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Arist posted:The problem is that if her entire thing is hedonism, the solution really shouldn't be indulging that, especially when that means letting her maim you. Her issues are manifesting themselves violently and the series is framing her failure to connect due to this as a tragedy and it's really off. Yeah, she shouldn't have been demonized for the blood thing, but it feels like a lot of the concessions she's being asked to make are eminently reasonable. That's in fact the point. She's wrong to want to maim Izuku and such and he's not wrong for saying no. But she's a broken person so she sees it as denial of who she is and reacts badly to it. Understanding her requires you to help her come back from her madness so she can have healthy emotional romantic feelings again. I don't think the answer will be "let these people do what they want" but it's not going to be "ignore their plight" either. Toga is damaged, she needs help and understanding, not indulgence or denial. Toga is upset for unreasonable reasons yes, but the emotions and history behind why she feels the way she does is important to helping her instead of hurting her further and driving her more into her madness.
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Mar 18, 2022 14:39
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Lord_Magmar posted:That's in fact the point. She's wrong to want to maim Izuku and such and he's not wrong for saying no. But she's a broken person so she sees it as denial of who she is and reacts badly to it. Understanding her requires you to help her come back from her madness so she can have healthy emotional romantic feelings again. I don't think the answer will be "let these people do what they want" but it's not going to be "ignore their plight" either. Toga is damaged, she needs help and understanding, not indulgence or denial. Then it's being framed in a really bizarre way, I don't know what else to say here.
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Mar 18, 2022 14:42
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Horikoshi does not write people particularly well so this is just par for the course, really
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Mar 18, 2022 14:42
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Also, uh, maybe this manga's poster child for the problems with society shouldn't be That Girl Who Wants To Stab Everyone For No Reason, idk
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Mar 18, 2022 14:44
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Arist posted:Then it's being framed in a really bizarre way, I don't know what else to say here. What the framing is that Toga is upset at Izuku's response because of course she would be. That isn't weird, the whole thing is that Toga is broken and needs help, but doesn't know how to ask it and Izuku doesn't know how to give it. Ochako might though, given that she's been clearly thinking about Toga's questions. Toga's desire to hurt those she loves is portrayed as not okay, but her desire to be like other people, to love other people, to be human isn't. Because MHA is very much of the opinion that even villains and monsters are/were people at one point. Except again, the most vile like AfO and the Doctor. Arist posted:Also, uh, maybe this manga's poster child for the problems with society shouldn't be That Girl Who Wants To Stab Everyone For No Reason, idk I mean her reason is an emotional breakdown leading to a form of madness influenced by her quirk. Due to her parents abusing her emotionally until she snapped by telling her she needs to be the perfect daughter and not who she really is. That she lashed out and over-corrected is the point. You can't just deny and degrade people for who they are, you need to understand and help them or they will become the monsters you are afraid of. It's really, really standard Marvel/X-Men stuff except instead of 10% of the population being mutants, 90% of the population have quirks and society still doesn't treat them properly if they're "too different". Toga wants to stab people because her emotional responses are all hosed up due to trauma and abuse, she doesn't know how to appropriately be attracted to someone because of it. In a nicer world she would've probably gotten some support and counselling. Maybe she'd have met Vlad (the homeroom teacher for Class B) who also has a blood quirk and he could've helped her. She'd have made an amazing actor/body-double for celebrities for example. That she wants to stab everyone is a result of her not being helped to handle her quirk at a young age and instead repressed and abused, it's not meant to be okay that she wants to stab people, because if she'd been treated properly originally she wouldn't want to do that. Lord_Magmar fucked around with this message at 14:51 on Mar 18, 2022 |
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Mar 18, 2022 14:46
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Yeah, there's reasons for it. It's still dumb.
