My Hero Academia's Take on Nature vs Nurture

in my hero Academia fan spaces there is one pervading critique about not just the villains but the world of the series at large a lot of people like to call into question the origins of the league of villains does the series attempt to justify their wrongdoings does it try to paint them as sympathetic were people like Toya Todoroki or himikotoka just born wrong this is specific phrasing used a lot in the community born wrong what is this criticism of them as people really entail it all falls back to this idea of nature versus nurture this has been a debate that has been ongoing all around the world for a very long time to simplify that concept let's break it down a bit when we discuss nature you could think of it as talking about genes when people say these characters are born wrong they mean that something fundamentally genetically is wrong with them their character flaws are hard coded into their being then we have nurture or what we can call environment the belief that people are more so products of an environment not held down by genetic factors like I mentioned earlier this has been a long time debate and you can find a lot and I mean a lot of discussion on it when my hero Academia is not unique in its decision to approach the subject to talk about this further we have to find out what the show's take on this hotly debated subject is and its position is pretty explicit the topic is slightly brought up early on but in my villain Academia the story hits you over the head of what it believes while these characters have a certain characteristics upon birth what it believes matters the most is the environment of them which outwardly shapes every single villain in the cast while toga was born with a quirk that made her parents upset and the people around her uncomfortable it was the environment that pushed her into isolation because no matter what genes you were born with those genes must Express themselves in an environment and that environment will alter how those genes Express themselves that is my hero academia's stance on that debate and for the most part that seems to be the correct interpretation of nature vs nurture or genes versus environment the debate shouldn't be between the two to begin with but how they influence each other there is a study of cell function known as epigenetics a study of how the environment affects genetic expression genes have the ability to literally turn themselves on and off in response to your immediate environment and it's something that happens to you pretty much all the time for example if you are born with the Gene which bakugou likely wasn't but for the sake of simplifying the argument will go with that being constantly impuged for being an could lead to that magical Gene to flip off in response as you can likely tell in both the story and in real life biology things are a bit more complicated than being born bad and it is a reductive argument to criticize the villains for this instead of their circumstances often being used as a way to justify the status quo and shift the blame onto the victims we can examine the three primary pairs of heroes and villains to look deeper into the contrast of image's portrayal of genes versus environment midoriya our protagonist is born corkless shigaraki our antagonist is born corkless at first either way they share totally separate environments while on the surface seeming similar they are both somewhat hostile to their aspirations of becoming Heroes however the way they express themselves is quite different midoriya's environment is slightly toxic towards his ambition his mom not really providing him the reassurance that she needed to at the time something she recognizes early on and he would face the social repercussions of both being corkless and aspiring to be a hero one could argue and people do argue that midoriya was born selfless and born to not worry about his own state of being however this seems to go against pretty much everything else mha has to say about nature versus nurture it is possible a twinge if it existed however it is far more likely it was exacerbated by his circumstances of feeling like a worthless quirkless nobody who can't save anyone in that same vein shakiraki wasn't born bad he's a nice kid who enjoyed playing Heroes of people and badly wants to be a hero however the cracks of hero Society have been long experienced by his father who takes out his frustration on his family around him and mainly young tanko physically beating him after he finds out that his grandmother was a hero at no point did Yong tenko Express homicidal or genocidal urges until his Quirk manifested and he took out his child's frustration on his father because those things were bred by his environment explicitly not being born bad despite having a similar genetic makeup at least to begin with both of them being quarkless kids with heroic aspirations the two having separate varying levels of toxic environments would alter their trajectories and make them tested Rivals the second pair of characters ochako and Toka share almost no similarities in terms of their genes or environment toga as mentioned earlier was born with a cork that was considered a social taboo instead of being supported was considered a demon by her parents and thrust into unproductive Court Counseling in hopes of making her normal instead the natural urges from her Quirk her confusion about love and her desire to express her own version made her lash out and become a criminal ochako was born with a cork that didn't have that social stigma and