|
Nessus posted:They have a synthetic de-Quirking factor, and they even have the capacity to create completely functional synthetic Quirks. You can make an ethical argument regarding how foundational a Quirk is to your identity, but I think Shigaraki's disintegration Quirk was given to him, wasn't it? So the original guy with Disintegration is probably long dead. This might not even work on him specifically due to all the genetic tinkering that was done to him, depending on what the hell he meant by "it's not a quirk" when he was generating infinite invincible hands.
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2023 21:18
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 28, 2024 18:06 |
|
|
Kanos posted:Melon was an absurdly evil Joker knockoff introduced to be the main antagonist of the last arc of Beastars. He did things like sexual assault people, murder, and cannibalism for no reason other than the shits of it. The manga dropped an 11th hour explanation that the reason he was a murderous psychopath was that his mom and dad were really big jerks and even had his dad show up to be a sock puppet for everyone to yell at, absolving Melon of all agency for the many horrific things he did. The story ends with him being put in jail and looking at the camera and grinning while reading through a giant pile of fan mail people sent him. You forgot horse batman trying to help him so he doesn't die and he gets rewarded with a bite to the neck and almost dies himself.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2023 21:18
|
|
|
Kanos posted:Okay, so what's the solution that makes any kind of narrative sense? The entire population of Japan is so inspired by Deku's example that they all agree to trust in the 11th hour conversion of this superpowered demigod who destroyed their country? I mean the narrative answer is "He is not forgiven and suffers consequences and hatred for what he did, but because he has been rescued he is able to try to make a better life than the one he had because someone reached out their hand to him." Which is more satisfying narratively than "He dies and Deku goes "I was a great hero because I got through to him at the last second before he flew into space to stop the Asteroid For One from falling onto the planet" Like I mentioned it earlier but Final Fantasy 14 has a plot like this. The main villain of the first arc of the story is a fascist dictator who wants to take over the land with the aid of a god-powered weapon. He is defeated but survives and ends up in the care of people whose lives he ruined. He ends up being spared and gradually discovering the horror and consequences of what he did and the inherent flaws in his worldview and the ending of his story is that he's dedicated his life to rebuilding and protecting a land he originally conquered. He's under the watchful eye of someone, but he's actively working to improve things for the people he harmed even if some of them just wish he'd kill himself instead.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2023 21:18
|
|
|
Onmi posted:No, we see that the First tried to reach out to AFO and AFO rejected him, gleefully. And it's a gigantic jump from "Extend kindness and understanding" to "Absolutely do not kill them! EVER! FOR ANY REASON!" The theme of the story is that you should always try to understand and help people not that people are precious special little wonders of kindness who can do no wrong and are as pure as unblemished snow. Deku didn't kill Muscular because he didn't want or need to. That is Deku's choice. He doesn't say "I pity you Muscular, I see the good you are." He asks if Muscular is all that he is, something Muscular confirms, and then Deku one-shots him. whoa there, i never said the theme is every life is a precious little wonder of kindness lol, it's just that heroes shouldn't kill their villains. cause y'now, "villains" are often just disadvantaged people rejected by society. This is made SUPER clear, and we're shown countless examples. including, for some reason, all for one. Lord_Magmar posted:Because the story doesn't say it's heroic to kill All for One. The victory was withstanding his maddened assault, Bakugo survived the great demon king of Japan and was still standing. oh i'm not knocking bagukou (tho i do think he killed that baby (which i'm honestly fine with, i mean it's bakugou) ), but all those other heroes were for sure trying to kill All for One. Even if AfO put the gun to his head it doesn't absolve them from pulling the trigger. Which would be fine! AfO loving sucks. But we're in the story where you save even the reprehensible people, and for some reason that doesn't apply to all for one.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2023 21:26
|
|
|
Wanna see how Deku would've handled baby AfO.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2023 21:30
|
|
|
