#no matter the villain’s sympathetic backstory

[teafiend]

Am a fan of the character of 蔣簥 and despite my many issues with the show and its unremarkable writing, am rediscovering the reasons why it left an impression in my mind. Quite a few lessons to be gleaned here.

[danganronpusassholefactory]

If you like Emet Selch get the fuck off my dash I've had enough of yall

[utilitycaster]

one of the many things I think a lot of people do not get about villains is that the villain feeling bad about their actions and continuing to do them anyway heightens the villainy for me, rather than reduces it. Like, I think the Joker fucking sucks and isn't very interesting because it's a lot easier to dismiss a fictional guy who is just Evil Because They Love To Be Evil. You know where you're at; they're never going to change or grow because they are going to be a villain no matter what. But a person with a cause? A person with a sense of right and wrong who looks straight at "wrong" and does it anyway, repeatedly? That's far more horrifying. It's similar to the concept of showing a sympathetic backstory for a villain: if done well, especially if they share elements of said backstory with the hero, it shows that they had an opportunity to be better and they actively chose to be worse.

[writingwithcolor]

What Makes an Ethnic Villain "Ethnic" or "Villainous?" How Do You Offset it?

anonymous asked:

Hello WWC! I have a question about the antagonist of my story. She is (currently) Japanese, and I want to make sure I’m writing her in a way that doesn’t associates [sic] her being Asian with being villainous.  The story is set in modern day USA, this character is effectively immortal. She was a samurai who lost loved ones due to failure in combat, and this becomes her character[sic] motivation (portrayed sympathetically to the audience). This story explores many different time periods and how women have shown valor throughout history. The age of the samurai (and the real and legendary female warriors from it) have interested me the most, which is why I want her to be from this period.  The outfit she wears while fighting is based on samurai armor, and she wears modern and traditional Japanese fashion depending on the occasion. She acts pretty similar to modern day people, though more cynical and obsessed with her loss. She’s been able to adapt with the times but still highly values and cherishes her past.  She is the only Asian main character, but I plan to make a supportive Japanese side character. She’s a history teacher who knows about the villain and gives the protagonists information to help them, but isn’t involved in the main plot otherwise.  Are the way I’m writing this villain and the inclusion of a non-antagonist Japanese character enough to prevent a harmful reading of the story, or is there more I should do?

Why Does Your Villain Exist?

This makes me feel old because David Anders plays a villain with this kind of backstory in the series Heroes starring Masi Oka. 

I think you want to think about what you mean when you say: 

Villainous (In what way? To whom? To what end?)

Harmful (What tropes, narratives and implications are present?)

I’m relatively infamous in the mod circle for not caring too much about dimensions of “harm”. The concept is relative and varies widely between people and cultures. I don’t see much value in framing motivations around “What is less harmful?” I think for me, what matters more is: 

“What is more true?” 

“Are characteristics viewed as intrinsic to background, or the product of experiences and personal autonomy?”

“Will your portrayal resonate with a large audience?”

“What will resonate with the members of the audience who share the backgrounds your characters have?” 

This post offers additional questions you could ask yourself instead of “is this okay/not okay/harmful.” 

You could write a story where your antagonist is sly, sadistic, violent and cold-blooded. It may not be an interpretation that will make many Japanese from combat backgrounds feel seen or heard, but it’s not without precedent. These tropes have been weaponized against people of Japanese descent (Like Nikkei Japanese interned during World War II), but Japan also brutalized a good chunk of Asia during World War II. See Herge’s Tintin and The Blue Lotus for an example of a comic that accurately showcases the brutality of Japan’s colonization of Manchuria, but also is racist in terms of how Japanese characters are portrayed (CW: genocide, war, imperialism, racism).

You could also write a story where your character’s grief gives way to despair, and fuels their combat such that they are seen as calculating, frigid and deeply driven by revenge/ violence. This might make sense. It’s also been done to death for Japanese female warriors, though (See “Lady Snowblood” by Kazuo Koike and Kazuo Kamimura here, CW: sexual assault, violence, murder and a host of other dark things you’d expect in a revenge story). 

You could further write a story where your antagonist is not necessarily villainous, but the perceived harm comes from fetishizing/ exoticizing elements in how her appearance is presented or how she is sexualized, which is a common problem for Japanese female characters. 

My vote always goes to the most interesting story or character. I don’t see any benefit to writing from a defensive position. This is where I'll point out that, culturally, I can't picture a Japanese character viewing immortality as anything other than a curse. Many cultures in Japan are largely defined by transience and the understanding that many things naturally decay, die, and change form.

There are a lot of ways you could conceivably cause harm, but I’d rather hear about what the point of this character is given the dilemma of their position. 

What is her purpose for the plot? 

How is she designed to make the reader feel? 

What literary devices are relevant to her portrayal?

(Arbitrarily, you can always add more than 1 extra Japanese character. I think you might put less pressure on yourself with this character’s portrayal if you have more Japanese characters to practice with in general.) 

- Marika. 

When Off-Setting: Aim for Average

Seconding the above with regards to this villainess’s story and your motivations for this character, but regardless of her story I think it’s also important to look specifically at how the Japanese teacher character provides contrast. 

I agree with the choice to make her a regular person and not a superhero. Otherwise, your one Asian character is aggressively Asian-themed in a stereotypical Cool Japan way (particularly if her villain suit is samurai-themed & she wears wafu clothing every so often). Adding a chill person who happens to be Japanese and doesn’t have some kind of ninja or kitsune motif will be a breath of fresh air (well, more like a sigh of relief) for Japanese readers. 

A note on characterization—while our standard advice for “offset” characters is to give your offset character the opposite of the personality trait you’re trying to balance, in this case you might want to avoid opposites. You have a villainess who is a cold, tough “don’t need no man” type. Making the teacher mild-mannered, helpful, and accomodating would balance out the villainess’s traits, but you’ll end up swinging to the other side of the pendulum towards the Submissive Asian stereotype depending on execution. If avoiding stereotypes is a concern, I suggest picking something outside of that spectrum of gentleness to violence and making her really boring or really weird or really nerdy or a jock gym teacher or…something. You’re the author.

Similarly, while the villainess is very traditionally Japanese in her motifs and backstory, don’t make the teacher go aggressively in either direction—give her a nice balance of modern vs. traditional, Japanese vs. Western sensibilities as far as her looks, dress, interests, values, etc. Because at the end of the day, that’s most modern Japanese people. 

Sometimes, the most difficult representation of a character of color is making a character who is really average, typical, modern, and boring. 

