Hope you're doing good?
Doesn't the fact that (now confirmed by the recent leak chapter) shouji was attacked after (like right after) he saved the girl, invalidate his whole argument? Because while he did obviously change that one girl's mind about him, if the act of shouji saving the kid got him those scars in the firt place, what does he think he is going to accomplish exactly?
I mean, I know they're going for 'generational change', really really passing the buck in these situations, but if their goal is to be cool heroes to make things better for their kind and through shouji's story only the one person he saved accepted him, they seem pretty comfortable with a long haul while admitting all the horrible things are still going on? And at least so far, they seem to have no intention (or even a mention) of even returning to those places were the mutant hate is happening?
What do you think about this narrative choice? And do you think what spinner then said was right?
Hey, I'm doing okay, thank you. Just fighting a headache, so I hope that what I'm about to type makes sense.
This chapter shows a return of the argument that oppressed people need to fight for the "right reasons." Except it doesn't really go at length to explain what these reasons are, except for some vague, abstract feels-good ideal that is really no response to the demands of their opponents.
I think that the kids are trying to back away from offering a real solution by pushing a narrative of acceptance and friendship over actual accountability. The two "right" examples offered here both hint towards the same thing. First, there's Kouda's mom, who found an out from a life of harassment about her appearance when she received the unconditional love of her soon-to-be husband. Then there's Shouji and the little girl he saved versus the crowd who attacked him for it. In both cases there's a common denominator. The lesson they're trying to push by citing these examples seems to be that so long as mutants have at least one person on their side, and so long as they have someone they want to protect, it's possible and encouraged to brave through any oppression. Kouda's mom had her husband and son, while Shouji had the one good memory and the little girl's gratitude.
Now, this argument fails to land for several reasons.
One, it downsizes and trivializes a social issue into something much smaller that doesn't need society at large to answer for it. Finding true acceptance in friends and family doesn't cancel out the oppression. It just makes it more bearable, at least for those who are lucky enough to find it. But for them and for those who are not, oppression still remains a very real problem that needs addressing. Saying "but I have friends!" means nothing because having friends is not the point. These people are demanding that society do something about groups like the CRC. They're asking protection from massacres like incident 6/6. In the grand scheme of things, the fact that some mutants found warmth and belonging is irrelevant to the questions currently being asked.
Two, this argument is tone-deaf and self-serving. The hero kids assume they are the only ones here who have friends and people to protect, or just people on their side willing to stick with them unconditionally. That's false. Spinner is literally fighting to free one friend, Kurogiri (which he has stated as the goal of this attack several times now), and to protect another one of his friends, Shigaraki. Spinner accepted AFO's power to protect the League as a whole because the League was the first real home he had. Just like Kouda's mom and Shouji, Spinner also has someone who accepted him for who he is in Tomura. The heroes don't get to use the "I have friends to protect and they love me very much" card if they're not ready for a uno reverse move. It's not the winning argument they think it is. It just shows their ignorance and self-centeredness.
Three, channeling rage into fighting for "the right reasons" and becoming heroes is also not a response to the problem of oppression. If it were, we wouldn't have things like Gang Orca being called villainous or making children cry because of his appearance. The thing is, while entering the hero business gives heteromorphs the chance to discredit the prejudice that their quirks make them all subhuman or villainous, visibility alone doesn't cut it. One thing that would help is using that platform to address discrimination, using their status to help the cause. Ideally, though, heteromorph discrimination shouldn't be on heteromorphs alone to combat. A vast majority of the people responsible for oppression don't do it because they don't know better, like, say, the kids when they called Shouji an octopus. People who created social hierarchies based on quirk privilege will want to stay prejudiced to maintain said privileges. So I find this argument ineffective. It distracts from asking accountability on a societal scale, making it into a private conflict that can be solved with rep and good will.
Imho it's not the fact that Shouji was attacked right after rescuing the child that invalidates his argument then, but rather the fact that he's talking about peas when he was asked about peacocks.
As for the last question, what I think about Spinner. I think he's right, and that the kids are only "winning" this argument because Spinner is too incoherent to string together a counterargument. Like. It's almost hard to watch how Hori is dumbing down the points the villains are pushing forward (enough so that even a rock would understand them) and making the villains easier and easier to save, but the heroes still can't be bothered to save them. They have their work cut out for them but still struggle to get past the very first step. Listening.
Like. The whole thing here is that Spinner accepted these powers (that make him so fearsome and wooooo... Dangerous in the heroes' eyes) because society beat into him the idea that he's worthless so long as he's not strong on his own.
The heroes can talk about the power of friendship all they want. The truth is still that their society is individualistic and quirk elitist as hell. They have rankings. Things like "there is power in numbers and in relying on others for help when you need it" are a very recent development. Like, as recent as Deku's rogue arc. But their society doesn't function on those ideals. In fact, it's engineered to squash those "weak" enough to rely on others to win. Think of Monoma and Shinsou and their respective struggles to be seen as "worthy" enough to call themselves heroes wannabes. Both were called villains simply because they weren't flashy enough on their own, because they needed to borrow their power from others.
Spinner is first and foremost a victim of that society. He didn't fall prey of AFO's schemes because he's a heteromorph (even if AFO instrumentalized this for his own gain). He fell prey because he thought he was useless alone.
This chapter once again brings focus to his need to fill that emptiness in his heart. Unlike Dabi, Stain, Shigaraki—or anyone in the League, really—Spinner doesn't think he has it in him to "change the world on his own"
But he still wants to.
AFO seized this opportunity to manipulate him, and Spinner gave in because he saw no better options to truly make a difference. Let's remember that during the first war arc, when the PLF saw their hideout get stormed in by an army of heroes, Spinner was pretty powerless. He had no big showdown, and even his attempt to wake up Shigaraki backfired.
But if Spinner fell for AFO's machinations, it's because society told him, over and over, all his life, that he's useless so long as his quirk is useless. If he became Godzilla and endangered civilians, it's because he was taught that to be someone he needed to be this strong.
The kids can tell him their inspirational stories all day long, but the reality Spinner lived is still one of kill or be killed. They can tell him that they want to become heroes and change the world all they want, but the truth remains that Spinner was never in the running for heroism in the first place. His quirk was too "weak" and forgettable.
So the point is, while the kids have the luxury of channeling their anger for "the right reasons"—while they can grit their teeth and bear the oppression because they can make a difference in the future—Spinner simply doesn't have that option to fall back on. If he wants social change, he can't rely on becoming a hero to get it. And if "friendship and people to protect" was enough to change things for the better, he wouldn't have seen friend after friend die.
So while his reaction might seem cold or insensitive, I think he has every reason to be angry. The kids aren't offering him any alternatives. They're just casting judgement from their high horse.
