Its so funny to me that Tomura got his sass and silly comebacks from his dad's side of the family.
"Why are you bothering me. I'm busy right now, leave me alone. I don't wanna to talk to you." 😭😭
Before meeting All Might, Nana seemed to have a personality similar to Tomura's. Standoffish and quick to dismiss new people at first
They both don't wanna give the person they meet a chance AT ALL,, ff
I know Nana didn't wanna form connections since AFO would (very likely) harm them, but its still interesting to see similar traits between her and Tomura's personalities, imo
There's something about Dabi's phrasing here "the world doesn't care whether you're smiling or crying" to paraphrase that struck me as especially meaningful in regards to both Dabi and Toga's characters. They are people who both have a tendency to smile instead of cry when in great distress, and everyone around them uses their unusual expressions as evidence of their villainry.
Shigaraki, Toga, and Dabi all served the scapegoat role to their family to a certain extent, they were all problem children where their parents didn't see them as children, but rather as the problem-maker in their household. I once wrote a meta comparing the Shimura and the Todorokis basically saying that despite Touya literally dying, and coming back from the dead, and the whole family getting a second chance with him, the Todorokis basically view him the same way as they did when he was a child.
Even though Endeavor was the problem-maker in the household, Touya was unfairly blamed as the problem child. Rather than confront Endeavor those around him chose to instead, tell Touya to quiet down, and simply stop reacting to his father's ignorance of him. This mirrors how anyone in the Shimura household could have stepped up to confront Koutarou's unfair punishment of Tenko for wanting to be a hero just like any other kid his age, before it ramped up to physical abuse, but they instead tried to gently persuade Tenko to give up on his dream instead.
Therefore, nothing has truly changed and the Todorokis recreate the same unhealthy dynamic they always have had, Endeavor remains the hero, Touya remains the scapegoat to be blamed. Even though nothing that happened in his childhood is truly his fault.
So returning to these lines, people don't care whether or not you're smiling or crying. For Touya it's a reference to no matter how they choose to present themselves, people are always going to view them in a certain way. Touya is the scapegoat of his family. Even before he became a villain. When he was just a twelve year old, his family's perspective of him was very uncharitable.
Rei knew that Touya was just a child that wanted his father's attention, but that came across very differently in how she acted with him, following Endeavor's rules and trying to persuade him to give up on getting his father's attention, even acting afraid fo Touya when he resembles his father. In doing so she slides the blame on Touya.
I mean, just to illustrate my point if you look at the situation was Touya's perspective his behavior is completely reasonable. Touya was groomed, separated from other children, told he was special and he belonged in a different world. Told that he needs to practice and train to stop All Might. He was raised on those words.
He repeats those words to Rei later. Touya can't adapt to the change, because the change doesn't make sense in his mind. He was used to getting all this attention, but suddenly he's not getting it, it's like he's being punished when he didn't do anything wrong. He can't figure out what he's doing wrong so he tries to fix it, but in his attempts to fix it following everything he's been taught beforehand, training good, he's gotta work hard to get his father's approval, he was born to be a hero, that's suddenly no longer good any more and Touya's parents never put any effort at all into trying to bridge the gap to Touya or help him adjust to the situation.
Like I said, Touya's entire arc revolves around the idea of how his family views him. Almost everyone in the household, except Shoto who was too young at the time didn't know him. Fuyumi brushes off Touya's attempts to train like it's not a big deal to him, Natsuo doesn't get why Touya is talking his ear off about their father at night (they're also too young to properly comprehend), Rei at least tries to understand that Touya is just a child in need of attention from his father but her fear of endeavor reflected in her children makes her distant from all of them, and Endeavor has no intention of changing or course correcting. How unseen Touya's distress was in his own household, is brought up multiple times. Endeavor is just now, remembering that his son literally cried and pulled his own hair out in his attempts to get his attention. The memory was blurry for him before.
Touya mentioned his father never even bothered to notice or care, that he was crying his eyes out nearly every day about his father's neglect. We're even shown in the flashback itself, Touya acts confrontational and demanding with his mother, attention hungry with his father, but when he's all alone he's so overwhelmed by emotion he literally starts crying because that's how he feels about his neglect, abandoned to the point where it overwhlems him with tears.
Touya's entire story is about how literally no matter what face he shows to people, even his own family is determined to characterize him in the worst way possible. Even when he was just a twelve year old so overwhelmed he was constantly crying and sad, nobody even bothered to look at his distress. Even before he was a villain, he was villainized for normal kid stuff, like... wanting his father's attention. This continues far into adulthood, when Dabi angrily accuses Hawks of murdering Twice, Twice questions if he's really sad about it because he shows a smiling face in that moment. Touya can't even feel sad for his friend dying even though Hawks witnessed him trying to protect Twice, without Hawks accusing him of villainy.
This is why Dabi tells Toga to not show anybody her tears, to smile instead of crying, because in everything Dabi's experienced so far everything's told him that nobody cares about his internal world or what he's feeling inside. People have already made up their mind about what he is and have decided to demonize him. This is also probably why Dabi doesn't bother to socialize with others, and has isolated himself for a long time in the first place. He says as much to Rei. Why would I want to play with normal kids? They belong in a different world than me? They don't understand me.
Why would Dabi think other people would understand him when his own family is so committed to misunderstanding him, when Dabi can make a live broadcast on television about how endeavor raised him in his household and people are just like "oh that Dabi is annoying an insane." Dabi doesn't open himself to others and only shows them a smiling mask because deep down inside he believes that no one will ever give him a fair shake anyway so why bother expose himself.
However, that's what makes his decision to open up to Toga just a little bit this chapter so meaningful. I think it's important for perspective to realize Dabi and Toga's relationship hasn't really been good so far, and that actually matters. Dabi from introduction has picked Toga out as a remorseless psycho. He characterized her rather the same way that others have characterized him. Even during team bonding moments like immediately after Twice's death when Spinner was trying to convince the group and Toga to stay together, Dabi screamed in her face he doesn't care and she can do whatever she wants. All of that matters because it's such a contrast to this moment. Dabi hasn't been acting like a good big brother around Toga so far, he's been acting like an asshole, she has almost no reason to think he's kind, or that he's doing anything but using her.
However Toga, the most emotionally intelligent character in the league. Who was able to see Twice's distress and empathize with him. Who was the first oen to see Shigaraki's faith in all his friends along with Twice. She's willing to see the kindness in his actions that his family isn't.
And this is specifically why Touya has avoided making friends until now, because he was convinced no one could even understand him if he tried. He simply belonged in a different world than others. His own family can't even recognize him with a little bit of hairdye, so why bother?
We're meant to draw a line between Toga's self reflection all this chapter and Touya's. It's actually clever, because we're not shown nearly as much and in detail of Toga's emotional abuse. We never see her get hit like Shigaraki, we never see her break down crying over it like Touya in his two flashback chapters. We only see the moment she snapped. However, everything in this chapter goes to suggest how little her parents cared to try to understand Himiko, and how quickly they gave up on her. They stopped measuring her height against the wall when she was three years old just before her quirk manifested. They literally tell her to her face no one will ever accept her the way she is. They threw away everything in her room, and let the whole place be vandalized. Did they even wait for their daughter to come home, or were they relieved she left?
Toga is different from Touya and Tenko, because she was younger when her villainry "started". As far as we know Shigaraki didn't debut as a villain until he was legally an adult during the UA invasion incident. Touya didn't debut as a villain until Stain's rise to power. Toga's first violent incident was in middle school. Even in our society, violent stabbing incidents between middle schoolers is a thing that happens sometimes, and while it's complicated legally in japan Toga wouldn't be tried as an adult, and even if she went to juvenile detention center that record would be sealed once she turned eighteen. However, the case seems to be different in Hero Society. Number one, we have in VIgilantes as teenage girl vigilante being labeled as a villain for her first offense, and having Endeavor go after her fully with the intent to kill. Aoyama was taken hostage under extremely extenuating circumstances, yet he's tied up in maximum security prison, and has been threatened with not only arrest, but evidence of his arrest showing up on his permanent record even if he changes sides and helps the heroes. We are given all indications that hero society isn't exactly lenient even on first offenses for children.
However, Toga could have been saved much much earlier. If on her first violent incident she got the help she needed, b/c her freakout in middle school was very clearly a cry for help and attention. Like. This is pretty obviously a metaphor for self-harm.
Touya and Toga even follow a similiar pattern with their quirks. At first they only harm themselves, Toga biting her wrist and sucking her own blood, (like such an obvious metaphor for slitting her wrists do I even need to point him out) and Touya at first all he did was burn himself while practicing with his quirk in an attempt to bring attention. When that wasn't enough, only then, did they start lashing out and using their quirks against others in desperation.
However, the labeling of Toga as a demon child happened before she even started harming anyone, by her own parents. While it may be reasonable to call Toga a demon child for now being a serial murderer with several kills to her name, it was the act of labelling her a villain in the first place,t hat not only got the ball rolling, but also prevented her from getting help every single opportunity she needs to.
So another thing with Toga and Touya both being given the worst possible least charitable interpretations by not only their own families, but also the heroes around them, is that it's clearly had an affect on Toga.
Uraraka characterizes Toga's actions as entirely superflous, her motiations as spur of the moment, and she also jumps to assuming that Toga just killed that old lady when she could have sucked her blood and left her alone. Characterizing her with the worst interpretation possible. However, when looking at the situation from Toga's perspective, why she did this, why she transforms into others and even why she kills.
After witnessing Jin's death, Toga seems to confirm in her own mind what she's been suspicious of for awhile. That heroes won't come and save a person like her. It goes all the way back to Toga's fight with Curious. Out of all the villain vs villain matchups, Toga is the only person whoa actually kills her counterpart on the MLA. Shigaraki even spares Re-Destro. So wy, only Toga, why does she only kill her clear foil on the MLA. You could say it's because HOri didn't want to write another female villain, but considering the actual context of the fight itself, Toga's decision to kill is motivated very specifically by one thing.
