Today I wrote meta. Don't worry, it's short.
I have composed a short essay on why Levi McGarden of Fairy Tail fame is secretly a badass. I started to speculate on the events of the most recent arc and why they actually make sense, due in part to a conversation with 
pikabot and in part because Levi is one of my favorite characters and I am excited to possibly (finally) see her in action. Anyway, my ramblings under the cut for spoilers.
In the most recent arc of Fairy Tail, they're having something called the S-class wizard promotion trial, where a handful of mages are chosen to participate in a competition, the winner of which gets promoted to S-class, meaning that they have more benefits and are allowed to take on more difficult and lucrative jobs.
In order to qualify, you have to have done a certain amount of jobs at a certain difficulty level. This year, eight people qualified, and one of them was Levi McGarden, who, for reference, is about five feet tall and works in a team of three, the other two guys (Jet and Droy) being candidates for the weakest members of the guild. She hasn't had much face time, but what she's contributed to the plot so far has involved getting the crap beaten out of her by a rival guild, hiding behind a wall from the dude who beat her up while her teammates threatened him, being afraid of the dark, and owning and reading more books than is probably healthy. The only useful thing she's done on-screen has been to decode an incredibly complex binding spell, which was extremely helpful, but doesn't paint her as particularly badass when measured against everything else.
Levi is highly well-read and intelligent, brilliant with languages, plucky and determined, a hard worker, confident in her abilities, patient, a loving and compassionate friend, and willing to put herself in harm’s way when necessary. All are qualities valued by her guild. It shouldn’t have been a mystery to me that she managed to qualify, but it was, simply because she hasn’t yet been shown fighting and most of what she’s done (outside of the decoding thing) has painted a picture of someone rather meek and dependant on her friends.
Until I went back and remembered something that was said when her team was introduced.
Levi’s team, called Shadow Gear and consisting of herself and her childhood friends Jet and Droy, were described as "the backbone team of Fairy Tail."
If Levi's partners are easily some of the weakest and least useful members, as they’ve been shown and told to be, and Shadow Gear is still considered the backbone of the guild? That kind of sends a message about Levi. It wasn’t a prominent line, but it was there.
Also, at the beginning of the Edoras arc, one of the stronger mages was shouting down Jet and Droy for being useless and putting an added burden on Levi, who has to rescue every other mission. I had assumed they just took relatively easy missions, but if they did, even Jet and Droy shouldn't fuck up that often. Maybe the thing is, Levi is just a powerful mage, and they insist on going everywhere with her and she lets them be part of the team because they're old childhood friends and she's confident in her ability to keep them out of harm's way.
And the thing about hiding behind the wall from Gazille? Yeah, you’re going to be afraid of a guy who once nearly killed you. That is a little unavoidable. Jet and Droy didn’t seem so afraid because Levi is the most important person in the world to them, and her fear of Gazille completely overrode any instinct they might have to run and hide. Avenging her is always top priority.
But if Levi is a strong mage, why didn’t she step out to protect her friends? Well, two things. First, it’s entirely possible that Levi’s skill isn’t primarily offensive, which would explain why Gazille was able to capture and beat them up in the first place (although if you believe the anime, he attacked suddenly from behind while Shadow Gear was off guard and likely knocked them all out relatively quickly).
The other thing is that, while Levi was hiding, she was trying to convince Jet and Droy not to fight Gazille. Maybe she didn't want to start trouble with a guy who was supposed to be on their side now, especially because Jet and Droy starting a rivalry with someone as strong as Gazille would only end badly - she can’t be around to protect them literally 24/7. However, she did step out of hiding when the fighting started. She was obviously prepared to step in to keep Jet and Droy from getting their sorry asses killed if it came to that.
The other thing? Mashima has made it explicitly clear on more than one occasion that, as long as there is one S-class mage on a job, any other mage can attend under their supervision. If Levi became an S-class mage, Jet and Droy could still work with her. I take this to mean she has a pretty good shot at winning.
Also, the other contestants are Gray and Natsu - if one of them won, the other would never forgive him for it - Cana, who doesn't appear to want to win, Fried, who, while something of an ensemble dark horse, seems too much of a background character to be elevated to S-class status, Lluvia, who, love her though I do, is 90% a gag character these days, and a dude who hasn't shown up in canon before and is - to borrow a phrase frompikabot - clearly Sam Rockwell's character from Galaxy Quest. Besides which, by Levi’s dialogue, she’s been trying for the position for awhile now and has obviously been getting steadily stronger all the time if she’s made it this year.
