You know what gets me too about Levi?
He's just such a sweetheart. He really, really is.
He has such a tough, intimidating exterior. He is tough and intimidating, forged that way from a life of hardship. But his heart is as gentle as they come.
The last shot of him, handing out candy to all those little kids. The way he saved Ramzi from that angry mob. The way he worked with Historia to relocate all the children from the Underground above, to give them better lives.
Levi's compassion toward children is demonstrated again and again, and really exemplifies his compassion overall. People that treat children kindly, that are so aware of children and their worth, and acknowledge them and their worth, are the most genuinely good people.
And when you think about Levi's own childhood, the brutality and loneliness and poverty of it, it makes his kindness and compassion toward them all the more remarkable. His own, deprived childhood could have turned him callous and cruel, unable to care for others out of the desperation to survive himself, but it didn't. Instead, Levi remained and remains exceptionally kind and caring. He remains more deeply compassionate and generous and selfless than anyone.
That last shot of him handing out candy to those children, helping them to regain even a semblance of a normal childhood, to experience some of the joy and innocence of childhood again, after the trauma of what they've been through, exemplifies who Levi is best of all. He isn't wallowing in self-pity, or lamenting on what he's lost (and he's lost more than anyone). He isn't feeling sorry for himself for losing his mobility, or being scarred and disfigured. He isn't drowning in his grief or despair over the friends and family he's lost. He isn't embittered or negative, he isn't angry or cynical. He isn't self-absorbed, or wrapped up in resentment that others have what he never did.
No, instead, he's out there, on the ground, bringing light into the lives of children who still have a chance to escape that darkness that consumed his own childhood, and the vast majority of his adulthood too. He's out there doing his best to protect them from that despair, to give them a chance at a happy childhood.
This is what I mean when I call Levi the most selfless character. Because he is. He doesn't begrudge others having what he was always denied. Rather, he does all he can to ensure they never experience the deprivation he did. He does all he can to give them what he was so cruelly robbed of.
And all this after he's already given everything. When he owes no one anything.
He really is an absolute sweetheart. He's just the sweetest man.
