#mmmasks

His goal was destruction. He'd tear down everything except what his allies wanted preserved. In practice, this probably meant he'd have spared a section of Japan with cities and farms, took out all of the heroes, and then chilled. It's anarchy, but it's anarchy he rules. He and his friends are on top. The MLA people folding into his group gave him an "after." It's full of professionals and people with resources who could move into the places he emptied out. They become the new ruling class because they're the strongest and have his favor. We, sadly, don't get to see what ELSE he was thinking because he spends so much of his time possessed. His point, and the League's point, is that the society they lived in rejected them. Discrimination, in the case of Spinner. A criminal record ruining his life, for Twice. Compress never believed in the system I guess. Toga suffered quirk repression until she has a psychotic break and then went from there once unleashed. Touya is the product of eugenics and was created as a monument to the corruption and a desire to beat a single man. Shigaraki himself is the result of being abused in his home, with his dad doing so because he was traumatized at his mother dying. Even if we take AFO out of the equation with Shigaraki's absolutely ridiculous backstory with this guy planning out everything. Kotaro still abused him. And Kotaro did it because he was maladjusted after Nana Shimura died. There was NO help for Kotaro. There was no punishment for Kotaro when he hurt his family. He lived in a society that, as it dealt with Kota, would tell him that his mother died heroically and for the benefit of society. They glorify his mother's death even though the hero system cost him both of his parents. Does this justify his abusive behavior? No. But hero society creates lots of Kotas, lots of Kotaros. And has zero protocols for how to deal with them beyond telling them to suck it up. People DID ignore Tenko as he walked down the street. Society saw a bleeding boy who looked "creepy" in their eyes and ignored him, thinking he was someone else's problem. Now, would AFO have killed anyone who did try to help him? Absolutely. Garaki stated that he can alter memories. AFO would have engineered Tenko's walk so that it turned out exactly as he needed it to. But he didn't have to. The bystander effect was in full effect for Tenko. None of those people were AFO plants or controlled by AFO or AFO in disguise. Just everyday citizens who saw a child in need and kept walking.

The people Shigaraki associates with are the dregs of society. The people who exist to be fodder for heroes to beat up. I'll actually approach this in a direction other people don't talk about. Hero society is a death cult. Or, if you'd prefer a different term, an institutional death spiral. Or a permanent branding. Which is to say, the pipeline is as follows: Commit a crime and get a conviction (even a minor one, as we saw in Twice's example and with Gentle Criminal) -> Become unable to work because of your criminal record -> Turn to crime -> Get arrested -> Be branded a villain -> No one will rent to you or hire you and people also vandalize your home -> go back to crime -> get arrested -> repeat until you either: kill yourself, get killed by a villain, get killed by a hero, get arrested and end up in tartarus for life, or be executed by the state. To be a villain is to eventually be killed. Your life is over at your first conviction. The rare few who manage to break that cycle only do so if they can solve the economic issue there. They need food, shelter, and a job. But hero society isn't actually designed to fix any of this. The system is setup for more and more people to become heroes. Which requires more villains. If there are fewer villains, it means less work and less money for heroes. You struggle to rank up with fewer villains. So why would hero society want to reduce the number of villains?

You have to think about the fact that this is a business and heroes are products.

How many other businesses run on the backs of heroes? Analysts, managers, support gear engineers and companies, prison owners, sponsors, merch producers, politicians.

Reduce the amount of income to heroes, and what happens to all of them? The money starts to dry up.

Something else you have to understand which MHA acknowledges in practice but would never state out loud, is that the most powerful man in the world is not Izuku or All Might. It's a man in a suit who controls Izuku and All Might. Men in suits control the world. Men in suits tell them what to do, who to fight, and what the laws are.

Heroes are tools of the state and they enforce the state's will. The only time the League struck at the right target was when that Redestro clone blew up the HPSC. And then, not really. The HPSC aren't the government. They're a government agency. Killing Madam President is not assassinating the Prime Minister.

The PM can just assign a new leader, and presumably did: Hawks.

