Bertholdt Hoover

The tallest cadet in the 104th and the quietest, Bertholdt placed third in the class despite a diffident manner and a habit of deferring to Reiner in every decision. Comrades describe him as capable but passive, someone who only acts decisively when pushed. He sleeps badly, sweats constantly under stress, and rarely volunteers an opinion about anything that matters.

Bertholdt is the tallest cadet of the 104th, a lean and long limbed young man who seems perpetually uncomfortable with his own height. He has short dark brown hair with a slight side part, narrow green eyes and a soft, boyish face that rarely settles into confidence. He stoops slightly when standing with others, as if trying to take up less room, and he is often shown sweating or fidgeting during tense conversations. In uniform the jacket hangs loosely on his narrow frame. The Colossal Titan linked to him towers roughly sixty metres, skinless, steaming and grotesquely exposed.

Bertholdt is soft spoken to the point of invisibility, deferring in nearly every conversation and letting others decide for him. He is polite, observant and genuinely kind, and classmates remember him as harmless, forgettable and pleasant. That passivity is not innocence: he is fully aware of what he is part of and copes by refusing to look at it directly, letting a stronger personality carry the responsibility. He becomes visibly anxious whenever a decision falls to him, and his discomfort surfaces as nervous sweating. He harbours quiet feelings for a classmate and cannot articulate them. When he finally commits to something, the gentleness vanishes completely.

Bertholdt was raised beyond the walls among a people used as weapons by the nation that ruled them, and he was selected as a warrior candidate despite a temperament ill suited to command. He received the power of the largest known shifting Titan and, still a child, was sent with two companions on a mission to breach the walled nation's defences and destroy the people inside. He entered the territory posing as a displaced survivor and enlisted with the 104th Training Corps, where his height and skill placed him third in the class while his personality kept him almost unnoticed. He has followed rather than chosen for as long as he can remember.

1. 104th Cadet Corps

   Bertholdt trains in the shadow of his louder companions, finishing third in the year while barely registering with most classmates. He shares a bunk with Reiner, hovers near Annie, and is remembered chiefly for sleeping in strange positions and for saying very little. Nothing about him invites suspicion.

2. Battle of Trost

   He fights through the defence of the city, joining the squads that clear the supply depot and supporting the operation to seal the breach. He follows Reiner's orders without question throughout, and his competence goes largely unremarked amid the chaos and the losses suffered by the cadets.

3. Choosing a regiment

   Although his ranking guarantees a safe posting, Bertholdt enlists in the Survey Corps after Reiner decides for both of them. He voices no opinion of his own about the choice, and comrades read his quietness as nerves rather than dread at what the assignment will require.

4. The 57th Expedition beyond the walls

   Riding with the formation, he survives the Female Titan's devastation of the Survey Corps and returns among the shaken remnants. He reacts to the losses with distress that his comrades take for ordinary grief, and he stays close to Reiner throughout the retreat and the aftermath.

Reiner Braun

Constant companion

Reiner decides and Bertholdt follows, an arrangement that has defined his life. He worries about his friend's fraying grip on himself but lacks the will to take the lead in his place.

Annie Leonhart

Fellow outsider and unspoken affection

He watches her more closely than anyone, defends her from criticism and grows visibly anxious when she is in danger. His feelings are obvious to the audience and never stated aloud to her.

Eren Yeager

Comrade

They train and fight together for years, and Eren regards him as a dependable if odd classmate. Bertholdt's connection to the day Eren lost his home is the story's most carefully buried thread.

The 104th Training Corps

Comrades

He shares meals, drills and grief with cadets who consider him a harmless friend, an intimacy he accepts without ever being able to return it honestly.

• He graduates third in the 104th despite being one of the least noticed cadets in the class.
• He fights alongside the trainees to retake the supply depot during the Battle of Trost.
• He follows Reiner into the Survey Corps instead of taking the safe posting his ranking earned him.
• He survives the catastrophic 57th Expedition and returns with the battered remnants of the corps.

• Classmates joke about the contorted way he sleeps, which is one of the few things anyone remembers about him.
• He is frequently animated with visible sweat, a running visual cue for his anxiety.
• He is the tallest member of his graduating class at 192 cm.
• Season one gives him very few lines, most of them reactions to something Reiner has already said.

• Eren Yeager
• Mikasa Ackerman
• Armin Arlert
• Levi
• Erwin Smith
• Hange Zoë

• Jean Kirstein
• Sasha Blouse
• Connie Springer
• Annie Leonhart
• Reiner Braun
• Krista Lenz
• Dot Pyxis

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