Kenny Must Die: A Treatise

In the most recent installment of Attack on Kyojins, keen-eyed readers might have noticed the lack of a certain Ackerman who is normally pretty hard to miss. They’re right, because Kenny was totally MIA the entire last chapter. It’s possible he just decided his work was done and set out West, vanishing like an ephemeral glimmer on the sunset horizon, his deeds destined for legend and enshrined by a faint echo of OIOI on the summer winds. Or it’s possible he got buried under six tons of cave stone. But while Schrödinger’s still out on that verdict, I thought I would take a moment to discuss why whatever Kenny Ackerman does, has done, and will do doesn’t matter— at least not in the way it might seem.

Because Kenny Ackerman doesn’t exist.



Kenny Ackerman never existed.





Let’s backtrack a bit and start with Levi.

Following the chaos of the titan clash and Erwin’s injury, the narrative focus of the story makes an apparent shift from Eren to Levi. We observe almost all subsequent major events using Levi as an anchor: in the conversation revealing humans as titans, throughout the cabin downtime and Hange’s experiments, during Sanes’ torture and then on, Levi stands out as the strongest presence whose commentary hits the hardest points, and we see the arc’s main action unfold through his perspective. This is not done accidentally; Eren gets taken hostage early on and is literally rendered unable to speak or do much of anything, so someone has to vehicle plot progression in his stead for the meantime. Isayama could have used Jean— his character always seemed destined for such a job— but passes him over instead for Levi.









This choice is natural. Levi had previously been benched due to injury so the Clash arc could happen, so it makes sense that his absence had to be counterbalanced in some way. And, in many aspects, Levi is very well-suited for being a focus character; he possesses all the proper elements for a modern male anti-hero and, as can be anticipated, wields an impressive level of popularity. Unlike Eren, he emotes more sparingly and reacts less spontaneously, making him a pillar of stability with firm modes of behavior— traditionally appealing traits for the role he becomes required to take over.

But suddenly bringing a support character, particularly a beloved one, to the forefront is not without challenges. The core purpose of Levi’s characterization has thus far been his stoicism, and it’s this stoicism that has made him so well-received—shoving him into the spotlight comes at the risk of damaging that, since the main character of any story has to show a level of dynamism and progress, lest the narration stagnate. Moreover, Levi comes into his new role at a difficult moment in the plot, when we see the Survey Corps engaging in what might be their most morally troublesome enterprise yet, between torture, revolution, and ploys endangering human lives against something that, for the first time, isn’t an outside enemy.

As our foothold, Levi has no choice but to be centrally involved in these activities. For someone accustomed to following the orders of others and imbued with a clear respect for the lives of his fellow men, shifting to a leadership position that requires gritty and dubious arbitration should undoubtedly cause distress. After all, we can deduce some things about Levi’s past even at this point, and even barring ACWNR: we know that he didn’t exactly lead a clean and upstanding life before the Survey Corps, but sometime between then and the beginning of the plot, he underwent an attitude adjustment that lead him to value humanity and question utilitarian sacrifice. So forcing him back into a human vs human situation reminiscent of underground life gives the opportunity to create a serious personal dilemma and even reveal an emotional side we haven’t before seen. However, with Levi, this presents a fundamental conflict with his vested characterization— his detachment, his fortitude. Because of his ascended role and the implications of surrounding events, Levi must react, but at the same time cannot compensate his principle qualities.

What emerges from this conundrum seems confusing at first, but is really an understandable solution. Levi does react, using expressions acceptable to his confines— aggression and frustration. He makes an abrupt shift from horror at the prospect of killing former humans to openly labeling himself a monster who does needs to be done, at the cost of whatever lives. He implores his new squad to bloody their hands if necessary and spits some uncomfortable truths at both Eren and Historia, the latter incident being viewed quite negatively by a lot of readers. While these actions in and of themselves aren’t uncalled for, it all comes across as rather strange, since we aren’t used to seeing Levi in such an involved and pressing role. But, as mentioned, it provides an excellent opportunity to branch out previously neglected angles of Levi’s character through a level of emotions, thoughts, and interactions not possible when he acted primarily as a supporting figure in a predictable setting.

Or, fuck that! Bring in Kenny!