- Rina

[haine-kleine]

rewatching Naruto and going insane over the extremely obvious way Horikoshi copypasted the essence of that story into MHA. funnily, the ending proves that he doesn't seem to fully understand the source material.

what really makes Naruto stand out is that every character is treated as a human who is worthy to make their story known. it's still shounen so the powerscaling and violence are ever present but the humane element never goes away. it might seem downright ridiculous that up until the undead evil aliens come to assume the big bad role in the end, every big bad that has been carefully hyped up before ends up revealing their sob story and leaving the spot vacant. but this was precisely what made the characters so interesting that they still have loyal fans nearly two decades later. the audience was always allowed to sympathize with the villain, no matter how evil, violent or how long their kill list is, because what it really comes down to, is a collection of various people's stories about their trauma and how they deal with it.

all of the villains have extensive kill lists: Gaara was a serial killer at the tender age of 12, Itachi killed his best friend, his girlfriend, then his entire clan and mentally tortured his 7 years old little brother, Sasuke later goes on a killing spree and nearly murders several people who considered him heir friend, Obito and Madara killed more people than there are named characters in the Naruto universe, and so on and so forth. the story still encourages the readers to sympathize with these characters, to the point of obnoxious stubbornness, but it drives the point home. Naruto's approach to writing the villain characters is the antithesis of 'cool motive, still murder'. the story is much more concerned with telling the stories about individual characters, their traumatic backstories and how they deal with the trauma, than it is with the worldbuilding angle of 'and what legal consequences are coming for them next?'. the story would rather conveniently lean to fit the chosen narrative for each villain character than deal with realistic consequences, just so that the character remains sympathetic and/or tragic in the eyes of the audience. Gaara was known for being violent and unstable in his village, but after he had his change of heart he is allowed to become the Kazekage and is accepted and supported by his village. Nagato wipes out the entire Konoha village because he is supposed to be introduced as the ultimate big bad to date, but then magically brings back everyone to life in a disney esque move, because after unlocking his tragic backstory, we are supposed to consistently feel bad for the guy. the story would rather be ridiculously unrealistic to overstress the tragedy and trauma, because realism was never the purpose.

then, in MHA, which is a story about magic people using their individual magic skills to fight and save people, you would assume that the realism wouldn't be a primary concern here as well. at the heart of the concept, before it fell apart, MHA seemed like a perfect successor to the message conveyed in Naruto, which excused the various rip offs. it seemed Horikoshi had successfully cracked what was the problem at the heart of every single villain in Naruto: trauma and mental illness, and capitalized on it. the concept of the story seemed to be 'what if Naruto set out to save the Akatsuki?'.

(and it is impossible to deny the heavy inspiration, because s1 Shigaraki is literally chuunin exam era Gaara. they are the exact same character)

as a fan of Naruto and not much of a shounen enjoyer, MHA seemed to take everything i loved about Naruto and amplify it. the kids characters got to spend more time together as a clas, rather than being paired randomly during filler episode missions. we got to spend more time with the Akatsuki League of villains and got to see how they interact with each other as a group and what their individual relationships are like. they got to build up their tragic backstories early on, to be dramatically revealed later, and not immediately die afterwards. Shouto got to actually talk to his older brother, and discover his tragic backstory from the source instead of hearing about it after his death and being powerless to do anything but cry about it.

but then, around the final arc, the story, or rather the author, seems to realize that it has become too big for a shounen. and his way of dealing with the issue was abandoning everything he has been building up for years. the comparison with Naruto really highlights how the issue lies not in the characters and their irredeemable actions but in the story straying too far from the main theme and eventually getting lost completely.

that is not to say the execution or the plotline wholeness were not an issue in Naruto, it's riddled with plot holes and retcons. but where it lacks the logic and stability, it makes up with the sincerity and compassion the author never fails to have for his characters. the uchiha massacre was a really shitty plot line from a political standpoint, but it's not there as a part of the plot. it has always served as a background for Sasuke, first and foremost, to the point Itachi's character was reshaped and retconned twice to fit what Kishimoto had going for him. the plot, the world are a stage for the characters, not the other way around.

and what made MHA's writing fall apart was switching the focus from the characters as the driving forces for the story to the sociopolitical plot starting to use those characters as tools. before the war arc, it wasn't meant to be realistic, the 'reality' was a playground for the characters. just look at the MVA arc (the best MHA arc). what about a malnourished insomniac Shigaraki defeating a CEO who happens to be the leader of a terrorist organisation so hard said CEO is so impressed with him that he gives up his spot for Shigaraki is realistic? alternatively, what about the Sports Festival arc makes sense? nothing! the students of the most prestigious hero academy having the competition where they show off their quirks and all of its drawbacks for the entire country to see on live TV is the opposite of sensible, and during the licence exams the students of the other schools even point this out! Horikoshi just wanted to have his own chuunin exam arc, and can you fault him for that? it was cool as hell.

the thing about MHA is that it was never meant to be too realistic. it can't be, because the realism hurts this kind of story. shounen isn't meant to be realistic, it's meant to be flashy, cool, over the top dramatic, perhaps tragic, but realism really has no place in shounen. most importantly, because shounen is supposed to tell the story of the main character, whose epic journey is as enjoyable as it is inspiring.

but the main character's journey is supposed to have an end purpose, and successfully achieving it would be the culmination of the story. Naruto's purpose was saving Sasuke, who was taken in by the Big Bad Orochimaru, when everyone else has given up on him. Izuku's purpose seemed to be saving Shigaraki, who was taken by the Big Bad All For One, and the entire world has given up on saving him when he was just 5 years old. thus, Izuku would become 'the world's best hero', because he achieved an unprecedented fit of saving a villain. hell, he would have been even cooler than Naruto, who mastered the therapy talk jutsu on all the villains he had successfully reformed, but still had all of them die on him.

but no. funnily, Izuku fails spectacularly at achieving the purpose he had set for himself. Izuku doesn't save Shigaraki, he actually kills him. not even on purpose, Tomura's death was entirely an accident. (to really drive home how ridiculous that is, can you imagine Naruto murdering Sasuke on accident during their final battle, and then moving on with his life? an even more accurate example, imagine Naruto killing Gaara instead of giving him a heartfelt speech in s1)

by simple shounen logic, this means Izuku failed as a shounen character. he doesn't get his happy ending, because he didn't deserve it through consistently written and developed hard work towards a singular goal the character had chosen for himself. this also means Izuku didn't become the world's greatest hero. he lies to us in the prologue.

