Musing Over Manga: Attack on Titan Chapter 65--Breaking Point

Signs that you've screwed up: the serial killer character is more sympathetic than you.

(A/N: The post deals with spoilers for the entire manga and contains disturbing and graphic images. Please do not read unless you are caught up!)


I have to hand it to Isayama; every time I've fully committed to hating a character in this series, he throws something in to make me reconsider my opinion. Which isn't to say that I forgive Kenny for everything (as far as I'm concerned, he still has to answer for the death of Hanji's squad), but now we have a little bit of context for his behavior.


The chapter opens with some explanation about the Ackerman family. The claims from the nobles that they were "chosen" seem to be a bit incorrect; apparently the truth is that the memory modification of everyone within the walls wasn't as complete as the first king/titan wanted it to be. Those bloodlines (read: minority races) were faced with a choice: play along with the lie or be exterminated.

And now we know why nearly everybody is white in this series

The heavy implication is that there was a mass genocide sometime after the walls went up. It isn't made clear how many other races survived, but since the series has portrayed the majority of its characters as being of white European descent, I'm going to assume that not many did. According to Grandpa Ackerman, they reached a point where they completely abandoned their history in an attempt to protect subsequent generations, but that hasn't seemed to have worked out. Case in point: "Kenny the Ripper" earned his reputation by keeping MPs away from his family, despite Grandpa Ackerman's disapproval.


There are some hints dropped about the background to Mikasa's and Levi's families as well. Kenny mentions that one "branch" of the family is moving towards Shiganshina, which is likely where Mikasa's dad came from since she states that her parents met near the wall. And Kenny tells Grandpa Ackerman that he's just found his sister, Kuchel, in an underground brothel, pregnant with a client's child that she wants to keep. I'm convinced that the baby is Levi.

I know that in previous posts I've said that I wasn't convinced that Kenny and Levi were related at all, but to be honest, my main misgiving was because of the visuals. While Isayama's art is inconsistent, he does make a point to show some family resemblance between characters who are related. In fact, that's been the basis for the "Eren is a Reiss" theory, since Frieda and Carla look so much like each other. So while I saw similarities between Levi and Kenny in their behavior, I didn't see the family resemblance. At least, not until the flashback we got from this chapter. I can see it a bit more in younger Kenny, but I really see it in Grandpa Ackerman.

Those eyebags don't lie

The pieces fit from what we know so far. Kenny is definitely not the parental type, but I imagine something happened to Kuchel and he couldn't ignore his nephew. Also, Levi's confusion over Kenny using the Ackerman name implies that he had no clue what his last name was until now--introducing himself only as Levi may not have been a deliberate omission after all. Kenny may have wanted to respect his grandfather's feelings and never told Levi about his name or the truth behind it. And honestly, if this all does end up being true, I'm very interested in the circumstances that caused them to split up.

Anyway, with all of this backstory we've yet again returned to the theme of gray morality, making Kenny not completely despicable. Also, there's now basis in canon for Kenny being stronger than Levi just by merit of bloodline purity. Because of this, within days of the chapter coming out I saw theories that claimed Kenny may have deliberately thrown his last fight against Levi so that he wouldn't have to kill him--for instance, he made it very clear where he was standing in the room and even gave Levi hints about what was waiting for him outside. This theory is based on what we see at the beginning of the chapter, where Kenny admits to killing MPs to keep his family safe. However, that was a long time ago, and present Kenny doesn't seem to care too much about such things, regardless of whether he threw the fight or not. Kenny has shown that he's willing to sacrifice anything, including his family, if it means reaching his goals.

But what is he working towards anyway? Why would Kenny protect the family that has been trying to wipe out his own for generations? We know that he attained serial killer status protecting his family, then trained Levi... But what happened after that? At some point, he ended up killing exclusively for the royal family. Why? There's a missing link here, and I think it has something to do with the person Kenny mentions in this chapter--Uri.


When Kenny starts calling out Rod on his BS, Rod tries to insult him while mentioning his younger brother, the person who held the coordinate power before Frieda. Kenny doesn't object to Rod calling him a "dog," but begins to act violent when Rod starts to speak ill of Uri. The scenes between Rod and Kenny in this chapter show that they never really were on the same side after all. It's clear where Kenny's loyalties truly lie.

So then what did Uri do to gain Kenny's trust? I'm also pretty sure that Kenny's plan also has something to do with Uri if he stuck around for this long after his death. He makes his hatred for Rod pretty clear, and given the small sampling we're seen in this arc of what the First Brigade does, Kenny probably saw as well as committed a number of disturbing acts in order to keep the truth a secret. Maybe he's moving to take the power out of the Reiss' hands once and for all, since he experienced firsthand how corrupt things have become. But with all of that said, we still don't know the details about Kenny's plan just yet. The only thing that is for sure is his contempt for Rod Reiss.


