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nowisnotimeforcaution · 6 months ago

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"Bad Boy" Analysis:

Alright, “Bad Boy” analysis, here we come! Strap in guys, because this one is going to get long.

So, we open with a shot of Levi and his mother, drinking tea while looking out over the Underground City.

The first thing you notice is how filthy Levi’s and Kuchel’s clothing is, and indeed, the first thing Levi mentions is how he was “born in the Underground” and then he says that he’s only “ever seen things that are Underground”. Right away, this sets the tone for the story, and will be vitally important to understanding what we realize about Levi’s worldview as the story continues.

He talks about how “hopelessly dirty” the Underground is, and says even the air is “rotten”.

And then he talks about how, the more he realizes this, the more he feels that his mother’s posture is “so elegant”.

So we see right away how Levi is idealizing his mother. We also never have a clear view of Kuchel’s face. We see her sitting beside Levi from behind, and then we see her smiling at him, but it’s just an impression. A sense of her, more than a fully formed picture.

Levi’s memory of his mother is probably vague at best. I think he was likely too young when she died to really remember her clearly. He remembers her as “elegant”, and he remembers this of her particularly in contrast to the filth and despair of the world he lives in, that being The Underground City. A single point of light in all the darkness surrounding him. Again, this will become important as the story develops. But we see from this first page that Levi has latched onto this memory of his mother, this picture of her as elegant, as the only good in his life. Something represented by his memory of her containing a single shaft of light pouring down from above, directly onto them. Again, the one point of light in a world of darkness. Again, that will become significant as the story goes on.

We immediately cut to the next scene, and it’s a sharp contrast, because we go from the relative peace of the moment with his mother, the single point of positivity in his life, to a scene of him being severely physically assaulted in the streets. We also have it confirmed for us that, indeed, Levi’s memory of his mother is vague, and truly only an impression. He narrates:

“That’s the only thing I remember clearly. I absolutely did not want that to be lost.”

Levi is telling us here that the only thing he remembers clearly of his mother is her elegance, and it’s that single thing that he “absolutely did not want to be lost.”

Frankly, what this tells us about Levi’s life is that it’s nothing but a world of hurt and pain, suffering and despair. He has no joy in his life, no hope, no warmth, other than this single impression of his mother’s beauty and grace. And as such, it’s the one thing he doesn’t want to lose. The one thing he’s desperate to hold onto. Again, this will become deeply significant as the story continues.

We then cut to a wide shot of what exactly is happening, as Levi narrates these thoughts.

He’s being brutally attacked by a full-grown man, kicked in the chest and/or abdomen so hard, that it sends him flying bodily across the ground. We also notice that Levi is bleeding profusely already from the nose and mouth, meaning he’s already taken blows before this first shot of him being beaten.

The next panel shows us Levi curled on the ground, obviously in severe pain, arms curled around himself, hand gripping his chest as if he can’t breathe, his face twisted in agony. He’s severely beaten up, his face a bloody mess, and we can also see from the puffs in the air that his breathing is obviously labored.

Now I feel like what’s really important to note about this scene, is when the men doing this to Levi start talking about him, and particularly, the way they start talking about him. The way they regard him.

The man in the glasses points out that Levi is the kid that “Kenny the Ripper” looks after, and that if he finds out, they’re “finished”. And the man beating Levi up says in response:

“Just chop it up like usual and feed it to the pigs, no problem.”

They refer to Levi as “it”, not “he”, which already shows a shocking amount of dehumanization toward Levi. They speak about him as an object, not as a person. They’ll refer to Levi like this more than once as the story continues. They also say “like usual” while talking about chopping Levi up and feeding him to the pigs. That means they’ve done this before, either to other children, or adults, or both. That tells us exactly what kind of people we’re dealing with here. From this line alone, it’s pretty obvious who Levi was referring to when he told Eren on the airship in Liberio that he reminded him of the “scum” he grew up surrounded by in the Underground.

These men are truly vile, truly the worst humanity has to offer. They’re talking here about murdering a little boy as casually and easily as one might talk about the weather. And we see as the scene progresses that this isn’t just talk. They’re fully capable and fully intending on either killing Levi or, as we’ll see, doing him other great harm.

