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annie leonhart’s character arc and what it entails. ✧
— a thread.
— a thread.
annie is a survivalist. throughout her entire character arc, she has always prioritized her own life over anyone else’s. despite being physically strong, she is a coward who hates facing conflict and being potentially unsafe in a situation, so she always chooses to run away.
she’s also selfish; she thinks that she has nothing to do with the ongoing conflicts and that she has no reason to be involved. her goal is to return to her father, nothing more, nothing less. “make the whole world your enemy”, is the words that annie lived by.
but... annie can’t learn and grow up by doing the same thing over and over again. after all, she is unable to make decisions of her own outside of listening to her father. she keeps clinging to the same ideas that once were essential to her survival but now are holding her back.
annie’s way forward therefore includes connecting to other people. in this way, her character arc is a foil to mikasa’s. mikasa needs to learn independence, a quality annie already has; annie needs to be able to connect with other people, something mikasa already can.
because no matter what she says, annie is not truly capable of living alone. almost no one in their world is. when she was crystallized, she was free from harm, conflict and didn’t have to interact or connect with people. but that only made things worse for annie.
but annie’s tendency to run away has become a force of habit. and that’s because she perceives herself as weak and wants to become a person who can go against the flow. but she can’t make the leap to suddenly change when she’s been doing the same thing her entire life.
however, thanks to armin’s influence, kiyomi’s words about not living with regrets, AND falco and gabi showing how they haven’t lost hope and wants to move forward despite having given up herself, led to annie finally being able to make that leap in the end and rejoin the battle.
although her father might be dead and she might not be able to achieve anything grand, her being able to connect with people, fighting alongside them and her effort to fight for others’ sake outside of her father and herself should not be diminished.
armin is a part of annie’s development, yes. but so is reiner, kiyomi, gabi, falco, and even mikasa. they all help her progress through her character arc and give her a purpose to keep fighting. and she now knows that she has people worth fighting for.
lastly, annie’s character arc is about realizing that she can care for people outside of herself and her father. it’s about learning to make her own choices based on what she wants to do, and confronting her weaknesses rather than running away from them.
annie’s character arc hasn’t ended yet, but i’m confident that isayama will deliver and give her a satisfying conclusion.
end of thread— thanks for reading this far! 