ImpAtom posted:I mean the narrative answer is "He is not forgiven and suffers consequences and hatred for what he did, but because he has been rescued he is able to try to make a better life than the one he had because someone reached out their hand to him." Which is more satisfying narratively than "He dies and Deku goes "I was a great hero because I got through to him at the last second before he flew into space to stop the Asteroid For One from falling onto the planet" In that scenario, you can render the fascist conquering dictator relatively harmless and easy to guard by taking away his god-powered weapon, at which point he becomes a normal dude, which means that it's feasible to not put him in Forever Jail or kill him and be able to let him rehabilitate without risking everything. In this scenario, the person themself is a god-powered weapon who cannot be stopped even with the concerted effort of dozens of your strongest heroes, and only the One Specific Chosen One has the power to even feasibly contest him in a desperate struggle. His freedom and/or redemption arc would be based entirely on trusting his word, which is the inherent stumbling block here. Incidentally this is a common issue with morality plays via superhero comics because a person having inherent lethal superpowers dramatically changes the dynamic of treating them humanely while also mitigating the harm they can cause relative to when you're talking about normal rear end human beings.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2023 21:30
|
|
|
Even if you took away his quirks, he's still genetically modified to be as strong as All Might and can also just naturally grow infinite hands.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2023 21:34
|
|
|
Kanos posted:In that scenario, you can render the fascist conquering dictator relatively harmless and easy to guard by taking away his god-powered weapon, at which point he becomes a normal dude, which means that it's feasible to not put him in Forever Jail or kill him and be able to let him rehabilitate without risking everything. I think this may just be an agree-to-disagree thing at this point, since this ends up going into fundamental philosophical issues rather than the comic. Which can be fun to discuss but probably not in the thread for superhero punchmans.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2023 21:37
|
|
|
ImpAtom posted:I think this may just be an agree-to-disagree thing at this point, since this ends up going into fundamental philosophical issues rather than the comic. Which can be fun to discuss but probably not in the thread for superhero punchmans. My issues with Shigaraki being able to find redemption and have it be satisfying are heavily entwined with the comic's specific world setup, though. We already have a lot of good examples IRL of how to rehabilitate criminals and treat them humanely, but harm reduction and prevention is a huge part of that process and unfortunately IRL methods of that don't necessarily work on people with superpowers. Hell, your issues with how to deal with Shigaraki are also heavily entwined with the comic's specific world setup. The only reason why putting him in prison is extremely undesirable is that we've seen the only viable way to restrain someone with AfO-level powers in this setting and it's a pretty terrible existence. But if you'd prefer to drop it, that's fine.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2023 21:47
|
|
|
if they could rejigger eri's serum to heavily suppress quirks then it would probably remove the need to keep this world's criminals in a 2x2 metal box for the rest of their lives
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2023 21:51
|
|
|
Oxxidation posted:if they could rejigger eri's serum to heavily suppress quirks then it would probably remove the need to keep this world's criminals in a 2x2 metal box for the rest of their lives This is a potential solution but it has some very uncomfortable ramifications regarding bodily autonomy.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2023 21:57
|
|
|
Kanos posted:This is a potential solution but it has some very uncomfortable ramifications regarding bodily autonomy.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2023 22:06
|
|
|
Kanos posted:My issues with Shigaraki being able to find redemption and have it be satisfying are heavily entwined with the comic's specific world setup, though. We already have a lot of good examples IRL of how to rehabilitate criminals and treat them humanely, but harm reduction and prevention is a huge part of that process and unfortunately IRL methods of that don't necessarily work on people with superpowers. Well, I say that because at the end of the day I don't agree with putting people in prison for potential future crimes and I don't agree with the idea of prison-as-punishment. I think the only valid reason for imprisonment is with the direct intention of rehabilitation or if someone is an active and ongoing threat to others. However rehabilitation needs to include some way of eventually interacting with the outside world again, especially if that rehabilitation includes showing actual remorse. Super Hero Doom Jail is just worse than that and (in the theory that we're discussing a