Same haha! I want someone to have a realization that oh, that’s almost what Dabi looked like. Even if they think Touya is dead (really the only reasonable explanation at this point) someone please have that realization.
I don’t think forgiveness is involved in the story at all, actually! The live action has a mention of it, but the 1950 animated version has absolutely no mention of forgiveness, and she takes the first chance she has to get away. There’s certainly no hint at reconciliation, and if she forgave them or not isn’t touched upon. Even in the live action she does not reconcile with them. She forgives but more for her own sake, which is just about letting go of anger, not trying to have a normal mother/sister relationship with them.
I think people are confusing trying to survive an abusive situation from which you can’t escape with forgiveness, which is not surprising but… no. Lol. No.
I actually don’t watch Disney sequels, with the exception of The Lion King 2, because it’s seriously underrated and I LOVE IT.
(cont.) about recently and they said they would try to become a better person but now that I don’t have access to that account I can’t help but feel like they did this so they can vague about me without me knowing. I can still see on my tl people replying to them which is awkward. I’m not a saint and I did stupid things but the last thing I’m gonna do is create a private account to sneak diss on others. They have a main account that I still follow and we are mutuals but this whole thing (cont.)
cont.) is just making me tired of twitter. I’m there to retweet memes and shitpost, I have no energy to deal with vaguing. Overall I’m scared that anything I will post will trigger a new wave of vaguing lol. Now I now how you felt some time ago.
Oh, Anon. I’m really sorry you’re going through this. It’s not fun at all.
Under the cut because I might talk a little bit about more personal things?
You are not being paranoid, firstly. You did the right thing by talking to them about it, but it sounds like they don’t want to change, at least right now. It’s possible they feel anxious about you being hurt by their tweets, but being able to to say what they want to say is, for lack of a kinder way to say it (I’m sorry Anon) currently more important to them than your feelings. And that is not your fault. It’s not because you have a lack of worth; it’s because they are struggling right now. But especially when they are someone whom you consider a friend, that is truly hurtful, and it’s not okay of them. You don’t have to demonize them to be like “that’s wrong.”
And vagueing is wrong (vagueing about a person, to be clear, not vagueing about an idea, which is fine). Vagueing is frankly bullying, but it’s a way to bully and look good doing it. It’s passive aggressive, which is founded in a psychological attitude of “I’m not okay and you’re not okay.” Most of us on social media have vagued at a time. I know I did it at least once (one example about a year ago comes to mind and I cringe), but the important thing is to learn from it and learn healthier, assertive ways of communicating what you think that don’t rely on cutting down another person. None of us are perfect, but making an attempt to do better–and showing that you are in fact making an attempt, not just through words, matters.
Your friend is in the wrong here. But the thing is, we can’t control what people think of us, or sadly even what they post about us. Things are going to get misinterpreted and people are going to bully to feel better about themselves. But it’s okay for that to hurt, and to be mad over it. You aren’t overly sensitive or paranoid for being hurt or angry at someone who is supposed to be a friend. I can still see friends of mine responding to people I have blocked (really Twitter? WHY IS THIS A THING) too. They are keeping it private, but when a lot of mutuals are followers of said account, that must still feel humiliating. I am sorry. I do know how it feels. All that to say, your feelings are okay and justified.
I’d suggest blocking your friend, to be honest. Which is drastic step and sucks, but you’ve already spoken to them and unfortunately there is not much more you can do besides make it clear that you won’t tolerate that kind of toxicity in your life, because you don’t have to.
Regarding the incident you referenced in my life… I really don’t wanna get into the full thing and don’t want any asks or pity for it, but I do want to state that the reason I stated something publicly instead of just blocking (which is what I’d recommend for you) is that, contrary to what the blog I made that post about said was that their issue (that I had not talked to them privately), I had addressed it privately, four separate times (though, to be fair, they initiated some of those times, after I saw their vagues and they knew I’d seen them). Nothing was changing despite numerous promises to stop; in fact it was getting worse and multiple friends had been literally in tears or having anxiety attacks over that blog’s posts and I no longer trusted a private conversation would have any affect. If they had not been public and/or hurting multiple ppl, I don’t think I would have done that, but they were. I can’t control whatever they said about me afterwards, or what they’re saying now, but I don’t have to see it anymore.
There are times people are just not going to change and so keeping them in your life is toxic for you. Clearly, they are not willing to listen to you about how their behavior is hurtful, nor are they willing to change, and it’s up to them to change. But if you block your friend, you will not have to see it. You can’t stop them, but blocking them main account is something I would recommend.
