#meta:lov

[thyandrawrites]

Currently thinking about how Dabi still doesn't know that Shigaraki literally stepped on his dad and called him out on being obtuse and self-centered like all heroes. You know, the one thing Dabi's been seeking validation for this whole time

Better yet, Shigaraki specifically called out Endvr for hiding behind the labels of heroes and villains to justify his unwillingness to lend an ear to the other party.

... Which is exactly the kind of awareness that Dabi has been running himself ragged to get. I could scream about this for hours.

Shigaraki told Endvr that heroes trample over their families to help strangers. Endvr is literally trampling over Touya's feelings by neglecting to face him and instead fighting AFO for the greater good of the masses.

Shigaraki said "you can't understand me because you manufactured labels like heroes and villains to make our violence different on paper and feel better about your own". Endvr literally tried to murder Shigaraki by burning him alive in a wall of scorching hot fire, was applauded and supported for doing so, and then turned around and called his son a mass murderer for doing the exact same thing

Better yet, Endvr used the excuse of that divide between heroes and villains that Shigaraki was talking about to justify neglecting his three other kids for years, hiding away in what he called "the world of heroes" and delegating the weight of parenthood solely onto his wife's shoulders

I'm just. Hhhhhhhhh.

The people who could've made Dabi feel understood were always right there. Toga and Shigaraki foil him to a ridiculous extent. And Dabi doesn't even know it because he never let himself entertain the possibility that other people might've related to all the scapegoating he suffered growing up and even helped him through it by offering him belonging. Instead, Dabi's like "I don't care about your personal feelings, boss. I'll just do my own thing" and Shigaraki lets him. Because that's what Shigi does. He doesn't impose his goals and views on his allies, but he still supports them and makes room in his plans to accommodate for their needs.

Without even knowing that Endvr was Dabi's father, without even knowing that Enji was an abuser too, Shigi was like "well, my father was a dick, and I didn't take any of his shit either" and I just. Think about what could've happened if only Dabi knew that the people he's been dismissing as stepping stones of his revenge plot have been the first real people who have defended him, unknowingly or deliberately — no question asked, no personal gain in sight. And yes, I'm putting Spinner in there too because for all the mean comments he received last chapter, he's also the only character in the story so far who wholeheartedly believes in Dabi's strength and willpower

[thyandrawrites]

Re: the League being super chill about letting Dabi be an awful recruiter so long as he enjoys it

I forgot to mention this in the original post, but that... Chillness is quite telling of Hori's intention to portray the League as a "you can just exist without pressure" environment (totally opposite from the "you are your quirk/individuality" mentality that hero society embraces to the point that those with "weak" powers become essentially worthless). More on that, the League specifically goes out of its way to welcome with open arms anyone that hero society considers a reject not worth looking twice at.

I'm sure you're feeling like I'm pointing out something obvious. After all we can all see the found family vibes of the League, and how what was supposed to be a criminal organization ended up becoming the home of a ragtag of misfits with no other place to belong if not each other, a group of broken people finding peace and solace in other equally broken people. But, but.

My point here is not about the found family reading of it (tho it def still applies), but rather the inherent "fuck you" to the mindset of... Let's say productivity, for lack of a better term, that hero society unwittingly embodies.

As I mentioned in the original post, the League is very chill about Dabi taking on the role of the "official" recruiter despite how Dabi doesn't have anything to show for it for months on end, and in fact does the opposite of what a recruiter should do. That is, killing any potential new hire.

So... It can be argued that Dabi is really bad at this job. They all know it. They acknowledge it on screen. They tease him about it:

Yet... Shigaraki never puts any pressure on him to actually accomplish anything. The most he does is saying "I look forward to meeting this new ally" when Dabi hints that he has his eye on someone. Which is just... An acknowledgement, not an expectation or a demand. It's just a simple "okay, show me when you're ready".

This falls in line with how the League has repeatedly shown acceptance towards any member who performed "poorly", not maximizing on their full potential. For example, it's how Shigaraki was always very chill with Twice's mental block towards cloning himself. Yet, when Twice finds it in himself to do it, Shigaraki's reaction is just...

To take it stride as if it wasn't a big deal. Like it was perfectly normal for Twice to have found a way around his greatest fear, just like that. Note how it's Twice who stresses how he can be "useful" now. But Shigaraki simply takes stock of his new asset like he would look at a new tool in his inventory, and moves on to strategize like usual.

The underlining reading is that Shigaraki would've been fine with fighting alongside Twice even if Twice never overcame the mental block that prevented him from using his quirk at full power.

This reading is further emphasized when Spinner finally gets a quirk reveal in the middle of the mla arc, and it's a power with no particularly noteworthy strategic or offensive value.

It's a quirk that simply allows him to stick to walls. He doesn't have any fancier or flashier side-powers, either. Unlike Tsuyu, whose mutation quirk supplies her with several "useful" frog-like powers, Spinner's quirk is exceptional in that it is not exceptional at all. He doesn't even have regenerative powers like a gecko. He just sticks to walls. That's it.

