r/ShingekiNoKyojin • u/Kromostone123 • Jul 22 '23
Manga About Annie... Spoiler
Annie is a very controversial character in the AOT fanbase. I'll be covering Annie's character and I'll reference all my points with images from the manga and anime. Enjoy!
First of all, Annie is a somewhat complex character. Very often she is painted as very black and white by the fanbase (which is not a problem unique to discussions about Annie). Let's start with what sets Annie apart from the rest of the characters. This page is in my opinion one of the big reasons Annie is extremely interesting.
"They're all liars" as she puts it. I appreciate this different point of view. Annie was given a terrible hand in life. She grew up in a ghetto, she was forced to become a Warrior, her lifespan was shortened. And now to survive, she has to kill tons of people. Her mindset of "this world sucks so I'm going to look out for myself and do whatever it takes to survive" is an extremely refreshing perspective.
But lots of characters had to kill to survive. So why do people hate Annie and not the others? Well, Annie had times where she didn't show remorse. One of the biggest examples of this is the infamous yo-yo incident.
Why did Annie toy with one of her victims in this moment? Does she not care that she's killing someone right now? Well, this is an example of Annie being a complicated character. While we do have instances like this, we also have moments from Annie like these...
Annie's expression when she had to take off Marco's ODM gear after overhearing Reiner and Bertholdt.
Annie waking up from a nightmare of reliving that moment and hearing Marco's screams.
Annie shocked after Eren pushed her onto a building, killing dozens of people.
So, we have a few examples of Annie showing some kind of remorse. At the very least, she isn't just a psychopath as some claim. So why did she do it? Well, this is one of Annie's inner struggles. There's one moment during the Marley arc that I just love. It's such a small moment yet it speaks volumes about Annie as a character.
As the rest of the children are talking amongst themselves, Annie is instead interested in squishing a bug with her foot. Later on, Annie shares her thoughts on this.
But as she spent time on the island, that had to have changed, for if that were still the case, why would Marco's death have been so traumatic for her? For an even better example, here's Annie apologizing to a corpse after the Trost battle in season 1.
This is the definition of remorse. So why did she spin that scout around like a yo-yo if she's clearly capable of showing remorse? This is one of Annie's internal struggles. Annie can't go home until she completes her mission. To complete her mission, she has to kill a lot of people. She has to kill people with her own "hands". Imagine what that does to a person. Here's some interesting dialogue from Eren to Zeke.
You literally feel those people you're crushing like bugs. No wonder Annie was stomping on insects as a child. You have to make yourself numb to human life to continue doing what you're doing. It's not like you're killing humans from range with rocks like the Beast or with weapons like the Warhammer. She's literally crushing them with what feels like her own "hands". Annie is trying to disconnect herself from the act she's actually commiting by trivializing it. She's not killing a real person. It's just some bug she doesn't care about. It's whatever. At least that's what she needs to believe to continue what she's doing.
So, now that we covered Annie internal struggle with human life, let's talk about her struggle with being a "good person".
While Reiner struggles with the idea of being a soldier loyal to Paradis, or a Warrior loyal to Marley, Annie struggles with the idea of being a good or bad person. She mentions this concept quite frequently infact.
Annie is so foreign to the concept of being a good person and doing things for someone else. She says as much in the example I gave in the first image of this post, "they only care about themselves, and I'm the same way. I need to get back home". But she found an interest in Armin. She considers Armin to be a good person. Armin is someone who would help others wether or not it benefited him.
When Annie spares Armin's life, that act was something so incredibly foreign to her. Armin questions why she did it, and she doesn't even know the answer.
Keeping Armin alive in that moment doesn't help her complete her mission and go home. Infact, it's the reason her identity ended up being revealed. Even Reiner questions her actions.
Annie's ideology is being challenged throughout her time on the island. When she was younger, she was cold to all human life, she didn't care about anyone else. But here and there we see her struggling to retain that mindset. She doesn't fully flip, but the conflict is definitely there.
After Annie is released from the crystal she says something to Hitch after talking about her life's story.
Annie knows that what she did was wrong. Yes her circumstances in life were absolutely terrible, but it doesn't change the fact that she did bad things. She'd do it all again to go back to her father. But why? Her father used her from a young age, trained her to become a Warrior just so he could enjoy a better life as an honorary Marleyan. By our standards, it's easy to say that Annie's dad is a terrible person. But we have to remember perspective. These people spent their lives in a ghetto and were treated like dirt. One slip up and they are killed, or worse, spending eternity as a titan. It's not hard to understand why someone would be so desperate to live a slightly better life as an honorary Marleyan. But after everything, after achieving his one goal, he realized he was wrong. As I said earlier, Annie was given a terrible hand in life. One person acknowledging her as his daughter was enough to keep her going.
And just as Kenny says, everyone needed to be drunk on something.
But once Annie hears that it's too late to save her father in Liberio, she no longer has a reason to keep going.
When Kiyomi has her conversation with Annie, she says something which is extremely relevant to Annie's situation with her father.
