it’s upsetting to me that despite setting up each league member to have a specific and beautiful depiction of the ignorances of hero society in their own way, the story never really considers their words at all in making change for the betterment of said society. these are my thoughts regarding the conclusion of the villains, by each character…
shigaraki’s entire character boils down to the fundamental message of society, both heroes and civilians, ignoring the downtrodden who are in dire need of saving, just because it’s inconvenient for them. shigaraki represents those downtrodden people - the neglected children, the poor, the desperate. he represents that criminals are made, not born. yet, despite the beautiful set up we had with his entire being paralleling izuku’s, his monologue during his fight with endeavour, and him deliberately stating he needs to be a hero for the villains, this is just thrown to the side in the end. izuku didn’t save anything when it came to shigaraki even though he vowed to do so when nana shimura asked him if he had the ability to kill her grandson. he said he wouldn’t, but that’s what happened in the end, isn’t it? was the crying child within him who dreamed of being a hero not enough to communicate his humanity to the heroes? in the end he was just a small boy, remaining neglected by the people who were meant to hold his hands and save him. he didn’t even get to reconnect with the other league members - his dear family, in the end. kurogiri had said, his friends were waiting for him.
toga represented the rejection of people with unconventional quirks and how she’s punished for just being who she is. she can’t help who she is. in the bnha society, since her quirk isn’t glamorous or conventional, she is looked down upon and immediately labelled inherently evil for acting upon her desires. nobody in her previous life tried to understand her, not even her parents, as they resorted to counselling in hopes of suppressing her over helping her. and yes, ochako did understand her in the end which can somewhat serve as closure for toga because her love was returned, it’s still unfortunate that only ochako will understand her and nobody else. society will go on judging people with said unconventional quirks without hesitation, not taking the time to understand how hard it is to be shunned over something out of your control.
speaking of the view of differing quirks, it brings us now to spinner and his mini-arc of fighting for the visibility and acceptance of heteromorphs. we literally see the existence of cult groups in the story that are against the existence of heteromorphs in society because of their appearance. my complaints are mainly directed at horikoshi for fumbling the concept of discrimination and fighting for the liberation of the oppressed, especially since it directly reflects concepts of racism, colourism, and alienation in real life. although, i would be lying to say it isn’t a somewhat realistic depiction of how fighting for rights is widely frowned upon. in order to make change come about, society must be disrupted. that is exactly what spinner did in the end, and was met with shoji and koda telling him he must sit and wait peacefully for change to come about - which we all know does nothing in the long run. it’s so upsetting to me that spinner, the one who is undoubtedly the closest to shigaraki within the league, had the outcome he did. he had so much compassion for his cause in bringing about stain’s will, and it just hurts seeing his moment watered down to his nomufication and demonization of the heteromorph revolution.
then of course, is dabi. his entire drive was to prove how terrible of a person endeavor is, and how contradictory it is that someone like him saves people for a living. dabi is an embodiment of all of endeavor’s sins, coming back to put him in his place. however, in dabi’s conclusion with all his family members being there when he nearly combusted, endeavor’s words of atonement (i’m using this word very lightly because what really did he atone for anyways) will never be heard by the greater society. all the civilians will understand is that endeavor brought down his estranged villain son. people will most likely move on from the fact that he abused his family in order to focus on his ‘bringing down’ of dabi (which honestly was all on shoto’s part) and ultimately saving the day. people will not take dabi’s existence as a catalyst for critical thought into who exactly they call heroes and question the integrity of heroes - what are the kind of people that save them.
speaking of questioning the integrity of heroes, this leads into stain. i don’t have too much to say about him but i think it was stupid to just have afo kill him. he wasn’t a villain, he was a vigilante. i think it was such a waste of his character to just have him show up in the story, get jailed, and then have one interaction with all might. i feel he could’ve done so much more with communicating his cause to society, and in reaching regular civilians rather than sparking a flame in the hearts of some villains such as spinner. what a shame. what a waste.
also, i want to mention twice. i loved twice so much, he definitely stuck with me. i thought the concept of “all it takes is one bad day” was such a perfect thing to include for a villain character. his entire life was changed for the worse over a motorcycle accident when he was a teenager. though living in his loneliness which was ultimately destroying him, he had met the league. the members of the league, especially toga, served not as a stepping stone to use and swing his life around in that way, but simply as friends. a family, that he found a place in despite everything else that had gone wrong for him. he had this one thing going for him, and he was abruptly torn away from it with the touch of a feather. he wasn’t even asking for much, he had just found his people - his place in the society that rejected him over a very human mistake, where he could live as himself. and to top it all off because apparently that wasn’t bad enough, shigaraki doesn’t even know he died - and if he did, there was nothing shown for it. another fumble by horikoshi.
tldr; what pains me the most in all of this, is that not only are all the league’s reasons for fighting wholly overlooked by the heroes, but none of what they stood for is going to be considered in the end for reconstructing a just society. their words, their pains, and their dreams are all going to be brushed aside in preference for society simply celebrating their deaths and incarceration. because in the end, all the humanity within themselves that they bared to the world in their fight is going to amount to nothing to people who just wanted them gone. nobody is there to mourn them.