I. “Since When Did We Ever Need A Future?” (Or: What “the Future” Means To Tomura And How This

The final arc has largely done away with all subtleties and pretense, with focus shifting to repeatedly hammering the core message of BNHA home. But not even blunt force trauma is enough to deter some of the more frustrating takes on what Tomura’s eventual fate should be–  with a large portion of the fandom seeming to feel that “death” (either through redemption or as a punishment) or “locking him up and throwing away the key”  would serve as a satisfying end to Tomura’s character arc.

Straight to the point: This series cannot end with Tomura dying or locked away from society and still live up to its core message. As a story that has been intimately grappling about what it means to be a true hero, what it means to truly save someone, and what a the role of a true hero is when it comes to protecting the future of others… taking Tomura’s future away after the dust settles is a narrative failure rather than a triumph. Because Tomura’s future was already taken away from him when he was just five years old, and it has continuously been taken from him at every turn ever since then. By MHA’s own definition of true heroism, Izuku cannot become a true hero if he continues to perpetuate that cycle.

So in this post, we’ll be discussing:

How MHA’s heroism is defined in terms of “safeguarding the future” while villainy is defined in terms of “taking the future away” (how hero society took Tomura and the LOV’s futures away, how Tomura now lashes out by taking the futures of everyone else away, and the role of a true hero in breaking this cycle instead of enforcing it, etc etc).

How imprisonment is ultimately depicted as completely ineffective in the context of MHA, and how the Shimura family’s choice to repeatedly isolate Tenko as punishment for his “misbehavior” is meant to represent that failure on a smaller scale. 

How all this relates to Tomura’s eventual fate (obvs). 

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I. “Since when did we ever need a future?” (Or: what “the future” means to tomura and how this ties to mha’s definition of heroism)

Tomura is someone who has fallen into such a deep despair that he no longer sees a future for himself– and he is gripped by such overwhelming anger that he does not want a future for anyone else, either. He longs to find the same relief he found in the destruction of his abusive home through the destruction of hero society, and he doesn’t particularly care what comes after that. This is an aspect of him that I feel should not be misunderstood, sugarcoated, or twisted into some sort of loftier goal– Because I feel understanding Tomura’s antipathy towards his own future (and the futures of almost everyone else) is fairly integral to understanding him as a both as a “person” and as a “character within a story who serves to both challenge and solidify that story’s themes.”

As readers, we are supposed to understand that Tomura’s destructive “dream” where there is no longer a future for anyone is a tragic one that’s based on A) his extremely distorted self-perception, B) his tenuous grasp on his feelings surrounding the death of his family, and C) him lacking any sort of hope for his own future and legitimately believing that things will never, ever, ever get better – therefore, we should also understand that total destruction won’t actually bring him the slightest bit of relief. And as flawed as hero society is, we really aren’t supposed to be rooting for Tomura as he tears it all down because he’s also tearing himself apart over and over and over again and becoming less and less “himself” in the process (metaphorically, but like, also literally). 

Tomura’s current path is one self-annihilation, not of self-realization or self-actualization.  Just as his family continues to haunt him long after he convinces himself that he felt ‘unburdened’ by their deaths and “wanted” them to all die, we also see Tomura being haunted by his desire to be saved by the same society he is attempting to destroy multiple times within the story proper.

“hrrrNNH I HATE YOU GRANDMA” (y-yeah, sure buddy, whatever you say)

Speaking of hauntings…! It can also be said that finding Nana’s photo was the last time Tomura had any hope for his future– and we see that this feeling is something else he can’t quite get rid of, no matter how many times he claims to have left his past behind, no matter how many times he attempts to destroy his ties to the Shimura family. When Tomura is asked to “never forget,” the elation he felt upon discovering that Nana was a hero and the hope it gave him is the first thing he flashes back to. (Something else I want to note, even if it’s going off topic: Nana foils Tomura in the sense that she completely cut her ties with her remaining family to focus on her role as a hero, while Tomura is desperately attempting to cut his familial ties to fully focus on being a villain– but in their heart of hearts, they’re both incredibly sentimental, incredibly family driven wrecks who ultimately can’t resist feeling drawn to each other in spite of their attempts to commit to their respective roles.)

Tomura resents Nana, this is true– Nana’s decision to leave Kotaro, regardless of her intentions, is a source of immense pain for the Shimura family and the series does not shy away from depicting the consequences of her decision. But in spite of this, Nana still represents a dream that permanently ties Tomura to his identity as Shimura Tenko. Her photo and all the feelings it inspired within him is his true origin– the part of himself he can’t forget, no matter how much he might want to. Nana being the last bit of hope that Tomura ever had for his future is set up to play a large part in what saves him.

So, that brings us to the role of a “true” hero in MHA’s narrative.

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