Board Thread:Manga/@comment-30064439-20161113032209/@comment-24850639-20190212195629

You speak as if it's out of the question for people who see each other as friends to also see each other as family, or friends who see each other as family to eventually develop romantic interest. Don't bring real world psychology into this, it's not like Isayama read up on a Pyschology textbook before he wrote the damn manga. I don't give a shit what logic you try to use, you're not going to change my perception that the two essentially treated each other as family. And speaking of,  you're really pushing this incest shit hard, when that wasn't even the crux of the point I'm trying to get accross. The only reason I even brought up other manga/anime as an example is because YOU did in the first place. Whether Mikasa had a crush or not, that's clearly  not how their relationship played out as they got older. Eren's desire to protect his friends and whatever latent potential feelings he may have for her are two completely separate things. One has not been shown to be driving the other.

As I've also said before, 2 characters having their fates revolve around each other (Armin is part of this too in case you forgot) is not a stone cold declaration that they're eventually going to bone each other. The story doesn't HAVE to go that way, just because she's almost as important to the plot as Eren is. Intertwined destiny doesn't have to automatically mean love. Wanting to save a close friend from potentially self-destructing decisions doesn't have to automatically  mean love. On the same token, them "going their separate ways a long time ago" wouldn't seal the deal that they couldn't eventually be an item. The story could easily be written such that the 2 characters would eventually meet again. A big development for Mikasa would be her realizing that Eren is his own man, and is gonna make his decisions independent of what she or Armin thinks. She hasn't yet realized that Eren's outlook on the world has shifted dramatically as a result of the experiences he's had, and that he's simply not the same person that she and Armin grew up with. AoT is very much an "eat or be eaten" world, and Eren has finally learned to "eat" all on his own. The process of doing so has changed him dramatically, just as it has her and Armin - which she hasn't truly grasped until now. That's why how she moves on from this moment is so crucial. Realizing that Eren has grown and matured drastically doesn't have to mean that she can't still try to be there for him, and "save" him getting himself killed. It just means she needs to change her strategy for doing so, which is all I'm looking for here. She's always treated him like a baby brother that can't do shit for himself, and it's time out for that. Your role-reversal inquiry is a moot point here, of course Eren would still try to save her. Wanting to protect her and Armin (all he has left) was a huge driver for why he wanted to get strong in the first place. But again, him wanting to do that doesn't have to mean that romantic feelings are involved.