But it’s okay that you feel hurt even after you block them. You can feel hurt, and you aren’t stupid or a sensitive snowflake for feeling so. Words do hurt, and despite the common idea that in our culture you’re stronger for shrugging words off, many of us simply can’t do that, and that is okay.
As for being scared to post, post what you want to post. If they diss you for it, fuck them. If you are not attacking anyone but simply posting an opinion on a story or excitement or disappointment or anything like that, honestly, fuck them. If they are so sensitive as to take a critique of art they enjoy as a personal attack on them and go on the defensive, that is their problem, not yours. Own your opinions and fun. It’s hard to do, and I’m scared a lot of the time too, but you are a strong independent person who don’t need no validation from insecure bullies. Even if you want it (and many of us do), you are a valid person without their approval.
Love to you, Anon. I don’t know if this is helpful or not, but I hope you feel better soon.
Oh cool!!!! That’s so neat. I think it’s cool how people are inspired by each other’s designs.
I also am side-eyeing Tserreidnich’s ability since we know it’ll make him really hard for Kurapika & Oito to defeat… if only there were someone on board with a vested interest in knowing the future who could steal abilities and just lost his other future-based ability…
It would be really hard for Chrollo to steal the future vision considering his conditions in order to steal an ability but not impossible and it would be really interesting and it fits with Chrollo.
But what I’m concerned and sort of worried is that if Chrollo doesn’t go against him and steals his ability and Kurapika has to take care him with his future vision intact or even if Chrollo goes against him in combat it’s gonna be tough, extremely tough.
I want to see Togashi’s take on this particular ability because the only reference i have on this kind of power is as I’ve said JoJo part 5. There in order to defeat part 5′s main villain Diavolo (the guy with future vision) was the main protagonist of the part obtaining a broken and extremely overpowered stand (stand’s are the supernatural powers that exist in JoJo) that literally made him the strongest stand user to ever live. As it is the method of obtaining a stand is more flexible and rather easy in comparison to obtaining or creating a new Nen ability (with the latter being more dificult as you have to train intensely to create an ability of your own) so this way of solving the problem cannot happen in HxH.
It’s intriguing to wait and see how Togashi uses this ability with Tserriednich and how will be defeated which let’s be honest will be tough and knowing Tserriednich he will use it the best he can. Can’t wait to see how it goes down.
Yeah, I’m with you. I’m excited to see how Togashi deals with this ability because so far no matter how powerful the ability–even with Nanika’s–he’s always managed to make it not just thematically/character-wise satisfying, but make it somehow believable too.
I still do think there’s a significant chance of Kurapika & Chrollo being forced to work together this arc, but yeah, even if that happens things are not going to be easy. But considering the inevitable Kurapika-Tserriednich showdown is likely to be towards the end of this arc, there are a lot of unknowns still at play that could change things… Oito is a slow learner notably, but a foil for Tserriednich, so will she be able to develop any kind of hatsu in time that might just counter Tserriednich’s? Woble’s nen beast is also still a giant question mark that could quite possibly be a game-changer… I love this arc so much! sobs at the likely approaching hiatus
Oh cool!!!! That’s so neat. I think it’s cool how people are inspired by each other’s designs.
I also am side-eyeing Tserreidnich’s ability since we know it’ll make him really hard for Kurapika & Oito to defeat… if only there were someone on board with a vested interest in knowing the future who could steal abilities and just lost his other future-based ability…
There’s an interesting bit of foiling going on in the past few chapters, especially playing around with the idea that using quirks puts a strain on the body, and pushing quirks past their limits requires physical undertaking that can take it’s toll. This was also introduced to us at the beginning of the training camp arc before the villains invaded, pushing a quirk past it’s limit required things like Bakugo setting off explosions constantly, Todoroki freezing and boiling at the same time, etc. etc. It’s a painful process, but one that can cause a quirk to evolve, like how weight lifting makes micro tears in muscle fibers that eventually heal into stronger muscles.
It all starts with Todoroki remembering that his father showed a special technique in the recent battle, and this is also a technique that he tried to pass onto Todoroki into the past.
