I recently received an ask that left me very unsure. I stared at it. I reread it more than a dozen times. I started typing a rather testy response, then deleted it for being too defensive. I considered laying the blame on what is objectively not the best character development Isayama has written, and while I will be doing some of that here, I could not ignore the thought that if I and other people I’ve spoken with could read complexity into a character like Mikasa Ackerman, what was stopping others?

So I went back and reread the Defense of Trost arc while focusing on Mikasa, and now I feel better equipped to handle this question.

Mikasa Ackerman is the protagonist who receives the least attention in the way of character development. While Eren and Armin have been developed in significant and clear ways from the beginning of the series onward, Mikasa seems to be halted forever at the moment Eren “rescued” her. We know that she is motivated by her dedication to those she considers her family, but that is a desire that was instilled in her during the exposition of her backstory. It is a foregone conclusion that Mikasa will fight, will stand by, will move forward, and will live for her family. So if she considers Armin a member of her family, then why did she accept her death at Trost?

I believe that premise is quite reductive. It is not entirely the reader’s fault for believing this, because both Mikasa herself and the narrative consistently stress and emphasize her dedication to her family through both words and actions.

The Defense of Trost arc, however, laid the groundwork for her growth. I would go as far to posit that the Defense of Trost narrative arc coincides with Mikasa Ackerman’s character arc, and the very essence of that character arc refutes the idea that Mikasa should have first considered other members of her family in the aftermath of Eren’s “death,” because the purpose of this development was not necessarily to have Mikasa reaffirm her commitment to her family, but revisit the lesson Eren demonstrated to her when he urged her to fight.

Herein I will mainly be addressing the Defense of Trost arc and its immediate aftermath (roughly the first eighteen chapters of the manga), but I will be including examples all the way through Chapter 48. Therefore, proceed with caution!

We have never known a Mikasa who was not acquainted with loss. Her memories give us a very fleeting glimpse of what life with her parents. We know she is the last descendant of a clan she bears the symbol of on her wrist, that she was curious about matters like where babies come from, that her mother is Japanese but her father is not, and that they were expecting a visit from Grisha Jaeger. That is most of what there is to glean from the single page that depicted Mikasa interacting with her parents. Tragedy follows right on that scene’s heels, so the Mikasa focused on most during this flashback was this one.

Though Mikasa’s mother fought to buy her daughter time to escape, Mikasa could not move. She had just witnessed her father’s murder, was watching her mother attempt to fight off an assailant. She was in shock, traumatized. Mikasa, however, rationalizes her inability to listen to her mother and run for her life in this way.

Already we can perceive Mikasa’s connection to family. Notice how she frames her circumstances: Wherever I am will be too cold for me to live… if you and Daddy aren’t there. Here Mikasa is a nine-year-old child. Her fear at being without her parents–at being left alone in the cold–is perfectly understandable.

Eren’s entrance to the scene immediately follows the above panels, and though he manages to kill two of Mikasa’s kidnappers, the third catches him unawares. As he is being strangled, Eren urges Mikasa to fight.

But Eren’s words alone do not persuade Mikasa to fight. She hesitates, believing she cannot do such a thing. Then she remembers just what kind of world she lives in: a cruel place where the strong prey on the weak to survive, and she realizes she can.

After Grisha and the police finally arrive, Mikasa once again expresses that she is cold.

So Eren gives her his scarf.

Moreover, he offers her a home.

The cold can be interpreted as a metaphor for being alone, or perhaps bereft. A state of being without anything to hold on to. Eren giving Mikasa his scarf and offering her a place in his home immediately afterwards is a significant sequence of events. The scarf alleviates the physical sensation of being cold and reintroduces warmth to Mikasa, and the offer of belonging in Eren’s family has the same effect on another level. Whereas she had been without anything to hold on to or anywhere to go from there, she is given a family to become a part of, a place to call home. It is no surprise that Mikasa keeps this scarf as long as she does: it keeps her warm, even if she is not physically cold.

This is Mikasa at the beginning of her character arc: aware of how cruel and merciless the world she lives in is but delivered from its cold by the promise of belonging to Eren’s family. Of course, it is highly significant to note that Mikasa on a fundamental level delivers herself as well as Eren by choosing to fight and kill the third kidnapper, and though Mikasa is aware of her own strength afterwards, she still fears the cold. This does not mean she is paralyzed by this fear, however. Mikasa, after all, is well aware of her agency and strength, and she uses her abilities to preserve the warmth she has left: her found family.

