of Trost and when Reiner emotionally manipulated her to help him kill Marco.

Annie is highly intelligent, able to think deeply about situations, and has shown considerable problem-solving ability and a quick wit. These personality traits, in conjunction with her calm attitude and analytical skills, make her a good tactician. While undercover as a refugee, and later as a trainee, she does most of the spy work for the Warriors. Annie also realizes the contradictions of the military training system within the Walls and is not fooled by the Marleyan propaganda. However, she is a bad liar, being called out on this by both Eren and Kenny, the former regarding her apathy towards her martial arts prowess, and the latter when she lies about being his daughter, even sarcastically insisting further. On the other hand, she is very good at spotting the lies of other people, seen when she realizes Armin Arlert's dishonesty far before they had even reached the underground tunnel, and Reiner's lie about befriending their fellow trainees as being nothing more than a pragmatic attempt to gain their trust.

She is extremely practical and self-aware, being honest about her strengths and weaknesses, and is rarely ever prone to self-deception or emotional mistakes. A notable example is when she recognizes her lack of skill in seduction and charm when thinking about possibly seducing a member of the Fritz family, causing her to readily dismiss the idea. Furthermore, she had a casual acceptance of her negative personality traits, freely admitting her faults even to almost-complete strangers such as Marlowe Freudenberg, calling herself worthless and evil with no hint of self-loathing. She is nevertheless capable of self-loathing. For example, she proposed to Reiner Braun and Bertolt Hoover to get close to one of the men in the Fritz family and marry into it for the sake of her mission. She also claimed to be as selfish as the Marleyan government.

Annie is very concentrated on her mission as a Warrior, to the point that she is willing to kill to reach her goal, although she is somewhat hesitant to kill former comrades and sheds tears when she fails to capture Eren. Though she is seemingly indifferent towards her capability as a hand-to-hand combat fighter, she remains proud of her skills and seems to enjoy the notion of fighting. The only time that she is seen genuinely smiling is when she expresses a curious interest in teaching Eren how to fight in her unique fighting style.

Nonetheless, what drives Annie more than anything is her desire for a normal life. Though she has no love for Marley itself, the only reason she is so concentrated on her mission is because it would allow her to go back home to her father, and she had urged Reiner several times before her eventual capture to return to Marley with the information they had gathered thus far; despite her otherwise cynical and realist worldview, Annie managed to convince herself of the false notion that it would be enough to avoid punishment. When she lost Eren due to the actions of both Mikasa and Levi in the Titan Forest, Annie saw the easiest chance to return back to her father was gone and she began visibly crying in her Titan form.

Abilities
Out of the 104th Training Corps members, Annie is one of the strongest fighters alongside Mikasa and Eren. She was ranked as one of the top 5 trainees at 4th position, meaning a degree of skill in several military combat forms. Although she is ranked 4th, she is usually portrayed as being on par with Mikasa. Her being placed lower was likely due to a combination of her slacking off, not taking things seriously and her nightly reconnaissance work as part of the Paradis Island Operation.
 * Vertical maneuvering equipment: As her graduation rank implies, Annie possesses a great amount of skill at controlling the vertical maneuvering equipment. With the use of the equipment's blades only, she was shown to effortlessly kill a Titan inside the Military HQ at Trost District in order to help the soldiers to refill their gas and then proceeded to slay another Titan that Connie failed to dispose of. Later, Annie was also able to utilize the equipment to kill Gunther Schultz even after being considerably exhausted by using her Titan abilities.


 * Martial Arts: Annie is noteworthy for her unique fighting style, with a strong focus on minimizing the advantages of larger, stronger opponents through kicks, throws, and holds. She notes that her father taught her this style, and during their time in training together, she teaches it to Eren Yeager. Annie retains the same fighting style in her Titan form, as Eren noticed in his first battle against the Female Titan.

