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lanthimo · 1 year ago

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The Psychological and Emotional Impact of Levi’s Early Childhood:

I don’t think Levi’s early childhood really gets discussed enough in the fandom, or the ways in which those experiences in his formative years had to have impacted him. This could be because we don’t really get many panels depicting his childhood. Just a few. But those few panels show us enough for us to extrapolate plenty and form a pretty clear picture of what he went through.

First of all, it’s almost a certainty that Levi was born as the result of rape.

That’s something that I think everyone should let sink in.

He was born in the brothel that his mother, Kuchel, worked in. And “worked” is a relative term here. Kuchel was driven into the Underground as a result of persecution by the royal family. She was undoubtedly very young, she was alone, with no real resources or support or guarantee of safety or protection from anyone, in an environment of criminality and violence. There were likely very few, if any options available to her in terms of her own survival. Her becoming a prostitute wouldn’t have been any kind of a choice then, but rather a move made in desperation. And so I think we can also safely assume that Kuchel’s experiences working as a prostitute were tantamount to forced labor. In other words, a kind of slavery. She was almost certainly paid a paltry sum by the brothels owner, evidenced by the sorry, squalid and destitute state we see her and Levi living in when Kenny comes. She was likely afforded very few, if any rights or defenses against whatever her clients chose to do to her, as also evidenced by the fact that no one seemed to really know or care enough about her or Levi to even realize when she had died.

It’s impossible for me to define any of what Kuchel went through working in such a place as anything less than rape, then.

So, Levi’s very existence is one that is a literal product of violence. I’m absolutely sure that Levi himself is painfully aware of this, knowing that he was born out of his own mother’s pain and suffering. Going into the implications of this on Levi’s psychological health, I think you can safely assume this realization had a very negative impact on his own sense of self-worth. His mother was the only person in his childhood who we ever saw treat him with any kind of actual love or kindness. The only person who ever, actually wanted him. And yet, Levi would have seen demonstrated to him, every day, how his existence in his mothers life placed an increased burden on her, forcing her into increasingly more desperate circumstances, now having to feed two mouths instead of only one, and as a result, likely having to engage in increased, unwanted sexual activity with her clients. So Levi would be aware that not only was his mother, (again, the only person who loved and treated him with tenderness) being hurt on his behalf, but he also would have been aware, after witnessing the particular ways in which she was being hurt, that he himself was the result of that violence. Levi would have been shown that his very existence, then, was something which caused immense suffering and pain to the only person in his life who loved him. I honestly can’t even imagine the negative implications of something like this on a young mind. Only to say, it must have been horrific and resulted in lifelong trauma. Trauma which, due to the desperation of Levi’s life afterward, he likely never had any opportunity or chance to even address.

Now, moving on to something else. There’s a tendency by many to paint Kuchel as this sort of perfect mother figure. Someone who, through the power of her love for Levi alone, was able to overcome the trauma of their general circumstances, to negate the negative experiences he would have been exposed to, resulting in Levi becoming the kind and compassionate person he would be as an adult. But I think this assumption about Kuchel and their situation is not only unrealistic and idealized in the extreme, but also in its way, undermines the actual bleakness of their circumstances.

Again, we have to remember that Kuchel was driven into the Underground, and essentially forced, through lack of any other options, to become a prostitute. Calling her a prostitute is a nice way of saying she had to sell herself into sexual slavery. Kuchel’s own psychological and emotional trauma doesn’t often get touched upon or acknowledged when people talk about her and her relationship with her son, nor does the desperate poverty of their living situation. Kuchel died right in front of Levi, and we can assume with pretty good accuracy that she either died from a sexually transmitted disease, or that she died from malnutrition and starvation. These weren’t two people, then, who were living a comfortable or secure life. In fact, the very opposite. Levi was starving to death when Kenny found him. It’s easy enough to assume from his state of general neglect and starvation that Kuchel, at the very least, was struggling to provide for him. Not just food, but any kind of comfort or care. Clothing, warmth, protection, cleanliness, and very likely even, affection. This isn’t a knock on Kuchel’s worth as a mother, or her parenting. She was, undoubtedly, doing the best she could given the circumstances. But, again, this particular aspect of their lives isn’t touched on nearly enough. Kuchel died out of neglect, impoverishment, desperation and abuse. Given what we can assume her day to day life was like, having to let men come and sexually assault her just to keep herself and her son alive, one has to also consider the emotional and mental toll this sort of existence would eventually have on her. She had to have been exhausted, both mentally and physically. You add to this the always uncertain and present reality of whether either her or Levi would even be able to eat on any, given day, whether she would be able to keep her son from starving to death, and you can start to form a clear idea of how things like “playtime” or “fun”, or freely given and enthusiastic love and affection, would be, tragically, low on the list of priorities. Their situation was absolutely a situation of survival, first and foremost. Luxuries weren’t a part of their lives. Anyone who’s ever experienced extreme deprivation, poverty and desperation on the level in which Kuchel and Levi were living would know that those material realities absolutely have a negative impact on one’s ability to simply live. To be happy. To indulge in fantasy. To indulge in luxury. To indulge in any kind of relaxation or ease of living. It’s nice to imagine that Kuchel was always able to show Levi love and affection. To always be a kind, caring and generous mother to him. But that perception of their lives together ignores the bleak and harsh reality of what was really going on. More likely than not, Kuchel was often too exhausted and in bad, physical shape herself to play with Levi, to pay attention to Levi, to indulge in Levi. It was everything she could do, after all, to simply keep Levi alive, let alone healthy and happy. Kenny described Levi, when he first took him in, as the most unfriendly kid he’d ever met. We rarely see Levi speak at all in those early days with Kenny. That doesn’t speak to someone who is well adjusted socially. That doesn’t speak to someone who received a lot of open love and affection in the formative years of his childhood. Again, this isn’t to criticize or undermine Kuchel’s abilities as a mother. It’s simply acknowledging the tragic reality, that someone in Kuchel’s position, living the kind of life she was living, wouldn’t have had the luxury of being for Levi everything he needed her to be.

