Hange is usually animated by curiosity. They become visibly excited whenever they encounter something they don’t understand. Here, they’re cold. I read that coldness as calculation: Hange is weighing the moral cost of what they might do to Annie and deciding that they’re willing to pay it.
From Hange’s perspective, Annie is responsible for everybody they’ve lost—and for what humanity has lost through their attacks. Annie is also an unprecedented source of information. Hange might hesitate to perform horrific experiments on Eren, but Annie is an enemy combatant. Revenge and necessity make it easier to reduce her from a person into a body containing answers.
From Annie’s perspective, that makes Hange something worse than an enemy. An enemy ceases to be an enemy when they’re dead. An experiment may be kept alive precisely so the suffering can continue.
In this exact moment, Annie isn’t principally afraid that she’ll never see her dad again. She’s afraid of what Hange might do to her body before allowing her to die.
Knowing the rest of Annie’s story makes that fear visible. She isn’t only the Female Titan or the person who murdered members of the Scouts. She’s a scared kid trying to get home. The later story doesn’t change the image; it changes the person I understand to be looking through it.
The switch in perspective doesn’t redeem Annie. When the camera returns to its usual position, I return to loving Hange. But for a moment, Hange becomes more monstrous—not because their actions have changed, but because I understand why Annie can’t see them as anything else.
Hange and Annie both believe they’re paying the price they must to go on living. Hange is willing to make Annie suffer for humanity and for everybody they’ve lost. Annie is willing to make other people suffer so that she can return to her dad.
That doesn’t make every possible action just. It means justification is subjective. People can possess needs that can’t be reconciled at a particular moment, and they can possess the power to resolve that conflict through violence. Each may understand the price they’re paying. Each may still become the monster in the other person’s experience.
That’s the connection I see to Hollowgraft.
You are already somebody’s villain.
I don’t mean that as a warning that you must discover every person you’ve harmed and finally become innocent. I mean it as permission. You can’t live only through an omniscient camera. You can’t control the filter through which every other person experiences your choices.
Hange can remain someone I love.
They can also be the devil Annie sees looking down at her.
