AFO And The Quirk Counselor Offer Their "help" In Making Himiko And Yuuga Be What The Hero Society Says

AFO and the quirk counselor offer their "help" in making Himiko and Yuuga be what the Hero Society says is normal and they even smile and dress alike. AFO really represents the worst of the Hero Society and Japanese society in general.

Thinking about Toga and Aoyama similarities

Thinking about the wording of these panels

I don't know if you know Record of Ragnarok but I think that Leonidas and Geirölul are what Ichigo and Zangetsu would have been if they had had a good relationship from the beginning without the lies and the prejudices of everyone around them (considering the violent nature that Ichigo has always had, it wouldn't have been unreasonable):

Zangetsu would get angry with anyone who despised him or Ichigo just as happened with Geirölul.

Zangetsu would call Ichigo with nicknames as a sign of affection and trust while he shows concern for him like Geirölul does with Leonidas when she calls him Leo.

Ichigo and Zangetsu would crush their enemies together with enthusiasm, just as Leonidas and Geirölul do in their fight against Apollo.

The Spot's Seek for Respect and Revenge

Contrary to what many people think, Spot is an interesting character but, as happens in the movie, he is underestimated by everyone, so I decided to write this post to analyse this character.

His arc is a perfect mix of a comic relief character who seeks everyone's respect and a character who puts his revenge above all else to the point of hurting himself and others.

DUDE, WHERE'S MY RESPECT?

Let's be honest, everyone looks down on Spot and when I say everyone I mean EVERYONE because not only is he treated by Miles as just another villain in the crowd, Miguel ignores the potential threat that Spot is to the multiverse and dedicated himself to chasing Miles for the entire half of the movie but even we the audience underestimated him by dismissing him as comic relief but Spot is tired of everyone underestimating him and he proved to be a real threat he took both all the characters and the entire audience by surprise.

This desire to be respected is quite reminiscent of characters like Inosuke Hashibira, King from The Owl House, and even Ken from the Barbie 2023 movie: characters who are considered comic relief by everyone but are frustrated that no one respects them or takes their feelings seriously and decide to take actions to make everyone respect them. These characters are tragic and have serious self-esteem issues but the narrative presents them to us as comic relief to make us, the audience, let our guard down.

Inosuke is seen as comic relief by bragging about how strong he is and doing weird things but is later revealed to be a boy who is deep down afraid of being a child whose parents abandoned him because they didn't love him only for it to be revealed that he is a boy whose mother allows herself to be killed by Douma to save him.

King is treated by everyone as if he were a living stuffed animal and the character clings to being a demon king when in reality he is a child who, like Inosuke, was abandoned and hidden by his father to save him from the titan trappers and the archivists.

Ken acts obsessively towards Barbie and acts quite funny because he was programmed to be her boyfriend and is treated like an accessory so his sense of identity is low to say nothing and he doesn't know anything else.

Spot also gets this treatment: he's introduced to us as a villain who tries to steal an ATM but doesn't know how to use his powers and even tries to convince the store seller that he's doing nothing wrong by taking the ATM and the store seller hits him and the way he introduces himself to Miles as he has loaves spilling out of one of his holes, calls him villain of the week and even his fight with Miles is basically Miles dodging him smoothly while chatting with his dad on the phone and even we the audience dismiss that his motivation to revenge on Miles is because he threw a bagel in his face when actually it's much more than that and the bagel thing is just the tip of the iceberg. At this point Spot is comic relief for both the characters and us.

But these characters seek respect and take actions that make them respected by others:

Inosuke proves to be a pretty good demon slayer to the point that he and Kanao with Shinobu's previous intervention manage to defeat Douma, King discovers his origins and his powers and is a key part of saving the Boiling Islands.

But just as respect is achieved through positive actions, the desperate search for respect makes others seek it through negative actions to the point of being threats to their world, just as it happened to Ken and is happening to Spot:

Ken sneaks into Barbie's car and together they go to the real world and Ken feels respected in the real world and after he discovers that the world is run by the patriarchy, he decides to bring it to Barbieland and turns it into Kendom, making the Barbies be the accessories of the Kens.

Spot learns to domain his powers and after merging with the collider from Mumbattan, becomes a threat to the multiverse.

