Azula. This 14-year old princess of the Fire Nation was constantly out to off her own brother and uncle, she nearly killed the Avatar, brought down an entire continent with nothing more than a few vicious words and her “divine right to rule”, suggested using the power of a comet to burn the place to the ground when they didn’t surrender, scared her own best friends into fighting alongside herself…… And I STILL can’t bring myself to hate her half as much as I do this BITCH Gabi. Gabi doesn’t even have the benefit of being interesting to watch or having the “Evil is Cool” card or the simple advantage of not being such a late addition to the series where she clearly isn’t supposed to be the main focus. Or even a genuinely tragic backstory like Azula kind of has. And she’s certainly not cute in any sense.
She is NOT an interesting character to watch, she is not endearing, she is not cool to watch, she is never shown to have any weaknesses and always comes out mostly unscathed no matter how much she gets called out on her crap, at least we’re not actively forced to sympathize with Azula, but Isayama CLEARLY is trying too hard to justify Gabi in his attempts to yank sympathy for her. Avatar didn’t shy away from saying what a lunatic the 14-year old Azula was or make light of her crimes. Gabi is only two years younger and we’re supposed to forgive her apparently. Well go to hell because we never asked for this annoying little bitch. Azula was someone we loved to hate, Gabi is someone we just HATE. She adds nothing to this story. It takes a special skill to make a character so much easier to hate than a character who was MEANT to be hated. All it takes is one bad decision. Unfortunately Isayama does everything in twos. To that I say he ought to be royally blackballed.
as much as I hate gabi as well, it’s obvious that isayama’s intentions for including gabi is that it shows us a different perspective of the world.
spoilers for the manga and anime as well so be warned...
gabi was conditioned as a child for war. she was brainwashed to believe the people of paradis were all devils, who were cowardly enough to run away and hide for 100 years behind walls that are way too tall to climb. we see many times how the people of marley view those of paradis, and those views leaked into those of the eldians because they’re too scared to think of their own. she was brainwashed into thinking that because she wasn’t from paradis, that she was a better eldian, and can show the world that eldians can be better, but in a more twisted way due to how it was literally drilled into her brain that she needs to fight, fight, fight.
for example, if you haven’t read the entire manga please skip this paragraph but I’m assuming you have, the first titan shifter, ymir. she was conditioned very young that all she is is a slave, that freedom was never an option. we literally see king fritz give her freedom only for her to come back to him of her free will because, in her mind, she’s just a slave.
for gabi, she is a soldier for her people.
random people from a place she was told all her life that were devils, that were the spawn of satan, came at night, killed two of her best friends in front of her, killed two officers that told her to run even though she was a ‘lower race’ and many more innocent people be it children, woman, men and elderly people. of course she would be furious and want to fight back, that’s all she was ever taught.
her reaction was the same as eren’s when he witnessed his mother and many other people die right in front of him, the only difference here is that he couldn’t fight back, just as hannes said. gabi can, because unlike eren, she was trained from a young age how to fight. and so she did, because in her mind, these people are bad guys and i must kill the bad guys.
i’m again assuming that you have read the manga since your choice of words insinuates that. if so, and if you don’t want spoilers, i advice you to skip this paragraph too. actually, she has been called out, for many of her actions. a child literally screamed “I hate you,” and “why do you care about her, she’s a monster,” I can’t remember what exactly she said but it was something like that. and she felt genuine remorse and guilt for what happened, knowing the full context of who that person was before (not saying who it is cause i’m still not over her death) and their family, what they fought for, and their actions. she is sorry and wants to do the right thing now, at least what she believes is the right thing. she even calls herself a monster or devil, can’t remember what it was at the moment
the reason why azula may be a good bad guy is cause...well...she’s bad through and through. she lacks empathy, heck, she has none. she doesn’t care about people around her and only cares about power. we can’t make her a grey character because she’s a bad person through and through. yes, the way she grew up may have resulted in how she turned out today, but everyone is in control of their own actions, be it they have mental illnesses or not. we can empathise with her for being a person who never got the mental help she needed from the very start but we cannot forgive her for what she had done.
gabi is a bad bad guy because she’s just doing what she thinks is right, what she’s been told all her life. gabi has empathy. she cares and loves the people she holds dear, such as her friends and reiner. because of this empathy, she’s making judgements based on information she has gathered and understands more the more she learns of other peoples perspectives of life and their way of living. she’s realising and regretting what she has done and wants forgiveness. she’s a good person, just someone who’s learning continuously as the manga continues.
hate her or love her, gabi is a good character, because her development from being an ignorant and spiteful child into a regretful and understanding one is very, well done.
