Yes, I do. I’ve been talking a lot about this with @aspoonofsugar and well, both of us are side-eyeing Zeke and his foiling of Levi and their relationships with Eren. Much of what I’m writing is their ideas from our conversations.
I mean, look at Levi’s desperate sorrow at what Eren’s done here. Levi has been a mentor figure for Eren, a paternal/fraternal figure.
And then there’s Zeke, whom Gabi and Falco viewed as a mentor, but who betrayed them:
Suffice to say, Zeke’s plan is really bizarre with Yelena and the other inconsistencies, and I just don’t see how there wasn’t another option besides Eren going Titan. But I can see Zeke making it seem like there was not another option.
While I do believe Zeke truly cares for Eren, I don’t know if Zeke is healthy enough of an individual to know what truly caring for someone looks like, since his entire life has been people using him. His parents, the Warrior program, etc. We’ve only ever seen Zeke refer to people in similar utilitarian terms: Mike, for example, mowing the people in Shiganshina as if it were a baseball game, Gabi and Falco are “miscalculations.” And how interesting that of all the Warriors in this arc, Zeke is the only one for whom his motives remain shrouded. I doubt they’ll be shrouded forever, as @aspoonofsugar said to me earlier today.
I think Zeke may very well be using Eren for his own goals and plan to betray him is Eren no longer fits into those goals (I definitely believe he plans to betray the Survey Corps), just like he ditched Gabi and Falco when they no longer mattered. What Zeke’s plans exactly are, I don’t know. Aspoonofsugar also pointed out that It’s eerie that Zeke’s words echo Floche’s, and I do wonder if they might team up at some point. Zeke and Levi’s foiling will continue and Eren may have to choose who he considers to be his real family: Zeke, or Mikasa, Armin, and Levi. Both Zeke and Levi care about Eren, but nothing about the current situation looks good for Zeke and Eren’s relationship long term.
I don’t think I can convey how much this ask makes me want to hurl my computer through a window but I’m taking deep breathes and telling myself that you are asking this sincerely and that it is not your intention to offend women everywhere by this characterization…
*deep breathes*
*a few more*
Ok. I got this.
Trust me when I say that most women do not automatically find short grumpy men who tell poop jokes to be attractive. Nor are they looking for husband material in their choice of fiction.
Many women love Levi because of his compassion, loyalty and constancy. They love him because he lifted up Hange when she felt insecure. Because he devised a way to protect Eren while Eren was still learning to control his titan power. Because he comforted Jean and Armin without passing judgment on them. Because he loved Erwin enough to let him go. Because this tiny gremlin of a man cares for humanity so much that he’s willing to work with the person he hates most in order to protect it.
So no, I do not think he is the personification of the “bad guy”. I think he’s the personification of the very best guy – someone who is humble, cares deeply, loves unconditionally, and unselfishly puts the needs of others ahead of his own.
Thank you for the ask.
I love Levi because of his character arc, of how he really cares a lot about his mentees despite his brusque manner, because of his loyalty, because of how his arc parallels Historia’s in the Uprising, and because of how deeply he loves the people closest to him: his squad, Erwin, EMA. He may not be warm and fuzzy with it but he wants the best for all the people he loves, and he works to help them achieve their dreams. Armin, the ocean. Erwin, figuring out what was going on. Eren, his powers. He does not like to see people he cares about suffering, and it hurts him too.
Like look at that face. That’s the face of a man who’s watched his son of sorts ruin his life with an irreversible choice, and is heartbroken for Eren as much as he is by what Eren did.
Levi is more of a deconstruction of a badass character than a typical badass, anyways. And if he wasn’t, ain’t nothing wrong with girls liking that.
battle is one their relationship changes: E is Always the one making the most important decision, but in Sh L tells him what to do when E is stuck. To me it’s interesting to confront it with the Female Titan Arc. There L says he’s not the strategist and that the one thinking is E. That arc is also the one where we see E sacrifice a great number of soldiers to reach a goal. L obvs doesn’t like it, but he’s far more stoic than in Sh when he looks at the recruits and E die. It can be bcs the cont.
battle is one their relationship changes: E is Always the one making the most important decision, but in Sh L tells him what to do when E is stuck. To me it’s interesting to confront it with the Female Titan Arc. There L says he’s not the strategist and that the one thinking is E. That arc is also the one where we see E sacrifice a great number of soldiers to reach a goal. L obvs doesn’t like it, but he’s far more stoic than in Sh when he looks at the recruits and E die. It can be bcs the cont.
situation is far more drammatic or bcs even E is gonna die, but the reading I prefer is that L is particularly emotional also bcs that time he himself is the one who made the choice in E’s stead. I think L reached the pieck of his development in that moment when he overcame Kenny who wasn’t able to understand Uri until his dying moments. L is able to understand E as a person in time and is able to make the best choice for him which is to let him die. Meta Anon
His arc involved him facing a parental figure and growing away from two mentor figures, and as my Meta Anon brilliantly pointed out, parallels Historia’s arc in the uprising.
in that arc they both come to terms with their father figures. Their
backstory is similar as well and Kenny even tells them the same phrase
when he sees them: “You have grown…But you haven’t changed much” which
is honestily so poignant for the both of them in that arc. H wants to
obey her father to be loved while Levi wants to kill K bcs strength was a
great part of their relationship (and it’s what poisoned all of K’s
ones). In the end H rebels vs R while L finds a closure with K where
they c
don’t fight as all the arc seemed to be building up to. I love how L
starts asking pragmatic questions abt the king and then it starts asking
more and more personal ones, if K was his father and why he was left
alone. It kinda speaks a lot abt L and how he builds himself up as
extremely objective and pragmatic, but is actually extremely emotive
behind it all. Plus the arc starts with L strangling H and ends with her
punching him bcs each of them learnt opposite things in that arc. Also
cont.