Ken and the Spot go from being jokes at to being threats to their respective worlds. They prefer to be seen as villains than to be mocked by everyone because having power makes them important people and their very low self-esteem is raised.

It's okay to want to be respected, but when you seek respect through negative actions, you end up doing even more damage to yourself and those around you.

What happens to Spot is a reversal of Ken's character arc, so much so that I would dare to say that the Spot is the villainous and dark version of Ken:

Spot and Ken have the same funny personality but hide resentment and low self-esteem, they both discover something new and use it to gain everyone's respect, and Ken and Spot are obsessed with the attention of Miles and Barbie because they feel their existence is tied up in that but while Barbie, after she with the help of Gloria, Sasha, Allan and all the resistance make everything return to normal but giving the Kens the opportunity to have equality with the Barbies, Barbie becomes sincere with Ken and apologizes for not taking his feelings seriously and encourages him to discover himself, showing him that he is enough and Ken decides to follow his advice but when Miles tries to convince Spot that he no longer considers it a joke, he doesn't listen and merges with the collider.

The reason this works with Ken but not with Spot is due to two reasons:

Barbie knows it's not entirely her fault with regard to Ken's programming but acknowledges that she hurt his feelings, apologizes for it and even makes him see that he can be more than the role of being her boyfriend. While Miles knows it's not entirely his fault for the collider situation (it's Kingpin's fault for wanting to use it in the first place) and tells Spot that no one sees it as a joke, he doesn't acknowledge that he previously hurt Spot's feelings neither does Spot make him see that he can be something else than just his nemesis or that he can even be a hero with his powers which makes Spot even more attached to his role as Miles's nemesis.

Ken, despite being a doll, has a human appearance and has connections to others in Barbieland that aren't just Barbie. Spot, despite being human, does not have a human appearance nor does he have connections to anyone else, so he clings to his rivalry with Miles as the only "connections" he has.

Basically the entire arc of these characters can be summarized up in the chat beetwen Silco, Vander and Jinx from Arcane:

Vander: "You'll get people killed. For what? Pride?" Silco: "For respect."

Silco to Jinx: "It's okay. We'll show them. We will show them all."

REVENGE IS A DISH BEST SERVED COLD

Speaking of Silco, Spot's obsession with getting revenge on Miles reminds me of Guts, Silco and Neo in the sense that they seek revenge because all of them lost everything they had and also because the only thing that makes sense of their lives is to take revenge on those who took everything from them and to make things worse none of them respect Spot, Guts Silco and Neo and even look down on them which makes Spot, Guts Silco and Neo have more reasons to get revenge but Guts, Silco and Neo differ from Spot for the following reasons:

Guts still has loved ones who love him despite how tough he can be.

Silco has a bond with Jinx that despite being flawed is also a bond he developed because he related to Jinx's pain and said bond humanizes him and makes him think of something other than revenge.

Neo has the opportunity to choose her new physical form and she has the opportunity to rediscover herself to start again.

But Spot? he has absolutely none of these things. Spot doesn't have loved ones to care for him like Guts, he doesn't have a bond with someone he can relate to or humanize like Silco, and he has no chance to change his form or start again like Neo, even worse, Spot doesn't even have a human appearance like Guts, Silco and Neo do. That's why when Miles tries to stop Spot from merging with the collider he doesn't listen to him and it's because revenge is the only thing that gives meaning to his life and Spot doesn't want to lose something again as he lost everything else.

Spot lost absolutely everything: he is no longer human, his coworkers make fun of him and he lost his job, his family does not want to see him because they see him as a monster, he cannot reverse his current physical state and I doubt anyone would want to give him a job or that a person wants to date someone who looks like Spot so having a life, a job, a normal appearance and even a romantic relationship with someone is impossible for him so he clings to the only thing he has is his anger and revenge towards Miles to the point that he wants Miles to lose everything, making the only thing he has is his rivalry and thus making Miles feel just as lonely and miserable as him.

I've been thinking about something and it's that both the Hero Society and All for One, the main villain and antagonist of My Hero Academia, see the world in the same way as the villains of Medaka Box.