We also find out from the dialog of the man beating Levi up that Levi was the one who sought these men out, in an attempt to retrieve an item that belonged to his mother. And this detail becomes hugely important to note, as it really encapsulates the tragic core of this story from Levi’s childhood.

On the next page, Levi asks the men to “give it back.”, saying “it was my mothers”. Levi isn’t attempting to fight back here, and this is also a really important detail to note, which I’ll go into soon. He’s asking them to give him what should rightfully be his, and the man in the glasses answers that it doesn’t belong to Levi’s mother, because she pawned it when she was sick and struggling to find food. He refers to Kuchel as “Olympia”, which tells us that Levi’s mother was a fairly well-known prostitute in the Underground, and that it’s known that Levi is her son. This is also important to note, because it reveals to us that Levi was treated as the son of a whore, with all the expected disregard and disdain that usually applies to that kind of treatment. Something we see tragically play out with the way these men treat and speak about Levi, specifically.

The man in the glasses continues:

“You’re a filthy thief who snuck onto a cart headed for the surface. You know what’ll happen if you get caught, right? Or was it too much to expect a whore’s child born Underground to consider the consequences?”

I want to break these lines of dialog down, because they demonstrate what I mean about the treatment Levi receives for being the son of a prostitute, and, further, for being born Underground.

First, I think it’s clear from what this man says that these men themselves aren’t from the Underground. They clearly operate down there, because they’re criminals, and the Underground is a largely lawless district, ignored by the above authorities, and so exists as the perfect environment for these sorts of people to practice their brand of criminality.

But the way they refer to Levi as a “whore’s child” that was “born Underground” shows us a kind of blatant disregard and disdain for people who are actually from the Underground. This reflects the general status of people from and living in the Underground as non-citizens of Paradis itself. They have no rights, they enjoy no protections or any of the privileges of the people from the surface, because the residents of the Underground, and particularly, those unfortunate enough to have been born there, are considered as less than human.

The way this man speaks to Levi, the dehumanizing and derogatory and belittling language testifies to that. Levi is seen as “lesser” by these men for not only being the son of a prostitute, but also for having been born Underground. He asks if it was “too much” to expect a “whore’s child born Underground” to consider the consequences, which is a direct insult to Levi’s intelligence. It’s obvious this man considers Levi to be inferior to him and all the rest of them, simply due to the circumstances of Levi’s birth.

I think it’s fair to extrapolate from this, and from how we see Levi regard his own worth as the story continues, that this was the general treatment Levi was met with all throughout his youth.

He’s treated as less than human. He’s treated as inferior and stupid.

And then things get really horrific.

One of the other men says:

“Hey… more importantly, I think this one might sell.”

And then the one gripping Levi by the hair says:

“I think so, too. Selling anything is our motto, after all.”

And then he says:

“We should make him do the same job as his mother. He might have inherited her talents.”

They’re talking about selling Levi into a human trafficking ring, here. They’re talking about selling him into sexual slavery.

They say “we should make him do the same job as his mother.” This is a direct and obviously very real threat of sexual assault and rape made against Levi.

Remember, this is a little boy they’re saying this about.

Now something really significant happens next, because it’s this comment about his mother that finally spurs Levi on to fight back. It’s important, because of what it tells us about Levi’s own state of mind.

The next panel shows us Levi at last getting angry. He punches the man in the face and screams:

“Die!! Pig.”

What’s so important to note about this is that it wasn’t for himself that Levi got upset. It was for his mother. Again, the same mother whose memory is the only good thing Levi has in his entire, wretched life.

He’s defending her honor, here. It’s only when her character is under attack that Levi feels compelled to fight. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

The same way Levi is motivated to fight for others throughout the entirety of “Attack on Titan”. The way we see throughout the main story how Levi never fights for himself, but always for someone else. This is going to become super relevant in a moment.

Because all Levi gets for his attempt to defend his mother is the man beating him nearly to death.

He starts smashing down on Levi’s face and head with a hammer fist. If anyone has ever watched mixed martial arts, they’ll know what that is. It’s when you form a fist, and use the edge of it to hit someone on the ground, rather than the knuckles. If you want to know how awful that is, form a fist and smash the edge of it into your open palm as hard as you can, and that should give you an idea of how much damage this can cause.

This man starts beating Levi like this over and over.

The man in the glasses says:

“Hey… what happened to selling him?”