And the narration makes it very clear, stating it both through the opposition with the mla, a militant group preaching social darwinism, and through Spinner's backstory. Spinner ended up as a shut-in and fell into a depressive slump as a result of the bullying and discrimnation he faced as both a heteromorph, and one with a "weak" power to boot. And yet, the League saw worth in him that hero society couldn't. The League welcomed him and let him define his own worth for himself, giving him acceptance and the freedom to express his voice, to pursue his goals even if his performance was less than stellar at times. Even if his power or his abilities were not up to par with those of the more 'blessed' individual with strong quirks.

Now think of Dabi again in light of that last paragraph. No, think of Touya. Someone who was repeatedly told what he couldn't be because of the limits of his body. Someone who was casted out on accounts of his failure to match up with his brother's "blessed" genetics.

And then think again about why Dabi actually stuck around for so long.

[thyandrawrites]

I have to preface this with the fact that I don't mean any of this in a hostile tone, but am genuinely curious about what you think. Do you think that the LoV's past circumstances will/should give them leeway to get away scot-free from the consequences of their (extremely destructive/disruptive) actions that have injured common folk more than the Heroes they claim to hate the most? (1/4)

We, as readers, are aware of the conditions that drove Shigaraki, Toga and the others to do what they did but I feel that the general public won’t really vibe with the idea of reintegrating or give a carte blanche to people whose body counts number in the thousands and I feel that addressing this satisfactorily will be really difficult in the long run. The series has a hopeful tone but the populace Just forgetting the grievances caused doesn't seem that palatable, to be honest. (2/4) 

Does Touya deserve no commeuppance for his (by his own words) few dozens of victims because “It’s all Endeavor’s fault” as if he had literally no involvement in the thought process that took him to callously wreaking havoc everywhere? I mean, Shouto's gotten his ass kicked by Karma repeatedly and his actions haven't been that drastic, asides from being kind of an asshole initially (3/4) 

Society in BnHA is flawed af and needs re-structuring to address the issues it has (which is the direction is heading to) but do the people who have destroyed everything around deserve full forgiveness just because their stories were tragic? Especially in the face of people who have faced similar enough circumstances and haven’t resorted to outright villainy. This is not to say that I want them to be killed or thrown to jail but I want to know what you think. Sorry for dumping all of this on you 

*sigh* Not this argument again, please.

I want you to understand that no one is saying that they “deserve full forgiveness”. Not even the story says that, in fact. You’re forgetting that this panel exists:

or this other one:

Deku acknowledges the things Shigaraki has done. And he says he can’t forgive him for them. But saving has nothing to do with forgiving.

What Deku’s doing when he’s showing Shigaraki sympathy, when he’s resolving to save him, is recognizing that Shigaraki is a victim of AFO’s abuse. It’s recognizing Shigaraki’s hurt, and how before he became a villain, he was just a little boy crying and hoping to be saved by a hero, too.

Deku never said “I’m gonna give you a carte blanche for hurting my friends because you are hurting too.” Deku’s said “Shigaraki killed many people. He’s hurt people near and dear to me. AND YET.”

I don’t know how you can interpret that as blanket forgiveness. It’s not. It’s Deku stating that Shigaraki’s victimhood is not lessened by the damage he’s done. It’s not condoning or softening of Shigaraki’s actions, it’s an acknowledgement that Shigaraki is still a human being despite how unforgivable his actions are.

“I feel that the general public won’t really vibe with the idea of reintegrating or give a carte blanche to people whose body counts number in the thousands“

Well, the general public gave their support to a child abuser and a murderer, so their morality isn’t exactly stellar, either. Nor are they completely devoid of blame, either. Dabi’s pov and chapter 305 show that their support and their willingness to turn a blind eye to corruption are also a symptom of everything that’s wrong with hero society. I don’t know why their opinions should have such a weight into what ends up being the fate of the villains. If the masses can be persuaded into accepting back a child abuser, they can also be persuaded into accepting back the victim of that abuse.

Besides, redeeming the core Lov in the eyes of the general public isn’t even that hard?? Literally all they have to do is help defeat AFO, the biggest threat to peace in hero history, and the person directly to blame for the existence itself of the League of villains as an organization. Without him, “Shigaraki Tomura” never would’ve existed. Without his network, without Ujiko’s devotion, the attacks never would’ve taken place. Without his experimentation on Machia, and his brainwashing into blind devotion, the destruction of those cities never would’ve happened. Please let’s blame the right person for that. Tenko was kidnapped at age 5 and gaslit into remaining feral and angry and self-destructive for a purpose. He cannot be held to the same standard as his literal abuser.

You also make it sound as if Dabi, Shigaraki and the others haven’t already been miserable all their lives. You freely mention how much they destroyed, but skip mentioning how much they also self-destructed. To bring up an example.

The hands that Shigaraki was forced to wear on his body every day were said to be the trigger of his trauma.

AFO purposefully gaslit him into accepting to be re-traumatized every. fucking. day. Because the one condition to steal ofa is a strong enough emotion, so he had a vented interest in keeping Tenko as far away from closure and healing as possible.

In fact, we were even told that Shigaraki experienced that grief like the first time every single day of his adult life. So much so that suffering has become normalized to him.

