#meanwhile stain is just sitting in a jail cell bored

[linkspooky]

I would like to ak you about Stain and Dabi, at the very least Stain seemed to consider Deku and Shoto "true heroes", with All Might at the example to follow. Meanwhile it seems Dabi doesn´t believe real heroes exists, not even All Might. Why do you think that´s the case?

So your question here is whether Dabi is following Stain’s will or not? Dabi’s ideals may not line up 1:1 with Stain, but I would say he’s far more loyal to Stain and his ideals than to anybody else in the manga. He may even be more loyal to Stain to the point of being disloyal to the rest of the league of villains. A comparison of ideology and methods of both Stain and Dabi underneath the cut. 

1. Stain’s Number One Fanboy

There are lots of aspects of Dabi’s reveal that were clearly inspired by and are even a continuation of what Stain did that made ripples in society. First and foremost Stain’s greatest success was that he got the actual public talking about him. 

This has always been the difference between the League of Villains, and Stain. Even when the League of Villains has points to make and try to communicate with others, they often get dismissed as villains who chose to be villains for selfish reasons. With Stain, even characters like Deku who are often too naive to grasp this can recognize  why Stain’s motivations eventually pushed him into becoming a villain. 

Stain is the one villain so far we’ve seen the heroes react to with something other than, “Well obviously they just chose to be a villain, because they’re evil, mean, nasty and selfish.”

To us, the audience Shigaraki makes more sense as a character. We know exactly why Shigaraki does what he does because we see him as a human. However, Shigaraki is not human to hero society. 

Someone like Stain is more palatable, because his ideals are a warped version of Hero Society’s own. Rather than being someone who rejects the idea of heroes entirely, Stain merely says, I want the number one hero to be like All Might, pure and selfless. Every hero should be like All Might. Stain only rejects a certain type of hero, not all heroes in general, and not the way Heroes are given too much license and power in this society. 

Stain notices the flaws within hero society, however rather than addressing it as a societal issue, he believes if he kills a few posers then the real heroes will step up. Stain takes what is a societal issue, and wants people to take individual responsibility for it. Which is why he ends up taking it out on completely innocent people too. There are family legacy heroes who are just in it for the job, and the glory (cough, cough, Endeavor) but Tensei was not really one of them. It’s not really Tensei’s fault that all of hero society is corrupt,  at least not particularly more than anybody else is, he’s just a well meaning guy doing his job. 

This is why Stain’s actions can blur the line between justice, and personal revenge. Stain thinks that it’s okay to kill people in service of a cause, but in this case isn’t he just beating up someone who was otherwise a good guy because he wanted to someone else to take the blame for the ills of society? 

It’s true Stain will go as far as to spare, or even save those he deems as worthy, but at the same time it’s only ever on his personal value of worthiness. He also, only saved Deku from a nomu after his battle was already lost. When they were getting in the way of him killing Tenya, he was only a little bit relucant to try to kill both of them because they were in the way of his mission at the moment. 

So anyway those are all of Stain’s bad points. Stain emphasizes the exact same kind of survival of the fittest and individualism that only saves some people in hero society and damns all the rest in the first place. Stain’s good points, he actually did mean what he said. Stain genuinely believed his actions were going to make the world a better place. 

Stain called Endeavor a fake, he also insists on personal responsibility that he has to do something to be the one to fix society he can’t just pretend to be ignorant of it. Stain as we know was a hero student, but couldn’t stay a student when he began noticing all of society’s flaws. In a manga where most characters are ignnorant, the fact that Stain is one of the first characters to point out something might be wrong here, and then had to act on at least his personal sense of justice does mean something. 

Stain’s wors also managed to reach people and stif them up that there is “something wrong here.” They got a response out of people. Which as we’ve been seeing this arc is hard to do. The fact that villains are only evil because they choose to be is just so ingrained in things that it’s hard to shake off. 

So I’m going to list three ways Dabi primarily took after Stain. 

Televised Broadcast

Insistence on Personal Responsibility

Heroes Must be Pure

The reason Stain reached so many people is primarily because of the broadcast. It’s how we see it reached even Dabi himself who was apparently either just a minor crimminal, or living in hiding until that point. Dabi realizes that nothing is going to happen, no concrete change will happen, even if he’s right, unless he gets the public on his side.

This is also why even though Shigaraki has some points to make, almost no heroes listen to him. Shigaraki one does not know how to make his point in an understandable way, and two does not know how to play the game of public opinion. 

Dabi always mentions casting public doubt on heroes, and making a stir in thenews. As long as they get a foot in the discussion, they’ve won somehow. 

Stain reached so many people because his news coverage was a spectacle, and it sparked mass debate. Dabi has been aspiring for a long time to cause the same kind of spectacle and stirring. That’s why he intentionally lets Endeavor gets victories to build him up, that’s why he burns people and leaves them to be found to increase his own notoriety. He was creating a narrative to sell to the public, one that would be easily digestible. Taking inspiration from Stain, he wants to make another news blitz to throw everything into question. He wants to be just like Stain, seen as someone driven to villainry by their intense ideals, and their desire for a betterworld. 

In fact Dabi is even a lot smarter than Stain in some aspects. Stain attracted the wrong crowd. For the most part after the news story died down, the most people that came to the league were those not really invested in his ideals. However, here comes Dabi who knows exactly how to frame himself. Just look at the difference between the way he addresses other people, and the way he addresses Shoto and Endeavor. 