I’m guessing from the flashback it’s this technique in particular, prominence burn, and with the appearance of Dabi, it’s also not a stretch to assume that Endeavor’s flames turned blue when he pushed them to their absolute limit like this. If this scene were colored, or when it gets adapted into the anime eventually it won’t surprise me if the flames turn blue when he uses this attack. The secret technique, the ultra hot flames that Enji is referring to is probably the blue fire he uses to carbonize and finish off the Nomu in the anime.
Similiar to the sudden and overpowering burst of flames that Dabi uses when he attacks endeavor.
Anyway, considering that Dabi’s burn scars are exactly where his flames emerge from, the same as Endeavor, on his arms, on his neck, around his eyes, and then Endeavor implies pretty heavily that he tried to teach this same technique to Touya before giving up because his body was too frail.
I think it’s safe to say where Dabi’s scars came from at this point. Most likely trying to learn this dangerous technique, or pushing himself past his limits at Endeavor’s urging, only to burn himself due to his frail constitution. Especially considering the way Endeavor treated a five year old Shoto, forcing him into training that was far past what his limits could handle, and then getting angry and insisting Shoto simply wasn’t trying hard enough, or that he was pretending to be frail to get out of the training. Endeavor’s number one concern was producing a pwoerful quirk wielder, to the point of not caring about forcing a small child into training their body could not withstand, when Rei does burn Shoto his bigger concern is the damage it will do to Shoto and throw off his training schedule, rather than the fact that Rei mentally snapped and Shoto lost his mother.
That, and considering that Natsuo specifically accuses Endeavor of being at fault for something that happened to Touya. It’s reasonable to say the implication right now is Endeavor either forced Touya to train until he burned himself through the effort and then gave up on him, or that he put the idea in Shoto’s head he needed to push himself to that extent in order to live up to his father’s legacy, and then abandoned him as a defective product and stopped paying attention to him entirely when his weak constitution made his flame quirk hard to use and cut off all attention and raising which would likely leave Touya with the idea he needs to push himself past his limits to an unhealthy extent to overcome the fact that he was born defective.
Either way, it’s interesting because we’re told that developing quirks is a painful process, and there is a lot of fighting that happens between school age children that can blur the lines, but that comes to the old x men dlilemna of is it really okay for these kids going to school to also moonlight in dangerous situations as superheroes which never really has a solid answer. But there’s also a really neat bit of foiling in the most recent chapter.
So, like Todoroki Tenya also comes from a family line of heroes. Unlike Todoroki, Tenya was given a choice, shown to admire his brother’s kidnness from a young age and never really had the expectation that because he was the son of a legacy super hero and was born with a good quirk he needed to become a hero forced on him. (Also if you read Vigilantes, the elder Iida brother is an amazingly good dude). So, Tensya comes from a family line of heroes, and mainly wants to become a hero to continue his family’s legacy but he was never forced into it, and you can see the difference in their family dynamic in their foiling.
Tenya’s mother warns that it might be a bit early, but his brother also waited until Tenya had proven hismelf capable of handling it and passed the liscense exam before telling him of a way to enhance their quirk passed down the family line. A secret technique just like Endeavor wants to pass onto Shoto, and tried to force him to learn it in the past.
As said many times before, quirk develoment is dangerous and also physically taxing and painful. However, there’s a lot of differences in how these two situations are approached. Number one is they waited until Iida was a young adult, proved he could handle it,a nd left him the option of making the decision for himself. While it is painful, removing a part of his leg and regrowing it, he’s never forced into it, and Iida undergoes that training himself. If he was unable to do so, or he wanted to wait until he was older before pushing hismelf that much both his other and his older brother would have been fine with it. His brother is also really excited about it, like he’s telling a family secret he’s been waiting for years to pass on, and even though he’s excited about Tenya’s development of a hero, he’s also serious and lays out the risks that the process entails before Iida agrees to it.
In fact if you read into Vigilantes you can go even a bit farther with the foiling. The Iida family are legacy heroes and they’re nowhere near the top, most influential, or most famous but as you can see their operation is incredibly well run, and instead of individual strength Tensei relied on teamwork and keeping everything like a well oiled machine.
So, his philosophy is pretty much the opposite of Endeavor’s. The reason he values speed above all else is because he believes that it will allow him to save people faster.
Whereas we’re shown Endeavor became a hero wanting to be the strongest singular all purpose hero like All Might, not wanting to team up but rather stand to be the strongest on his own. Not only that but not reaching number one, not being able to be the best sent him into despair rather quickly and made him marry and start producing heirs with the goal of creating someone stronger than all might in mind rather than doing what is best needs to be done to save others.
