“what am i to you?” the importance of eren’s question

[thread]

before i start, it should be noted that these are *my* thoughts and opinions. you are welcome to your own and i encourage you to have them, but i’m not interested in engaging in futile ship wars and will not. i’ll try to keep this neutral and hopefully it makes sense!

so first, i think it starts with their respective promises. before carla was eaten by dina’s titan, she asks mikasa to promise she will always take care of eren and watch out for him. mikasa promises that she will. shortly after, carla gets eaten and she urges them to live

from then on, it’s evident that mikasa does what she understands is necessary to protect him. it’s not until chapter 50 that we see carla asking him to protect mikasa for a change. it’s when they’re faced with dinas titan again that he manages to do that

he’s ready to give up, he feels like a failure and then she tells him that’s not true. she thanks him for saving her life and wrapping his scarf around her and teaching him how to live. she then seems to pull in to kiss him, and that’s when his own promise happens

he tells her he will wrap the scarf around her again and again forever. afterwards he punches dinas titan, activates the founder, and saves both their lives. it’s clear that eren did his own part in doing what carla asked of him too. they both kept promises in their own way

so then let’s go into him asking her what he is to her before he leaves for marley. in ch 50, he is faced with hannes death and breaks down. in chapter 131 he cries to ramzi and apologizes for what he’s about to do. in both instances, he was feeling devastated and she appeared

when mikasa shows up he then asks her what he is to her. he distinctly says “is it because i saved you as a kid or is it because i’m family?” mikasa chose to answer “family” and for some reason, that seems to not have been the correct answer, and she wonders this herself

what difference would “because you saved me” have made if she answered that instead? there could be many reasons, but maybe one is because it’s what she did in chapter 50. she told him then that he saved her and shook him out of his current state. she changed his course of action

in confessing (which honestly is what she did) she made him fight. so he asks her what he is to her and she doesn’t say it again. she doesn’t confess or thank him. she says family, and then wonders if a different answer could’ve changed everything, even the rumbling itself

afterwards in paths zeke catches him stopping to stare at the memory of him wrapping his scarf around mikasa. he told her he would wrap it around her again and again forever, and before marley, he apparently sought to hear the words that made him promise that in the first place

all of this goes without mentioning him approaching zeke about the alluded ackerbond and zeke telling him she just loves him (also zeke’s smile?) and eren using this to hurt her in ch 112 and her being the biggest memory shards etc. why is her attachment to him important to HIM?

in summary: mikasa’s pretty obvious love for eren set him straight once, saved them both, and could’ve stopped everything. literally the rumbling itself. shipping or not, the content is there and it seems to be important.