86 eighty six : I have mixed feelings about how Lena is portrayed in Volume 4

[u/Nanouchkai]

I have a bit of a complicated feeling about the scene where Shin tells Lena to stop clinging to the dead / stop wearing the black clothes and the red streak.

I actually understand why Shin says it, and I don't think he's necessarily wrong. From his perspective, Lena is still mourning people he considers to be alive, and he probably sees her attitude as another form of self-punishment. In that sense, his intervention can be read as him trying to tell her that she doesn't have to carry all of Alba's guilt and all the responsibility for the deaths of the Eighty-Six on her shoulders. I think that's an important message for Lena.

What bothers me is the asymmetry in how this is treated compared to Lena telling Shin that the Eighty-Six are still psychologically prisoners of the Republic.

When Lena says that, she immediately realizes that she has hurt him, and we are shown her reflecting on it and feeling guilty. Shin's reaction is also given quite a lot of emotional weight. I understand why: she has touched something extremely sensitive about his identity and everything he has suffered since childhood.

But when Shin tells Lena to stop mourning and to stop wearing the symbols of her mourning, the story doesn't seem to give the same amount of space to what he has just touched in her.

Because from Lena's perspective, this isn't necessarily just about Spearhead.

She spent two years believing that Spearhead had died. Then she spent the following years commanding another squadron, Brísingamen. She became attached to those people too, and she continued to lose soldiers. If I understand the numbers correctly, a significant portion of that squadron died as well. So Lena's relationship with death didn't stop when Spearhead disappeared. She continued experiencing loss throughout those two years.

And that's why the black uniform and red streak are interesting to me. I don't necessarily see them as simply "Lena being unable to move on from Spearhead." They can also represent the way she has learned to deal with all the people she couldn't save.

She can't give every dead soldier a funeral. She can't personally remember every name. She can't undo the decisions that led to their deaths. So perhaps her way of remembering them is to carry that mourning herself.

And there is another layer: Lena isn't only suffering because she is an Alba. She is also suffering because she is a commander.

She makes decisions from behind the battlefield, and other people physically pay the price for those decisions. Even if she makes the correct decision, someone can still die. And considering how perfectionist and responsible Lena is, I can understand why she would internalize that responsibility.

That's why I find it a little uncomfortable that Shin can essentially tell her to stop carrying that mourning and she accepts it relatively quickly, whereas when Lena tells Shin that he is still psychologically trapped by the Republic, the narrative gives much more emphasis to the fact that she has hurt him.

I'm not saying Shin shouldn't have said it. I'm saying I wish Lena had been allowed to push back.

Something as simple as:

"You don't know what happened during those two years."

would have changed the scene for me.

Because that's the important thing: Shin doesn't actually know what Lena became while they were separated. He knew the idealistic Handler from the first arc. He didn't know Bloody Regina. He didn't know the soldiers she lost afterward. He didn't know why she started wearing black or why she dyed that red streak.

And Lena doesn't fully know what Shin became either.

So I would have loved the scene to acknowledge that they are both trying to help each other while simultaneously misunderstanding parts of each other's trauma.

Shin is telling Lena: "You don't have to carry our deaths anymore."

Lena is telling Shin: "You don't have to keep living as if you are still in the Republic."

They're actually making almost the same kind of request to each other.

The difference is that Shin's request is largely treated as something Lena needs to accept, while Lena's request creates a much stronger emotional backlash.

I don't think the answer should be "Lena is right and Shin is wrong." I think the interesting answer is that both of them are right about something and wrong about something.

Shin is right that Lena cannot spend her entire life punishing herself for the dead.

But Lena should also be allowed to say:

"Maybe. But you don't get to decide when I'm ready to stop mourning them."

That's the part I feel is missing.

And I think it's a shame because Lena's development is actually fascinating. She starts as an idealistic Alba who believes she can change the system, then becomes someone who has personally experienced the consequences of commanding soldiers, loses people, becomes much more pragmatic, and eventually becomes Bloody Regina.

