Connecting songs with characters
Song: Oleander by Mother Mother
character: Zen Shigaraki (All For One) of MHA
🎵 About Oleander
• Artist: Mother Mother
• Album: Eureka
• Release year: 2011
• Meaning: The lyrics address toxic relationships and emotional vulnerability, using the oleander plant (a poisonous plant) as a metaphor for something beautiful yet dangerous.
And how could this connect to the main villain of MHA? Well, let's take it one step at a time.
First, we need to analyze what the song is based on. It can be divided into two parts: the first and most obvious is the toxic relationship, and the other part is the symbolism of the plant they use, an oleander, specifically a white oleander, a delicate and beautiful white flower if you're not familiar with it. And therein lies the danger: if you don't know this plant, you don't know that it's poisonous, or that all its parts are toxic.
The white oleander symbolizes caution, hidden danger, and protection due to its poisonous nature, which contrasts with its delicate beauty.
The song uses the metaphor of a poisonous plant to describe a relationship where one person is harmful, dependent, and emotionally destructive, yet also afraid of being abandoned because they don't know how to function without that bond, even though it's toxic. The narrator knows they are hurting the other person, but this only makes them more dependent, out of fear of losing that person.
"And if you leave me, rest assured, it would kill me"
The narrator is a manipulator, a manipulator who knows that their victim cares so much about them that they doesn't see the warning signs, and that they is looking out for the narrator's well-being.
How does this connect to Zen Shigaraki?
The clearest evidence is his relationship with his brother Yoichi, a relationship that was anything but healthy. From a young age, and whenever he had the opportunity, Zen manipulated and controlled Yoichi. In the brothers' childhood, we see that while Zen wore a garbage bag as clothing, Yoichi wore normal clothes. Many would see this as a sign that Zen cared for his brother, but he didn't care about Yoichi because he was his brother; Zen cared because he saw Yoichi as his own, as a possession, not as his brother.
Zen knew something; he was stronger, and Yoichi wouldn't leave him because Yoichi cared deeply for him. That's why he isolated him, manipulated him, controlled him, and made him dependent on him, like an oleander flower. His intentions might seem like he was trying to protect his brother, which would be a good thing, but in reality, his intentions were to have Yoichi all to himself. That's control, obsession, jealousy, toxicity, and danger. And even though it's not explicitly stated, that relationship was deeply incestuous on Zen's part; it was profoundly abusive, possessive, and obsessive.
"Like an oleander
White white leaves
Of an oleander
White like me"
Besides the fact that the song's chorus might reference Zen's character design—the white hair, like the white oleander—white usually symbolizes purity, innocence, and calm, but in Zen's case, the color represents the things he takes away and destroys. Yoichi could never have a peaceful life, and Zen also destroyed Tenko Shimura's innocence, and his purity, by turning him into Tomura Shigaraki. White doesn't represent what Zen is, but rather what he destroys.
I could also do an analysis of the relationship between Zen and Tenko, because yes, that was grooming.
In the end, we can all have different ideas about how we see characters, relationships, or other things. This is just something I had in mind since I started thinking about the song lyrics, because I knew something felt familiar, but these are just my thoughts.
What about yours? Is there anything you'd like to add? Anything you'd like to comment on? Any details I missed? You're welcome to share your thoughts.