but we can't have a tragic ending to such optimistic and hopeful story now, can we? so the story does a very awkward and forced job of switching the perspective to drive the audience attention from the reality of the tragedy the ending brought on it. to drive attention away from Izuku and his failure, we have the public aggressively blaming Shigaraki for the destruction. his story is never made known and Izuku is not particularly interested in making it known, putting this responsibility on Spinner. Allmight, who felt personally responsible for Shigaraki's kidnapping by AFO back when he was alive is suddenly unbothered by his passing. the epilogue has nothing to focus on because every hero character had failed at achieving their personal goals and thus peaked. it is also weirdly stubborn in its refusal to seriously view the aftermath as tragedy, following the characters (acknowledged!) failure to save the villains they intended to save. the explanation was still warranted however, so the chosen strategy was focusing on the outside world and how it was affected by the consequences. but it simply won't work because the story was never focused on this before! it's no Avengers Civil War, The Boys or even MHA Vigilantes. MHA was always about the characters and their individual experiences. the world leaned into the characters plot points and shaped itself accordingly, not opposed the various socioeconomic and political problems that the concept of heroes would bring. the heroes ranking and HPCS are the highest authorities we know of in MHA. who is the president? who are the politicians? why is so much budget spent on the heroes, to the point the devastated and ruined after the war country deems it important enough to build various statues of them? the issue of quirk racism is consistently important, but why aren't any anti racism organisations brought up? isn't there any legal punishment for violence against mutants? does the law just permit harming or even killing mutants? shouji had his damn face cut up as a kid and his parents never went to police or made a lawsuit about it? we do know that police exists separately from the heroes, but how does law work at all in this universe? the answer is, it doesn't, because Hawks has a footage of him committing a murder shown on national TV and he doesn't face any legal repercussions at all, and is in fact promoted to a HPSC president shortly afterwards.

i hope the above paragraph conveys how utterly cartoonish MHA's 'realism' is. and what makes it bad isn't the illogical inconsistency or even the double standards, it's that the realism is used as a coverup for the author smashing the core theme of the story he took from another manga with hammers and setting it on fire. it's 400 chapters too late to make the core theme of the story the society in general and various social issues as concepts. it was supposed to be a story about Izuku saving Shigaraki, Ochako saving Himiko, Shouto saving Dabi. i don't have to reach to get that message from the source text itself, because no one forced Horikoshi to repeat the world 'save' 27363279 times throughout the story. it was supposed to be a story about saving traumatized people who had no one to save them. it didn't have to be, Horikoshi could have easily continued with Kishimoto's established trend of having his villains die immediately after finishing their therapy session. but he didn't take that direction, and capitalized on the theme of saving people, even those who don't seem to deserve it, even those who say they don't want to be saved. and in the final, crucial moment, he didn't carry through.

this is the story of how Izuku didn't become the greatest hero.

my not-hero academia

[chaifootsteps]

maybe this is an exaggeration, but glitz and glam feel like stella on crack to me, because its not one, but two women, who have to not only sexualize themselves for the sake of a job they probably wouldnt be doing if they had a choice for a better paying career, (because they fucking hate each other obviously, they dont want to work together at all, even if theyre good at it,) they also have to sexualize their other sibling.

imagine if you had to sexualize yourself and the twin sister youve grown up with your entire life, because you dont have any other monetary option. why else would they be doing it at all if they fucking despise the other, if not for income? viv making them hate each other so much and trying so goddamn hard to make them unjustified assholes, accidentally did the opposite, because just like stella, the anger they feel towards someone else they're forced to be with is justified, no matter how the narrative wants you to think theyre not.

especially when family doing sex work together, especially women, parallels the real world scenario in which it happens as well, making money off of peoples (mostly mens) incest fetish, by giving them the real deal. that's what glitz and glam are supposed to be, except it's supposed to be bad that they're making bank off of people in hell wanting to see sisters flashing their tits, and actually, theyre the bad guys for exploiting a nasty kink people have, and for working with mammon exclusively for money instead of out of passion like fizz did- money that they probably need to live far more then mr. immortal-bride-to-be-of-fucking-asmodeus-himself needs!

and y'know what the worst part is? it literally didn't have to be this way. squidderdoodles concept art only showed the glitz and glam sisters serving cunt with their outfits/designs and serving actually clowning on the stage, not sexualized fan service, but viv threw that away and was like, "nah, actually, i think they should be siblings! that rub their asses and flash their tits together :)" just because she wanted fizz to look better in comparison, and understood she needed a comedically bad villain in comparison, because she must think her audience is too stupid to understand that youre supposed to root for fizz in this ep, unless theres a newly made and conveniently placed character to make that obvious to the viewer. i mean, why else does oliver exist? i genuinely think thats the only reason theyre written like caricatures of bitches, despite the fact they unintentionally have just as much of a potentially sympathetic backstory/episode to me as stella does.

An entire, Viv-free series based off of Salem's vastly superior concept is what Glitz and Glam deserve, what Salem deserves, and what we all deserve.

[menofsweaters]

I've been thinking a lot of deep thoughts about the end of MHA, so I've decided to spit them all out here rather than letting them live in my brain 24/7.

The more time that passes, the more satisfied I am with the ending, particularly with the deaths of the villains. The ending is definitely not what I would write or choose if I had the option, but I think I'm savvy enough these days to recognize the difference between "this is not my preference" and "this is poor writing." I'm also looking in from the perspective of consuming MHA for enjoyment and entertainment, whereas I believe the author was writing this ending in an attempt to make a political/literary statement, not to please the masses.

All of the most sympathetic and tragic members of the League of Villains met grisly ends by the time the manga wrapped up, and I don't think that's a coincidence. Twice, Toga, Dabi, and Shigaraki were all fan favorites with deeply moving backstories, but that didn't save them from dying. You can say they were all doomed by the narrative, but I think these characters were doomed by their own choices at every turn.

All of these characters - to varying extents - had the opportunity to stop their villainy, but were too dedicated to a certain cause or obsession to do so. Dabi is the most obvious example, as he could have returned to his family at literally any time and saved all of the Todorokis a lot of strife, but the others were also offered outs by the heroes they interacted with, and they all chose death and destruction over surrender.

I'm trying to make a point here but it's kinda hard to verbalize.

Basically, I think Horikoshi wanted to show us that it doesn't matter how "good" or "bad" you are as a person, it doesn't matter how moving your story is, it doesn't matter how deeply you believe in your cause, it doesn't matter if you love your comrades - your actions are the things that matter. As beloved and tragic as all of these characters are, they still murdered and maimed many innocent people, they still destroyed cities and hospitals, they still tortured families and loved ones.

