#I can't believe the final lesson of bnha is

[codenamesazanka]

tbh, 'saving' the villains in bnha feels a lot more like exorcism. (but worse.) There's a nearly-inhuman evil that's threatening to destroy everything; it turns out that this evil arose from some great human tragedy that occurred in the past; 'saving' is solely saving the heart, the spirit, the soul - by reminding the villain of things like family, love, friendship, giving them a moment of clarity; then the villain dies for good and leaves the world in peace, because it's too late to address or repair the tragedy, too late to ever make them part of the world again; and the living are left with a bittersweet sense of 'gee, that sure was sad' and 'if only the tragedy didn't occur/things were different', but there's nothing to do except 'I won't forget them'.

And like those are fine - in a story about lingering spirits and exorcism. I'm thinking like Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, Dandadan, the new Gegege no Kitaro movie. The dangerous and destructive spirits in those stories often have been terribly wronged by social injustice that they rise from the dead full of rage and seeking indiscriminate vengeance. No duh these spirits have to be stopped, and they are, by the main characters. They're sometimes stopped by a fight, yeah, but also by appeasing the wounded soul by treating them as human again - particularly when these main characters aren't actually exorcists, nor are people who have anything to do with the grudge, just people who stumbled upon this cursed scenario but feel the need to help out of human compassion.

The thing is - when the spirits disappear into air, it's fine because they were dead all along. There's nothing else to do except move on. I don't think it's fine at all for the Villains of HeroAca to kill themselves or die - basically saying there's no place for them in the world anymore (because the heroes aren't willing to create one) so they need to also move on to the next.

It's fine for the heroic characters of exorcism stories just simply say 'I won't forget' and just feel sad about the tragedy they just discovered. Simply being there as witness. They aren't official/legal guardians of society, not like the Pro-Heroes of HeroAcaLand. They have no obligation or duty they signed up for. Meanwhile, pro-Heroes do. they should be addressing societal injustice head-on, looking for the causes of tragedies that create villains and preventing them; should've been doing that all along, or at the very least realize that during the final act (and not afterwards - and barely at that.) failing to do so means they failed in the final battle, and so didn't actually win, and especially not be called "greatest heroes."

"Supernatural Evil is created from much more mundane but just as soul-crushing evil, and it is a profound tragedy, and we gotta deal with this concentrated accumulation of hatred, pain, resentment, usually by righting a wrong/destroying the source of mundane evil/giving the spirit peace." Great! but because bnha is not a ghost exorcism story and the protags are explicitly heroes who are supposed to save people (and also have a degree of control over whether tragedy occurs in the society they preside over), it's not even a good and satisfying ghost exorcism story

[brinnanza]

so many bnha fics bend over backwards to make aizawa object to the mido/baku pairing in the final exam and like I get it but also it was his idea. aizawa's entire teaching style is to throw his kids into Situations and force them to adapt because if they can't, they'll never make it as as heroes, and that only becomes more true the more they're targeted by villains. and like, that dude definitely loves his kids and he will die for them but also he's autistic af (not to mentioned traumatized six ways to sunday) and for sure does not do Emotions

like I super super get the impulse because as a former abused kid myself, it's like... a power fantasy almost to write a teacher noticing what you're dealing with and intervening. I have read and enjoyed many fics with this exact premise and I will read and enjoy many more I'm just saying that...idk, that final exam set up makes sense. aizawa doesn't know about mido and baku's history because 1. why would he 2. it's all shrouded in the secrecy of ofa so all he knows is he's got a kid who refuses to cooperate with anyone and a kid who cooperates perhaps too much. and then bakugo's whole everything about him is The Way He Is and yknow disaster. all might maybe should have known better but lbr his faith in mido is off the fucking charts why wouldn't he believe mido could do it. no one knows exactly how fucked up bakugo is. even when baku hauls off and punches mido, there's no reason to believe that's anything but his temper. like, the kid is an asshole but he's fucking weaponized it so well that no one bothers to actually figure out why he's Like That. it's not a coping strategy I myself am terribly acquainted with which is why it took me so long to come around to him (because I'm very make no noise pretend not to exist)

anyway I don't have a point I'm just in a special interest spiral aizawa definitely does for sure get softened up by his hell class through just so much trauma bonding but it takes a while for that to translate into his teaching methods because he views teaching less as "prepare these children for a career" and more "weed out anyone who might die" cause he knows first hand how dangerous and fucked up the whole thing is

idk my ideal post exam fic, which I have read a few variations of, involves someone realizing it's actually pretty shitty for teachers to keep using mido as the instrument of bakugo's character development cause like........that's fucking shitty. I always like fics where mido goes off on the teachers after the exam because that exam is like....basically designed for bakugo. the lesson mido needs to learn is how to ask for help, and pairing him with someone who refuses to help him is not a great way to teach that particularly lesson. which sure, all might could have designed it to teach mido more but like. look. I love all might. I love him. he's not good at people. he's not good at teaching. he's doing his best which is why I don't truck with the bashing, but his experience lies entirely in feats of strength and repressing his emotions.