He says this in a manner that makes it clear he doesn’t actually care. And the man beating Levi says:

“If you don’t discipline him, you won’t get any customers.”

It’s painfully apparent here that this man is using the idea of “discipline” as an excuse simply to hurt Levi. He goes on to say:

“We’ll teach him a lesson so he won’t think of going against us again. We’ll jack up the price for the added value.”

This entire scene displays such a vicious sadism, that I honestly had to stop reading for a moment, it was so disgusting. This man is clearly enjoying beating Levi like this.

Then the man in the glasses says, with the same, uncaring casualness:

“We can’t sell a corpse though… That’s no good.”

Again, I think it’s important to note the way these men are speaking about a child, and about the horrific things they’re doing and planning on doing to this child.

They literally feel nothing. No remorse, no guilt, no sympathy or empathy of any kind. Levi is just a thing to them that they can use for their own satisfaction. And, again, given what we’ll soon realize about Levi’s sense of self-worth, it seems clear to me that this was the general treatment he was met with up to this point in his life.

Another man says:

“It’s pig food.”, while another says “Hey, let’s leave”

All while, in the background, we see this man beating Levi over and over and over.

He’s going to kill Levi, that’s clear. He’s going to beat him to death. And the other men care so little, they don’t even pay attention. It isn’t worth their consideration, even.

Now here is where we get to the real heart of what this story is telling us about Levi.

While he’s being so brutally beaten, and we see the man from Levi’s perspective, hitting him again and again, his expression murderous, Levi’s narration continues, and he says:

“I knew it was reckless. I never thought I would be able to get my mother’s belongings back. I just wanted to rebel. I wanted to spit… on this shitty world…”

Why this is important, why this is so significant to understanding Levi’s character, is because it tells us what Levi’s mental condition was growing up, and that condition was one of such deep despair and depression over the state of his existence, that he believed a single act of guaranteed to fail rebellion against that state was preferable to the thought of his life continuing at all. It means Levi’s life was so bad, so hopeless and so without any light or joy or goodness, that he was okay with dying, and even actively sought out a situation in which there was nearly a guarantee that he would, for a single moment of defiance against the hellish reality he was living. It means Levi saw no real value in his continued existence at all.

It means Levi was suicidal.

As a young child.

It should be obvious why this is so significant in regard to Levi specifically.

Because Levi is a character that is literally defined by how much he values life. By how much he believes in the inherent value of life, to the point that protecting and saving life, and, bar that, proving the worth of those lives by imbuing their loss with meaning, is the main motivator behind all of his actions.

We see this play out with Levi attempting to retrieve his mother’s belongings in the first place. Beyond the suicidal intent within that act, it’s reflective of Levi’s deep desire to prove that his mother’s life mattered. That her existence was of worth. He wants to remember her because he believes her life was important, even as he believes his own life is worthless and that he would be better off dead. And here we see demonstrated what will really be Levi’s most defining characteristic throughout his life. That breathtakingly tragic selflessness by which he’s always operated.

For all of Levi’s unwavering belief in the inherent value of other people’s lives, he doesn’t believe in that same, inherent value with regard to his own life.

Again, we see Levi here ready to throw his life away just to spite what he feels is the worthlessness of his existence. Just to “spit on this shitty world”, as he says.

These aren’t the thoughts or actions of a boy who thinks his own life is worth fighting for, or saving.

He goes on to speak about how, when his powers awakened, he didn’t feel anything. He didn’t think it was strange, or significant. He says:

“I didn’t think it was strange that something had happened to me at the time. The pain in my head disappeared, and I felt calm, as if my head was submerged in water. And the idea of what to do came to mind. But I just followed the instinct and acted accordingly.

So it wasn’t a will to live which drove Levi to fight back and kill these men. It wasn’t a fear of death, or a desire to go on. His Ackerman powers awoke because he was in mortal danger, and it was with the awakening of those powers that he was infused with the sudden knowledge of how to fight back. He was simply doing as those powers dictated, almost as if it wasn’t even Levi’s own will which moved him here, but the will of every Ackerman before him, showing him the path.

Now I want to talk about why all of this is so important for how it relates to Levi’s inherent goodness as a person.

Because here’s the thing.