Those innocent people are the ones who really suffer in bloody coups. I genuinely do not give a shit about anyone's ideals if they consider everyday people as acceptable canon fodder for the revolution. The LOV's ideals, Stain's ideals, the PLF's ideals, whatever you want to call it, are not worth the abject destruction of society over.

AFO and other power-hungry dictators feed off of people like Twice, Toga, Dabi, and Shigaraki. People who suffer from mental illness, who are estranged from their families, and who are rejected by society. The LOV was used by more powerful forces to commit horrific acts. As engaging as those characters are individually, they still fell prey to a violent ideology that offered nothing for them and everything to the person in power.

I guess what I'm saying is that it's easy for even the best of us to get wrapped up in some "cause" and end up suffering over it, or causing others to suffer. I think Horikoshi was trying to make a statement about who ends up paying the price in war and I'm finally accepting that statement. Those deaths were meant to hurt and they did, and I think that's why some readers hate it so much.

I've got more to say about the whole "they didn't fix hero society!!" stuff, but I'll gather those thoughts later.

[maxwell-grant]

Reverse Unpopular Opinion: Noriaki Kakyoin

I really like that he's a bastard, might actually be my favorite thing about him. He's designed to be "the thin and sensitive one", he's made to be pretty and attractive to an extent the others aren't, and of course he's given a very sympathetic and tragic backstory and death, but a lot of the time the spotlight's on him, he's kind of a mean jerk but in a really understated fashion that makes it funny. There is a line of succession among Araki's pointedly villainous heroes that starts with B.T and is embodied in the current protagonist Jodio, and I think Kakyoin is in there, predating the likes of Rohan and Giorno. It's not for nothing that he is our first villain Stand user, and why they make a point of contrasting his charming honor student personality with his horrible gross tentacle puppet power.

I also like that this ties into his prideful personality, and the reasons why he's tagging along to defeat DIO. He's a guy who's grown used to being disconnected from people and ostracized and self-reliant (much of what I love about Death 13 retroactively is that it's hitting Kakyoin hard with this before we understand why this is a personal button for him, and it's not a beat that would work with the other Crusaders), having maybe the closest bond with his Stand that we see among the Crusaders, and his dynamic with DIO is interesting to me because he blames himself for falling victim to DIO more so than he blames DIO for it. It comes up more prominently in the D'Arby fight and the finale that he's pushing through not just a deep fear, but also a form of self-hatred whenever he thinks about what DIO did to him. He feels ashamed and humiliated and even abused, even knowing about DIO's power and the flesh buds and having seen others in his situation, seeing what happened to Polnareff and Enya, and it doesn't really dissuade him from this thinking.

It's that whole speech he gives to Jotaro in his debut about how evil is determined by who wins and who loses: people tend to forget it because he's being brainwashed, but the flesh bud doesn't alter personalities like that, Polnareff refutes this in his first encounter. That wasn't the fleshbud, that was Kakyoin talking, and he'd come back to that sentiment later. He lost to DIO, nothing else mattered, he was the loser and thus the evil one. And so he wants to make up for it, to stand up to DIO again and not give in, to be freed from him. He's constantly putting his friends first during the journey but at his most personal, when he's steeling himself, he thinks back to that and swears to overcome it. People talk a lot about how Kakyoin was a mega hit with the female demographic because he's pretty and charming in a way the sweaty buff men aren't and because he makes a good pair with Jotaro, and okay sure that's part of it, but I think the fact that his arc being that intimate, that tragic, and panning out into a story about overcoming abuse and standing strong in the face of your abuser, even if all you can do is save others from him, that was the secret ingredient. Intentionally or not, that stings pretty deep.

But mostly I like him because he is a bastard, and he's the character who's not supposed to look or act like one, so the fact that he is makes it better. "Tricking your friends into feeding a baby his own shit" is not a beat that would work with the others, or even something you could land, no matter how evil the baby was, if the guy doing it wasn't capable of selling it as a cool and funny and karmically satisfying thing to be doing.

[agender-witchery]

It hurts

After talking with people in discord for the week that this has been going on, I think my feelings on the Project Moon situation are just. Like, this was a company I felt was "safe". Obviously corporations are not your friends, but this was a studio that consistently pushed out games with progressive - and at times even radical - messaging. This was a studio that has consistently written solid characters with gender as an absolute afterthought. Emma is a boy! Harold is a girl! That's how little gender matters, which, ironically, is something that matters.

I can't think of another franchise I've engaged with that just... writes women as people. I've heard George R.R. Martin is like that, but I never engaged with the TV series that introduced the US to the concept of filler or the book series it was based on. I'm gonna gloss over Lobotomy Corporation a bit here because the story only has 13 characters, but 12 of them return for Library of Ruina. In Ruina you have Binah, Angela, Nikolai, and Elena as assertive women that take control of the situations they're in. You have passive uwu smol beans like Hod and Eileen! You have characters who are war criminals and that's not a mark of a villain, that's just a part of their backstory! Some of the women here have just Done Crimes! One of the women IS a crime! And men are treated the same! There are characters with traumas and behavioral disorders who act like real people would! Lesti saw the aftermath of Love Town and started talking about food! Beef intestine no less! Philip saw his colleagues get murdered and physically manifested a mental breakdown! Xiao saw her husband get murdered and physically manifested literal burning rage!

All of the writing has been good! All of it! And it has consistently written women in a way that is flat out rare, even in 2023. And Limbus has been doing the same! Outis is assertive! Ryoshu is assertive! Hermann is assertive! Don is an idiot and Faust refuses to talk half the time! Heathcliff is assertive! Meursault is assertive! Gubo is assertive! Hong Lu is an idiot and Sinclair is/was a pathetic sop! Across the board, the character writing is just GOOD. As Lobotomy Corporation progresses, Ayin's shitty behavior becomes more and more apparent! And that all culminates with Angela being tossed aside like garbage once she's no longer useful to him, as you hear her desperate wishes to just be seen!

All of that, or at least most of that, was Kim Ji-hoon. But Kim Ji-hoon is also the person who hastily fired VellMori at 11 PM, over the phone, while he was out of office in Japan, because some incels accused his company of being sympathetic to feminists in 2023.

And it fuckin hurts that the source of those stories, the stories that I just spent three paragraphs praising, the stories that are so important to me, could turn heel in half a second like that. As if he was writing completely different stories than the ones I've been reading. And I hate that? I hate that. Because there isn't a replacement! I don't get Grandma War Crimes and Dumbass Justice Enactor in other stories! Like, maybe some will come close, maybe some will have the same exact character somewhere, but never all of it together. Never written as amazingly as the City is.

