#the society in bnha sustains itself on villains doing crime

[kurokoros]

can't wait for bnha to go the route of naruto where the narrative repeatedly beats people over the head with the fact that the government is extremely corrupt and overall fucked up and hey actually the antagonists have a point, but then the series ends with the main character who was initially presented as an underdog but is actually the most super special because reasons becoming number one and absolutely nothing changes in the society that we were told was bad

[kurokoros]

Oh I absolutely want to know more about how much you hate hero society. I tried to argue w my fiancé about it yesterday bc I hate it so much too like they depend on children, CHILDREN, to fight most of their battles. Pls tell me ur thoughts 👉🏻👈🏻

where's the rest of the essay queen I've been having the same thoughts about hero society but I'm sure you'd put it way better than I could <3

I’m very surprised I got two asks about this lmao okay, so this might be a little all over the place, but it’s like 1am when I’m writing this and I have a lot of thoughts at the moment ANYWAY

Basically, Hero Society is based entirely on the morality being black and white, which it obviously isn’t. The series heavily relies on the terms “Hero” and “Villain”, which are extremely outdated when it comes to fiction as characters have been written with more depth and morality in fiction has shifted away from a very rigid dichotomy. The heroes are heroes because obviously they’re good, and the villains do bad things so obviously they’re villains. Obviously this isn’t actually the case, but that’s the basis for society in bnha.

This is shown from the very beginning by the protagonist. Midoriya is an unreliable narrator from the start because he worships Heroes and Hero Society. He has the utmost faith in All Might, the symbol of Hero Society, and never calls anything into question.

And then we learn about the Todoroki family. This is where my thoughts are going to get a little jumbled. I’ve been thinking a lot about them since spoilers for 290 came out, but they really are at the center of the grey morality debate, even more so than Midoriya and Shigaraki, in my opinion. Endeavor in particular is the first character that really challenges the moral greyness of Hero Society. He’s a Hero occupationally, but there’s no denying that he abused his children and his spouse. (I find it really interesting that Endeavor and Shouto weren’t really involved with the Overhaul Arc, considering the blatant parallels between Edneavor’s relationship with Shouto and Overhaul’s relationship with Eri. I’m not going to get into this right now though.)

SPOILERS FOR 290

Watching the reactions to the Dabi is Touya reveal has been really frustrating, because I think a lot of people are really falling into the trap of looking at things through bnha’s black and white morality lens, and they really shouldn’t be. But this is really where I’ve started thinking more about Hero Society itself and getting really frustrated with morality in the series.

The "Villains" in the series are made out to be monsters before they've committed any truly irredeemable crimes. Most of the Villains are victims of Society that were never saved as children, and are now considered too old to be saved or rehabilitated. The Heroes never try to help them, and somehow it's surprising when they become exactly what they've been told they are.

And this flaw in Hero Society and Heroes in general stems from their schooling. The Hero classes revolve entirely around fighting and overpowering/incapacitating their opponents. The students aren’t taught to diffuse a situation nonviolently. They aren’t taught how to talk someone down down and deescalate a situation before it gets violent. They’re taught to beat the shit out of each other because that’s what sells in the society they live in.

Hero Society perpetuates the violence they're supposed to prevent, because Heroes need Villains to exist in order to keep their jobs. Any grey morality becomes black morality because otherwise the system can’t sustain itself. 

As for Touya and Enji, people can think what they want about the recent chapter and Touya’s very public address, but it was necessary. Not only is it problematic to say that he should have kept quiet for the sake of his family (and their growth as characters), it sets up a turning point in the series. Society is going to be forced to change because it won’t be able to uphold it’s view on morality as black and white.