CDC App

[wreckingbert]

BE WARNED, YE WHO DO NOT WISH TO BE SPOILED! The remainder of this app is full of Attack on Titan spoilers that were not included in the anime. If you don’t want to be spoiled on major plot points, read no further.

PLAYER INFO.
✖ Handle: Kathryn
✖ Contact: missazrael@plurk, or a PM on this account
✖ Are You Over 16: Y
✖ Other Characters Played in Consignment: n/a

CHARACTER INFO.
✖ Character Name: Hoover, Bertolt
✖ Canon: Attack on Titan, taken from after the Trost incident and joining the Survey Corps, but prior to the Female Titan arc. After episode sixteen of the anime, basically, although I’ll be drawing on the manga as well for the personality and setting sections.
✖ Character Appearance: His face, a full body shot, and his titan form.
Character Age: sixteen, although he might have spent time in limbo and could technically be much older. He looks and presents like a sixteen year old.
Pick A Number: 37 and 83

✖ Canon Setting: The first thing to realize about the Attack on Titan setting, the thing that has direct and tremendous impact on everything else, is that humans are no longer the alpha predators. It takes place in an Earth-like setting where, over one hundred years ago, creatures called titans appeared on the landscape. Titans are humanoid in appearance, although frequently deformed in some way, and range in size from three to sixteen meters in height (there is one notable exception to this height rule, but he will be mentioned later). The people of this dystopian reality know very little about the titans, lacking basic information like where they came from, how they reproduce, and how they get energy. There is only one thing that is completely, utterly certain about titans: their main drive is to devour humans, and they do this very, very well.

When the titans first arrived in the universe, humanity found itself driven back and systematically devoured, until they managed to build three concentric walls (Maria, Rose, and Sina) and retreated behind them. They’ve lived there for the last one hundred years, and despite constant food shortages and hardships, life has been peaceful.

The humans left behind the walls are governed by a mysterious King, who lives behind the innermost wall (Sina) with all the other aristocracy. The government is fairly tyrannical and secretive, banning information about the outside world and enacting draconian measures to preserve the status quo. Most of the people behind the walls live in peace but poverty, and the military is the only way out for many children. Military training lasts three years and is a brutal, grueling ordeal where accidental deaths are not uncommon. If a recruit survives, they can join the Garrison, responsible for maintaining and guarding the walls; the Survey Corps, the only branch to go outside the walls and attempt to gather more information about titans and engage with them directly; or the top ten graduates of each class can join the Military Police, the branch known for corruption who works behind Wall Sina and directly serves the King.

While it was not an ideal world, it was the one they had, and things were going fairly well until the year 845. In 845, two exceptional titans appeared. The first was the Colossal Titan, a 60 meter tall behemoth who kicked a hole in the wall of one of the outermost districts, allowing titans to flood in. He disappeared shortly thereafter, only to be replaced by the Armored Titan, who broke through the gate leading to Wall Maria. Wall Maria fell to the titans, meaning humanity lost a fifth of their territory in one fell swoop. The refugees fled behind Wall Rose, but their numbers were too high to support with the available land, and the government sent huge numbers of them out to “retake Wall Maria,” a venture that ended in cataclysmic failure. In the space of two years, humanity lost a fifth of its territory and its population, making the Colossal and the Armored Titans two of the most feared and hated villains known to man.

Character History: We don’t know what Bertolt was doing prior to the attack of the Colossal and the Armored Titans, although he does make a very brief appearance in the anime among the refugees who fled the destruction of Wall Maria. His story picks up when he joins the 104th Trainees Division along with the story’s other main characters. His time in the 104th doesn’t seem to be particularly exceptional, despite him graduating in third place, behind Mikasa and Reiner. He learns the skills he needs to survive, excels at using his 3D maneuver gear, and sticks close to Reiner the entire time.