So it hurts. And the silence is loud.

[m3nt4llyr4v3d]

Miraculous and Redemption

You know, I think I understand what my issue is with this show’s stance on redemption. It’s not specifically who gets the redemption, even the hypocrisy of who does or doesn’t get redemption/forgiven is only one part of the issue.

It’s specifically how they treat the characters who don’t get redemption.

I have seen, in media, where terrible characters who’ve done terrible things get a redemption, and the mean characters, who are just mean, don’t change at all. That’s fine! People are complex, some change and some don’t, some have done horrible things and some are just school yard bullies. It’s fine to showcase this, I mean hell, in the Owl House, Boscha was still an asshole in season 2, and this was past the point that characters like Lilith were forgiven (Lilith isn’t really terrible in Season 1, she just has done a lot worse than Boscha)

Miraculous’s massive issue with this, however, is that the narrative/the authors treats those mean characters as worse than those characters who’ve done horrible things.

I mean, what other media has one of the creators say that some high school bully is comparable to Trump when her literal rich, corrupt, politician father is right fucking there?

Usually the media where a terrible person is redeemed and the mean character isn’t doesn’t treat it as a moral issue. It’s not “oh well this person can’t change” or “oh this person is even worse!” It’s usually “they’re mean, and that’s annoying, but oh well”. That media never treats the character like Satan incarnate, or treats their meanness compared to actual villainy as a moral issue. When characters are around them, they aren’t treating that mean character as literal scum compared to the former villain, the narrative doesn’t treat them as more than an annoyance or, for lack of better words, “small fry”. I mean, while Owl House acknowledged that Boscha was still a prick in season 2, they didn’t act like she was worse than Belos.

Miraculous treats Chloe and Lila, some petty, mean teenagers, as the literal devil compared to other characters. Lila is a master manipulator who somehow convinced 3 people she’s their daughter and has a trillion disguises! It doesn’t matter that that twist came out of nowhere, and it makes it a little weird that this teenager has multiple disguises that she uses around the city apparently, one where she looks like a 20 year old, making people theorize she’s an adult because how on earth is she smart enough or resourceful enough to do this. Chloe is a villain comparable to Gabe, even when she was a hero! Her backstory doesn’t justify any of her actions, but for literally everyone else, we are going to justify their actions! If they don’t do that, they’ll just sweep their actions under the rug completely! It doesn’t matter that she’s consistently being manipulated by the fully grown adults around her, she’s terrible don’t think about it! She neglected her father somehow (???????????????????) so it’s fully justified to send her off with her abusive mother! We aren’t even going to acknowledge that Andre literally had a part in raising her and her turning out this way, because somehow he did no wrong! And what sucks is that it’s succeeding at making those characters appear that way, because some fans are completely genuine when they say that Gabriel is more sympathetic than them. I mean, if you frequent the Reddit (which you absolutely shouldn’t, one way or another it will melt your brain), you’ll consistently see character rankings with Gabriel, Lila, Tomoe, and Chloe in the same category. Somehow the show put the bullies in the same categories as the literal abusive terrorist and his helper in these people’s eyes. You will constantly see these literal teenagers be put on the same category as adults who have done infinitely worse. Even Andre, who is a corrupt politician and terrible role model and literally RAISED CHLOE… is “woobified” by some fans, even going as far to say that Chloe abused him! Nevermind how that would even be possible when she was like, 5-7 when her mom left! I can’t point my fingers at the fans for this though, because the show goes out of its way to place all of its sympathy on the adults, even when they don’t deserve it, EVEN WHEN THE PAST WRITING LITERALLY PAINTS THEIR ACTIONS AS BAD

(It also doesn’t help that the fully grown adult’s actions are all forgiven but god forbid you’re terrible as a teenager, then you’ll get sent off to live with your verbally abusive mother while your basically deadbeat father adopts your half sister literally right after wiping his hands of you)

I will talk about the hypocrisy in redemption at some point, and how bias and forgiveness is handled, but godDAMN, this sucks

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

(spoilers for infinity train s3, read at your own risk!)

thinking about how infinity train treats tuba's death in comparison to how spop treats angella's death. in both these shows, the main antagonist (catra and simon) kill a main character's mother.

infinity train treats tuba's death with the seriousness that it deserves. grace and hazel are horrified when simon admits to murdering tuba, grace gets mad at him and lashes out, hazel is so overcome with shock and grief that she starts morphing into her actual self.

later, hazel and grace hold a funeral for tuba, we see grace finally start to question the way she treated the train's denizens. tuba's death wasn't all in vain, it wasn't forgotten, instead it was given the narrative importance that it deserved and simon was held accountable for it till the very end.

keep in mind, simon was also a sympathetic villain and the show manages to keep that sympathetic part of him, while also reminding us that he is still a villain and that his actions have consequences.

meanwhile in spop, angella's death is kinda relevant in s4 but not really because yes, glimmer's grief is a huge part of that season but also catra isn't held accountable for it at all?

even in double trouble's big speech towards the end, they never once mention angella or glimmer, but they mention shadow weaver.. for some reason? and hordak?? i mean sure, catra betrayed hordak and whatnot but are they really telling us that catra lying to hordak about entrapta was worse than her directly causing angella's death? what even is this show's priorities??

the first episode of s4 honors angella and treats her death with narrative importance but for the rest of it, her death only matters to glimmer. yes, adora and bow are sad about it but it isn't treated with that much respect. it's just there to give glimmer a mini corruption arc and to drive a wedge between her and adora.

and y'all know i don't even need to mention s5. it's crazy because catra and simon are basically the same character (except catra has more backstory because she was apparently the protagonist of spop /s) but infinity train actually knows how to tell a good story in just 10 episodes, while spop struggles with 5 whole ENTIRE seasons.

[danmei-confessions]

I don't like JGY but I think I would like him if his defenders weren't so annoying, weird, and aggressive. Your fav did some really horrible shit, get over it. The weird theories about how he's 'actually innocent' are what made me start to really hate him. I like all the other villains in MDZS but none of the other fans try to deny what their fav did.

Yes, JGY is undeniably a tragic figure who experienced terrible things that were both unfair and terrible, but I have a very XXC reaction to his tragic backstory "oh your pinky got run over? cool motive, still murder".

