All We Wanted Was Somebody Who Ca-a-a--ared
title a reference to this song and yes, i’m showing my age.
Heroes: villains are villains because they refuse to care about anyone else!
Villains: actually we became this way because everyone refused to care about us so now that we refuse to care about them, and that reversal makes us the bad guys.
Shigaraki, Toga, and Dabi are all asking for the same thing: empathy.
The heroes are asking them the same thing: responsibility.
Soooooo where do they meet? Can you have justice without mercy? Can the heroes expect the villains to take responsibility for their actions (which to be clear, are wrong!) without taking responsibility for their own failures, failures that led to the villainous turns of not just Shigaraki, Himiko, and Dabi, but Twice and frankly Hawks?
Winning isn’t enough to make a hero in BNHA’s themes, though it is certainly enough to do so in the world it’s set in; I think Bakugou’s character arc is enough to show us this. Winning against characters who been defeated their whole lives isn’t heroism, and simply saying you care isn’t enough to prove you do. Saving people is heroism; in particular, saving those who fall between the cracks like Eri–even at the cost of one’s own “heroic” future (see: Mirio losing his quirk to save Eri).
Saving these three villains is going to, well, cost something. Endeavor’s number one hero status is already very much unlikely to hold, but he will likely face a challenge: take responsibility for your failures with justice as the aim (kill or arrest Dabi), or take responsibility for your failures by giving up the heroic reputation you sacrificed Touya on the altar of to save your family regardless of what society will think. Shouto is going to have to face reopened wound of his trauma yet again. Deku saving Shigaraki will mean he’ll have to truly understand the failures of the heroic system he idolized despite everything, and maybe (if we’re very very lucky), how it failed him when he was quirkless too. Ochaco saving Himiko will cost her something as well; it’s not as clear because Ochaco’s arc is questionable at best, but most likely she’ll somehow have to be willing to risk her desired relationship with Izuku.
Empathy, the stated desire of the villains, is actually responsibility itself–taking responsibility for the failures of hero society through acknowledging the villains’ pain. Through empathy, Deku, Shouto, Ochaco (and likely Bakugou and others) will redefine what it means to be a hero.