The series has the League focus on Heroes, but the League could have collapsed society within a day if they did a terror attack on a diet meeting. Take out the head of state and all the big decision makers, and what happens? There's not even anyone left to declare martial law. No one knows what to do. The heroes don't get paid anymore. The country descends into tribalism as heroes defend only their own territories while they wait for orders that aren't coming. That's how they could have won, and it's precisely why it would never happen in this series. It's an attack heroes are entirely unequipped to handle. I showed you my essay before. https://www.tumblr.com/lacunammmm/793227125744418816/examining-the-premise-of-hero-society-can-you The way you solve crime is by investing in social safety net programs. If Twice could have gotten a job, he would not have been a criminal. Let that sink in. If the government had assigned Twice a job after his legal troubles and he could work a 9 to 5, then one of the greatest super villains of all time would still be a courier. Or a postal worker. In a world where mutant discrimination was punished properly, Spinner would be a regular guy. In a world with better mental health care and where crazy people like Toga's parents aren't allowed to demonize her quirk, Toga is a regular high school girl. Are there still going to be some people who become villains? Yes. But the number is greatly reduced. All For One himself wouldn't have been the demon lord if his homeless teenage prostitute mother hadn't died down by the river by herself giving birth. If he grew up with a normal life without discrimination, he'd have still been a self serving man. But becoming the ultimate super villain? Traveling to another continent to assassinate someone just because he was upset people liked the glowing baby more? Deciding to LARP as a comic book character since he likes being feared and respected? No. Most likely he'd have been a more mundane or banal evil. Or he'd have become a hero and been used as an instrument of the state to control the quirked. What better deterrent is there, to quirked criminals, than a man who can take your power away and use it against other people? There wouldn't be any One For All, that's for sure. Hero society would never do this. Its focus is on creating more heroes. Demonstrably, heroes do not prevent crime, they react to crime. After All Might's retirement, there were more heroes than ever before at that exact moment, and yet, a crime wave started because All Might wasn't a hero anymore. All Might was the crime deterrent. The other heroes were not. Well, up until the narrative cheats and decides to gift the heroes an unearned utopian victory where magically crime has become rare despite them changing nothing. So, in a better story, Shigaraki would lay out what I just described. He can't, because opponents of hero society have to be unreasonable or blatantly evil. The system can't handle valid criticism that isn't instantly walked back or superficially solved. I believe I talked about somewhere else how Shigaraki exists to be scaled to the level of the story where he has to lose to 15 and 16 year old children. So he needs to be a problem that can solve. His ideals are simplistic, his strength can be countered, and everything can go back to normal after he's defeated.

Your instincts about Izuku working with Shigaraki track. Because Izuku himself never self actualizes. Izuku Midoriya does not work to be the best Izuku Midoriya, Deku, he can be. He's trying to be All Might all the way to the end. He finishes the series' final battle in an All Might t-shirt. Because the series is telling us that All Might's ideology is correct. Izuku can't grow up, he can't be his own person, he can't question anything and he can't change, not himself or the world around him. Because becoming a better Izuku means becoming more than the system. It means doing something different. The system doesn't want to change. Izuku's goal is to be a pillar: which is to say, he wants to maintain the status quo exactly as it is. This is why his character stagnates at around the sports festival. He doesn't have anymore growing to do because he's a complete character. A fake paragon archetype. He wants to BE the state. Its ideals are his ideals. He questions nothing and wants to change nothing because society is already perfect. He's the good boy victim who was rewarded via nepotism, by the ultimate state actor and chief commander, All Might, and given a seat at the table. Why does he never think about or seem to care about the quirkless? Because the status quo doesn't. They're completely irrelevant. Sociey does not venerate anything about the quirkless. They are non-factors. Being quirkless was just a flaw he solved so now he can be a hero. It's set dressing for his backstory. With his problem fixed, now he can be a hero. So when you think that they should save society together, it's you completing the circuit. Shigaraki, with his god like power and access to immense resources and talent, finds something worth creating after the destruction. And Izuku takes a look at the world he lives in and decides he wants to do better than All Might.

MHA is like the really bad relationship that utterly broke you of several bad habits and made you look for better partners in the future. You enjoy the good times. You reminisce about things. But you realize you never actually knew them to begin with. They were never who you thought they were. When they talked about the issues in society, you thought that was going to go somewhere and meant something. Actually, no, it was just set dressing. The story has good bones to it and some interesting ideas. It's just that you realize the author never actually cared about any of those things. I stopped being angry a long time ago. I've already mourned the story I thought this was, the characters I believed I liked, and the idea of what could have been. When I look at MHA, I see that it was always this.

It's a series built on highly conservative Japanese values where it appeals to a meritocracy fantasy. The schools aren't responsible for making you strong, nor are your teachers. Nope, it's just you, being an awesome person who put in hard work. Poor Deku wants to be a hero but can't because he doesn't have a quirk. Let's give him the strongest quirk on the planet by his favorite hero. What about all the other quirkless little boys and girls who don't have an All Might to make it so they can be heroes? Too bad for them. They should have: lived in this part of Japan, got captured by the Sludge Villain, got saved by All Might, clung to his leg as he jumped away, got him to trauma dump his history, happened upon their bully being held hostage, rushed into save him, inspired All Might to act and shorten his hero time via pushing himself but it reignited his heroic spirit, and THEN be selected as worthy. The universe says that if you can't do all of that, it's a skill issue .

