I Don't Like The Growing Opinion That People Are Being 'too Hard' On Deku For His Failing To Save Shigaraki.

Sorry for not being on in, like, forever. Life’s just gotten in the way.

Anyways, that’s not what I wanted to talk about today. What I really wanted to focus on is something I’ve been thinking a lot on lately, and that’s the idea of asshole characters.

Obviously asshole characters come in all shapes and sizes. Each have their own motivations for being an asshole and/or unfriendly individual. Katsuki, Shota, and Hitoshi are asshole characters themselves, but why is it that I dislike them so much?

At first I thought I didn’t like asshole characters in general. However, I then remembered that there are several characters people would classify as assholes/unfriendly individuals that are characters I adore. Lysithea from Fire Emblem 2 Houses and Natsuki from Doki Doki Literature Club are characters who are rough around the edges and aren’t nice to people immediately. The reasons behind their behavior aren’t too far off from why Shota and Hitoshi act the way they do, that being trauma, so why am I able to look past their behavior and not that of Shota and Hitoshi? With Katsuki, it’s obvious, but the other two had me scratching my head for a bit.

The answer, outside of the fact that Lysithea and Natsuki are multi-layered characters written far better than Shota and Hitoshi, is that the girls are REACTIVE assholes while Hitoshi and Shota are ACTIVE assholes.

What do I mean by that? Well both Lysithea and Natsuki for the most part keep to themselves. Something that someone does ends up causing them to snap. For Lysithea, it’s when she feels that her time is being wasted after someone approaches her about something irrelevant. For Natsuki, it’s a defensive mechanism triggered by a perceived attack on her character. Now, is that an excuse for their behavior? No. There are better ways to defend yourself and to get people to stop talking to you, but it’s at least understandable that they’d snap due to their traumas.

Katsuki, Hitoshi, and Shota aren’t like that. When they’re an asshole, it isn’t because they’re provoked into being one by someone else’s actions, but because they’re the ones doing the provoking. Katsuki’s rude and aggressive to everyone around him, choosing to make the life of another boy absolutely miserable without any provocation. Hitoshi decides to mock 1-A and issue his “challenge” not because anyone approached him, but because he himself is looking for trouble. Yeah, Katsuki gave off a shitty first impression, but Hitoshi already was planning on challenging 1-A from the beginning. Shota’s the one who controls his teaching style and is a position of authority. Rather than do his job, he’d rather tear someone down.

Am I supposed to sympathize with these so-called heroes? I for the life of me can’t seem to do so. Meanwhile, with characters like Lysithea and Natsuki, I can because they don’t mean to be an asshole, it’s just that they want to be left alone.

Now, am I saying reactive assholes are better characters than proactive assholes? No. Proactive assholes can have great character development. The problem is that proactive assholes are tougher to warm up to, especially when they’re meant to characters the audience is meant to root for. MHA’s writing does nothing TO make people want to root for these guys. They’re just assholes who wanna throw their weight around and never receive punishment for it/are called out for it. Hell, MHA seems to think these characters ARE in the right for being the way they are and/or doesn’t take the fact that they are assholes seriously (looking at you Katsuki).

Anyways, I thought I’d write this up to really explain more of my thought process and why Katsuki, Hitoshi, and Shota bother me so much whereas I find myself adoring characters such as Lysithea and Natsuki.

chomp chomp 🦈🦈💦

Do you feel Overhaul with his Yakuza and the Meta Liberation Army make better Villians then the LOV.

Also do you think they were more competent in their goals compared to the LOV.

Well let's look at each of them.

Overhaul wanted to get rid of quirks and bring the Yakuza back into power for the boss that he had put into a coma. He committed horrible crimes in pursuit of this goal, but he did successfully find a way to remove quirks from people under the power of his own organization.

So he was absolutely the most competent, and I wonder how he would act if he found out that Midoriya was originally quirkless. It also could've been really cool to see like, Looking to the Future(heroes and quirks) vs Living in the Past(No quirks and the golden age of the Yakuza)

The MLA were quirk-supremacy, might makes right, kind of people, and that's pretty much just the world's view at large taken to the extreme. The idea of the original founder wanting free quirk use in a time where everyone was terrified of them could've been a cool theme to explore, instead they folded to a group of exactly six people. Gigantomachia also showed up, but the end result would've been the same if he hadn't.

Incompetent. Maybe thematically interesting. Most of their leaders don't even have powerful quirks of their own, they're only in charge because of the influence/money they have. Automatically proving that their own philosophy of quirk supremacy is meaningless.