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Mar 18, 2022 14:58
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This series died with Twice. The general writing doesn't work anymore because we only have Shiggy, Dabi and Toga left. Shiggy has stopped being a character and is mega-Hitler anyway so he has to die. Dabi loves being a fucker and could at best spend the rest of his life in a heat resistant cell. Toga doesn't work as has been discussed. So we're both sympathetic to our villains but also everyone left alive need to die or be locked up for life at this point. They can't both be sympathetic and also imposing end game villains! at least not the way it's written here. Basing your writing on the reader having genuine sympathy for your characters does not work unless they're written really well. It's like if you played Undertale and didn't like any of the characters. The game doesn't work because it relies on you giving a poo poo. Brandfarlig fucked around with this message at 15:11 on Mar 18, 2022 |
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Mar 18, 2022 15:09
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I'm not really seeing the contradictions here. The whole point is that they're struggling to understand eachother, and it's pretty clear that Toga's earlier entirely correct questions about what Twice being straight up murdered means are still in play and have not been forgotten. The likely point of this whole fight isn't going to be to murder Toga but probably for Toga and Uraraka to end up understanding eachother before Toga is ultimately defeated. There is literally nothing about this that doesn't make sense from everything presented in the series so far or just from standard shonen writing. It's like people are just looking for stuff to complain about. Star was something handled in a dumb way. This is perfectly straightforward. Like if you don't see this is gonna be Uraraka's version of Deku saving Shigaraki I dunno. Toga thinks heroes don't see her as a human being and really she's kinda right; Uraraka is going to be a good hero and actually try to save her in comparison to the supercop fujobait who murdered a dude in child blood because he was "too dangerous".
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Mar 18, 2022 15:22
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I think the problem that keeps coming up when talking about the villains is that besides spinner they all really want to hurt people. Twice you could believe would've been totally fine not killing people as long as he had a family that accepted him and that's what gets him some slack in comparison to people like shiggy and dabi who are fully aware they're hurting people and like that they're hurting people. The idea with Toga is supposed to be, I assume, that she genuinely doesn't understand that her version of love is harmful to other people, but I don't think the manga did nearly as good a job at conveying that as it did with Twice.
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Mar 18, 2022 15:46
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TheHan posted:I think the problem that keeps coming up when talking about the villains is that besides spinner they all really want to hurt people. Twice you could believe would've been totally fine not killing people as long as he had a family that accepted him and that's what gets him some slack in comparison to people like shiggy and dabi who are fully aware they're hurting people and like that they're hurting people. The idea with Toga is supposed to be, I assume, that she genuinely doesn't understand that her version of love is harmful to other people, but I don't think the manga did nearly as good a job at conveying that as it did with Twice. In counterpoint, Twice is just as aware that he's hurting people as Shiggy and Dabi, and so long as it's for his family he'd do it no matter what it was. That's just as dangerous as Toga's form of "love" and that's why I don't have an issue with her picking up the flag of "society has failed this person, and now they're dangerous because of their breakdown due to society, this does not mean you let them do bad things, it does mean you should try to help them no longer be broken, and change society so it doesn't break more people in the same way".
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Mar 18, 2022 16:08
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On a vaguely related note my jump app just buzzed and it looks like they accidentally pushed chapters early- thankfully for them the app also broke so nothing is loading. Nevermind- I guess the early releases were intentional but the app breaking wasn't.
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Mar 18, 2022 16:13
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Fabricated posted:On a vaguely related note my jump app just buzzed and it looks like they accidentally pushed chapters early- thankfully for them the app also broke so nothing is loading. Yeah weird. It looks like a bunch of stuff
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Mar 18, 2022 16:15
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Lord_Magmar posted:In counterpoint, Twice is just as aware that he's hurting people as Shiggy and Dabi, and so long as it's for his family he'd do it no matter what it was. That's just as dangerous as Toga's form of "love" and that's why I don't have an issue with her picking up the flag of "society has failed this person, and now they're dangerous because of their breakdown due to society, this does not mean you let them do bad things, it does mean you should try to help them no longer be broken, and change society so it doesn't break more people in the same way". The problem is that Twice is the best written example of this and he's dead. The only part of Toga I gave a poo poo about is her relationship with Twice.