Same deal for the so called "villains" who got "redeemed." Gentle Criminal was always a hero. He was trapped in a world that screwed him for trying to be heroic. He never truly wanted to hurt anyone and he was just jealous that he couldn't be a hero. Lady Nagant was also a hero, who was told to kill people by the government. The former president of the HPSC tried to shoot her so she shot him. She never had a problem with being a hero, she just had an issue with the government corruption that the series doesn't care about or bother addressing. The villains, on the other hand? Well, sorry. If you were never a hero student or a hero, then you get lifelong imprisonment and/or death. The tragic backstories are just there to make you feel a little sorry for the villain before they're killed or imprisoned. You'd think that "be the greatest heroes" means this new generation is going to surpass the old. You would be incorrect. While they are in some cases much stronger than existing pro heroes, they use the same methodology and achieve the same end results. Except for when the narrative cheats and delivers them a utopian ending. The story gives us a "realistic" ending where UA was able to shelter the majority of the population of Japan within its walls, where not a single person on the hero team died, where only villains were killed and arrested, the prison system can somehow hold the thousands and thousands of people arrested, and where AFO's defeat, somehow caused his allies across the world to also lose their own attempts coups.

Where the president of the united states, despite his country being under siege by a criminal army, sends his defenders to Japan to help a country that already won its battle. And there are no negative consequences of this. To put this in perspective let's examine the first war arc. The hero team lost: -A bunch of heroes who were created just to die in that arc or who got barely any characterization before then: Funk Man, Eel Boy, Crust, X-Less. -Midnight, who hadn't been relevant since the final exams where she was used for Mineta's character development. -There were numerous fake out deaths for people like Bakugo and Torino that got walked back. -A bunch of heroes walked out on the job. This has no tangible effect on the heroes' battle power and no one of any importance actually quit their job as a hero. The people who left weren't missed or cared about by the audience. The League Lost: -The majority of the MLA's forces and their entire political party -Machia, Twice, Compress, Geten and all of the big wigs of the MLA except for Skeptic -Garaki got arrested and they lost numerous high end nomu as well as Johnny. -Shigaraki got possessed

Things like Muscular's prosthetic eye, which apparently you can just plug and play with those. It painted a picture of a world that is massively ahead of ours in some areas while functionally looking like a world in the early 2000s. But then we get the mech suit. That terrible, terrible mech suit that absolutely destroys the power scaling and retroactively makes Momo one of the theoretically most broken people in the setting. If there's a limit to the power of tech, then someone who makes tech is limited by the strength of their tech. But the limits they placed on Iron Might, that the development of his gear took a long time and he used up all of his wealth for it...do not apply to Momo. Momo could whip one of these up in a month if she wanted to, with the schematics. Even less time once she gets the hang of it. I'm likely high balling her production times: Momo could do it faster. She could fill them with UA's sentient AI and have a fleet of Ironmen. The final war arc could have effortlessly been won if All Might had said anything to Momo because she'd have manufactured several of these suits. More, if they had Monoma copy her quirk and produce some components too.

As far as civilians go, the story doesn't care about them. They're just here because this is a policeman show and you need people to save on that. Heroes get cutting-edge support gear, instant-limb prosthetics (Mirko), and city-leveling mechs (Iron Might).

Civilians get... nothing. The staggering medical tech that can graft a functional eye into a villain's socket is nowhere seen aiding the quirk-disabled, the chronically ill, or victims of villain attacks. The narrative is utterly disinterested in this, because civilians are set dressing, not citizens with rights to improvement.

The story certainly won't express any concern for their disabilities or issues. Any concerns that do exist are just the villains like the MLA wanting to enact their agenda by loosening who gets support gear. If you aren't a hero in this world, you don't matter.

In a super-policeman story, technology has only two valid uses:

Enhancing the force's effectiveness (hero support gear).

This would work because it directly counters the core problem: Bakugo is never forced to learn from a clean, humbling loss or from a mentor who doesn't 'glaze' him. All Might, in this scenario, becomes the first person to deliver a consequence that isn't a disguised reward. I'll say there's nothing fundamentally wrong with Bakugo's character. It's just that the author has no self control. Bakugo is glazed by every person in his life. Literally no one genuinely dislikes him as a person. Even his enemies glaze him.