The most glaringly obvious member of Mikasa’s family is Eren, and it is not difficult to understand why. By offering her both the scarf and a home, Eren ushered Mikasa out of the cold. I would even go as far to say that in becoming the central member of Mikasa’s family, Eren comes to embody the warmth himself in Mikasa’s eyes.

Being at the center of Mikasa’s newfound family does not mean that he is her only family. Carla Jaeger, at the very least, was definitely a part of Mikasa’s family. It is also heavily implied that Carla understood her adopted daughter very well.

Mikasa’s promise to Carla here is a reinforcement of her commitment to her family. Of course she will help and look after Eren; he is her family, after all. Carla understands Mikasa’s dedication to keeping Eren safe, and the two of them are allies in this pursuit. Remember, Mikasa is quick to tell Carla and Grisha about Eren’s plans to join the Scouting Legion, so we can only infer that Mikasa was very forthcoming with her adoptive parents about the trouble Eren gets himself into.

What Mikasa may not have understood about Carla, however, is that she, like Mikasa’s biological mother, places her children’s lives over her own.

In her last moments, knowing that she is trapped and will die, Carla turns to Mikasa. Perhaps she was able to perceive the capacity for callousness in her adoptive daughter that Mikasa herself was not yet aware of. Here we see Carla counting on Mikasa to leave her–her adoptive mother–behind to die and get her son out of harm’s way. Were many fan interpretations of Mikasa being obsessed with Eren to the exclusion of everyone else correct, perhaps Mikasa would have pried Eren away from his mother in her final moments and left her to die. But look at Mikasa in these panels: she is still attempting to help Eren lift the rubble off of Carla; she is crying. This is not the reaction of an individual who cares only for one person at the expense of everyone else. This is a daughter who once again refuses to leave her mother to die alone. Carla is part of Mikasa’s family, and here Mikasa demonstrates that she is as dedicated to putting herself in harm’s way to save her as she is when Eren’s life is on the line.

Even after they see a titan headed straight for them, Mikasa and Eren do not run for their own lives, despite Carla’s desperate pleas directed primarily at Mikasa.

Mikasa is as unwilling to leave her adoptive mother to die as Eren is, and it takes Hannes to carry them both away from danger. And if Mikasa seems more composed than Eren in the aftermath of their mother’s death, it is because she has experienced this before. She has already watched her mother die before her eyes, so this time she knows to look away.

After Carla’s death and Grisha’s disappearance, Mikasa has lost two more members of her found family. It’s no wonder that she sticks closer to Eren, who is one of the only sources of warmth Mikasa has left. Her promise to Carla doubtlessly plays into this as well, as does Carla’s dying wish. And if Eren’s reaction to Mikasa chastising him for arguing with Jean their first night as military trainees is any indication, Mikasa has been fulfilling her promise to Carla and keeping her family safe for the two years she, Eren, and Armin spent working the fields as refugees.

It’s during our protagonists’ time as trainees that Mikasa expresses anxiety about what Eren wants to get out of training. When Eren manages to stay balanced in the 3D maneuver gear harness and reacts with adulation, Armin describes it as triumph. Mikasa, however, has a different interpretation.

While Eren’s thoughts could be construed as happiness that he has proven Mikasa wrong, I do not think Mikasa is entirely correct in her assessment. It is possible that Eren demonstrating aptitude in basic position control makes him happy because he can become a soldier and thereby become strong enough to fight the titans, which, in his mind, would also make him strong enough so that he will not have to depend on Mikasa anymore. If “depend” is what Mikasa means by “stay close to me,” then she is right; Eren does not want to depend on her. Instead, he probably wants to be treated as her equal, which also means not having Mikasa follow him wherever he goes because she feels indebted to him.

Something interesting to note is that Eren, who supposedly has a very negative opinion of the Military Police, actually encourages Mikasa to become a policewoman.

It is important to keep in mind that Eren’s experiences with Annie have changed his perspective about the police. He not only accepts and respects Annie’s choice to join them, but learns from Annie that those given the privilege of joining the Military Police directly are the graduates with the highest aptitude for fighting titans, which is a skill set Eren admires and aspires to hone in himself. Also remember that aptitude and skill are things Mikasa possesses in spades.

