Her father only wanted to use her as a tool as he was too afraid to become a titan himself.
That is an assumption that Kenny made, but it not confirmed, at least it is open for interpretations.
We saw the Reise and Tybur familly dynamics in flashbacks, they are brainwashed into thinking that inheriting the titan is an honor, so I don't think Rod was being a coward, instead he was doing what he thought was optimal.
Historia is a better candidate for inheriting the titan:
- She is a scout, similar to the warrior candidate, a very good choice for a titan shifter.
- She is young and healthy so her titan transformation would go well (look what happen to Connie's mom or Rod himself)
- Rod is a public figure, inheriting the titan would be counter productive (ex: Willy Tybur).
- Once she inherits it, the First king will would take over and everything he did to her before that would not matter anymore.
Why did historia betray her father and her family?
Betray her father and her family? Are we watching the same show?
It a miracle historia is still alive, Rod was about to kill her with her mother, he felt a bit bad so he instead sent her to die in the army, the fact that she survived 2 seasons of AoT is just cheer luck.
Also this is before we find out the truth about eren etc(yes he killed her family indirectly).
Historia's family are the people she risked her life with, the one that were willing to fight titans for her.
I'm really confused tbh. Also why was she happy to kill her dad? That didn't make much sense to me
I think the confusion is from the fact that Rod act like a
good father in those episodes, isayama is not a lazy writer that would make an bad person look bad to help the viewer identify who to hate.
He was acting like that because he truly believes what he is doing is so important that Historia would do it, Historia was in truma when she met him, that the dude that killed her mother in front of her, Stockholm syndrome, it took her a while to come to her sense, thanks to Ymir's life philosophy and Eren being a cry baby (Sasha agrees!), which snap her out of Rod's narrative, Eren is not his father.