#damn this is like a literal essay qwfegthrjky

[babes-and-baddies]

I just read @codenamesazanka’s post (+some responses) about the issues with a ‘#1 hero’ ranking, and it ties into a lot of stuff I was already planning on writing about with how exactly this mindset self-generates and offshoots into everything else so I figured I’d write it here! I don’t know if Hori himself considered this view (it would be amazing if he did!), but the explanation that would make best sense in-universe? Is that this “#1 Hero” system seems like a bad idea because it is bad- and was designed to be.

I feel like this whole issue has to do with economics and how heroes are paid, mixed in with the value of public image and discrimination towards weak/lacking/dangerous quirks, the social emphasis on individual strength and image, as well as how that image perpetuates trust beyond the heroes means and stifles civilians inclination to help eachother. It all sorta jumbles together into one huge, complicated, interconnected, and unhealthy mess, just like real life does!

Disclaimer: this is gonna get long, and it’s very pessimistic about how things are and I’m probably going to be called a villain sympathizer which, y’know, isn’t wrong, but this is just really interesting and fun to look into. 

So to get this started: money.

It’s unclear how exactly heroes are evaluated for pay -though it seems competitive if Mt. Lady’s intro is anything to go by- but most likely it’s based on fulfilling specific pre-agreed upon tasks efficiently. There’s the normal heroes, rescue heroes, etc- and i’m willing to bet that they each have their own rigid set of expectations. 

It’s not about doing what’s the most good; it’s about doing what fits their job as a specific kind of hero. And as we saw with when Stain fought Midoriya, Iida, and Todoroki, ‘what’s necessary’ doesn't always line up with ‘what’s allowed’. Doing what’s right is not only sometimes separate from hero work, but also discouraged in some cases with heavy penalty, potentially even the loss of their hero license. It’s a system that says, ‘Be strong, be flashy, play by the rules, and you’ll rank high. Rank high, and you’ll have more security and freedom.’  Following that mindset is a requirement of being a hero, even though it doesn’t help the public or even the heroes themselves. 

Likewise All Might mentions that heroes don’t participate in public service anymore (like cleaning trashed-up beaches), and I have to wonder how many don’t because they don’t have the time to. 

After all, if only Top Ranking Heroes get paid a lot for hero work, most heroes need to turn to other sources of a living- such as modelling, advertising, endorsing, etc. It’s been alluded to several times, such as with Uwabami towards Yaomomo and Kendo, that, at least for the girls, these extra media jobs are central to doing herowork! Even male heroes such a Present Mic have side-jobs, and I wonder as well for whether they’re because he wants to, or because they’re financially necessary. This all also leads to fierce competition. While heroes can in cases work well together, it’s shown as early as ep. 1 that there is also infighting and lack of communication, such as when Mt. Lady created unnecessary property damage in order to do nothing more than steal Kamui Wood’s thunder (and in extension, money). 

While at UA there are times where they students are forced to work together, overall it seems like communication and cooperativeness is something optional and never taught. And if Endeavour is any indication, it’s something they’re never expected to learn.

All of this creates a situation where heroes are limited in what they’re able to do. Helping others is most practical to do while working as a term and providing everyone with support, but things are set up with a Strong Lone Hero type ideal. 

They have to constantly look out for their image since it’s their source of income, they have to allocate their time carefully between hero-ing and jobs for money, etc. None of that leaves much opportunity to focus on other central aspects of helping others, such as helping local communities or volunteer work.

So how does this matter outside of the fact that it limits the amount of good that can be done? For starters, it can work as one of the main tools to maintain the hero industry: creating an environment which allows for villains to be created. Not to get too political, but this can lead to a strong parallel between the BNHA universe and our own, or at least many prominent societies irl.

There are countless types of people who turn to villainy, and while some are genuinely evil people who would do wrong in any situation, it’s most likely that the majority of villains are small-fry who did minor or non-violent crimes, just like in real life. And what leads to so many of today’s crimes? Economic disparity, lack of other options, and discrimination.

To start with disparity: public service is already undervalued irl, and I can assume it is over in the BNHA universe as well. Since villains are needed to maintain the hero vs villain rate to keep heroism acting as an industry, there needs to be enough villains. So for those who are controlling and benefiting from the system there would be active interest in maintaining conditions where villains would be created.

An easy way to do this would be by making it harder for heroes to help with community outreach, so that those in need have less practical avenues to get any while at the same time maintaining a cultural idea that heroes are able to save everyone, even in non-villain scenarios, and therefore civilians don’t need to get involved. 

I know that, luckily, lots of people wouldn't fall for it and would still try to take care of their own without heroes involvement, but having a sociocultural and political system invested in maintaining its power would certainly make it harder for the smaller communities where more villains come from to find enough resources.

