It’s been pretty much a given that if you’re an interesting participant in the Shingeki no Kyoujin universe, Isayama is either going to kill you or ruin you as a character.  Indeed, Armin is pretty much the only one who’s proved somewhat immune thus far, but I always assume he’s on borrowed time.  Kenny Ackerman has been growing on me since he made his debut in somewhat ignominious fashion (I certainly wasn’t optimistic) several episodes back, so I figured once the Reiss arc heated up he was probably doomed.

Even so, I was sad to see Kenny go.  Partly thanks to a really charismatic performance by Yamaji Kazuhiro, Kenny stood out like a sore thumb in this cast – and as they say in this country, the nail than sticks out gets hammered down.  He was one character who had a real arc, though we only saw most of it in flashback.  His backstory was interesting, and his motivations were interesting.  Even his final moments were interesting – choosing not to inject himself and take his chances even knowing death was moments away.  Ah, Kenny – you were too good for this world…

Kenny’s perspective on the royal family is his legacy in the story, because it certainly colors the way we look at their role in the conspiracy.  Uri made quite a contrast with Rod Reiss, and it’s easy to see why someone with an existence like Kenny’s would find him a compelling figure.  He appeared to possess a peace which was quite unlike anything Kenny had ever known, but it’s worth noting that he seems never, in any way, to have done anything to improve the lives of humanity as a whole.  Like Kenny said – everybody had to be drunk on something to try and get by in this world.

That vial and serum, unused, are now in Levi’s hands.  And we see no indication that Levi has told anyone of this, which is kind of interesting given that he now knows his own lineage.  That’s a potential twist reserved for another day, I suppose, as the focus of the story turns to Historia and her coronation.  As I noted last week, Historia’s role in dispatching her father’s titan was indeed a setup to sell her in the eyes of the populace.  But I undersold Isayama’s gall here, because he asks us to believe that she planned the whole thing that way (and here I was thinking it was just an authorial cheat).

The twist of the week takes us far away, though, as the long-ignored Reiner and Bertholdt finally turn up.  We now basically know what the false king’s puppetmasters and the true King’s game was – so what, exactly, is this faction’s angle in all this?  This is one branch of the story where most of the dots have yet to be connected.  And it’s the one where I assume we’re going next.