#levi theory

1. "they draw their swords similarly!"

um

the swords are meant to be drawn across the body. that's how they're designed. this is demonstrated in chapter freaking two when we first see the gear in action.

literally everyone does this. the fact that levi and the hooded figure both do it doesn't mean anything. it's the same as saying "wOW THEY'RE BOTH BREATHING! LEVI BREATHES! I T HAS TO BE LE VI"

what sets levi apart is that he holds at least one of his blades backwards. 

anime (episode 20, the episode in question):

manga (chapters 10 and 30, respectively):

he's especially prone to flipping it around at the last second, as seen in chapter 30 (episode 21):

and what does the hooded killer look like just before striking?

a whole lot of forward-facing blades (ambiguities cleared up by me):

if gunther, who has been working directly under levi for years, can identify on sight when he's not looking at his commanding officer, what makes you think he's wrong?

2. "the figure has a flat chest!"

uhh... so they're automatically levi?

if you'd paid any attention, isayama's art style does not usually accommodate the presence of breasts.

inside sasha's jacket in chapter 3:

armin and mikasa with identical torsos and identically placed wrinkles in chapter 32:

petra, chapter 25:

i could go on and on forever, because there are many, many examples of female-bodied people drawn with flat chests in this series. go find some yourself; it'll only take you about two pages. this is the whole reason hanji's sex is so ambiguous -- we can't tell whether or not hanji has breasts.

the truly relevant cap here is from chapter 21:

nothing, no bump, not even a wrinkle. annie might as well be bound.

the lack of presence of breasts on the hooded figure does not mean the figure is male-bodied. 

it certainly doesn't mean they're levi.

additionally, in the manga, we only see the hooded figure from the back. the snippet of stomach that is seen in the anime is really not enough evidence to go on, especially considering a) the anatomy in the anime is wonky and inconsistent at best, since all the animation budget went to the bells and close-ups of 3DMG and eyes, and b) the female-bodied figures in this series are consistently flat-chested.

3. "the figure has a small nose!"

really? we're going by nose size now? ...okay, we'll play that game

taking into account a casual reminder that the faces in this show are consistently distorted, even when in the foreground, let's take a moment to remember that even the female type titan doesn't have a consistently large nose, and she's frickin' annie.

god, her nose looks positively demure there.

if we're going by nose size, there are plenty of people besides levi, even male-bodied ones, who could fit the very general description of "not large."

4. "levi was absent for a really long time! where else was he??"

uhh... refueling and restocking, as ordered.

this seems to be a point of confusion, so i'm going to clear it up.

we're not concerned with the time between levi exiting stage right and when he reemerges.

we're talking about the amount of time the hooded figure is present.

considering it takes only two pages for the hooded figure to reach the spec ops squad, they must be quite close to the figure's original position. annie has more time to get into that position than levi does, because she has the entire "what will they do with eren / levi, stay behind and refuel" conversation to make headway while no one is looking.

also, as evidenced by levi's abundant gas usage and fully loaded blades, he did in fact refuel and restock. is he capable of teleportation now?

if you're so concerned with what he's doing in the amount of time it takes him to reach his squad that you believe he is the hooded figure, then you should be equally questioning, if not more so, of what he's doing with the amount of time between the figure's disappearance and levi's reemergence.

if you think he took this time to go back and restock, you're wrong, because the supply cart would think it's pretty shifty and suspicious that it took him so damn long to get there when it was right under him to start.

and no, despite what erwin ordered, they did not leave all the carts behind:

and as you can see, there are excess supplies in the cart with eren:

so there was someone tending to it, someone to notice levi's conspicuous absence, should there have been one. as it wasn't mentioned, we can assume there wasn't.

if he, as the hooded figure, had no choice but to stand there and watch everything unfold because he couldn't act once annie shifted without revealing himself, why didn't he just let annie run off with eren? why didn't he let mikasa get killed by annie, and claim he'd been too late to prevent anything? why would he save eren, not even knowing whether he's still alive, when their goal is to kidnap him? why would he save mikasa and not the rest of his squad?

because he wasn't there when they died.

so where did the hooded figure go when annie shifted? into the titan body, obviously, because the hooded figure is annie. the survey corps is really small and has a remarkable knowledge of who's who and what ranks they hold without any sort of insignia or nametags -- so if the figure were anyone else, wouldn't they notice a mystery person among their ranks?