#Stendhal is a plot hole

[mha-storiiz]

I was hoping MHA Vigilantes Episode 5 and 6 would address the inconsistency with the writing of Stain (I refuse to call him Stendhal unless it's for tagging purposes, it's not a name he would pick for himself it's the name of the author of the book "The Red and the Black" which doesn't contain any themes relevant to the character). Stendhal is the result of Mr. Furuhashi taking a puzzle piece from someone elses puzzle, and instead of crafting his own puzzle around it so that it fits, he tried to force the piece into his own narrative. It didn't do the story any good. The fight would have been way more high stakes and meaningful if Furuhashi had his main characters interrupt Stain while he's attacking a hero, maybe his first target. Knuckleduster could have still been the cause of his lack of nose, but don't try to sell me the idea that Stain's ideology and conviction that brought people to their knees in fear, resulted from a silly inconsequential duel with Knuckleduster. I love the design and the work of the animation team, but the writing in Volume 2 of Vigilantes did not do Stain justice.

Edit: Having spoken with a few people who like the Stendhal arc who disagree with my take on Stendhal, they think that it makes sense for Chizome to target villains exclusively in the beginning because he looks down on heroes since his time in hero school. Essentially, that his thought process as Stendhal was "since heroes can't do shit, I will". This logic is flawed because it requires the assumption that Chizome has an issue with how heroes deal with crime. Wouldn't he then also think All Might is useless because he doesn't kill the criminals he catches? The real problem Chizome has with the heroes he witnessed is that they dont do it for the right reasons, he thinks they should be selfless and not work for money and fame. The reason the street speeches on true heroism Chizome did were mentioned by Horikoshi in Volume 7 was to imply that he tried a peaceful route to get his opinion heard, but nobody listened, and that's when he realized actions will speak louder and trained to kill heroes. Stain does say that villains are a part of his purge but you can see from his attitude to Shigaraki that they are more of a side quest for him, he will kill them if he comes across them and deems them dangerous but might also let them live if their objectives allign, his main focus has always been heroes.

Stendhal doesn't develop the Hero Killer ideology until Knuckleduster criticized him and beat him up. So if he hadn't met Knuckleduster that night, would he never have become Stain? I find Furuhashi's approach disrespectful, because he reduced the character to someone who decided to target heroes in the spur of a moment after a fight instead of someone who (like All Might) worked towards his ideals consistently for more than a decade. That is why I get impression he doesn't like the character very much. Stan is an important character who drove the plot of mha with his actions. He deserves an origin that is not tied to the actions of the main characters, and that's exactly what Horikoshi gave him. I personally will go by the source material and the vision Horikoshi had for Stain, but if you like the Stendhal origin, you do you.

[darkestwizard777]

I disagree with this take fundamentally and I go over some of my reasons in the comment section- however, credit where it’s due the Art is EXCEPTIONAL and I really do admire your willingness to at least engage with disagreements.

In short… this is a classy person here

I was hoping MHA Vigilantes Episode 5 and 6 would address the inconsistency with the writing of Stain (I refuse to call him Stendhal unless it's for tagging purposes, it's not a name he would pick for himself it's the name of the author of the book "The Red and the Black" which doesn't contain any themes relevant to the character). Stendhal is the result of Mr. Furuhashi taking a puzzle piece from someone elses puzzle, and instead of crafting his own puzzle around it so that it fits, he tried to force the piece into his own narrative. It didn't do the story any good. The fight would have been way more high stakes and meaningful if Furuhashi had his main characters interrupt Stain while he's attacking a hero, maybe his first target. Knuckleduster could have still been the cause of his lack of nose, but don't try to sell me the idea that Stain's ideology and conviction that brought people to their knees in fear, resulted from a silly inconsequential duel with Knuckleduster. I love the design and the work of the animation team, but the writing in Volume 2 of Vigilantes did not do Stain justice.