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“ | My father was a teacher. He taught the children in the region where I was raised… So i learned in his classroom. One day, during his class… something happened that would set the course of the rest of my life. The day, we learned history. About how humanity ended up cornered inside of these walls… it’s something every child learns. There was not a single historical record left from before the day humanity escaped to the safety of the Walls. The majority of humanity perished, and we were left with only a tiny bit of land, but we managed to put an end to our constant conflict. He said that we had gained an ideal world here inside the Walls… That’s when… A question came to my mind. I asked my father…__...My father deflected my question and finished the class as always. But… After we returned home, he answered me. He said the history texts the Royal Government Distributed… were full of mysteries and contradictions. Even if there were no documents left about those times… the generation that first entered the Walls should have been able to teach their history to their children. On the countrary, it would have been next to impossible to keep completely quiet and say nothing about the outside world to the next generation. What my father said next… was astonishing, even to a child like myself. But I wasn’t smart enough to figure out why he hadn’t talked about it during class. I told the kids in town about what he said… And the next day the Military Police asked me about it. My father didn’t come home that day. He was in an accident in a faraway town and died. Because of my betrayal… the Crown killed my father… Somewhere along the line, my father’s theory became fact to me. I made it my life’s mission to prove his hypothesis. Humans turn into Titans… Titans turn into the Walls… In this world full of miracles my father doesn’t seem so crazy for believing that… 107 years ago the people who escape to these walls had their memories altered, so the King could control them better. | „ |
~ Erwin to Dot Pixis about his father’s theory. |
Erwin’s father also known as Mr Smith, is a minor character in the manga and anime Attack on Titan. He was the father of Erwin Smith and an intelligent schoolteacher that was very knowledgeable about the past of humanity inside the Walls. After hearing his son’s question regarding if there were still people living outside the Walls, he would tell his son the theories he came up with. This would eventually lead to his death by the hand of the Interior Police and his son would attempt to spend his life with the goal of confirming his father theories.
Appearance[]
Erwin’s father was a tall man with a short crop of dark blonde hair and a small beard. He had blue eyes, while wearing a simple button-up shirt. He also wore circular glasses.
Personality[]
Erwin’s father was a very intelligent man who was capable of theorizing about the First King, despite the lack of knowledge that was known to the population in that time. He was also shown to be a caring father who happily explains his theory to Erwin and his son would eventually try to avenge him by conforming his hypothesis.
Story[]
Background[]
Erwin’s father used to be a schoolteacher in an unknown region within the Walls. One day, around at least 825, during history class, he explained to his students that all humanity outside the Walls was wiped out by the Titans, leaving only small groups of survivors to create the Walls and rebuild civilization within its few lands left. In the process of doing so, somehow all records of the history and information about the human race had vanished, save for a few legends and the knowledge that the royal family always ruled over humanity far behind the existence of the Walls, for roughly 2,000 years. Mr. Smith's young son Erwin, however, had some doubts and asked him how can society within the Walls be so sure that there is no humankind left outside the Walls, if the people of the Walls have remained stuck in their territory for almost a century without having been able to properly explore the outside, which would leave the possibility that there might be people left.
Mr. Smith deflected his son’s question, but when they got home, he sat down with Erwin and answered it. He proceeded to explain that the history he is forced to teach is full of mistakes and contradictions. He told Erwin that the idea of humanity not having any records and testimony from the history before the Walls were created didn't make sense, because the first generation could have at least explained to their children the things they experienced and taught them about the world as they had known. Unless something manipulated their memories, which was the theory Erwin’s father explained to him; that the First King of the Walls was capable of altering and completely wipe away the population’s memories. The teacher believed the King somehow had such power, and used it in order to achieve a functioning civilization within the Walls, which creation is also considered by society a complete mystery and wonder, and a miracle by the followers of the Church.
Erwin, still being a young and naïve child at that time, would mistakenly tell this theory to other children, getting the attention of the Military Police Brigade's First Interior Squad directly from the capital Mitras; the King's own loyal soldiers. A young Djel Sannes and his colleague Ralph walked up to Erwin one day to ask him about his story. Erwin would tell them he got it from his father which had dire consequences, as the two men, would secretely arrest Erwin’s father for knowing too much. The Royal Government - presumably fearing that Mr. Smith might have received the information from a traitor from the Interior - had Sannes and Ralph torture and question the teacher to learn everything he knew and how did he get the information he had. Once learned that Erwin's father was simply speculating and that there was no leak of secret information, the government concluded that Mr. Smith was still "too smart for his own good", as he had managed to figure out so much all by himself, and such man teaching to children and divulging his knowledge was a threat to the King's peace and the "paradise" within the Walls. Therefore, on the Monarchy's orders, Smith was executed by the Interior Police, Sannes and Ralph being presumably involved with the killing. The government made Smith's death seem like an accident, and the authorities simply stated that it happened while he was off somewhere else outside town. A funeral was held for him, yet his young son Erwin suspected that the Royal Government was responsible and made it his lifegoal to prove his father’s theory to be right.
