A mega thread about why shiggy's a well written&interesting antagonist.People often judge a villain's depiction through either motive or backstory,but what truly makes shiggy standout?He may not have a "complex" goal,because hes not carried by some villain tropes youre used to.

Shig started off as a manchild in s1 who was short tempered,he used to throw tantrums when things didnt go his way.But when he comments on the society,its always entertaining to read,given his childish nature,but in contrast he talks like an adult when it comes to societal issues

Shiggy pointed out something really interesting here,heroes call certain fightin methods good&others evil,acting as if there were some nobility for promoting violence in the name of justice to keep who they called "villains" down for those who dont fit in society,like Twice said

Like he said,violence breeds more violence,how can they call themselves a hero if their methods are no different than those who they called a villain?He sees that as a doublestandard from the heroes,he wants society to understand dat heroes arent as perfect as they made out to be

In s2 mall scene,he brought up another interesting fact,talking about why he hates the idealistic,optimistic likes of deku&his friends for worshippin AM cuz he wants everyone to see what life's really like beneath the layer of niceness that heroes have taught everyone to believe.

As you can see in this scene. He is angry at how everyone can go anywhere blissfully happy and not on guard all the time when anyone in the crowd could have a dangerous quirk that could kill most of them in seconds.

And he is annoyed that the heroes and All Might gave them the false hopes and lazy assumptions that a hero will save them and that they shouldn't have to use their quirk for self defence of saving others. AM had a bad influence on society, because of that,+

shigaraki realized that the civilians have lost their sense of crisis for any situation,they smile and mingle all the time when anyone can wield their quirks to commit an atrocity at any given moment in a crowd,all might and the other heroes created false hopes for the civilians.

When shiggy said "All Might smiles as if there was no one he couldn’t save" not that hes mad that all might didnt directly save him personally although this false hope did destroy his childhood,but moreso hes mad at how the society works&its flaws and how AM badly influenced them

So one thing is that shiggy isnt actually wrong here.Yes hes absolutely crazy and looks like a maniac on the surface but hes got a point.Think about it shigaraki a known terrorist was walking around the mall with nothing but a hoodie to disguise himself and was strangling a boy+

but nobody even gave it a glance, the neglect of society,just like his past,he was a victim of that case as well, due to society's blind belief, they once told him that: "Heroes...Eventually a hero will..." Everyone passed by, they pretended not to see him,+

while thinking that a hero'd sure come&save the day,as they turned a blind eye on him when he lost himself in a street after a tragic incident & nobody reached out for a lost child,this false&blind optimism spread by society utterly destroyed his childhood,just one single line,+

and then ended up with an evil incarnate underworld ruler reaching out for him out of anyone else who then became his hero and life saviour in his eyes instead, how ironic, that's why he understands this very well and why he hates+

the idealistic and optimistic likes of the heroes have taught everyone to believe. Everyone is so confident that they're safe and they're not even paying the slightest attention to their surroundings.

He dislikes the society for being happy and able to smile despite knowing that there are terrible things happening all over the world all because all might had a bad influence on them, All might was an amazing hero but he was almost TOO amazing that+

everyone's so sure that nothing bad can ever happen thx to him that they're ignoring basic personal safety measures&not bothering to worry about themselves or others cuz “even if something bad does happen obviously AM&the pros will handle it before anything actually bad happens”.

Shiggys not saying all this philosophical stuff to sound cool,cuz he did genuinely experience that as a child,for him to understand how life is really like beneath the blind idealism that heroes taught everyone to believe,societys blind belief completely shattered his childhood.

During s3 media scene,while the civilians were criticizing the heroes,shigg was criticizing the heavily flawed system of hero society,media perpetuates the image of heroes as product&entertainment for the masses to consume,transforming the job of heroes as mere purchase of money.

Shig heres also talkin bout how the civilians tried too hard to paint AM&the heroes as symbol of righteousness who can do nothing wrong cuz of the idealistic/optimistic aura heroes give off,what they dont realize is heroes are also humans who're not perfect+can screw up now&then.