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Mar 18, 2022 16:18
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Brandfarlig posted:The problem is that Twice is the best written example of this and he's dead. The only part of Toga I gave a poo poo about is her relationship with Twice. Well that sounds like a you problem, I gave a poo poo about Toga because her backstory is pretty depressing. The why can't you just be normal stuff is an experience I definitely understand, not from my parents but from schools who didn't care to cater for the needs of someone with ADD/Dysgraphia, and I ultimately went to a good private school where I did end up getting the support I needed, but I can't imagine how awful school would have been if I didn't have the support I had for my non-standard emotional/developmental needs.
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Mar 18, 2022 16:35
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Official translation is out early https://www.viz.com/shonenjump/my-hero-academia-chapter-348/chapter/24171?action=read https://mangaplus.shueisha.co.jp/viewer/1013007 
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Mar 18, 2022 16:50
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Lord_Magmar posted:Well that sounds like a you problem, I gave a poo poo about Toga because her backstory is pretty depressing. The why can't you just be normal stuff is an experience I definitely understand, not from my parents but from schools who didn't care to cater for the needs of someone with ADD/Dysgraphia, and I ultimately went to a good private school where I did end up getting the support I needed, but I can't imagine how awful school would have been if I didn't have the support I had for my non-standard emotional/developmental needs. i agree with your take here fully, nothing about this arc or what's intended to be conveyed seems confusing to me. do i think it's kinda bland and uninteresting? sorta, but the themes are very clear. i think it's a hard jump for some readers to make for "we should still want to practice kindness to people that are interested in hurting other people" though. and i'd largely agree that you one really shouldn't indulge violence in others if they reason themselves into a certain form of hate, but we've kinda been beaten over the head with "these guys are not remotely mentally stable, they're being manipulated by a demigod, and view one another as the only respite from a cruel world", so i don't think this is the same as saying "we should be chill with nazis" or whatever real world analogue someone might come up with
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Mar 18, 2022 16:55
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Lord_Magmar posted:Well that sounds like a you problem, I gave a poo poo about Toga because her backstory is pretty depressing. The why can't you just be normal stuff is an experience I definitely understand, not from my parents but from schools who didn't care to cater for the needs of someone with ADD/Dysgraphia, and I ultimately went to a good private school where I did end up getting the support I needed, but I can't imagine how awful school would have been if I didn't have the support I had for my non-standard emotional/developmental needs. It is, I'm only here due to sunk cost. I understand what Hori is going for but it's not working for me since the characters I liked don't exist anymore. Shiggy isn't Shiggy, AFO isn't being smug in the shadows anymore, he just punches things hard and ignores rules. Twice is dead and Deku and Ochako have never been that interesting. Brandfarlig fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Mar 18, 2022 |
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Mar 18, 2022 17:00
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MHA I understand the theme being pushed here, but I guess I'm not sure what way out I see at this point. Toga is a broken person who was failed by society, and what she became isn't her fault. The problem is that she's an insanely dangerous mass murderer with dozens of kills under her belt. Even if you approach her with nothing but understanding and sympathy, and even if she breaks down and shows completely willing(which would be weird, because Twice's death should have basically destroyed any potential hope for her to be willing to trust society again ever), what that's going to look like is her being committed and effectively imprisoned with enforced therapy for an arbitrarily long period of time because she's so dangerous and unstable that she can't really be trusted to not harm others or herself without supervision, even if you're willing to overlook her long, long, long history of violent murders and assistance to other violent murders. It's the same problem as Shigaraki, where an ending where he gets "saved" is either "he dies" or "he ends up imprisoned forever because of what he did and what he could do in the future". Hell, you can't even use the potential "Shiggy gets depowered" idea for Toga because Toga's murder prowess isn't quirk-based.