So for emphasis you have a family line of heroes who aren’t the strongest heroes in the whole world, but discovered their niche and try to provide as much help as they can from their position and who do not really focus on being the best or the most powerful, and you have one hero who was so focused on being the best that he immediately ran from himself and fell into despair and took it out on his family. So you have a family of heroes that’s lasted for decades at least since their grandfather, peacefully passing the torch from one to the other.
Especially considering how young he looks in the flashback where he’s sadi to have given into despair, and gave up on the idea of crossing the bridge to All Might himself. Endeavor was 24 when Fuyumi was born so he gave up rather quickly.
It’s an interesting contrast, because the Iida’s are legacy heroes that developed on their own. Tenya wanted to become a hero out of admiration for his brother, he was never pressured or forced into it. There are expectations of coming froma family line of heroes of course, but we’re shown a rather heartwarming scene to confirm Tenyai wanted this on his own, and his brother also has his own reasonings for pursuing becoming a hero outside of his family.
So, you have a legacy line of quirks that came about naturally on its own, and one that was forced into being by Endeavor for the sake of his own desires. It’s an interesting comparison.
Whereas, Todoroki was not a young adult only five years old at the time. He was forced into the training, and given no choice but to endure the pain, and when he failed he wasn’t shown any compassion or concern for his well being at all. Evolving quirks obviously does have an element of risk, it’s painful, it requires one to push themselves and physically transform their body but at the same time we’re shown a clear difference between a situation where Iida consents and wants to undergo this training himself in a supportive environment, and Todoroki undergoing this training at too young an age, in an environment that’s the exact opposite of that.
Todoroki is also being foiled here with Tetsu^4 as well. Likely the kind of training Todoroki would need to undergo to develop his quirk is what Tetsu^4 has specifically been training up until this point. Training his metal body to increase his resistance, so that he’s less affected by either heat or cold.
However, unlike Tetsu^4 Todoroki has had reasons and mental hangups that hold him back from that kind of training, so while it is the training that’s most likely necessary to develop his quirk, increasing the way he balances the temperatures of his body, and his heat and cold resistance in order to increase his ability to output flames and ice.
Bakugo hismelf observed this, that currently the way Todoroki’s quirk works there’s a limit to how much ice he can produce, or how much fire he can produce at once, and that limit is generally how much his body temperature drops or raises, and Bakugo compares it to the MP a mage would have in a game, and that his act of freezing Sero is pretty much his upper limit as of now.
So it’s likely coming up, that as Todoroki clears his mental blocks on his own abilities, (as I’ve mentioned in the past the reason he foils Dabi is Dabi is pretty much able to use his flames freely, and likely burns way too hot to the point of self harm because of his lack of holding back, whereas Todoroki usually does hold back subconsciously out of caution and also a desire not to use his flames as destructively as his father did.
So likely in Todoroki’s coming development, we’ll see him clearing some more of those mental blocks when it comes to further developing his quirk past it’s limit, and hopefully he’ll make a special technique of his own and not have to learn one from endeavor.
Time for Sleeping Beauty, one of my favorite Disney movies. Unlike with Snow White and Cinderella, Aurora is not the main character of her film despite being the titular character. She actually only has 18 minutes of screentime. However, that doesn’t mean her character is irrelevant–her journey actually embodies the film’s themes of freedom vs. fatalism, and offers a message about objectifying women besides. Her parallel, Phillip, and the three fairies are the ones who undergo more direct arcs, but their arcs tie into Aurora’s character as well.
As a disclaimer, there is room for legitimate criticism of Sleeping Beauty and this is not going to invalidate any valid criticism of the film or on Aurora, but rather offer a different perspective on her film and specifically on Aurora as a character.
Aurora is no object, despite everyone’s attempts to objectify her and to reduce her to a side character, a role essentially forced on her by other characters and a role she struggles with. The only one who doesn’t objectify and stifle her, in fact, is Philip (and arguably her parents, but her relationship with Philip is the relationship the film gives more weight). She and Philip share a similar struggle for their own autonomy, to write their own stories. This journey they take is really what defines the story, and ties in nicely with expected themes in a fairytale for kids such as growing up.
I should also state that the adults who objectify Aurora are almost entirely well meaning, except for of course Maleficent. Her parents love her and are noted to have tried for many years to have a child before she was born. The fairies raise her and love her. But that doesn’t mean they are perfect in how they go about showing their love.
