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narinbelle · 7 days

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Mikasa Ackerman’s upstanding moral code is something that I’ve always adored seeing in Attack on Titan. Recently, many fans have gone out of their way to criticise her, stating that she’s ‘boring’ or ‘basic’, but I think that claim is rather ignorant. It doesn’t see past the exterior she puts out, which is a vital point to her character. Spoilers ahead btw.

Mikasa is drenched in tragedy, much like most other characters in aot. She’s lost family after family, and now all she has left are her friends. But time, much like the rumbling, marches on endlessly, and it doesn’t wait for anyone. Mikasa knows that nothing in her life will remain the same, she is intrinsically aware that things will change. “The world is cruel, and beautiful” she thinks, and she finds happiness wherever she can, knowing that it will leave no matter what she does. She has this underlying steeliness to her that most simply attribute to her soldier exterior, but I think this is what makes her so beautiful. She CARES about people, about children and women and soldiers and her quickly growing group of friends. She knows the world is cruel, but she sees its beauty and she’s always trying to expand upon that.

She’s almost like a flower in that regard. She is beautiful and upright, blossoming shyly under the instructions she was given to fight, withstanding the weight of expectation and the harsh rays of sun that threaten to burn her for coming out of her shell in the first place. She does not relent, however. Life seeks to punish her for coming out of that cocoon, but she weathers it with grace and love and devotion so huge that it saves the world.

That devotion, that obsession you see with Eren, is partly because she’s actually just that devoted to him, but also because he challenged that worldview she had when her parents were killed. He was the one who opened her eyes to the possibility of happiness existing within those moments of cruelty. Mikasa was perfectly content to stay inside the bud of her flower, indifferently observing the world, but Eren changed that. He made her a part of the world, instead of letting her watch it pass her by.

She’s lived by that ever since. There is something so lovely about that devotion to Eren, and with that, the ideals she formed after that initial encounter (even if he was entirely unaware of the changes he had on her). He helped form that moral code, the one that eventually ends in her killing him for the sake of the world.

Mikasa is the champion of attack on titan, hero of the world, saviour of the people, and it’s all because she was a girl who was deeply in love with a boy. There is strength in her devotion. Buried beneath that cold exterior is a love so intrinsic that it overcame mere affection and hurtled straight towards eternity. Her choice to kill the man who she loved, to fight like he told her, and to save the world and create beauty when he destroyed it, speaks of strength like no other.

So sure, go ahead and say she’s boring all you want. But, perhaps you just aren’t looking close enough.

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narinbelle · 9 months

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