The League of Villains overall, just wanted to do whatever they want and be free from consequences. Shigaraki wants to destroy things. Dabi wants to kill Endeavor and whoever else he chooses. Toga wants people's blood(consent optional). Compress was just a thief that wanted to Robin Hood-style deal with corruption, and ended up not doing anything like that. Twice just wanted somewhere to be accepted, he's the exception. Spinner was a victim of discrimination that jumped in the first ideological extreme that popped out at him. Their individual goals all turn into "tear everything down and leave nothing(except maybe the stuff we like)."

The League was also pretty incompetent. Nearly all of their successes were built off of what All for One had built. Doctor Ujiko and the nomu, Gigantomachia, hell, even Kurogiri. The League didn't do shit by themselves, but somehow they were the main villains of the series.

The Greatest Boy In The World: Izuku Midoirya

This was originally part of a discussion I was having with @mikeellee but it got huge so this became its own thing. When I call Izuku privileged, I meant from multiple levels.

We've got our viewpoint, where we see beyond what the narrative shows us: a bunch of fake friends, an abusive rival, shoddy mentors, a school that failed him constantly.

Then there's what the narrative tells us: 1-A as a family, Bakugo as his best friend, him liking Aizawa, Nighteye, All Might and so on, and apparently Izuku's issues being something he himself needed to work on and not something that an educational facility should have been able to help him fix.

But here's why I say it.

What does Izuku actually lose across the story? Every single situation meant to bring tension and danger turns out to not come to pass, or gets walked back right away.

His teacher is a hard ass who seems to have it out for him? Well, no, Aizawa cools off entirely and is just there to be a grumpy toothless dragon. His bark is far worse than his bite. He'll make constant threats but never act on any of them.

Izuku is fresh to using his quirk and his classmates are all ahead of him? No, Izuku actually does way better than the majority of these loser kids and only actually lost to Shoto because, 1, he decided to sacrifice his win to taunt Shoto into using fire, and 2, bad luck.

Izuku's arms are in serious danger and breaking them could ruin their use for good? Nothing ever becomes of this. He breaks both arms against Muscular, uses a primarily kick based fighting style, then goes ham against Shigaraki during the first war arc. They reveal that, no, actually, OFA adapted to his body and prevents him from getting hurt so badly anymore and it prevents permanent damage.

He then loses his arms in the most nonsensical way possible, via a dream sequence? Only to have Eri mutilate herself (how did she know she could do that, how did they know it would work, why was she allowed and helped by Ectoplasm to do this?) and walk it back right away. His arms are restored so he can punch Shigaraki apart with the embers of OFA.

Losing his arms was completely meaningless and was done entirely for shock value.

Izuku's habit of going plus ultra is dangerous and people warn him it'll end poorly? Actually, no. Every single time he's gone plus ultra, he's saved a life or it worked out for him in the end. He scarred up his arms fighting Shoto, just for this to lead to Shoto coming to his and Iida's rescue in Hosu. He fought Gentle and La Brava and got criticism for it, but that turned out to be one of the best decisions he ever made, because they came back to save EVERYONE in the final war arc. He risks his life to save Bakugo and gets yelled at by the pro heroes, and then All Might decides he's his new successor and tells him he's worthy. He kept poking at Kota who just wanted to be left alone? He's in a prime location to save this little boy's life.

The only negative outcome of his reckless habit of going plus ultra was him losing to Dictator, who is then near instantly defeated by his classmates who happened to show up just in time to save him.

When you compare this guy to other shonen mcs and just look at the end results, what did Izuku lose?

He lost his quirk, but according to Izuku, he never really was all that serious about being a hero and always wanted to be a teacher. Regardless of if he lost his quirk or not.

Oh, but then his friends gave him an ironman suit anyways so he can do hero work when he's not being a teacher.

He gets a pity shonen hetero relationship, as one does in this genre.

He's known as the greatest hero who inspired the entire world to be more kind.

He didn't lose a single friend. None of his mentors died, besides Nighteye who was killed in the same arc he was introduced in. And I guess Midnight?

He's also never lost a real fight. Besides school games and the fight with Bakugo, what Ls has this guy ever taken? He either beats his enemy, an ally comes to his rescue and wins, or the enemy flees.

Even the abysmal 8 year timeskip was another of the author's fakeouts. He makes you believe that Izuku gave up on his dream and is no longer a hero, that he's super sad he doesn't get to see them as often, then his friends arrive to give him a handout just as All Might did all those years ago. What was originally meant to be the final chapter ends with Midoriya leaping into action with all his friends.

