Heroes And Villains
MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE FINAL WAR ARC
It seemed to all connect in my head when I saw the chapters coming out. The fact that a series that I no longer read seemed to be so relevant to me at this moment. I had to give it some [a lot] of thoughts. Also edited from my Discord messages.
People have been calling this arc in BNHA the weakest or bad, and while I’m not expert in how good the story is because I’m reading vignettes (and to me, the vignettes are reaaaaallly compelling even without knowing the full context, I think that’s an interesting thing to note) but it seems to be there’s like a chunk of people who wanted like a complete and utter beatdown and destruction of the villains.
Hell, one of my friends says as much, “I don’t care, they’re mass murderers. I don’t care if they were screwed by society, they ended up choosing the worst path. You don’t have to be a criminal/villain. They could turn to vigilantism.” And it’s just so…
It is an implication that society has no reason to address the issues that lead to these villains. It is not how hero society was built that failed these villains, it is that villains are their own moral failings. If we were to think that maybe the abusive families that the villains come from aren’t just one-off cases, we’d have to examine them on a larger scale.
We’d have to look at how we could have been that person if circumstances pushed us to our very limits. It’s so easy for us, me and him, to say that we wouldn’t choose the criminal path. That we’d have so much to lose like our community and future. But it’s naive to think this way. A disservice to how this stuff works in real life, and therefore, how it is depicted in fiction.
I think some readers want punitive justice, they don’t want hero society to change, even though the story is quite literally showing how the heroes see how society has failed the villains and trying to reach out to them at their most vulnerable, during their most horrific acts.
And it makes me shudder, cause [I’m going to be American-centric here] Americans loooooove punitive justice. Our prison system is to demoralize and punish. You’re stripped of your right to vote, it stays on your record, and you’re forced to do some labor for free. From possessing drugs to straight up murder, you’re treated the same, like shit. It makes it hard to reintegrate into society, especially if you’ve been in prison for years. It makes you more likely to return back into prison, which is where our government wants convicts to be. And this isn’t getting into the ethics of state-sanctioned violence, the death penalty.
It is easy to love punitive justice, I cannot deny that. Revenge stories are satisfying to witness, and hearing that revenge begets revenge can get grating. Anger is a powerful tool, and punitive justice goes hand in hand with that. People shouldn’t be able to get away with doing harm to others. There are things that cannot be done without violence.
But that’s not the only system of justice. There needs to be alternatives, multiple justices. Because criminals and crime aren’t because of a simple moral failing. Some fans want the villains to die painfully, basically repeating the cycle that led to this whole mess in the first place. They cannot sympathize with the villains even if their stories are dangled in their face. But that’s what they think would make for a better arc. I guess, it would be a true revolution then. It would be a compelling commentary on why these systems of oppression keep happening.
However, I think calling the current storyline weak because the heroes, who are just teenagers, are trying to reach out to villains, who are not much older than them, that never got any help from society. I think it’s a shame.
“It came out of nowhere”, some may say. I can’t really argue against that because I am reading only excerpts, but at least for some characters, it wouldn’t even make sense for them to be completely focused on killing the villains. Deku who worshiped the ideals of heroes and the Todoroki family confronting their son/brother. It would be more weird to imagine them as wanting to kill…
Ochako has spent a good chunk of her appearances in chapters pointing out how Himiko was crying and how she failed to understand her. Horikoshi, that bastard, depicts these moments where the characters are understanding each other’s pain by showing them as children.
Dabi and Toga thought to themselves as the people who care about them try to reach out to them, if only this had been done earlier. For Dabi, it was wanting to talk to his family, to face them head on. For Toga, it is wanting love and acceptance from anyone.
Restorative justice is scary to us, I think. Someone has to be there to confront the issues a person has as a peer, with a chance of it not working at all. That some people may not be able to change themselves for whatever reason. I, myself, couldn’t be the one to do it, but someone has to be there. Someone has to do that hard work.
People don’t have to seek redemption, that’s such a loaded word to me. The heroes said as much, they cannot ignore the crimes that the villains have done already. People don’t have to forgive people who have done harm.
But someone else has to at least extend out a hand and offer help. That’s a difficult role compared to being the judge, jury, and executioner. Not everyone will take it, and that’s fine. Society won’t change so rapidly. But it is necessary to move forward.
The main protagonist’s quirk is one that is passed down by the user’s choice, and it’s called One for All. The quirk that was born from All for One’s user forcing a quirk onto his brother. All for One, greed for power, creating One for All, a collective power to save all. The quirk only grows more powerful as it passes down from user to user, especially since having the OFA quirk makes you a target for AFO. But interestingly enough, OFA is the only quirk that cannot be stolen, it can only be given when the user chooses to (the recipient need not accept it). [Compare this with the Avatar system in Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra. They both contain the consciousness from previous holders.] Greed cannot take over this collective power.
It’s not, One For The Good Guys.
It’s One for All.
A note on anger: anger is a multifaceted emotion. Are you just frustrated at your broken coffee machine or have intense rage because of a difficult video game? Not everyone’s anger will lead to punitive justice, nor can everyone enact punitive justice. But anger can be fuel for starting change. Maybe you quit your job out of frustration and anger and start a community garden.
[I wanted to connect this with the idea that someone brought up on the internet. That people idealize a bloody revolution without considering the massive consequences it would have if nobody is watching out for each other in the first place. We should have community first and foremost, so that people do not fall apart when failing systems fall even apart. That not everyone will make it, and that’s a sobering thought.]