I have empathy for the real discrimination that JGY faced, I don't have empathy for him murdering sex workers. And with every "5 reasons that JGY is the REAL victim" post that I run into, my empathy dwindles. I do actually believe that to fight against extreme discrimination, extreme actions are required. But while I think murdering his father was absolutely justified, I don't think murdering the innocent sex workers was justified. Or NMJ for that matter. Or betraying LXC. Or murdering QS and JRS. Or the genocide he helped with. (also if I see one more post saying "oh i know he confessed to doing it but he was obviously lying" I might rip my hair out. No. It is not 'obvious' that he was lying. In the full context of the story, his characterization, the position he was in, and the other things he's said about them including the scene where he says that JRS death was inevitable, it's pretty obvious that he did indeed do it. I'm really tired of the copium. If you like JGY that's fine but the weird nonsensical theories that 'prove' he's innocent are ridiculous.)

All that to say I don't think that JGY is the 'worst' or the most 'evil villain'. He's a complex character with a genuinely sympathetic backstory and a tragically difficult position. Every character in MDZS has done some horrible stuff for morally nebulous reasons. His character is fascinating, well-written, and multi-faceted. He does some very good things for bad reasons, some very bad things for good reasons, good things for good reasons, and bad things for bad reasons. He's got depth to him. I don't think he sucks or he should be bashed or anything. I'm just tired of the "JGY did nothing wrong" squad. He did a lot of stuff wrong, guys.

.

[haine-kleine]

when I attempt to analyze Todoroki Touya's character, I get a distinct feeling Horikoshi's spreadsheet for him before chapter 290 looked like this:

'DABI IS TODOROKI TOUYA (hint at him being Todoroki Touya as much as possible) (make something up for his backstory later)

that's not how you write a secret evil relative subplots. the goal shouldn't be making the reveal as dramatic as possible. especially in the corruption 'break the cutie' type of stories. to make the readers feel for this character, you shouldn't be dedicating your time to teasing them with the possibility of the reveal, you need to also tell the actual damn story.

and Horikoshi just. forgot to do that.

to make the reveal hold any weight and not just serve as a delayed gratification clickbait after years of teasing the readers, you have to establish who the character actually was before they became the villain. if you don't do this, the reveal alone won't do anything to make the audience sympathize with the character, because by that point it will be too late to sway the established opinion with an angsty backstory alone.

Arcane tells a very similar story of the family conflict, but to have the audience be interested in the sisters reunion, to have them feel bad for Jinx despite the horrible acts she commits, you have to first see Powder, the troubled unfortunate and insecure child who loved her sister. only once we are emotionally attached to that innocent and unfairly suffering character, we will start questioning her motives and our emotions once the corruption starts.

if you show the before as a sympathetic character, the after becomes painful not only to the in-universe characters affected by what their once close person had become. if you show the after and hold off the before until after the characters have already reacted to the identity revealing event, your audience will react with 'cool motive, still murder', because they never developed any emotional attachment to said character, no matter how much you make them cry in the flashbacks.

loose reimagining of the family arc under the cut.

and it was so stupid to skip this step because Horikoshi didn't even have to do much. the first point of view we have on the Todoroki family history is Shouto, the youngest sibling who had been isolated from the rest for most of his life. he didn't know much about his siblings, but let him know something! especially with how closely his and Touya's stories are paralleled by design, he should know about Touya the most out of anyone, and Touya is the sibling he should be most curious about.

think about it from Enji and Shouto's pov. Touya was the heir Endeavor created for fulfilling his dream, and after Fuyumi he wasn't planning on having more kids. it was Touya's incompatibility with his own quirk, the eugenics experimentation failure, that is the only reason Natsuo and Shouto even exist. and Shouto is the chosen heir, perfectly fulfilling all conditions demanded by Enji. so he trains him like he wanted to train Touya, but that's not all of it. while Shouto is genetically fit to be a perfect replacement for the role Enji had prepared for Touya, his father had never emotionally connected with him the way he did with Touya. and he made sure Shouto was aware of that, because he talked to Shouto about Touya.

Shouto, who had been miserable because of his father for most of his life, knows that Touya was the older brother who should have been in his place, and he escaped that place. he stopped his training and left the dojo to live a normal life, together with his siblings. and Shouto wanted to have that life more than anything. he begged his father to let him join his siblings, he wistfully observed them through the windows, he imagined what his siblings are like, he asked his mother about them. and the entire time, the sibling he knew the most about was Touya, his eldest brother whom he had to replace as father's training dummy.

there's so much space for depth in there! you can do so much by briefly sharing the intensity of Shouto's complicated feelings, by giving a bare glimpse of his rumination about his siblings. just don't lump them all together into a faceless blob of happy children that unhappy little Shouto wanted to join, because their history is so much deeper than that.

inserting the flashback of Enji talking to Shouto about Touya during the Sports Festival arc would have been the best way to set up the intrigue. just a bare glimpse of Enji using Touya as the example little Shouto was failing to follow, cut to Shouto observing his three siblings through the window.

and that would be enough to connect the initial story threads of the Todoroki family and nudge the readers in the right direction. Iida also has an older brother who is a hero. with that example in mind Shouto not mentioning Touya at all would be suspicious enough to have people start questioning the mysterious older brother's identity, because surely, if the number one hero, who trained Shouto to be the most proficient hero in his class trained his older brother as well he would be a licenced hero already?

then, the lack of said brother's presence in the story starts to become glaring. the simple mention for Enji having trained Touya and telling Shouto how good his brother was with his quirk, separates him from the faceless group of Shouto's civilian siblings who are out there doing their boring civilian stuff and not necessarily needed to be in this story about kids becoming heroes. Touya being dead is a reveal put away for later, but to drive up the intrigue, he needs to be a ghost haunting the narrative. make it inconsistent and confusing, make characters talk about him and omit saying anything outright.

then you can use Natsuo as a red herring by not introducing the siblings by names when they visit Rei together. he's Shouto's older brother, he is weirdly hostile to Endeavor, he lives away from the family. well, this checks out. but wasn't this weirdly anticlimactic?.. also didn't he say he doesn't do well in hot temperatures?

later, during the Todoroki family dinner arc introduce Natsuo by name and confuse the readers even more, because the new brother turned out to not be Touya whom we have been anticipating to meet since Shouto had first talked about his family. make Shouto, who is still adjusting to being able to interact with his siblings, start asking about their childhood. he wants to express that happiness he feels about being together with them, so he wonders out loud if Touya also felt this happy when father allowed him to play with Fuyumi and Natsuo more. his brother and sister's faces turn weirdly grim at that remark. Fuyumi offers some stories from their childhood, trying to lighten the mood. that's the readers first proper glimpse at Touya in the flashbacks. Fuyumi talks about him always being on his computer, how impossible it was to drag him outside to play. Natsuo reminisces how the slightest stretch of intense activity was enough to have him fall to the ground and refuse to get up. Fuyumi talks about the time Touya and herself made 8 years old Natsuo carry both of them. Natsuo proudly reports that he didn't even break his back. the atmosphere in the room is light and comfortable, Shouto listening to their stories with undivided attention, his eyes glistening. after a moment of idle silence, Natsuo glances at him. he tells Shouto how usually it's hard to read his face, because he is so unexpressive. but he remembers when Shouto was little he was a total crybaby, just like Touya was.