The author uses negative events and dumps on this guy to make you feel sorry for him and to make him seem like an underdog. Even his backstory is just that: a Cinderella story to get you to like him.

The author just walked the ending back because of fan backlash.

So rather than being a guy who doesn't try and needed his friends to even be a hero again without a quirk, he's a guy who only wants to play hero on the weekends.

Compare this to other Shonen MCs. Naruto at least lost his mentor and had his friend Neji die. Luffy lost his brother and has also lost multiple people across his journey who helped him, Pedro being one of them. There's also Jujutsu Kaisen which is absolutely excessive with how much it torments Yuji, but boy does that guy suffer for his victories.

Does Izuku even actually have any personality flaws? His flaw is that he's too heroic and he's too self sacrificing. But that's like saying he's too awesome.

People just act like the muttering is creepy and he's a loser for being a hero nerd, but what actual impact does that have on anything in his life? He still gets the friends, the fame, and the girl.

At no point is he ever socially isolated once he gets to UA nor is he seen as one of the weird or lame kids or anything like that. He's the heart of the class. The only person who ever dislikes him are people the narrative specifically frames as antagonists or mentors whose respect he has to earn, and Bakugo.

Even his dark hero arc where he left his friends to go out and become a hero…completely fucks up the moral because many characters would be DEAD if he hadn't left school to go save people.

The giant lady? Dead via a hate crime. Yo Shindo, his girlfriend, and the civilians they were protecting? Dead at Muscular's hands. All of All For One's assassins he sent after Izuku? Would still be at large and in AFO's pocket for the final war arc.

The numerous villains Deku beat down in defense of citizens? Still rampaging. Still killing people.

His friends left the ivory tower of UA to bitch at Izuku for saving lives and isolating himself while the narrative ignores this very real fact.

Hell, Lady Nagant wouldn't have been redeemed if he didn't do that. A world where he stayed at UA is an objectively worse off universe.

You see what I mean? Even when he does wrong, it ends up right.

Has Izuku ever actually make a mistake or choice in this story that wasn't rewarded or shown later to be the right one?

No.

He's a paragon of morality and good who the narrative warps reality around to ensure his actions have no lasting consequences for anyone.

Think about it. Let's take a look at how he said he'd save Shigaraki and didn't. What consequences came of that? Nothing. Spinner got mad at him for a few seconds and then Izuku talks him down and the guy decides to write a book.

Did heroes take Izuku's example of killing being a way to save people and use that to justify killing villains who don't surrender? No.

Was Izuku's triumph used by bad actors who wanted to push an agenda that would oppress more people and eventually create more people like the League? No.

Is there some threat out there that could have been handled by the power of One For All but couldn't be because the quirk is gone? No.

The world is actually more peaceful than it's ever been! Meaning even if Izuku kept his power, he'd probably be out of a job soon. Allegedly.

Did the death of Shigaraki, leader of the PLF, trigger second and third waves of terrorism from his followers who escaped capture? Did society have to face the backlash of this and it complicated the efforts to rebuild? No, the MLA might as well not have even existed.

Nothing happens. Deku just sometimes thinks back to Shigaraki while he enjoys what he claims is his dream job.

So that's my reasoning. He's simultaneously privileged but also gets shit on. His life sucks, but it's also awesome. His actions are dangerous and reckless, but they save lives and always result in a positive outcome.

I'd actually argue that the author dumping on Izuku is meant to portray him as a false underdog so you don't notice his other qualities. And of course, because he doesn't like the guy, but we already know that.

a little bit crazy

Juanjo Guarnido

Dabi Was The Most Disastrous Thing To EVER Happen To The League Of Villains And Is The MVP For The Hero Team

Hiring Dabi was like Tomura being handed a knife. Trusting this guy and giving him leadership of ANYTHING was Tomura cutting his own throat. Dabi is a complete and utter fraud. The guy can't kill his way out of a paper bag. If he's up against characters who don't have a name, always bet on Dabi.

But if he has to fight someone who has a name and isn't just a background character who was invented just to die (like Snatch) then this guy is cooked.

Dabi is also a bum because he actively harmed the League at every step of the way.

He's the reason their hideout was rumbled. Someone saw Dabi leave the League's bar to go squat in the nearby abandoned building and called the cops. The cops investigated and later found the LOV base. He's the reason Momo and Awase are alive right now. Because he didn't have the Chainsaw Nomu finish the job and take them out. He's also the reason the Nomu lab got found out. Because he was the leader of the mission but he couldn't be bothered to check his nomu for damages and see the obvious tracking device that was planted on him. Momo was knocked out and had to wake up to tell the heroes what she did to help. At anytime Dabi could have destroyed the device, but he couldn't be bothered to look. He caused All For One to get arrested and undermined the League's victory in the forest camp arc. The heroes got a big win and All Might ended his career in a blaze of glory.