She was terrified for her life. Toga suffered the most mortal wounds in her fight. She was literally surrounded by a crowd of people who all turned against her. Toga while running away in the crowd, murmurs to herself repeating to a psychotic extent she has to do all of these things so she doesn't get caught, she has to blend in, she has to be sensitive to how other people behave and transform herself. All to protect herself. All to keep running away. So, we arrive at the answer of why did Toga kill Curious?
Because she was fucking terrified for her life and in that situation she was convinced it was kill or be killed.
Toga is uniquely a child in the League of Villains, and more than that, a runaway child with one violent incident who started ramping up shortly after she joined the league. If she was caught after running away before she joined the league, in a normal society, she'd most likely wouldn't even be tried as an adult. However, this is hero society where Toga has every reason to believe that since she's been labeled as a villain and hunted down like a villain by heroes, that heroes like Endeavor are going to come after her with lethal force and burn her alive. THis is once again, something Endeavor did literally onscreen, and burned a bystander and got no punisment for. This is something Heroes are allowed to do, so Toga is completely reasonable in her belief that no hero is going to come save her, and if they do corner her they're just as likely to go for the kill as the arrest.
So Touya is characterized by this prevasive belief that he's always going to be going through whatever he is going through alone, because no one will understand him. Touya himself is so isolated he can't even accept that he might have burned Toga's house down as a gesture of kindness. He insists he isn't kind, he's just using Toga, that she's wrong about him, because that's all Touya knows about himself. Touya has only ever been seen as Endeavor's son and nothing else, so even while being cast away from his family he still characterizes everything he does as to get revenge against Endeavor and be Endeavor's villain because the way he was raised he has no other way of seeing himself.
While Toga believes deep down to her core, that she's going to be killed and eradicated for being born with the quirk she was born at. Like the dream wasn't subtle,s he dreams of a red bird piercing her through the stomach and dancing in the blood. I wonder what that was a metaphor for. Maybe, Hawks gutting Twice with the knife? Toga says that her motivation for killing people is to love and become them, but if you analyze her actions, she's a runaway girl desperately afraid the heroes are going to hunt her down for her deviant quirk, so she has to do anything she can, even transform herself into other people, to pass herself off as normal and keep hiding.
They are two people whose families and the people around them have committed to interpreting them and their actions in the worst way possible, while turning a blind eye to their inner distress. Touya is just the villain of the family, even Endeavor whose directly responsible for creating him can't separate seeing his son from being a villain, and Toga is a just a pleasure killer who kills on a whim.
However, Touya's original reason for stating he didn't want to connect with people was that he lived in a different world from them, and normal people would never understand the feelings inside of him and what he was going through. It seems slowly but surely, just by opening up a little bit to Toga, that Touya is backing off on that stance. While normal people would never understand, or even care to understand, what's going on inside Toga and Touya's head no matter what face they show the outside world. The truth is Touya and Toga's situation has changed somewhat since they found each other in the league. Touya is now able to see that Himiko has a heart underneath her psychotic actions. Toga is the first person to describe Dabi as kind. Even if their families views on them haven't changed one bit, Touya's views are slowly starting to change as he realizes there are people in the world who suffered the same way he did when he was under Endeavor. For the first time he seems to look past his own trauma, and see that just like him, Toga was a child that was ignored that she's doing all this for a reason. And Toga as well, receives reassurance from Touya for the first time. He actually tries to comfort her when she's faced with the fact that no one, no normal person, will probably ever try to understand her. He tries to give her an answer to what her parents told her "No one will ever accept you the way they are."
And his answer is, well, laugh anyway. Even if they don't accept you, you're here laughing with us in the end. Touya's insistence was that he could never make friends because being from a different world they would never be able to understand him, but now he's finally found people who do understand. So I'm excited to see where we'll go from here.
When you think about the individual statistics of the bnha / mha characters, no other person has lost as much as Shigaraki Tomura has.
Let's see a list of the people he has lost so far:
Nana Shimura, his grandma from his father side (dead).
His grandma from his mother side (dead).
His grandpa from his mother side (dead).
Nao Shimura, his mother (dead).
Kotaro Shimura, his father (dead).
Hana Shimura, his sister (dead).
Mon-chan, his dog (dead).
Kurogiri, his parental figure (captured).
AFO, another terrible parental figure (that man never loved him I mean).
Magne, a friend (dead).
Twice, a friend (dead).
Mr. Compress, a friend (captured).
Giran, a friend (captured).
Toga, a friend (unknown location).
And now he doesn't even have his own body. This boy has lost like no one on this manga. And the people who hasn't died, they have several consequences like losing fingers, losing arms, etc.
The deaths surrounding Shigaraki are also more explicit and terrible than the rest. He has witnessed himself a good number of those deaths, at least half of them. All of them have been directly related to him, which means Shigaraki can freely blame himself for what happened, even if those were accidents and even if the people actively choose to participate on the actions that lead them to their deaths.
Shigaraki has the greatest killing rate, thanks to the big waves of his quirk he used both on the MVA arc and the War arc.
He has all the reasons to believe he's a monster. The problem comes when you realize he is a created monster, he wasn't born like that, contrary to what AFO has suggested before. What happened on the MVA and the War arc are twin situations to what happened with Tenko the night his quirk awoken. He lost his mind and the control over his quirk, leading to great catastrophes. We have evidence that he was not thinking clearly on those moments of great kill, but he was rather in great pain and very very scared, tortured by his mind. That pain and fear was caused by a great abuse that generated the feeling of pure hatred. In his three big killings, there's a pattern of him remembering his past and what happened with the Shimuras.
Now, almost half of the people on the list above choose to sacrifice themselves. Three of those people do it in order to save Tomura: Nao Shimura, Kurogiri and Mr. Compress. They have in common that they acted as Shigaraki's parental figures. We could include AFO, but only if we see what happen on Kamino from Shigaraki's perspective. We could include Twice but he was not exactly sacrificing himself consciously, he wanted to scape alive.
Two people on that list tried to kill Shigaraki: Kotaro and AFO. Both tried to shape his mind into what they wanted it to be and that lead to Tomura being unstable and sometimes unpredictable. We can see the symbolism of this in the fact that Kotaro's hand was always over Tomura's face, almost wanting to erase his identity, and when AFO possessed Tomura one of the first things we saw was him tearing apart Tomura's face. Other moment related to this is Tomura's confession to Doctor Ujiko in the beginning of My Villain Academia, were he states that he couldn't remember clearly his life before AFO. With limited information, including the years of manipulation from AFO, Tomura came to the conclusion he would never be satisfied and he would rather destroy it all– except what his colleagues wanted to save.
However, the majority of the people on that list loved Tomura and wanted to see him safe. What does this boy has that people keeps sacrificing themselves in order to try and save him? What makes them want to save Tomura?
Not matter how hard AFO tried to make a monster out of Tomura, we see how people keep reaching for him seeking comfort or even seeking a better future. For some reason, Tomura generates love in the hearts of those closer to him. Magne, Twice, Giran, Kurogiri, Mr. Compress, all of them gave beautiful speechs of love and acceptance, of protecting the people they like, of working towards a better future. Nao ran towards her son, Hana apologized for leaving him while being scared.
Or if you like, let me give you the maximum example: Deku changed drastically his hero path after witnessing himself who exactly was the real Tomura Shigaraki.
The reason why Deku looks like a villain on the last chapters is because there's a war inside of him– and also because it's the closes he has ever been to understanding the villains, by being on their shoes. While peeking through Tomura's mind Deku finally realized the reality of the hero society condition, and Deku is currently on a painful progress of growing, along with going through a phase of being an outcast and a rejected kid himself. Like a child exposed to war, or like a child getting more mature after a big trauma, Deku is reshaping himself in the light of what he knows now but didn't know before. Living on the streets, not eating enough, having people wanting to put you aside so you wouldn't alter their safety or peace, being painted as a problem or an object or a weapon rather than being seen as a human being in need of help...
While AFO's plan was to make Tomura suffer to increase his hate, he couldn't predict that Tomura would be the one to inspire Deku to love in a way he has never love before. Tomura's breaking point was also the breaking point for Deku, but while Tomura dives into the darkness, Deku fights his way over the stormy clouds to reach for the light.
Ultimately, everything surrounding Tomura is exactly what allows MHA / BNHA to be the story of how Deku became the greatest hero out there. The fact that Tomura refused to give up, refused to be who everyone wanted to be... even if he fails again and again, what counts here is that he is unbreakable. Even in the deep of his conscious, he awaits for another chance. Deku and Tomura are the ones who surpassed any limits, any expectations, in order to produce a real change in the roots of society itself.
So you can say that in parallel with Deku, (and there are some interesting implications in this one), Tomura hasn't been defeated by the rain either. Like two sides of the same coin, either they drown together or rise together.
Hi! It’s been a while! So remember my request for the 750 followers event about the singing quirk and the insomnia? I actually made a TikTok account centering around that OC and it’s pretty popular! I just wanted to say thank you so much for answering my request because that really helped me flesh out the character!
Also, this is unrelated, but do you think the LoV would be like a tight-knit found family type situation, or a coworkers type deal? I feel like they would have game/movie nights or something like that maybe with a darker spin cuz they’re reckless and chaotic. I just love your ideas and how you provide lots of depth to characters that don’t get a lot of attention.
Love you and thanks for everything!
That's so awesome that your OC is so well received on Tiktok! I'm so happy for you! It's always a great feeling when your creative content is valued.