This also leads me into another point I don’t think I’ve ever seen discussed, and that has to do with Kuchel’s decision to have Levi at all, and how that choice is, simultaneously, both entirely selfless, and entirely selfish.

Kenny tells his grandfather that he tried to talk Kuchel out of having her baby, trying to explain to her how bringing a baby into the kind of situation she was living in wasn’t viable. It was only going to make, not only her own life worse, but in turn, the baby’s life was going to be awful too. We later see, in Kenny’s memories, a scene in which Kuchel is holding Levi as a newborn against her chest and crying tears of happiness. Kenny recalls this as part of his monologue about dreams, and the desperation of dreams, and the ability of dreams to corrupt us. This is important to acknowledge. Because again, while Kuchel’s intentions in giving birth to Levi were pure, and her love for him was absolutely pure and genuine, still, she DID bring him into a situation of extreme poverty, desperation and violence. In a way, Kuchel prioritized her dream of motherhood not only over her own well being (this being the selfless aspect of her decision), but also over Levi’s well being (this being the selfish aspect). She knew her own living situation was terrible, filled with suffering, cruelty and pain. She knew this, and she was aware, from Kenny’s own words, that bringing a child into that situation was only going to make things worse, for both of them. But she chose to do it anyway. She chose to give birth to Levi, and to keep him, knowing the sort of deprivation and desperation he would be exposed to. Knowing the kind of violence and cruelty and ugliness he would be exposed to, being born and raised in a brothel, in which she was working as a prostitute, relegated to a single room with him in it.

Chances are high, extremely high, that Levi saw his mother raped. Maybe she sent him out of the room when she was with clients. But maybe she wasn’t able to. We never see any evidence of Levi having ever left their single room as a child, and even if he had, the building they were in was a brothel, catering to men seeking and paying for the sexual services of women. It isn’t an environment that is, in any way, suited to a child, friendly to a child, or even tolerant of a child. It’s almost 100% certain that Levi was, at one time or another, exposed to sexual violence against women, whether it was his own mother, or someone else. He would have been exposed to violence in general too, because men who sexually assault women are also very likely to physically assault them. I don’t think it’s any kind of a stretch, even, to assume that Levi himself might have been on the receiving end of physical violence, at the least, in a place like that. Men who wouldn’t want some little kid around while they force themselves on the women there probably would have little qualm with hitting Levi to make him go away.

Again, going back to Levi’s “unfriendliness” when Kenny first takes him in, I think we can extrapolate that a lot of what Kenny was perceiving as unfriendly behavior was in fact just Levi being withdrawn. He seemed sullen and mute to Kenny. We see this in children who have been abused. They tend to go within themselves and make themselves as unobtrusive as possible, not wanting to draw attention to themselves, because whenever they have, it’s always resulted in them somehow being hurt. Levi’s body language when Kenny first meets him speaks to this as well. He’s curled against the wall opposite his mother’s bed, literally making himself as small as possible, his knees hugged to his chest, his head bowed close to them, etc… Like he’s trying to hide. Again, it doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination to assume that Levi fell victim to the violence of the men who frequented that place. The Underground in general was filled with violent and cruel men who made a living out of criminality, who in fact wouldn’t think twice about committing murder, etc…

This is the world Kuchel brought Levi into. A world of physical and sexual violence, a world of depravity and illness, a world of poverty and starvation. Kuchel loved Levi with all her heart. That isn’t for a moment in doubt. But by choosing to have him and keep him, she also trapped him into a life of pain and suffering of his own.

