What pronouns should we use?
Summary:
- Hange was initially addressed as “she” in the manga.
- Isayama later decided to make Hange’s gender ambiguous.
- That led to fans thinking Hange was non-binary and used “they/them” pronouns.
- However, it doesn’t work like that in many languages.
It feels like the most 2024 question there can possibly be, but this conversation started back when misgendering wasn’t such a big deal as it is now and a lot of people didn’t even know what being non-binary meant.
If you’ve ever discussed Hange on the internet or read Attack on Titan (Shingeki no Kyojin) fan fiction, you may have noticed various ways of addressing this character. Some fans use “she/her” pronouns and some “they/them”. And both have a point. But why is it so?
Is Hange non-binary?
Hange was initially supposed to be a woman, that’s why her character design is quite feminine, especially at the beginning of the series. And if you manage to find the early versions of the manga, you’ll see that other characters always use “she” when talking about Hange.
However, it was later decided that Hange’s gender should be ambiguous, and Isayama asked the publishers to use different pronouns for this character or avoid all gendered language whatsoever to keep the mystery. This led fans to believe that Hange was non-binary and should use “they/them” pronouns.
The fandom quickly adapted to that, and all the modern fan pages and fanfiction writers started treating Hange as a non-binary character.
It doesn’t work in many languages
Still, this issue raises a lot of questions even now because of the difference between various languages. It’s quite easy in English and hearing people say “they” about one person sounds natural now, but there are some languages like Spanish, German, French or Russian, for example, where gender is reflected in other parts of speech, and not only pronouns.
So it’s impossible to say something like “Hange is an eccentric scientist” without giving away their gender. And using the plural form might sound extremely weird for a number of languages, so the translators just have to pick one or switch between addressing Hange as “he” and “she”.
That’s why a lot of people whose native language is not English haven’t even heard of this issue. Due to Hange presenting as a woman, most translations and dubs choose to call her one.
According to Isayama, this is not a problem. He made her gender ambiguous and up to the reader’s interpretation, so if you would like to use female pronouns while speaking about Hange, it’s just as fine as using “they”.