oops my apologies

@eruriweek

it's beautifully bittersweet bc man this shatters my heart in 1000 pieces every time anew

Today I bring you Eruri. Tomorrow? Who knows...

The closest thing I can think of to explain this is maybe something like "are you going to consume your evening meal?" vs "are you going to eat your dinner?", and there are words with which one can step up with that (keigo or honorific language), but more often, it's less a change of word and more a different form of the same word so it's more like eat(polite form ending), eat(dictionary/plain/casual form) etc.

And that's what make these scenes come across as rude that would not strike a person who isn't aware enough of the intricacies of this or how to do it, because it's not that he's using rude words, but the form of speech he's using to the recipient is talking downwards to them when they are of higher status than him.

Like for example:

[chapter 19]

When speaking to Zackley, Erwin is using polite speech with markers such as -おり -ori being a humble form of "to be", -masu polite form, using Levi's title in full of heishichou rather than heichou (although this one would be par for the situation anyway), もらいます moraimasu "to get/receive", besides the -masu form, not really about the politeness but I'd like to take the opportunity to point out that using this word in compound implies the sense of a favour being received and thus gratitude for it, and so on.

Zackley uses casual/dictionary form, as per his position.

And Levi, Levi uses casual/dictionary form back which is not his position to do so, especially when you consider that he is lower ranked than Erwin and see how Erwin already is talking to Zackley.

And you can see that none of this comes across in english.

And this, I'm thinking may also be part of what makes Eren come to this conclusion:

(Love how 地下街 chikagai got translated because in fairness if you try to look it up you'll get this:

XDD)

And I've done this before, but if I can do the scene in chapter 51 again, because besides just "old man", Levi still slurs his speech making it coarser (足りねぇ tarine- as opposed to 足りない tarinai), uses plain speech throughout, and his question is blunt and nearly confrontational-sounding XDD

Contrast it to Erwin saying お持ちです omochi desu with an honorific prefix to "to have", but in particular Hange saying to Erwin 失礼するよ shitsurei suru yo, plain/causal form for "pardon me" and then just calling him by name without any titles (エルヴィン), but then switching it up to いらしてた irashiteta, abbrieviated form of the honorific いらっしゃる irassharu (いらっしゃっていた) for "(you) are here", polite -desu form (Connie does the same when he speaks) and addressed Pixis with name and title ピクシス司令, Commander Pixis, and using 参りました mairimashita, humble form for "to come" (or "to go")

[chapter 51]

Amusingly, the translation has mistranslated Hange's tone level to Erwin, it's more like "hey sorry to bother you Erwin" XDD

But my personal and irrelevant favourite was checking the next scene out in the past to see how much Levi could brush his speech up to save their lives for a diplomacy run, and, still no change in speech levels, calling out their names without title (yobisute), but at least?? he's thrown in a product upgrade of sorts? in addressing the other side as あんた達 anta tachi?? XDD

[chapter 126]

Contrast with Pieck addressing Hange with "Hanji-san", and the honorific form of "to see" (ご覧になる) in ご覧になられました goran ni nararemashita "did (you) see".

Hange does use casual speech here which is well within their rights as a superior rank to Pieck and an equal to Magath, and same with Magath.

And again and again, this kind of thing doesn't transmit because more often than not there just isn't the language for it in english and the same kind of rules don't hold, and no amount of a "correct" english translation is going to give you this.

But also, this isn't the kind of thing you're going to hear japanese people commenting about because this will come across as unremarkable to them, and on the other hand, you need a japanese learner who's actually gotten up to such a level that they're actually dealing with this kind of thing at all and realise and understand what is happening and understand enough of how The Rules work to be telling you this. But I hope this does shed a bit of light on the crazy amount of additional information that is going on in terms of what is polite and rude that's more than just rude words being used.

@lostcauses-noregrets

I hope it's alright that I pulled your comment out as this is a very good question, and something I was thinking about as well while I was doing the write-up, and I think this is also why that conversation of Petra with Eren fits in so well, and the fact that it almost has to be tied in with Erwin.

Because, my apologies for not pointing out the way that these things do tend to have a duality, and the flip side of "rude" is "cocky", and there's cocky without anything to suport it Oluo XDD, and then there's "This person talks like this because he can afford to".

So Levi is in the military as a maverick, and he behaves outside of the system which implies a possibility that it's because someone brought him in, and the reason that he still remains in the system is that his skills are indeed worth putting up with his rudeness/unconventionality, depending on which way one wanted to look at it.

But also, it's this cockiness that I was thinking about, giving that air of a person who can do anything he wants, that I was thinking contributed to why Eren is surprised to see that Levi was actually obedient to the hierarchy, especially when he speaks in a way that implies that he doesn't respect authority and that he doesn't have to. The thug background and Erwin bringing him in to the Corps I think work perfectly to explain that.

