Can you explain how do you see levihan otherwise than Brotp? Because I don't quite see it
Sure thing but before I say anything, if you ever want a well-rounded explanation (because god knows mine isn’t the only valid or insightful one) then go check out http://myshittylevihans.tumblr.com and click some of the “writings, headcanons, why I ship Leivhan” links on the sidebar because they’re all brilliant.
Sidenote: this will be a long sprawling mess because I’m sleep deprived
Alright so, you made one of my points for me here, in that you say they’re a “brotp”. Friendship, familiarity and a solid connection is always the best foundation for romance. And when you consider how closed off Levi is, the fact he has such a deeply felt connection with Hange where they can casually take the piss out of each other, work well together under dire circumstances, understand each other’s moods and thoughts, be so compatible as friends and comrades considering they’re very opposite personalities speaks volumes to me.
Levi has nicknames for her, I haven’t seen that with anyone else (correct me if I’m wrong though, but I do mean consistent nicknames, not just a one-off jab at someone). And Hange never brings the name up, she just rolls with it, so it feels very much like an inside joke or term of endearment.
Also, Levi and Hange are one of the few older characters who actually call each other by their names rather than ranks and Hange is one of, if not the only person besides Erwin who calls Levi “Levi” rather than “Heichou/Captain Levi”. In Japan, this is typically a sign of a very close relationship.
Romantically, I think they (and you can find a lot of posts from me on this subject, so forgive me if I’m repeating myself here) but they balance each other out. The sweetest and most successful and awesome relationships that I’ve seen or been in myself are when the couple in them are opposites in personality but share very similar interests, values, humour, understanding while having healthy arguments and accepting each others more annoying habits etc. And not to gross any of ya’ll out here but tbh Levi and Hange have a disturbingly similar dynamic to my parents who have been happily married for 33 years. So I defer to them a lot and sometimes just laugh my ass off when they have a conversation or an argument or something that reminds me so much of Levihan, it’s hilarious and adorable. Like, my dad is chill and unorganized, kind of “loopy” if you want to call it that, and light-hearted while my mum is a lethal kind of neat-freak, irritable, serious, flat-out intimidating sometimes but when they’re together it works so well, they’re the best and cutest team I’ve ever seen. BUT ENOUGH OF THAT.
I think when you have someone like Levi who is somewhat emotionally shut off (not to say he is incapable of emotions, but he doesn’t exactly show them off for the world to see), unapproachable, irritable etc, you need someone who both balances that out, can deal with it, and who ultimately would find it endearing. This is why I think Hange suits him best. I think she’s so self-confident, empathetic, insightful and understanding that she’d never be intimidated or impatient or offended by Levi’s attitude. She doesn’t take him seriously which is very important because most people in the series are wary of Levi or too disconcerted by his attitude that they keep a certain distance from him, and in order for Levi to actually have a meaningful connection with someone, that distance needs to be closed. Hange can do that because, as we’ve seen in the anime and manga, she doesn’t find him threatening or offensive or frustrating. He’s an equal, basically. I have to emphasize this point; she plays off of it, and he follows suit, meaning they have chemistry. She jokes with him, she calls him out on being a clean freak but with endearment, she understands what he’s trying to do or say while others are usually like “uhh what”, and she values his opinion to the point where an awkward pep talk from him (chapter 52) completely pulls her out of despair.
Levi I think values strength, honesty, intelligence, but most people also value and desire what they personally are not, because it fills the gaps in them. In Levi’s case, he needs some fucking light-hearted shit in his life to keep his head above water, he’s shown he doesn’t enjoy his title or accolades “humanity’s strongest” and fawning public, it makes him uncomfortable, so I think it’s important to him that someone actually treats him like a person and Hange was the one who was like, “eh they wouldn’t think you’re so great if they found out what a clean freak you are” and he actually goes “ha” to that. Probably the closest we’ll ever see to Levi laughing but she put him at ease in that situation. And he retaliated in kind by grabbing Hange’s (messy, greasy) hair and joking that she was an abnormal. If that’s not chemistry, I’ll eat my fucking foot. Plus, Levi isn’t exactly an up-close-and-personal touchy kind of guy, so for him to do that speaks volumes (and yes I take the manga and anime as canon insights). I’ve never seen him be that touchy or physically close to anyone else except when he’s beating the shit out of them or comforting a dying soldier. Especially considering Isayama’s notes to the animators were “Hange has filthy, messy hair” and yet they added in that scene, it just makes me think they were suggesting something about their relationship considering Levi can’t stand mess and dirt but he’ll grab a bunch of Hange’s hair that Isayama himself described as dirty.