Levi’s belief in the worthlessness and wretchedness of his own life, so powerful as to drive him to intentionally seek out placing it in harms way, to intentionally seek out doing himself harm, all as a giant ‘fuck you’ to the existence of a world that would make his life so horrible, should, by rights, have also informed the way Levi regarded the life of everyone else.

Because that’s what informed Zeke’s disregard for everyone else’s life, wasn’t it? The idea that, because of the wretched state of his own existence, Zeke was conditioned to believe that life was nothing but pain and suffering, and therefore, utterly worthless. And so, he believed, life should therefore be extinguished, not preserved.

And yet, Levi believes in exactly the opposite. He believes that life is precious. That it should be preserved and protected and cherished. So much so, that he joined the Survey Corps because Erwin’s philosophy of being able to eliminate meaningless death through the fulfillment of people’s dreams appealed to him so greatly. Because the reality of meaningless death wasn’t something Levi could ever reconcile with his own belief in life’s inherent value. He couldn’t understand how something so precious could be so easily destroyed. It had never seemed right to him. It had never made sense.

What this shows us, then, is that it wasn’t because of Levi’s life, or because of any outside influence, that he saw value in life, or believed in the value of life. It wasn’t because he was conditioned by the state of his existence, or taught by his circumstances growing up, that life had value. Clearly, Levi was taught and conditioned to believe the very opposite, as evidenced and even proven by the disregard with which he treats his own life. As evidenced and proven by Levi’s life be so devoid of anything good or hopeful, that he thought it would be better to die in one, last act of defiance against the injustice and cruelty of it all, than to go on living.

How then is it that Levi is able to see life as worthwhile and inherently valuable, when his own life growing up did everything in its power to prove to him otherwise?

The answer is simply Levi’s nature. Levi’s inherent goodness.

He and Zeke were each driven to regard their lives as worthless through the conditions of their childhoods. And yet, while Zeke used that as an excuse to treat everyone else’s life as worthless, too, Levi in turn didn’t allow his feelings regarding his life to inform his feelings of anyone else’s. Levi, in spite of his great suffering and despair, still saw the worth in the lives of other people.

That’s true selflessness. True compassion. True empathy. True goodness. Something not rooted in external forces or influence, but something that comes from within. Something innate to ones nature.

And that’s what “Bad Boy” really demonstrates. How it is that Levi’s inherently good nature overcame the horror and despair of his life. How he came out the other side a kind, caring and compassionate man, not because of, but in spite of his own, wretched existence.

Now, moving on, and now understanding Levi’s depression and suicidal ideation leading up to this event, I also want to talk about how Kenny’s abandonment of Levi directly following must have impacted his already fragile will to live.

Kenny leaving Levi at this point in his life could scarcely have caused more damage. And there’s absolutely no way in hell Kenny didn’t recognize or notice to some extent how depressed Levi was. We see that depression ourselves, plain and marked on Levi’s face, when he later goes back to his and his mother’s room, while he’s brewing the tea.

I’ve spoken before about how what people often mistake as stoicism in Levi’s expression is actually despondence. Is actually sadness. I’ll go over that same expression we see on Levi when I get to that part of the story. But I bring it up now to highlight the travesty of Kenny abandoning Levi in that state, and the impact it had to have had on Levi’s will to live moving forward.

Because I don’t think he could have had much of one.

Levi finally awakens his power, and thus, becomes strong. Thus becomes what Kenny taught him he needed to be to matter.

And it results in nothing but his being left alone. All it results in is further trauma and despair, with Levi experiencing the horror of having taken multiple lives.

Levi can’t have developed anything but negative feelings regarding his own strength, at this point. He’ll have started to associate it, even, with abandonment and his own monstrosity. And maybe he would feel it’s that very monstrosity that leads to his abandonment. His mother died, and he probably thinks that’s his fault, because if she hadn’t had to take care of him, she would probably still be alive. Kenny left him, and that’s also his fault, because being strong wasn’t enough to keep Kenny around, so there must be something else about him that made Kenny leave. I think Levi likely felt he was left alone because there was something inherently lacking in him, something that made him destroy what was good (his mother) and something that made him unwanted (Kenny). And I think that feeling must have been reinforced to him by the brutality of his own violence in killing these men. He became what Kenny told him he should be, but it wasn’t enough, or maybe it was too much. Because what kind of message does it send to Levi, when he finally becomes what Kenny tells him he should be, and instead of it winning him Kenny’s approval, it earns him Kenny’s rejection? It sends the message that Kenny must think he’s a freak, or a monster. That Kenny must decide he’s bad or wrong in some way.