(Also I hate when I don't look too closely at the english translation and it lets me down, Petra says that [Levi] is a 強力な実力者 kyouryokuna jitsuryokusha "powerful big shot" (実力者 jitsuryokusha translates literally to "person with real/actual power/ability"), and Eren's 誰の指図も意に介さない人だと is approximately "(I thought) that (he is) a person who doesn't pay heed to/care about anybody's instructions")

Perhaps Levi being in a role that is outside of/exceptional to the system ticks both of those boxes as well, of skill and of unconventionality. It is a waste of talent to stick him into a box, but it also serves to send out signals to expect unconventionality.

And in a way, what's more interesting to me is perhaps that teething period, where Levi has to prove himself but more likely than not that it's Erwin vouching for the worthwhileness of his own gamble decision and smoothing things over XD

Magath does seem to know about him by reputation already, "apparently with/carrying a strength comparable to the 'Nine Titans'", and thus we're back to the first point XD

And so, my conclusion is that Levi is (still) in the military because he can walk the Talk, and because Erwin is a lunatic gambler XDD

Armin: It's reckless If (you) don't sleep/(lie down) some more

Levi: ..sleep some more you say? If I sleep any more than this you guys are probably going to forget my existence

is sarcasm.

To clarify, there is a certain amount of anxiety he has here, but it has more to do with the fact that he is not in a shape to fight in an upcoming battle that he figures, knows strategically that every hand on deck will be needed, and yes, he wants and needs to be useful now, but it's not that he literally thinks that they will forget about him if he isn't.

In other words, that it's like this:

oh heck that's omaera aka a plural you there XDD

We didn't spend all this time learning that his words need an interpreter (thank you Hange) only to then go and take his words literally.

And I mean, put that together with

...if I still have two fingers it's enough

(there's/it's) no problem

and I think that it matches up to the idea.

As an adjacent to this topic, I'd also like to point out once again that there's a lost in translation here, or rather, there was a subtlety that wasn't noted and never went into the translation here:

What Levi said is

お前ら…図体ばっかりでかくなりやがって… You guys.. only your bodies are getting bigger(I am full of hatred in my heart modifier)...

So there are two subtleties here, the second of which was noted by the translator and an attempt was definitely made to put it in writing:

[x]

However, the "only" part was missed and I believe a few fan translations have it, however also, even translating it as "only" is not enough, there is a nuance to it and a couple of other "only" words that I've explained here, the one used is the first one, written as bakkari here and bakari in my explanation.

Here's the dictionary link for the term, and I have to say that I'm rather intrigued by this translation in it:

口ばっかり！ You're all talk and no action!

because, you can see that the japanese is pretty short, and indeed it really is the first part of it, the "you're all talk" bit, or literally, "nothing but mouth". But like I said, there is a subtlety with this version of "only" and it is the implication that there are other options or possibilities one could have or have gone for, however, this is the option taken, or the only thing being done, sometimes again and again. The other subtlety is that there is a judgement value being taken on it. And so, I feel like this translation truly reflects the meaning of the statement in saying the hidden part out loud XD

And so, what is the hidden value of what Levi is saying? And it's that "only your bodies, but not your minds, are getting bigger"

In other words, what Levi is saying isn't:

"you guys are getting bigger"

it's actually

"you guys are as dumb/childish as ever"

which again, if you look at the panel, I think actually makes sense in the scene as something that he's responding to Jean's statement with, rather than being a comment that seems to come completely out of the blue and off topic. (Also, it's not "sorry about the heat", it's "thank you for your hard work in this heat", and I think you can see why I really don't wanna deal with the english translation except when I'm doing this sort of thing)

And like the first example, it's sarcasm. I'm sorry to all the wonderful Levi headcanons but it's canon that Levi can't say something nicely to save his life. And I also feel like things like these are being taken out of their context as statements to define the characterisation about Levi, and becoming some kind of new mythos. Yes, he is kind and concerned, and sometimes he hides that under his sarcasm, but also, he is just plain sarcastic sometimes, and those around him have known him long enough to understand what he means, that underneath his rude words, he really cares.

And I think that he knows that they care for him in return.

I honestly can't see him worrying about his place in the family of the Corps, grimly, I think he's jolly well sensitive enough to see the writing on the wall first, and thinking that they might not care for him would actually mean that he's thinking badly of the others, that he's so caught up in himself that he can't see what's actually around him, and that just doesn't make sense?

Anyway, these are things that are definitely starting to fall into the "sometimes things that are fanon are worse" category for me, also that "just because many people believe this doesn't mean it's confirmed" category and to top it off, the "just because it's the official translation doesn't mean it's correct" category too XD