So while this may seem like an attempt to get Mikasa off his back–and perhaps that is one of his motivations for encouraging her–I would argue that it demonstrates Eren dislikes it when Mikasa does things that, in his view, sabotage her own potential, interests, or responsibilities. Worse yet, when she does it for his benefit and his benefit alone.

One such example is when Mikasa tells Eren she will abandon military training altogether should Eren fail the 3D maneuver gear balance aptitude exercise despite the opportunity it presents for someone with her aptitude…

… though another good one is when Mikasa considers questioning her superior’s orders during the Battle of Trost because Eren is assigned to a different squad than her.

Also keep in mind that Mikasa never wanted to join the military so much as stay close to Eren. Before the fall of Wall Maria, Mikasa actively discouraged Eren and Armin’s dreams of exploring the outside world. She never quite possessed the curiosity and wonder Eren shared with Armin, because the world within the walls may be cruel, but the world beyond it is far crueler, and Mikasa knows this. Perhaps that is all she feels she needs to know about it. Like Annie, Mikasa has remained firm in prioritizing survival, so why wouldn’t the Military Police be a good fit for her? Perhaps it would be… if Eren joined alongside her.

Nevertheless, the sentiment Mikasa expresses in the wake of Eren’s triumph with the 3D maneuver gear harness is a clear indication that she fears losing her family not just to the cruel world they inhabit, but to Eren’s choice to voluntarily distance himself from her as well.

Something I find quite interesting about Mikasa is that she is actually quite fearless in battle. She has an intuitive understanding of how to fight, and does not seem to fear fighting the titans like many of her comrades do. Though she lost her physical home when the titans invaded Shiganshina, she feels like she will always have a place to return to as long as Eren is around.

Here is something I would like to stress: Mikasa Ackerman is aware of her own competence, of her intuitive genius in combat. She does not doubt that she can fight the titans and survive. She does not hesitate before propelling herself through the air at an abnormal titan running toward a crowd of civilians. She has made herself strong in this world where only the strong can triumph and survive; I would say that she purposefully honed her natural talents so she could become strong enough to protect herself against what she does fear: losing any more of her family.

It’s only fitting, then, that the catalyst for Mikasa’s character arc is the perceived loss of her family–the foundation that enables her to fight so competently and fearlessly… as long as it is intact.

Now, before I wade into what the growth Eren’s “death” prompts Mikasa to undergo entails, I would like to take make a detour and address a part of the question that got me writing this post in the first place: what does Armin mean to Mikasa?

I firmly believe Mikasa sees and treats Armin as part of her family too, if not as central a part of it as Eren is. When Mikasa arrives at the other trainees’ location in search of Eren, she first approaches Annie.

Notice how she does not spare a moment to ask how Annie is doing before asking if she’s seen Eren’s team at all. Annie is Mikasa’s acquaintance and someone she has come to accept as part of Eren’s life, which is why she approaches her instead of, say, Reiner, who is standing right next to Annie. Despite feeling a certain amount of respect toward Annie, I think it is more than fair to conclude that Mikasa does not perceive her as part of her family.

Now compare how Mikasa interacts with Annie to how she approaches Armin.

Before she even asks about Eren, Mikasa asks Armin if he is injured, if he is okay. She subordinates her concern for Eren to the more immediate concern of Armin’s well-being. However brief that subordination was, it happened, and these were not questions Mikasa took the time to ask Annie. Granted, Armin is visibly affected and Annie seems fine, but I think the point still stands.

Even after Armin tells Mikasa that Eren had “died” saving his life, Mikasa does not blame him. Armin accepts complete responsibility for being unable to do anything to save his best friend, but Mikasa reacts gently, helping him onto his feet.

It is true that Mikasa is likely experiencing shock here. As Armin accurately surmises later, she is keeping active to suppress her emotional reaction, because this is not the time to be emotional. Whether that factors into how she reacts to Armin is certainly up to interpretation, but I do think her reaction is informed more by who Armin is to her than her shock.

Before moving on, I would like to draw your attention to another instance where Eren’s “death” may not have been confirmed, but his life was certainly in doubt.

