Isn’t it funny to notice how Tomura is so perceptive of other people, and observant of their Quirks (exactly like Izuku is), that he, even though he is unsure of who himself is, still understands that what Star and Stripe lacks is not power but rather understanding of the perception of identity? This, in turn, means that Star and Stripe, contrary to what Izuku is trying to do (which is interesting to note again: as Izuku is associated more and more villainy traits rather than taking up on traditionally hero-associated ones) does not seek to understand who the villains might be and why their identity has been shaped as that of villains and instead just focuses on her own perception of reality and on how SHE sees the target?
It feels like a slap on the face, which is telling us loud and clear that Star and Stripe, cares about using her ‘Special Authority’ when she can in order to eliminate the world threat that Tomura has become. It feels like we went back a step, or twenty, in both the understanding of the villains AND the ways in order to deal with them. Just once again to fortify the knowledge that what heroes do lack, in this age where heroism is everything, is humanity.
MHA Chapter 1: I want to be the number one hero and save the world like All Might
MHA Now: Hero Society was created by the establishment to prevent the loss of power over citizens after the emergence of quirks. Its very foundation is built on legitimate domination and any act that veers away from that submission will be deemed criminal and punished.
To participate in this society is to participate in a system of child exploitation, oppression, and an oligarchy of power
If you don’t read MHA: Vigilantes, then spoilers
Leading into the panels below, the female character here is helping Koichi (the main protagonist) with his hero sociology assignment (or something like that) We are introduced to the fact that the hero licensing started in Rhode Island United States.
Before the Licensing, there was a vast amount of people using their quirks to solve crime. Think of this of this period being how majority of DC and Marvel heroes operate.
But then after the licensing exam was established, she asked of the 189 known vigilantes to be active, how many become heroes:
thats 0.37% certified. Only 7 were permitted to operate as a hero and the rest were deemed villains
Now I want to reiterate what is said above:
“ The true objective of the Official Hero System was NOT APPROVAL AND LICENSURE of vigilantes, but rather to define the TRUE VILLAINS......This was just a single part of the larger plan to implement a SOCIETY WIDE QUIRK CONTROL SYSTEM”
We are looking at a new method of Law and Order in the United States.
I am going to take a slight detour below, but bear with me!!
Other Key things to point out
“Violate the Rights to Bear Arms and Self-determination”
"Its as if they created the problem just to get credit for solving it”
The rights to bear arms (and this is my interpretation of the constitution btw) is the right of the citizen to defend themselves from the state if it’s conducting in a manner that threatens their lives.
Self-determination below is defined as:
1: free choice of one's own acts or states without external compulsion
2: determination by the people of a territorial unit of their own future political status
(this was taken from the Webster dictionary)
The emergence of quirks meant the threat to one thing: Control
Power is in numbers and numbers with power is dangerous. How can the state oversee the population when that said group could fight back without the need of guns or an army?
In this excerpt taken from another excerpt:
The connection between the power of the people and the ideal of nondomination can be traced back to Machiavelli in his Discourses on Livy where, for the first time, ‘the people’ is defined as that subject position occupied by whoever acts in political ways that are motivated ‘only [by the] desire not to be dominated’ (Machiavelli 1517, I, 5).
Though quirks range for the minimalist like having objects gravitate towards you, we know that those exist to have quirks to erase everything
So to mitigate the possibility for the citizens becoming both individualized and unified, you nip it in the bud by establishing regulations.
You create the others.
You create classifications
You create privileges
When you have a society that is divided based on appearance, power, and status, you have a society easier to rule- the iron law of oligarchy
Just look at real life.
You then raise people to submit to this idea of what it means to be a good civilian and self-police. Legitimate Dominance as I mentioned before: Specifically, Socially legitimate dominance
According to sociologist and philosopher Max Weber, we have 3 types of authority
Charismatic: power based on the exceptional qualities of an individual, such as his or her heroism or sanctity
The heroes of the story
Traditional: power that is justified by a belief in long-standing customs
The government
Legal: based on the legality or acceptability of rules and laws that outline appropriate courses of action
“it is when we follow rules because we believe in the process, regardless of who is giving us the order. “
the civilians and the heroes
From the International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences by James Wright he write he comments the following about Vilfredo Pareto
.....He [Pareto] argued that the elite class is maintained by the circulation of especially apt nonelites into the ruling group. Mosca takes a more sociological approach to the study of elites by emphasizing structural and organizational factors in the maintenance of elite classes, such as their superior organization and their control of resources.
Noneleites= the heroes: We know there is financial and political gain associated with being a hero (even more so when you are in the top percent)
The society that BNHA exist in creates an environment for people to be villains: "Its as if they created the problem just to get credit for solving it”
The society creates an environment where it’s not abnormal to send children into high risk raid without experience of this kind:
The society creates an environment of the idolization or heroes and strips away independence on ones self.
Now, I don’t know if Vigilantes is really “cannon” so I do take some of the interpretations of the story with a grain of salt. I also don’t know if the main story line will even touch of this topic, but I like to keep this is in my head.
He got revenge on someone who, frankly, I don’t mind him getting revenge on. Where’d he get that prosthetic, though? I can’t imagine that fully operational prosthetics are that readily available? Also, HEY! Face reveal! For some reason I thought he was going to be a really old dude, I dunno.
Why is everyone on this team so fucking savage, oh my god. When Shigaraki appeared last chapter, I thought he was going to kidnap Chisaki and use him for leverage against the heroes/Eight Precepts, but I mean, this is great too. How is Chisaki gonna deal with this?? The loss of his hands, his power??? What about Chrono? Is he going to go on a wild chase after Shigaraki? How’s Eri going to feel, knowing that the bastard who, y’know, treated her like nothing more than a lab rat, literally can’t touch her anymore? I mean, it’s a good way to solve the problem of such an OP character as Chisaki. Got character AND plot development, mhm.
Two things only, in regard to the QOO of Chapter 312:
a. I wonder whether we do know who is the hero Lady N supposedly killed (for which she ended up at Tartarus) (and why this does give me a strong sense of Stain foreshadowing, don't ask why) and if do they have some kind of relevance to the story (even though I can't really remember a hero who has died which has been relevant so far, if we exclude Shirakumo and Night Eye (and which are not her doing)), and also how this incorporates into her previous job as a member of the HPSC. Because since she was Hawks' senpai and Hawks 'debuted' four years ago as a hero, it means that her sentence and betrayal has happened in the last three years (more or less).
b. What kind of society does Lady N envision exactly and whether she did know who Kai was, when she freed him and took him with her (probably, as she used to investigate villains). Also I like the underlying conflict AfO establishes between Lady N and Izuku, probably conscious of the fact that instead the two might share ideals - and putting up a wall between her biggest goal (for which she even went as far as to kill) and Izuku's view, and which tells us that Lady N may not believe in hero's ideals anymore, because she realized they were far more different than what she envisioned and also that AfO is highly likely underestimating her.
