One Of My Issues With The MLA Arc Resolution Is That It Just Feels Like A Very Incomplete Understanding
one of my issues with the MLA arc resolution is that it just feels like a very incomplete understanding of ideology and praxis. it reminds me of people trying to ‘debate away’ nazis or antivaxxers or terfs or whatnot, bcs there’s this idea that the ideology will just… go away if you “win” somehow?? which is a very liberal understanding of ideological conflict imo. there are a lot of ideologies that are illogical, and which rely on the denial of facts and the invention of conspiracy theories to sustain themselves, which is why it’s so impossible to “win” against those people. but even when you move away from those ideologies and get into ones that are more liberal or leftist, you still get ideological conflict, and you’re often met with clashes of fundamental values, and opinions about what is morally acceptable or necessary, and so forth. ideology is a whole system of ideas, built from the ground-up, and you often have to work long and hard to get to the foundation to significantly change it (eg: marxism isn’t just about being anti-capitalist, it comes with a whole set of ideas about human dignity, and human desires, and what constitutes human nature, and through what kind of means capitalism strips them away or modifies them, and why capitalism does this, etc. even before you get to anti-capitalism, a marxist and a neoliberal will probably already disagree about, like, human nature, and who deserves dignity and what dignity even means).
that’s why Redestro giving in so easily is so unsatisfying to me, because that’s rarely how it happens ime. given how many people complain about their jobs and their wages, but refuse to take the logical next step to complain about the economic system they live under, it makes no sense to me that this guy who benefits from hero society and that kind of societal order would want to expand his concept of “freedom” to include Shigaraki’s view. the change shouldn’t be as simple as Shigaraki showing off his quirk, i want to know: why does Redestro accept this as his new vision of freedom? where does he feel like the MLA’s own ideology fits in? if he discards the MLA’s ideology entirely, why does he think Shigaraki’s is better? where does he see himself fitting into Shigaraki’s final goal? there’s just so much that goes into the formation and adoption of an ideology that this abrupt about-face, without so much as touching upon those questions, makes it feel unrealistic, because it’s never just as easy as debunking one idea. it’s an entire system of beliefs, and if Shigaraki managed to change enough of it for Redestro to willingly and happily follow him, I need to know what changed, and why, and how it leads to this conclusion.
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Eri's touted as sort of a 'Tenko But Things Went Right', which isn't wrong, but I feel like her save relied a lot of luck too. And luck shouldn't be a determining factor in child welfare??
It was by pure chance that Deku and Mirio first encountered her. 100% random bump. Nighteye had no idea about any child in the Shie Hassakai compound, despite having staked it out for at least a few days already.
The rescue effort was launched to save Eri, yes, but only because the Heroes had that one lucky detail to connect “DNA inside bullets” to “visibly injured child”. Without that...who knows? If Heroes had no compelling evidence to storm the compound, would they have just continued a routine drug investigation? If they raided the compound but didn’t know about the child beforehand, what would’ve happened to her? Shunted off to an orphanage because she’s ‘a criminal/yakuza’s child’? Place under HPSC supervision because of her relation to the bullets?
The manga itself stated that Eri was going to be sent off to an orphanage, BUT her out-of-control quirk was cause for concern and fortunately there was the one (1) guy who can suppress her quirk and help train her - who happened to be a teacher at a private educational campus run by a multi-millionaire who can afford to take her in as a ward. How amazingly lucky!!!! (And everyone themselves said that they were hoping to teach Eri how to use her quirk so that she can cure Mirio. How nice that her quirk is deadly but also has this miraculous healing ability that lends this additional incentive to take her in.) Eri is still only in custody of UA because her last living blood relative, her grandfather, is still in a coma. Would Pops ever want her back, if he ever wakes up? Would UA let him? Good thing UA has the resources and connections to win a custody battle, in this case.
Plus, before all of that, Eri was already another abandoned child, way before the Heroes ever learned of her. Her mom abandoned her; then her grandfather took her in, but when he fell into a coma, she ended up with the worse possible caretaker. Yeah, Overhaul is Overhaul, but a relative falling ill and being unable to take care of a child is something that can happen to any family.
Eri was abandoned by her mom because she killed her dad. What on earth was the police doing then? Did her mom is not report this? Five seconds after the dad disappeared, the mom immediately plopped the toddler in the car seat and drove her off to Pops? Or is it more likely the mom screamed and panicked and called emergency services, but it turned out that there’s nothing to be done about the dad… and then emergency services also apparently did nothing about the mom or Girl With Newly Lethal Quirk or the beginning of quirk counseling so that the mom could understand the accident as ‘mutant quirk’ and not ‘curse’??
There were points where Eri could've been saved, before she ever bumped into Deku, before Overhaul put Pops in a coma and started cutting her up.
Similarity, saving Tenko shouldn't have just been 'Hero happened to be in the area and wasn't busy and was able to spot this injured child and go help him' (if it doesn't turns out AFO was behind this too lol), or 'if only there could've been a Hero 15 years ago who could handle his quirk, hold his hand, and give him relief'. It should've been 'first person who saw this injured child called the police or took Tenko to a police box'. It should've been 'Kotarou's last act of parenting was not to pick up garden shears and whack his kid with it, but know to keep calm and know what to do in a quirk emergency' or whatever. It should've been 'the three other adults in the household had enough conscience to not let Kotarou bully his toddler'. Hell, it should've been 'All Might and Gran kept tabs on the Shimura boy'.
idk. I just don't think 'Luckily a Hero noticed!' is good enough.
Still laughing at endeavors “disguise”, I see where dabi gets it from
Masters of disguise - Todoroki family edition:
Enji, Rei and Fuyumi are all partial to silly hats, Shouto and Touya both change hair colors and Natsuo’s disguise is that nobody ever gives a shit about him…
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