When Mikasa watches the Female Titan pull Eren out of his titan form’s nape and abduct him, she pursues her relentlessly, unwilling to believe that Eren is dead. Levi has her pull back when he catches up to her, and Mikasa does not have any kind words for him, nor does she show Levi the unflappable front she showed Armin at Trost.

Notice how she lays the blame for Eren’s current predicament at Levi’s feet. Levi was responsible for Eren; had he performed his duties properly, Eren would never have been abducted. I realize that Mikasa still harbors resentment toward Levi for what he did to Eren at the tribunal, but her reaction here is wildly different from how she reacts to Armin at Trost. Armin was with Eren, but Mikasa does not blame him. Armin himself tells Mikasa that Eren sacrificed himself to save him, but Mikasa does not blame him. Despite the fact that Mikasa treats Armin as someone she trusts and in many ways views as another “partner” in caring for Eren, she still does not blame him for what happened to Eren, and I do believe that is significant in indicating how she feels about Armin.

In any case, Eren’s “death” derails what makes Mikasa so effective. She does ascertain what the trainees need to continue and set her sights on cutting a path to HQ to secure that for them, and she certainly seems to propel herself into battle as fearlessly as ever… but Armin is correct in reading her actions as reckless instead of her usual fearlessness. This is not the Mikasa who saved dozens of civilians from a deviant titan when her superiors could not. This is another Mikasa altogether.

That being said, Mikasa does not consciously intend to die. By her own admission, she was so consumed with drowning her grief out through action that she failed to recognize her gas supply was dangerously close to empty before it was too late.

It is once she cannot fight anymore, however, that Mikasa must confront the bereavement she has been trying to forestall.

This is the watershed moment for Mikasa. She has lost yet another family member, but this time it is the most central: the boy who came for her when she was in peril, who fought for her and made her realize she could fight too, who gave her a home, who embodies the warmth she so desperately wants to conserve and protect. She has been left behind in the cold again. And isn’t it so fitting that Armin describes her recklessness as an attempt to suppress her “shaking?” Despite her scarf, Mikasa is cold. She has lost her foundation, and I think it is time I clarify what I mean by that.

Like I’ve said before, Mikasa is very aware of her own abilities. She has always been strong, and she has made herself even stronger through military training. By her own logic, she is strong enough to triumph and continue surviving in the merciless world where the weak perish.

But why is surviving in such a cruel world something she would want, if all its beauty was stolen?

Embodying warmth means Eren represents all the things Mikasa feels make life worth living: family, belonging, beauty. With Eren dead, Mikasa does not see a point to contending with the world’s cruelty anymore. Where should she flee to when wherever she goes will be too cold for her to live without her family?

Why didn’t she think of Armin? Grief. Grieving is not exactly a logical process, and though Armin is also an individual Mikasa considers part of her family, she is overwhelmed by her loss. She was not in any state of mind to recheck her priority list and realize that Armin was now at the top of it. I don’t think anyone can do that mere minutes after they learn a loved one as important to them as Eren is to Mikasa has died. In fact, I would argue that Mikasa dedicating herself to helping the other trainees reach HQ so they could refuel was, in a way, thinking about Armin. She continued fighting! Had she not, the trainees–including Armin–would have stayed put on that rooftop until the titans came for them. It was only when she ran out of gas and it seemed like the situation was utterly hopeless that she gave up and accepted her death, so I would not say that she didn’t think of Armin or her other comrades at all after learning about Eren’s death, even if it was a very minor consideration that did not receive as much thought as it should have in the face of her grief.

Aside from that? It would have negated the entire purpose of her character arc had she thought of Armin and resolved to keep fighting for him.

If there is one thing I would like to impart, it is that Eren “rescuing” Mikasa did not break her out of the understandable but problematic rationalizations she made as a child. Even after she fought and killed the man strangling Eren, the world was still so cold she did not know where to go from there. Eren offering her a place in his family chased the cold away with newfound warmth, but it did not address why Mikasa felt cold in the first place. Mikasa at nine feared being left in the cold; Mikasa at fifteen still fears being left in the cold.

It would seem like what Eren shouted at her to awaken her survival instincts back then had, in fact, gotten through to Mikasa. In fact, Mikasa repeats this maxim a few times…

… during the Battle of Trost…

… so it would seem like she has internalized it, but she has not!

