BNHA ch 292 - Dabi & the art of being evil
The fan translation of BNHA ch 292 is up. In this week’s chapter, Dabi and Shouto share a bit of dialogue, and Shouto accuses Dabi of sending a villain after Natsuo, addressing the incident of Natsuo briefly getting kidnapped by Ending (ch 250). Shouto snaps at Dabi and asks him if he’s lost his mind, but instead of showing any signs of regret, Dabi smiles and says that Natsuo’s death would’ve made Endeavor suffer, and this is the type of response you’d expect from Dabi. He doesn’t care to defend himself against guilt-tripping ‘cause for him, being a villain is a performance, always has been.
In ch 67, Dabi meets Shigaraki for the first time and calls him gross. Later on, in ch 68, Dabi introduces himself to Shigaraki with an obvious fake name. Shigaraki isn’t having it, though. He demands to know Dabi’s real name, but Dabi doesn’t like to be questioned, so he says that he’s gonna reveal his real name once the time is ripe and that he’s the ultimate manifestation of Stain’s will. Turns out that this is pretty much the worst thing to say, and this results in a clash of two big egos.
So, Dabi is being rude and obnoxious right off the bat. In ch 72, he makes his debut as a villain by leading the newly founded Vanguard Action Squad. He gives the team a little pep talk and says that they’ll put all the heroes in their place for the sake of a brighter future, and he delivers the said speech in a manner that’s kinda cryptic, almost biblical, but as the arc progresses, he drops the act and goes back into being his lovely, vicious self. In ch 74, he (or a clone of him) encounters Aizawa and immediately mocks the hero for seeming worried, and a bit later in ch 82, after running into another hero, Dabi points out that the U.A. administration must seem careless to the public after yet another villain attack. This interaction shows that he’s amazing at getting under people’s skin and good at looking at things from the outside.
In a way, Dabi’s behavior seems kinda self-aware, and this side of him really shows in ch 160 when Snatch, a well-known pro hero, accuses Dabi of leaving piles of burnt corpses behind. This accusation makes Dabi smile, so he says that he’s thrilled to hear that he’s making it to the news.
In ch 191, another pro hero tries to guilt-trip Dabi for doing something evil ‘cause this is when Dabi meets Endeavor for the first in years. Endeavor has just defeated a High-End Nomu, and Dabi is there to retrieve the body. Endeavor recognizes Dabi as Snatch’s killer, Dabi says that the name doesn’t ring a bell. He smiles when he says it, though.
Later in the same chapter, Hawks confronts Dabi about the High-End incident and accuses Dabi of lying. According to Hawks, they’d talked about an entirely different time and location. Again, Dabi looks unfazed by a hero getting all preachy. That’s why Dabi simply smiles and says that he’d changed his mind.
There’s a certain pattern here. Many heroes have tried to make Dabi defend his actions and even his allies have questioned him, but Dabi never plays along. He knows that all the heroes think that he’s the worst, so he’s embracing it. He likes to smack talk to his opponents and make them feel guilty, but he won’t let anyone do the same to him. It’s hard to guilt-trip someone who seems to enjoy being told that they’ve done horrible things. So, whenever someone tells Dabi that he’s either evil or messed up, he takes it as a compliment, and that’s what makes him an artist.
gracieabrams
ellievsbear
discoholicmusic
pixelskylines
