Note: Spoilers for the anime will be unmarked. You Have Been Warned.
Iron Woobie
- Armin never had the ambitions of his comrades, or the physical prowess to really make it as a soldier. But his simple wish to one day see the ocean and remain at Eren's side has seen him endure trial after trial. With every opportunity to walk away, he's instead chosen to take the most difficult path and repeatedly sacrificed his safety, sanity, or morals to help others survive.
Jerkass Woobie
- The Titan Shifters. There's no denying their crimes, but at the same time their portrayal as Tragic Villains fills a lot of fans with the desire to hug them.
- Annie Leonhart. Her weeping when she fails to capture Eren, as well as her obvious affection for the very father that put her through Training from Hell and indoctrinated her with the belief that Humans Are the Real Monsters, firmly puts her in this territory, even though she gets the highest direct kill count out of them all.
- Reiner Braun. He is a genuinely caring guy, and was so crushed with guilt that the only way he could cope was to repress his real memories. His backstory adds even more to his Woobie factor: Indoctrinated from birth by his fanatical mother, he came to believe destroying the Walls would make him a hero... and allow him to reunite his mixed-race family. He was a weak, sensitive child that struggled through his training while clinging to dreams of heroism and making his father proud. Unlike the other Warriors, he was The Only Believer and clung to the propaganda even as his entire world started to fall apart. First, he learned his mother had been lying to him and his father wanted nothing to do with a "devil child" out to ruin his life. Then, Marcel confessed to having rigged the selection process in Reiner's favor, meaning all his hard work had still amounted to nothing. Finally, after Marcel's death protecting him, Reiner attacked the Walls... and learned the propaganda he'd believed his entire life was also a lie. After 5 years of going insane from guilt, he was finally able to return home but only after Annie's capture and Bertolt's death. Unable to discuss the Paradis Operation with anyone, he's forced to constantly lie to his family and watch as they groom Gabi into following in his footsteps.
- Bertolt Hoover. He admits that the only time he was happy was during the three years spent with the 104th, and recognizes that there's no way his friends will ever forgive him for what he's done. The fact that he's more frightened of failing his mission than being killed by the others has some scary implications about those he's working for.
- Ymir. She is a huge Jerkass towards others, and confesses she only got close to Krista in order to use her as a bargaining chip to save her own skin. Even so, she ended up falling in love with Krista and is genuinely terrified of being killed should the people she stole her powers from catch her. The revelation of her Dark and Troubled Past just makes her a bigger woobie: Ymir was an Eldian orphan abandoned on the streets who was found by a couple of men who decided to use her as a figure head in their cult giving her the name of the long dead goddess Ymir Fritz. The men that adopted her never saw her as anything more then a tool to make money but she was happy being useful to somebody for the first time in her life so she played along in her role. Then one day Marley soldiers arrested her cult and the men who adopted her left her out to dry by claiming that she misled them. Wanting to continue serving her role she stated that these statements were true and for her trouble Ymir was dragged around the streets, stoned by passer-by's, and then forcibly turned into a Titan for the next sixty years. It's really no surprise she is such a selfish person in the present.
Stoic Woobie
- Levi's backstory turns him into one, revealing how his life has been a consistent parade of misery. Born the Son of a Whore living in the underground slums, he watched his mother die from disease and nearly starved to death before Kenny came to find him. The Serial Killer raised him to fight and kill, then eventually abandoned him in the slums to survive on his own. Since his recruitment into the military, Levi's existence has become slowly watching Every. Single. Person. he has ever cared about die. In spite of this constant loss, he's continued to fight for the Survey Corps.
- Mikasa seems to be on the same route of quietly suffering, having lost both her biological parents and adoptive parents within one year.
- After the Time Skip, Reiner has evolved from a Jerkass Woobie into one of these. He works to maintain the image of a model officer, and a heroic champion to his community while concealing the fact he is a broken wreck of a human being. The weight of everything he's been through and done weighs heavily on him, but he refuses to complain or even admit to anyone else just how much he's actually suffering. It's only when brought face to face with Eren Yeager that he breaks down and admits how broken he really is. Even so, he hates himself too much to accept any sympathy or understanding. His Big Brother Instinct towards his subordinates is the only thing that has kept him going, stopping him from going through with his suicide attempt. He desperately wants to die, but his obligations prevent him from acting and drive him to keep bottling everything up.
The Woobie
- Almost everybody qualifies. Eren, Mikasa, Armin, and Connie all suffer the Orphan's Ordeal and all the other soldiers either suffer a Cruel and Unusual Death, witness their comrades suffering it, or see the half eaten and/or vomited corpses of their friends.
- Krista seems to be the woobie champion thus far, having gone through an Orphan's Ordeal even while her parents and grandparents were alive, coupled with parental abuse from her estranged mom — and that all before her father's servants gave her mother a bad case of Slashed Throat — on his orders, while Krista watched. And her mother's last words were "I wish you were never born." And then there's the whole thing with Ymir, the closest person she had in her entire life, leaving her behind to escape with other Titan Shifters... Also, she was turned into a Baby Factory so that she and her lineage could inherit the Beast Titan post-timeskip.
- In a flashback arc we are introduced to Dina Yeager, Grisha Yeager's first wife, who was part of a La Résistance movement that was arrested when her and Grisha's son, Zeke, sold them out. Almost everyone arrested is sentenced to a Fate Worse than Death of being turned into Mindless Titans and set loose within the outermost walls. As her own sentence is being carried out, she swears that no matter what she becomes, she will find Grisha again. Then she transforms into the Smiling Titan, the Titan from the first chapter who ate Eren's mother, Grisha's second wife, and was eventually killed by Eren.
- The biggest Woobie in the series ever is Ymir Fritz, the first Titan herself. She was blamed for being responsible for letting some pigs free, and as punishment, she had her eye gouged out while hunted down by the Eldian tribe. She got infected by a parasite that allowed her to become the first Titan, and Fritz abused her, using her powers to commit mass destruction upon the entire world. Even in death Ymir was still not free; she was trapped in the alternate dimension of the Paths, forever enslaved to the Royal Family. It was only when Eren took the initiative and hugged her that she felt freedom for the first time.