The story has been punishing them more than enough already. What they “deserve” is not to be even more miserable, but to finally be freed from the belief that there cannot be any salvation for them. That there cannot be a life outside of destruction.

They have never walked away “scot-free”. Dabi doesn’t even have a sense of self outside of his trauma. He had a meltdown on live TV but everyone seems to think he was entirely rational about his revenge, entirely present as he attempted suicide in front of a stage that didn’t do anything to stop him.

“just because their stories were tragic“

“in the face of people who have faced similar enough circumstances and haven’t resorted to outright villainy“

No. Look, I understand that you’re not trying to start an argument or to sound hostile, but this is victim-blaming. You are minimizing the extent of their trauma, and blaming them for not reacting to it in a way that you find palatable. Dabi is no less of a victim than Shouto because he didn’t have the tools to cope with his trauma in a way that society finds acceptable. Shouto had his mother’s love and her full support and reassurance. Touya didn’t. It’s not Touya’s responsibility that the adults around him didn’t give him a support system, that they didn’t provide him with emotional stability, that they refused to take care of him and to love him. If he “resorted to outright villainy” it’s because his father refused to interact with him in a context that wasn’t that of the so-called “world of heroes”. If he bothered answering just ONE of Touya’s pleas, Touya wouldn’t have had to resort to villainy in the first place. Again, please blame the right person.

Also, Dabi’s faceless, unnamed victims that you mention don’t have more narrative weight than Twice’s (a named character who invoked a strong connection with the audience) extrajudicial murder. You make it all about numbers like this is real life and not fiction. If Dabi’s kills were framed as having the same emotional and moral impact than the heroes’ mishandlings of justice, then Horikoshi would’ve made room to show those people’s backstories. The only reason why Dabi and the League killed so much is to pose a narrative challenge.

At what point does hero society stop seeing them as victims and starts claiming for their blood? This supposed line between good and bad that cannot be crossed because otherwise you’re too far gone is exactly what caused the destruction in Jakku and the nearest cities. The dehumanization of Shigaraki’s personhood into an “it” that needed taking down, X-less’ refusal to cpr Shigaraki when his heart stopped, are exactly what caused the decay rampage. Punitive justice cannot work to fix the problems here so long as the ones administering it are criminals, too. Rehabilitation can.

A lot of people seem to forget that the reason why the villains are lashing out against hero society is not because “they had tragic backstories”, but because society is specifically tailored to repress and reject them. They kill and they destroy because society taught them that they were monsters that destroyed.

Every time I see the argument that the villains’ redemption means condoning their crimes I have to stop my eyes from rolling so hard they’ll fall off my face. Literally no one is saying that. “Redemption” just means giving these broken people a reason to stop the rampage, to learn that destruction doesn’t have to be the only way to move forward.

If society cannot make room to welcome them back, to accept them after they rejected them for so long, then I’m sorry but you misunderstood the entire premises of this manga

[thyandrawrites]

I'm glad that you are able to return to doing things you enjoy! I can completely understand how draining it can be not doing them for awhile. I look forward to the zines and wip you're workin on! I was curious if you'd be willin to do a meta on the dynamics that the lov have w/ each other. I'm still tryin to play catch up with the manga, but they have my soul atm. I'm workin on a few wip as well as an LoV au, n' I wanted to know your input. (if u can, THANK U, if not, 100% understandable)

Hey there! Thank you for being so nice :’) I’m glad you’re enjoying the content I put on this blog.

Anyway, to answer your question. Simply put, the League has very deliberate found family dynamics. I think that’s the reason why so many fans warmed up to them once they actually got an arc of their own. Cause they’re not just cruel bad guys, they’re complex and layered individuals fighting for things that we can actually empathize with, and whose struggles that make them grow closer to each other are always portrayed on screen with lots of depth.

Basically, the Lov is set up as a group of outcasts - all the people that don’t fit in hero society or who for one reason or another fell through the cracks. Putting aside guys like Muscular, Moonfish and Mustard, who were all some degree of unsympathetic (and in fact were removed from the core League early on), everyone is pretty much a victim of their circumstances. Not only that, but they also are often part of some kind of marginalized group.

(from here on, I talk about manga events so please keep that in mind if you don’t wanna get spoilers)

Starting from Shigaraki, he was the son of a strictly controlling patriarch first and later became the brainwashed heir to a crime empire. He was gaslighted into believing he exists to destroy and kept away from human touch for all his formative years.

There’s Toga who was called monstrous by her own family, who couldn’t understand her fascination for blood and her wish to explore a part of her identity, her quirk.

There’s Dabi, whose disability brings new focus to the theme of quirk incompatibility with one's body. His backstory has yet to be confirmed, but he also so very clearly holds a grudge against heroes as rescuers, because he wasn’t saved.

There’s Twice who dropped out from school at 16 to work to sustain himself when he lost his family, and who was pushed into villainy by a series of misfortunes ranging from poverty, loneliness, and lack of empathy from the law enforcers who saddled him with an unfair criminal record.

There’s Spinner who was a hikikomori (a shut-in) because the prejudice and hate he suffered as a heteromorph (and as a weak one to boot) made him lose all aspirations in life and fall in a depressive slump.

