User blog comment:DementedP/Isayama's take on Episode 23/@comment-179280-20130915222008/@comment-1971498-20130916021343

Yeah I helped spread the news around Tumblr. Here's what I think of it (not necessarily directed at you, but towards the overall reaction of people):

I’ve seen manga fans call out this scene as being OOC for her character but I personally thought it matched her character very well. I felt that key moment showed a sense of irony in the situation. Annie’s outburst shows a sense of guilt, fear, sadness, and it was filled with self-irony (contrary to what many manga fans condemned as a moment of ooc sexualized fan-bait galore…. yeah I’m not even lying about this one) Notice how she laughed after Mikasa CASUALLY addressed her as the Female Titan? As if Mikasa could easily take her on like any normal person? The sheer irony that all four of them were casually talking about her with the clear assumption that she’s the Female Titan must have been both a relief and a moment of utter sadness in Annie’s mind. She’s cornered. She’s been found out. And the best these three can do is bicker with her as if she’s someone they truly know as a casual friend? Funny isn’t it?

Two of her most respected former classmates have already accepted her role as the designated “antagonist”, and their insistence on making herself come clean makes it even worse. There’s a hilarious sense of irony that the trio are suddenly able to confront the Female Titan the moment they’re able to recognize the person behind. This sense of recognition allowed Annie to find a sense of relief in what she’s done, but also feel disappointed in the two classmates that she developed respect for (Eren and Armin).

People claim that the laugh is problematic because it shows Annie’s subservience to a higher force………How anyone made that glaring assumption out of ONE single outburst/laughter is beyond me and it saddens that the people defending Annie’s depiction in the manga even viewed her that way so as to defend what they’ve come to interpret from the original source. What because any moment of break in composure signals a lack of sense of control? Is that truly wrong? Annie is character filled with conflicted emotions. It’s why she lets her instincts dictate her actions as she has always internalized everything she’s felt. And to let this all out and laugh at it in its face somehow makes her less of a brilliant and strong female antagonist? Wow.

It’s interesting to note how I’ve found that many anime fans actually interpreted the exact opposite regarding this issue: Annie was in control, and her laughter is one moment of relief in her mind, showing how she felt about it all. Just as she always thought about the system, how everything has been going on in her life, how these same people she respected and admired came to condemn her while still attempting to convince her…just like how she always viewed the world as it is right now: it’s all one huge farce.

Annie finds this sad. She feels guilty, and lonely for all of this. And most of all, Annie finds this funny. Annie realizes that she’s essentially allowed to stop hiding all those pent up emotions, at the expense of giving up that very image of being the “good” person that Armin and Eren had viewed her initially. If there’s one word to describe that feeling that Annie had felt when everyone finally knew it, when everyone understood that she is well and truly the Female Titan: Liberation.