So what, in the face of this utter despair and hopelessness, in the face of this total rejection of his person, compounding an already existent wish to die, could have compelled Levi to go on living?

What I think it was, was the thought that his strength must be for something more than himself.

Isayama has said before that Levi wondered what his strength was for, when with Kenny’s abandonment, he was shown it wasn’t meant for his approval. And we’ve seen demonstrated already Levi’s own lack of will to live. His own disinterest in fighting for himself, and thus, in using that strength for himself.

So he must have wondered, if his strength wasn’t meant to win him Kenny’s love or approval, and it didn’t matter to him if it could be used for himself, what could it be used for?

I think it was his desire to find out what that could be that kept him going. And once he realized he could use his strength to help people, that's when he decided his life might be of some value. Not for himself, but for others.

When he finally figured out that he could use his strength for that, that he could use it to save lives and better lives, this thing which previously had only seemed to bring him grief and trauma, this thing which he couldn’t understand the reason for having at all, finally makes sense. In discovering his strength could help, that was the one thing about it that finally made it make sense to him.

And I think that’s also testament to Levi’s inherent goodness.

That, despite all that negativity, all that horror and suffering, pain and loss, despite his strength seeming to be nothing but a curse, a point of confusion and grief, he still sought an answer to its reason. He refused to give in to the bitterness of accepting it as meaningless, and he still held enough of a belief in the life of others mattering, in the life of others being worthwhile, and in people being worth saving, to decide that the reason for his strength was to help them, to save them, to use it to fight for them. Levi decided that, on his own.

That it only made sense to him at last as an instrument to aid others, that proves Levi’s inherent goodness.

Now, getting back to the story, I spoke before about how I find the man in the glasses to be perhaps the most vile of the group, which is saying a lot, since they were all obscene human beings.

After Levi kills them, the man in the glasses in the only one left, and what he does, what he says to Levi, I think, probably caused Levi more harm, and more lasting damage, than what any of the others said or did.

Because this man lies to Levi, and attempts to manipulate him to save his own skin, by painting himself as the only one to have cared about Levi’s well-being, claiming himself to have tried to stop the assault against Levi (something we know is a blatant and cruel lie), and by using Levi’s love for his mother against him. This, in the worst way, reminded me of how Zeke tried to use Levi’s compassion for his comrades as a weapon against him, too. It’s such an ugly, cynical and cruel thing to do.

The man blubbers on about how he tried to tell the man beating Levi that if he kept it up, he would meet with a fate worse than the death penalty (again, a blatant lie), and then he attempts to frighten Levi into thinking the same will happen to him, because he’s just killed all these people, and the man in the glasses is the only one who can save him.

All through this, Levi only stands and stares at the man, giving brief, monosyllabic replies. The man’s desperation increases, his fear mounting as Levi seems almost non-responsive, and then he says:

“So! Hey! Stop doing things that will make your mother in heaven sad! You don’t want to do that, do you?!”

I can’t even begin to put into words how horrible this is.

This smarmy, heartless, disgusting piece of human refuse actually tries to leverage Levi’s love for his mother against him, the same mother that just minutes earlier, this man had spoken of in such derogatory terms, and shown such open disregard and disdain toward Levi’s desperation to preserve and hold onto the memory of her.

What’s particularly significant in this exchange, is how I think it impacts Levi’s self-image later on, and how it impacts his ability to find solace in the memory of his mother.

Levi shows no feeling toward what the man is saying in this moment. Levi’s lack of response or expression at all indicates a state of shock. Of not truly absorbing what’s just happened, or what continues to happen.

He takes his mother’s tea set, and tells the man:

“Well… I don’t know.”, in response to the man’s question about not wanting to make his mother cry. And then Levi says:

“But Kenny won’t let you live.”

And the man says, now in tears:

“I want to save you… Believe me…”

To which Levi replies:

“Nobody will believe a kid like me killed all these men, don’t worry. You bastard.”