There’s Magne, a trans woman who experienced discrimination, who became a villain to fight for a world that would accept her for who she was.

There’s Kurogiri who should’ve never ended up the way he did, if only people had paid more attention to youths and how to better pace their development to wait until they were ready to take on dangerous situations.

And there’s Compress… Admittedly we don’t know much about him, but allegedly lost status or wealth, since he pretty much still acts like it.  

The reason behind this wordy introduction is simple. The League is where all these mismatched people found a place to belong, a group of individuals who were equally broken or equally determined to lash out against the establishment that ruined their life and then didn't help them when they most needed it. One thing I find interesting about them is that despite the fact that they did have a goal at the beginning of the story, it has changed and evolved with time, the longer they spent with each other and got challenged by their losses.

Compare all the above with how they evolved:

Shigaraki did become Afo’s heir, but also rejected his will; he chose to be his own master, and to use his new power for his own goals. He also rejected the kind of leadership Afo wanted him to embrace. Shigaraki doesn't lead the Lov like Afo did with his crime network; he's not a puppeteer behind the scenes. He’s always fighting on the frontlines along with the rest of his comrades, and often he’s bearing the brunt of the attack to shield them. Think of how during the highway scene after Chisaki’s arrest, Shigaraki chose to be the distraction, charging the police car (and the only hero there) head on to give the others room to stop the convoy.

At the beginning of the story, Shigaraki was very much a detached sort of leader. He bossed people around and threw fits when things didn’t go according to his plans. He still charged head on, but Afo’s influence on him was clear, because he didn’t think of his comrades as valuable people, only assets to defeat a boss.

That has changed drastically after Magne’s death. That loss made him face the reality that he was still lacking as a leader, and he grew immensely from it. Not only he devised a plan to destroy Chisaki’s empire by exploiting their “alliance”, but he also chose to do so specifically for his comrade’s sakes.

A far cry from the brat who let dozens of low-rank villains get arrested at USJ cause they’d already served the purpose of acting as decoy.

Shigaraki’s character growth is the best one depicted in the manga imho. A lot of his character is defined by his interactions with his peers. He’s like a sponge because he’s constantly absorbing things - both from his allies and from his enemies - and making them his new strengths.

What I find interesting about him is that Afo's gaslighting hasn't undone who he is deep down. Tenko was an aspiring hero and someone who made sure to include all the kids when he played, leaving no one out. Those traits of his show through to this day. A lot of the time, I feel like fans glide through the fact that Shigaraki isn't at all a bossy leader anymore. In fact, he keeps his comrade's wishes and complaints in mind at all times.

I think this misconception came from the fact that when he's challenged by an enemy he dislikes, he always retaliates tenfold until he completely destroys them by taking what matters most to them (he did this with Chisaki by stealing the quirk erasing drug, his life's work, and his hands, the only thing that made him a leader. He also did this with Redestro, dusting the tower that symbolized his power and dominance from above, and stealing his empire & network for himself).

But… with his comrades, he's not like that. We've seen him face insubordination twice so far, and he always took it stride without even getting mad.

When Twice and Toga threatened him after hearing that he planned on continuing the alliance with Chisaki even after Magne's death, Shigaraki replied evenly, with confidence, showing that he had thought of their feelings and this wasn't a rash, detached kind of decision. He had a plan, and he didn't intend on letting Magne's death mean nothing to him. For a character so greatly impacted by loss from a very young age (whose given name literally means "mourning"), you can probably gather why for yourself.

Another insubordination he faces calmly is Spinner's.

He lets him grab his collar and scream at him and he barely blinks. He doesn't make excuses, either. At this point, the Lov was broke and homeless, on the run with nowhere to crash, they'd just lost Kurogiri and any sense of purpose. It's not like Shigaraki acts brilliant and pretends like this was all part of the plan. Or that he urges Spinner to stay with them despite his doubts that they're after a goal anymore. Cause to Shigaraki, the rest of the League is a bunch of people with free wills. He does give them orders as any leader should, but at the end of the day, he's also always allowed them to have goals of their own.

On this topic, here's a post on why he's also cool with Dabi & Toga having separate agendas that don't align with his desire for systemic destruction. You could also argue that this chill and lax attitude towards leadership is also a subconscious way of rejecting Afo’s upbringing. Afo was controlling even when he set things out to make Shigaraki feel like he was taking his own decisions. Shigaraki is pretty much the opposite.

He even changed his own purpose a little (“destroying everything”) to account for Toga’s personal goal (“destroying everything except the things my comrades want to keep”). That’s because Shigaraki is aware that the League is a bunch of people that doesn’t really fit in anywhere else in hero society.

This found family aspect is also shown in a lot of other things. For example, it’s Toga finding true friends who accept her for who she is in the other League members. We are told early on that quirks are just another body function. Yet, hero society found Toga’s to be monstrous and demanded she repress it and forced her to wear a mask of normalcy that ended up only amplifying her desire for violent rebellion.

The thing about treating a kid like a monster all the time, is that at some point that kid is gonna believe you and start acting like one. What is labeled as “Insanity” in her case is just the reflection of the dehumanization that the adults in her life subjected her to.

