Musing Over Manga: Attack on Titan Chapter 69--Drunk on Power

I'm not crying, it's just raining on my face.

(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 started this post at least a dozen times over the past month since its release, and with the new chapter once again about to come out, I really need to just sit down and finish this thing, because this is a chapter that is going to stick in my mind for a while. Not only do we finally get a resolution to this arc (Everything worked out?? What series am I reading??) but we also get something that a large part of the fanbase has been asking about for a long time--Levi's backstory.

While No Regrets has been out there for a while now in both manga and now OVA form--I've got a separate write-up planned on all of that once I can pick up the shattered pieces of my heart long enough to take screencaps--it wasn't the story that Levi fans had expected or, in some cases, had even wanted at all. The Levi presented in No Regrets is already very close to how he is in the main series (with a few differences in his character, given the fact that he was younger), offering nearly nothing in terms of an explanation on where Levi came from or why he acts the way he does. This chapter finally answered those questions, and while it was everything that has been hinted by both the main and spinoff manga series and guessed at by the fans, my heart still wasn't prepared.





But I'm getting a little ahead of myself. While the chapter does give context for Levi's backstory, it's not presented from his perspective. In fact, this is actually a backstory chapter for Kenny, starting with his relationship to Uri, the previous king. As we saw a few chapters ago, past Kenny shares the same bloodlust that current Kenny does, although back then it was turned against his family's enemies. After finding out the truth, Kenny tracked down Uri and tried to kill him. However, there wasn't much he could do against the power of a Titan shifter.


But despite the fact that Kenny makes it abundantly clear that he'd like nothing more but to put a bullet in Uri's head, Uri surprises him by not only letting him go, but also apologizes for the Ackerman's persecution and bows his head to him, asking for Kenny to forgive him and spare his life.
This shocks Kenny so much that he has a complete turnaround and ends up working for him instead. Kenny notes that this has the side benefit of temporarily slowing down the persecution of his family, which may be what prompted him to track down his sister Kuchel for the second time.

And this is where Levi comes in.



Have I mentioned that I probably won't be over this anytime soon?


Instead of his sister, Kenny finds an emaciated child who introduces himself as "just Levi." Respecting his sister's wish for Levi to not know anything about their family, Kenny takes him in for a while and teaches Levi the only thing he knows how to do: how to fight to survive.


There's no evidence that suggests that Kenny was harsh or abusive to Levi, despite fandom theory turning that way after it was first revealed that he'd raised Levi to some extent. But that said, a small child being raised by a serial killer does not make for a good combination.


In the end, while Levi did learn how to take care of himself, Kenny abandoning him after he proves that he can take down a grown man by himself probably has something to do with his reluctance to get close to anyone. He lost one parent to disease, and another parental figure just walked away from him. However, in Kenny's eyes he'd done all that he'd could. He'd given Levi the power to live, and to Kenny power was everything.


The heart of the chapter is truly in the panels above. Kenny is arguably one of the more irredeemable characters in the series not only because of his actions, but because he shows no remorse for them. Bertoldt, Reiner, and Annie at least have demonstrated guilt over what they have done. Kenny showed none of that. He was well aware that he was beyond saving, even referring to himself as garbage. Even though Uri had won him over, his entire life was based around fighting to survive. He couldn't afford to believe in the things that the Reiss family preached. He'd seen the reality of the world that they ruled from the shadows. It's easy to preach peace when your life is sheltered, so I can't blame Kenny for concluding that "peace" is a by-product of "power."


He also begins to believe that the "power" is what will save him, that maybe by inheriting it, he'll be able to finally understand what Uri meant. However, since we already know where that quest ends--learning that he can't use it at all because of his bloodline--that just makes this backstory a case of tragic irony. Kenny becomes consumed by his quest for power, ultimately acting in his own self-interest. By the time he faced Levi again, it didn't matter to him that his own nephew stood in his way. He wanted the power even more. His speech towards the end of the chapter about "everyone being drunk on something" speaks to this. For him, it was power gained through violent means.


