Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-29752445-20170415172945/@comment-37059800-20181001134912

TheMagicalWonders wrote:  Theka!ser wrote: I just got caught up with the anime and this was the only plot hole I found. After reading everyone's explanations, I am convinced that it's it was poorly thought out. If Rod is a puppet king and they want to keep him for his Reiss blood, they should keep Historia too to better their chances of having someone reclaim the founding titan's power. Alma's death makes no difference. In fact I would argue it makes more sense to brainwash Historia after getting rid of Rod so that they have influence over their 'god'. (Also I just realised HIstoria should be immune to the altering of memories if she has Reiss blood) Hmm. Let's organize the information we have about Rod/Alma/Historia:

1. Rod Reiss impregnanted Alma, who was his servant.
 * This was seen as shameful because he has a wife already. That's why they sent away Historia and Alma to a farm, because she was proof of the affair.

2. All of the Reiss family at the chapel, with the exception of Rod, were killed by Grisha Yeager.
 * Rod does not know the identity of the person who stole Frieda's Founding Titan, but he wants to find it as soon as possible.
 * Because of this, Rod goes to pick up Historia in case he does find the Founding Titan so she can inherit the power.

3. On the day Rod Reiss arrives at the farm, the Interior Squad is already there.
 * As RuneLai said (#11),  "... Kenny asks if Alma and Historia are related to Rod, but it's a rhetorical question. The First Interior Squad already knows, that's why they're there. Rod is aware that there's no way out of it, which is why he says they're not related. It's not a lie to protect them. It's to uphold what will become the public truth, that he never had a mistress or a bastard daughter."

4. The Interior Squad wants to kill Alma and Historia.
 * As explained above by CommonSwift (#2): "Rod came over the estate to take Alma and Historia back right after his wife and children died, this would have brought great shame and disgrace over the Reiss family name. Kenny hated the idea and made sure such thing couldn't happen then settled with the idea of having Historia die with the Survey Corps under a false name.


 * Continued by CommonSwift (#4),  "2) Kenny didn't want Rod to have other children so he could have a better shot to take the power for himself."
 * Continued by RuneLai (#5),  "I suspect it's more this than anything else. Alma had been alive and shoved off to the side for years, so there was little incentive to kill for her an indiscretion made years ago. But circumstances changed when Rod ran off to the scraps of his family left after his legitimate one was killed. Kenny was prepared to kill both Historia and Alma, and we know Kenny actually doesn't care jack squat about Rod or even what his job is supposed to be. He was Uri's friend and wanted the power that might make him a better person."

So why did they kill Alma? I'm not exactly sure either.

From what I can gather from the information above, Kenny and the Interior Squad knew about Alma and Historia. Rod wanted to retrieve his wife and child so the latter could inherit the Founding Titan. Kenny didn't want Rod to retrieve Historia; he wanted the power for himself. If he killed Alma, chances are, that's one less woman that Rod can have children with.

Another reason why they could've killed Alma was for having the affair with Rod in the first place.

Hope this helps. I appreciate the through reply but I'm still not convinced. Killing Alma doesn't really make much difference because there really wasn't any use for her except an emotional attachment to Rod so that doesn't bother me so much. What remains unclear is the motivation for killing Historia.

Problems:

1. First and foremost if everyone is so against bastard children, why do they think of Historia as the rightful heir? Why do the masses accept her as the next queen? The whole argument of preventing dishonor to the Reiss name seems to be conjecture. If dishonor was such a big deal, they would prefer Rod obtaining the Founding Titan's power because it would be unthinkable for a bastard to become their 'god'

2. The Interior police are characterised as the hound dogs of the Assembly, manipulating information to keep the populace easy akin to North Korea or other communist regimes. If so why would they want to kill Historia and then do a 180 later?

3. Where does Kenny's allegiance lie? If he is loyal to Reiss, there is no motivation to kill Historia. If he is following the Assembly's orders, why are they so wishywoshy? If he is doing his own thing, wouldn't there be consequences from the Assembly for killing HIstoria?

I'm still sticking to my theory. We were supposed to be in the dark about the legacy of the Reiss bloodline till the temple.