If All Might tells him, point blank, that guys like him kick ass and take names up until they run into someone who can nullify or counter their quirks and defeat them, then what does that do for Bakugo?

He could drive this point home by pointing out that Endeavor used to ride solo, until he met a guy who could remove the oxygen from the area entirely.

While Endeavor creates fire by converting his stamina into combustion, this process still requires air to function. The guy walked backwards as Endeavor approached him, and the dude planned to just let him suffocate in a vacuum.

Enji survived only because All Might showed up and 1 tapped the dude, and the memory of his near death made him recruit a vast number of sidekicks, all with powers that combo with his.

It's not just a business strategy to arrest more villains and assume heroic control over the city by managing all of the hotspots of crime: there's trauma here. His entire gimmick is that he believes he's unbeatable and the narrative decides to try and promote this delusion. So he's not allowed to meaningfully fail in the one area he truly prides himself in: his combat power. He's insanely limited as a character because he's not allowed to actually lose. It makes him immensely stagnant. Brittle. So he gets no specific villain and has to piggy back on Izuku's story line and then get matched up with All For One of all people, because the story can't design a specific foe for him. Because that requires a back and forth contest and at no point is Bakugo allowed to look anything other than dominant. You'll notice he's only temporarily trapped, snuck by cheap tricks, or gets hit by top tiers. He simply does not lose cleanly. Ever. So you let him lose like a normal person, or you have him understand that teamwork makes the dream work. Lastly, I'll focus on something I haven't seen anyone else say. How about we make his flaws actual flaws? Similar to Izuku, Bakugo doesn't actually have any flaws that the narrative truly punishes him for. Not until the end of the series. Let me ask you this: when has anything ever actually gone wrong for Bakugo that didn't turn out to be a good thing later? Let's examine it. He bullies Midoriya -> This results in him becoming Midoriya's friend -> He gets to be in the know of the most powerful secret in the history of hero society. He fails his exam to get his license -> Befriends Inasa and Camie -> gets his license anyways. He has a bad internship with Best Jeanist -> This causes BJ to fall into platonic love with him -> BJ comes to his rescue when he gets kidnapped, and later is on his side constantly to the point where he helps resurrect him. He acts like a complete butthead -> People find this hilarious and inspiring -> He has all the friends he could ever want.

He rushes in and ignores teamwork so he can get solo glory and attack by himself -> This usually goes perfectly well until it gets him killed against AFO -> He gets back up with a power boost and kills the quirk devil in single combat.

The ONE time it's a downside is this. But at the same time, not really. He yells, threatens, and has a terrible public persona -> This causes him to lose hero ranks -> He doesn't get to be number 1 hero. FINALLY! An actual downside. Insanely childish, but it looks like the narrative finally punished this man....wait. He works hard with the rest of the class to get the cash for a super suit -> Izuku is able to be a hero again -> He, Izuku and Shoto can compete for the number 1 spot, as Bakugo wouldn't be satisfied winning it without a fight. Oh, nevermind. It always works out for him.

Potentially Natsuo and Fuyumi might have secret fire quirks just waiting to be pulled out of them. But Endeavor didn't even TRY with those two. That's what this is saying here. I think the idea of how it happened was ridiculous though. Touya previously burned himself nearly to death and had to be saved by AFO. So where was his ice back then? Why does his ice save him when he was about to be just as dead previously? I'm digging the idea of all of the Todo kids being secret gods but Enji brute forced it until he ended up with Shoto, the one who displayed dual quirks from the start. Does it make Shoto less impressive? A little. But it's what canon gave us. As far as better writing? I'd have had Dabi stab Endeavor with a sharpened ice dagger he manifested during their battle and then he'd give the reveal of his ice quirk. It would have happened shortly after Dabi's dance. If the point of this reveal is that Endeavor gave up on him and ruined his life when he was "perfect" the whole time, then we're going to REALLY let the guy feel it. The idea that Dabi was Touya and actually, he had a secret ice quirk he kept hidden from the League this whole time just so he could use it against his dad right at this perfect moment? Well, it fits his character. It's very dramatic. And having a dual quirk would be a key giveaway of his true identity. No one knew Touya had that, but there's literally only one other person on the planet who does this so it's not hard to put 2 and 2 together. He canonically spares Endeavor because he wanted him to suffer more, so we end up in the same place. It's just that he discovered his ice moments after he woke up when AFO saved him. He saw he was exactly what he did wanted. He ran home and saw Shoto being abused, and then he plans revenge.