As pointed out here, Toga is not an unsympathetic, bloodthirsty demon. She’s a layered individual, and she’s the protagonist of the the most empathetic scene of the story. It’s not a coincidence that she only ever shows that more human side when she’s with other lov members, while she is perceived as freaky and crazy by people on the hero side. Because hero society only ever treated her with violence, while the lov gave her a safe space to explore her identity without judgement. As a result, she treats the rest of the lov with kindness and acceptance too. This prompts her character development.

Toga’s character revolves around the theme of connection. As stated above, she never really fit in. She had no friends, and her own family shunned her. What happened then was that she internalized that to have connections, she needs to suppress her identity and take up a new one. She killed her classmate, Saito, in middle school because he was popular, smiling and friendly and she wanted to be like him. People, and children in particular, tend to copy the behaviours they perceive as successful, because emulation is part of a child’s normal process of learning the world. Hers is... an extreme case of emulation that ends up becoming literal because of the way her quirk works.

Without going too deep about it, basically suppression of the self is freedom to her because she can fit in better than when she tries to be “normal” as herself. This is shown in particular when she manifests jealousy towards Ochako as the subject of Deku’s trust. She too wants to be trusted unconditionally like Ochako is. Her character basically boils down to her desire to be close to the person she loves, the person she has a strong connection to.

The lov was the first group of individuals who never tried to mold her into something she wasn’t, and you can see how this impacts the way she forms connections with people. With Twice, she was able to form a meaningful relationship with another person that didn’t revolve around her obsession for blood, and that was full of empathy and companionship.

Now, I could go on and explain how the League is thematically the place that gives belonging and legitimacy to all the lov’s members reasons to resent hero society. I could because there’s so much more to say, particularly in regards to Twice & how Hawks fits in that, but it’s too hot to keep typing this on my pc without any a/c, sorry XD brain melty

The short version is that the lov is deliberately written as a group of outsiders - each in their own light - and each one of them explores a different ramification of the failures of hero society. The bonds that they form with each other then are not just born out of necessity, but often become a rebellion in and of itself. When Hawks then tried to pry them apart by offering Twice the chance of reformation in jail, he also unconsciously repeated the abuse they suffered at the hands of hero society: splitting them apart into “good” and “bad” victims, people who could still be saved and hopeless cases, when the truth is that none of them should’ve become a villain in the first place, if only heroes had been more competent and noticed the cracks of the system sooner. 

[thyandrawrites]

Since toga has snapped because twice was killed, who do you think will be able to calm her down? If she is more unhinged than usual, she may be even more of loose cannon and cause trouble for her team. She usually does what shigaraki says so maybe he can calm her down? Or mr. compress?

Mmh. I guess I'm not really thinking of it in those terms. Cause Toga isn't actually "crazy". She's lashing out because she's grieving the loss of the first real bond with another human being.

I think it's important to remember here that Toga hasn't had any stable relationships in all the 17 years she's lived, let alone any healthy ones. Jin was the person that came closest to that, because they gave each other understanding and trust.

She isn't used to letting out her emotions in any healthy way, and that's why her interest for other people, her wish to be trusted, manifests as bloodlust and stalking. Linkspooky wrote several posts on how Toga is always at her most violent when she's treated like a freak, because she subconsciously mimicks the violence directed at her. This is merely another occurrence of that.

Consider the parallel with Dabi: Dabi also similarly "snapped" and became violent and unsympathetic to Hawks when Hawks dehumanized the League and subdued Twice through violence, later further dehumanizing Dabi by remarking Dabi's supposed lack of empathy for a friend's death (manifested by his lack of tears). Toga also gets dehumanized in a similar manner. Her ahegao gets called freaky, disturbing, even if to Himiko is the only way she knows how to physically manifest her joy. Her imitation of the - chan Ochako and Tsuyu use to refer to each other at training camp is a clumsy attempt at gaining the trust of people her age. She wants to fit in and belong. Yet it becomes another thing used against her as proof of her insanity.

But Toga isn't actually a bloodthirsty monster, and neither does she lack empathy, just like Dabi. That is the hero narrative that was forced on them to justify a raid like this one, when murder suddenly became excusable when the heroes commit it, but that classifies people as monsters when it's the villains who do it.

Toga is someone who just lost a close friend. This is not a "point of no return" or anything like that. It's a lashing out that directly parallels Dabi's and Shigaraki's, because all three of them are currently being victimized by the actions of heroes who are acting unheroic. The heroes think of them as monsters, and they dehumanize them to the point where we actually witness the villains donning the clothes of said monsters in explicit rebellion. They're getting in charge of that dehumanizing narrative, because it's one that directly harms them, and turning it against the people who invented it to harm them instead.

But. I think it's important to understand that this doesn't tell us anything about who they inherently are as people. This is an act that they're putting on. A systematic rebellion against an oppressive system that is blind to its own flaws.

At their very core, the League of villains isn't made of monsters.

Shigaraki used to be a shy child who played heroes with the bullied kids, and who had dreams of becoming a hero like his grandma. He was so gentle and sweet he didn't even fight back against the physical abuse he endured, and had to be forcibly gaslighted by afo into embracing violence.