Five years after the fall of Wall Maria, the day after the 104th Trainees Division graduated but prior to them choosing which section of the military to join, the Colossal Titan returned outside Trost District, an outlying area of Wall Rose, and kicked a hole in the wall. It appeared that history would repeat itself and the Armored Titan would also appear and break through Wall Rose, but then one of the trainees, Eren Yeager, discovered he could shift into a titan himself. Despite some very reasonable panicking from the military, he eventually proved himself to be a friend of humanity by helping plug the hole in the wall while in his titan form.

A month later, the Survey Corps and their newest members (including Bertolt) ventured outside Wall Rose to search for a path to Wall Maria and some important information lost there. While outside the wall, they encountered a third unusual titan, the Female Titan, who attacked and decimated their ranks attempting to capture Eren. She was ultimately unsuccessful, and the Survey Corps retreated. However, they had gained a valuable piece of information in that Armin Arlert was able to piece together the Female Titan’s identity. Aware now that humans could shift into titans, Armin determined that the Female Titan was Annie Leonhart, a graduate of the 104th and an old friend of Bertolt’s, and she was confronted and then captured inside Wall Sina, although not without Eren shifting into a titan himself and causing significant collateral damage.

After the Female Titan was captured, military leadership deduced that the other titan shifters, specifically the Colossal and Armored Titans, were among the same group of trainees. To keep them isolated, a group of the surviving trainees including Bertolt and Reiner were set out to an isolated, rural area and not permitted to wear their 3D maneuver gear, the tools soldiers wear to move in three dimensions and avoid the titans. This became a problem when titans appeared and it seemed like Wall Rose had been breached. The Survey Corps groups split up and went in different directions to try and find the breach in the wall, and one group discovered that a member of their squad, Ymir, was also a titan shifter. After a decisive battle at an abandoned castle, everyone regrouped on Wall Rose, where Reiner revealed himself as the Armored Titan to Eren and outed Bertolt as the Colossal Titan in an attempt to get Eren to join them. Eren refused, Mikasa attacked Bertolt and Reiner, they all shifted into their titan forms, fought, and Bertolt and Reiner eventually overpowered Eren and escaped with both he and Ymir.

✖ Character Personality:At first glance, Bertolt seems like a very shy, unsure kid with no self-esteem or confidence in his own abilities. He’s rarely seen without his childhood friend, Reiner, and often lets Reiner do the speaking for both of them. He doesn’t speak very much unless he’s spoken to first or asked a direct question, although when he does, he’s articulate and intelligent. He tells Eren when they first meet that he “has no will of [his] own,” and the trainees’ instructor Shadis notes that while he is highly skilled with his 3D maneuver gear (the tools soldiers wear to move in three dimensions and avoid the titans), he lacks initiative and defers to others. He’s easy to dismiss and forget about, and that appears to be just how he likes it.

However, Bertolt carries an enormous secret with him, one that has affected all other parts of his personality: he is the Colossal Titan, the one responsible for kicking holes in the walls and leading to the most destructive events in recent human history. He was part of a group that worked on this, the other two being Reiner and Annie, and while their motives are unknown at this time, when we take this into account certain aspects of Bertolt’s personality and his decisions become more clear.

The first attack on the walls happened five years before the current canon point. This means that Bertolt was eleven years old when he committed an act that led directly to the deaths of a fifth of the remaining human population. The Colossal Titan is the only one capable of damaging the outer walls, meaning that without Bertolt’s direct involvement, the walls would have never fallen. Of the three child terrorists who led to the fall of Wall Maria, Bertolt had to go first and commit an act that would require deep, tremendous commitment to a cause, and he was able to do so without hesitation. There is a well of quiet, untapped strength in that that is often forgotten, due to the heinous nature of the action.

This is a strength that often times seems at odds with Bertolt’s own perception of himself. He admits to having low self-worth and even says that he has no will of his own; however, how many terrorists really do have a will of their own, particularly when they’re very young and probably desperately afraid? There is someone behind the attacks on the walls, and the young titan shifters are puppets to a greater cause. Bertolt’s comment can be interpreted as him literally being passive and letting others manipulate him, or it can be seen as him quietly lamenting what he’s done. When he says it, he’s lived with humans for two years after the fall of Wall Maria, seen the direct results of his actions, and perhaps he’s claiming to not have a will of his own as a defense mechanism. After all, isn’t it easier to shift blame from yourself to those pulling your strings from the shadows, making yourself not as responsible for all the death and tragedy?