Dabi’s playing his cards as best as he can to create a narrative that will get talked about, because the greatest impact that Stain left behind is that he got the masses attention for a litlte white. 

Number two - Individual Responsibility

Just like Stain, Dabi takes everything on his shoulders, for good or ill. He’s a staunch individualist. In some aspects that means Dabi can’t ever leave well enough alone. There are some injustices he can’t forgive, so he goes out of his way to punish them. 

Part of what is happening really is just consequences for Endeavor’s actions. Something that both the rest of society, would have just let him get away with. Dabi, Stain as individuals, can’t swallow any kind of injustice, and can’t be quiet about the things they notice as wrong or hypocritical in their society. 

Hypocrite or not, I believe Dabi is moved by some kind of ideals, some idea of justice. One that easily overlaps with personal revenge, in the case of Stain, that can very easily branch out and beat up perfectly innocent people who have nothing to do with it besides the fact that Dabi is in a bad mood and wants to feel like he’s punishing an individual for the ills of society. 

For good or ill, Dabi does repeat Stain’s habit of purging as well. Like I said because of the overemphasis of personal resposnability, the belief that an individual has to overcome society all on their own (pulling themselves up by their bootstraps), if someone fails to meet Dabi and Stain’s sliding scale of standards, whoever they are, they may just decide it’s appropriate to murder them. 

This behavior also lashes out and hits people who were almost completely unrelated. Tensei gets hit by Stain’s purge. Dabi’s plan to invite Hawks into the league (probably to dig up dirt on him) ends up hitting Twice as well. 

However, there is also a strong sense of personal responsibility that should be noted. Dabi is like one of the only league members to express remorse over killing people. Not just live on television, but also to himself in the aftermath of the pro hero arc. 

There’s also a tragic element for this as well. Dabi’s decision that he has to do everything on his own, means he can’t open himself up to cooperation. He can’t accept the friendship, the sympathy, or the sense of community for the leaguethat’s been offered to him multiple times. Of course, it’s sadder for Twice because he’s dead. But at the same time Dabi can’t trust anyone, can’t work with anyone, it’s extremely unhealthy and self destructive behavior in the end. 

#Heroes must be Pure

Here is where Dabi and Stain differ a little bit. It’s also where Dabi differs from his brother Shoto. Both Stain, and Shoto were inspired to beieve that real heroes exist because they witnessed All Might. Shoto beliees even if his father is corrupt, he can become a hero like All Might which is the utlimate way to reject his father. 

For both Stain and Shoto, they can believe that good heroes exist because they have All Might as an example. As far as we know, Dabi doesn’t even seem to mention All Might. 

So for Dabi, we still have the idea that heroes need to behave a certain way, heroes need to be pure. He points out that Endeavor is a bad pillar because he’s not ideologically pure, he’s not a hero who saves others like All Might. He also believes like stain that if he culls the bad heroes, then the good heroes will rise up from that destruction.

However, I think Dabi himself may have trouble believing the idea that good heroes even exist. 

Dabi shares the same purity / stain motif with Stain himself. 

Once things are stained they’re impure. Impure things need to be cleansed. He can’t forgive the dirty past of either Endeavor or Hawks. He can’t let someone who has already dirtied their hands pretend to be a hero. 

However, I think Dabi goes a step beyond Stain in that Stain thought if he picked off a certain amount of heroes within the society then the good heroes will do better. Dabi must believe that there is no way for a hero to remain ideologically pure in this society. So, his attacks are levvied at the society that’s incapable of producing good heroes. 

Stain had a tendency to attack individuals while demanding ideological purity from them, Dabi has the same habits but he goes one step further and suggests that society is ignorant, that society needs to question whether these heroes it uplifts really are good people. 

Which is also what I think leads to what you said that Dabi treats Deku and Shoto differently than Stain would. Dabi can’t believe in real heroes, so he sees the kids aspirations to be a hero as proof of their ignorance. 

I would say he doesn’t think Deku or Shoto could be a true hero because one, he doesn’t see them as individuals, he looks down on them as kids. Two, he believes they blindly follow the false heroes. He even mentions directly he doesn’t really see Shoto’s individual will, or his desire to become a hero to save his mom. He just thinks Shoto is the perfect puppet Endeavor raised him to be. Dabi is unable to separate himself from Endeavor’s abuse of him, and therefore he’s also unable to separate the idea of Shoto from Endeavor. 

So yeah, that’s the best way I can explain it with “the vague approximation of Dabi” that canon has given us right now. Basically Dabi is pretty loyal to Stain actually, he follows Stain’s ideals to the letter,he copies his strategy, he even has the same flaws, individual emphasis, black and white thinking, blurry line between “sacrifice for a better society” and “vigiltante justice because I think I’m right.” 

The main differences come from either Dabi just seeing the UA kids as either kids who don’t know better, or blind followers in the system. (This makes sense if you realize Dabi is someone who was raised by a hero since childhood, not someone who just became a zealot like Stain). And Stain has All Might for his idea of a “pure hero” whereas Dabi either believes no good heroes exist period. Or no good heroes can exist in the current society. I hope that answered your question, nonny!