Again, the same internal struggle. The idea of doing something purely for others and not for herself. This is how her story started with the first page I showed, "they only care about themselves, and I'm the same". But again, Armin interests her. He's a "good person" who is able to do things for others even though it doesn't benefit him. Stopping the rumbling could not be a better example of this concept.
And after she thinks about it, after she remembers Armin and watches him throughout the final arc, she finally changes. As far as she knows, her father is dead, she doesn't have a home to go back to anymore. The thing she was drunk on for years was taken from her, but she still decides to go help others that need her.
Throughout the story, Annie is shown to struggle with remorse for human life as well as the ability to do things not purely for her own self interest and self preservation. But at the very end, she makes the entirely selfless choice to go back and try to stop Eren to protect thousands of human lives.
This was a long post so I'm not sure how many people are actually going to read it. There's another topic related to Annie about Levi not going for revenge. I plan to cover that in another post as it is a very common misconception about Levi's character.
Anyways, thanks for reading.
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u/LP_Papercut Jul 22 '23
This was excellent analysis. I think everyone on the sub should read this. Annie isn’t a character people really talk about much due to her being absent for large parts of the story, except when they want to say how much they dislike her. Like many other characters in the show, she has her own trauma and issues that explain her behavior and it’s not anything simple.
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u/DarkRose27 Jul 22 '23
100% this. She's easily one of the best-written characters in the story & is blatantly misunderstood despite her character arc being incredibly clear.
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u/Constant-Squirrel555 Jul 23 '23
Great post, anyone that thinks Annie is a poorly written character is being kinda dumb.
Dislike or like her, she's written really well and shows the struggle that comes along with having to do what's "right" or "wrong" in AoTs world.
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Jul 25 '23
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u/Constant-Squirrel555 Jul 25 '23
That's a very one dimensional way to look at her.
She's one of the few characters who calls out every side/major power in the AoT universe for being selfish liars who don't care for troops.
She constantly challenges the notion of what is "good" and "bad", based off her actions and dialogue.
You can dislike that she wants to be selfish, but her character has many layers and is tangibly written really well.
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Jul 23 '23
Wow finally some Annie respect on this sub. Never thought I’d see the day. Annie is one of my favorite characters in the show and it’s because of how complex she is. Thanks, OP
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u/Lobsters4Dinner Jul 23 '23
The amount of people who get hung up on that god damned
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u/DarkRose27 Jul 23 '23
Not to mention the Yo-Yo makes perfect sense since life to her has no value. Those people would have a point if she was doing that kind of sadistic shit to literally everyone & we saw her enjoying it but we see multiple examples of her emotions towards people she has an affinity for as well as innocent bystanders. All of the scouts that she kills are technically in self defense & are enemy soldiers which she was trained to see them as such & not other people. It's crazy that people use their monkey brain with this story.
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u/TrueComplaint8847 Jul 23 '23
Annie and
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u/TenPackChadSkywalker Jul 23 '23
One of the best female characters for sure. Another very powerful moment happens when her father was turned into a titan in front of her in chapter 138. However, she immediately transforms and helps Reiner to stop the hallucigenia. She still tries to help and do the right thing even in the most tragic moment of her life, when the titans, including his father, are ripping her apart.
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u/_Dominox_ Jul 23 '23
Excellent work! I thought about doing something like this myself, but I'm glad that someone did it already 😂
If you ask me, the biggest problem of AoT community is hate, and characters like Annie, Gabi, Flock is the best example as a lack of understanding or ignoring the essence of characters gives birth to hatred. Ironically coincides with the theme of the series, in which hatred led literally to the end of the world.
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u/communaldumpy Jul 25 '23
absolute w post. crazy tho, i didn’t even know ppl disliked her for the yo-yo scene. i thought she looked sick killing all the scouts 😮💨
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u/milkisanuwu Jul 24 '23
This is why she has been one of my favourite characters period (including other anime, movies, books, media, etc)
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u/Prestigious_Form_302 Jul 23 '23
This Is Exactly Why She’s My Favorite Female Character. She Has So Much Depth Despite The Fact That She Wasn’t There For a Good Chunk Of The Series. I Too Think She’s The Best Written Female Character In The Series ♡ Thanks For Putting Some Respect On Her Ñame ♡
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u/raydditor Jul 23 '23
She's a better written character than Mikasa.
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u/Nobodyherem8 Jul 23 '23
Good character in s1, poorly introduced in s4. That’s where most of her hate comes from.
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Jul 23 '23
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u/Nobodyherem8 Jul 23 '23
It wasn’t impactful because it was poor. First off her reasoning is pretty bad. Going back to her abusive dad? Remember seeing a post where an abused victim talked about how they hated that explanation. And her saying she would do it over again? I don’t think should’ve been included. I’m not saying she has to be like Reiner, but damn she’s not doing herself any favors.
Plus at the camp fire and the rest of the alliance scenes, she was brushed over. I love Reiner, but honestly some of his scenes should’ve been given to her. The whole point of the camp fire scene was for them to get their grievances in the air so they could unite. Missed opportunity to show the audience more of Annie’s thinking and for them to be able to sympathize with her.