And this is why, at the climax of her character arc, she revisits that scene.

The point I am about to make is made pretty clear by how the flashback bleeds into the present here, but these are paired scenes. Like I’ve said before, repetition carries weight. When you see a certain kind of scene play out more than once, they are tied together by association, and their individual weights in the narrative complement and heighten each other.

Focus on the similarities. Once again, she is holding a short blade. She is confronted with a seemingly insurmountable obstacle: as a child, it was a grown man intent on killing another child and selling her into slavery; as a soldier, it is a titan while she is without any blades or gas. And though he is gone, she hears Eren’s shouting again, how he urges her to fight.

And this is when Mikasa finally realizes what Eren meant.

Death is final. Once you have died, that’s it. You cannot do anything, interact with anyone, see more of the world, learn anything new. Eren’s maxim is life-affirming in what is literally the most fundamental of ways. He does not tell Mikasa why she must fight to survive; he simply tells her she must fight and win to live lest she lose and die. Those words and her subsequent realization about how cruel the world is may have stimulated her survival instincts, but it is now, in the absence of family or warmth, that they awaken once and for all.

Though Eren is “dead,” Mikasa chooses to continue fighting for herself. Yes, she rationalizes it as wanting to continue to remember Eren, which is something she would not be able to do if she too were dead, but please realize that this is her own reason. Remembering Eren can be interpreted as calling upon a part of herself–her memories of him–to produce warmth. At this moment, she is not using others to justify her own survival to herself. Mikasa has chosen to fight, to survive, to create her own warmth. And that is highly significant coming from someone who, just moments earlier, accepted her own death.

I hope what I meant about Armin makes more sense in this context. It was necessary for Mikasa to come to this realization on her own before she considered Armin again. She needed to move from a space where she justified fighting with protecting her family to a space where she fought to survive. Though Mikasa says in Chapter 48 that the people she cared about had been decided six years prior, it is here, at Trost, that Mikasa decides she cares enough about herself–about what she can accomplish by surviving–to continue fighting.

It is in the aftermath of this realization that Mikasa can reconsider her actions, relationships with others, and responsibilities in a new light. When she remembers how she spurred the other trainees to follow her into battle, Mikasa realizes how thoughtless she had been in accepting a responsibility she was not ready for.

Mikasa is exhibiting a great deal of self-awareness here, which is something other characters often fall short of achieving. Whereas she had once been unaware, blinded by her grief, now she can look back and realize that she faltered and why. That she took on a highly significant responsibility she really had no business taking upon herself in the mental state she was in at the time. Before, she had been going through the motions: telling Armin now was not the time to be emotional when she was in turmoil, rallying troops she had not realized would be depending on her to lead them. Now, like Jean does later in the chapter, she considers whether or not she is capable of leading and rises to the occasion.

And it is after that that she looks at Armin again…

… and realizes that he is planning to stay behind, armed with only the broken, short blade Mikasa had left…

… so he could take his own life with it instead of being eaten.

You could read Armin’s actions here as an attempt at atonement. From his perspective, Eren died because of him. He tells Mikasa as much; he accepts full responsibility for what happened to Eren. By sacrificing himself so that Mikasa can survive and lead the other trainees to safety, Armin may very well feel like he is doing everything he can do to not only atone for Eren’s death, but his part in helping to save the others. After all, Armin thinks he is useless at this point. He thought it would have been better if he died with Eren, so he might as well die in a way that benefits his friends the most.

And yet she still does not blame him or accept how he blames himself. Instead, Mikasa reaffirms her commitment to Armin. Now she can take his hand and tell him, without any hesitation whatsoever, that she will not leave him behind.

And it is from here on out that Mikasa embraces the responsibilities she had accepted. She becomes a leader who knows the strengths of the individuals she’s leading, which is why she defers to Armin in terms of strategy. When Sasha is in danger, Mikasa kills the titan threatening her, asks her if she is injured, then encourages her to get back on her feet.

Even after Eren is revealed to be alive, Mikasa still proves she is capable of recognizing other’s strengths and delegating responsibility when she once again joins Eren in deferring to Armin when they are surrounded by the garrison, thus entrusting him not only with her life but Eren’s and Armin’s own as well–the livelihood of her entire family resting on Armin’s shoulders. Later, when Eren goes berserk after shifting, Mikasa trusts Armin to take care of Eren while she goes where she is most needed.

