"Save To Win, Win To Save"

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mha’s ending should’ve been bittersweet

i know what you’re going to say “but Atlas, it kinda feels bittersweet already”

yes, yes it is. Izuku and Uraraka failed at saving Shigaraki and Toga (even though it was their main goal), the Todorokis aren’t doing better either, and basically no one in the league has been saved (even though “saving people with a smile” was literally Izuku’s dream)

no need to scroll for too long to see people complaining about the ending. i guess the only ones who’ve truly won are the bkdk stans.

[here i’m basing that ‘bittersweet’ feeling on the fact that the main goals haven’t exactly been accomplished + my own feelings tbh]

now, how do we make it better without changing it too much?

the main issue i personally have with the ending is that it’s trying so hard to be a happy ending when, as previously said, it feels bittersweet

and that’s where my main point is: in my opinion, the ending would have been better if it had been an assumed bittersweet ending

lets say we keep it all the same: Shigaraki, Kurogiri and Toga die, Touya is in the hospital, Spinner and Compress are in jail. so the heroes won but Izuku, Ochaco and Shouto feel like they’ve lost.

we had a conversation between Izuku and Ochaco, i wish we had heard more of Shouto’s feelings in the epilogue (it feels like Endeavor stole the spotlight in Shouto’s story but that’s a whole other subject)

what would’ve been great is a conversation between those threes (and maybe Bakugou too) and the teachers/pro heroes.

war heroes or not, they were just kids. and i think that the adults could (and should) help them deal with these feelings, especially eraserhead and present mix (that way the whole shirakumo/oboro plot gets a proper conclusion too)

that wouldn’t have been the best obviously. but it could’ve been a good start for the students to say: we failed, but we’re going to honor their memory by preventing this from happening again.

and then comes the time skip, in which we put more focus on the new generation of heroes doing more and really make a change. in canon, we know Ochaco and Shouji are working on it, i think it could’ve been more though. one example that comes to mind is the heroes ranking. giving more rewards to make sure no one else turns like endeavor feels weird. heroes aren't supposed to behave like toddlers???

the whole "we failed this time but we'll keep working to make the world a better place" is interesting imo, but it would have been accepted by the fandom if it had happened with another villain.

what i'm trying to say is: if izuku had failed to save another vilain in the middle of the story but had used this experience to do better with shigaraki, it would have been interesting. but here, it just feels like a failure with an epilogue to create an illusion of a happy ending.

after sitting with my thoughts about the epilogue for some time, I think the thing that broke the story had started right after Dabi's dance. said thing is LOV' utterly out of character treatment of each other and Shigaraki specifically.

them just standing there and passively observing the scene makes absolutely zero sense, if you use anything from their previously established relationships within the organisation for reference. especially with All for One's creepy comments. Spinner even points out shortly before this chapter that AFO!Shigaraki seems nothing like his normal self and this person is not the one he had chosen to follow.

and yes, Spinner does approach screaming Shigaraki and tries to help him, and his concern later leads him to seeing Shigaraki's mutated form in the cave, and on its own this development for Spinner is in line with his character and all around fine. pretty reminiscent of Toga and Twice, too.

(except Spinner is not allowed to really help Shigaraki in any way, unlike Toga was allowed to help Twice, and this entire thing between Shigaraki and Spinner only ends with Spinner's regrets and survivor's guilt instead of anything good or meaningful that isn't meaningless angst porn)

it isn't Spinner approaching Shigaraki that is the issue, it's the other's complete lack of action or even reaction besides appearing mildly disturbed. this is simply out of character for all of them, just judging by Twice's example who had similar breakdowns and wasn't plainly ignored by the others until his fit stops. this reaction makes even less sense, when you take into account the current state of the League. Twice had just been murdered by Hawks, the double agent who had infiltrated the League via Dabi, and Mister Compress had just sacrificed himself to give the League a chance for escape, and was sent to Tartarus immediately after his condition was no longer life threatening. Kurogiri is also being held captive by the heroes. there are only four of them left, with two dead and two captured. and none of them even mention the dead or the captured outside of the context of Kurogiri and his quirk.

this straight out makes no sense if you look back to the Overhaul arc and remember how far Shigaraki and the rest of them were willing to go to avenge Magne's death and Mr Compress' destroyed arm. this was important.

the event had motivated Shigaraki to be a better leader, because he had realized these people depend on him, and he won't let them be hurt under his protection. it had started the seed of self-doubt in Jin which would eventually grow to the desperation that allowed him to overcome the mental block against his quirk in the MVA arc, because he wanted to do everything he possibly could to help the League. it allowed him to make his clones despite the crippling trauma, because he saw Toga's hurt, bleeding body, and he didn't want her to die.

even fucking Giran, a broker whose very profession requires him to care about himself and his own well-being first and foremost, had sacrificed all of his fingers to prevent Redestro from getting his hands on the League. because he wants to protect them, to save them. and then we never actually see his mutilated hands or hear anything from him ever again.