As for the LOV... well, you know I tend to ramble, so I'm gonna continue this below the cut... I really get in depth with this, because I love LOVE psychoanalyzing fictional characters and relationship dynamics.
I think each character is different in their own way, and some will be more social than others. So you'd probably get some members hanging out and doing 'normal' things together more than others. Like for Dabi, I see him as often separating himself from the others, even when he's in the same space as them. We all know he's a bit of an ass, and it's my headcanon the he does that on purpose to keep others at arm's length. He's not interested in forming attachments, so he'd be less likely to engage in things like game nights and stuff. He's very goal focused and sees the others as a means to an end; it's all about how useful others are to him. That doesn't mean he doesn't form attachments though; I think he'd just be in denial about it. He might loosen up with a few drinks, or have some late-night one-on-one conversations with some members, depending on how he's feeling. But his motto is always "me first" and he tries his damnedest to stick to that (which is why writing him with conflicting emotions is so damn fun!).
Shigaraki is interesting, because he literally wants to destroy everything, but still seems to value his comrades. It's like he's in conflict with himself where he says he loathes the world and wants to watch it all fall apart.... except for these few people, cuz they're pretty cool. Something to note is that at the beginning of the series, he seems a bit bratty, a bit hot-tempered. But obviously there must be something about him that makes the others stay, and it's not just his power or his connections to AFO - we slowly get to see his personality unfold as he gains confidence in himself, and we start to learn that he can be charming, level-headed, and understanding to his comrades. And really not a huge surprise, considering he had All For One as his mentor, who's ability to manipulate and win over others has probably been his greatest weapon aside from his quirk. I'm not saying Shigaraki is manipulating the League... in fact, I think he's genuine, and it's his genuineness that has won each of them over. But he's learned how to talk to others in a way that has them feeling understood and trusted, and in return they trust him.
That being said, I still think that at first, Shigaraki would struggle with larger social groups, like when all of the league is together. I don't see him liking a lot of noise and rambunctiousness, it'd be a little overwhelming for him. It's not about sensory sensitivity. It'd be overwhelming from a psychological standpoint. He's not used to being around others like that, and he finds it draining. But over time, he would learn to enjoy their company. It would start on a more one-on-one basis or a small group basis. And the more comfortable he gets, the easier it is for him to be around more League members at once, until it's no longer something he worries or thinks about - it just is. It's almost as if he no longer sees it as him vs. them; instead, he almost considers them an extension of himself, and he sees them as his responsibility and something to value. That's a difference between him and Dabi - while Dabi fights attachments tooth and nail, Shigaraki is like, "*shrug* didn't plan for this, but here we are." and now he's valuing and supporting his teammate's dreams like he does his own.
I see Toga, Twice, and Spinner as the more social butterflies while others may drift in and out depending on how full their social meter is. Those three would be the glue holding the rest together; if the league is to develop a sense of "family," it comes from those three. They're the ones that scream "fun" to me, but in different ways. Like, Spinner is just a cool, chill dude. He's that really close friend you can just hang with and not feel any pressure. Wanna watch a movie? Cool. Wanna play games? Awesome. Wanna go grab a bite to eat? Let's go. And he'd be a great listener and super easy to talk to. Twice is all about 'family' and would be big on doing things together. Don't plan something social without inviting him. Toga would be all about having fun and living life to the fullest (although for her, that'd probably include some violent stuff...).
Kurogiri is 100% dad vibes (in a reserved sort of way), while Compress is the cool uncle; I see both of them as more mature than the rest. Compress would join in for things like movie nights and card games, but I don't see him playing video games with the others (although he'd probably watch) or doing late-night shenanigans the way young people tend to do; although like Shigaraki, he'd probably follow along in case their reckless butts need saving.
I also think it's worth noting that all of their relationships with each other would likely evolve the more time they spend together and the more battles they fight together; it creates a sense of camaraderie that might not have been there in the beginning. In the beginning, they were all strangers to each other that were brought together for a common goal, or at least very similar goals. It felt more like an alliance, than a team. But I think as time passes, they learn to value each other more as individuals, and it'd become more and more difficult to separate the work from the emotional attachments.
I’m seeing more meta on my dash recently now that BNHA is putting out chapters regularly again, and...
I love Shigaraki. I love the League of Villains and the ridiculous disaster of a derailed, burning train that is their found family dynamic. I also really, really miss middle and high school, when Mido would be like, “Hey, here’s this character. They’re literally the fucking worst. You’ll love them.” and it would be just taken for granted that the character’s sheer godawfulness was part of their appeal.
I love villains and I love characters of very grey morality, but I’m also very disinterested in condemning or exonerating what I consider to be very clear-cut shit like, “Is a character that has committed mass murder a good person?” by performing armchair-morality contortion acrobatics. I’ve unfollowed otherwise super cool blogs because (as the inboxes of some of my friends can attest) I find that entire side of the My Hero Academia meta discourse simultaneously both mouth froth-inducing and utterly mind-numbing.
I really just wanna do the proverbial fandom equivalent of tacking Shigaraki’s face to my fridge with a novelty magnet and going, “He’s TERRIBLE! Isn’t it GREAT?”
So a lot of fans have taken Shigaraki’s outburst in the most recent chapter as Tenko Shimura, being a third, and seperate personality from both Shigaraki Tomura and All for One. As if Tenko is the third of three seperate individuals fighting for the body. However, that is one: AFO’s deduction as to what is happening, and AFO is not the most reliable source. In fact you might even call him an unrelaible source. His entire goal is to make Shigaraki Tomura’s body into nothing more than a vessel, so of course, he doesn’t see SHigaraki as a person outside of being anything other than his creation / his vessel. The second is that Shigaraki’s entire arc has been about first his own personal autonomy, and second the complex nature of his identity after being groomed his whole life so there is no simple answer on who Shigaraki considers himself to be.
However, as I said I think people are taking this too literally to be about whether there’s some vestige of Tenko seemingly still remaining in Shigaraki Tomura’s mind, seperate from the TOmura identity. I think the scene itself is rather symbolic, Tenko supposedly residing in Shigaraki’s mind is at both a representation of Shigaraki’s inner child, and also of the fact that Shimura Tenko at five years old was not saved, and since then society has done nothing to rectify the fact that he was not saved.
1. The Inner Child
Psychologist Carl Gustav Jung originated the concept of the Inner Child in his divine child archetype. While the “inner child” is a term often used in popular psychology, we’re here talking about the “Jungian Archetype” of the inner child. Archetypes are universal, primal symbols and images that appear in stories all over the world such as: the mother, the child, the trickster, among others.
The inner child is a visual symbol the story uses a lot already. For an example of its use in another character that foils Shigaraki, just recently during Shoto and Touya’s fight, images of their childhood selves appears at the finish of their fight. A symbol is an image that’s supposed to mean something in a story, why invoke childhood imagery here? It is symbolism and therefore up to interpretation, but among things it could mean that a lot of Touya’s current struggles come from the unresolved abuse of his childhood which has gone on so long for this very day, the way Shoto internally relates to Touya’s abuse which makes the action of fighting him both difficult to do and tragic (both brothers are crying, Toya while using his flames, and Shoto while fighting back against him).
In general, invoking this childhood imagery especially for the three UA students with villain counterparts (Shigaraki, Dabi, and Himiko) is a reminder that all of these villains were originally innocent childrens who were victims of some aspect of hero society, children who were not saved, and as they’ve grown up have gone unsaved. This also reflects one of the main wrongs of hero society, rather than view the complexities of villains as victims in some regard, most villains are only regarded as threats to be put down or contained (often in inhumane conditions).
Which is a conflict, because both the stated and idealistic goals of heroes, is to save citizens from the kind of circumstances that Shigaraki, Toga, and Touya all lived through. THe reason heroes are allowed to wield their quirks in public, fight as vigilantes somewhat outside of the law with specially obtained hero licesnses, is because it’s believed the overwhelming presence of heroes in society makes things safer for the individual citizen. It is a social contract, that heroes save people, and this social contract has failed several individuals.
I’m elaborating on this because the reoccuring imagery of both children who do not get saved growing up into corrupted villains after being pushed out onto the edges of society, is both a major theme that creates the conflict of the story which is why these villains are questioning heroes in the first place, and also what AFO himself the main villain of the story has taken advantage of. AFO knows society abandons these children, and has kept an eye on them and appeared just in the right time to radicalize them, he appeared for Touya, he appeared for Shigaraki. Toga might seem to break the pattern, but she was just a runaway middle schooler at one point after being thorwn out for one violent incident or psychological break, and only got further radicalized as heroes offered her no sympathy or place of return, and her only refuge became the league of villains. (IE: Toga is someone who in my personal opinion, a lot of the violence her character exhibits besides the one violent incident that came only after years of emotional abuse is not sociopathy, but rather the natural result of being a middle school aged girl, living on the streets of japan as a homeless runaway, and living on the streets as a runaway at just about any age is not a safe place to be).
All to say, the reason that we are not only given peaks in the childhoods of the main villains, and also we are often shown images of their childhood selves is not for “tragic backstory reasons” but to illustrate that these children should have been saved. There is also no fair reason that they weren’t.
"In a society full of heroes, I thought maybe the reason no one helped me was because I was being punished for killing my family.”
Tenko through no fault of his own, loses control of his quirk, and in one day loses his house, his family, and also his family dog and is thrown out onto the streets for an indetermiante period of time. It’s shown that Tenko was in one of the most populated cities, oversaturated with heroes, and yet a single one did not stop to look and help one lost child.
This incident isn’t just Tenko’s origin, it’s also at the center of what Tomura considers his ideals. He states as such, the last big confrontation where we see Shigaraki is completely in control of his body.
