User blog comment:Xxkiiroxx/"Marco is Alive" Theory/@comment-5433366-20141004054640

Samuel Linke-Jackson isn't Marco, just some super tiny minor character that just so happened to have a little more screen time in the anime than the manga (which had him in only like one panel). Like Haro said Isayama killed Marco off because his personality is boring and apparently he forgot about him for a while anyway.

I doubt that Isayama would have an entire subplot (and element of character development for Jean) just for him to reveal that the corpse people thought was Marco is some minor character the readers/viewers forgot about a long time ago and is just like HA! HAHA, it was a joke all along and Marco's not really dead.

Also, if Annie isn't the hooded figure then Bert isn't the Colossal Titan and Titans don't exist. The exact appearance of Annie in the hood wasn't stressed so it would remain more mysterious.