He's the one who puts his agenda ahead of the League's. The guy was absent for most of the Overhaul arc bbqing nameless characters.

He's the one who sent Hood to die against Endeavor, removing a powerful ally from the League's arsenal. That High End Nomu could have made mince meat out of other pro heroes who are NOT Endeavor, but Dabi decides to send him against the worst possible target. Oh, and of course this boosts Endeavor's popularity and gets people believing in him, right when public sentiment about Endeavor was low. The loser just gave his dad a public trial by fire that he won with a flourish!

And he's the one who brought Hawks into the League and failed to do any sort of checks on the guy. The disastrous first war was 100% Dabi's fault. He didn't bother to check if Best Jeanist was dead. He didn't keep a watch on Hawk. He didn't kidnap a hero or two and demand Hawks kill them in front of him, with the implication being that he'd burn Hawks to death if he failed to comply. This is standard stuff to sus out an undercover cop. The guy's lack of any sort of education really shows here. In a world where Hawks doesn't enter the League, they 100% win, effortlessly. They had the MLA join them, they had the doctor creating an army of Nomu, and All For One would have fully taken over Tomura's body. The only reason the MHA universe isn't ruled by the demon king right now? Dabi's incompetence. He's also a bum because he wasn't shown to be doing anything at all until he saw Stain's broadcast. What was he gonna do without the League? Sit and wait forever and achieve nothing?

He's also the reason All For One, Tomura, Toga, and Kurogiri died.

See, he had the chance to kill both Endeavor and Shoto but he decided not to. He said he wanted Endeavor to be awake to see his masterpiece burn, and since Endeavor passed out, he didn't finish the job. Oh, and guess what? He didn't kill Hawks, either. He couldn't even be bothered to avenge his homie, Twice. Had he taken out Hawks and Tokoyami, the heroes would have suffered IMMENSE LOSSES in this war and the entire war arc part 2 looks different.

Well, congrats, Dabi. You're the reason the first war arc happened, and you're directly the reason why the second one was a failure. You wanna know another reason why Dabi is the reason his friends are dead?

If he'd killed Aoyama during the forest camp arc, where we have ZERO REASON to believe he knew Aoyama was a spy for their side (as Aoyama was AFO's servant, not Tomura's) then Aoyama wouldn't have been alive to get outed as a spy, and then be used by the heroes to lead the League into an ambush.

Heck, he fucked up multiple times in the forest arc. He's the one who had a gameplan that left Mustard entirely on his own instead of keeping some boys at his side because his quirk is a one hit kill if someone inhales the gas.

His clone yapped and ran its mouth to Aizawa about how they were after a student, which is what got the guy to give the students permission to fight back.

He's the one who demanded Compress unmarble the students, resulting in them not abducting Tokoyami, just Bakugo.

He's got fire hotter than lava but couldn't be bothered to BBQ some kids to ensure they do more damage to hero society and aren't gonna be a problem in the future.

The guy can turn human bodies into charcoal in an instant, but his flames never manage to burn anyone the author cares about.

We call Dabi 007.

Zero 1 vs 1 fight victories.

Zero kills on plot relevant characters.

7 victims who walked off his flames barely worse for wear. The League would have objectively been better off if this guy never joined.

Bakugou stans who hate Endeavor and Endeavor stans who hate Bakugou make me laugh.

Because when you get down to it, they both benefit from the same things: in-universe privilege, narrative advantages, and plot manipulation. Their arcs enable each other in a way, they're both abusers being given more exposure and grace than their victims. They're both constantly being propped and accepted by the other characters despite being horrible people.

Criticizing one and not the other is obtuse. They're cut from the same exact cloth, the issues with their characters are nearly identical. And the focus of both their characters contribute to the overarching problem of MHA; not only pandering to abusers but pandering to those born privileged and who knowingly abused that privilege. And neither had to face actual repercussions without being protected by the author.

The only difference between them is in the literal sense; Endeavor is a worse person morally while Bakugou is a worse character narratively.

They both still suck ass

there was entirely too much effort put into this and now all of you have to look at it

In celebration of the recent Lesbian Day of Visibility, and of the fact that I got my first Patreon patron on Lesbian Day of Visibility (thank you!!), and of the fact that I’m a lesbian, I drew one of my recent favorite fictional lesbians.

deviantart - Patreon/sketchblog - ko-fi