Shigaraki even flashes back to the old woman looking the other way. Another interesting tidbit is he says this directly to Endeavor, after Endeavor calls his ideals into question. Endeavor someone who in story, won’t face the son he not only didn’t save when he left him to burn alone in a fire, he also when given the opportunity to face Touya again several years later after he came back from the dead deliberately ignores him to continue his job as a hero in his confrontation against AFO.
It’s not just that these children weren’t saved, it’s that society rather than trying to address the injustices done wrong to them, instead blames them for their own fall. Society refuses to even look at the suffering of it’s most dowrntrodden members, it rejects them in order to maintain a facade that everything is alright.
This all comes back to the recurring symbol of the child.
Jung placed the "child" (including the child hero) in a list of archetypes that represent milestones in individuation. Jungians exploring the hero myth have noted that "it represents our efforts to deal with the problem of growing up, aided by the illusion of an eternal fiction". Thus for Jung, "the child is potential future", and the child archetype is a symbol of the developing personality.
You have children who are the main characters of the story, attempting to save other children who have grown up under more violent circumstances into dangerous individuals. The entire story revolves around the theme of all these societal problems who are handed to these children, and how they grow and adapt to it. Above all else, the society in MHA is painted as one that is dangerous and unfair to children. Not only in the way that children who become victims aren’t really treated fairly by society as a whole and are pushed to the margins, but also in cases of domestic family situations where chidlren are abused, abandoned, or otherwise neglected which always, always, always in story creates future problems down the line. IE: THe abuse of the Todoroki Family as a whole, and Endeavor using his children for his ambitions creating Touya. Nana Shimura’s decision to abandon her son, has a direct consequences in creating Shigaraki.
A lot of these enemies in society actually start small with household problems, that when unaddressed continue to fester until the rot spreads. This is also a storytelling device that Horikoshi uses a lot Domestic problems or HOusehold problems like the abuse in the Todoroki or Shimura household doesn’t just end in the house. Dabi after surviving his abuse into adulthood kills several people in an attempt to both discredit his father and ruin his status as a hero, get attention to his cause, and during his work with the league. IE: Endeavor cannot be a hero if he has a villain son with a body count, and one he created at that.
Now characters can say this is Dabi’s fault, he chose to get other people involved in issues inside his own household, but that’s against the oint of this story, that shows that these domestic issues always end up affecting the people around them as well. The problems in the micrcosm of these people’s individual households, also serves as a metaphor for the macrocosm of societal abuse. Tenko uses the metaphor of how the Shimura household was built to reject him gently, as a way to illsutrate how he feels that society also was built to reject not only him but people like him.
All of this comes to a head symbolically, in both Deku’s glimspe of Shimura Tenko still alive in the vestige world, but also in his chat with the vestiges after the war arc. THis scene is more than just Deku sympathizing with Shigaraki after seeing a psychic vision of Tenko, or even just beliving that Tenko Shimura is still inside Shigarki somewhere.
It’s also the metaphor come full circle. As in, what do you do with a child who has not only been victimzied in some form society, but is no longer an innocent little child to be saved and has even grown up into someone who is a villain. Deku’s answer for this question is that while some people are dangerous, and maybe there is no other choice but to put them down, the power he was given ALL FOR ONE, is not a power for killing people, but rather for saving them.
Which is also the central theme of the story. What do heroes use their powers for? Heroes are here to save people. All for One didn’t use his power to become the strongest hero, or even to defeat the most number of villains, his goal was to save as many people as possible, and to reassure them if they were ever in trouble someone was coming to save them, which is why All Might’s vestige cries when he sees Deku still trying to live up to that ideal.
2. Shigaraki’s inner child.
And here is the post where we briefly touch upon the messy nature of Shigaraki’s own identity. Once again, I’m going to say that the appearance of a “TENKO” vestige somewhere within Shigaraki’s mind isn’t a sign that the pure and uncorrupted Tenko is just going to take over at some point and both Shigaraki and AFO will disappear like they never existed.
Instead it’s Inner-Child symbolism, an image of the innocent child Shimura Tenko was, before his own traumatic upbringing and the grooming of AFO. I don’t think the point is to return Tenko to this uncorrupted phase of his life, because that’s completely impossible.
Rather, I think it’s there to essentially call out what has been a long thread of dehumanizing done to Shigaraki by the heroes, who conitnually despite making no real attempts to reach out for him dismiss him as an entirely lost cause only to be put out like a mad dog for the good of society.
The heroes would very convneintly like to assume, that there is nothing left of the victim Shimura Tenko inside of him. That Shigaraki is a heartless smybol of destruction, which is exactly what AFO both tried to make him into, and also how AFO wanted him to be perceived by others.
Basically, if there is no human being behind Shigaraki’s actions and destruction, then putting him down isn’t immoral, it’s also the best course of action. As I’ve said before the heroes have made several attempts of just, plain trying to kill him.
This is a society where crimminals like AFO, were arrested and held in confinement, and they were also not legally allowed to kill Gigantomachia despite the difficulties in containing him because of his huge size. Heroes are not supposed to kill according to their own rules, but to capture. If you imagine Shigaraki is’nt a human being, with friends, and more important feelings, then killing him suddenly becomes less of a moral dilemna.
AFO also, by suppressing Shimura Tenko / Shigaraki’s independent self, it makes it easier for him to take control over his identity. The more he becomes angry, volatile, destructive and acts as both AFO grooms him and wants him to act, the less agency and control over his actions Shigaraki has.
And this is basically a long running metaphor for Shigaraki’s entire character, him trying to find identity, agency, and where his sense of self lies despite being groomed for one thing by AFO his entire life and kept relatively outside of society, and also from forming connections to other people.
Which means the possession plotline by AFO is in fact, a culimation of a very longrunning plotline, where Shigaraki is in conflict with himself, how much of himself is created by trauma, how much of himself is TENKO the natural person he was born as? It’s a question of nature vs nurture that once again has no clear answer.
So heroes have this tendency to regard Shigaraki as an empty evil, who has no emotions, no friends, only a desire to destroy.
A bit hypocritical aren’t we, Endeavor?
Heroes tend to over and over again, insist that there is no human being that can be reached in Shigaraki, that there is no one there to save, therefore justifying the fact that they all rather quickly go for the kill.
THis is also, a theme which has escalated in the story. All Might just beat him down, but as Shigaraki’s violence gets worse, so too does the heroes own attempts to go for the kill, until we reach the point where they are quite literally shooting missiles at him from a plane.
However, I would argue that despite the heroes trying it over and over again, killing Shigaraki hasn’t only not worked so far, it’s literally never going to workj. It’s the entirely wrong approach, because it escalates the violence rather than de-escalates. The more violent people are towards Shigaraki, the more violent he is in return, and therefore the cycle continues.
This is taken to its literal extreme in the fight with the New Order quirk. A villain tries to kill “Shigaraki Tomura”, but it doesn’t work, and also, literally leads into an explanation of SHigaraki’s current identity crisis. New Order doesn’t work on Shigaraki, because the boundary between Shigaraki and AFO currently is too blurry.
But beyond that, in story reasons, the reason it doesn’t work, is because attempting to end the cycle of violence with even more violence, with SO MUCH VIOLENCE THAT ALL VIOLENCE THEREFORE WILL BE WIPED FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH just doesn’t work with the themes of the story. Hating and dehumanizing Shigaraki at this point, just doesn’t work, and makes the problem worse because it aggravates him and pushes him to new extremes.
And we’ve had this established in the vestige world too, Shigarki’s hatred, and his desire for revenge is something that weakens his identity and makes hime asier for AFO to control. Even the heroes most recent strategy of fighting Shigaraki is to have everyone cooperate together... to build him a coffin in the sky. The heroes just keep coming up with more elaboarted and overkill ways of killing him.
Which eventually leads to this moment, Mirio’s rather dehumanizing statement that Shigaraki has never had any friends in his life. Which not only provokes Tenko, but also once again shows us the audience this flash of once again imagery that clearly indicates Shigaraki / Shimura Tenko is a victim even while all the heroes are teaming up to fight against him. If he’s just a bad guy to be destroyed, why this incredibly gruesome imagery of five year old child being groped, abandoned, mishandled and trapped within all of these hands.
To say once again, that the heroes image of Shigaraki is wrong. He does have friends, he has emotions, and even the ability to empathize with other people. Not only did Shigarki say at one point in the story, that there were things he wouldn’t destroy. Not only does Shigaraki pick a fight with the MLA and the Yakuza both for the sake of his friends, to save Giran, and avenge Magne respectively.
In this chapter alone we’re also shown that Shigaraki considers his allies differently than AFO does. After all, AFO referred to his friends as only cheap lighters to be used and disposed of.
Not only did Shigaraki defy his control and have an uncontrolled outburst at the accusation that he had no friends, AFO also lost total control much earlier, when Shigaraki emerged for a moment to try to warn Dabi that his skin was peeling off from him overusing his powe r because his skin was peeling off. He also called Dabi, Dabi, rather than Touya-kun like how AFO refers to him.
Which means what AFO refers to as Shimura lurking and lingering within Shigaraki’s consciousness, may in fact just be Shigaraki’s personhood and who he is existing outside of what AFO has tried to mould him into being. This person is also created, by the interaction of his friends and the league of villains, who created a much healthier environment outside of AFO’s iron fisted control of him. AFO even only got control and possession when the league itself was splintered both by the death of twice, and being forced to go on the run once again after the war arc.
In other words Shigaraki is a shonen protagonist, and he is at his best when surrounded by friends, and at his worst when isolated. All of this is to show that not only has Shigaraki been a person all along, but with the help of those friends it is possible for him to reclaim his personhood from AFO, rather than be destroyed or put out of his misery. There’s still someone to save in Shigaraki, and also someone worth saving, because deep down he’s someone capable of doing good and loving his friends.