with the picture of Touya the child painted and the question about adult Touya up in the air, Enji can join the dinner. Natsuo storms off and Shouto follows him and Enji, not understanding what caused his chill older brother to act like this. Fuyumi attempts to hold him back, to no avail. she doesn't want Shouto to hear what Natsuo has to say to their father. she also is no longer sure that keeping him in the dark is the correct decision. she sighs, 'mother, what should I do?'. she is too young for this.

insert Midoriya into the family dinner if you want your dramatic storytelling, and have him timidly ask Fuyumi why did their older brother not join them for dinner. cut to Shouto hiding behind the door, listening to Natsuo's shouts about Enji abandoning him and Fuyumi, stealing their mom and Shouto from them, ruining Shouto's childhood. 'but you know what you will never be forgiven for, not even in hell?' Natsuo asks, tears streaming down his face. cut to-

'Touya is dead', Fuyumi tells Midoriya, his pleasant smile frozen on his face, eyes growing wide.

cut back to Shouto, hyperventilating behind the palms covering his face. he doesn't even notice sliding down the wall. he barely registers the heavy footsteps of Enji going back in his direction and he can't be bothered to care about his eavesdropping being discovered. his mind is still echoing Natsuo's words on repeat.

'you can play hero all you want, but you know what you really are is a murderer'.

boom. hook, line and sinker. no need to have the characters spell out who thinks what, the '[Natsuo thinks that] Enji killed Touya' was so stupidly unnecessary it turned a mystery drama thriller Todoroki subplot into a Law and Order episode. let the characters speak their minds and reach their own conclusions! when they learn something horrible, don't send the good and righteous character rushing to correct their assumption. let Shouto be actually curious about what happened to the members of his family, let him learn their different perspectives! dont make the Todoroki Touya reveal into a singular event, an award for the readers who have been arguing about it for years. turn it into something that holds weight for the actual characters inside the story, a mystery, an investigation with the reveal being at the finishing line the characters themselves need to reach, not an inescapable event that will happen despite the characters' actions.

letting Dabi interact with the non-Enji Todorokis wouldn't have ruined the mystery, it would have given much more depth the all the characters, defined the actual drama they are going through, given them more individuality by allowing them to have different opinions on the situation instead of joining them into a Frankenstein mindless blob of 'family' taking their collective 'responsibility'.

make Dabi and Shouto's first meeting an uncomfortably long moment of staring, Dabi looking at Shouto with sad condescension, Shouto being visibly confused by the villain's loaded expression. make this about the characters themselves, and not about the readers being smart enough to connect the only villain with a flame quirk to the only family of flame quirk users.

let Natsuo and Dabi meet, make Dabi kill Hood for attacking his brother because his father was too late. make Natsuo question the villain's identity together with the readers, make him and Shouto join their efforts to unfold the mystery of what had happened to their older brother.

the question should never have been 'is Dabi Touya Todoroki?' asked by the author to his readers. it should have been 'what does Dabi being Touya Todoroki mean to the characters associated with him?'. and it should have been answered by the characters themselves.

[rebeccaajc93]

Here is my Top 10 Aardman Villains List:

*10. Lord Nooth from Early Man (2018) - He is maybe the hilarious Aardman villain, But He is not my forte, Because He is too cowardly for my taste. *9. Anthony Trumper from Shaun The Sheep Movie (2015) - He is maybe more dangerous than Lord Nooth, But He is too boisterous for my taste. *8. Piella Bakewell from Wallace and Gromit: A Matter Of Loaf and Death (2008) - Because She is a wolf in sheep’s clothing and a serial killer. *7. Victor Quartermaine from Wallace and Gromit: The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit (2005) - Because He is an arrogant hunter, who wants to hunt the rabbits for sport and wants to marry Lady Campanula Tottington for money. *6. Preston from Wallace and Gromit: A Close Shave (1995) - Because he is a canine equivalent to The Terminator. *5. The Toad from Flushed Away (2006) - Because He was originally the royal pet amphibian of the young King Charles III, But He was replaced by the pet rodent that made him very angry and upset, then He was flushed down the toilet and sent to the London Sewers. *4. Agent Red from A Shaun The Sheep Movie: Farmageddon (2019) - She maybe has a cold exterior, but She has a tragic backstory that made her feel very misunderstood and sympathetic. But thankfully, she redeemed herself in the end by giving Lu-La’s parents a hug. *3. Queen Victoria from The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists! (2012) - She is maybe the Queen Of England from the 19th Century, But She is a pirate-hating, katana-wielding ninja warrior. *2. Mrs. Melisha Tweedy from Chicken Run (2000) and Chicken Run: Dawn Of The Nugget (2023) - Because She is the most threatening out of the human Aardman villains and She is armed with an axe, She married two husbands, chicken meat products businesses and different outfits from the different decades, The First Movie’s case is wearing Burgundy tweed dress and black wellies, When she was with Willard Tweedy and doing the chicken pie business in the 1950’s. While for the sequel’s case is wearing the Pink Penelope Pitstop-Styled Go-Go Boots, black leggings, dark red gloves and plum-purple sleeved dress, When she is now with Dr. Marcus Fry and doing the chicken nugget business in the 1960’s. She is the first Aardman villain is returning for her revenge against her arch-enemies. *1. Feathers McGraw from Wallace and Gromit: The Wrong Trousers (1993) and Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (2024) - Because He is the most iconic Wallace and Gromit villain, as well as his silent, but deadly nature. He is a diamond thief of the penguin, Who is disguised as a chicken and he is armed with a pistol. He is using Wallace’s technology and inventions for his evil purposes/intentions, For The Wrong Trousers (1993)’s case is the techno trousers. While for Vengeance Most Fowl (2024)’s case is the smart gnomes. Like Melisha Tweedy, Feathers McGraw is the second Aardman villain is returning for his revenge against his arch-enemies.

[an-excellent-choice]

While I like thinking about how the dead three's chosens (Ketheric, Orin, Gortash) could be redeemable. Today, I want to think deeper and talk about how they are irredeemable. (i like villains being villains oki)

So, all three of them have tragic backstories that you can sympathize with Ketheric losing his family and being ignored by his goddess, Orin being indoctrinated from the very start and her mother trying to kill her, Gortash being sold off and fighting for his life every step of the way.