I've seen some posts calling Kenny tragic since he never got what he wanted in the end, but that's just not true. He did get what he wanted, but not quite in the form that he expected. Not only that, but ultimately he decides that he doesn't want it after all.


In the last moments of his life, Kenny held in his hand the power that he'd dedicated his life to taking for himself. The Titan serum that he stole from Rod could've saved his life, even if just in a superficial Titan form. There's even a chance that he could've become a proper shifter, since the serums haven't been fully explained just yet. But at those same moments, he realizes that it won't truly save him. Along the way, he'd lost sight of what he'd really wanted to save--his family.

The fact that Kenny's last moments involved him handing over the power that he'd wanted so badly to Levi made this a gut punch of a death scene for a character that I personally hated with no reservations only a few chapters ago. Kenny's actions are still inexcusable, but introducing his reasons and motivations finally drew him out of the overpowered cartoon-like villain he had been previously into a believable character. On the one hand, I'm disappointed that the Ackerman showdown that's been teased for a while didn't happen, but on the other hand, this was far more powerful.


It's also clear that Levi needed the closure as well, given the fact that he very quickly drops the line of questioning about the king when he sees that Kenny doesn't have much time left, and asks him two key questions: why Kenny abandoned him and what his relationship was with his mother.


The way the question is phrased and how Levi reacts to Kenny saying that he's his uncle makes it seem like Levi had guessed that Kenny was his father. If that's true, even despite his guess being off, Kenny was the closest thing Levi had to a father figure, and if he hadn't saved him that day it's likely that Levi would have died in the same room as his mother. While Kenny is indeed not fit to be a parent, Levi owes him a lot. Getting at least a few of his questions answered about who he really is hopefully helped him get some closure after all these years.


And on a different note, all of this hasn't even touched on Historia's character development over this arc. Holy crap was that a wild ride. Everything that I was complaining about several chapters back was addressed in regards to her character motivations and then some. Not only did she realize that blindly listening to her father was a dumb move because he was manipulating her (something that she realized after remembering Ymir's wish for her to live freely and honestly, no less!), but also she was the one who ended up taking down her own father when his Titan form threatened to repeat what the Colossal Titan had done at the very beginning of this series. That is quite the turnaround!


...At least, that's what I think this panel is getting at? There's some strange wording here.

But regardless, what immediately follows Historia's coronation is a fantastic place to end this arc. Now that she's finally risen above her past and is no longer anyone's puppet--she's the Queen because she wants to be, and for no other reason--she finally gets to make good on that promise to smack Levi for how he treated her earlier in this arc.

Mikasa's reaction alone is priceless

But then, just when I thought that I was done with the waterworks:



Of course, Levi was always perfectly capable of expressing his thanks to the kids, but now that we know the true weight of his backstory, it's more obvious why he's always held back a bit on stating his feelings. Maybe after all this time and despite all the crud that he's had to put up with, the real Levi is starting to break through the persona he's had to cultivate in order to protect himself.


And then there's Kenny's claim in his final speech about Levi being a "hero." Personally, I've never quite thought of Levi as anything other than a reluctant hero before, but there's no denying that Titan-slaying is what he's known for. I'm not sure if that thread will go anywhere, but it's interesting to think about in light of everything that we learned about him in this chapter.


In any case, this chapter contains a lot of the elements that I love about Attack on Titan as a whole: fantastic character development, unpredictable twists and turns in the plot that are backed up with subtle and consistent foreshadowing, and reveals for the bigger questions in the series that have me tearing my hair out or crying into a pillow (sometimes both).

That said, aside from this chapter, it did feel like the ending was rushed. I saw a lot of fan complaints about the focus on political intrigue for this arc instead of Titan fighting, so it feel like Isayama cut off what would've been a longer finale in order to move on to the next part in order to stop those complaints. Personally, I really enjoyed the more political side of this arc, so if that hunch is true I'm a bit disappointed. However, I'm really excited to see where the next arc takes us--are they finally going to the basement? Either way, we'll know soon!

P.S.: Levi sure does take after his mom, huh?

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