Hamartia, also called the tragic flaw, (Harmartia from the Greek hamartien, “to err”) is an inherent defect or shortcoming in the hero of a tragedy, who is in other respects a superior being favored by fortune. Aristotle inroduced the term casually in poetics, in describing the tragic hero as a man of noble rank and nature whose misfortune is not brought about by villainy but by some “error of judgement”. Most importantyly, the hero’s suffering and it’s far-reaching reverberations are far out of proprotion with his flaw. An element of cosmic collusion among the hero’s flaw, chance, necessaity, and other external forces is essential to bring about the tragic catastrophe [x].
I start out with the lecture because, this week’s chapter, and the dramatic turn of events where it looked like the heroes had the advantage for most of this fight so far, only to have those advantages undone in a catastrophic turn of events, follows this idea of Hamartia. Just to be clear, I don’t think Horikoshi is specfically referencing Aristotle or anything like that. I just think the way the story is structure d right now is heavily reminiscent of it, the mistakes of the heroes are what brought about this current tragic turn of events. The events of this chapter are essentially the mistakes the heroes made so far going into the valley, catching up with them and benefitting the villains side of the fight. I’ll explain under the cut.
This is a list of all the mistakes and oversights, the heroes made so far, and just to be clear this isn’t really about whether I think personally the heroes are good or bad people. Hamartia is an intentionally written flaw in a hero character, that the plot is supposed to challenge, the hero rises or falls based on this flaw.
Peter Parker AKA Spiderman AKA the greatest superhero of all time (this isn’t an opinion it’s just objective fact fight me) is a character written around the central flaw of responsibility, in his origin story, because of him acting irresponsibly and wanting to selfishly use his new superhuman abilities for his own gain, he lets a robber go right by him, and as a tragic consequence his uncle is shot by that same robber and as he lies dying in his arm he tells Peter “with great power comes great responsibility.” This isn’t a moral judgement on the characters, but rather the flaw their arc resolves around and how there are consequences like Uncle Ben being shot when they don’t work on said flaws.
Tragic Mistake # 1: Escalating rather than Talking
Before the fight even begins, we’re introduced to a conflict that’s unique to the kids, that they’re starting to think of the villains as more than just people to be stopped and put down. Uraraka remembers that Toga cried when she felt rejected like a person would, Shoto wonders what kind of food Toya likes and considers sitting him down for family dinner, Deku says he can’t ignore the little boy inside of Shigaraki. They are considering the idea that their might be another way of dealing with the villains, but they are all also still using the language of “stop” rather than “save.”
If the central question of MHA is what makes a true hero, a hero who “wins” or a hero who “saves”, the adult heroes especially Hawks, Endeavor and Jeanist are all firmly on the side of “win” and so fixed that it doesn’t even seem to be a question, whereas the kids are sitting on the fence but they’re still using langauge like “stop” Touya, rather than “saving.”
Whether or not you think the villains deserve to be saved, further escalating the conflict instead of trying to seek out alternative means to deal with the villains is a conflict for pure strategic reasons. The reason it’s a strategic mistake is because the heroes already tried this in the war arc, they amassed every single force they had for a pre-emptive strike, to put the villains on the defensive. The language of the War Arc was even that if they didn’t stop the villains here, they probably will not have enough forces afterwards afterwards to keep fighting them. That’s the exact language AFO uses in this chapter when analyzing the situation, both the mass retirement of heroes, and also the losses in the War Arc, have made it so a full frontal assault against the villains and essentially going to war with them is no longer viable.
Like, let’s set the matter of forcing the 1-A kids to essentially fight on the front lines because they simply don’t have the numbers with the retirement of professional heroes to the side for now. This is just the situation of the heroes going into the fight, they didn’t have the numbers they had in the War Arc, and so going into this fight they tried once again with a pre-emptive strike, and a divide and conquer strategy to make use of their lack of numbers. However, they are essentially trying to do the war arc again with less numbers, and less preparation.
And the War Arc strategy did not even work in the first place. Despite Hawks having months of perparation, the complete element of surprise, Shigaraki, Toga, Dabi, Spinner all got away. Despite the execution of Twice, Toga still has Twice’s blood and Sad Man’s Parade is an option once more. Despite Hawks’ spying, Gigantoamachia got out. Hawks didn’t see the Touya reveal coming.
Basically what AFO is saying in this chapter is the Heroes had a situation where they had the villains scattered and fighting on the defensive, and they failed to finish them off this time. Now, they are trying to exact same strategy over again with less numbers, and that advantage of surprise and preperation gone. The heroes can’t afford to keep escalating the conflict and trying to put down the villains by overpowering, simply because it’s not strategically viable.
I’m going to quote Class 1-A kids to essentially seal the point I’m trying to make about the turn of the tides of battle in this chapter.
[Class 1-A Kids] like after this development, with Bakugo down, Shigarki still putting up a fight when the heroes essentially have him in a cage designed to neutralize all of his powers, Dabi back up, AFO at least partially healed even when Hawks’ strategy of breaking his mask completely successful and Endeavor hitting him with his strongest prominence burn, and also Toga still has Sad Man’s Parade in reserve as a surprise and hasn’t used it yet, then what exactly can the heroes do to turn the table at this point?
Either Deku showing up to the Shigaraki battle will somehow fix everything by being so overpowered, or you know, the heroes will have to try a different strategy. As Class 1akids says. The idea of saving the villains has been floated for 100+ chapters, the villains have now gone from Shigaraki a leader they were extremely loyal to, to AFO a leader who is mostly using them as pawns in his conflict, and Shigaraki himself is in need of saving, as Spinner has said over and over again he’s continuing the fight for Shigaraki’s sake to save him, not for AFO. There are several characters who could be turned against AFO if given reason to by the heroes, and also it gives the Villains a chance to work to undo at least some of the damage they did.
Mistake #2 PISSING TOGA OFF
So essentially the War Arc right now is focused on what are five individual fights, Toga vs Uraraka, everyone else Important vs Shigaraki, Shoto, Iida and Endeavor’s sidekicks vs. Touya, Hawks and Endeavor vs. AFO, and then the riots led by spinner and the heteromorphs. The last has gotten the least focus so I’m going to break the other four fights down in order. Toga is interesting because we have probably gotten the least focus on her fight, we didn’t even cut to her this chapter, and yet Toga is essentially the jenga brick that got pulled out of the tower in the heroes strategy.
The heroes decision to bet everything on Deku being able to take down Shigaraki with the support of everyone backing him up, was pulled out of the jenga tower when Toga grabbed him and dragged him out of the portal when Danger Sense didn’t trigger.
Interestingly enough, Toga not triggering Danger Sense did not have to be the disadvantage it turned out to be. As I said, there are clear mistakes and missed opportunities that he heroes mistake in each major battle. Fourth even says, that the reason Toga didn’t trigger the danger sense is because she doesn’t hurt people out of hatred.
Ignoring the Yandere aspects of Toga going “Deku, please be my boyfriend”, there is a lot of emotional complexity to Toga’s basic statement that she wants to become more like the people she loves. The entire time Toga a high schooler herself has been fascinated by the UA kids, especially Deku and Uraraka and wondering what the difference between them and herself is. Toga’s entire character revolves around the idea that she was labeled as a deviant the moment her quirk manifested and shunned, and yet she desires acceptance for who she is, especially after repressing herself to such an extreme extent to try to be “normal” and “good” lead to what was essentially a psyhotic break and a violent incident.
Shigaraki and Touya are perhaps the most self destructive of all the LOV characters, while Toga is someone who has questioned whether the heroes will ever come save her, or if what she really wants is acceptance rather than just destroying things.
Toga is the one questioning if things have to be a life or death battle between them, and Izuku and Ochaco both have the opportunity to show Toga there are other ways, and then they don’t.
Toga’s trajectory as a character is pretty clear, when people reject her, she rejects them back even harder. If you try violence on her, she will get violent back, and so Ochaco and Deku both pick the option of choosing to just defeat her in a physical battle is just a bad choice in general, because Toga is essentially sitting on a bomb. She has the nuke codes here. The biggest advantage of the fight is going to be when Toga uses sad man’s parade, so either Ochaco just defets her in a physical battle before Toga has the chance to use it (but if this happens then why does Horikoshi devote several chapters in a long running plot thread to bring up the possibility that Toga will create another Sad Man’s Parade, and also give Toga the ability to copy the abilities of people whose blood she drinks in the first place if not to make this happen), or Toga is talked down or even persuaded to turn against AFO.
But as for Uraraka herself, what is her tragic and central flaw in this scenario that she cannot overcome. It is essentially Uraraka who is the most empathic of the hero characters, and the one who is so sensitive that she can notice the struggles on other people’s faces and gave a big speech on how the heroes are essentially humans and they need help too. She even flashes back to Toga’s crying face in that speech, it’s a deliberate showing that Toga is being left out of this speech. If the heroes are still human, and need to be helped like any other human beings, then villains as the other side of the coin are just as human as the heroes. Yet Uraraka still fails to reconcile Toga with that idea, Toga is given the impression that Uraraka still doesn’t see her as a real person and that pushes Toga into more extreme forms of violence.
So anyway, what Ochaco and Deku essentially needed to do here was not poke the bear, and not only did they poke it, they shot it, threatened its cubs, and also the bear has rabies.
MISTAKE # 3 ENJI TODOROKI NOT FACING DABI
So yes, everyone and their mother has pointed out that Shoto has a better chance of actually reaching Dabi and empathizing him because they faced such similiar abused and lived experiences. And yes, apaprently it was Shoto’s idea himself to face Dabi alone while Enji handled AFO. I think since then, the plot has pointed out several times that Enji choosing to run away from Toya and not face him again, is him not improving on his central flaw as a character, and was the wrong choice in this situation.