was in a very supportive albeit poor household and ochako is one of the few characters whose arcs directly involves acknowledging this gulf between them in a world where toga was more supported or in a world where there were more assets for her to utilize would she have turned out this way this difference informs their conflict in plw when toga asks what ochaka would do with her after Hawks had just backstabbed twice would she kill her too ochako's inability to grasp that difference in that moment led to toga fleeing and crying ochako is an often overlooked character for being one of the few that accurately assesses the social injustices of the status quo with her speech and villain hunt being one of the few times that the cast explicitly denounces the idea that Heroes were born good an inverse of what the fans of the series perceived the villains to be these Heroes these people are just that people people that should not be idolized for being born this way and that ultimately just had a good environment to support them unlike so many others the final comparison exists in Toya and Shoto these characters have more or less the same genes and the same environment so why do they turn out so differently Toya was born not in endeavor's perfect image but he was satisfied he raised the boy up to surpass him and ideally one day surpass all might all his parental affection and self-worth ended up becoming intertwined with training to become a hero you could see it in the flashbacks he's a happy kid who loves the idea of fulfilling his dad's Ambitions that is until he begins to seriously hurt himself in the training process this causes Endeavor to continue having children severing a literal child's connection to his family and his only source of affection being cut off entirely after shoto's birth Shoto and Toya both co-existed in a neglectful abusive household witnessing their mother get hit getting hit themselves and the non-masterpiece is being shoved to the side they both share very similar genes minus the difference in quirks people often criticize Dobby as a character because well Shoto didn't turn out like him well because environments aren't that simple it's even reductionist to say that Shoto and Toya share the same environment just because they live in the same household Shoto did not bomb with his father in the same way Toya did and then got that only connection of familial love straight from him Shoto did not have to continue training in secret to try and regain what he thought was his father's love and Shoto did not self Emily on sokoto Peak the story even made it explicitly clear that Shoto was a on a similar path to Dobby when Shoto thinks that Dobby's Vengeance and hatred towards his father mirrors his previous attitude Dobby however did not have someone like Midori in his life to put him on the right path Dobby didn't have the support of an entire class of people who wanted to be friends with him explicitly showing off my hero academia's belief that your environment shapes who you are even something as minor as a friend group can change everything shikaraki toga and Toya weren't born wrong shikaraki was in an abusive household left to part of the streets before being groomed by All For One toga was shunned by her family and peers having no choice but to find Acceptance in the less clean parts of society Toya lost the only thing he had in life and practically killed himself trying to win his father's approval in that same vein bedoria ochako and Shoto were not simply born good their environments pushed them to become the people they are today midoriya was wowed by all might heroism and wanted to emulate that sense of relief that he brought even if it came with the cause of himself otaku saw her parents struggling and with their support wanted to become someone who can afford to help them all while spreading Joy to the people around her Shoto discovered that his power is his own and he didn't want to leave a wake of vindictiveness towards his father finding himself along the way and all six seasons of image the point is that these people aren't so different and a series of unfortunate circumstances is all it could take to lead them down the wrong path sometimes all it takes is one bad day a lot of people believe that Hawaii by giving them backstories is trying to free the villains of consequences or make us feel bad for them because oh sad backstory but that is a reductionist point of view while some sympathy is intended because ideally you are a human being who experiences empathy the idea is to show how these people got here and that the Society of my hero Academia is lacking at no point in the series so far hasn't been stated that oh well we should just let them kill people because they had it rough as a child even midoriya who wants to save shigaraki recognizes the harm he's done and says that he will never forgive him for that the series is simply taking a broader approach to these issues instead of Simply reapplying bandages to the wound every time it occurs mha seeks to stop the wound from occurring altogether however I'll go is left to be seen as the series nears its conclusion but I am simply tired of hearing about how the villains were born wrong and that hori is trying to absolve them of wrongdoing thank you so much for watching if you like this video please remember to like 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Channel: AsarathaHS

Views: 4,917

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Id: ye84hVuxMUo

Length: 9min 4sec (544 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 09 2023