I think most agree that no one really knew what to do with Kenny when he first showed up. It’s always difficult shoehorning in new important characters halfway through a story, especially one with such an already wide cast— but Kenny really moonwalked in from left field with little to no warning or foreshadowing whatsoever. In fact, the only other character we’ve seen introduced in this way was the Ape Titan, who disappeared as quickly as he appeared. Kenny instead takes up residence, and unsettlingly so, because he’s a baffling hodgepodge who is suddenly just there and doing a lot of high impact shit. He’s a discount Jack the Ripper, but then he’s a mafia caricature, but then he’s sort of a cowboy. He’s got the name Ackerman, we don’t quite know what that deal is, as well as a relation to the underground and to Levi, and the MP, and to the royal family. What the hell? Why are we just now hearing about this person with a such ridiculous body count and a web of connections to rival Kevin Bacon? It doesn’t make any sense.

Except it does. When Kenny doesn’t actually exist.

That is to say, he does exist. He’s always existed. Mentally. For Levi.

No wait, stay with me. We’ll start with the timing. It’s absolutely of no coincidence that Kenny shows up around same time things start to get especially dicey for the Survey Corps, and we see Levi forced to start making objectionable calls and engage in unsavory methods. Remember what I said earlier: This arc is being told with Levi at its heart. Although the narration is formally omnipotent, Levi remains our main eyes, ears, and observations the way Eren had been beforehand. And just as we were previously able to catch glimpses into Eren’s subconscious, we have now gained access to Levi’s, in a time when he happens to be undergoing significant moral strain. But remember, the preservation of his established image restricts him from showing us the mechanisms of crisis externally. He can’t break down. He can’t agonize. His divulgences have to be internal; they have to be sneaky. This is where Kenny helps us.

Historia’s flashback and the exchange between her and Levi are important in demonstrating Levi’s subconscious processing. When Historia expresses doubt in her duty as the rightful heir, Levi loses his composure to a really surprising degree, both for the reader and for the characters around him, and physically confronts her. It’s obvious that the pressure of this new and uncertain situation is causing him to behave in such a shocking way; we’ve been following the gradual buildup throughout Eren’s failed hardening, Sanes’ torture and the SC’s forced seclusion in the woods, all of which caused Levi agitation, being out of his accustomed element. However, this doesn’t change the alarming fact that Levi had never lashed out like this to a subordinate, even to Eren, until now. So why Historia? Let’s rewind to the scene when she first brings up her past:









See the way the table is set up. Levi is in the center, facing directly at us. From this, and from Levi’s narrative position, we can assume that we are reading this scene as Levi is imagining it from Historia’s description. Take note, because this is the first time Kenny appears. He isn’t named, and we don’t get any distinguishing facts about him or his motives, because the critical point is meant to be that he kills Historia’s mother, and nearly Historia herself. The story tells Historia’s past, but it also establishes Kenny’s character as a douchebag. This is significant because it minimizes Levi’s treatment of her later, in his own perspective. Historia describes the flashback as a group of men surrounding the family and carrying out the murder— Kenny is never specified in her dialogue. It could have been anyone who dealt the blow, but Levi, grasping for an anchor in the absurdity of recent circumstances, reinvokes Kenny to fill in the blank, so we see Kenny as well. Thus Levi is able to rationalize his behavior, because he might have snapped and pushed Historia around a bit, but Kenny almost stabbed her in the face, so it’s good.





Here is a man blah blah blah





I used the term reinvoke because when we read ensuing chapters with the preface of Kenny being illusory, it becomes obvious that he was originally conjured up some time ago, before canon events. Levi describes him as a serial murderer who bequeathed his skillset onto Levi and made him really good at fighting and talking shit. Now, we don’t know exactly what Levi’s childhood/adolescence was actually like or what fucked up incidences ensued, because Isayama has chosen to leave that in a fog of speculation; however, Petra did describe Levi as being a famous criminal, and so I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that you don’t become a teenage legend in the underground without leaving some kind of wake. Circling back, it’s established that Levi values life and feels conflicted even about killing creatures that have a minimal chance of still being human. We’ve also seen his inclination for deferring to authorities he deems worthy, like Erwin, rather than assuming leadership himself. If we follow the same vein as the Historia incident, it’s easy to see how Kenny might have come into existence in the first place. Levi had to resort to cruel methods to survive in the underground, but most likely suffered a sense of guilt, so Kenny materialized as a bulwark to remove all possibility of choice and preserve Levi’s own ethical integrity. By rendering himself helpless to a greater, more sinister, and completely overbearing force, Levi is able to disassociate himself from the subjectively “evil” acts demanded for survival. In this way, Kenny functions as both a predecessor and a foil to Erwin. So it especially makes sense for Kenny to resurface when Levi finds himself separated from Erwin, and in a situation where he’s once again required to take unpleasant action.

