Comment on Neither Tarnished Nor Afraid

  1. JJ (Guest) on Chapter 1 Mon 04 Aug 2014 04:03PM UTC

    I've only read the first chapter so far and I adore this but I'm curious as to why Hange's pronouns are all 'they' and 'their' and such. Could you explain?

    Comment Actions

    1. mongoose_bite on Chapter 1 Mon 04 Aug 2014 10:42PM UTC

      Thalravin

      "The force had written into their rules a whole lot of garbage about inclusive policing, and no one had given a rat’s arse about it until Hange showed up. Hange knew all the regulations like the back of their hand, and Levi had to admit he sort of admired their determination, in the same way he admired salmon jumping upstream into the mouths of bears. He honestly didn’t know what had driven Hange to join the force, or what unearthly strength of will kept them there.

       

      When he’d received the memo, the day before Hange was transferred in and assigned to him, he’d rolled his eyes so hard he’d nearly strained something. Then he followed it to the letter with neither sarcasm nor self-consciousness.

       

      Hange had noticed Levi was getting their pronouns right a day or two after they'd started working together."

      Hange is openly non-gender conforming (and in a culture like the police force it gets them a lot of unwanted attention.) Levi got the memo that they prefer they/their/theirs pronouns and uses them. Isayama has said that Hange's gender is up to the reader's interpretation, and requested the official translators avoid referring to them as male or female, which is why I've gone for this interpretation as being closest to canon, although of course any interpretation is technically correct.

      Comment Actions