Bertolt remains withdrawn and inwardly focused for the entirety of Attack on Titan, only emoting on rare occasions and only being driven to passionate action once. However, once we know about his past and what he’s hiding, these choices make more sense and appear to be driven by more than just shyness and uncertainty.

There is only once in canon when Bertolt gets passionate and visibly upset by something, and it occurs when he’s confronted by several of his friends from the 104th trainees division. Knowing what he’s done and who he is, they converge on him at once and, led by Armin, start asking him pointed questions about his time in the 104th, about whether they were ever really friends, and about what it was like to kill so many people. Under this onslaught, Bertolt breaks, becoming very emotional and telling them that no one really wants to kill people, and that he did think of them as his friends. He implies that the time he spent in the 104th was one of the happiest times in his life, but that he can’t give up on the mission he’s been given. When Armin implies that Annie, a character Bertolt was never really seen interacting with, is being tortured back at the Capitol, he flies into a rage and lashes out for the first time.

Knowing this, Bertolt’s withdrawal from society makes more sense. Rather than being motivated by shyness, he pulled away from the rest of the 104th because he had the burden of guilt weighing heavily on his shoulders. All three of the titan shifters dealt with their guilt in different ways (Annie by projecting outward and hating the world, Reiner by pretending to be a soldier and absolving himself of his guilt), and Bertolt directed his inward. While he probably initially tried to avoid forming any bonds with any of the other trainees, friendships and relationships formed over time (the official guide states that he and Armin were close friends, although we never see them interact), and the entire time Bertolt knew that he would end up in the position of having to kill them, or perform actions that would directly lead to their deaths. The guilt must have been overwhelming, leading Bertolt to withdraw and focus all that negative energy on himself. What might easily be mistaken for shyness and a meek personality was instead crushing, crippling guilt and depression over what he knew was to come.

And yet, Bertolt remained the strongest and most steadfast of the three titan shifters. While Reiner played at being a soldier and retreated into fantasy and Annie made mistakes as the Female Titan that directly led to their downfall due to sentimentality (she spared Armin when she had two chances to kill him), Bertolt stayed true to the mission. He kept himself as uninvolved as he could and found himself with the unenviable task of keeping Reiner on track and remembering who he was and what he had to do, all while having no other support. Even when directly confronted by his former friends and teammates, Bertolt said that “someone has to do it” in reference to destroying the walls and ending humanity. He has strength and commitment that the other two lack, even though he has the same reluctance.

In short, Bertolt Hoover is a deeply flawed individual who nonetheless displays a rare, quiet strength that is so far under the surface that it goes unnoticed and masquerades as extreme shyness. He is, reluctantly, the backbone of the titan shifter trio, a character who goes against his own wishes and self-interest to do what he thinks must be done, and who has a very strong sense of duty, even if the duty in question is extremely warped.

✖ Character Powers: Bertolt is a trained soldier, and as such is skilled in using maneuver gear and in hand-to-hand combat. While we’ve never seen him use them, we can assume he knows how to use firearms as well, as we see some of the other trainees do in during the Battle of Trost. He graduates third in his class, and is ranked thusly:

Battle Skill: 9/10
Initiative: 4/10
Strategy: 6/10
Teamwork: 9/10
Self Esteem: 2/10

When he’s given orders and directives, he’s able to follow through on them, but it’s unlikely he’ll take much initiative on his own.

Bertolt can also transform into the Colossal Titan, which comes with an entirely new skill set. The Colossal Titan’s greatest advantage is simply its size; it’s bigger and stronger than any other titan we’ve yet seen in the entire canon. To anyone from Bertolt’s home world, the sight of the Colossal Titan would be terrifying, as it comes with a tremendous amount of cultural baggage. The Colossal Titan can also dissolve its body almost instantly, or use it to create explosions if it falls from a great height, something none of the other titans seem capable of doing.