Spinner is someone pushed into villainy by racial prejudice, and someone who is willing to dedicate his entire life to making someone else's dream come true.

Compress is someone who jumped into the frey right after Magne's murder because he thought he could neutralize the threat Chisaki posed, and thus protect the rest of the League from getting burtally slaughtered too.

Dabi is someone who was deeply hurt by heroes, but who still tried to break through a hero trainee's brainwashing to make him think for himself and make him a better hero.

Twice was someone who understood true loneliness better than anyone, and thus made the League a home not only to fellow League members, but also reached out to comfort and give understanding to Hawks too, weeks after meeting him, because he was able to sense his lack of human contact.

Toga is someone who has incredible amounts of perceptiveness and empathy, and she used those skills to comfort Jin while he was having a mental breakdown, wrapping a hankie on his head to ground him, having an immediate understanding of how best to help him born of all the time they got to spend in a normal, non-toxic relationship.

The league is made up of murderers who committed (and are still committing) crimes, true. But that doesn't automatically revoke their humanity, or makes them monsters with no possibility of "going back". That's just what heroes (like Gran Torino) tell themselves to justify the fact that they choose to abandon victims of abuse that fell through the cracks of their system, victims of abuse that the hero system didn't acknowledge before they were left to fend off for themselves in a world that dehumanizes them until they embrace that violence as a flawed method of self defense. Let's not forget here that Toga started wearing middle school uniforms despite being 17 because she noticed that people were less violent to her when she appeared younger.

In a universe where legalized violence to suppress political dissent is the norm, what the League represents is the threat posed by those who don't fit in that system. They've always been the outcasts, the outliars. But one point that can never be stressed enough is that they are made to be the outcasts. They are made to be the monsters. But they're not.

So I guess what I'm trying to say here, in a really convulted way, is... That this is less something that Toga needs to "snap out of", and more like a point that Horikoshi is trying to drive home by making all the lov parallel each other, each getting victimized by the heroes in their own light. Dabi by being told that Hawks' actions were the right choice, thus proving the narrative that Dabi's own death at the hands of a hero was excusable. Toga by losing her first genuine bond with another person that didn't involve Trasformation and thus a need to imitate and further repress herself. Shigaraki by getting targeted by a bunch of heroes treating him like a sentient weapon instead of a human being, thus basically repeating the same dehumanizing abuse Afo, a literal villainous mastermind, subjected him to.

So I see the current conflict less as Toga losing her mind and needing to be reminded of her priorities and more as the Lov as a whole cementing themselves as those who will challenge the status quo, forcing the hero system to bend to their wishes, instead of passively suffering its whims for once. I see this as them finally gaining a collective goal that coincides.

I hope that answers your question!

[thyandrawrites]

I think the only thing that has me and others doubt dabi’s loyalty or his bond with the league is BECAUSE we don’t know why he let hawks in. It makes no sense unless it was for intentional sabotage but then that doesn’t make sense because the league is key in achieving his goal. Even when we don’t know why he let hawks in, you still don’t doubt his feelings towards the league? Unless his plan wasn’t supposed to go this way and dabi made a mistake. Would dabi admit his mistake?

It makes perfect sense to allow him to meet the lov even if he doesn’t trust him, actually, because despite caring for the lov he still doesn’t trust them either. He never told them about his identity. He never let them in on his own agenda. When Dabi first joined, Shigaraki tried to kill him after he said a single (1) insult. Even now, he occasionally makes remarks about how “crazy” they are, as if he somehow thinks that he’s different from them despite feeling some form of kinship in shared goals. And Dabi also made similar remarks about Hawks, noting how even if the body he offered Dabi wasn’t jeanist’s, it was still a body, so Hawks had killed just because Dabi had asked him to on a whim. 

the thing about Dabi is that he doesn’t trust anyone easily, and that even when he does feel companionship, he still pretends like he doesn’t. Like it’s a form of exploitation. Because he grew up with a father who was a very individualistic person that prided self-reliance and overpowering strength over anything else. Dabi has a lot of conflicting thoughts and feelings about what “strength” and “weakness” mean, and those conflictual views reflect in his interactions with pretty much all his peers. He wasn’t waiting to start trusting Hawks before he brought him in. He was waiting for the moment he could contain his damage as much as possible. 

Besides, holding him accountable for Twice’s death is like holding Twice accountable for Magne’s. It’s not his fault. Hawks did the killing. Dabi might’ve mistrusted him, but he still put his own life on the line to try and stop him. Which means that was never a deliberate “sabotage”, but an instance of him being a human being who made a misstep in judgement, and who paid the consequences for it when he realized he couldn’t stop Hawks after all

[thyandrawrites]

I wanted to give my two cents on something that has been on my mind. I’ve seen comments floating around about how the society that the QLA means to create is not equalitarian or “free” by any means, and I agree. They don’t perceive people to be equal, nor are they keeping up the pretense that they do. Theirs is definitely an extremist group that uses massive propaganda and the promise of higher status to push people to impossible standards;

The fervor of their followers reeks of desperation. They’re completely okay with the fact that they’re considered disposable pawns unless they produce outstanding results that might place them amongst the elite few that gets to stay at the top. This guy here trained for years to get a shot at being where Skeptic is. 