Let’s start at the beginning. The three good fairies arrive at Aurora’s christening, and Flora grants Aurora the gift of beauty.
Fauna grants her the gift of song.
And then Maleficent shows up and like any party pooper, projects her own anger at Aurora’s parents onto Aurora, cursing her to prick her finger on a spindle and die on her sixteenth birthday. And that’s when Merryweather intervenes, changing it so that true love’s kiss can awaken her.
Merryweather’s gift gives freedom in the middle of the fatalism offered by both the well-meaning Flora and Fauna and the malice of Malecifent. Beauty is not Aurora’s defining trait–kindness and empathy are–but as we see, Maleficent and her raven will repeatedly use Aurora’s fated good looks to find her. In other words, it can be seen as a way of objectifying her. Merryweather’s gift, for her part, still relies on someone else to save Aurora. As we’ll see, that’s a problem through the entire film–Aurora wants to do things on her own, but people continually refuse to let her. Consequently when she finally does do something more or less on her own, it’s not really on her own. It’s in a trance and it almost kills her.
King Stefan decides to fight against fate by burning every spindle, but it’s not going to be enough to stop Maleficent and the fairies know it, at which point Fauna proposes turning Aurora into a flower. Again, objectification. The other fairies point out Maleficent sends frosts to kill all Fauna’s best flowers and that would probably be what became of Aurora if she did so. Maleficent knows everything but “not love or the joy of helping others” and so they decide to adopt Aurora and raise her in secret as “It’s the only thing she can’t understand and won’t expect!” Maleficent does not understand beauty–hence the killing flowers–and she doesn’t understand internal beauty like empathy and kindness (the traits that Aurora will possess as well) either. The king and queen agree and the narrator notes that “their most precious possession, their only child, disappeared into the night.” Referring to Aurora as a possession is telling. People keep defining Aurora by who she’s related to and what her destiny is, instead of who she is and what she wants.
When Aurora grows up and goes into the forest, she sings, calling all the animals to her. She sings:
I wonder, I wonder, I wonder why Each little bird has someone to sing to Sweet things to a gay little love melody?I wonder, I wonder if my heart keeps singing Will my song go winging to someone who’ll find me And bring back a love song to me?
The lyrics point to Aurora’s empathy, in that she is relating to the birds (don’t take it too seriously, it’s a fairytale). Her kindness is karmic as it often is in Disney films: be kind to the least of these and they will be kind to you.
However, Aurora also voices a complaint to her woodland friends: the three “aunts” she has treat her like a child and try to keep her from getting to know anyone. The only time she can express what she wants for herself is in her dreams (which, by the way, pretty accurate describe exactly what will happen in the later story). She wants autonomy, to write her own story and go after what she wants, but she doesn’t want to hurt the people who raised her. It’s a tension pretty common in coming of age stories.
Philip then overhears her song and immediately comments, “Beautiful.” On his way to find her, his horse stumbles and he is thrown in the river, which is symbolic also (as Aurora’s dream is) of how in the later story he will have to go through ugliness and physical pain to reach what he deems beautiful. Aurora’s woodland friends then steal his clothes and run away towards her, again foreshadowing how things will be taken from him later on (his freedom, by Maleficent)–but this time he meets the voice he was seeking as a result. He needs help to reach Aurora this time, and he will during the later battle as well. Autonomy doesn’t mean doing everything on your own and ditching wise advice or your loved ones.
Aurora and Phillip’s well-known song “Once Upon a Dream” is really beautifully sung, and includes the lyric “visions are seldom all they seem.” This is a major theme in Sleeping Beauty: nothing in this movie is as it seems. Aurora thinks Phillip is a peasant and he thinks likewise of her. She thinks her name is Briar Rose and she’s an orphan: she’s a princess. In an effort to protect her, the fairies have kept her naive and in essence lied to her of omission, and it’s going to backfire.
As they dance, she ducks away from him and he has to convince her to come back by empathizing with her: singing the same song.
The song ends with them standing on a cliff, viewing the castle together (symbolic of looking over the future together). Again, to quote this amazing article about Snow White:
they share a song together, which is Disney/musical theatre code switching for “romantic/sexual love.” Generally speaking, the big waltz that Disney’s romantic duos share at the end of the movie is their act of sexual consummation—sex without sex on Disney terms
(Please don’t think I’m saying it’s sexual–it isn’t at all. It just has the same emotional weight/meaning as a sex scene would in a romcom.)
