A Disposable Life
All for One shows once again, as a character he’s more of a mirror for society’s evils as a whole, then like a person with motivations and feelings and stuff. While different in their goals, Hero Society as a whole and All for One are extreemly similiarin their methodology, they both use people as tools to getwhat they want. It’s why despite AFO being an outright villain who calls himself the “demon lord” with self-awareness, he resembles people like the head of the Hero Public Safety Commission, and Endeavor so much. Whatever they believe their statedgoal to be, both AFO on the villain side, and several people on the hero side as well as society as a whole largely treat people the same - useful and replacable.
The problem with hero society as a whole as repeated over and over again to this point, is it decides certain people are disposable. AFO says that if a one hundred yen lighter fizzles out, you’d just go buy a new one. He has about the same regard for human life, AFO doesn’t have to go out of the way to save and protect his friends because he can always find new ones.
However, AFO is reflecting Hero Society’s general regard for victims as well. Which is a problem because Heroes as a government institution in society, explicilty frame themselves as going above and beyond to save human life, and then they just don’t do that.
While Aoyama being the traitor isn’t really that interesting character wise. He’s not a super developed character or anything, nor does he have a developed relationship with any of the kids in Class 1A besides being... one of them. It does however, go to show how society treats people who end up in situations like Aoyama.
For one, calling Aoyama a traitor is just mislabelling.
Aoyama is a pretty straightforward case of a hostage. For one he didn’t even make the decision to go out of his way to get a quirk from AFO, his parents did that for him. Aoyama is a pretty simple black and white case of a hostage cooperating with the person who took them hostage under duress. He didn’t go out of his way to spy or sabotage. He gave information when AFO stuck a gun to his parent’s heads.
I’m actually pretty strong in favor of character agency, I usually say there is always a choice to make. However, there does exist “Gun to your Head” scenarios. Scenarios where if you make one choice, the result will be you dying.
There’s also like a difference between claiming you had no choice and using that as an excuse to go out of your way to do bad things, and like, actually having a gun to your head and having very limited options, and doing your best with those limited options.
The way Aoyama is written is a very clear black and white case, like, he basically did everything he could reasonably do even with a gun to his head to try to support his friends even when he was the one who sold them out in the first place. He tried to save Shoto and the otherswhen it might have gotten his parents killed.
I think the best way to compare Aoyama is to a hostage situation because... that’s what it was. A literal crime lord was threatening him and his life if he didn’t do those things. I doubt Denki, or KIrishima, or anyone in the class would have chosen differently if it was not only their but their parents lives on the line and they didn’t have that much freedom to fight back.
Blaming Aoyama is like blaming the hostages in a bank robbery for not just getting up and wrestling the guns out of the robbers hands. No, they couldn’t do that. That’s what makes them a hostage.
Which is why the way everyone immediately jumps to treating him like a villain, and the way the adults in charge tried to tie up and isolate him.
It begs the question, what would Toshinori, the principal and the rest have done if Deku were not there to stand up for Aoyama? His parents were at least guilty of seeking out AFO and using their money to make a deal with a crime lord, but Aoyama is 1) not responsible for that decision 2) a minor and 3) about as repsonsible as a hostage in a bank robbery.
The way AFO regards Aoyama is about the same way Hero Society would have regarded Aoyama,if Deku hadnot stepped in to intervene. (Well it was reasonable to tie him up he was a legitimate threat) he’s like sixteen.
Aoyama is someone who was explicitly made out to be a hostage by the narrative, with this purpose in mind. For example. We are often shown by propaganda like tv shows and poice dramas that police go out of their way to save hostages in these situations. However, in real life that doesn’t always turn out to be the case. This is also a flaw in hero society that is explicitly called out to be a flaw multiple times. Heroes, explicityl advertise themselves as people who will do anything and go above and beyond to save human life, and then they just don’t do that.
I guess it makes sense from a pragmatic standpoint to tie up Aoyama, but the point is, Heroes are not supposed to be soldiers, or pragmatists, they are supposed to be heroes, but among hero society there is a consistent attitude of if someone doesn’t get saved then it’s probably their fault for getting saved.
Hawks murders Twice on live television, and faces like no reprecussions for it whatsoever, because Twiceprobably couldn’t have been saved right he was already too far gone?
Uraraka gives a big speech on how heroes are just people too and just struggling and instead of trying to scapegoat and put the blame on the heroes we should all see each other as people, therefore we can all come together and work for an ending where we smile together and in that speech she very explicitly leaves out someone like Toga- who was crying in front of her and in distress. And that causesher to hesitate. Because Uraraka hasn’t yet sen Toga as a part of everyone, or a person who deserves saving.