and when Twice actually dies? all we get in response to that are two upset faces from Dabi and Toga's fury. that's it.

i really want to stress how out of character this barely-present reaction is, because Magne's example is right there and when Overhaul had killed her, the League knew each other for no longer than a month. this League has been together for at least half a year, had been through thick and thin together, had spent months on the run, homeless, having no one but each other to rely on, has defeated the Meta Liberation Army, quite literally, with the power of their friendship. they all cared enough about each other and Shigaraki specifically to stay with him during those months they had to fight Gigantomachia with barely any breaks for rest, still homeless, barely scraping by. it was imperative that they all survive through this together, especially for Shigaraki, who had went on this quest of getting stronger at least partly so that he would become a more reliable protector for the League. and when Twice falls victim to the hero who had murdered him in cold blood, because no one except for Dabi was there to save him, Shigaraki doesn't even get to react to Twice's death, and possibly never even learns about the fact.

on topic of Dabi, his reaction being exactly two frames of sad expressions and including the footage of Twice's murder into his broadcast, and ending immediately after that, also makes no sense. Dabi is someone who holds himself accountable and despite his declarations, cares about the League, it's the very reason he was keeping Hawks from the League and sprinted to Twice as soon as he realized Hawks' intentions with him, to protect him. Dabi's unsuccessful attempt to save Twice is another iteration of Overhaul, a combination of Shigaraki and Twice's roles in the tragedy. but unlike Shigaraki, who had steeled himself into taking care of his subordinates and becoming a responsible and strong leader, or Twice who had never forgotten about his role in the incident, Dabi just somehow forgets about the entire thing as soon as the first war is over. Toga is the one whom the narrative allows to actively react to Twice's death and express her grief. it makes sense that her reaction would be the strongest, as she was the closest with Twice, but why are two LOV members no longer allowed to care about the same incident at the same time? why aren't they allowed to protect each other anymore, when Giran, who is not even in the League, had made that sacrifice for them?

These are pretty small things, but it's these instances of Toga and Dabi preventing Machia from being injected with the sedative, protecting the League that are sorely missing in the second war.

and the biggest act of devotion and protection to the League, which was the last time we saw anything like this for them, Mister Compress' last moments with the League.

Mutilating his own body just to buy them five seconds to possibly escape. Because he loved the League, because he wanted all of them to be happy and achieve their dreams, to be free, and to live.

and in return for the favour, not only do they not come back for him like they did for Kurogiri (because his quirk is important for the plot, while Compress' isn't), but none of them mention Compress ever again. same with Twice (with the exception of Toga), same with Magne. from this point onwards, none of them are allowed by the plot to even care about the League of Villains. the interpersonal relationships between two individuals still shine through, occasionally, like Spinner's devotion to Shigaraki (and him alone), Dabi and Toga's pyromaniac trauma lane visit to her house and him giving her Twice's blood, Kurogiri reaching out to Shigaraki in the very end. but what about the League? ahd what about the dead members of the League, or Mister Compress?

somehow, at the point of the final war it boils down to the generalized conflict of heroes vs villains and the morality gymnastics involved in the concept. on its own, this would have been an okay development, if the examples the story was using to prove its point weren't people who had become very close friends and who had lost four people to this war against the heroes.

if the individual conflicts, like Toga's desperation to be acknowledged as human being deserving of affection, Dabi's familial abuse trauma and Shigaraki's lifelong manipulation by All for One not giving him any chance to be saved at all, were the finishing line of the villains' story development, why join them within the League at all? LOV is a separate concept functioning as a collective uniting all these villains, giving them a place to belong and people who give a fuck whether they live or die. except not anymore, because for some reason after the first war this concept is scratched completely.

so why not make them mere acquaintances who sometimes collaborate to bother the heroes together, if the bond between them got in the way of the story and wasn't the point of the story? why prove the depth of their bond with the Overhaul and My Villain Academia arcs? why make Shigaraki develop relationships and a sense of responsibility for these people at all, if in the very end his desire to save these people is denied by the author himself?

the previous arcs have spent a great deal of effort establishing that the villains are human too. they have human feelings, human desires and human relationships. so why is it that in the final arc their ability to experience human emotions towards each other is turned on and off manually by the author? at the very end even the author stops pretending like anything happening to the villains is evaluated on the scale of human experiences (unlike the heroes, whose injuries and deaths are talked about and mourned in great detail) and Kurogiri and Shigaraki are wiped out like plot inconveniences rather than important and well written characters.

honestly? it's ironically meta that the story ended up proving the very point it has spent 400 chapters arguing against.

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『My Hero Academia』| Worldwide Character Popularity Poll『WORLD BEST HERO』

『My Hero Academia』| Worldwide Character Popularity Poll『WORLD BEST HERO』

A Worldwide Character popularity poll celebrating My Hero Academia's final chapter WORLD BEST HERO will now begin! The battle to decide the

Evening conversations

So Dabi and Toga joined the League together and Dabi and Compress work together really well, like know one another’s moves and can communicate great in battle. And Dabi is Tomura’s lieutenant and basically the guy actually in charge of planning and coordinating while Tomura’s got the vision and the resources. So I propose that the loyalty of the League is split between them. Cause like, what if Dabi joined and brought other recruits with him. Toga and Compress definitely, maybe Magne and Twice too. And that’s part of why Tomura lets him get away with so much and put him in charge of recruiting. Cause let’s be real, Dabi fries way too many people for him to keep that job if doesn’t already have some successes under his belt.