At the same time, what is one clear example of discrimination shown time and time again in BNHA, something routinely shown in both extreme positive and negative light? Quirks. There’s probably a reason why there are no quirkless heroes, or why Shinsou had such a hard time to get his foot in the door at UA; their society and culture idolizes powerful quirks and overlooks/fears those who have quirk statuses that are deemed not good enough. 

Those with flashy quirks become ‘good’ and those with dangerous quirks become ‘bad’, despite everyone having no control over what quirk they eventually manifest. These people are underrepresented in groups of power, and looked down upon in different contexts. While this won’t in and of itself lead to villainy, it does a first step of ostracising someone from society.

At the same time, there’s a parallel idolization of heroes which aims to create trust in them, for both big and small things- they can save you from a villain, but they can also let you in on a secret of the best shampoo for every hair type for super luscious locks. They can clear debris, but they can also be a hero in every moment of the days, helping others. This is the image that sells, and it’s the image that maintains trust. 

It’s also the image that makes people see an injured and afraid child crying for help and happily think ‘a hero will save him’; it doesn’t matter that it’s improbable, because it’s what the media and hero industry has continually led them to believe. Even the most kind and well-meaning people can be susceptible to incorrect beliefs shared by those they trust.

Villains on the other hand are universally shown as irredeemable, where all of them are viewed as scum of the earth regardless of the severity of their crimes. This helps maintain the image that the hero industry needs to continue to sell itself. Heroes are always good and always win, villains are always bad and always lose. We can trust heroes, so we can trust the system, and we can trust what heroes are paid to tell us. Strong flashy quirks are good because heroes have them and heroes are good. We don’t need to get involved. Everything’s simple and we’re all in the right since we support heroes and we don’t need to worry, yay! The belief system is simple, it makes people feel good, and I understand how it could be appealing. 

Even when Midoriya looked past the idea that heroes would always win, and he went to save Katsuki from the sludge villain, he was admonished for it. While that’s fair because he’s a child and shouldn’t put himself into danger like that, it’s not hard to see how that reflects a wider mindset- not only do civilians not need to help others when there are heroes to do so instead, but it’s bad if civilians do heroes’ jobs for them. 

That would be relatively fine if heroes could always help; it’s shown both here and in canon that that often isn’t the case regardless of how much most heroes genuinely want to help people as best they can.

And of course there are people realizing things feel wrong. But even when there’s criticism of hero society, such as Stain’s ideology and it’s popular reception, it keeps failing to recognize the underlying causes of what’s going on. Heroes aren’t universally shallow and greedy any more than quirkless people are weak victims or people with dangerous quirks are evil. 

As long as the criticisms are like Stain’s in nature, which place the responsibility solely on the shoulders of individual heroes rather than the society as a whole and the people who benefit from how things are set up -the media, corporations which profit off of trust in the Hero Image, politicians which understand how things are set up and use it to improve their image- the system is never going to change. But this is a whole other topic deserving of its’ own analysis, so I’ll stop there for now.

As an example of where this ties all together, take the hero/villain fight in ep 1. It was a huge fight over a purse snatching- people potentially getting injured, major street damage, etc, all over one purse. And what do the civilians have to say about it? They’re impressed by the villains quirk, wondering why such a good quirk is wasted on someone like him; the villain literally gets called the ‘incarnate of evil’ by Kamui Woods- while purse snatching is bad there are much worse things to do, such as, I don’t know, murder; most importantly, the civilians watch it as entertainment.

Wow, cool, a fight! It doesn’t matter that it’s dangerous, because there are heroes there and therefore everyone’s protected. And if people get hurt, that’s sad, but it’s an exception, bad luck, or the injured person did something wrong like not listening to the heroes! The hero vs villain conflicts have become so normalized, sensationalized even, that people feel separate from the situation, as if they are passive bystanders to everything where everything works out as long as they cheer the heroes on. 

And when there are pro heroes, why would anyone need to think about what makes actual ‘heroes’ in the broader sense? They trust the pros, so they trust the system- even though it’s the system which controls the pros.

So as far as I can see- there shouldn’t be a number one hero! The very concept could play into a self-serving system which priorities public image over actually doing good, and in fact would be part of what allows the hero/villain conflict to be so rampant in BNHA’s society! And considering all the potential implications of that, maybe the LOV have a point, even if it’s not as simple as they make it out to be.

At least there’s still hope in the form of 1-A and the other up-and-coming future heroes, and maybe one day they’ll be able to work together and change things into a better, healthier, more cooperative hero system.

#meta #bnha meta #mha meta #bnha #mha #idk man i dont trust authority and think too much about stuff #and all this stuff has been floating around in my head since i started reading 2 years ago #damn this is like a literal essay qwfegthrjky #mine