Next,its shiggys humanity shift towards the league.We're all aware that shigg wasnt fond of dabi&toga,he insulted them when they first appeared, but ever since his mentor afo's absence and overhauls incident+long time he spends with them,he has learned to appreciate his comrades.

Just look at him rn,he has truly grown&developed a lot since then,back then he insulted dabi&toga all becuz their appearances annoyed him,now he just lets them do whatever they want without getting annoyed by dabis unconcerned attitude unlike b4,he has learnt to make a concession

The contrast between chisaki and shiggys humanity are interesting,whats ironic is that while chisaki looks like normal human outside with a suit,but deep down hes a demon who throws his underlings away like an expendable when a yakuza is supposed to view other members as brothers

But in contrast to shiggy,while he looks like a creepy freak outside,deep down he has a human side within him,unlike chisaki,he views his comrades as an equal instead of a human shield expendable,he was pissed when chisaki killed magne,they had an interesting dynamic&the contrast

When twice asked shig why were they doin stuff they hate for&pulled up his mask&told shig:"Im a human too,shigaraki",shig then also took his hand away as a respect to show Twice that behind the mask,he,is also a human,basically said,"Im not gonna force u,just do whatever u want.

Shig really didnt need to takehis handoff,but he still did,for them,he wanted to show them that he was genuine&serious about it,hes not dat heartless to ask them to do stuff they hate,cuz he was aware that togawice wereguilty&wanted revenge from OH,thats Y he told them to do that

Shiggys human side's definitely one of the reasons that makes him charismatic as a character/villain,he grew more&more mature to understand what comrades & members mean to a leader.When twice got in trouble in mva he immediately thought of wanting mla to pay for what theyve done.

Not just shig,each member has a humanside within them that makes them charismatic including togatwice&shig himself,theyve a strong bond together,unlike the yakuza,previously I talked about both groups leaders,this time,the entire group itself,both had interesting dynamic&contrast

Another thing that makes shiggy intriguing is his parallel with the mc deku himself,ofc,majority know that,but still Shigaraki's existence basically answers the question that what if deku was born with a quirk,but a cursed one. They're basically the two sides of the same coin.

During the mall scene,they talked about how all might connected them together and how they had a fixation on all might, and because of that, they're both now a fated archenemy.

Absolutely love the parallel between young shigaraki and young izuku, just look at them as a child, they look so alike and it really just puts so much emphasis on how either one could’ve ended up like each other because of how similar they are.

One was born quirkless,while one was born with a quirk that only allows him to kill/destroy,they were both unlucky,society turned their backs on both of them,nobody saw worth on a quirkless boy while nobody reached out for a bloodied homeless boy,men,really are not created equal.

Another interesting parallel here is they both said the EXACT same thing here too, both didn't want any pity, they both just wanted to hear one thing, and all they both wanted to hear was...

Both of them tried to become a hero despite all the unfortunates,both of them loved AM,both of them had their dreams crushed,both of them have mentors and also as fatherfigures to replace their missing fathers,both of them are their mentors successors,both of them are archenemies

Sorry if I butchered a lot of words due to word limit, had to shorten shit tons of words, had to forcefully draw some words closer,you hate it when your sentence gets cut off halfway, had to do all that.

Also one more thing that I left out is the whole concept of "quirks are directly linked to a person's personality",he was molded to have a mindset of destruction by his own quirk and AFO, at first he wanted to become a hero despite of the rejection and abuse by his family.

But during the fight with redestro,after remembering his past back to when the incident of “manifestation of a cursed quirk for the first time that led to the death of his entire family by accident except for his father” happened,he came to a realization that his quirk ONLY+

allows him to destroy, after that callback,he has finally decided to embrace and accept this harsh reality that"all he can do is to destroy".Since then,he has stopped being a prisoner and bound by the chain of his past&liberated himself from it.This man,is freed,no,he IS free

With stain he has learnt about conviction,with overhaul he has learnt about planning,with redestro he learnt about liberation.Each "arc" antagonists except for gentle served as a foil to build up shigaraki's character. These are all progressions, especially with liberation,+

him being liberated is more than just physically,but psychologically.From now on he will stop holding himself back and backing himself down, he will stop looking down on heroes,the shackles of his past don't matter anymore, he'll go all out.He progressed here in terms of maturity