If Shoto facing Dabi alone was the right choice, then Shoto using his best move against Dabi, his speech about everything he’s learned from his friends, and also his begging his brother to stop, would have stopped the fight there, but even after Shoto leverages all of that....
Dabi just gets back up and demands to see Endeavor again.
So, I think Dabi needs to face Endeavor. But like, to prove my point with actual in text citations. Number one, if Shoto’s objective is to get Toya to come home (something he has implied but not vocalized) and Enji’s intention is to take responsbility for Toya and the damage they did to this family, they both went into this fight with the wrong head. The conflict with Dabi is also another iteration of the central conflict of the story, what makes heroes “winning” or “saving.” We see another repeat of the language of Shoto’s objective of “stop” Toya, rather than saving him. This might not be Shoto’s intentions, deep down he might want to just bring his brother home, but we don’t see him vocalize that.
Enji himself, is the emblem of the hero who always prioritizes victory over saving others. Dabi is the shadow to Enji’s flaws as as hero meant to call out that flaws. To simplify the complex Todoroki drama in one central flaw, it’s established to us in the Touya flashback chapters. Like, for Toya himself, what is the origin as a conflict. He has a hero as a father, and he has a father who only cares about the world of heroes, and the potential his children have to be heroes to surpass all might. Enji even before he started to physically abuse Shoto, withdrew entirely from Toya, Natsuo and Fuyumi’s lives when they were no longer potential candidates for his dream to surpass All Might.
Enji’s central flaw as a character is that he chooses being a hero, over being a father and his responsibilities to his family ever single time. The only reason he had a family in the first place was to create a child who could carry on his dream as a hero, but Enji is given several opportunities to just give that up when he sees the way it’s hurting his family, and he just never does he always doubles down every single time choosing his ambitions and heroics over his children.
Enji is a hero at the expense of everything else, even atonement Enji who is supposedly facing the things he did to his family, does so as a hero first before anything else, and it’s shown in the choices he makes during the battle.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed but Toya shouting “Look at me” his entire childhood, and Dabi repeating “Look at me” makes it pretty clear with what he wants. If that’s not obvious enough, AFO helpfully points it out for the audience.
Hawks’ justification for the choice to just, not have Enji face Dabi is that he wouldn’t be able to objectively face Toya and fight him like any other villain. Once again we have the language, Enji couldn’t “FIGHT AND BEAT” Toya.
Hawks’ thinking is pure strategy, using Endeavor as their biggest fighter with Hawks’ support, they pound everything they have against AFO to take him out of the fight as quickly as possible since he has effectively taken leadership of the villain’s forces, and while he still is their muscles he’s also essentially a glass cannon due to requiring life support with all the injuries All Might left on his body.
It is a sound strategy, that is if it had worked. Even with AFO taunting Enji and shaking him up, we basically see everything in the fight go completely the way Hawks envisioned, they smash his mask, and not only that but Enji uses his strongest fire on AFO. However, as I said Enji in doing this has ignored his central flaw, putting his duty as a hero over his duty to his family. Yeah, he says that, after this he will watch Toya, but hasn’t anyone ever told Enji, the most basic rule of storytelling is show don’t tell. So anyway, everything works out exactly the way Hawks wanted... and then AFO just gets back up.
We see a similiar result in the fight against Toya. I think Enji’s mistakes are much clearer than Shoto’s in this situation, because like it’s not really Shoto’s fault that Enji destroyed his family he’s a victim in this too. However, to briefly touch upon why Shoto alone isn’t enough to Toya, and why he didn’t reach Toya.
Well, to put it simply he didn’t really reach out much in the first place. Dabi is created by his family not seeing him. Shoto chooses not the path of relating to his brother, but by beating him down with his strongest move, putting a stop to him above all else.
If anything I think shoto is a little bit mixed about what he wants going into this fight, and it is in Shoto’s character to being in two minds about things (he is quite literally split down the middle, fire and ice, mother and father, family and heroics, etc. etc.) Is his big brother a villain to be stopped, or someone suffering in need of saving, and I think (I use I think because honestly I’m not sure what to make of Shoto’s character here entirely and where he plays in on this it’s less clean cut than what Enji needs to do. Shoto hears Dabii out for the reason why he ddin’t come back home so he did try talking, but he also like, doesn’t make the leap that Dabi didn’t become a villain in a vaccum.)
So Shoto hasn’t made up his mind, whether Dabi should be dealt with as a villain, or as his brother and fellow abuse victim, and his choice is to simply try overpowering him. I’d say this analysis is supported by the way Shoto fails to take down Toya, by not seeing Toya and underestimating him. By underestimating Toya, he forgot that Toya is someone who spent years honing his quirk on his own, so Toya essentially copies Shoto’s move and Shoto doesn’t see it coming. Failure to see his brother therefore, leads to Shoto making a strategic oversight and Dabi gets back up stronger. The tragic flaw then for both Shoto and Enji is acting as heroes first, and treating the conflict as another hero villain conflict when it’s not, Dabi isn’t just a villain, he’s Toya Todoroki, he’s there brother and son and the person their family failed and let die the first time who is at risk of just dying all over again.
MISTAKE #4 SHIGARAKI IS A VIDEO GAME BOSS FIGHT
So, to quickly recap. The heroes have tried several times already, to take Shigaraki out. They got him in the tube and stopped his heart when he was only halfway through the surgery, and Shigaraki got back up.
The heroes amassed every single one of their best members against him, with the decay quirk mostly deactivated, and his body incomplete and therefore breaking down on him. Deku completely lost his mind and went full violence, activating his quirk in his desperation. Shigaraki was burned by Endeavor, had his quirk neutralized by Eraserhead, was pummeled by Deku into oblivion, was tied up by Jeanist, and then... he got back up. Not only that but when Deku and Shigaraki are together in the vestiges, it’s pointed out that the more the heroes fight against Shigaraki, the more his hatred increases, and more he fuses with AFO. The more Shigaraki hates, the more it eats away at Shigarki, the more the lines between him and AFO blur.
It’s also been said by Shigaraki several times, the more the heroes reject him, the more that Shigaraki will reject him back, his desire to destroy comes from the fact that he knows society has absolutely no place for him. The american hero shoots a missile at Shigaraki, and... he gets back up.
Definition of insanity, trying the same thing over and over again, and all that. Basically, two long running threads have been established by Shigarki, that the more he is hated, the more he will be hated in return, grow more violent, lash out wildly, and the more control AFO has over him. However, no matter how much AFO tries to possess him, a small part of Tenko remains, there is a crying child inside of Shigaraki.
If Shigaraki is beyond saving and needs to be put down, why not only the continued showing of Tenko inside of Shigaraki as a child trapped in horrifying imagery of hundreds and hundreds of hands he can’t escape from, but also people like AFO and Deku both insisting that some small part of the childhood victim remains inside of Shigaraki.
Why is AFO so concerned about the fact that Shigaraki is resisting him in some small ways, if the heroes are not capable of reaching Shigaraki? Why is he suddenly worried about the loss of his total and complete hold of Shigaraki right now. Why suggest that there is a fission within Shigarki, if it’s not possible for Shigarakito break free of AFO’s control?
Onto the fight itself, even without Deku there we are shown not only the trap that the heroes laid against Shigaraki by building an entire arena to neutralize Shigarki’s decay ability, and also copying the erasure quirk to keep it focused on Shigaraki the entire time working, but even without Deku there, the heroes being able to work together and pull off several combo teamwork attacks. Rumi and Bakugo getting close and landing several hits in spite of the mutant hands,the big three of UA landing their three way combo attack that consists of a giant chimera hybrid that shoots lasers. Even without Deku, everything is pretty much working, so why does Shigarki not go down? Two answers, once again the strategy going in was wrong. It’s even mentioned several time, just building a giant arena to contain Shigaraki and trying to unite everyone to destroy him like he’s a video game boss, is the wrong-headed strategy.
Most of all because they literally already tried that. They had the entirety of the strongest heroes unite their forces against Shigaraki in the war arc... and he got back up again.
However, my second reason, to show the central flaw, the Hamartia of Bakugo in this scenario I want to ask the question, why didn’t Deku show up to this battle in the first place?
I mean physically we know why he’s not there, he got dragged into the wrong portal, and now he’s flying making his way there. However, thematically why is Bakugo essentially fighting alone against AFO, and what does that represent in story.
By viewing Shigaraki as just a video game boss to be defeated, all of the heroes here, but especially Bakugo are choosing winning rather than saving. Yes, I do think that winning is still important to being a hero, because without winning Deku will just break his own body over and over again trying to save others.
But Deku is the emblematic hero who wants to save everyone. His entire character revolves around the concept of having an overwhelming desire to save that doesn’t follow any logic. Deku saves people without thinking like it’s an urge inside of him. So of course, Deku is absent from a fight where the main strategy is to win against Shigaraki no matter what. Deku is not ther,e and Bakugo leads the fight.
Bakugo is not only the one who has always prioritized winning, he has also always worshipped All Might as the perfect symbol of victory.
Shigaraki even calls attention to this fact, when delivering his one-sided beatdown.
Bakugo worships All-Might’s triumphs, but without Midoriya there to balance him out, Bakugo only thinks about winning and overpowering the enemy. Bakugo’s only focus is victory, and he himself leverages absolutely everything he has against Shigaraki, his biggest move, and it doesn’t work...
Whether you believe Bakugo’s death is going to be permanent or not, there’s also something truly tragic, about the fact that Bakugo even after his full power not being eough to fight Shigaraki, getting back up and trying again, and practically unlocking a new ability in his quirk. He pushes himself to extremes taking down Shigaraki, then pushed himself even further, and even started to threaten Shigaraki all on his own. And then, his heart literally just gives out on him.
