#ch286

This particular scene in the chapter caught my attention:

Here Tomura's body has been taken over by All for One, to the point where AfO is on the front, controlling the movements and talking.

AfO says something awful and his words make Deku snap with anger. AfO, of course, did that on purpose to get that reaction out of Deku. He knows that it's easier for him to win if the other party is a emotional mess, he did this too in his fight with All Might.

But it's not only a strategy. All for One loves bringing misery to the heroes. He relishes in his cruelty.

And Tomura?

Well, Tomura can be petty and and has no problem mocking those who cross him.

We see this when, with much disrespect, he just stands on top of Endeavor and copies his victory pose. And before that, we saw him steal a life's research from a chained up Overhaul, decay his arms so he had no quirk and then mock him about.

/However/

Tomura would never use the same tactics that AfO uses. For starters, he makes fun of the people that went after him first. And then, he doesn't mock them to win, but after he believes he has already won. It's more of a "You picked up a fight with me and now you lose? Lame" situation.

But more importantly, Tomura actually believes that doing what AfO does is wrong.

When the Liberation Army used Twice's feelings for Giran against him, Tomura showed disapproval of those kind of tactics.

Tomura respects other people's feelings, he is not the kind to use other people's agony against them. And he definitely wouldn't mock anyone else's desperate efforts to survives.

And this goes all the way back, to when he still was Shimura Tenko, because even as a kid, Shigaraki Tomura has tendencies to house the weak, the miserable, the ostracized.

Oh my god how long has this been in my inbox I feel bad now whoops

BUT ANYWAY I think the concept of ‘redeeming’ Shigaraki is a contentious one because a fair few people are sick of half-assed ‘I talked to them and then they decided to stop being evil because I said I’d be their friend’ redemptions, which in all fairness have plagued a lot of popular media lately. On top of that, Horikoshi has created a world in which Shigaraki does in fact have a point, and to ‘redeem’ him by having him ditch his ideals in favour of becoming a good guy would feel pretty bullshit and suggest that Hori has some pretty problematic views of certain social issues tbh. 

That being said, if Izuku were to approach this from a sympathetic angle, validate Shigaraki and the League’s pain, and commit (with ACTIONS, not just WORDS) to improving society to prevent people like them from being hurt and driven away again, it could be done. And chapter 286 seemed to me like it could be nudging Izuku down that path of sympathy and understanding. I don’t think Shigaraki is written as a character to be redeemed, per se, but I could see him becoming a vector by which Izuku (and by extension, hero society) learn the mistakes and problems inherent to their way of life, and start to make the effort to change. 

I’ve said it a couple times on this blog now, but I do think this manga is going to end with Shigaraki dying. I love him, I don’t want to see him die, but I think that is the most plausible ending, and I don’t think it has to be the massive fuck you to victims of grooming and abuse that a whole lot of people seem to think it would be. Shigaraki’s ‘redemption’ could come in the form of him entrusting the betterment of society to Izuku on his deathbed, after showing Izuku what happened to make the League what they were. But for Izuku to become that, he has to first move past his blind hatred of Shigaraki as the man who hurt his friends, and that, to me, is why 286 was such a fucking huge chapter. 

To simplify it down to ‘I think Shigaraki could be redeemed’ leaves a lot of room for interpretation, and when a thing has room for interpretation you just know it’s gonna be interpreted badly, which is probably why so many people got mad at you. Which is a dumb and garbage thing to get mad about, but the internet likes to get mad about dumb shit, so that’s nothing new.