Attack on Titan‘s third season has been a rollercoaster for fans as each new reveal about the world opens up even bigger mysteries about what’s really going on. The latest episode shifting things a bit further when it revealed that there’s a mystical power tied to the Ackermann family as well.
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While it was previously thought that the Power of the Titans was the only mystical ability, the Ackermann family carries a specific warrior ability thanks to the fact that they were once served as the guards to the royal family.
When speaking to the rest of the Survey Corps unit about how dangerous Kenny is, Levi assures them that Kenny’s a deadly foe, especially with his new maneuver gear specifically meant to kill humans. Levi then further reveals Kenny is an Ackermann, and Mikasa started to reminisce about her own family. She mentions that her father was being pursued because he was an Ackermann, but she never learned why.
It’s then Levi asks if she’s ever felt a surge of strength, and Mikasa remembers when she killed someone to defend Eren as a child, and says her and Kenny once had the same surge of power. As the series recounts some of Kenny’s memories in a flashback, fans see Kenny asking his grandfather why the King is hunting down the Ackermann family when the family served as special warrior guards to the King.
His grandfather explains that the Ackermann family was being pursued because the King is scared of their family. They can’t be “controlled” due to their power. The Ackermann family is one of the select few whose memories can’t be altered by Titan power, and they and the Oriental Clan turned their backs on the King.
It may not be exactly clear yet as to why the Ackermann and Oriental families turned their backs on the King all those years ago, but it does emphasize how special their bloodline is since they were originally the ones meant to protect the Titan’s power. It’s why they occasionally get those bursts of inhuman warrior strength.
Attack on Titan was originally created by Hajime Isayama for Kodansha’s Bessatsu Shonen Magazine in 2009. The series has since been collected into 23 volumes as of 2017, and it’s set in a world where the last remnants of humanity live within a walled city in order to escape the danger of the Titans, a race of giants monsters that eats humans. The lead character, Eren Yeager, ends up joining the military with his two childhood friends Mikasa and Armin after the Titans break through the wall and attack his hometown.
Now Eren, Mikasa, and Armin must survive in a world where they not only have the Titans to fear, but the very humans they are trying to save. You can currently find the series streaming on Crunchyroll, Funimation, and Saturday nights on Adult Swim’s Toonami block.