Ultimately, they work so well together. It was Levi and Hange off alone together when they found Ilse Langner’s journal in the manga, and then in the OVA Hange who was able to make a joke stupid enough to head Levi off before he built up too much steam and he let her get away with it. She knows which buttons to press, basically.
People send me asks being like “yeah but Hange would irritate Levi too much” or “Levi would bring Hange down with his moods” but nah, I don’t think so, I’ve never seen that. Even she’s flipping out over Eren’s partial transformation in episode 19, Levi’s just watching on like “yeah this is happening”. But I laugh during that scene because Levi was yelling at his squad and imploring calm and Hange just busts in and diffuses the tension with her enthusiasm. I swear to god Levi would have been like “oh thank god for Shitty-Glasses”.
But you have to take into account that Hange in the manga is much more subdued than in the anime (I take both and mix them together). Levi’s never actually lost his temper at Hange for her quirks (the OVA was over her endangerment of a fellow solider which she did apologise for and that ended with that infamous little smile from Levi), and Hange’s only ever been perked up by Levi (chapter 52 pep talk). Not only that, but I’ve said before because Hange doesn’t take Levi so seriously, she’d see his deadpan humour and blunt behaviour as more amusing than down-heartening. And her empathy would allow her to be like “I get where you’re coming from, shh it’s okay”. And Levi, for all his irritability and moods, seems to accept Hange’s occasionally obsessive and overly-enthusiastic behaviour and has shown both admiration and interest in it, like when he was like “yo hange, it’s news to me you have a rock hobby, what’s going on?” when she had a piece of hardened titan rock from the wall. He doesn’t even snap when she just decides to take Eren away from his cleaning duties to help her with her experiments he’s just like “SIIIGH alright”.
I love them as a romance because I honestly do believe they have a very deep understanding of each other and fill up whatever is missing in each other (gross expression but eyyy). Levi has someone who he can actually connect to because she isn’t wary of him, someone to joke with, who understands his humour, who understands him, who makes their dire situation more hopeful, and who he’d honestly admire so much for her strength, motivation, confidence, passion and for filling up the gaps he can’t fill on his own. And Hange has someone who is stimulating for her, a challenge for her, someone who makes her laugh and who can be weird with her. They’re both abnormals, and they’ve both admitted as such.
And I know it’s from Modern Family (fuck you all, don’t judge me) but one of the quotes that hits me about Levihan is
“There are dreamers and there are realists in this world. You’d think the dreamers would find the dreamers and the realists would find the realists, but more often than not the opposite is true. You see, the dreamers need the realists to keep them from soaring too close to the sun. And the realists, well without the dreamers, they might not ever get off the ground.”
That kind of sums it up for me. They’re not the kind of people who’d be overly lovey dovey with each other like fucking “MOON OF MY LIFE, I LOVE YOU BABY YOU’RE MY FOREVER GIRL” because, I mean, they’re hardened military shits who’ve been through a storm of a time. But they’re capable of love and in my mind, I think they’d truly love each other as friends and even more than friends.
Alright, I honestly can go on but this is becoming a fucking essay over here, and really the best way I express how they work together as a romance is through my art, comics, my tags on Levihan posts, and honest to god you should take a look at myshittylevihans links because she’s the fucking mothership of Levihan as far as I’m concerned. And Crystal also gave a wonderful overview of it here.