The big mistake the man makes, I think, is in saying what he does about Levi’s mother. I think, if the man had left her memory out of it, Levi might very well have spared his life (though the man wouldn’t have deserved it at all). But because he invokes Kuchel’s memory, again, the only thing in Levi’s life that he considers good, and particularly, threatens Levi with her memory by saying he’s going to make his mother cry in heaven by becoming a killer, that’s what decides for Levi that he’s going to kill this man, too.

Also, obviously, Levi sees through this man's lies. He's fully aware this man wasn't trying to "save" him at all, and will with certainty go on to traffic and murder other children, and that that undoubtedly also played a large role in why Levi kills him.

The next page continues Levi’s narration. He says:

“I awakened the power. Kenny disappeared. The only thing that hadn’t disappeared… were the memories of my mother.”

This is hugely significant.

We see Levi return to the room he and his mother once shared, carrying her tea set. And we then see him make a pot of tea, his expression one of almost desperation as he goes through each step carefully, boiling water, crushing the tea leaves, and then timing how long he needs to steep them in the water to make the tea.

Each step is taken with utmost care and precision. This is something obviously deeply important to Levi that he get right. But why?

Because Levi is attempting here, I think, to hold on to the one good thing he has left. That idealized image of his mother. This picture of beauty and grace and elegance among a world of filth and despair and rottenness. This one good thing in an otherwise hopeless and meaningless life.

Levi stares despondently at the cup of tea as he sits at the same table he once shared tea with his mother, his face still bloody and beaten from his encounter with the men, and he remembers. He again sees the image of him and his mother, that romanticized memory of light shining down on them, illuminating them, bringing them warmth in an otherwise cold and desolate world.

And then we see Levi in the present again, sitting alone, in the same spot, but the light is gone. There’s nothing but darkness and decay and filth.

Levi picks the cup up, and begins to bring it to his lips to drink, and in the next panel, we see the handle snap off, and the cup fall, shattering against the floor.

And then Levi bursts into tears.

I said in my first analysis post that the cup shattering is what I think snaps Levi out of his state of shock, and I still think that’s true.

And the cup shattering is also symbolic of Levi losing the last and truly only good thing he’s ever had in his life. The memory of his mother. It’s been ruined by what he’s just done.

This is where the true damage of the man’s words to Levi about making his mother cry reveals itself.

Levi’s tears, I think, are tears of shame, and tears of despair.

I think Levi fully believes what the man had told him, that he’s made his mother cry by becoming a killer, and in so doing, he’s lost the ability for his mother’s memory to bring him comfort.

From here on, the only thing remembering his mother will bring Levi is a sense of self-loathing. A sense of repulsion, for how his own brutality and violence contrasts with so much ugliness against the beauty and elegance of his memory of her. And that's what the title of the story refers to. Levi sees himself as a "bad boy".

Because I think Levi believes himself to have become a part of the filth and rottenness of the Underground that he spoke of at the beginning. I think Levi believes, through that, that he’s sullied and destroyed the memory of his mother. That the one thing he “absolutely did not want to be lost” is now lost to him completely, and he’s left with nothing but the bleak hopelessness and worthlessness of his own life. With nothing but the “shitty world” he was born into.

In the final panel, we come to the actual present, with Levi sitting with Gabi and Falco. He says:

“Since then, I vowed to never hold the handle of a cup… ever again.”

And we see Gabi in tears, apologizing to Levi for making fun of him for the way he holds his cups, and Falco begging him to stop talking because he’s going to cry, too.

These are two kids who have seen some true horror in their lives, but even they can’t handle the wretched nightmare of this one story from Levi’s childhood. And that’s just it, it’s only a single story. A single story about a life spent in total darkness. A childhood without a single hope, without any light or warmth or goodness. About a man who lost the one, good thing he had because of the world he was born into, and the violence he was forced to learn as the only way to survive. A man who, against all odds, and even against the worthlessness he saw in his own life, still managed to have a greater kindness and compassion and respect towards the lives of others than anyone else. Who still believed, despite it all, that those lives were worth fighting for, and protecting, and remembering.

Levi’s life is such an utter tragedy.

I think “Bad Boy” demonstrates to us, once and for all, the true depth of that tragedy, and beyond that, the true miracle that Levi Ackerman is.

It's the miracle of Levi's inherent goodness overcoming the devastation of his life.

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