And while putting a knife down Rod's throat was going too far, Kenny ended up saying a lot of what I wanted Historia to hear. He confirmed that Rod was a liar, that he was twisting facts to fit the situation, and that he didn't really care about Historia at all--she was just the replacement for the rest of his family. Rod claims that there's a reason he can't become a Titan, but saying that right after Kenny reveals that no one knew the coordinate was missing until Eren became a Titan in Trost really brings it home that Rod didn't want to take responsibility. Just like everything else in this arc, a political mind game is being played on a massive scale, and right now Historia and Eren are just pawns.


Which leads into my frustration with Historia. I talked about this a little bit last time, but the way she turned on her friend and fellow soldier in favor of believing a man who ignored and abandoned her was nothing short of chilling. Yes, she's confused, and yes, Rod's actions did fall in line with what she likely wanted to believe all along--that there was something else keeping her father away--but that still does not excuse her actions. Despite claiming her real name and dropping the "good girl" act, Historia is still only doing the only thing she knows how to do--play a role. And this time, it's as a martyr.



I'm not in complete agreement with the Historia hate that has swept the fandom following this chapter, but I agree that it is time for her character to grow beyond this stage. She's made steps, but she's still only following other people's wishes and instructions. Ymir asked her to reclaim her real name, so she did. She was only able to accept Levi's order to become the new queen by thinking of it was a "role." And now she's talking about her "duty" to wipe out the Titans. What were you doing before, then?! Didn't you already commit yourself to wiping out the Titans when you became a soldier?!

There's just not much evidence that anything that Historia does is truly through her own volition. She changes with her surroundings and matches what people ask of her. In that controversial choking scene a while back, Levi tells Historia that if she really doesn't want to do it, she has to fight--and that's when Historia gives up and goes back to her old coping mechanism of playing a role. It's happening again here, but this time it's the role of "savior" because that's what her father wants.

Ymir would have a fit if she knew what was going on. "Historia will be safe inside the walls"?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

This continues all the way up to the pivotal moment--Eren versus Historia, with Historia ready to throw everything away again for someone else's agenda--when there's that moment of hesitation. Eren doesn't fight back.


For the entire series, Eren has been an unstoppable force. No matter what has happened to him, he has refused to give up. He fought not just for revenge, but so that those who lost their lives wouldn't have done so in vain. It's been heavily hinted throughout the series how much Eren blames himself for the death of his friends, but his guilt is clear here. Still, Eren never stopped fighting, never stopped looking forward. That was what made him the main character. It was inspiring, the way he always picked himself back up.


Because of that, I was sure it would happen this time too. I didn't think that Eren would want to fight Historia (I mean, he even had his misgivings about Annie), but I know a lot of people, myself included, expected Eren to come out swinging once he got out of those chains and could turn back into a Titan. What actually happened made my heart fall and shatter onto the ground.



He's completely broken. A lot has been said during this arc about how Eren has become useless as a main character (to the point that I've seen some people claim that he needs to be killed off), but this is an all new low. It's not just his physical restraints; what was keeping him going, his unshakable belief that the Titans were the sole enemy he needed to face, is gone. Now he's facing the possibility that everything that's happened to him could've been avoided, and that everything he's done might have made matters worse.


From a storytelling perspective, it makes sense. The main character has to hit complete rock bottom before rising up once again to save the day for good. But man, seeing Eren completely give up hurts. He really does believe that his only option is to put things in Historia's hands. I'm sure that there's something more to this, but he can't think straight right now, and I can't blame him.

Don't get me started on Titanstoria

And once again, I have no idea how the main characters are going to make it out of this one, so lets close this post with some random speculation! Here are some possibilities about how this might go down:
1) That's not Historia transforming and is actually Rod (unlikely)
2) Mikasa and Co. snap Eren out of it due to their lives being in danger (much more likely)
3) Titanstoria gets herself stuck--it looked like that Titan's head was hitting the ceiling--and Ymir/Annie have to get her out (highly unlikely, but I like this one)
4) I don't really even want to consider this, but... Rod mentioned that the point was to get at the spinal fluid. Maybe there's a way for that to happen and then Eren regenerates...? But no, a Titan's weak point has to do with severing the spine. This was a terrible theory. (very very very unlikely)

It's only the first chapter of the year and already this series is breaking me.

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