See also how badly Skeptic reacts to being considered a failure. He shuts down with a worrying amount of distress at the mere suggestion that he wasn’t efficient enough, and that he might’ve put a stain on his perfect curriculum. Notice the ominous way Re-destro’s look is framed in that panel: he appears like a megalomaniac fanatic. That look basically spells out “you’d better. or else”.

Despite how happy they seem to be part of this cult, there’s nothing inspiring or ethical about that, and it certainly does paint him as the villains to the League’s heroes (ironically, I know.)

But there have been many mentions of this in-text too. That we’re supposed to see the Lov as the heroes (a better word would be Main Characters) of this arc. 

I’ve spoken before about the emphasis put on Shigaraki’s struggle to overcome his adverse fate in this arc, and how it’s framed as a hero journey (here).

There’s even a couple of jokes made on screen to emphasize this point. We’re meant to think of the Lov as the good guys righteously fighting against these much worse guys. 

But what I find interesting here is that imho the QLA is just pushing for an agenda that includes a more extreme version of the individualism embraced by their current society. 

“A person’s only worth lies in the strength of their powers,” says Apocrypha, a QLA extremist. 

“What are you capable of, anyway?” says the quirk society to quirkless Izuku.

“It is impossible for you.”

“You don’t even have a weak quirk, you have nothing!”, they say. 

It’s not just a stigma against quirkless people though. 

It’s Kirishima’s belief that he’s dull, boring and less than “flashy” people.

It’s Shinsou’s “Must be nice to be so blessed.”

It’s Endeavor’s “quit pretending to be so frail”. 

It’s their society praising Bakugou (even though all he did was getting kidnapped) and shooting down Izuku (even though he saved the day) because the former has a strong quirk and the latter is quirkless and thus worthless. 

It’s their society offering countless internship offers to the two flashiest, most brutal quirk users in their class and barely caring for the average ones.

Quirk society is already plenty elitist and individualistic. Whether they realize it or not, they’re already pushing impossible standards on the younger generations. What the QLA is doing is not trying to change the system. It’s essentially just trying to replace the current powerholders with people amongst their own ranks. 

So this arc is relevant in the overall plot for three reasons imho: 

1. they’re cementing the unity of the lov by letting them face an opponent that unlike them has their shit together and that is teaching them how to move people enough to follow you

2. as this meta brilliantly points out, Hori is framing every battle of each lov member as a fight against their shadows - and is thus forcing them to confront the one thing they’re trying to avoid, giving us insight on their motivators and laying out character arcs

3. In a smaller scale, this arc is making the lov face off against hero society and telling us that they do in fact have a fighting chance to come out victorious

[thyandrawrites]

stain is the only good villain in the series with a concrete goal but even that goal wasnt thought out enough. honestly we never saw what you had in ur point example being enji being on top but he is only driven by ego not virtue - and how its FUCKED. but also meme u rb just now about "you cant kill ppl if you are a hero" is another aspect hori didnt touch and he didnt bring up that some heroes do go TOO FAR intentionally bcuz either their own desire for violence or their own idea of justice

that could be touched on in stain’s arc or arcs afterwards. bnha world is all bones with no meat on them, you gotta show all sides of hero work and all sides of villiany. for example gentle was introduced as a dude who does shit for YOUTUBE. and that COULD BE a brilliant note on how in a society like that ppl could do crazy shit for PR. that COULD BE explored - but that was only mentioned at the start and he ended up just as training dummy for midoriya.

also to be honest i feel like most of league gang only saw stain as a pop star. like im a big BIG fan of Twice and honestly he really doesnt give much shit about SOCIETY and what not. he only needs a place to belong (and some proper fucking therapy) same goes for toga and dabi i think

Hey again :)

I agree and disagree. While I do agree that sometimes it feels like Horikoshi has bitten off more than he can chew with some particular characters/dynamics, I do believe that he’s… trying to address all the loose ends you mentioned. I’m the first person to admit that he’s a clumsy writer and that he sometimes messes up, but… it’s also true that it’s not easy at all to juggle that level of conflict in a story. 

I think that he started out with this idea for a lighthearted story, with black and white morals, and then got stuck because he put multifaceted, grey characters in it that don’t do well with black and white narratives. 

Like, the hero society is fucked up. The bnha world has 100 problems and the heroes are 99 of them. But you can’t address them objectively, when the narrator of the story, as well as all of the main characters, are on the side of the heroes, and blindly believe that they’re in the right. I knew this going in. I accepted it and I’m at peace with it. 

Though at the same time I still have a feeling that bnha is gonna take a darker turn sooner or later, because by now the story itself demands it. 

The conflict that Stain’s arc addresses is nothing the story hadn’t brought up before, but it’s all the more relevant because it comes from a villain who was originally a hero in training. The first chapter of bnha opens with Midoriya noting that “people aren’t born equal”. I believe that sentence perfectly sums up the entire series, and doesn’t just refer to the theme of quirkless people vs strong quirk users. People aren’t born equal, because theirs is a world that encourages individuality and glorifies violence. When you think about it, the fact that no one corrects Bakugou on his behaviour throughout all middle school is very telling of what their world is like. 