genuinely repenting guy who surrendered) does no good to anyone. The series as a whole is pretty blunt about the idea that those who seek help should be able to find it and those who are not helped are a tragedy, and the only way to put yourself past that is to show no remorse, seek no redemption, and continue to hurt others. I don't think the story lands at all if the end result of helping people who have done something bad is them all conveniently dying in the process because that isn't what the series is, and people having to live with the consequences of their terrible actions is more interesting on a narrative level. AFO is, as presented in the series, a tragedy but also an unrepentant villain who slapped away every possible offer for help, kindness or affection with a smile on his face. Shigaraki, for whatever his other flaws, still thinks of others and Deku genuinely sees him as someone screaming for help. That's the key difference and part of what could make Deku a better hero than All-Might, because he continues to reach out to help where even All-Might would have given up. I also just don't agree with the whole "If there's a 1% chance we must take it as an absolute certainty" thing when it comes to risk of someone doing bad, which is the other fundamental thing I can't get past. So "but if he goes bad again" just doesn't work for me because I personally just can't accept that argument, even in a comic booky "but he could destroy the world" way. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 22:17 on Dec 29, 2023 |
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2023 22:13
|
|
|
Kanos posted:This is a potential solution but it has some very uncomfortable ramifications regarding bodily autonomy. how is that any meaningfully different than handcuffing someone?
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2023 22:15
|
|
|
SKULL.GIF posted:how is that any meaningfully different than handcuffing someone? There's a difference between handcuffs and cutting off someone's arms. As presented in-story people's quirks are a fundamental part of who they are. Like you could use an anti-quirk thing on Toga but that is significantly different to her than cuffing her hands. That's in fact a major part of the story, that quirks are a part of people, and rejecting or dehumanizing them because of their quirks is a bad thing!
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2023 22:18
|
|
|
lol i think editing someone's dna goes a little beyond a handcuff, though since they can also restore quirks you could conceivably give the quirks back once they've been reformed. "we build a better prison" is a pretty depressing answer to deku's dilemma, but i'm sure he'll enact progressive prison reform off screen.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2023 22:24
|
|
|
Personally I think it's a waste if people aren't dying or being killed every panel. MHA world's been way too soft on crime. The Punisher was right.   
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2023 22:31
|
|
|
ImpAtom posted:AFO is, as presented in the series, a tragedy but also an unrepentant villain who slapped away every possible offer for help, kindness or affection with a smile on his face. Shigaraki, for whatever his other flaws, still thinks of others and Deku genuinely sees him as someone screaming for help. That's the key difference and part of what could make Deku a better hero than All-Might, because he continues to reach out to help where even All-Might would have given up. I really don't think the manga has done a good idea of selling this point at all. Shigaraki doesn't think of others in a positive way and has only ever viewed them as tools to help him get what he wants - functionally all of the actual camaraderie in the League of Villains came from Twice, Compress, Spinner, and Toga. Once Shiggy committed to the "make me a superhuman" plan he's barely spared two seconds of thought for any of them while they all suffered and died on their own, and a single panel of "gee wonder what spinner's up to" doesn't change that. It's functionally equivalent to saying AfO thinks about others because he's obsessed with controlling his dead brother.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2023 23:01
|
|
|
Hot take but if someone had gun arms in real life I would hope that somebody would cut off the gun arms
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2023 23:21
|
|
|
You may think that would make me a monster, personally I think we should hold off judgment on that until the first person sprouts gun arms
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2023 23:24
|
|
|
And don’t even get me started on magnum dongs
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2023 23:26
|
|
|
I don't think anyone should have Kryptonian laser eyes. And I don't mean just irresponsible young 5 year old children that you have to tell 40 times a day not to run out into the street without looking both ways, I mean everyone. No one should have that power. What if you start sleepwalking and that activates?
