This Brutal Attack on Titan Moment Had A Tragic Backstory Behind It

Even two years after its 2023 finale, Attack on Titan fans remain haunted by the series’ visceral moments. With its intricate character arcs and psychological depth, Hajime Isayama’s masterpiece continues to fuel discussions on platforms like Reddit and X to this day. One scene, in particular, from Season 1, Episode 17, lingers in the collective memory: Annie Leonhart’s Female Titan mercilessly spinning a Scout like a yo-yo before flinging him to his death. Originally introduced in Season 1 as a stoic, detached member of the 104th Training Corps, Annie’s aloof demeanor made sense once her identity as the Female Titan was revealed. 

But her hesitation to kill familiar faces, like Armin, and her visible distress when forced to remove Marco’s ODM gear, suggested a conflicted soul. Despite this, during the Scout Regiment’s expedition beyond Wall Maria, Annie’s Female Titan unleashed unrestrained violence. One of her most terrifying acts was the infamous “yo-yo” scene. It shocked viewers with its apparent cruelty, contrasting sharply with her earlier reluctance when she spared Armin. But this dissonance points to a deeper psychological struggle rooted in her upbringing as a weapon of Marley.

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A Childhood Forged in Violence

Annie’s backstory, revealed in Season 1’s finale, provides critical context for her actions. Abandoned as a baby by her biological Eldian parents, she was adopted by an Eldian man who sought to not raise her as a child, but as a weapon of Marley. If Annie became a Titan Shifter Warrior, her adopted father would be given many privileges as an honorary Marleyan. And for this goal, he trained her brutally from a young age.

Her father’s abusive training, as seen in Season 1 Episode 4, taught her that violence was the only currency that mattered in her world. She never developed any dreams of her own, having been stripped away of any sense of personal value. Flashbacks show a young Annie fixated on dark, detached behaviors, such as obsessively crushing a bug during a conversation. As pointed out by Redditor u/VariedJourney, this fixation shows an inability to process overwhelming emotions or conversations – a coping mechanism for a child forced into a soldier’s life. 

Annie’s own words in Season 4, Episode 6, about compartmentalizing life as “unimportant,” prove her detached persona. It’s as if she’s in some survival mode born from years of abuse and manipulation. This mindset manifests chillingly in her actions as the Female Titan. Before the Paradis mission, Annie is shown kicking a tower filled with soldiers with seemingly no remorse. And the yo-yo scene amplifies this detachment to horrifying effect. 

When a young, terrified Scout resembling a dark-haired Armin dangles in her grasp, for a moment, viewers hope that Annie might spare him, as she did Armin. Instead, she brutally spins him around before his body meets a gruesome end. Afterward, we see the scattered corpses around her like crushed insects, Isayama’s visual storytelling reinforcing the connection between a young Annie’s disregard for other forms of life and her callous murders when older.

Using Violence To Dissociate 

But this brutality doesn’t come from an actual desire to hurt others. Instead, it’s Annie’s way of using violence to numb herself. The yo-yo scene, in hindsight, is not just a moment of horror but a window into the psyche of a child forced to weaponize her pain. If we analyze a young Annie’s psyche, we can see that it sharply contrasts with that of other Marleyan Warriors like Reiner. 

As children, Annie resented Reiner’s naive heroism and eagerness to prove himself. His hopefulness, bolstered by a supportive mother, clashed with Annie’s reality of abuse and isolation. But once Reiner realized the people on Paradis weren’t really “Island Devils” like he had been taught, it took a toll on his psyche and he began coping by splitting himself between Scout soldier and Marleyan Warrior. In contrast, Annie copes by using violence to shut herself down emotionally. Her apparent “enjoyment” in the yo-yo scene mirrors Reiner’s dissociation but manifests differently; as a mechanical, almost playful act that hides her destroyed psyche. 

Annie frees herself of guilt by moving forward without processing the weight of her actions. Her sparing of Armin was a rare occurrence that showed how unusual it was for her to connect with anyone, making her brutality elsewhere feel like a default state of disconnection. But despite everything, her actions are a tragic symptom of her upbringing, not a choice born of malice. In the end, her connection to Armin served as a much-needed tether to her humanity, allowing Annie to evolve beyond the weapon she was raised to be. In Season 4, she shows clear guilt over her actions and is visibly tired of fighting, portraying a character crushed by forces beyond her control just like the insects she crushed as a child.

 H/T: Reddit