Kenny’s name is an interesting discussion point. It might seem strange to call a high-profile villain by something so nonthreatening, yet all fictional names have meaning and Kenny is no exception to this. Google tells me that the full name Kenneth means “handsome,” but that’s another story and I want to look instead more at the root of ken, which is quite important in germanic language. Ken is a root for knowing, for understanding and for perception. Wissen in German is to know facts and concrete details. Kennen is more personal— what you use with people, to know somebody, to be familiar with. Ich kenne ihn— I know him. It is also highly conceptual, and appears in many abstract words: Erkenntnis, awareness or understanding; expanded to Selbsterkenntnis, self-awareness or self-knowing. These are terms linked to identity and relation. When we look at Kenny as being a projection from Levi’s subconscious, the name rings with a bit more sense.

It’s also of worth to consider appearances and personality in this examination of identity. Kenny represents the Other— everything dreadful, abject, frightening; the uncanny double to be avoided. Yet, as a side effect in upholding this image, Kenny also manifests as an id-like ideal. For starters, he’s really tall. Like, unnaturally tall. Seriously look at this panel:









I’m gonna ballpark Rod around 157 cm since Historia is officially 144, I think, so by careful calculation that would put Kenny at about six foot ten fucking billion. Remember when Isayama said Levi wishes he were taller in canon? This is called overcompensating. It’s not a coincidence. Exaggerating Kenny’s height allows Levi to vicariously project an innate, yet unachievable desire, while also creating distance between himself and his loathsome auxiliary through stark physical differences. It also maintains the concept of Kenny as that oppressive and ominous force, cloaked in black with head always covered, lingering in the shadows behind one’s shoulder. Personality wise, too, Kenny shows the fingerprints of fabrication. We know Levi gets a kick out of talking down to people he doesn’t respect, especially those in positions of power. Who is in a higher position of power than the king himself? Who literally talks shit the king, straight to his face? Who picks him up, one-armed, points a gun to his face and gets away with all of it?

I want to take a look at Chapter 58 now because it’s extremely relevant to everything ever. This is when Levi and Kenny confront one another and give battle, which in reality would just be Levi fighting the CMP with the additional illusion of his nemesis. Until this point, Kenny has remained an eerily sublime force whose purpose is to appear and disappear just to murder people. He’s still not completely named, and unsurprisingly it isn’t until the very moment Levi starts actually talking about him that Kenny surfaces, guns up and ready to kill his nephew for the sake of avenging his dead family. Wait, fuck, ignore that.





It’s a bold strategy, Cotton, let’s see if it pays off for him.





In any case, we can see from Levi’s body language that he isn’t ready for this encounter, and it’s frightening, since it’s a very new concept to us that Levi should have a weakness against anything. At this point, Kenny is very much the biggest threat in the entire series.

And then whatever this is happens:









Yeah, you could look at that and go, this is the fastest case of villain decay in the history of fiction. Or maybe Isayama watches too many Sergio Leone films. You could think that, because in any other case it would be true. But I’ll tell you what I think. Remember when you were young and there was that scary thing, the most horrible thing in existence? You might have had someone tell you that one way to make scary things less terrifying is to imagine them in a silly way. I look at this and see Levi reverting to a very child-like coping mechanism in the face of something overwhelming. It’s just for a second, but it’s undeniably there. Undeniably there forever, Isayama.

Anyway it’s a good thing that Kenny is really an external construct of Levi’s moral chaos, otherwise he would be falling into the worst classical villain trope of monologuing during fight scenes. Instead, because he is an external construct of Levi’s moral chaos, the dialogue is fascinating. Remember how Kenny stands for the Other, all that is impulsive and heinous and needs to be suppressed? This is the Other now getting up in his counterpart’s face, forcing him to confront the justification of killing for gain.