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2023 23:34
|
|
|
I would personally argue that it's immoral and irresponsible to weigh Shigaraki's life and freedom as more important than literally millions of people. Shigaraki just outlined his exact plan to destroy the entire country of Japan which he can now do at any time he wants. The issue with Shigaraki's rehabilitation is that you are risking the entire country of Japan on the idea that a former genocidal maniac won't change his mind again and perform the genocide he is more than capable of doing at any point in time. You cannot allow a threat like that to exist. Ironically this is the exact problem with Hero Society that Shigaraki himself highlighted to Deku in the mall: Once you're aware that someone could have the power to indiscriminately murder everyone around them how can you still have a society?
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2023 00:44
|
|
|
Nephthys posted:I would personally argue that it's immoral and irresponsible to weigh Shigaraki's life and freedom as more important than literally millions of people. Shigaraki just outlined his exact plan to destroy the entire country of Japan which he can now do at any time he wants. The issue with Shigaraki's rehabilitation is that you are risking the entire country of Japan on the idea that a former genocidal maniac won't change his mind again and perform the genocide he is more than capable of doing at any point in time. I was just contemplating this myself. I'm sure the vast majority of the country would just like the nightmare to end, but a teenager holding the power to stop it has decided he's gotta be kind to the guy inflicting it on them. It knee jerk feels... I dunno, egotistical? I'm probably not finding the right word there, I'm still waking up.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2023 00:50
|
|
|
Nephthys posted:I would personally argue that it's immoral and irresponsible to weigh Shigaraki's life and freedom as more important than literally millions of people. Shigaraki just outlined his exact plan to destroy the entire country of Japan which he can now do at any time he wants. The issue with Shigaraki's rehabilitation is that you are risking the entire country of Japan on the idea that a former genocidal maniac won't change his mind again and perform the genocide he is more than capable of doing at any point in time. You cannot allow a threat like that to exist. In general I feel like that's been the entire general issue with the entire LoV in my honest. I really can't quite find the words to explain, but it's the same vein of thing as what TheKingslayer said.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2023 01:26
|
|
|
honestly incredible that this extremely anodyne shonen ending has resulted in credulous, breathless recitation of ticking time bomb scenarios. you HAVE to kill him he has superpowers!!!!!!!! maybe my second favorite thread convo after the one about whether it's okay to ask about guns in this universe and why they aren't being used, sparked off by them literally strapping belt-fed ammunition to bakugo in the manga Valentin fucked around with this message at 01:37 on Dec 30, 2023 |
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2023 01:34
|
|
|
I just can't wait for horikoshi to weigh in on this, i start kicking my feet and giggling just imagining how deku plans to resolve this.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2023 01:45
|
|
|
TheHan posted:I just can't wait for horikoshi to weigh in on this, i start kicking my feet and giggling just imagining how deku plans to resolve this. that kid is gonna punch hard.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2023 01:56
|
|
|
Valentin posted:honestly incredible that this extremely anodyne shonen ending has resulted in credulous, breathless recitation of ticking time bomb scenarios. you HAVE to kill him he has superpowers!!!!!!!! Generally it's more fun to engage with the content in good faith and think about the things that the author seems to want you to think about on some level. This is a manga that had a character with Shigaraki's same power set who bedeviled society for decades, was so evil and dangerous that the Most Heroic Guy in The Manga All Might tried to punch his head off and kill him instead of capture him alive and never showed an ounce of regret for that decision, specifically showed said super evil guy being put in Horrible Hell Jail and it still wasn't enough to stop him from breaking out and helping destroy the entire country despite everyone assuming he was now "safe", and just had a gigantic long fight arc where dozens of heroes tried their damnedest to kill him. It would be kind of weird to not wonder if we're supposed to apply the same thought process to Shigaraki, especially with bits like the AfO ghosts recoiling in horror from Shigaraki because his sheer hatred of everything is so strong that it can overcome their quirk theft shielding.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2023 03:18
|
|
|