I like that L is presented immediately as a mentor figure, but also as
an extremely flawed one and that the most important thing he teaches
Others is that they should be ready to make choices on their own. It’s
kinda important in a manga which is all abt choices. And that’s it, I
really love him and Historia and Jean and Sasha and Mikasa and Annie and
basically all the other characters! Have a great day and sorry if I
invaded your box, I hope you found it a little bit interesting at least!
Ahh, great points! And I found it fascinating, thank you! To be honest, Levi has at times been in my top 5 characters, its just that recent developments have shifted things. I really like the parallels you point out here! Levi is actually coded as a child in some ways in which the other adults are not, and I really enjoy his character.
I also really love everyone! The vets are not characters I’m especially attached to for the same reasons I love characters like Eto and Arima in TG but they’re never going to be faves: the focus is on children coming into an adult understanding, so I find myself drawn to those children. If I had to rank, I’d say my top would be:
1) Armin
2) Eren
3) Historia
4) Annie
5) Mikasa
6) Jean
7) Reiner
8) Ymir
9) Zeke (what the hell I’m yelling at myself for this because I can’t believe I’m saying this; I hated him a year ago, like hated hated, and I still think he’s a malicious bastard but damn if he isn’t interesting)
10) Bertolt
shout out to Levi as well sometimes I contemplate switching him with Zeke or Bertolt.
I think they’re different insofar as Eren knows everything, whereas Erwin knew a lot less about the circumstances of the world. I think people are culpable for what they know, and not for what they don’t know, and according to that, we know Erwin was desperate to find out the truth, but Eren is desperate to end the war. Both of them are using the ends as justifying the means philosophy.
However, when it comes down to the nitty-gritty of it, when it comes to the families and loved ones of those who lost their friends and family, does it matter their motivations? To them, that person–Erwin or Eren or Zeke or anyone–is a monster, because they stole their loved ones away from them. Both Erwin and Eren now were/are aware of this. Armin told Eren he needed to cast aside his humanity in the Female Titan Arc, which is not so coincidentally firstly where we see just how brutal Erwin could be to capture the titans and make progress in his quest to find the truth. Erwin knew what he was and he wanted to die because of it, becaues he didn’t believe he deserved forgiveness, and I grieve that because I don’t think it’s true, and I don’t think the narrative even supports that suggestion–Levi desperately wanted Erwin to live, for example. But Levi, unlike Flock or even Hange, wanted Erwin to live not because of what he could do for mankind (though that was part of it), but also because of who Erwin was and how Levi loved him (I believe platonically but to each their own). Levi ultimately let him go because he knew Erwin as a person and not as a devil or a monster, and he did not want to see his friend suffer continuously. Mikasa is probably going to have to let Eren go at the end of the story for similar reasons, though I expect the titan struggle will be over then and I think her tears in 102 show us she is already seeing what’s going to happen.
The thing is, SnK as a manga constantly asks us what makes a monster and a human? And the answer is always that we are all monsters and we are all human. It doesn’t condemn Annie or Reiner or Bertolt or even Zeke, or Eren, or Erwin–it condemns their actions without question–Mikasa even says as such in 102. And it shows us the agony their actions cause–Eren’s loss of his mother, for example, and Gabi right now and doesn’t offer any sort of whitewashing of the agony they go through. But it lets us see that they are people too, manipulated children or hurting adults traumatized by their childhood guilt (Erwin).
Yes, I think we’re meant to compare Eren and Erwin’s actions. No, I don’t believe that means we can necessarily equate them. Eren for example knows the pain of what he’s unleashing more personally than did Erwin. But again, I think Isayama is telling us to condemn the actions and to still care for the person. Like Mikasa, the more epicenter of the story, I think we are supposed to weep for them.
towards said superior). I also liked how the 104th cadets’ dynamic with him turned out to be: very strained in the beginning and then becoming better. Levi is the one under whom they were ordered to kill people for the first time and it was heartbreaking and I liked how they weren’t comfortable with it or him, but also how Levi gave space to other approaches i.e. Jean testing Marlow. He and Historia were also paralleled in the Uprising arc and they started and closed that same arc together.
I very much enjoy Levi as a mentor figure for Eren, Mikasa, and Armin too! I really liked your analysis here. These three kids really do mean a lot to Levi, and I’m curious to see how those relationships have developed in the timeskip.
hamliet 