IT’S FUNNY BECAUSE HE’S SELF-AWARE





If we go back to the original purpose of Kenny’s existence, this becomes an incredibly loaded speech that incites a dangerous clash of denial and self-awareness. This is not token tragic backstory prattle. This is Levi being unexpectedly cornered into facing the darkest inconsistencies of his identity and potential dissolution of an absolute truth, his personal shield. Kenny himself is the embodiment of Levi’s liminality— a lingering in-between that Levi has kept separated all this time to avoid the ordeal of confrontation and change. The bar itself is a liminal space. Levi cannot leave here without compensating something of his former value system.









No attempt to circle the allegation. No excuses or rewording. Just straight up “Yes.”

Such dark much edge.

So, Levi goes on his human killing spree. He probably could have easily gotten away without doing so, given his supernatural abilities, but he doesn’t. He has been pushed over a threshold. God is dead. He wasn’t ready for this tribulation and is having a serious cathartic meltdown as a result, and just can’t be bothered to stop and give a fuck. You might call it plot armor that Levi came out of this fight unscathed, but remember: Levi was never in any real physical danger. This was a symbolic reckoning of two incongruous facets of self-identity. Any nonsensical elements, like bullet dodging or deflecting, were simply a part of the process. The CMP themselves are very much real, but highly unskilled and not even a close match in any way. The purpose of having Kenny and Levi square off alone was, again, to externalize this character development, which Levi revealed when he accepted self-destruction and was thus able to shoot Kenny in the chest, since they had become the same. It might also be a Fight Club reference I’m not really sure.

The regroup scene following in the woods helpfully recaps and expands on the weight of this incident. On a surface level, Levi appears to be consoling Armin about the inevitability of taking obstructive human lives for the sake of a justified end, similar to the conversation (or rather nonversation) that had just occurred in the bar. But reading from our perspective, it’s clear that Levi isn’t speaking to Armin, but to himself, and to us, the audience, about the necessity of his actions heretofore. While Armin displays the process of his moral dilemma outwardly, Levi, again, remains subtle in working through his own internal conflicts. In his words, we can also see the final relinquishment of his former individual pretenses.





MY YAOI FINGERS HAVE SPOKEEEENNNNN





Now, at this point you might be saying “Wolsi, this is such horseshit, we’ve seen Kenny interact with other characters when Levi wasn’t around.”

To which I respond, did he really? Did he really.

I’ve already addressed the issue with Historia’s flashback, but we can look at the other scenes too. You’ll notice that, in nearly all of them, any act Kenny commits is either inconsequential or easily managed by another character present. When he killed Reeves and Nifa, the rest of the CMP was around and could have done the same. Later, when he gives quite a long Wham Speech to Historia outlining all the ways her father is a selfish megalomaniac, what does Historia do?









Boom, fucking denied! Even Eren doesn’t react when Kenny slices his goddamn forehead open. The only other main interaction Kenny has is chit-chatting with Rod; I’ve outlined that a bit already save for the detail about Kenny’s “backstory,” which I do need to elaborate on.

According to Rod, Kenny lived on the streets until Rod’s brother, Uri, now deceased, decided to take him in against the urges of others, and inevitably came to employ and accept him as a trusted companion. And while Kenny did have plans of betraying his benefactors for personal gain, it eventually came to naught. If this sounds familiar to you it’s because it’s literally the 99 cent store version of Levi’s Survey Corps initiation. But don’t worry too much, I mean, at least it’s not like this Uri and Erwin are all that similar.









Psych! They totally fucking are. I never claimed Levi was a fountain of originality.

The more pertinent question to ask is why Levi bothered to paint a past for Kenny at all, if Kenny is his personified inner discord and all that. After all, there are plenty of other longstanding characters with empty backstories to explore. Well, if we view Kenny’s development as inherently linked to Levi’s, it makes more sense. Following the bar encounter, it’s apparent that Kenny’s character takes a turn for the more light and humorous. After Levi came face to face with his issues and decided to embrace a true moral grey, Kenny ceased to be a distant, menacing shadow on his conscience— on the contrary, he became more relatable. To better understand himself and deal with the turmoil of the societal breakdown around him, Levi has to refine Kenny if he wants to continue using him as a defense mechanism. Earlier I touched on the duality of maintaining a safe distance while imbuing ideals; this is merely a continuation of that in a different way. The fact that Kenny was still a question on Levi’s mind following the shot to the chest means there’s still fundamental issues Levi needs to resolve, like the reconciliation of Kenny with people who actually exist. Right, let’s discuss that.