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Mar 18, 2022 17:09
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Kanos posted:MHA I understand the theme being pushed here, but I guess I'm not sure what way out I see at this point. Toga is a broken person who was failed by society, and what she became isn't her fault. The problem is that she's an insanely dangerous mass murderer with dozens of kills under her belt. Even if you approach her with nothing but understanding and sympathy, and even if she breaks down and shows completely willing(which would be weird, because Twice's death should have basically destroyed any potential hope for her to be willing to trust society again ever), what that's going to look like is her being committed and effectively imprisoned with enforced therapy for an arbitrarily long period of time because she's so dangerous and unstable that she can't really be trusted to not harm others or herself without supervision, even if you're willing to overlook her long, long, long history of violent murders and assistance to other violent murders. And for me them being imprisoned and helped via therapy whilst the society that failed them is fixed so it doesn't fail others like them is the good ending. I don't think they should get to go free, I just don't think they should be killed or treated as inhuman monsters for being crushed under the pressure of society. Do we even know how many kills Toga has actually made, because she's only been a killer for like, a year at this point surely. Given she's not meant to be much older than the 1A class and started killing in high school. Which is not a mitigating factor, but I don't think she's got "dozens" of kills under her belt either. Basically though I think it's clear the result of "saving" Toga/Shigaraki is not letting them go free or redeeming them, but getting them in a place where a) they can't hurt other people and b) can get help for their trauma and problems such that c) eventually they can be rehabilitated. In comparison, I don't think there's any saving All for One or the Doctor at this point, and the narrative clearly treats them as actual monsters compared to Shigaraki being a child raised into maddened nihilism and hatred and Toga being abused into hedonistic insanity. Twice being killed is treated as the wrong result for his situation, Toga at the very minimum is going to end up at the "correct" result. Which is society being fixed so that no-one else ends up like her again whilst she gets the help she needs (and is imprisoned for the crimes she committed). Rehabilitation as the goal of prison instead of punishment. Look at Dragon Ball, Vegeta is by far a more storied killer than anyone in MHA and he ends up the funny quirky uncle/serious hero. It'll also be more earned than anything to do with Orochimaru and Sasuke being free post-war in Naruto.
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Mar 18, 2022 17:16
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Lord_Magmar posted:And for me them being imprisoned and helped via therapy whilst the society that failed them is fixed so it doesn't fail others like them is the good ending. I don't think they should get to go free, I just don't think they should be killed or treated as inhuman monsters for being crushed under the pressure of society. Do we even know how many kills Toga has actually made, because she's only been a killer for like, a year at this point surely. Given she's not meant to be much older than the 1A class and started killing in high school. Which is not a mitigating factor, but I don't think she's got "dozens" of kills under her belt either. I agree with you in principle, but I seriously don't think the average reader of the manga is going to be satisfied with "indefinite imprisonment" as a "good ending, we saved Toga" result, because while it's necessary it's also extremely bleak. Dragon Ball and Naruto are both not great comparisons to draw on. Dragon Ball operates on flexible morality where all crimes are automatically forgiven and forgotten the moment that you stop directly attacking the protagonists. Vegeta being a planet-busting genocide participant simply isn't something the characters care about. Naruto doesn't work because Naruto is about an entire society of ninjas who fight and murder and do espionage to each other on a constant basis. Sasuke's crimes were primarily being a political dissident(his actual successful kill record is abysmally low) and Orochimaru is a monster who experiments on children but the entire society has already enshrined training children to be murderous magic-using child soldiers so he's not really that far beyond the pale to begin with.
