I think one of the greatest cruelties that has been shown in mha / bnha is the way society forces people to be okay in order to avoid conflict. Why? Because when people don't talk or show how they feel, the repressed emotions keep accumulating until they explode.
In the meanwhile, people grows terrified of breaking the unspoken rule of keeping things peaceful and happy. Here me out:
First of all, there was nothing wrong with a hero saying "hey, I'm here, it's gonna be okay" and smiling, but society took it too far and it became a command, more than a reassuring gesture.
Toga's parents forced her to act "normal" because they were afraid of their child having something "wrong". And because they were afraid of her child being different, they negligented her and traumatized her.
The same happened with Izuku when Inko was told he was quirkless. She got scared and denied his son's dream, because she was afraid of his child getting his heart broken, even when she didn't know if that was going to happen.
When Kotaro hits and screams and punishes Tenko, it is because he is afraid of Tenko suffering for wanting to be a hero and being quirkless. Ironically, Kotaro ended up causing him a greater damage and a greater suffering.
You can see it in the Todorokis. For playing the perfect house, the ended up with a broken family. Endeavor and Rei couldn't save their older child because they were paralized by fear. They couldn't save neither their other children because they were even more afraid after what happened to Touya.
Iida almost got murdered by Stain for not wanting to trouble his friends by telling them how he felt about what happened with his brother.
Bakugo more than once had to suffer in silence his anger and sadness because he grew up thinking he must be untouchable, unreachable, the best.
This is not too far from what Overhaul did to Eri, telling her she must not act like a runaway because then other people would get worried and get hurt because of her.
And what about the teachers at UA, how in order to keep the appearance and don't break the unspoken rule, went as far as to risk their students time and time again?
What about Spinner, who had to keep up with people being racist everyday and no one did a thing, because Japan was "at peace".
There's a fine line between trying to cheer up people and being toxic optimistic. And people cross that line daily not because they want to be cruel or hurt others, but because they feel the pressure to be fine, because otherwise they would have to admit something is wrong.
And yes, one of the biggest problems in bnha / mha is people acting too late for fear of admiring something is wrong. That's exactly why acting when nobody has asked you to help yet is a thing heroes do. They don't wait for people to be dying to rescue them.
Heroes don't wait for kids to murder their whole families to rescue them. Or to get burn down to ashes and consumed by hatred to get rescued. Or to stab a crush because they couldn't manage how they felt.
That's what the UA kids are showing, the ability to do things without being told to do them. They ability to think for themselves and break the rules if they think those rules don't work anymore.
In the end and if you look closely, bnha / mha is about how being vulnerable and weak is not a thing to be afraid of. We all need rescuing sometimes, we all need to face the ugly side of life, we all are cowards, we all get manipulated, we all get paralized by fear, but we need to stop being afraid of feeling.
That's why it's so important for the protagonist to be such a crybaby and that's why the League of Villains representation as people to feel a lot and with a lot of intensity is crucial.
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