So I’ve had a thought about To Be Hero X (spoilers for episodes 1-11)
I think the show is intentionally misleading us about how Trust Value works. Whenever it’s brought up, it’s used as an analogue to social media numbers (you need X number of people to believe in you before you gain powers, etc). Except that there’s a problem with this.
Enter Yang Chen. An orphan, Yang Chen has nobody who believes in him. Trust Value: 0. The show treats him as an outlier who gets bullied specifically because of his nonexistent Trust Value. This tells us that most everyone else has at least *some* Trust Value (parents, siblings, friends, etc). Where it gets interesting is when that number changes.
When he’s fighting to protect Pomelo from the kidnappers, all it takes is 1 person. 1 person believing in him is enough to take him from a helpless nobody to a hero with electricity powers. There’s a whole cinematic moment around his Trust Value moving from 0 to 1. But if that’s the case, shouldn’t heroes be way more common? If TV 1 is enough to grant powers, basically everyone should have powers of some sort, right?
Let’s talk about Lucky Cyan. She gained her powers of fortune manipulation from the wishes of everyone on a passenger jet believing that she would be the one to survive. To be generous, let’s put that number at 100 people. Trust Value 100, and a 4-year-old child can survive a devastating plane crash that kills every other passenger.
The final piece of the puzzle: X. Stated to be a nobody, yet he manages to defeat Queen, the expected winner of the Ranking Matches, and Bowa, the previous X. But if he’s a nobody, if there’s been no exposure, how does he have the Trust Value to have any powers at all, let alone strong enough to defeat two powerful heroes in short order?
I believe that Trust Value has less to do with sheer number of people, and more with the fervency of that belief. Often in the show we see people lose faith in a hero over something as simple as an advertising campaign. They believe in the hero, but only so long as that hero confirms their beliefs.
Conversely, in the case of Lucky Cyan and Yang Chen, their powers are bestowed by only a few people, but those people believe in them from the very depths of their hearts. It is life or death, and so their belief is that much stronger.
This still doesn’t explain X though, does it. What situation created him? I think he does have Trust Value, but it’s not from an external source. I think his power comes from a completely unshakeable sense of self-confidence. He believes that there is nothing that can defeat him, and so the universe makes that a reality.
anyway, I know I’m less than halfway through but that’s my read on things so far! Thank you for coming to my TED Talk