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Mar 18, 2022 17:30
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Kanos posted:I agree with you in principle, but I seriously don't think the average reader of the manga is going to be satisfied with "indefinite imprisonment" as a "good ending, we saved Toga" result, because while it's necessary it's also extremely bleak. Yeah I get this and I don't really have a response besides the story is working for me right now, and that's good enough to me. Although on the comparison point Orochimaru is treated as a monster in universe for the experiments they do on children, and in fact as beyond the pale (part of why they're allowed to go free is they are not doing those experiments anymore, instead they're cloning themself now. In the end I find the current plot of MHA still pretty engaging and I want to see if it sticks the landing on what I've been enjoying or not. So I sometimes find the general emotion in the thread a bit frustrating because I respect that people can have different responses/experiences, but the story certainly seems pretty straightforward to me and doing things I like so far. Lord_Magmar fucked around with this message at 17:36 on Mar 18, 2022 |
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Mar 18, 2022 17:34
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Regardless of my feelings on the state of the series, it's funny to me to see on the same page of posts people upset that noted mass-murderer Twice was assassinated and also saying of Toga, his closest friend, "well if she's going to stab people to death like a hedonistic murderer she should just be dealt with". Toga's story is a continuation of Twice's and an open acknowledgement that what happened to Twice was both wrong and the most efficient, easiest, default solution that society has for that specific problem. Being truly heroic would be rising above that somehow and getting these people the help and support they need so that this stops happening.
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Mar 18, 2022 18:20
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Yo why didn't they just teleport her directly to jail or to this island by herself and pick her up later?
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Mar 18, 2022 18:43
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I'm not saying they should just merc Toga at all, I'm saying that personally, I've never liked her character very much and the way it's trying to drum up sympathy for her isn't working for me. All the pieces of her arc are there, but the end result feels very confused. This is a character who wants to stab people for no reason. That's not even, like, a byproduct or externality of a different want, it is her active desire and goal. She doesn't even seem to understand that most people would prefer not to die, despite currently being in mourning herself. Obviously she shouldn't die, I don't believe in capital punishment, but these are serious mental issues the series doesn't meaningfully engage with. I think the trauma angle is fine, it never super resonated with me (particularly because I don't like the tinge of essentialism in the whole "blood quirk made me weird" thing), but I get it. The real problem, I think, is that Deku's "condemnation" doesn't feel particularly... strong? It's a pretty weak moment to build her arc off of. I'm honestly kind of wondering if that's because Horikoshi doesn't want Deku to actually harshly condemn Toga or cause serious anguish. Either way, I don't feel like I'm meaningfully inside of Toga's head here.
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Mar 18, 2022 18:43
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Arist posted:I'm not saying they should just merc Toga at all, I'm saying that personally, I've never liked her character very much and the way it's trying to drum up sympathy for her isn't working for me. All the pieces of her arc are there, but the end result feels very confused. This is a character who wants to stab people for no reason. That's not even, like, a byproduct or externality of a different want, it is her active desire and goal. She doesn't even seem to understand that most people would prefer not to die, despite currently being in mourning herself. Obviously she shouldn't die, I don't believe in capital punishment, but these are serious mental issues the series doesn't meaningfully engage with. The thing is she didn't want to stab people originally, her desire to stab people is born from her initial interests/desires being denied (the fascination with blood and desire to drink it) combined with emotional abuse until she snapped leading her to over-correct. If she'd gotten the proper support, she would not want to stab people. Deku's condemnation isn't strong because he's not the sort of guy to be harsh to people, look at how he's treated Bakugo even when he does give voice to his issues with the explosive bully. Or Endeavour for that matter. You're not really supposed to get inside Toga's head, she's legitimately not well. You are supposed to recognise she's not well and want her to get help whilst also wanting her to not be in a position to hurt people. She's a villain, but she's still a person. Compared to Shigaraki right now (who is more monster than man depending on where they take his plot) or the Doctor (who is just the worst, like legitimately he's the worst person in the story and the only one close is AfO) or on that note AfO (who is an immortal narcissistic super-villain). Toga's interest in blood doesn't make her a monster, and the essentialist argument isn't quite correct because the issue isn't that she's got those interests, but that the response was repression and abuse instead of open communication and working through her mentality with parents/a proper therapist. Vlad King barely comes up, but I'm sure he's dealt with at least similar problems due to his blood control quirk and he's a hero so heroic he gets to be one of the teachers at UA. Toga didn't need to be what she became, she was made that way by her parents is the entire point. Toga was told why can't you be normal for years and snapped by deciding that obviously it is her parents are wrong and that her actively pursuing her every worst hedonistic desire is "normal" because being their idea of normal made her miserable.
