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Spinner vs Deku - The Ordinary Everydude Protagonist
This post came about because I read somewhere, someone pointing to the fact that Spinner doesn't parallel any of the main class 1A kids. Shigaraki parallels Deku, Toga parallels Uraraka, Shoto parallels Dabi, then what about spinner? This is not true actually, though, because Spinner.... also parallels Deku. They are both green.
Beyond that though, the role of protagonist of the villain side has been split between two characters. Shigaraki is the main plot mover of the villain side, he's the character which the main conflict of the story, but also Shigaraki is a fully formed character with an incredibly specific and detailed backstory. The audience isn't really meant to find him relatable (though I do but, that's beside the point).
To use an example from super hero comics, Bruce Wayne / Batman is meant to be a character with a detailed backstory, he's not meant to be relatable because we are not all millionaires sadly. However, the point of spiderman is that he is just a kid from new york who randomly got super powers and patrols the block. We are supposed to see ourselves in spiderman, because, the entire point of spiderman is that he could be anyone. The best adaptations of Spiderman (Ie, the Miles Morales movie) stay true to this concept of the character.
So, for My Villain Academia, Horikoshi split the role of protagonist between two people, Spinner who is so far unimportant to the story, unrelated to the main conflict, an everyman guy but also a character whose perspective is important because the audience can find it relatable. Then Shigaraki who is Horikoshi's well-developed OC who the story revolves around. Therefore you have one perspective character who narrates, and helps the audience understand the other character who the story revolves around. If you want an example for literature, the book is called the Great Gatsby, the plot revolves around Jay Gatsby, but the story is told by some dude named Nick Carraway and filtered through his perception. The plot revolves around Shigaraki, but it's relayed to us by Spinner.
It's in this role that Spinner parallels Deku, and once you start thinking of them in that sense that they are both characters the audience is meant to relate to and see themselves in their similarities become even more clear.
1. Empty Cosplayers
Despite all the deliberate parallels between Shigaraki and Deku set up, backstory wise Deku actually has a lot more in common with Spinner. They are both members of a group affected by the prejudices of quirk society, Deku is quirkless, Spinner not only has a heteromoprh qiurk, he doesn't even have a useful one like a few of the other heteromorph kids in the hero course, he just sticks to walls.
They learn from a young age that society is unfair, and ti's also unfair towards them. They are also both victims of bullying. which society around them seems to deem as acceptable. Deku is tormented by the same kid for years and nobody stops him, Spinner lived in a backwater town and he just accepted everyone telling him he was worthless. They also both developed nerdy / fanboy personalities, and leaned into their interests as a response to being bullied. Spinner is a gamer, Deku is a fanboy of heroes, and it's been commented upon several times his desire to collect hero merch is a nerdy hobby.
The greatest thing they share in common however, is their main motivation at first is how much they want to become like the hero they idolize. Deku is sort of an empty character motivation wise, he doesn't have a backstory reason like Shoto, he doesn't really ever articulate why he wants to save others, he just wants to be like the hero he admires that always smiled while saving others. However, if you were tor read Spinner's foiling of Deku, because Spinner is much more articulate of his reasoning, you could say that both Spinner and Deku were so tired of being weak and helpless and unable to change their circumstances, they both admired someone who fought against the world with all their strength, Stain in Spinner's case, All Might in Deku's. Deku and Spinner are themselves people who are somewhat empty and lacking in internal motivators, but they are also moved by great feelings, to strive to do great things, even in circumstances where they are powerless. They are also, very specifically, moved to take their very first steps towards acquiring something by the desire to save others, Deku by his desire to save Bakugo which makes him move when he's powerless, Spinner by his desire to support Shigaraki which makes him fight an entire crowd of people with much more powerful quirks than he has.
They also both dress up and cosplay like their heroes. Spinner s costume is deliberately modeled off of Stain, he carries a bunch of knives around at first, because that's what Stain did. Deku wears the green outfit with the bunny hood, because it's meant to look like All Might. He copies a lot of All Might's moves at first, without thinking about how to adapt them to his body.
They also both started out as nerdy slash weak kids who were moved to get stronger by the chance to be like their heroes. Spinner just started doing sit ups apparently, Deku worked out for months until he could even inherit the quirk All For One. Most importantly though they are not only cosplayers they are empty cosplayers, Deku and Spinner don't really have a complex and nuanced understanding of both All Might and Stain they just both admire them as their personal heroes. Deku still to this point has a hard time seeing the flaws and critiquing All Might's mistakes. Spinner doesn't really think critically about whether Stain was right or wrong. They're both caught up in admiring both as symbols for what they represent. All Might as a hero whos aves everyone with a smile. Stain as a force of change for a society, that was for Spinner, stagnant and oppressive.