Power of the Titans
Like Eren, Annie displays an ability to transform into a Titan, referred to as the Female Titan (Megata no Kyojin). Her Titan form is 14 meters, the third shortest, being rivaled by the Cart Titan who is 4 meters and the Jaw Titan who is 5 meters. As the Female Titan, Annie is able to easily overpower veteran Survey Corps members, and wipe out several squads in Erwin's specialized scouting formations. Annie acquired her Titan powers while she was Warrior candidate in Marley and she was trained with using them by the military of Marley and by her father. During the 57th Expedition Outside the Walls of the Survey Corps, she was far more experienced in using her Titan form compared to Eren, who had only discovered his Titan powers recently. She is one of the more skilled of the nine Titans, sporting a variety of presumably learned powers and special abilities not exhibited by any others with Titan power.
 * Regeneration: In her Titan form, Annie is capable of healing any injuries and even regenerating any parts of her body that were possibly lost in a battle. However, she takes this ability to a new level, being able to focus this ability on certain parts of her body, healing the chosen injuries at a much faster pace as opposed to the automatic, simultaneous regeneration of all the damaged parts. This has proven to be useful in battle as shown when Annie chose to regenerate only one eye to see the approaching Special Operations Squad and to defeat them, using the moment of surprise.


 * Crystallization: Annie has the ability to harden parts of her skin at will, something that is similar to the ability of the Armored Titan, as stated by Erwin. However, unlike the Armored Titan, Annie's hardened skin cannot be maintained for prolonged periods, as it will chip if struck. Annie employs this ability in various situations for various effects. The armor is hard enough for the soldiers' blades to be unable to cut through it and thus Annie can effectively defend herself against any attacks, even those coming from Eren in his Titan form. She also uses this ability for destructive attacks, being able to heavily damage Eren's Titan body by hardening her fists or legs. This way, she also avoids hurting herself as opposed to Eren, who easily loses even entire limbs after performing attacks in his Titan form. Upon capture and extraction, Annie used this ability to generate a cocoon of incredibly hard and durable crystal, something that no known technology can yet break into, to trap herself in so as to avoid being interrogated.


 * Titan Control: Annie is able to summon pure Titans, though her range is limited. Annie was the one who lead Titans near Shiganshina District before the Colossus and Armored Titans broke Wall Maria. During the 57th expedition, she was able to lead an army of Titans to destroy a part of the Survey Corps formation in order to capture Eren. Later, after being trapped by the Survey Corps, she also used her ability in a smart way to attract Titans, as upon hearing her shouts, all nearby Titans ignored any other humans and rushed to her location, devouring her Titan form. This allowed Annie to effectively escape the Survey Corps' trap in her human form without being detected. This ability is similar to the Founding Titan, as stated by Armin and Erwin.


 * High mobility and endurance: In her Titan form, Annie has high mobility and endurance, unlike most human-controlled Titans, who are less fast than her and who tire to the point of collapsing. During the 57th expedition, she was able to run on long distances while fighting against many soldiers and the Attack Titan. Also, after escaping the Survey Corps' trap, she was able to transform for a second time without an extended recovery period.

Trivia

 * Annie ranked 6 in the First Character Popularity Poll.
 * Her fighting style resembles Muay Thai.
 * Isayama has stated that the Female Titan's three sizes are B860 - W660 - H860. If the zeroes are removed, this seems to provide Annie's three sizes as well.
 * Isayama revealed in the March issue of Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine that Annie has the habit of sleep talking, sometimes murmuring "whoosh" when she dreams of practicing kicks on trees.
 * Annie wears a hoodie so that she can cover her head with its hood and feel alone when she wants to be alone in public.
 * Annie's surname Leonhart is derived from the Spanish word león and the Dutch word hart. These words combined literally translate to Lionheart; a nickname that is given to someone who is a great warrior.
 * Annie is one of four female characters to have a character song in Linked Horizon's Shingeki no Kiseki album. The others being Carla, Ilse, and Petra. Annie's song is Kanojo wa Tsumetai Hitsugi no Naka de (She Lies in a Cold Coffin).