Bakugo gives absolutely everything he has fighting on his own, to achieve the perfect victory against the villains with zero casualties on their side, and he becomes the first casualty himself.
B/c Bakugo’s philosophy of winning, is only half of the philosophy. Bakugo needs Deku not because he needs a strong quirk or because Deku is stronger than him, but because both of their philosophies when brought together balance each other out enough. It’s not winning, or saving, it’s winning and saving. There is no saving without winning, and there is no winning without saving. If there’s anything to be learned from Deku’s solo arc, is that Deku focused too much on the saving aspect of being a hero, at the expense of himself and taking care of himself, and it’s Bakugo who shows up and not only convinces Deku to come home and accept people’s help and stop sacrificing himself, Bakugo even apologizes to Deku for bullying him all these years in an effort to get him to value himself more.
Midoriya needs to learn Bakugo’s self-assured image of victory, to be able to save people without feeling the need to sacrifice himself over and over again. However, Bakugo himself hasn’t learned to balance Midoriya’s philosophy with his own. Bakugo even goes halfway to acknowledging that he needs to do things more Midoriya’s way.
Saving people is how we win. Save by winning, and win by saving. While trying to tell Deku he needs to take care of himself and accept their help, he also accepts Deku’s ideals for the first time, Deku’s method of being a hero is just as valid as him but what they need is to work together.
So the problem with Bakugo fighting alone in this, isn’t that he’ll never be as strong as Deku, or that he’s like Deku’s supporting character or something, but they haven’t reached a true compromise on their ideals. Saving people is how they win, but Bakugo doesn’t even consider saving Shigaraki the way Deku has, and he instead rushes in guns blazing, and leverages everything he has into winning against a villain.
Not only is Bakugo’s sudden death, emblematic of his flaw that he hasn’t learned to compromise his ideals between him and Deku, to become a hero who surpasses All Might bey winning and saving. Bakugo’s flaw has always been the focus on winning above all else, his own fears of inferiority to Deku and his fear that his beliefs don’t make him a good enough hero which causes him to push himself too far (like maybe I don’t know, charging straight at the villain when he’s already injured in order to prove himself) and only seeing half of what made All Might the greatest hero. I mean even on a tactical front, Shigaraki even asks, why was Bakugo, a long range hero who shoots explosions at people... running in and turning things into a close ranged fight? When trying to blow Shigaraki doesn’t work, it leaves Bakugo open to be physically brutalized, and all the injuries that cause his heart to give out in the first place, are a direct result of Bakugo just... charging straight in and trying to win by overpowering Shigaraki.
However, Bakugo’s death is also emblematic of the tragic flaws of the heroes as well. By prioritizing winning over everything else, they’ve inadvertantly caused Bakugo’s death. Shigaraki said at the beginning of the fight he no longer thinks Eraserhead is cool.
What caused Shigaraki to admire Eraserhead in the first place, was his actions of prioritizing the student’s safety above everything else, and fighting on the front lines himself. However, Eraserhead is no longer doing that, and Shigaraki voices the reason for his disappointment this chapter.
The decision to win at the expense of everything else, for the heroes, and for Bakugo, causes Bakugo himself to put way too much responsibility on his shoulders when he’s just one person, and instead of stepping out of the fight and hanging back when he was too injured to continue, he pushed himself too far and his body gave out on him. The Heroes strategy overall of prioritizing winning against the villains over all else, and refusing to try any other strategy other than overpowering him, causes them to put kids on the front line.
Bakugo’s death, almost works perfectly as an example of a tragic flaw causing a hero to fall. Literally in this case, because Bakugo is a hero, who has quite tragically, fallen in the middle of combat. Whether or not Bakugo can come back, or even he heroes can come back from this as a whole, it will require to heroes to battle against and overcome all the flaws I’ve pointed out in the previous sections of this post. Because that is essentailly what makes the heroes journey, a hero struggling against their flaws until they overcome them.
In response to Spinner’s short monologue about Dabi last week, there’s been a lot of (in my opinion) mischaracterization, of these words as misunderstanding Dabi, or even as jealousy. Spinner’s low self-worth is definitely a flaw he needs to overcome, because it leads him to doing dangerous things like accepting a quirk from AFO when he’s known to blow people up for defying him, and risk it all for Shigaraki.
However, Spinner seeing the best in other members of the league is also his greatest strength as a character. What people are missing is literally nobody before this point referred to Dabi’s determination as a good thing. Just like Toga noticing and referring to Dabi as a kind person when he burns down the home of her childhood trauma, the other members of the league are basically the only ones who see any good in Dabi’s actions or frame him in any positive light. Everyone else sees Dabi’s lifelong determination as a problem that he should just stop and give up on his goal of bringing Endeavor to justice, Spinner is the only one who recognizes that Dabi’s convictions are his strength.
1. The One With Everything.
Spinner referring to Dabi as “already having everything” isn’t jealousy, nor is it mischaracterization, because the context of which is different from the way AFO, Endeavor, Shoto and almost everyone else refers to Dabi. Yes, Spinner is in fact viewing Dabi through the lens of his own lack of self-worth, but also in complex character writing flaws and strengths are often one in the same. For example,
Dabi’s flaw is his tunnel vision the belief he’s had to do everything by himself, first proving to his father that he was worthy of being trained, and later on in life taking down his father. This tunnel vision has also led Dabi to spurn any attempt to connect with him, including other members of the league. However, Dabi’s tunnel-vision is also a positive quality, he has strong convictions he never gives up on, he got this far and survived by himself through his own hard work.
“The past never dies” his unwillingness to forgive Endeavor makes him one of the few characters who actually wants to hold an abusive hero accountable. His anger can be a positive thing, because instead of just letting go, he’s actively trying to change the world, and this drive is compelled by traditionally negative qualities (need for revenge, unwillingness to let go).
I went to length with those past two examples to show that what are considered to be character flaws are usually strength and weaknesses at the same time. Which is why spinner is not wrong, for framing Dabi’s actions in a more positive light. Yes, maybe Spinner misses out on the fat that Dabi is actively suicidal, but I think we should contrast the way Spinner refers to Dabi to the way literally everyone else does.
SHOTO: YOU CHOSE TO BE A MURDERER ALL ON YOUR OWN.
UJIKO: IDK MAYBE HE WAS JUST BORN EVIL BEFORE AFO.
ENDEAVOR: IT’S NOT MY PARENTING TO BLAME. NO IT WAS TOUYA WHO WAS SIMPLY BORN TOO STUBBORN TO GIVE UP ON TRAINING.
I’ve commented on this in past meta before, but Dabi tends to get scapegoated by his own household and also the public to blame Endeavor’s actions in a more positive light. Rather than confronting Endeavor about his actions and putting a stop to him, it’s easier to just put the blame on Touya for being the problem child and refusing to let go of his training.
Everyone around Endeavor constantly frames Endeavor’s good qualities while ignoring his bad qualities, to excuse his actions, well he’s a good hero so who cares about his family drama. The opposite is true for Dabi, everyone focuses on how Dabi needs to stop, without seeing the good in what he’s done, that he’s trying to hold heroes who have committed murder and crimes accountable. The focus is always on Dabi stopping, and no one seems to realize Endeavor is the problem maker, he’s the one who needed to stop and still has yet to change his behavior. Maybe Dabi shouldn’t stop considering Endeavor and Hawks received slaps on the wrist for murder (Touya did in fact, die as a child because of Endeavor’s neglect), buying a spouse, etc. etc.
And I’d like to point out one final thing in regards to the relationship between Spinner and Dabi. Dabi has literally never been anything less than an asshole to Spinner. He calls Spinner by names he requests not to be called by, and doesn’t apologize. He belittles Spinner on his biggest insecurity.
When Toga was going to leave the league behind to pursue Ochaco, Spinner was witness to Dabi pretty loudly proclaiming that he doesn’t care what happened to her, and it was Spinner who rallied the league and reminded the rest of them that they were all mourning Twice’s death. Spinner has been exposed to some of Dabi’s worst traits, he’s been pretty much nothing but unsavory around him and Spinner still sees good in Dabi, and more good than his family ever saw in him because that is what Spinner does.
AFO set up Shigaraki to be a symbol of hatred, someone so broken and always constantly in a cycle of lashing out that everyone around him would only see him as someone to be hated or feared, a representation of the ugliness of society. Spinner was the first person to take all of that in, and still see the beauty behind Shigaraki’s actions. “The warped crumbling horizon... I’d never seen anything prettier” it’s not just Spinner falling in love with Shigaraki’s dream, it’s also a turning point the first time a character actually sees that Shigaraki’s destruction can actually lead to something, change, which is what motivated Spinner to start cosplaying Stain in the first place, a desire to change things. Every character before this characterized Shigaraki’s goals as just an empty desire to destroy, Re-Destro did, before him Chisaki, before him Stain. Spinner was the first to see that Shigaraki doesn’t just want destruction, but also a change to the society that excludes him and people like him.
2. Spinner’s Heart is his Strength
So marketing and merchandise has set up the league trio to be Dabi, Himiko, and Shigaraki. However, I would say the actual writing of the story (Ie the characters with character arcs), sets up the three main protagonist of the league of villains as Shigaraki, Spinner, and Toga.
Between the three of them a nice little alchemy triangle is set up. In brief, most of the time the main characters of a work are divided into three categories. The characteristics of a “Mind” character are obvious, they’re the logical thinker of the group, the planner, seperated from their emotions. While the main character is usually a heart character (think in the case of Deku / IIda / Uraraka, Deku is clearly characterized by his good heart), in this case Shigaraki is a mind character more than anything else because the main focus of his character is how detached from his emotions he is, his agency over his own mind (AFO literally tries to mind control him).