RareAcumen posted:Personally I think it's a waste if people aren't dying or being killed every panel. I don't know how the Punisher is normally, but he is reminding me way too much of this episode of an animated Batman series where the Joker decides to LARP as Batman and decides to come down hard on crimes like kids drawing on the sidewalk with chalk ("Graffiti!") or people checking out 11 items in a 10 items or less checkout line.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2023 03:29
|
|
|
Blueberry Pancakes posted:I don't know how the Punisher is normally, but he is reminding me way too much of this episode of an animated Batman series where the Joker decides to LARP as Batman and decides to come down hard on crimes like kids drawing on the sidewalk with chalk ("Graffiti!") or people checking out 11 items in a 10 items or less checkout line. Which ep is that? I'd love to watch
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2023 04:53
|
|
|
Nonexistence posted:Which ep is that? I'd love to watch The Laughing Bat (Season 2, Episode 12) of The Batman.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2023 04:58
|
|
|
I feel like Ichiban Kasuga in LAD7 is a much better execution of the sort of character MHA is going for with Deku.TheKingslayer posted:I was just contemplating this myself. I'm sure the vast majority of the country would just like the nightmare to end, but a teenager holding the power to stop it has decided he's gotta be kind to the guy inflicting it on them. It knee jerk feels... I dunno, egotistical? I'm probably not finding the right word there, I'm still waking up. But the teenager and the villain are characters with names who have been Seen by the eyes of God (that's us, the readers). They are worth more than a billion of the nameless rabble. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 12:07 on Dec 30, 2023 |
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2023 12:00
|
|
|
Ytlaya posted:I feel like Ichiban Kasuga in LAD7 is a much better execution of the sort of the MHA is going for with Deku. That is because Ichiban Kasuga is an amazing character and LAD is godly written.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2023 12:06
|
|
|
Kanos posted:Generally it's more fun to engage with the content in good faith and think about the things that the author seems to want you to think about on some level. i mean, i mostly think it's not very good or fun analysis is what i'm saying, lol. i don't really care about it either but the idea that it's somehow more good faith to be like "well how do you LOCK UP EVIL SUPERMAN??" is just silly. so far we have established in the comic the following:
even leaving aside the obvious narrative outs like "shigaraki darth vaders himself" or "deku and shigaraki axis shock mt. fuji", there's a lot of well-established in-comic reasons that the idea of deku saving shigaraki is semi-workable and not completely impossible. past that, good faith engagement with the work would mean trying to understand what's going on with shigaraki on a thematic level, which horikoshi has been (exhaustingly, boringly, repetitively) clear about. it has basically nothing to do with power sets or the practical implications of his quirks. the difference between the two people with the same power set is that they are...different people. AFO chose evil repeatedly and constantly through his life. he reverted to a BABY and decided to be AN EVIL BABY THAT SHOOTS SPIKES. shigaraki's thing is that he killed his whole family at like 6 and it permanently traumatized him and basically shattered his brain. he then got picked up by the most evil man in the world and brainwashed over a decade, with the big and obvious flag that the villain literally renames him after himself. he shows up for the first time in the manga still wearing the hands of his family holding him back as a symbol of how the past weighs him down. his characterization gives off enormous "isolated school shooter" energy and a big part of the story is about the ways in which he is radicalized by his own bad circumstances as well as old power-hungry assholes using him to their own ends. story happens, he makes some friends, his memories return to retraumatize him, his mentor tries to liquid ocelot him out of existence. after undergoing months of super-pain in dark experiments, he reappears with the huge and obvious flag that he doesn't even have a name anymore, and is actively battling to maintain control of his own body against the villain possessing it (which is like, literally literally exactly what is going on in the opening thing with bakugo and the forever-unnamed sludge villain, who takes over his body and uses his quirk to kill). as a textual matter, somewhere inside shigaraki's psyche is a suffering child named shimura tenko who had his identity and memories altered and still wants to play with his friends and remembers the dog he loved. this might feel silly or stupid and i won't argue either but it's just true at this point in the manga. deku is a hero who will not ignore a suffering child and will not voluntarily kill the innocent (or let them die) to attain victory. so long as he sees one child still suffering, he can't let them die. this is incredibly impractical as a philosophy, which the manga is aware of. deku has been