However, the Colossal Titan is also very disadvantaged. It’s very slow due to its size, and it’s shown that it has trouble dealing with soldiers using 3D maneuver gear. They’re simply too fast for it, particularly if they all attack at once. It has a defense mechanism against this, where it can project super-heated steam from its body and repel attackers, but it’s unclear how long this will last; it’s indicated that the supply is not infinite and can be exhausted. Bertolt is also the only titan shifter who has never transformed twice, or multiple times, in one day; it’s unclear on if he’s able to do so or if the shifting takes too much out of him. Finally, the Colossal Titan’s legs are different from typical titans and look more like columns than proper legs, and don’t have ankles. It’s possible that the Colossal Titan would have trouble moving or running because of this, and would be unable to flee attackers.

The Colossal Titan’s statistics are as follows:

Power: 11/10
Speed: 3/10
Size: 11/10
Elusiveness: 10/10
Threat: 10/10

Both Bertolt and the Colossal Titan are forces to be reckoned with, although the titan form is more aggressive and takes a more active role in things when it appears.

CHARACTER SAMPLES.
First Person POV:
Talking to Jean, and talking to Reiner.

[Technology is confusing. Bertolt has never seen anything like the little screen he wears around his wrist, able to show him people and places that are far away, at the same time that they’re happening. It’s new, and novel, and he’s already pieced together how to text. He can certainly see an advantage to communicating silently; no one can hear his voice tremble, or sound uncertain, or otherwise betray him.]

[He’s intrigued by the video function as well. After retreating to his assigned bunk and playing with it for awhile, he thinks he’s figured out how it works. He pushes one finger down on the little button that says Record, and his image pops into the screen. He watches himself for a few moments, studying the lines of his face, and wonders how anyone who has seen both himself and the Colossal Titan could not make the connection between the two of them. Every time he looks in a mirror, he sees a monster staring back at him, like the skin covering his bones melts away and reveals the warrior underneath, and he looks away.]

[If he didn’t have to shave, he would never look in a mirror again.]

So… [He clears his throat, and the Bertolt on the screen does the same, imitating him perfectly.] I don’t know where I am.

[Good job, Bertolt, way to state the obvious.]

I mean, I know I’m in a bunk, on some kind of ship that can fly like a bird, and it’s somewhere far away. They said it’s between the stars, on a different planet. [He clears his throat in a sound that almost—almost—passes for a laugh.] First no one could believe there was a world beyond the walls, and now they’re talking about completely different planets. Planets, plural. More than one. And we’re supposed to be destroying them.

[He runs a hand over his face, and the Bertolt on the screen has shadowed, weary eyes when they reappear over his hand.]

I don’t understand.

[Which is nothing new, and he should be used to it, but he isn’t.]

Why me? Why did they take me when they could have taken anyone else from home? I’m not a good soldier, and that’s what they want, they want soldiers. They have everything out there soldiers could need, food and supplies and this thing [He gestures at the device around his wrist, and the screen Bertolt’s brow furrows.] to communicate, and even something so you can understand everyone you’re talking to.

[He stops to take a deep breath. When he continues, his voice is softer.]

They’re gearing up to win a fight. I listened to some of the other people talking, out in the hall, and they… they don’t believe in what we’re supposed to do, exactly, but they have something worth fighting for. A home world, or a family. And me… what’s going to happen to the mission without me? I’m the only one who can do it, I’m the only one who can kick in the walls, and what’s going to happen if I’m here? How are we ever going to get to go home if we’re stuck here?

[He covers his face again, and it’s a long few minutes before he speaks. Even then, his voice is muffled from behind his hand.]

The worst part is… I don’t think they want me here at all. They want my warrior. And… and I don’t know what they’ll do to Reiner and Annie if I don’t do what they want.

[Another long pause.]

I have to… I have to make myself useful. I have to not be a worthless piece of shit for once and make myself, make my warrior, make us into something valuable here. If he’s valuable, if the warrior does what they want and helps destroy worlds, then they’ll have to protect us, right? Even if the secret comes out, they won’t let them kill us, will they?