Kuchel had to know, if anything were to happen to her, that Levi’s chances of survival were next to none. He was helpless without her, and that too is evidenced by the fact that, when Kenny finds them, Levi is literally starving to death. He’s just sitting there, resigned to his fate. There’s no indication whatsoever that Levi ever even left their room to seek food, or help of any kind. He just sat there, trapped with his mother’s rotting corpse, waiting to die. And nobody there cared enough to even check on him or his mother in the span of time between when she fell ill and when she died. Nobody there cared enough about either of their lives to see if they were okay, and we can assume, because Levi didn’t seek anyone’s help, that he didn’t think anyone would help him, which tells us all we need to know about how he and his mother were generally treated in that place. Kuchel must have known, as she was dying, that without her, Levi was going to die too. She had no way and no cause to know or think that Kenny would come by to rescue him. And, indeed, if Kenny hadn’t shown up right when he did, Levi almost certainly would have died in that room with her. I can’t even imagine the pain this must have caused her, knowing she was dying, and knowing as a result, that her son was going to die too. It would have been unbearable. But again, this is also the risk Kuchel took when she chose to give birth to and keep Levi. She knew this was a possibility. That her child would die a slow and painful death without her there to protect and take care of him.

So this sort of sunny, idealistic picture that tends to get painted of Levi’s life with his mother seems both unrealistic and unfair to them in terms of understanding their actual situation. This wasn’t a happy or good life they were living together. It was a life full of misery and pain. Levi’s monologue later on to the 104th recruits, about not knowing if you’ll wake up and get to eat that day, or if your friends will still be alive, wasn’t just a reflection on their lives living with the threat of titans. It was a reflection of his own life living in the Underground, living a life surrounded by poverty and violence and uncertainty. That was Levi’s existence for the first 25 years of his life. That was Levi’s childhood. Violence and starvation, cruelty and deprivation. Kuchel’s love, as pure and as genuine as it was, wasn’t enough on it’s own to overcome the scars of all that.

One last note to end this on.

There’s also a tendency to paint Kenny’s rescue of Levi as this very heroic and selfless act on Kenny’s part. A moment in which Levi was pulled from the jaws of certain death and given a chance to live by his uncle. And while, yes, Kenny certainly did save Levi’s life and give him that chance, I think it’s also important to acknowledge that Kenny’s treatment of Levi was abusive, and ultimately caused him more harm than good. Kenny, we have to remember, went down to the Underground to rescue Kuchel. He went to that brothel with the intention of pulling her out and bringing her to live back up on the surface, able to do so now that he had ended the persecution of their family through his connection with Uri Reiss. But by the time he got there, Kuchel was dead, and she’d left behind her only child in Levi. Kenny could have so easily brought Levi up to the surface with him, the way he’d been planning on doing with Kuchel, and given him a good and happy life. He could have saved him from the hell of living in the Underground City. A world of perpetual darkness, a world of constant danger and desperation and illness. People talk about how Kenny gave Levi the tools to survive in such a harsh environment, and treat this as if it’s something to somehow be applauded and praised. But Kenny shouldn’t have had to teach Levi to survive in a cut-throat environment at all. He’d made it possible for those with the Ackerman name to live free of persecution up above. He could have easily taken Levi with him and given him a good, traditional education, fed and clothed him, given him shelter, given him the chance to grow up in fresh air and sunlight, given him a chance to make friends with other children, to learn social skills and just live a normal existence with the opportunity to actually be happy. But instead Kenny chose to keep Levi in the Underground, to teach him how to kill, to teach him to be violent, and not much else, before simply abandoning him there and never going back, forcing Levi to survive on his own in the most dangerous place inside the walls. What Kenny did to Levi wasn’t a kindness. A kindness would have been rescuing Levi from the Underground entirely and giving him a real life above. A kindness would have been Kenny giving to Levi what he’d planned on giving to his sister. But Kenny was too selfish to do that, and that’s the bottom line. He didn’t want to have to take care of and raise a child. He didn’t want the responsibility. Whether that’s tied to Kenny’s own, negative perception of himself or not doesn’t matter. He still chose not to take Levi with him and give him a real life because actually caring for and raising a child would have been too hard, too much work, too much responsibility. By leaving Levi there in the Underground, he sent Levi the message, clear as day, that he wasn’t wanted. And so Levi spent the entirety of his childhood, and a good portion of his adulthood, believing that, and living in the Underground, living a life of violence and desperation and suffering.

I don’t think the suffering Levi went through as a child gets discussed or acknowledged enough, or examined enough. I don’t think people often look at it with enough objective realism to realize the extreme harm and trauma Levi experienced and was left with. It’s genuinely a miracle that Levi turned out the way he did. That Levi is as good a man as he is. Nothing in his life growing up can really account for that. Everything in his life growing up would evince that he should have become the sort of man Kenny was, selfish and cruel. It’s truly against all odds that Levi became the exact opposite. Selfless in the extreme, kind, caring and compassionate above and beyond anyone else in the series. Someone who fights for and gives his life in dedication to the dreams and lives of others.

In many ways, Levi is, himself, the greatest miracle of all.

#levi ackerman

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