Kuchel's Elegance and How It Relates to Levi's Obsession with Cleanliness:
So, I've been seeing some people discussing the answer Isayama gave in his most recent interview, about why it is Levi is obsessed with cleanliness, and concluding from what he said that all of the theorizing over the years that it was a coping mechanism that Levi had developed to deal with the filth and disease of his environment growing up was wrong, and the real reason is just that Levi thinks he was "better" than his environment growing up because he "felt he had something noble in him".
But I disagree with this. I think what Isayama said essentially confirms that Levi's obsession with cleanliness is a coping mechanism. As usual, I think people tend to take Isayama's comments and interpret them totally out of context of the actual canon narrative, which is what I think leads to so many bad takes about Levi's character in this fandom, and really, overall about AoT.
You have to understand Isayama's answers in interview through the context of the manga itself, and I think for this particular answer, "Bad Boy" is the specific story that applies the most.
This page is vital, I think, in understanding what Isayama meant. It's not that Levi thinks he's better, it's that he thinks his mother is better, and since Levi carries his mother inside him, that's what I think Isayama is referring to when he says Levi has always felt there was something noble running through his veins. The nobility comes from his mother.
We see in the above panels that Levi, in his memories of her, has idealized his mother. He remembers specifically her elegance, and fantasizes that, in her presence, there was a source of light in an otherwise dark world.
Levi's entire life outside of this single, good memory of his mother was one of suffering, and so it makes sense that he was going to cling to it and idealize it in his mind. To Levi, Kuchel was the only thing of goodness and purity in a hopeless and corrupted existence. The only thing beautiful in a world of filth.
We know this is an idealization, though, because later in the story, we see the reality of Levi's life, that the spot he sat in with his mother, that he remembered as having a beam of light and warmth to it, is actually just as cold and bleak and dark as the rest of his world.
I think it's pretty obvious, then, that in order to cope with that life of suffering and cruelty, Levi not only clung to the one, good memory he had of his mother, to the point of recalling it with a distinct edge of romanticization, but did his best to emulate the romanticized image he had of her. Again, Levi recalls specifically her "elegance", and he talks about how that's the only thing he actually remembers clearly about her. How else to best emulate that elegance he remembers then by keeping himself and his environment clean? It's Levi's way of trying to stay connected to the only good thing he's ever had, by copying the beauty he remembers his mother having.
And we see that desperation to stay connected to his mother play out in his encounter with the men who end up assaulting him. Levi ends up in a position to be assaulted in the first place because he's seeking to hold onto a piece of his mother, to hold onto that one thing of goodness in his life, by trying to retrieve her tea set.
And we see how important Kuchel is to Levi through the fact that it's only when the men start insulting her that Levi finally tries to fight back.
It's not for himself that he's fighting back, not because he thinks he himself deserves better, but because he thinks his mother deserves better.
I think Levi's desire to be clean and keep his environment clean is his way of honoring his mother and paying tribute to her, by carrying on the nobility he remembers her having through the act of being clean. It's basically Levi's way of standing up to and fighting back against the filth, suffering and cruelty of the world he was born into and raised in. It's got nothing to do with Levi thinking he's some sort of superior person. We know Levi doesn't think that about himself because of how he refers to himself throughout the story, calling himself "abnormal", answering "maybe" when asked if he's a lunatic, saying, near the end of the story, how everybody would forget he even exists if he can't fight. This isn't someone who has a particularly high opinion of his own worth. Levi's desire to stay clean, within the context of all we know about Levi and the regard he has for his mother, has got nothing to do with him having a sense of personal superiority over anyone. It's got to do with Levi having nothing good in his life and so clinging with the desperation of a starving child to the one, good memory he has.
Anyway, one more point. It's always funny to me when people say Levi wanted to be like Kenny and imitate him. I've seen people claim the reason Kenny left is so that Levi wouldn't end up like him (absurd, since Kenny did everything he could to turn Levi into a mini version of himself and expressed pride later on in Levi being an efficient killer). Levi never wanted to be like Kenny. He wanted to please Kenny, to be certain, wanted Kenny to be proud of him, and attempted to earn that pride by doing as Kenny instructed him, like any child would desperate for affection. But that isn't the same as wanting to be like Kenny, as in, having a personal desire to be like that. Kenny and the men who assaulted Levi in "Bad Boy", and just his general environment growing up, was everything Levi was fighting against.
If he tried to be like anyone, he tried to be like his mother, by imitating the elegance he remembers her having. Levi's instinct was always to rebel against the ugliness and cruelty of the world, not to give into it or become a part of it. He inherently understood it was wrong and naturally fought against it, despite a crushing pressure to just become a part of it. And one of the ways Levi tries to fight against the cruelty and ugliness of the world is by being clean. Ironically, of course, given Levi's low opinion of himself and his own worth, that exhibits, indeed, that Levi carries noble qualities within him. I think that's most apparent in the fact that he possesses so much gratitude for and displays such an ardent desire to respect a single, happy moment in a life otherwise filled with nothing but despair. Instead of wallowing in the overwhelming misery of his life and using it as an excuse to be a bad person, Levi chooses instead to remember and appreciate with fierce acknowledgment the single, good thing he experienced in his childhood.