Toga is an especially egregious case because Toga is a minor. Quite literally, even if Toga were arrested she wouldn’t be tried as an adult in japan for her murders. However, Toga being a minor also shows us how the heroes deliberately not saving people, just makes the problem worse and worse. Toga was a minor who was suffering from a mental breakdown at the start of the manga. Everyone around her demonizing her, and attacking a seventeen year old girl mulitple times without even the thought crossing their minds that a seventeen year old girl could be reached and needs saving, made Toga get more and more violent to defend herself. To the point where witnesses Jin’s death, and then being turned away by Uraraka she’s reached a similiar point to Shigaraki and Dabi where she’s given up on the idea of being saved and is out for blood because she’s been shown multiple times that hero society isn’t going to save her.
Everyone has already made this comparison, but Afo’s regard for Aoyama is about the same as Enji’s regard for his own son. Enji used Toya, and then when Toya wasn’t useful to him anymore, he had two more children to replace him and effectively abandoned the original. Every single line of dialogue Toya gives shows he’s almost fully aware that he’s been replaced because he’s no longer useful to his father.That he’s a kid his father doesn’t need or want. Toya literally for as long as he could, tried to prove how useful he was to his father.
I think there’s a very explicit textual reason why Toya’s abuse is so different from Shoto’s, and it goes to show Enji’s behavior and how he regards his children. Toya wasthe one he gave all the love and effort too, until he realized he couldn’t get what he wanted out of Toya, then he just threw him away. Toya’s death directly comes from Endeavor abandoning him, and just not bothering to go up to Sekoto Peak and check if he’s okay, because he’s son’s mental wellbeing or health is never his priority. Then after Toya is dead, Enji makes the decision to move on and just try again with the next child. To show how little Toya mattered to him and how dispoable he was.
I’m belaboring the point on this one to show that Enji’sattitude towars his individual children, also effects the way Hero Society sees Enji vs. Dabi. Enji is pretty much given an opportunity to still be a hero after making an apology becausehe’s not considered a disposable person. His son who is the true victim is considered disposable by society at large. Enji is still considerd redeemable, because he’s useful to the society, and Toya is given upon even though his circumstances are much more sympathetic and he’s much more of a victim than his father will be.
I bring this up over and over again because Hero Society as a whole doesn’t prioritize saving human lives, or saving the lives of victims. Not only that, but hero society will also go out of their way to punsih and disppose of people who haven’t done anything wrong yet and therefore haven’t committed a crime.
It’s a problem not because heroes are human and can’t save everyone. It’s a problem because the social contract is that heroes will go out of their way to value and protect human life in these situations, and they don’t. Sometimes, they even go out of their way to assasinate those who didn’t do anything wrong yet. Heroes are given a lot of power and free reign in society, on the caveat that they are going to be responsible with human life, and always prioritize it, and then they just don’t do that.
This is Shigarki’s exact problems, this is why he say they’re playing pretend, because heroes are given such a huge privilege and power in their society on the explicit trust that they are going to act like heroes and save people so when they don’t it’s a problem. It’s not just a job that people can halfass, there is a very specific idea of what heroes are and function as in this society and when they failto live up to that role real people pay the consequences.
However, not everyone is a violent crimminal that’s not being saved like Twice and Toga. Aoyama is a hostage. The point is when you have no regard for life and you don’t prioritize saving people, it’s not just people like Toga and Twice that get thrown under the bus. If you don’t care about preserving human life, and only care about taking down a bad guy, then in hostage situations the hostages are going to die.
If you view individual lives as dispoable as a 100 yen zip lighter. If you don’t place a value in individual lives and try as hard as you can. Then, people are going to die. It’s not just AFO trampling over lives, it’s the whole system that treats indivdual lives as something disposable you can get rid of if they’re not useful.
That’s also the attitude that Midoriya is rattling against at the end of the chapter. Like, what were they going to do if Aoyama wasn’t there? Throw him in jail? Throw him out of the shelter? Even though as I’ve gone on for long enough to belabor the point, Aoyama was a hostage, he was about as culpable for his actions as any hostage in a situation. The problem with Hero Society is once again that “one bad day” logic. Once you get the villain label there’s no saving you, only stopping you and putting you away.
Twice didn’t do anything wrong to preciptate his fall, he didn’t break any laws, but just having the bad luck of hitting the wrong person meant he had a crimminal record and couldn’t get a job anymore. Society, just lets people fall by the wayside if they are no longer useful, or if they are causing a problem. This is exactly what AFO’s attitude is towards Aoyama. Well, I have someone else to replace him so it doesn’t really matter what happens to Aoyama. This is how Enji regarded his son. Well, I can just have another son to replace him.
However, heroes by virtue of being called Heroes shouldn’t act like AFO. They shouldn’t act like someone like Aoyama is replacable, or it’s okay if someone like him is lost because he’s 1) a child and 2) not actually responsible for getting into the mess he is in the first place. That’s literally why Deku had to stand up for Aoyama.
Because if Deku didn’t say anything, what would the adult heroes in the room have done?