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Mar 18, 2022 18:52
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The thing that bothers me is that Toga is trying to stab Deku and drink his blood, which is her idea of making out, I guess. Ignoring the fact that she's focusing on this instead of her buddy Twice being killed, she's essentially going "Let me do something to you nonconsensually" to Deku, and then getting mad when she's told no. Which is not really sympathetic!
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Mar 18, 2022 18:52
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Blueberry Pancakes posted:The thing that bothers me is that Toga is trying to stab Deku and drink his blood, which is her idea of making out, I guess. Ignoring the fact that she's focusing on this instead of her buddy Twice being killed, she's essentially going "Let me do something to you nonconsensually" to Deku, and then getting mad when she's told no. Which is not really sympathetic! Yes the sympathetic bit is her backstory, not her current actions. That's not really hard to understand. Twice's backstory is sympathetic, his current life as a criminal killer who provides unwavering support to a man who wants to destroy at least all of Japan is not. Dabi's backstory with Endeavour is sympathetic, Dabi's desire to murder his little brother is not. You can have a past that is sympathetic and it doesn't excuse your current actions. Nor is MHA trying to. MHA is saying these are people too, and they need help, but that help shouldn't come at the cost of others lives. Like, literally if Toga hadn't had an abusive childhood she would have a better handle on her attraction to people and social skills. That's not some shocking fact that's just how her character works, she's the example of someone broken by society and thus unable to healthily act upon her desires and feelings.
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Mar 18, 2022 18:55
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If I'm not meant to actually understand Toga's feelings because she's just soooooooo craaaaaaaazy (which is a really gross way to handle characters with mental issues and also pretty sexist) then the only thing I can feel here is pity, which feels just entirely wrong for what this seems to be going for and what you actually seem to be advocating should happen.
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Mar 18, 2022 18:58
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Blueberry Pancakes posted:The thing that bothers me is that Toga is trying to stab Deku and drink his blood, which is her idea of making out, I guess. Ignoring the fact that she's focusing on this instead of her buddy Twice being killed, she's essentially going "Let me do something to you nonconsensually" to Deku, and then getting mad when she's told no. Which is not really sympathetic! I think Twice being killed is exactly why Toga has been focusing so much on Uraraka and Deku after the war, because she's desperately hoping that they'll be different from the rest of the heroes that killed her friend.
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Mar 18, 2022 19:01
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Toga is pretty down for anything involving blood. She only seemed to really mind getting her rear end kicked when it seemed like she was gonna die and part of it could've been her far more negative reaction to Curious basically telling her she wasn't "normal". She crawled into a shed to basically die afterwards and her almost final thoughts were about how being on the verge of death let her become even closer to the people she loved.
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Mar 18, 2022 19:02
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Professor Wayne posted:Yo why didn't they just teleport her directly to jail or to this island by herself and pick her up later? Yeah also, I know this is another personal thing but I struggle to buy Toga as a threat on this level. She's literally just a kid. Her quirk makes her dangerous in chaotic situations and for surprise attacks but in a head on fight it really feels like she would be clobbered. Stuffing her roster full of generic nomu to pad out the fight is an alright solution but it just feels like her personality and quirk are better suited for a more personal conflict and not a big splashy hero fight. Arist posted:If I'm not meant to actually understand Toga's feelings because she's just soooooooo craaaaaaaazy (which is a really gross way to handle characters with mental issues and also pretty sexist) then the only thing I can feel here is pity, which feels just entirely wrong for what this seems to be going for and what you actually seem to be advocating should happen. I can kind of see what the story's going for by giving Toga a totally upside down morality than what's socially acceptable. We're not meant to think it's ok she wants to do this to people (even though I feel very strongly that part of the appeal of the character is supposed to be that she's another bloodthirsty anime stalker gf which super sucks and blows apart the whole concept), but feel sympathy that she didn't have the love and support to learn how to process her emotions in a healthy way. that being said I do agree that Deku didn't give a strong condemnation at all. Even weaker than Ochako's "hey. stop hurting people" Deku just sounded confused by the situation before leaving.