Which means they also repeat some of their predecssors mistakes. We just went through an entire arc of Deku doing the exact same thing All Might did, which was cut everybody off, and try to solve every problem of Hero Society alone, despite the damage it was doing to his body and his Mental Health.
Stain's failure was specifically because he tried to revolutionize hero society all alone, not only did his actions not result in the reform he wanted when he was stopped, but Shigaraki was able to use Stain's image to recruit other people into the league of villains who didn't really agree with Stain's idea of reform of hero society, and instead wanted destruction. Now we have spinner who has become the face of a revolution the same way that Stain was, that he is also quickly losing control of now that AFO has become the head of the League of Villains.
Spinner of course admires the idea of destroying the old society and replacing it with something new, but I think in these chapters he's quickly realizng that, what new thing they replace it with might not be better if someone like AFO who thrives off of control and centralizing power to himself has a say in it. That is once again, Spinner becoming his hero, but not realizing his faults. Spinner actually has a strength that Stain doesn't have, the ability to work with others, to sympathize with them and comprehend their motivations to the point where they can see the humanity in someone like Shigaraki. And it might be Spinner's specific strength over Stain, that allows him to retake control of the narrative that Stain lost control of, and AFO is currently trying to take control of.
2. You Looked Like You Needed Saving
Spinner and Deku are also connected because on the villain side and hero side respectively, they are the first two characters to verbalize that Shigaraki is someone who might be in need of saving.
Within two chapters of each other, while everybody else remarks upon Shigaraki as a god of destruction, or some kind of divinity, it is both Spinner and Deku who express concern from him as a person.
The reason they are both able to connect to the normal human side of Shigaraki, is because that is their role essentially, as the narrator / perspective character for each of their halves of the story. However, it is also because they are both essentially just normal people.
Now whether Deku is actually a good deconustrction of the chosen one myth or not, or whether he's actually a good protagonist isn't really the point here. Deku is set up by Horikoshi in his role as the story, as just a normal person, who got dragged into all of this mess. Deku is suposed to be Spiderman. Not a special chosen one, but a normal kid struggling along to keep up with everyone else. Deku doesn't immediately understand the complex nuances of the world around him, because he's supposed to be the audiences way of working out the complexities in what seems like a light hearted story about a super hero academy at first but then becomes a much darker deconstruction. The idea Hori is trying to get across again and again is that Deku is nobody special, just a normal kid struggling.
Spinner is also an everydude struggling to keep up with his peers who are all, more powerful, and also have much more specific motivations than him. It's Spinner's role in the story, to try to learn to comperehend the nuance of these people. If Deku is supposed to show us the more human and nuanced side of the heroes in the story and how they struggle, then Spinner is meant to relay to us the villains.
Which is why Spinner starts out with no motivation at all, and starts out as being the one to question and antagonize Shigaraki, only to change his mind once he sees other sides of Shigaraki. Spinner is a perspective character, his journey isn't about being the strongest, or working out a lot to get jacked, but rather to gain perspective of the world, and that was also supposed to be the intended purpose of Deku's solo arc.
Deku and Spinner are both characters who start out with no specific motivation except admiration for their heroes, and no direction in life, because they are supposed to gain some over the course of their journey. Their journeys also, are becoming less and less about being individually strong, and more about learning to reach out to others. Deku admired All Might's ability to save everyone alone with sheer super strength, but in his solo arc he couldn't live up to that image he crashed and burned. Spinner admired Stain's ability as just one man to change the world alone, but now in Stain's position as the face of a revolution, he's kind of powerless and in a position where he could be manipulated by AFO very easily.
He's on a tight rope right now. The solution to both of their problems, is to once again open up to the network people around them. Deku needed to reunite with Class 1A. Spinner's plotline is likely going to revolve around bringing the scattered pieces of the league back together, while AFO tries to keep them seperate and easy to control.
Spinner and Deku are also both characters who are motivated to go out into the world, and try to understand it, because of their desire to save people. This is also where they differ. It's actually interesting how they contrast, because they both even admit they admire Stain, Deku really early on in the story says he can understand Stain at least but not Shigaraki. Stain is also, as much of a fanboy of All Might as Deku is. See they admire different aspects of Stain, a character who is meant to be the first instance of blurring the line between hero and villain. A villain character, a murderer, who is explicitly a fanboy of heroes, and unlike Shigaraki doesn't want to destroy heroes entirely just make them better. There's a heroic side to Stain, and a villain side, and Deku admires his heroic intentinos, whereas Spinner admires the lengths Stain will go to to bring about change even if it means taking violent action.
