#chapter 369

First and foremost: it’s quite disappointing how many fans discount anything to do with AFO. There’s some unbridled anger that seems to be derived from a love for another character(often Tomura/Tenko) which is a shame because these people are missing out on some amazing context clues, possibly on purpose, because they don’t want to acknowledge the possibility that AFO isn’t a one dimensional villain.

At the beginning of MHA, the same could be said of All Might. He seemed to just be a one dimensional hero until we started to get his backstory. That’s when he became relatable and no longer just All Might, but Yagi Toshinori. AFO is supposed to be his antithesis, so it would actually be strange if AFO didn’t have something that made him relatable as well. For All Might, it was a student teacher bond and the experience of him having lived a life as a Quirkless individual(like Deku).

AFO is evil, but how does one become evil? Is an individual born that way or does circumstance cause them to embrace something that is considered evil by everyone else. Prime AFO(the now regenerated original AFO) has spoken briefly about why he does things and it seems to point in that sort of direction.

In the flashbacks to AFO and Yoichi, AFO makes excuses for his actions as bringing “order”, an obsession reiterated by TomurAFO. When speaking to his brother, AFO never states he is evil. He even makes it clear that what his followers have done wasn’t by his own hands, so there is no blood on them. Obviously, we know that isn’t really true, but the man is trying really hard to make his brother, and perhaps himself, believe it is true. What’s interesting is that AFO has embraced the title of “evil” in the present time. What changed between the past and now? Hmm….

With the excellent flashback Hori gave us in the last issue, we are presented with a sad AFO. So much so, that the tears don’t stop even while he kills the 2nd user. Just through art, there’s a fury there. One so deep, that AFO is eerily calm. The most dangerous he could be. Why is he crying? It’s fairly obvious: the only thing that could invoke such an emotion in the “Demon King” would be the death of his brother. Though long ago now in terms of the MHA manga, the one time we get a hint of humanity from AFO is when he states that he loves Yoichi. A being like him loving anything is already quite a feat and, of course, there’s been both outer and inner dialogue concerning his brother ever since. AFO considers OFA itself as “little brother” and his obsession with taking it back means a lot in the story.

This is because, for a villain that wants to rule the world, the only power that could counter him is OFA. However…he’s obviously allowed every prior OFA user to transfer the power, even though he killed them all(except the 4th if I remember correctly). We can theorize that he may not have known very early on with 2nd and 3rd and even 4th that what is left of Yoichi resides within the power, but he attempted to take the power from Banjo and En. It is those interactions that seems to have propelled him to the ultimate plan of molding a body with hate so strong he can overpower OFA’s will. AFO allowed the users to give the power away before killing them as doing so otherwise would “kill” what was left of Yoichi. It would be incredibly easy to just kill these users WITH OFA still a part of them as that would take away the ultimate threat to his desires. But we know there’s another, deeper desire: AFO wants Yoichi.

Now, let us again reference Darth Vader, the character that is obviously, in some ways, an inspiration for AFO.

Darth Vader was considered the ultimate, badass villain ever…before the end of Empire Strikes Back. Fanzine fanfics, fandom talk, and etc, in the early days of Star Wars shows this. However, Empire Strikes Back does something many regular viewers miss: the mannerisms of Vader, as much of his emotion is derived from body language, shows the viewer that there is much more behind the mask. After revealing Luke’s parentage, his son is able to escape, even with all of Vader’s plans in place. With the Falcon escaping, Vader attempts to reach his son through the force and his words hold a weight that fans at the time may have been confused by. There’s a want there. He is desperate. He’s begging. After the Falcon hits light speed and escapes, Vader’s mannerisms in front of the window of the Executor speaks more volume than words: he can’t believe it. He lost the only thing he has left of a wife he loved so much he gave up his humanity. He turns away then back. Then we have Admiral Piett, expecting to be force choked out of existence, but Vader’s sadness causes him to not even care. It is this introduction of emotion from an otherwise terrifying villain that started to cause the fandom to rethink this character. Mind you, there was nothing else besides this other than the novelizations.

Little things like mannerisms can mean a lot in the long run for villains. With AFO, we are shown his tears, the crying purposefully highlighted by Hori reversing the usual shadowing of AFO’s eyes to shadowing the lower half of his face instead. Hori wants you to concentrate on AFO’s eyes. He wants you to internalize AFO’s tears. They matter.

Now, harking back to my statement about what “makes someone evil”: Vader fell to the Dark Side because he wanted to save someone he loves. This love transformed into obsession and possession as he continued down the black hole of the Dark Side. Anakin was already about Order, but it became an obsession as Order would mean that he had CONTROL over everything around him, something a once slave boy would need in order to mentally survive. The Jedi Order gave him that, for a time, before he became jaded as the love he felt for his wife was considered abhorrent.

So, was AFO’s idea of Order and desire to rule just a whim? Or did he experience an insane upheaval of humanity when Quirks manifested? There was no Order and it probably affected the brothers as they tried to survive in a world turned upside down. Although there is obviously selfishness behind it(same as with Anakin), AFO still tries to rationalize his reasoning as being a means to create Order in the world. However, his brother knows him intimately, as a family member, and can parse through his brother’s words. For someone that probably made Order an excuse for all his actions, this would be quite annoying for AFO.

But why does he readily call himself evil now? Because “good”, because “heroes”, were why Yoichi died. The idealism of them already turned Yoichi against him with what he considers foolish, but it was also vigilantes, heroes in their day, that took Yoichi away from him and filled his head with more idealism. It probably caused Yoichi’s death. With tears presented as such, we can easily accept that Yoichi’s death was not purposeful, but probably a, what AFO considers, symptom of this heroic idealism. So what is one to do when they believe this is why their loved one died? Especially if they can’t accept the fact that their own decisions caused the death in the first place? Blame the heroes. And what is the opposite of the hero? The villain. AFO takes on the mantle of evil, not because he just wants to be evil, but because it’s the opposite of the ideals that caused his brother’s death.

I’m hopeful, especially with this flashback, that we’ll get more of the brothers’ backstory and also a better understanding of why AFO became the Symbol of Evil he is now. I feel that revealing it and examining it would fit more with the messages of MHA than the usual Shonen fair we’re used to.

Thank you for coming to my TEDtalk.

Scenes which may be clues that Deku’s fate will be the same as Bakugou’s bc of how similar they are to each other :

PS :

Oh huh, I hadn't noticed that but upon re-reading I think I see what you're referring to:

in 369 vs

in 209

I don't think we know enough to suss any meaning out yet though. It could just be that it's a major magical event that requires a lot of power, which automatically stems from these things, so that power just manifests. Maybe they're included, like narratively, just as a reminder of their power before they're brought up again in a big way.

Or it could be that they have agency of their own and they chose to destroy Elfhelm as like... damage control or something, after Griffith's appearance let the aggro goo loose. Or they were called upon to destroy Elfhelm, the way Schierke called them up during the troll fight.

I have my own pet theory about the four elemental kings (different manifestations of the godhand, bc Schierke says they're the equivalent of 4 archangels in Holy See lore) but I don't think I can tie it into this chapter because there's so little info to go on, and my theory isn't that the elemental kings are secretly malicious, more that the godhand are more neutral overall than they seem.

Spinner’s finally gonna get his big moment?