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Mar 18, 2022 19:08
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Arist posted:If I'm not meant to actually understand Toga's feelings because she's just soooooooo craaaaaaaazy (which is a really gross way to handle characters with mental issues and also pretty sexist) then the only thing I can feel here is pity, which feels just entirely wrong for what this seems to be going for and what you actually seem to be advocating should happen. You're meant to understand that what Toga feels and how she responds to those feelings are separate. Toga wants acceptance and love and to feel close to other people, because her parents were lovely and emotionally abusive and tried to force her to ignore her neuro-divergence and "just be normal" until she had a breakdown and lashed out in the worst way possible before running off. She doesn't know how to have proper emotional connections/responses because of her history. Toga's desire to be seen as a person is natural, because her childhood had her parents seeing her as a monster. Toga's desire to kill people is not natural, and something that has arisen from her breakdown. It's not that she's soooooo crazy you can't understand her feelings, it's that her feelings are distorted by her issues into this. Instead of, I dunno, wanting to kiss Izuku and maybe drink a little blood from a blood-bank or a consenting person. That's the whole deal with Izuku's danger sense, he can't detect malicious intent in Toga's actions because the things she does she does out of a legitimate love for the person, she's just got a really bad way of expressing that attraction due to the lovely way her parents treated her and raised her alongside a breakdown. Fabricated posted:Toga is pretty down for anything involving blood. She only seemed to really mind getting her rear end kicked when it seemed like she was gonna die and part of it could've been her far more negative reaction to Curious basically telling her she wasn't "normal". She crawled into a shed to basically die afterwards and her almost final thoughts were about how being on the verge of death let her become even closer to the people she loved. This is a good point, Toga wants to be "normal" but doesn't want that to involve repressing her desires, because her parents were atrocious to her. She never learnt an acceptable outlet for her desires to drink blood and that combined with her (probably accidentally) killing her first crush has caused her to be full on hedonistic in her pursuits, which is unhealthy and is being treated as such. But the origins of these desires being emotional abuse as a child doesn't stop being a thing. Just the same as Twice's backstory of falling through the cracks of society and ultimately traumatising himself via metaphorical suicide never stopped being a part of why he is the way he is and responds to things the way he did.
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Mar 18, 2022 19:11
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Arist posted:If I'm not meant to actually understand Toga's feelings because she's just soooooooo craaaaaaaazy (which is a really gross way to handle characters with mental issues and also pretty sexist) then the only thing I can feel here is pity, which feels just entirely wrong for what this seems to be going for and what you actually seem to be advocating should happen. You're absolutely meant to understand her feelings. She arrived at this because she was treated like an aberrant freak her whole life and her friend Twice was murdered by heroes. Toga doesn't have to keep saying that it's for Twice, since it's already been established that she is upset about that and expecting to be executed just like him. I am sure Twice will come up because she still has some of his blood. She's lashing out against people and society who have misunderstood her and put her down in the only way that has ever worked. Even within this chapter she seems to express that her "feelings" for Deku stem from some moment in the past where someone similar did *something to/for her* that will like be extrapolated on in coming chapters. Nothing about her motivation is subtext, it's all quite overt. You should absolutely feel pity for her in the same way everyone seems to have felt pity for Twice, it's the same thing. The main thing I'll agree on is that the yandere act does it a disservice and feels a bit too much like pandering. Rhonne posted:I think Twice being killed is exactly why Toga has been focusing so much on Uraraka and Deku after the war, because she's desperately hoping that they'll be different from the rest of the heroes that killed her friend. It's precisely this. She was so disappointed in Uraraka and has retreated even further into murder-mode because she was looking for some sort of understanding or acknowledgement that what happened was hosed up and instead got the cop routine.