If I had to summarize the development Mikasa underwent during the Battle of Trost, it would be moving from a state where she prioritized the defense of her family in such a way that the value of her surviving hinged on their continued presence in her life to a space where she becomes self-aware, finds her survival instincts, and exhibits qualities befitting a leader.

However… there is a reason why I referred to this character arc as “forgotten” in the title and mentioned Isayama’s not-as-strong-as-usual writing at the beginning of this post.

Compare Mikasa’s character arc to Armin’s. After he learns Eren and Mikasa have always trusted, depended on, and regarded him as an equal, Armin becomes more sure of himself: he successfully talks down the trigger happy soldiers surrounding the three of them; he makes suggestions to Pixis’s team while they plan how they will retake Trost; he tells Mikasa he will take care of Eren and urges her to go where she is most needed. The chain of reactions set off by his realization at Trost do not stop at Trost either: he expresses support for the pragmatic, utilitarian strategies Irwin uses to capture the Female Titan; he crafts and puts his own plan into play where he attempts to deceive Annie and lead her into a trap, resulting in the deaths of the soldiers who were restraining her. Notice how the development Armin is undergoing is clear and fits the trend of his arc.

Mikasa’s arc, on the other hand? I am not entirely sure if it has progressed very much at all beyond the aftermath of Trost. While she has not given any indication that she has questioned her newly asserted survival instincts, the discovery that Eren was never dead after all has not afforded her many opportunities for continued growth in the direction she was set on during the Defense of Trost narrative arc. She has not been given any opportunities for leadership; she has not overtly demonstrated the kind of self-awareness she did while considering her responsibility to the friends she’d rallied. Mikasa still demonstrates a deep and abiding commitment to keeping her family safe–if now also being more willing to allow others to assume responsibility for Eren’s safety and being more comfortable with supporting Eren when he commits himself to dangerous and serious tasks only he can accomplish–and though the way Mikasa acted while desperately and recklessly pursuing the Female Titan through the Forest of Giant Trees and later when she threatened Krista, Ymir, Bertholdt, and Reiner with death if they stood in her way are actions that are understandable and true to who Mikasa is, I am not sure if this constitutes forward movement. Especially since her counterparts have such clear development arcs going for them.

Now, I am not saying that Mikasa has not grown at all since Trost (I believe she has, and in some ways her “growth” is similar to Armin’s, by which I mean it is more of a “descent” where Mikasa and Armin hold hands and walk down a road leading them toward becoming more and more ruthless in their own ways), but that many of the trends of development that began at Trost have not progressed. Whether this is more due to an inconsistency, lack of attention, or excessive subtlety in the Mikasa-related storytelling as the series progresses–hence the “forgotten arc” comment–or a lack of clear, ordered writing in Mikasa’s backstory and development toward the beginning of the series, I am not entirely sure.

What I do know is that this arc happened, despite what was pretty awkward and unclear writing!

Mikasa Ackerman is a complex character; I firmly believe that. However, we may need to take the initiative to read some of that complexity into her character by considering who she is, where she has come from, and the full context of the situations she is confronted with. For example, instead of reading Mikasa’s cold and uncompromising attitude in Chapter 48 as being completely due to the fact that Bertholdt and Reiner have taken Eren and refuse to return him to her, also consider that it was Bertholdt, the Colossal Titan, who caused Carla’s death. It was debris from the gate Bertholdt kicked in that crushed Carla’s legs and trapped her, and the hole in the gate that allowed the titan that devoured her to enter Shiganshina. I have no doubt in my mind that their abduction of Eren is a large and significant part of why Mikasa reacted to them in the way that she did, but instead of stopping at the low-hanging fruit that is usually the answer in one way or another when it comes to Mikasa, try considering that Mikasa may also want revenge for her adoptive mother’s death. Consider reading Mikasa Ackerman’s fixation on family not solely as an issue she will have to deal with, but as one of the cornerstones of her effectiveness. So should she ever address it in another moment of self-awareness or external questioning, just how will that affect her ability as a fighter and a soldier?

Thank you for reading!