In Medaka Box, its antagonists and even the main protagonist herself, Medaka, feel that they have to live only as roles in a story and they are defeated by Zenkichi, a normal boy, for the simple fact that he treats them as people and not by their roles or archetypes.

What I'm getting at with this is that Hero Society judges its citizens according to the quirk they are born with (they call those with a powerful or flashy quirk heroes, those with a nasty or dangerous quirk they call villains, and those who do not have quirks simply look down on them) and treat them under character archetypes (heroes are required to be perfect and save all the people on the planet at the expense of their physical and emotional health, those who have unpleasant quirks are treated as villains who must be stopped at all costs without being offered the opportunity to rehabilitate, being imprisoned without a trial at best and killed at worst and the quirkless simply treat them as extras who have no importance). It is thanks to this way of thinking that Hero Society has that Bakugo, Endeavor, Hawks and others acquire a quite toxic mentality and got away with their abuses and it is even thanks to the society that All Might believed he had to solve the problems. everyone's problems alone and the citizens became dependent on the heroes causing bystander syndrome and people like Tomura and the League were discriminated against for their gifts and no one did anything to help them or show them that there is another way to solve things without reaching to violence and quirkless people they treat them as useless all the time and mistreat them whenever they can.

On the other hand, AFO lives with the role of the main villain of a story (he wants to be the Ultimate Lord Demon) and wants others to live in that narrative. He sees the world from a story point of view and sees others by archetypes (he sees Tomura and the League in general as villains because of their powers, he sees any wielder of One for All as the main protagonist who is destined to face him, see anyone who isn't a villain or a One for All wielder as an extra).

The reason everyone in the League became violent is because everyone has dehumanized them by seeing them as villain archetypes and not broken people who urgently need help. Heroes are also dehumanized because they are seen as perfect beings who have to be powerful and do all the work, forgetting that they are humans who make mistakes, who need help and who cannot do everything alone. Quirkless are still people who can contribute in other ways and deserve to be treated with kindness and respect like anyone else.

For Hero Society to improve, everyone has to stop seeing people as character archetypes because of their quirks and see them as people and give them real support.

It's quite curious how Guts and Casca's arcs are opposites, which makes them complementary.

Guts is so active that he never rests, this is seen by the fact of how little Guts cares about himself or when he decides to leave the Band of the Hawk to find his own dream to be an equal to Griffith and how he decided to go on a revenge rampage instead of staying with Casca which caused the Beast of Darkness to be born as a result, and Casca is passive because she has always prioritized the dreams of others above her own plus she is in a constant fight to recover and maintain her agency that is constantly taken away from her.

Guts has to learn to be passive in the sense that he must learn that he should not do everything alone and that he has the right to rest, to be vulnerable by venting his sadness in a healthy way and enjoy the simple things in life and Casca has to be more active in the sense that she must have her own aspiration and must recover her agency.

It's Guts who encourages Casca that she can be more than Griffith's swords and values her for who she is and it's Casca who encourages Guts to relax, to be vulnerable and that he can do and enjoy other things than just fighting.

Some time ago I made a post where I said that Imu would be a very good and interesting contrast for Luffy and both this post and the chapter 1060 on which it focuses show more clearly the contrast between Luffy, the future Pirate King and Imu, the current King of the World.

Isn't it "funny" that Imu destroys Lulusia in the same chapter where Luffy happily talks with his crew about what is at the end of his dream?

Like, you see this.....

...and after a few pages you have this

I think, if this is no coincidence (which likely isn't, Oda wouldn't randomly put all of these specific scenes in the same chapter), it could be taken as another proof that at the end of Luffy's dream of becoming the pirate king there is something bigger than that, something like maybe uniting the whole world under his crew, the whole world being one "crew" of friends (literally a one piece of friendship lol) and of course Imu stands in the way of it, because they want to keep the world divided into four seas, various nations with social and racial differences fueling hate against each other (instead of directing it towards the ACTUAL enemy).

Imu's style is surely divide et impera, while Luffy wants everyone to be free and happy. I also think ultimately the concept of "one piece" will be applied to the whole world, the Red Line will cease to exist and so all the separations and divisions it symbolises, not just physically as one huge mountain in a world of sea but also as the house of Celestial Dragons and World Government