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Mar 18, 2022 19:17
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The distance and remove you're saying is the point is the entire problem. If I can't share in her emotions so I can feel legitimate empathy here, why even give me her trauma flashback in the first place? Why not just have her exposit her deal like Dabi did? I want to feel things and the manga is stifling that. Also, yes, part of the character's whole premise and appeal is the lovely "anime stalker gf" thing which suuuuuucks and undermines a lot of this conversation. Arist fucked around with this message at 19:20 on Mar 18, 2022 |
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Mar 18, 2022 19:18
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Just to be clear, I was not the one who said we're not meant to understand Toga's thoughts and emotions:Lord_Magmar posted:You're not really supposed to get inside Toga's head, she's legitimately not well. You are supposed to recognise she's not well and want her to get help whilst also wanting her to not be in a position to hurt people. Anyway: Shere posted:You're absolutely meant to understand her feelings. She arrived at this because she was treated like an aberrant freak her whole life and her friend Twice was murdered by heroes. Toga doesn't have to keep saying that it's for Twice, since it's already been established that she is upset about that and expecting to be executed just like him. I am sure Twice will come up because she still has some of his blood. She's lashing out against people and society who have misunderstood her and put her down in the only way that has ever worked. Even within this chapter she seems to express that her "feelings" for Deku stem from some moment in the past where someone similar did *something to/for her* that will like be extrapolated on in coming chapters. Nothing about her motivation is subtext, it's all quite overt. "Pity" is categorically different than "empathy."
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Mar 18, 2022 19:22
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Okay I personally consider getting inside someone's head and understanding their feelings to be different things. I don't want to be inside Toga's head because it's not a comfortable headspace to be in, I do understand and have empathy for and sympathy for her past because her past loving sucked. Her current feelings are being presented in a terrifying way, and that's not somewhere I want to be inside. But the stuff in her past, of people looking at her and asking why she can't be a "normal" girl, why is she different, why does she have such weird interests and hobbies, why is she not the same as everyone else. That's entirely understandable I think and plenty of people experience it, they just don't have a) super powers or b) have a mental breakdown over emotionally abusive parents so bad they become serial killers. I guess from a certain perspective I have sympathy but not empathy for Toga's situation. But I feel like I have both, I just don't think I need to be inside the head of an emotionally damaged young girl whose responses to her feelings are clearly messed up and jumbled from any form of healthy expression to do so.
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Mar 18, 2022 19:25
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I'm not going to get into the pedantry of the difference between empathy and pity, both apply.
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Mar 18, 2022 19:26
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Shere posted:I'm not literally going to get into the pedantry of the difference between empathy and pity, both apply. It's not pedantry, this conversation is, on some level, about the distinction. Like, I think what the story wants me to feel regarding Toga is some form of understanding, even though the story is very confused when it comes to actually invoking this. Empathy, or at least sympathy. Compare that to someone like Dabi, who doesn't get flashbacks from his perspective, whose deal was (badly) hidden for so long, who seems to be an outright sociopath. Even when we get his flashbacks they're from the perspective of the other Todorokis. We're not meant to see from his perspective, it's categorically rejected, but his life is still acknowledged as a tragedy. That's pity. Saying the distinction is meaningless is saying there's no difference in how the manga wants us to see those characters.
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Mar 18, 2022 19:37
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It's pendantry
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Mar 18, 2022 20:31
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Speaking of distance, Ochako gave her a literal slap on the wrist so why isn't she shipped off to deep space right now
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Mar 18, 2022 20:59
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