[He moans softly, and it almost sounds like a sob.]

Everyone is going to know. They’ll all know about what I am. They’ll… they’ll hate me. They’ll try to kill me, if they get the chance. I’ll be a monster.

But they’ll protect Annie and Reiner. They won’t let them be killed. Not if I cooperate.

It has to be me. It always has to be me.

✖ Third Person POV:

“We know what you are.”

The words ring in Bertolt’s ears like an iron bell; it’s something he’s thought about before, something he’s been afraid of hearing for the last three years, something that makes his blood run cold and the warrior inside him shift defensively, raising its head in sudden alertness. His immediate reaction is one of cold, vivid fear, but no, he can’t give in to that. He can’t reveal himself so easily. He turns his head slowly, looking down at the man holding his arm, and although he can feel sweat trickle down his temple, his voice only shakes a little when he answers.

“I’m Bertolt Hoover, sir.”

The man laughs, and Bertolt catches sight of the green unicorn on his jacket lapel. Military Police. “I know who you are. I also know what you are.” He leans in conspiratorially, his hand tightening on Bertolt’s arm. “You’re the Colossal Titan.”

Bertolt tries to swallow, but his throat is suddenly dry as a bone bleached in the sun, as dry as the ashes of all those they burned from Trost. He opens his mouth to speak, to deny the accusation, but all that comes out is a tiny, breathy sound, almost like a sigh. He’s not doing a good job, he’s not being convincing, but it’s hard to think when his heart is throbbing in his chest, feeling like it’s trying to beat its way free. They’ve been compromised; everything they’ve worked for is about to come crashing down around them. All the sacrifices, all the work, all the sleepless nights and anxiety-ridden days, all for nothing. Someone must have seen him, they must have seen him shed the Colossal like a second skin, and it’s all over. Annie and Reiner can’t complete the mission on their own, neither one of them is strong enough to break the gates on the walls.

One hand clenches into a fist, and Bertolt considers transforming, sheathing himself in the warrior’s body and fleeing. But that’s madness; he’s not fast enough, and he’s surrounded by Survey Corps members. They’d cut him down before he managed to take two steps. But then their secret would die with him. Annie and Reiner would be safe.

He starts to lift his hand towards his mouth, and the MP sees it and laughs, the sound cold and cruel. “We have your friends too. The Female and the Armored Titan are already in our custody.” His hand clenches down on Bertolt’s arm, hard enough to bruise, and Bertolt notices with distant horror that he’s lost control of himself as his arm starts to steam while it heals. The steam escapes his jacket sleeve and rises up, and when the MP notices it, his mouth twists into a sneer. “With you, we have the complete set.”

The air around them is too close, too heavy, and Bertolt’s chest heaves as he struggles to breath, trying to fight down blind panic. All of them, they’ve all been taken, the mission isn’t just compromised, the mission is crushed. They’ve failed, and failed spectacularly. He thinks, bitterly, and just for a moment, that if he’d known this was going to happen, there was no need to break the wall in Trost at all.

The MP jerks on his arm. “Come with me, and don’t fight. If you don’t want your little fellow traitors broken in front of you, you’ll cooperate and do everything we say.”

He could still flee. He’s wearing his maneuver gear, he could still get away. But then Reiner and Annie’s faces flash through his mind, and Bertolt hangs his head. He’ll do whatever they want, if only they don’t hurt his friends. It was always going to end this way anyway. Warriors don’t survive to be old men. “Yes, sir.”

CHARACTER ITEMS.
✖ Pick a Team: Green

✖ Mission Freebie: All he wants is for Reiner and Annie to be safe and unharmed.
✖ Personal Item or Weapon: His 3D maneuver gear, please! I don’t know if that would be considered a weapon or a personal item, but if necessary, it can only be the gear itself and not the blade attachment.

✖ Character Inventory:

His 3D maneuver gear, his military uniform, his Survey Corps cloak.