Thread by @oldsouleunoia

Mikasa Ackerman - The Girl who saw beauty in a cruel world.

A Mega Thread - PART 1/2

Exploring her entire character arc in the manga and her subtle development throughout the story

Mikasa antis with open mind are welcome to read this thread.
Haters kindly stay away, peace. ✌

In order to understand Mikasa's personality, we need to have a look at her childhood.

For 9 years she lived in isolation from the world due to which she had no interactions with anyone except her parents, thus leading to her introvert personality & her being socially awkward.

Young Mikasa was content with her small yet peaceful life in her home. She was happy to grow vegetables with her mom, seeing insects, play with dolls etc.

She was a girl always who thought the world is a beautiful place since she was surrounded by a comfort zone without breach.

However, her tragic fate showed her the cruelty of this world.

Mikasa saw the horrific sight of her parents being killed in front of her eyes. Her comfort zone was shattered as she witnessed cruelty in a raw form.

Thus, she became mentally fragile & cold as she lost her home.

She was about to be sold into slavery. This is where Eren Yeager appears & saves the girl from animals who were snatching her freedom.

As she was left facing cruelty with a knife in her hands, Eren reminds her how this cruel world works where only the fighters who win can live.

Mikasa kills the kidnapper after hearing the words -

"If we don't win, we die.
If we win, we live.
If we don't fight, we can't win.
Fight. Fight."

These words by Eren became the cornerstone of Mikasa's life as she lives with this pride given to her by Eren, in a cruel world.

However, the beauty of the world she saw vanished along with the warmth of home.
She was left alone in a world where she has noone to call her 'home' & thus she only felt cold.

This when Eren wrapped his scarf around her cold neck & held her hands, walking towards their home.

This scarf acted as a reminder for her that even in this cruel world, beauty still exists & she still has a home.

Eren not only became her home but also became that beauty she needed to face this harsh world.

Thus, she decided to follow Eren, just to stay by his side.

Mikasa was taken in by Yeagers who made her a part of their family, raising her with love & care.

However, she lost her new home as well when the fall of Shighanshina occurred.

Therefore, Eren was the only one left for her to call her home, leading to her overprotective nature.

Mikasa became a soldier along with Eren, with her sole motive being to protect him at all costs. She also wanted to keep her promise to Carla.

Initially, Mikasa even sidelined her duty as long as she can protect Eren, with her tremendous physical strength as a soldier.

When Eren presumably died in Trost, Mikasa decided to give up as she once again lost her home.

However, just in the last moments she was reminded that Eren taught her to fight till the end in order to win. Also she won't be able to remember Eren (beauty in her eyes) if she died.

Thus, she stood up to fight and even encouraged her comrade to fight although this only led to them being in danger as they recklessly followed her.

As Eren was revealed to be alive, her eyes lit up & she was even ready to cut down humans who wanted to kill him, to protect him.

As the story unfolded, Mikasa evolved both emotionally & socially, as a person.

She became a more responsible & reliable soldier, developing bonds with her comrades apart from Eren & Armin.

This includes the warriors such that she hesitated to kill them upon the titan reveal.

Her relation with her senior officer Levi is a good example of her growth.

Her recklessness to protect Eren led to Levi being injured. Thus she took responsibility of her actions by stopping Annie & save humanity.

Her trust on Levi's judgements was also evident in Uprising arc.

With time Mikasa's overprotective nature of Eren also reduced significantly.

She started to understand how Eren is strong enough to fight & protect himself.

She also understood his inferiority complex after her convo with him & thus motivated him to believe in his own strength.

Mikasa has always been a source of inspiration for Eren.

Mikasa has often showed her beautiful side to him, reminding that he still has a reason to fight, home.

There have been times where Mikasa reminds Eren about the cruelty of the world to motivate him to fight for survival.

Mikasa's final arc was about facing the cruelty of the world eye to eye i.e. letting her loved ones go for greater good and understanding the cruelty hiding behind the symbol of beauty i.e Eren, which she chose to overlook.

This started when she let go off Armin for humanity.

Eren decided to choose a dark path standing at the ocean & swore to kill enemies beyond the island thus separating from Mikasa.

He led an assault on Liberio, which resulted in killing innocent people.

This made Mikasa question his actions as she was confused by Eren's cruelty.

Mikasa always remembered how Eren wrapped the scarf around her.

But during her talk with Louise, she remembered the rageful & violent nature of Eren which led him to kill the kidnappers eventhough it was to save her from slavery.

Beautiful image of Eren in her mind was shaken.

EMA confrontation is the point where Eren's cruelty came to it's fore. The symbol of beauty itself became the cruelty.

Eren hurts Mikasa's pride by calling her love an ingrained behaviour as an Ackermann & calling her a slave to her blood, eventhough he lied. (confirmed by Zeke)

Mikasa is a descendant of Ackerman & Azumabito clans but her family background always remained a mystery to her.

She was left confused about her identity due to the lack of details about it.

Thus, Eren led to momentary self doubt in her mind, even if he did it to push her away.

Mikasa is a self righteous woman who chose to protect Eren because he is her home & not because of her blood.

It is important to understand that she has a great conscience & opposed his actions which she thought weren't correct.

Eren's claim of blind following was thus false.

PART 1 ends here.

Kindly click on the link below for continuing with PART 2.

Thanks for reading till now. 🙏