Plot question about Historia Reiss

Jun 29, 2020 8:02 AM

Offline

Nov 2007

206

I have been re watching the AOT and still love every season, but I noticed an inconsistency and wanted to open discussion to make sense of it. It's no big deal, but I am thinking maybe I missed something.

ANIME SPOILERS BELOW.

The issue is why Kenny and Rodd Reiss would even contemplate executing Historia Reiss. After the death of his entire family Historia Reiss becomes extremely important as his only surviving child. Judging by Rodd's age it was not guaranteed that he will have other children, so there were only two people that could get Founding Titan and they wanted to kill one of them (the young one). Historia Reiss lived safely before so not sure why they wanted to kill her. I think logically speaking Rodd should have officially adopted her so that he can have a heir. Even after 5 years he didn't have any new kids, which furthermore proves my point. Maybe they thought that Historia Reiss can be threat in their enemies hands, but that is even more reason to take her into family and raise her as his own child. Every Royal family would have prioritized stability of royal bloodline and more so since "royal bloodline" in this case actually matters. Maybe the logic has been explained, so would love to hear anyone else's thoughts. Thank you.

Jun 29, 2020 8:32 AM

NakolHira

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Apr 2019

1258

The thing is, Kenny's squad (First Interior Military Police Brigade) only follows the reiss king, in other words, king who has the founding titan.

Now, Historia already was an illegitimate child. The noble families didn’t approve of her, because she is illegitimate. In other words, Historia can become an object for rebellion.

in 845, on the day Wall Maria was breached, Frieda, the current king, was killed and someone (grisha) stole her founding titan, massacred the full Reiss bloodline except Rod.

Now what would you do, as an officer of the King's military? Clearly it sounds like a rebellion, since Rod is alive and now is seeking for Historia, it might sound like someone wants to rebel against the government and will welcome Historia as the new ruler. The significance of Reiss blood was unknown to Kenny. Rod didn’t tell them because that would mean to say that "Our power has been stolen" Keep in your mind outside Reiss family nobody knows the exact thing of this power (founding titan) even the nobles and the secret council only know that Reiss has a power but not the full details.

Rod's authority depends on the founding titan's power, which he currently doesn’t possess. Revealing it might overthrow his authority, as it is their only speciality. So he didn’t do so. His plan should have been to find the founding titan holder, to grab him and eat his spine to regain the founding titan in Reiss bloodline. Since he was a coward, he couldn’t risk to hold the founding titan in him. So he sought for Historia, now Kenny appeared and wanted to remove any object for rebellion.

I hope it's clear, the government consisted of nobles won't approve any illegitimate child's authority, as they are unaware of Reiss bloodline's importance for the power. Historia's only safety was The founding titan power as long as it was possessed by the Reiss. Both Frieda and Uri didn’t try to kill her, instead gave her an isolation. Since they were gone and a rebellion might occur centering around her, Military wanted to get rid of her. But at last Rod saved her life, as she was to change her name and join training corps.
Later, when the existence of Founding titan holder (Eren) was found, Rod finally told the Government about the significance, about the incident of when and how the power was stolen and how this present situation (Wall Rose breach, public disapproval of government) is happening only because a Reiss isn’t controlling the founding titan.

Nobles this time agreed to cooperate, as they were afraid of losing their wealth and status if titans kept coming.

NakolHiraJun 29, 2020 8:49 AM

Jun 29, 2020 8:34 AM

Tsarko

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Feb 2017

2712

The Reiss were a royal family and nobles expected them to behave certain way. The nobles were also immune to memory wipes and other powers of the Founding Titan so there was some sort of balance of power between Reiss family and other nobles. Since the Reiss family was the royal family and in possession of the Founding Titan they were viewed as some kind of gods so a head of Reiss family having an affair and a child out of wedlock is a big no-no. They have a reputation to uphold and Alma and Historia would be great stain on it. That's why Assembly (the council of nobles) decided that Alma and bastard Historia must be killed.

But council didn't know Frieda and the rest of Rod's family were killed and the Founding Titan stolen. Rod hid that from them because if they'd find out that, Rod would effectively lose all the power because his family no longer has the Founding Titan. That's why he left Historia live - with different name - so he could one day reclaim the Founding Titan for the Reiss family.

Here are some pages from the manga that deal with that but were unfortunately skipped in the anime if I remember correctly:

Jun 29, 2020 8:37 AM

NakolHira

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Apr 2019

1258

When the nobles made an agreement with Carl Fritz,

Fritz gave them authority and power to rule, in return Fritz only had one demand -"Keep their mouth shut about wall, world history". Similar to Ackerman family, they didn’t pass the information of world history to their children, so pretty much everything was forgotten.

Jun 29, 2020 11:09 AM

Neji

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Nov 2007

206

@Tsarko and @NakolHira Wow thank you so much for detail explanation. Makes total sense now and maybe anime cold have explained it a little better. It makes total sense, that as soon as Wall Maria fell they would have tried to destroy any threats to government, especially if they didn't know the truth about the blood. Thanks again guys. I have another theory and will post tomorrow, so maybe you guys can jump in and comment on that too.

Jun 29, 2020 11:22 AM

Tsarko

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Feb 2017

2712

Neji said:
@Tsarko and @NakolHira Wow thank you so much for detail explanation. Makes total sense now and maybe anime cold have explained it a little better. It makes total sense, that as soon as Wall Maria fell they would have tried to destroy any threats to government, especially if they didn't know the truth about the blood. Thanks again guys. I have another theory and will post tomorrow, so maybe you guys can jump in and comment on that too.

You're welcome! I would also recommend you to read the manga Uprising arc since Wit had to do a lot of cutting and restructuring in order for all of it to fit in 12 episodes so good amount of stuff like the pages above were left out. Uprising arc in the manga is chapters 51-70

Jun 29, 2020 11:29 AM

Neji

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Nov 2007

206

Tsarko said:

My issue with reading Manga is that I can't stop and read it all they way and then can't enjoy anime the same way. AOT is actually one of the few works that I read manga before anime was even out, so I didn't enjoy the full anime glory of 1-2 seasons, so I have been trying to keep away. I know it sounds stupid but AOT adaptation has been great so I want to experience anime first and if I go back to reading the manga, I will read all the way :).

Jul 3, 2020 1:18 PM

BetterTaste

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Dec 2015

1591

One of the many reasons Season 3 part 1 is my lowest rated entry of SNK is because even me, an anime only, could see they left some stuff unexplained. I do understand that they probably couldn't do more than 12 episodes, and they care about pacing, but it is undeniable that leaving some information out, specially for a series with a complex and well written plot, isn't a good choice.

I might read the manga after the anime is finished. As much as I can admire the manga, for me, it doesn't really compare to the experience of watching the anime. With the anime direction and soundtrack, it's one of the few entertainment products I can really classify as epic

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