That and, you know, backbone team.
In conclusion: Holy crap, the tiny bookworm is going to destroy them all.
pikabot and in part because Levi is one of my favorite characters and I am excited to possibly (finally) see her in action. Anyway, my ramblings under the cut for spoilers.In the most recent arc of Fairy Tail, they're having something called the S-class wizard promotion trial, where a handful of mages are chosen to participate in a competition, the winner of which gets promoted to S-class, meaning that they have more benefits and are allowed to take on more difficult and lucrative jobs.
In order to qualify, you have to have done a certain amount of jobs at a certain difficulty level. This year, eight people qualified, and one of them was Levi McGarden, who, for reference, is about five feet tall and works in a team of three, the other two guys (Jet and Droy) being candidates for the weakest members of the guild. She hasn't had much face time, but what she's contributed to the plot so far has involved getting the crap beaten out of her by a rival guild, hiding behind a wall from the dude who beat her up while her teammates threatened him, being afraid of the dark, and owning and reading more books than is probably healthy. The only useful thing she's done on-screen has been to decode an incredibly complex binding spell, which was extremely helpful, but doesn't paint her as particularly badass when measured against everything else.
Levi is highly well-read and intelligent, brilliant with languages, plucky and determined, a hard worker, confident in her abilities, patient, a loving and compassionate friend, and willing to put herself in harm’s way when necessary. All are qualities valued by her guild. It shouldn’t have been a mystery to me that she managed to qualify, but it was, simply because she hasn’t yet been shown fighting and most of what she’s done (outside of the decoding thing) has painted a picture of someone rather meek and dependant on her friends.
Until I went back and remembered something that was said when her team was introduced.
Levi’s team, called Shadow Gear and consisting of herself and her childhood friends Jet and Droy, were described as "the backbone team of Fairy Tail."
If Levi's partners are easily some of the weakest and least useful members, as they’ve been shown and told to be, and Shadow Gear is still considered the backbone of the guild? That kind of sends a message about Levi. It wasn’t a prominent line, but it was there.
Also, at the beginning of the Edoras arc, one of the stronger mages was shouting down Jet and Droy for being useless and putting an added burden on Levi, who has to rescue every other mission. I had assumed they just took relatively easy missions, but if they did, even Jet and Droy shouldn't fuck up that often. Maybe the thing is, Levi is just a powerful mage, and they insist on going everywhere with her and she lets them be part of the team because they're old childhood friends and she's confident in her ability to keep them out of harm's way.
And the thing about hiding behind the wall from Gazille? Yeah, you’re going to be afraid of a guy who once nearly killed you. That is a little unavoidable. Jet and Droy didn’t seem so afraid because Levi is the most important person in the world to them, and her fear of Gazille completely overrode any instinct they might have to run and hide. Avenging her is always top priority.
But if Levi is a strong mage, why didn’t she step out to protect her friends? Well, two things. First, it’s entirely possible that Levi’s skill isn’t primarily offensive, which would explain why Gazille was able to capture and beat them up in the first place (although if you believe the anime, he attacked suddenly from behind while Shadow Gear was off guard and likely knocked them all out relatively quickly).
The other thing is that, while Levi was hiding, she was trying to convince Jet and Droy not to fight Gazille. Maybe she didn't want to start trouble with a guy who was supposed to be on their side now, especially because Jet and Droy starting a rivalry with someone as strong as Gazille would only end badly - she can’t be around to protect them literally 24/7. However, she did step out of hiding when the fighting started. She was obviously prepared to step in to keep Jet and Droy from getting their sorry asses killed if it came to that.
The other thing? Mashima has made it explicitly clear on more than one occasion that, as long as there is one S-class mage on a job, any other mage can attend under their supervision. If Levi became an S-class mage, Jet and Droy could still work with her. I take this to mean she has a pretty good shot at winning.
Also, the other contestants are Gray and Natsu - if one of them won, the other would never forgive him for it - Cana, who doesn't appear to want to win, Fried, who, while something of an ensemble dark horse, seems too much of a background character to be elevated to S-class status, Lluvia, who, love her though I do, is 90% a gag character these days, and a dude who hasn't shown up in canon before and is - to borrow a phrase from
pikabot - clearly Sam Rockwell's character from Galaxy Quest. Besides which, by Levi’s dialogue, she’s been trying for the position for awhile now and has obviously been getting steadily stronger all the time if she’s made it this year.That and, you know, backbone team.
In conclusion: Holy crap, the tiny bookworm is going to destroy them all.