That would leave Spinner and Toga. Toga is someone who looks like an obvious heart character at first, she sucks blood, she falls in love, however I would say Toga’s entire character complex revolves around her lack of a heart. Toga doesn’t have anyone to love, and anyone who loves her, so she mistakenly searches for those two things in order to “fix” herself. However, a deeper analysis of Toga’s character will reveal she finds much more satisfaction in her platonic connections with the rest of the league which are altogether healthier, than the strangers she develops crushes on and stalks. Toga’s power is also to transform her body, into anybody else she wishes to be, in true Mystique from X-men fashion.
Which leaves Spinner as the heart. I mean, people already constantly comment on this, the way Spinner’s complete and utter devotion to Shigaraki is written, is the way most female shonen leads are written in regards to their male counterparts. If there are two lead characters of a work, protagonist and supporting protagonist one will be marked as a mind, the other as heart, corresponding as the emotinoal counterpart to the minds rationality. It’s not always male mind / female heart, but female characters in general tend to be written as more in touch with their emotions, and more actively empathic towards other people. ANYWAY. All of this to say, readers have already noticed how much Spinner is invested in Shigaraki’s emotions and well being, even going so far as to protect them, like he’s acting like SHIGARAKI’S HEART or something... idk...bro... seems pretty gay.
A lot of people tend to act like Spinner worships the ground Shigaraki walks on and that’s all there is to his character, but no, Spinner is just extremely emotionally intelligent and capable of understanding emotions in Shigaraki that Shigaraki himself isn’t understanding. Spinner often acts as the voice to the emotions Shigaraki is repressing. He will even get confrontational with Shigaraki about it, when he noties something Shigaraki doesn’t seem to notice.
Shigaraki is just as disatisfied as the rest of the league here with the poor state they’ve been living in and their lack of progress, but Shigaraki won’t ever voice it, because he’s a repressed little baby (this is the proper academic terminology). He relies on Spinner to act as his heart for him and actually confront him about the emotions he’s feeling.
Spinner also doesn’t just act this way in regards to Shigaraki. I would say previously Twice was the heart of the league, seeing the good in everyone’s actions, focusing on the league as a group of friends above all else, but as a part of Spinner’s character development in reaction to Twice’s death, Spinner has almost comletely stepped into the role Twice previously inhabited of giving everything he has to be of use to the league, and seeing the good in the league’s bond with each other. Spinner and Twice even share the same flaw of low self worth, Twice doesn’t see a life outside being a crimminal in the league of villains, Spinner views himself as the most expendable member of the league. However, that trait is both a positive and negative, because it’s that exact insecurity that also drives their protectiveness for the league and their determination to help their friends.
Another common trait of heart characters, they tend to be both strong and weak of heart. Spinner is weak of heart, because he lets his insecurities get to him and constantly belittles himself. However, he’s strong of heart because he can remain such a caring person after everything he’s been through, even in the case of the event that pretty much shattered the bond between the league, Twice’s death, the loss of Compress, AFO taking over, Spinner is still desperately working to protect both Shigaraki and the rest of the league. His lack of a self makes him not want to take care of himself, but his lack of a self also makes him want to take care of others.
So people point to Spinner’s low self esteem and say it’s a problem that’s causing him to critically misunderstand his friends, but it’s more complicated than that it’s just a part of who he is with both positive and negative aspects. For example, you have to look at the way Spinner views the league in comparison to the way everyone else does.
Yes, Spinner might be slightly mischaracterizing Toga’s desire for love as freedom, but also he’s also the only one who engages with her and talks with her, and doesn’t dismiss her as crazy. Dabi just thinks she’s an insane girl until right before the second hero war arc. Spinner asks questions about Toga’s love, because he views her as a person and wants to understand her, he doesn’t just reject the idea of her chasing love from the outright. Spinner’s remarks are humanizing because he actually listens, in contrast to how dehumanizing the heroes can be.
There’s no, BUT IF YOU FEEL THAT WAY, YOU MUST NOT BE HUMAN. There’s no characterizing Toga’s flaws the same way Dabi’s flaws are characterized. They’re not a human being, just a villain to be stopped for exhibiting those qualities. So yes there’s the ‘you’re so free’ line, but there is also the fact that immediately after Twice’s death, Spinner is the one who recognized her grief over Twice and the desire for the league to stay together.
The heroes only see Toga as the destruction she causes. Twice and Spinner are the first characters to frame her actions in any sort of positive light, and give value to her emotions, and motivations, to see past the destruction she might be causing in her lashing out. That’s the power of this scene. Twice calls Hawks out, because he only sees villains in terms of the destruction they might cause or the threat they present to society, and not as human beings who are just as capable of empathy and kindness as any other human. Twice was the only one who recognized that Toga had the ability to do just more than destroy, she could reach out and help people, she helped Twice and that meant something to him. She’s not just a serial killer, she’s also a little girl in pain capable of sympathizing with other people’s pain. The ability of the league members to see Toga as more than just the serial killer she presents herself as, is pretty telling of their bond. Compress goes from being a solo act in the league to constantly babysitting her and checking up on her. Spinner goes from not understanding her, to telling her that he mourns Twice’s death the same way she does. Even Dabi, very recently started to realize that Toga was more than just a murderer, she was someone treated horribly by her household.
This is in stark contrast to the heroes who constantly say shit like.
“Yeah, I’m looking at the destroyed city scape to remind myself that these villains aren’t people.” (I know that Uraraka is still debating what to do about Toga, but seriously how messed up was the implication of that before Deku actually spoke up that he wanted to see Shigaraki as a child in need of saving too.)
So, yes Spinner does tend to put other people on pedestals in order to belittle himself, but that’s not all there is to his character. Spinner is the heart of the league. It’s because he believes his own heart to be empty (almost full on tin-man style) that he is not only constantly trying to take care of the emotions of other people, but also acting as a humanizing force for all of the league.
People bring up Spinner’s decision to put the hand on Shigaraki’s head in the first place as what allowed AFO to start taking over, but that’s not really true. What allowed AFO to start taking over was... the fact that Ujiko was already planning to do that in the surgery. Remember, the symbolism for that last remaining hand is two-fold. Yes, the hands are representative of Shigaraki’s trauma and the past he’s trapped in.
However, the hand on his head is also theorized to be Nana Shimura’s hand. Nana Shimura, the same one who after testing Deku on his willingness to kill Shigaraki, also requests him to save the last remaining member of her family. Even in the hallucination itself the above panel appears in, Shigaraki is shown to have mixed feelings on whether or not he wants to remember or forget his family. He first appears as a child saying he’s forgiven Hana, and apepars quite affectionate for his mother, and it’s not only until he’s reminded of his father’s violence appears again that he shifts back into his adult self and rejects all of his family.
Destroying the hands in Deika was not in fact the final moment of Shigaraki’s character arc, because the solution is not for him to just destroy his past trauma. If Shigaraki let Tenko, and his connection to his family die entirely, that would be doing exactly what AFO wants him to do. He’d cease to be Shimura entirely and become “Shigaraki” the next vessel for AFO. This is symbplized from the fact that despite him destroying the ahnds, one of them revived from the wreckage still.
And of all people it’s Spinner who finds that hand. Symbolic of Shigraki’s last connection to his past tauma, despite his desire to be rid of it and destroy it. So yes, Shigaraki’s rage is what allows AFO to manipulate him, but that’s not all it is.
Spinner was the first and only to see the beauty in Shigaraki’s rage, his destruction, because he’s right to be angry about a society that excluded him and continues to scapegoat both him and his friends rather than confront it’s own flaws and it’s own heroes. Shigaraki doesn’t rage because he’s an empty force of destruction like AFO has tried so hard to condition him into. While Spinner putting Shigaraki up in order to keep putting himself down might not be the healthiest thing in the world, it’s also important to remember that Spinner is one of the few characters genuinely invested in Shigaraki’s well-being, who desire him to live past all of this. (Toga showed concern for him too while he was writhing around on the ground in pain. Dabi didn’t show any concern at all, and that was when AFO gave him the you have no friends speech, so it’s my opinion Dabi’s lack of concern for Shigaraki in that scene was to show how cold he still is to other members of the league and how that’s a flaw).
It’s because Shigaraki is still human, his rage comes from the part of him that values his friends, is angry about the way he was treated by society, it’s because he cares that he rages and that human part of him is what cannot be discarded. Trauma isn’t something you destroy, you just, live with it.
There are two characters who are invested in saving Shigaraki, one of them is Deku, the other is Spinner. These two characters are also, coincidentally, the hearts of the trios they inhabit. (Idk even if you think Uraraka and Iida and Deku aren’t the canon trio then the other trio set up for Deku is with Bakugo and Todoroki and he’s still the heart in there). It is Spinner and Deku who are constantly thinking of other people’s emotions first before their own, and reaching out to protect their hearts. If it’s Spinner’s flaw to have no regard for his own well-being and not to value himself enough, he also shares that flaw with Deku. It’s the two of them acting as the heart for different aspects of Shigaraki that are going to save Shigaraki in the end, because Spinner cares for Shigaraki’s adult self and believes the way he currently is isn’t beyond salvation because that’s what Spinner does, sees beauty in the empty, destroyed horizon, and Deku is the one who recognized that Shigaraki’s past self deserved better and he’s still a child in need of saving.
The line AFO uses to manipulate him is specifically a Deku line, and also the central theme of the series. “Everyone can be someone’s hero.” Deku was already a hero when he was just a faceless quirkless kid in the crowd, Spinner when he was just a random NEET with a desire to change things was already a hero, because it’s not powers or a costume that makes a hero but the ability to reach out and try to save others, and that’s what Spinner and Deku do.