Anyway this post is a mess and I’m just gonna keep typing my train of thought about this and see where we end up now.

I just really love the partnership between Tomura and Dabi. It’s kinda hidden and definitely never explicitly stated, but Dabi is indisputably Tomura’s right hand man. Kurogiri follows his orders. But Tomura respects Dabi, and Dabi respects Tomura even if they suck at showing it. They listen to each other and are able to work together, sharing responsibility and trusting the other to be able to handle their shit. There’s still some friction of course, Tomura doesn’t trust Dabi’s interests to always align with his own and Dabi is only following Tomura because their interests align at the moment. And with like half the League being more loyal to Dabi than Tomura he’s gotta be a bit worried about a coup. That fear fades with time once he establishes that he actually cares about the league and shows it better than Dabi but it probably really affected their relationship at the beginning. Thus Tomura’s clumsy attempts to assert dominance over him

Also Dabi and Compress are totally tight. Pretty sure they were partners in crime before joining the league. Like imagine the possibilities with their quirks. Evidence disposal, theft, smuggling, intimidation, scams together the two of them could do anything! Compress has his anonymity, Dabi had his incredibly recognizable and scary face… they would be great.

I find it pretty funny when fanon makes Dabi look much taller than Tomura and stretches their 1 (one) cm height difference by granting Dabi straight posture next to Shigaraki's slouching because. uh

words from starpeace

The Problem with the League of Villains

this is just me ranting after reading many people say that the lov deserved a better ending (i agree with them don't worry). most of that stuff has already been said but i'm bored and need something to write

so why is everyone disappointed?

by definition, an antagonist is someone that goes against the main character(s) and a villain is someone who does immoral and/or illegal things (wow, shocking)

so by definition, the league of villains is aptly named. shigaraki and dabi are mass murderers, toga is a killer too, and even if the others are 'less dangerous' they're all guilty of terorism and kidnapping a teenager.

not nice, right? then why would anyone would want them to have a good ending?

long story short: horikoshi made the league too sympathetic and relatable

when horikoshi has decided to make them funny, he's decided to make them likeable. that's not enough though. you can find a fictional villain funny and not root for them (for some reason the examples that comes to my mind are the disney villains. captain hook is hilarious but no one wants him to win)

the cause of everyone's disappointment is the relatable part. everyone in the league has gone through stuff viewers can relate. touya, shigaraki and toga have been abused; twice has mental health issues (and stuggling to get a job is relatable too lmao); spinner has been discriminated against... you get the idea

and even without knowing their backstory, most of the league's fights can be considered noble: they want to change society and make the world a better place. to take a more precise example, the league kidnapped bakugou because they thought he had gone through similar struggle as them

(this is mr compress talking in chapter 85) as far as i've seen, most of the fandom either think bakugou being chained and muzzled at the end of the sport festival was just comic relief or agree that it was fucked up

so yeah, you can't put a group of people rejected by society, who just want a better world and expect people to not like them

and that's why their ending is disappointing (the rest contains heavy spoilers of the last few chapters of mha)

they're all either in jail or six feet underground. we rationally could understand it, they're all criminals/villains so of course they wouldn't get a happy ending and face consequences for their actions. the only one who could have gotten away with it is shigaraki because of all the grooming/brainwashing he's gone through and maybe toga because she's a child

but if you relate to a character, you want them to get a happy ending. of course fans would want dabi to be at peace, but instead he's forced to spend his last moments being stared at by his abuser). of course fans would want shigaraki to be free from afo (but instead his only freedom was death). of course fans would want toga to be understood and cared for (but she never had that opportunity)

that's not very 'save to win' out of you horikoshi

maybe it's just a shortcut made by the fandom, but the league are seen more as victims of abuse than actual criminals. i mean, what's more important in dabi's story? the fact that he burned himself alive after overworking himself to get his abusive father's attention, or the fact that he's burned people alive? probably both, but there's more focus on the first element.

and obviously we would want abuse victims to get a happy ending

basically, their ending isn't coherent with what we've seen of them, and that's why people are disappointed

btw, the same logic applies to stain. some fans agree with stain's reasoning bc he's fighting against corruption. of course, his logic is stupid and he's delusional but he's introduced not long after we've discovered shouto's past. you can't say "one of the most popular heroes is abusing + all he wants is to get n°1 to satisfy his own ego" and then follow with "see that guy fighting against corruption? he's bad, don't do that"

the clever way to make sure no one would agree with stain would have been to make the heroes fight against injustice with good methods. i live for the fanfics in which izuku takes down the hpsc

okay i'm done ranting thanks for reading