Erwin joined the military's Training Corps as soon as he reached the eligible age, and during his training days he shared his father's theories with his comrades, including his friend Nile Dok, who were all skeptical and believed Erwin was overthinking trivial things too much. Erwin pointed out how the government's issued history books and school textbooks always declared in a definitive and factual fashion that all of humanity outside the Walls was extinct, with no room for speculation. As history is supposed to maintain a neutral and objective standpoint, Erwin pointed out that the books should claim it was always believed that all of humanity outside had gone extinct.
Royal Government Arc[]
In 850, the story of Mr. Smith is retold by his son Erwin, by now the Commander of the Survey Corps, during a conversation between himself and Dot Pixis, the highest Commander of the Garrison. During his interrogation, Djel Sannes mentions Mr. Smith among certain people the MP's First Interior Squad executed to protect the peace within the Walls.
Following a successful coup d'état by the military to overthrow the Royal Government, Premier Dhalis Zachary personally interrogates the nobles of the Royal Assembly, who admit in threatening tones that indeed the royal family of humanity, the Reiss family, own a power to alter the memories of humanity as it suits them. Pixis confirms to Erwin that Mr. Smith was spot on on his theory, finally confirming after so many years that civilization within the Walls was created by wiping out the memories of humanity. The military also confirms that said power shares its origins with the Titans, and that it was somehow stolen from the Reiss family some years before and ended up in Eren Yeager's possession, which is his "scream". However, the military also learns that certain bloodlines of noble families within the Walls, including the families of the Assembly lords, are somehow immune to the effects of such "scream", meaning the King, Rod Reiss, cannot manipulate their memories, while he can with the rest of the population. The last reveal is the most unexpected and surprising fact to Erwin, as neither him nor his father ever imagined the possibility of a few selected families being unaffected by the memory alteration.
During the final fight against King Reiss, the theory of Erwin's father that humanity's memories of history were completely altered a century ago receives definitive confirmation when Eren and Historia Reiss report everything Rod told them beneath the Reiss Chapel, having also revealed that the power to control the minds of the people is that of the Founding Titan and that the same power was used to create a massive amount of 50 meters Titans, which were all hardened to create the three Walls instantly. Rod also revealed that the First King wished for humanity to remain controlled by the Titans, believing it was the sole way to achieve peace and unity, revealing why he did not wish to preserve any record of history and knowledge from behind the past century, except for a few things.
Return to Shiganshina Arc[]
While all of Smith's theories about the origins of humanity within the Walls have proven to be correct, there is only one theory that was shared by Smith and his son left to prove right or wrong; that there is still human civilization outside the Walls, at least one remnant. The military is almost sure that all Titans were once humans, and speculate that Bertolt Hoover, Reiner Braun, Annie Leonhart, their late comrade, Ymir, the Beast Titan, and the late Grisha Yeager all originated from some place outside the Walls, instead of being part of the known humanity as they claimed to be. The background told by the former Commander Keith Shadis, about how Grisha was found wandering outside and how he was clueless and "amnesiac" about human civilization, only gives Erwin more reason to believe that there are humans outside the Walls as he and his father believed, and that inside the basement of the ruins of Grisha's house in Shiganshina District are likely documented records containing more truths of the world, which had to be hidden from the Royal Government and the Interior Police.
During the Battle of Shiganshina District, Erwin thinks about his father and how close he came to finally witness for himself the truth of the world, and how his and his father's dream to disclose everything was about to be finally realized. However, he is convinced by Captain Levi Ackerman to give up his life dream to sacrifice himself for humanity's victory in a suicide charge against the Beast Titan. During the last moments of his life, Erwin begins hallucinating from severe blood loss and remembers for the last time the moment when he asked his father the question which kickstarted his lifegoal. The story of Erwin's question to his father that changed Erwin's life forever is narrated by his old friend Nile Dok, now the Commander of the Military Police, to the other leaders of the military, explaining how no one could have actually been sure that there were no humans left outside the Walls, and the events of the recent years are finally proving this, and even Mr. Smith's most seemingly absurd theories turned out to be truthful facts.
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