repeatedly criticized for it from a lot of corners but it's the whole thing. he wins by saving. it is not interesting analysis to be like, "well why is deku DOING THIS what's the PRACTICAL OPTION." there isn't one! there is not supposed to be one. the very very clear set-up is that inside this monstrously evil supervillain who is going to use mount fuji as a superweapon is really a secretly traumatized child, and the hero of the story will go to any lengths to save that child no matter how impractical that is, because he alone has the opportunity and experience to see the ways in which that child is suffering and because his code prevents him from killing someone who wants to be saved. that's all very very clear immediately on the face of what you are reading. the reason the brain ghosts are criticizing it is because they are failed heroes who hosed up. as gets explicitly called out here, all they did was run and allow the evil criminal government run by AFO to continue to dominate japan (and the world? idk. japan is the world in MHA, is the real answer) and immiserate millions because they valued survival and the scant hope of eventual victory over saving others. all might single-handedly propping up the system for so long explicitly allowed the current situation to happen as the system's rot accumulated towards a breaking point. that is why the first thing deku has to lose in this fight on his journey towards eventual victory is danger sense; he cannot think about his own survival anymore. his only goal can be to save others. is it silly that we are going to be told that deku alone possesses the moral goodness to beat AFO not merely by defeating him but by eradicating his ideology from the face of the earth through love? sure! but the deck isn't so insanely stacked against him because the author wants you to analyze if deku's action is practical. the increased stakes serve to highlight the extent of deku's philosophy. even to save all japan, he will not harm a single suffering child. "how can one villain's possible rehabilitation ever justify the deaths of millions, especially because if his rehabilitation fails he'll just kill more people" is not the question the manga is interested in. the question is, "how can any number of lives saved ever possibly justify leaving a child to suffer and die?" and the answer is they cannot. there is no way to balance those scales. all life is impossibly, uniquely valuable, and there is nothing that can justify harming an innocent. that was true when deku tried to save bakugo from the sludge guy despite being totally powerless, and it's true now even with all of japan about to be destroyed. Valentin fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Dec 30, 2023 |
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2023 19:12
|
|
|
Valentin posted:"how can any number of lives saved ever possibly justify leaving a child to suffer and die?" and the answer is they cannot. This is wrong, tho. It sucks that shigaraki has to die, but he does and the fact that he probably won't is gonna feel like as asspull. The fact that twice was like 5 or 10 years older than shigaraki doesn't make killing him significantly more or less justfied, and that was also the correct decision.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2023 19:29
|
|
|
you are perfectly free to wish for a story that concludes that some deaths really are necessary and that when the suffering of the marginalized reaches a breaking point, we should kill them to maintain the peace and shrug about how there were no other options. but you are not going to find it in the brightly-colored superhero comic in shonen jump lmao
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2023 19:40
|
|
|
in a superhero story you kinda have to come to terms with the fact that, committing atrocities that will echo for generations isn't that big a deal. The story would honestly be better if shiggy lived and dedicated his life to fixing even a little of the wrong he's done. It's nice to imagine deeply reprehensible people can be better.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2023 20:18
|
|
|
I'd just like to point out that we've seen what the rest of the world thinks of this clash of gods, and it was largely disinterest. Sure, people are watching the super hero fight. But... ...they've still got work. Deku punching this child to death won't give most people any sort of emotional catharsis.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2023 20:32
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 28, 2024 18:06 |
|
|
I get the impulse to interpret this totally literally because it's honestly a nonsensical mess as a metaphor, but the circumstances are far too insane and disconnected from reality for a literal reading to be in any way rewarding. The series has pretty explicitly laid out, repeatedly, the idea that not trying to save someone you might be able to help, no matter how bad they are, is moral cowardice not befitting a "hero." If you disagree with that, disagree with it, but I think trying to find an exception here is missing the obvious point.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2023 20:32
|
|