It’s a world where it’s perfectly normal to leave a single guy as the pillar of justice for the entirety of Japan. It’s a weight that would’ve crushed anyone, and it’s not up for question that it’s also the reason why All Might fell. He fought against Afo on his own, sustained a terrible injury, then kept fighting alone until even what was left of his power was squeezed out of him. And yet, it’s never addressed as a bad thing, because their society normalizes inviduality. The existence of the hero rankings is also very telling of this. What’s their purpose if not making everything about hero-work into a competition? Heroics should be about helping people. Instead, in the world of bnha they became all about who manages to sell their brand better. 

It’s a confllict that has been addressed so many times that it has become thematic. To make it in the hero world, you have to possess a strength-enhancing, flashy quirk, and be strong on your own. On one side, people like Shinsou and Monoma, who weren’t gifted with powers that rely on physical prowess, but with subterfuge and cooperation, were marginalised and ostracized as “different” and villainous. People like Kirishima, with a quirk that isn’t eye-catching or particularly original, were conditioned to believe they weren’t good enough for hero work. On the other side, people like Bakugou, who was lucky enough to have both the flashy and strong factors down, were praised endlessly since a very small age to the point of feeding their ego to toxic degrees. That’s the kind of society they live in. 

It’s only normal -with these premises - that people who don’t fit in end up falling through the cracks. That’s why at the end of the day I believe that characters like those who are part of the league are far more important to the plot than guys like Chisaki or even Stain. 

Like, it’s true that the latter two were maybe the only villains with a set goal, but their contribution to the story was very minimal because it was impossible to empathize with them. Chisaki was a child abuser, Stain was someone with valid ideas, but with misguided ways to put them to use. 

But I believe that the League as a whole is an organization of people who are cut from a different cloth than every other villain of the series. Deliberately so. 

Let’s put it this way: if Stain’s point in the story was to show that even heroes can be bad people, then the League - that is canonically made up of society’s rejects, people who fell through the cracks of the hero system and were basically forced by their circumstances to turn to villainy to survive - is meant to drive home the point that even villains can be (or maybe originally were) good people.

Imho it all boils down to the nature versus nurture discourse. There’s no power that’s inherently villainous. There are more gun-themed heroes than there are villains. Shigaraki’s Decay might be a destructive quirk, but so is Thirteen’s Black Hole (they’re variations of the same power, actually, so if Tomura wasn’t groomed to become a villain, he could’ve made a good disaster relief hero). The biggest giveaway that it’s not nature that makes people evil but nurture, is the fact that both Endeavor and Dabi have fire quirks, and yet they stand on opposite sides of justice. It’s the good ol’ “it’s not the power, but how you use it” spiel. 

Moreover, there are a lot of implications that many of the people currently part of the League are misfits who have no other place to belong to. Twice’s backstory - as you mentioned - confirms this. There’s also this great meta that analyses how all of its members are part of marginalized communities as well. 

Villains like Dabi and Shigaraki add even more to this narrative because they represent the people who were personally wronged and abandoned by the hero system. They bring up the topics of responsibilities and consequences in the story. Assuming that Dabi is a Todoroki, then his turn to villainy is intimately related to Endeavor’s shortcomings as a hero. It is also a consequence of Nana’s decision to foster her child, that Tenko had no other family to turn to when he was suddenly orphaned. Being alone and scared as he was, it’s no wonder he was never able to discern Afo’s manipulation as straight-up grooming. He was starved for love; and that’s without taking into account that there are implications that he was abused as a child, and that Afo staged up his parents’ death by giving him the quirk Decay in the first place. 

So basicaly it’s the hero system itself that breeds villains. I assume that at some point it will be addressed in canon, because it’s not even subtle anymore. There are too many villain backstories that have to do with being let down by the system in one way or another, so I expect that it’s a build up that will be addressed when the time comes. 

As for the topic of justified violence, I totally agree with you. It’s only ever framed as a bad thing when it’s the villains who engage in it. For example, Aizawa threatening to break all of Dabi’s bones during the attack at training camp was framed as him being “a protective dad” instead of a fucking sociopath. What the heck, right? Or, my biggest pet peeve with bnha as a series: the fact that Midoriya breaking all of his fucking bones always gets framed as a good thing because it’s the heroic thing to do and it gets results, despite the fact that it’s also his biggest flaw ever, and that subjecting a child to that degree of violence on a normal basis is freaking insane. 

To sum it up, the hero system is fucked up, probably intentionally so. You already know that I don’t believe Horikoshi’s writing to be stellar all the time, and that I think there are a bunch of things he could’ve handled a hell of a lot better, but… Let’s just say that for now I’m willing to remain neutral and wait for him to develop the plot a bit further. Bnha is still an ongoing series after all, and while I do have a couple of things that make me dislike it, there are also a lot of other things that make HK’s writing worth it. If the reveals I’m anticipating will never come… well, that’s a thought for another day.

Also, sorry for the ramble and thanks if you read till the end :) I just basically took the offered opportunity to share my thoughts