At this point, I’m unsure whether to claim that the people close to Levi are aware of Kenny or not. As I said, very few people speak about Kenny individually, other than Levi. Nifa seems to have an almost humorous awareness of the problem; her response here can be interpreted as kindly trying to brush off a delusion she’s heard Levi bring up before:









Then again, this could very well be Levi talking to himself. The others from Hange’s squad were positioned in individual locations; I don’t know why they’d have two people clumped together so visibly on the rooftop. Or maybe Levi himself spread the original rumor about his Tyler Durden counterpart to gain street cred. PLOT TWIST!

Later, when Levi brings up Kenny, this supposed legend, to the children, they look dazed and confused. And then continue the conversation speaking about the CMP as a whole.









I do think Hange knows about Kenny, since she’s spent quite some time with Levi and seems to be the best at cutting him off when he starts bringing the subject up. Notice how she refers to the CMP in generalizations while Levi hints at specifics:











Or edges toward calling him out.





SMELLS LIKE BULLSHIT HOMIE





Or she just ignores him completely, probably for Mikasa’s sake.









Oh yah, the Ackerman issue.

Because elevating Levi to center stage lets us really delve into his psyche for the first time, it’s not entirely surprising to find him dealing with issues of isolation and his own background on top of the threat of Kenny. So, neither is it entirely surprising that he combines the two at some point or another. This solves the inconsistency of Kenny supposedly wanting to kill off the last of a family he is later portrayed to hold dear: it’s a glitch of Levi working out the story himself. Why Mikasa and Ackerman? It presented an available opportunity. Mikasa is the second strongest soldier after Mike’s death (which no one has brought up so I could technically make the argument that Mike never existed either), her immediate family is all dead and can’t testify, and she’s not the type to put up a big argument about petty shit. Look at the panel when Ackerman spaghetti gets spilled for the first time:









First of all, Mikasa doesn’t hear her last name until Levi repeats it, so we don’t even know if the mustached man actually said it, or Levi just imagined it. Secondly, that is not a face of wow, I still have family, who knew. That is a look of oh god, Hange warned me about this, just walk away.

When Levi does sit her down and start prying at her for answers, her responses are distant and limited, mostly due to having no shits to give. Losing her parents is still a painful subject, as we saw during Trost, so when Levi starts probing and suggesting that her father was really part of a superhuman bloodline despite going down like a sack of potatoes, it’s understandable that she just rolls along with it to avoid exhausting herself any further. She was nine at the time of her father’s death and had never remembered him being persecuted before, but if it satisfies this persistent little man and gets them one step closer to getting Eren back and all this over with, sure, why not. He probably had six eyes and could breathe fire, if you say so, hey-chou.





Can we just go back to our usual vague nonverbal bullshit





And then there’s this scene, which was so out of place it took me a few panels to realize they weren’t fake spoilers.









In case you’re curious, that’s totally Levi self-inserting as the gramps to better conjure up answers about his own lonely backstory, through a discussion with the weirdest recesses of his conscience. This is Inception-level self-medication. Someone help this poor man.

Not shockingly, Levi doesn’t manage to find Kenny in the debacle of the cave or its aftermath, given the presence of others. Side note, Levi was the only person to bring up the possibility of the CMP still being around this chapter, in which Kenny didn’t appear. We don’t know when Kenny will return, or if Levi has somehow outgrown the need for him, which would seem rather contrived since the issue was left open. Now that Eren is safely retrieved, our point of view will probably once again shift back to him, and will afford few opportunities to examine Levi at such an intricate level again. What we can be certain of is that, should Kenny reappear, it will be absolutely essential for him to experience death, at some point, if Levi is to complete his personal arc. This does not necessarily mean that Kenny has to physically die; as mentioned, he is a liminal fabrication— a vanishing mediator and a vehicle for subconscious strife — and thus has the potential for a transitory death. What is important is that Levi must undergo a complete status quo destruction, which cannot be achieved until Kenny, as the external manifestation of this original cathexis, surrenders his role and I can’t believe I just fucking made all this bullshit up, thanks for reading, happy April 1st everyone.



