Every once in a while I see posts still complaining about the LoV's ending. I can understand being upset that your favorite characters died, or that the story didn't go the way you wanted. It's fair to point out writing issues that make those endings unsatisfying.
But what I usually see is LoV fans just ignoring that the story was never really set up to give them the ending they wanted, but they convinced themselves it was.
Looking back through my old posts before BNHA ended, I talked constantly about how the LoV surviving/getting redeemed wouldn't make sense with how the story had been written. The only reason I bothered saying the LoV might be redeemed at all was because the tumblr fandom was so sure it was happening, and all their over analyzing posts from that perspective made me unsure if I was right. On top of that, Hori is/was an unpredictable writer who changes things on a whim, so I was never going to fully say 100% it was never going to happen.
Yet, now that the story is over, I still see posts saying that the LoV surviving and being redeemed was the core of the story and that Hori bungled it last minute. That he must have changed his mind close to the finish and killed them off.
This isn’t to say that I believe Hori didn't struggle with this choice when it comes to some of them--namely Toga who he admits he wasn't sure if he'd kill off or not. But it's also clear by his other intended ending for her, redemption and a happy ending were never his intention, even with his favorite sexy lamp character.
Her other ending would have been to live on the run/in the woods and get blood from Ochako secretly. There was no plan for her to get a happy, zero consequence ending where all the characters and world in general forgave her, and she got to be free. The fact he decided she needed to die because she had done too much wrong, makes it pretty clear that he probably always was going to kill off Shigaraki and Touya from the beginning given what he had them do.
Despite what so many LoV fans say, there was ample evidence before the ending that the LoV wasn't going to get a happy ending. They just ignored it, or interpreted it through the lens of what they already saw as a forgone conclusion--they had tunnel vision.
They interpreted Izuku's "I'm going to save the crying child" and Shoto's "He's me" as proof we were supposed to sympathize with Shigaraki and Touya. And while yes, that might be true, sympathetic villains don't necessarily mean 'redeemed' villains. There are many villains with sympathetic pasts that are killed off/tossed in jail--BNHA has quite a few of these, besides the LoV.
Also, I think it's important to note that Hori had Gran Torino tell Izuku that the only way he could save Shigaraki might be to kill him, yet LoV fans interpreted the scene as Gran Torino being wrong and frankly painted him as a bad person. The same was done to the Todroki family when they said Shoto and Enji needed to stop Touya instead of save him. They saw this as them being wrong and something the story would address later instead of Hori telling the audience that saving Touya wasn't going to be the main focus of the story.
This sort of interpretation happened constantly, with LoV fans making bold statements about scenes that were in no way backed up by the actual framing. Like how any Hero fighting a villain was seen as brutal and equated to police brutality, when it was never framed negatively. But that was the story they wanted--one that took the system to task and the LoV were revolutionaries, who ended the story as redeemed and correct.
Because they read it with LoV shaded glasses, they missed all the signs that BNHA wasn't actually that type of story. The Heroes were not portrayed as bad, simply having rather minor flaws, but inherently good people. The only awful Hero--Endeavor, was given a redemption/atonement arc. Many times, whatever issues the Hero System had were fixed by the Heroes themselves, never by villains.
The only time the system was shown as truly bad was when Lady Nagnat was introduced. Hori admitted he added her in last minute because he was inspired by a film he watched. Her crimes were shown as happening before the start of the series, the man ordering her around, killed off and replaced, and we are never told Hawks, who took her place, ever did similar crimes. After she leaves the story, the corruption and crimes are never brought up again.
On top of that the only villains that were ever 'redeemed' were Gentle and Lady Nagnat, both of whom had been, or wanted to be Heroes, whose crimes were either forced on them or excitingly minor. Prior and during the final arc, no violent villains ever showed change or joined the Heroes. Even Stain, who helped, was portrayed as the same crazy killer he had been before.
Redemption/atonement had also, always been shown to be hard and take a lot of time, effort and desire to be better, nor it was never achieved for free, even for minor offenses. Enji spent more time in the manga going through his atonement than the awful abuser he was introduced as, yet by the end he still ends up terribly disfigured, and in a wheelchair, with his family not fully forgiving him. Bakugou nearly dies, and seems to be forever feeling sad/guilty about Izuku loosing his Quirk--plus his is not even #1, which was his dream. Aoyama quits school because he doesn't feel worthy to be there after being forced to spy for AfO, and he's arrested for at least a little while before joining his friends in fighting AfO.
By the time the final arc started, after all the LoV stayed with AfO who was always presented as pure evil, it was pretty clear that they weren't going to get redeemed or become friends with all the Hero kids. In fact, Hori had them throw away one of their few positive qualities right as the story headed into the ending--that being their friendship. Despite seeing how much AfO abused and hurt Shigaraki they did nothing to help him or show much concern. Spinner even agrees to become a monster to further AfO's goals, even though the man is clearly hurting the friend he says he cares so much for.
There was more than enough evidence to show BNHA wasn't going to end with a miraculous LoV redemption. That if these characters were saved, it would be through death. That the ending wouldn't be a full condemnation of Heroes, or a revolution where everything changes.
Yes, there were things that mislead people into thinking that--I won't pretend there's zero reason, so many people latched onto that interpretation. Yet, I feel like there was more than enough that contradicted that reading and showed in the very least a bad ending for the LoV was possible. But fans ignored it and instead pretended the LoV and their story of redemption and tearing down the system was the entire point of the manga.
This is why when the ending came out, LoV fans saw it as a slap in the face to the rest of the story--even though that wasn't the case. BNHA was always very pro-Hero. Yes, it showed some criticism of the system, but in no way did it ever imply it had to be violently torn down and restructured. It was always showing that things were fixable with minimal effort, and that Heroes were a net positive. Meanwhile, it showed villains as perhaps understandable, but ultimately in the wrong and needing stopped for everyone's safety.
Yes, Izuku, Shoto and Ochako wanted to save their respective villains, but fans ignored that saving doesn't always equal survival. And, while, yes BNHA is a hopeful story, it's not, and has never presented itself as Naruto. Hori was never shy about showing the pain and suffering the LoV caused, often undercutting their 'all Heroes bad' speeches with panels of Heroes saving all the innocent people, including small children that they, themselves, had nearly killed.
BNHA, did show compassion for the LoV, but not in the way fans wanted. It admitted they had been made by bad luck, poor resources, bigotry (it was handled badly but Hori did add it) and bad choices by others. By the end it did want to show the LoV had been people, that Izuku, Shoto, and Ochako did care about them, and were effected by their deaths. It says villains are made and so everyone, not just Heroes, should help each other out before someone turns their hurt on other people.
This isn't to say BNHA didn't make mistakes--it did. Hori was over worked, and putting out a story piecemeal over the course of years is almost always going to get bad results. The issue I have with LoV fans criticisms is that they're not really true. BNHA wasn't going to be a story about saving and redeeming the LoV. It was, when looking back, pretty clear about that. Yet, so many still see it as lying to them and Hori spitting in their face. He didn't--they just decided what the story was before it was over, reading everything through a lens of what they wanted it to be, while ignoring any other reading of the story.