Back at the cottage, Merryweather expresses that their plans for the party should “consider what Rose would want!” The thing is… the fairies haven’t really been doing that. In fact, their focus on what they want for Aurora (pink or blue dress) leads to a petty fight that gives Maleficent’s raven a direct map to where Aurora is. Of course, they love her. They do. But keeping Aurora in the dark as to the truth is no different than the curse to put her to sleep. Aurora has been asleep sixteen years, and waking up to the truth is pretty brutal for her. When she returns home, Aurora tries to get her aunts to experience her joy with her, dancing with Fauna.
But when they tell her who she is, they hurt her. They’ve been thinking of what they think is best to protect her as their essential daughter, as a princess, as a good person, without considering what she wants, and she’s left sobbing.
Philip does the same with his father as Aurora did, since they are parallels: dances with his father in his joy. He doesn’t care that, to him, she isn’t a princess, and to Aurora he isn’t a prince. In fact, Philip tells his father she is a “peasant girl.” Hubert says “you can’t do this to me. Give up the throne? The kingdom? For some… nobody? … I won’t have it!” But Philip rides off anyways. He chooses his own destiny; this being a fairy tale, of course the girl he is in love with is Aurora after all.
Aurora complies with the fairies’ demands of her destiny and almost dies as a result. She also does not speak again for the whole film, which is fitting, because she has lost her voice to the best of intentions. The fairies take her into a room in the palace and bolt the door and pull the drapes, showing how they’re locking Aurora into something she does not want.
They put the crown on her head saying “it is thy royal duty” and she falls into tears and then into Malifecent’s trance.
When the fairies find her after she’s pricked her finger, her crown has fittingly fallen off.
Again with the message of things not being as they seem, the kingdom celebrates Aurora’s impending return with fireworks as the fairies cry over the princess, because the curse they tried to fight happened anyways. The fairies put everyone to sleep, which is fitting because they really are responsible for this situation. They will make up for it by helping Phillip, Aurora’s parallel.
Maleficent tells Philip (mockingly): “A wonderful future lies ahead of you. You, the charming hero of a fairytale come true.” She insists on writing his story for him, in other words, telling him the girl he loves is Aurora and he has to wait 100 years for her to let him out.
Phillip responds by fighting against his bonds and thereby her version of his future.
The fairies save Phillip by giving him the shield of virtue and the sword of truth–truth, of course, being what they did not give to Aurora. And it is indeed this sword of truth that eventually kills Maleficent even when the shield tumbles away during the battle.
They also warn him that the road ahead he has to face on his own. He controls his destiny. As he leaves the dungeon, the fairies lead him.
After the raven alerts the castle that Philip has escaped, Philip steps up and leads the fairies, symbolizing his growing up.
When Maleficent transforms into a dragon, the fairies hold Merryweather back from doing the actual fighting, though they do give him direction.
When Phillip kisses Aurora, everyone wakes up, showing the power of choosing your own path enlightening everyone. Hubert, Phillip’s father, remembering his son’s proclamation of love for a peasant woman, starts to cancel the betrothal of Phillip and Aurora, because he has woken up accepting his son’s agency for his own life. However, then Phillip and Aurora show up together, so all’s well that ends well.
Keeping Aurora in the dark really wasn’t that different than putting her to sleep. In the quest of her loved ones to protect her, they also ensured Aurora’s fate. Sleeping Beauty is, in essence, an almost-tragedy. However, Aurora’s internal beauty/empathy and karmic kindness are what save her, in that they are why Phillip falls in love with her. It’s that man she’s already in love with, the man she chose to love, who rescues her. It’s her love and her decision to love that helps set in motion the events that will eventually help her wake up and find freedom.
Thanks for reading! Up next, Ariel from The Little Mermaid. For previous entries in this series, see here:
Hello anon!
Sorry for this super-late reply, but as I explained previously I am having trouble with my laptop.
That said, I think that in order to answer your ask I need to break it down.
1) As far as Hisoka’s current development goes I shared some thoughts on it here.
I don’t have much to add to the thoughts in this meta. Basically I think Hisoka has started spiralling and because of this he has become even more dangerous for both himself and others.
2) As far as if I think Hisoka will be killed off soon my answer is no.
A second confrontation between him and Gon has been foreshadowed since early on and in general Hisoka’s character is too intertwined with Gon to meet his end in a way which doesn’t involve the latter at all.