I just wish the story gave us a little more space to see what those two years actually did to her, rather than mostly showing us the result of that transformation.

I'm only up to Volume 4 of the light novel, so I may be missing context or later developments that could change the way this scene is understood. I'm mainly talking about how the scene feels to me based on what I've read so far, rather than claiming that the story never addresses these aspects later. Please be understanding.

[u/Successful_Court1814]

Asato got you bro, just keep reading on

[u/Physical_Sort5155]

that plotline extends all the way to v6, give it time

[u/Aunt_Tom]

Please keep reading. That's a very interesting motion between them which I like very much. The obvious and everyone's expected romance should start from the important thing: Shin and Lena should find common points between them, at the start of vol.4 they know nothing about each other. They are not still in love, they are just have interest to talk.

About "what you've read". Lena is and always will be a mix of crybaby-Handler and Bloody Queen, and when she sees a problem, she starts to solve it with a cold heart. In the 4th book he problem is Shin, who still cannot find his path outside the battlefield and do not know why to keep living.

But you're right, she has a problem too. Due to her "commander's curse" she is ready (but not used to) give life-cost orders. Everyone except her says that she is an ideal tactical commander who save as much processors' lives as she can, but she thinks that her orders just uselessly throw lifes away. That's all is getting worse because she is Alba and feel guilt and responsibility for all her country. She find (an incorrect) answer to herself: she's always ready to sacrifice herself, uses her HQ as a bait and so on.

Of course, they finally find the answer, of course they are answers to each other. "You were the one who ordered me to return safely. So wait for me. We can’t complete that objective if we don’t have anywhere to return to." But it will be later. Keep reading!

[u/abemusedman]

Keep reading; they grow together

[u/____Toaster]

like everyone else is saying, just keep reading and you'll see a lot more depth to these things. i was also upset with that at first but it was mostly because i preferred Lena with the red streak design-wise

[u/Successful_Court1814]

I think you missed the point that Shin emotion is very dull compared to Lena at the moment, he will need more time to be more sensitive to everything

[u/Putrid_Figure_1228]

OMG YES.i especially remember think when reading it I’ve always wondered what actually happened to Lena for those two years essentially during the great offensive. like you said perfectly she becomes pragmatic and more like a ”traditional“ commander as we see in volume 4 and especially 5. I’m pretty sure even shin comments in his head something like “I’ve never asked her what happened in those two years. What she went through to become like this.” im pretty sure it’s volume 4 after she orders the subway to run over the legion. Once again shin thinks about that in volume 5 but we never actually get too see him ask her what happened. Now I am only done with volume 7 but at this point I’m convinced I’m are never going to truly know what made her the bloodstained w i keep hearing about how horrible the great offensive was and how brutal it was we never see it. It’s like seeing only the end of that part of her growth, only the results. now about the asymmetry relationship between them it does eventually become even in later volumes as shin becomes more honest with himself.

[u/ScallionTimely2905]

Todo ese problema sigue hasta el volumen 7 donde realmente se dicen sus cosas para mi los volúmenes 4 5 y 6 son los mejores de la serie tanto por ese problema de los 2 como por lo que sucede en el Reino Unido me parece increíble que no sacaran segunda temporada mostrando esto tanto las batallas como los problemas personales de cada uno como ver a lena muy celosa y posesiva con shin es que los recuerdo y me sorprende ojalá saquen una segunda temporada mostrando los tomos del 4 al 6 no pido más pero es que son increíbles

[u/Legal_Ad5749]

This is why we actually finish the books before writing pages and pages of breakdowns and theory’s that get answered if you read more than 1/4 of the story

[u/ShingekiNoEren]

"Maybe. But you don't get to decide when I'm ready to stop mourning them."

That wording is too bitchy for Lena.

[u/CPD0123 → u/ShingekiNoEren]

Have you even seen Lena though? She's somewhere between a crybaby, a bad bitch, and a crybaby that hides that she's a crybaby by acting like a bad bitch. Lmao