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Jul 23 '23 edited Jul 23 '23
First off her reasoning is pretty bad. Going back to her abusive dad?
in tears because Zeke apologized to him, calls him his father for the first time in a long while. Grisha did exact same thing as Annie's dad. Grisha Historia's father treated her worse than Annie's father, and she went along with his plans because she just wanted to not upset him and be useful to him.
wanted to go back to the father that abandoned him and his mother for being Eldians. Reiner Why is it only bad when it comes to Annie, but understandable for every other character?
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u/Nobodyherem8 Jul 23 '23
Did any of them kill hundreds of thousands of people to go back to their abusive dad? Even after seeing the result of what they did, said they’d do it all over again to see said dad? People have to stop with these surface level comparisons god.
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u/Appropriate-Arm-2077 Jul 23 '23
I think people don’t like her because when you compare her to characters like Reiner and Zeke she falls flat. Reiner is liked because come on the dude wants to kill himself from the guilt. Zeke, doesn’t really show remorse like Reiner, so why isn’t he hated? Because he’s extremely well written which makes fan root for and sympathize with him. Annie doesn’t really show remorse like Reiner and isn’t well written like Zeke, so casual fans just see her as a one-dimensional psychopath.
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u/GameOverVirus Jul 23 '23
Honestly I think Annie’s character is pretty good until we get to the final arc with the Rumbling. As Annie decides she’s had enough, and doesn’t want to fight anyone anymore. I would accept this from Reiner, but from Annie? Someone who’s been sleeping for 4 years? While everyone else has been dying and killing to survive? Although what she went through is most certainly hell, it is nothing compared to what Bertholdt, and especially Reiner went through. And that’s just to speak of her fellow warriors, and nothing of what Connie, Armin, Hange, Mikasa, and the rest have had to do.
And given her character I thought that at the very end, when she has nothing to lose and her father is dead, she’d finally fight for something she actually believed in. A fight truly greater than herself, stopping Eren. And instead she only acts as what I can only describe as cowardly, which is both disappointing and dissatisfying to watch.
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Jul 23 '23
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u/TenPackChadSkywalker Jul 30 '23
A relatively big portion of the fanbase had already decided which characters they liked or disliked. They were so reluctant to change their views on those characters that they ignored all the character development in the last arc, and they still do.
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Jul 25 '23
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Jul 23 '23
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u/Kromostone123 Jul 23 '23
I wanted to talk about this in my post, but it was getting too long and 20 images is the max you're allowed to put.
The thing is, everyone is affected differently. Reiner and Annie although growing up in similar environments, were affected mentally in different ways. My post references that when describing Reiner's identity issues. The way Annie was affected was in a way that just happens to be in a way we have a harder time sympathizing with. While Reiner was suicidal, Annie was cold to human life.
About the consequences... The thing is, if you think Annie deserved consequences, then you'd have to think the same about Armin if you want to be consistent. Armin directly blew up thousands of people. Even Jean, Connie, Hange, Mikasa, and Levi assisted with a terrorist attack on Liberio which killed many civilians. They betrayed their own homeland and killed their own comrades. There are many in the fanbase that believe they deserve consequences too and that their actions are disgusting.
The thing with AOT is, there's context for these terrible actions. I recommend reading chapter 133 where Jean and Connie talk about Reiner and how they're the same. They directly compare themselves to eachother. Armin in 131 when he talks to Annie also talks about how he's killed a lot of people "not just soldiers... regular people... children".
Not to mention the fact that while Reiner and Bertholdt were playing soldier, Annie was the one that had to run through the interior and through the sewers trying to get information. She was the one that had to go on her secret mission and fight all those scouts, she's the one that had to evade capture several times, she's the one that had to be stuck, conscious inside a crystal for years. But that doesn't even matter, her true test for redemption happened at the very end. She chose to go back and probably die while trying to stop Eren, all while thinking that her father was dead and her home was already destroyed.
These are all reasons why I disagree with the idea that she "deserved" some kind of extra consequences.
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Jul 23 '23
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u/Kromostone123 Jul 23 '23
Consequences, or "punishments" to be more blunt, should prevent a character from repeating the same things.
And Annie in the end changed her ways without the "punishment" that some think she deserved. Either way, I don't agree with that premise to begin with.
I disagree with this, since I believe the scouts attacked in retaliation, I wouldn't put Paradis under the same lens.
The raid on Liberio was absolutely NOT an act of retaliation. This is a huge can of worms that I'm not doing to get in to right now.
"While Annie was busy playing MP, Reiner and Bertholdt were the ones who had to guard their secret from their close friends, fight titans without relying on their powers, etc etc"
Annie was constantly the one in danger and risking everything throughout season 1 while Reiner and Bertholdt were not. But again, it doesn't really matter. It's not a competition about who suffered more. All the characters suffered. All the characters did terrible things. We understand the context of their actions. The characters grew from those sins.
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