Moreover, among the three recurring antagonists Hisoka is without a doubt the most important and the one who was given the most focus.
Let’s also consider that his day of birth is the same number of his month and that he shares this pattern with the four MC. In short, even at a very superficial level I think it is obvious that Hisoka is a very important character and he has a unic role in the series (i.e. the one of the Joker) and nobody can replace him.
3) Finally when it comes to the last part of your ask I think there is the necessity to differentiate between a gray character and a complex one.
A gray character is a character who exhibits gray morality, so a person who either struggles to do the right thing or whose horrible actions are if not justified at least understandable or again a person who might do the wrong thing for the right reasons or the right thing for the wrong ones. This definition might not be perfect, but I think you mean more or less this when you talk about making Hisoka more gray.
First of all, I would like to underline that Hisoka has sometimes done the “right” thing for the wrong reasons. As a matter of fact Hisoka has very often temporally played the role of helper of the main characters even if always for selfish reasons.
That said, maybe you mean that as for now Hisoka lacks complex reasons for his actions and a background which might explain his behaviour and as a result he doesn’t appear sympathetic to the readers.
However, an antagonist doesn’t need to be sympathetic to be complex.
Let’s consider some examples.
1) Iago in Shakespeare’s Othello is one of my favourite villains ever and he is pitch black. And I mean literally. The whole play uses white and black to represent the characters’ morality and Iago is often associated with black. He doesn’t have complex motivations and actually it seems he doesn’t have motivations at all since he keeps offering different ones every time he is asked. Despite this, Iago remains very complex and this complexity is expressed through the way he manipulates the other characters and through his plots. Let’s also underline that his ossession with hurting Othello is what in the end destroys him as well. This in itself makes him a living paradox and a very compelling character imo.
2) Dino Golzine in Banana Fish is a villain I am appreciating very much as well. Once again Dino is a character who is not gray, but he isn’t flat. His relationship with Ash is basically a negative foil of Ash’s relationships with both Max and Eiji and it is one of the primary reasons of conflict in the series. As a matter of fact Ash’s wish to make himself free from Dino is one of the main driving motivations of his character.
So, Dino is a good and complex villain because he effectively represents everything the series condemns and he manages to be a danger for the other characters not because of his abilities and talents, but mainly because of his connections (the one with Ash, the one with the government, the one with the Lees and the one with Blanca) and this is very interesting when it comes to the themes of the series.
3) Finally let’s consider a gray character who isn’t particularly sympathetic aka Kyubey in Madoka Magica.
Kyubey is another antagonist I personally like very much because he is extremely important for the themes of the series. He has very complex motivations and he isn’t really evil since he doesn’t have any malice toward the other characters. He simply has a system of values which differ from the human one. This discrepancy together with the fact Incubators have no emotions makes Kyubey an extremely creepy character and a difficult one with whom empathize.
So Hisoka is not an easy character with whom empathize, but he doesn’t lack depth or complexity imo. First of all, he is an extremely coherent character. He is motivated by his love for fighting and every actions he does is coherent with this passion of his. He simply doesn’t know how to interact with others outside this specific frame. Even his current actions are nothing more than a continuation of his match with Chrollo. Actually one could say that Hisoka is applying what he told Gon to Chrollo as well. Their match started in the Celestial Arena and has now been moved to the real world where there are no rules and where what Chrollo cares for the most is in danger.
Moreover, Hisoka is the Joker of the series and this is well exemplified by the fact that in every arc he is always his own faction. Even when he joins someone else he has always his own interest in mind and said interest never completely overlaps with what his own allies want.
This is very interesting when it comes to his relationship with the spiders because, in a sense, Hisoka is a darker foil of the whole group.
Simply put, the Spiders are a chaotic force. They are individuals outside society and because of that they don’t follow society’s rules. What is more, they are famous for being wild cards even in Meteor City. Their chaotic nature is noted in this arc as well and the mafia is worried about the disorders they might cause. However, Hisoka is more chaotic than them. They have each other and the rules Chrollo gave them. They might be simplicistic, but they are laws and the Spider itself is a proto-society. They can argue as much as they want that they are outsiders and not a part of society, but Hisoka is completely alone and lacks any tie. In short, Hisoka is what the spiders would be if they lacked the Spider i.e. isolated chaotic forces. Since this arcs tackles themes linked to what it means to be a part of a society I am curious to see what Hisoka’s role in this succession war will be.
hamliet 