Spinner will just kill people. That's an important part of his character, he is an empathy character, he's an everyman, but he's also very specifically an everyman who joined a terrorist cell to kill people. Spinner is able to make sacrifices for what he determines to be a greater good. He will even sacrifice the many for the few, he'll disrupt the safety of common people in order to get what he thinks is better. However, it's because Spinner can empathize with the individual over society, even at the sacrifice of the individual. However, the individual he sacrifices is usually himself.
Spinner will just kill people. That's an important part of his character, he is an empathy character, he's an everyman, but he's also very specifically an everyman who joined a terrorist cell to kill people. Spinner is able to make sacrifices for what he determines to be a greater good. He will even sacrifice the many for the few, he'll disrupt the safety of common people in order to get what he thinks is better. However it's because Spinner can empathize with the individual over society, that he's able to make connections with people like Shigaraki and may even become his salvation.
Beating up Shigaraki does not work. The heroes will try and try it again, but it just does not work. Gran Torino told All Might not to try even talking to Shigaraki, and he got worse. Deku got angry and beat the ever loving crap out of Shigaraki, and then he got possessed by AFO and got worse. Endeavor burned Shigaraki alive several times, and then learned his son was also a villain and the situation got worse. Violent suppression is just not going to work for Shigaraki, which is why Spinner's empathy which values individuals over society is being set up as important. Because, the world isn't strictly utilitarian. When an individual is being oppressed, sometimes you have to inconvenience the whole of society, in order to help that one individual. That's what heroes are supposed to do you know, go above and beyond?
I believe the story is setting up these two seemingly opposite points of view, Deku who values the peace of mind of everyone over the suffering of the individual, and Spinner who values an individual like Shigaraki over the whole of society who is also the story's biggest victim and someone in need of saving, in order to make them both compromise with each other. That is, the story is probably setting them up to work together, as people coming from both sides of hero and villain to save Shgiaraki. The pro-heroes just won't reach out to Shigaraki, their strategy again and again has just been to put him down. Deku is someone who wants to save Shigaraki, but his every method so far has failed, because he's very clueless as to how society works.
When they come together from different ends of society and work together their compromise will be able to bring out the strengths of each of their perspective. Spinner is much, much better at looking at the nuance of society than Deku ever will be, because he's been down in the muck fighting in the front lines to begin with. Deku is also someone who will be able to help Spinner direct his actions towards a more just cause, which is something Spinner wants to do, he wants to bring about a more just future like Stain wanted.
Spinner and Deku are probably going to team up, and my evidence for this is how woefully incomplete Uraraka's supposedly grand speech that's supposed to be a turning point in the story is. I think this is at least in part meant to be deliberate, because, Uraraka freezes up in the middle of her speech when she talks about how hard the heroes have it, and how the heroes and the public should be sharing the burden so everyone can smile together in the end, as she thinks about how she deliberately caused Toga to cry by denying her empathy, or even a chance to talk.
DUraraka's speech about how life is just as hard on the heroes and they're suffering right alongside of us, because they're people too, deliberately leaves out the most dehumanized members of society, the villains. Uraraka hasn't yet reached the point where she can tell the public that villains aren't symbols of hatred and fear the same way that heroes aren't symbols of strength, they are all just people struggling in a complicated and messy world because she hasn't reached that point herself. Therefore, Uraraka's speech seems to be only half the solution to the problem of the current society. Heroes have it tough, but, also what about the villains? I'm hoping, Horikoshi deliberately left that out, because the kids are not at a point where they can save their villainous counterparts, and they need someone with the other half of the answer to lead them there.
Therefore, if Uraraka parallels Toga, if Shigaraki parallels Deku, if Dabi parallels Shoto, all in the fact that while being villains on the outside, but also children who need to be saved, because they represent what all three could have grown up into had their lives been a little tougher on them then, what does Spinner parallel to? That's easy, Spinner is going to be the one to save them, because before even any of the kids got to that point of sympathy, Spinner was the one who was trying the hardest to comprehend the motivations of his friends and see them as people. Spinner is going to become the "My Hero" of the villain side and step up as a savior, rather than as a person who needs to be saved. Spinner parallels Deku in that he too, is just an ordinary every dude who can step up to become a hero.
a 🔞 celebration of the start of the second annual shigtober~ hawkshig / shigahawks, with as classic a yandere as i could get. 🥳 the ~climax~ will be in a week! mind the tags, and thank you for reading!! 💜💜💜
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