So, these three experience the worst in life and thus also started doing horrible things. Generally, people in pain can cause great hurt to others but these three had specific actions that made them irredeemable.

These actions for me is inflicting the same pain they have experienced but worst. They didn't just continue the cycle of pain but they multiplied the pain in their cycles.

They had this pain and rather than think that nobody deserves the pain I experienced because it destroyed me. They decided that I experienced this, now it is your problem and your turn for it.

Ketheric lost his faith because he lost his family. Ketheric then proceeded to subjugate and murder families for still having faith in Selune. Not only that but he also cursed the very lands that were once filled with by families and friends.

Orin's mother attempted to murder her on Sarevok Anchev orders for Bhaal's approval. Orin ended up murdering (or attempted to murder) durge because she wanted to be the chosen one on nobody's orders.

Gortash was sold off by his parents and had fight his way to freedom/life. Gortash sells Karlach into slavery knowing full well that she will be a prototype to the engines. Karlach can never be free because of it, no matter how hard she fights or runs she still an engine for a heart that needs to stay in hells.

They are great villains. Sympathetic but still monsters in the end. Maybe redeemable but unforgivable for their victims

[stillness-in-green]

Saw your latest ask answer and the idea the author really wanted destruction to be all shigaraki was meant for reminded me of Loki from the mcu. Spoilers if you haven’t seen the show but in the first episode a Loki from before all his character development is shown his entire life in the mcu and during that there’s a monologue from mobius about how Loki exists only to cause death destruction and suffering but he services of other people so they can become the best versions of themselves. Just was curious if you had any thoughts on how his portrayal and handling compares with shigaraki since horikoshi is such a fan of western media especially comics.

I’m afraid I can’t really weigh in on TV Loki’s presentation because I haven’t watched any of the MCU shows since the Netflix ones.  MCU Loki’s also one of those characters I resent just slightly because their runaway popularity negatively impacted the story of other characters.  (MCU Tony is the far, far worse version of this, but I remember reading that Malekith in Thor 2 had his scenes reduced to make more room for Loki.)

My impression is that their superhero intake is more DC-centric, but I wonder if @linkspooky might have any insight?

That said, I do think, “You only exist for the betterment of other people, none of whom have the slightest chance of improving you in turn,” is a pretty loathsome sentiment.  Like, there’s some leeway there when you’re talking about the narrative role of a villain in the story they occupy, and it does sound like that was meant to be a fourth-wall breaking moment that acknowledges Loki as that villain.  But it’s a vile thing to tell a real person, and therefore a vile thing to tell a character in-story, regardless of how fourth-wall breaking its intention.

It’s also a particularly odd thing to say about Loki, who I understand to be a much more sympathetic figure in the MCU than he is in the comics![1]  Like, the guy who whose father lied to him and weaponized against his original people for centuries?  The guy who was hugely traumatized by the time he spent with Thanos?  The guy who fought on Thor’s side to save Asgard from Hela, who fully supported Thor from then up until being killed by Thanos?  That Loki exists only to cause death, destruction and suffering?  #Yikes

1: This is not to say Loki is totally without redeeming value in the comics!  I haven’t read anything like enough Thor or Avengers comics to say that, and obviously the more recent Young Loki iteration (though himself influenced by the MCU, iirc?) is intended to be sympathetic.  But the baseline Marvel comic Loki I know of is the grinning dude in the bodysuit with the horned helmet and cowl that means you never see his hair, a grown man who delights in causing problems on purpose.  Not nearly as soulful as Tom Hiddleston’s version!

I guess in that sense, it does remind me somewhat of Horikoshi’s treatment of Shigaraki, in that no matter how sympathetic his backstory or what connections he’s made with others or what good he might be capable of doing in the world, he has to be treated as an existence that in the long run can only cause harm, that must only ever be opposed, because to do otherwise would be to upend the entire framework (both in-universe and meta-narrative) in which he exists.

It’s just a really cynical way of looking at a character—that they’re only there for protagonists to level grind against until they’re sufficiently heroic that the antagonist is no longer useful to that purpose, at which point they can be killed or put back away in a box until the story needs them again.  Again, that is what antagonists do in a story, ultimately—serve as a contrast/warning/foil/motivator/whatever all else for the protagonists—but (Marge voice) that doesn’t mean they have to say it.  And also too, it’s hardly the only purpose an antagonist can serve!  What about the ones who are ultimately saved/won over by the protagonist?  What about expanding on the worldbuilding in ways the protagonist might not be able to?  What about calling attention to some problem in the world that the protagonist might not otherwise have noticed?  What about propelling the plot in the traditional “villains act” fashion?  What about getting the best song numbers?

The reductive absolutism of the claim reminds me that, some years ago, I got really into Captain Marvel (the Shazam! version, not the Marvel one, no offense to Carol), but it was frustrating because the whole concept of him seemed so rich in potential stories but so limited by the needs of a serialized medium.  The stories I imagined you could tell with Captain Marvel/Billy Batson were so interesting in part because of where those stories would end, but in a medium like American cape comics, they can’t end, they’re never allowed to, not permanently.

That problem carries over to comic book villains—they’re virtually never allowed to really and truly change, nor can they ever count on being really and truly dead, and that means they do only ever serve to make other characters the best versions of themselves,[2] and the best they can hope for is spates of antihero/reformed villain happiness in between writers.

2: “Best versions of themselves” here meaning, of course, “best suited to the needs of the story”.  Do not ask yourself if e.g. Batman might better like the person he would be if the Joker were ever allowed to make a complete and total permanent recovery.

That’s not the case in manga, of course, where stories end and characters die, and the finality makes for a profoundly different medium.  The difference does not help BNHA’s case, however, because that means there’s no cynical marketing or medium-based explanation for why Shigaraki and the other Villains don’t get a more hopeful ending—only the cynical ideological one.  That is, Horikoshi is either too unimaginative to rewrite his setting’s status quo, too afraid of the reader response to try, or he honestly believes that the Villains deserve the endings they got.

The last one is the most harrowing, because it would mean he was willing to actively sabotage the development and conclusions of his story’s protagonists because punishing the antagonists was more important to him.  That is, the Heroes are forced to end up distinctly less than the best possible versions of themselves because if they weren't—if they were allowed to be the idealists their world needed them to be in order for it to truly change—then the Villains might have gotten anything less than the fullest, heaviest extent of retribution their author believed had to be levied against them.

Thanks for the ask, @9trixieturner6!