This man's the representation&living embodiment of freedom,more than anyone else,arguably redestro,mla or hawks.Even redestro admitted it himself. No wonder hawks is being swayed by their ideology,cuz he's also someone who's obsessed with freedom.Shiggys simply too free&liberated

I forgot to add the titles of each, or maybe I just scrapped them because of word limits again, but if it means to make it easier to read with titles as a summary then sure.(Also to make this thread into 40+ tweets instead of 39). Here are the parts and titles

1.1-Shigaraki's philosophy
1.2-Society's blind beliefs/false hopes and the flaws of the system
1.3-Shigaraki's inner humanity,compassion and progression
1.4-The parallelism of deku and shiggy
1.5-Quirks' influence on a person's character
1.6-Shigaraki's liberation and realization

1.7-The downfall of tenko shimura and the rise of tomura shigaraki

Shiggy wasn't BORN evil, he was simply a product of a bad environment,I've talked about how quirks affect a person's character, but outside of that, several factors also helped him becoming more and more twisted.

Let's start off with his family and dive into their dynamics. As a child, Tenko was shown to be relatively normal,kind&compassionate,not much different than deku. He held a great love for his family and a strong desire to become a hero despite knowing that there was a rule that+

his dad set up for not bringing up hero related stuff in the house, his dad hates heroes for a reason, his dad developed a deep resentment towards his mother nana cuz he thought that she selfishly abandoned her family for the sake of helping complete strangers. This resentment+

eventually grew into a hatred for all heroes, viewing them as selfish individuals whose actions only served to harm their own families.He pretty much is what kota could've been if deku didn't prove him wrong with his actions, he even had a similar name with kota named kotarou.

As a result of this hatred, he became both physically and emotionally abusive towards tenko for bringing up any hero related stuff. He even hit tenko for finding the picture of his grandmother in his room all because tenko's sister hana put all the blames on him by+

selling him out although she brought tenko there first. Ironically, kotarou started doing the very thing he believed all heroes were guilty of and instilling tenko's future hatred of heroes and society, this indirectly shaped tenko into a villain,+

wasn't he against heroes? Well how about the son turning into a villain then? He created an opposite effect with his decisions, not just kotarou, ironically nana who was the greatest hero previously created the future greatest villain INDIRECTLY with her abandonment of kotarou.

Not just that, let's move into the other family members, only tenko's mom was the actual caring one, his paternal grandpa and grandma were perfunctory towards him, his sister was self centred and sneaky in a crisis even though she was kind at first in a normal situation but+

she was the one type who reveals her true color in a crisis,like other children since theyre always self centred,selfish and sneaky in a naive way even irl,she sold tenko out for the sake of her selfish reasons,while his dad being the abusive one as I brought up earlier despite+

of his reasonings. With all the unsettling family dynamics above, tenko realized that the household his father built, rejected him kindly. These different levels of animosity towards each of his family member protrayed given how they treated him at the first place+

has been built up since day one, added up and stacked up, LITTLE by LITTLE, a small and steady accumulation UNTIL it hit the boiling point, he couldn't bear it anymore and he finally snapped out of it which led to the death of his entire family. Now, tomura shigaraki is born.

This is how much influence they have in his downfall. Not to mention that each of his family member died in an ironic way, they died the same way they treated him.

1)Hana-died while selling tenko out,running away,being self centered as ever even after apologizing

2)Paternal grandma and grandpa-died while standing far away and just watching without doing anything when tenko needed the help while getting beaten up or abused by his dad

3)Mom-died while still being the most caring one

4)Dad-Died hitting him just like who he was

5)Dog-being his listener

Since I've already covered the aftermath of this tragedy with him losing his way in a city and being found by afo which turned him into a more twisted man, imma just skipped to what happened after afo picked him up. We've been informed that afo gave tenko his last name+

which is called "shigaraki", afo's last name, it symbolizes a relationship close to father and son, since then, that's what he sees afo from now on,a father figure,kinda parallels to all might and deku's relationship except for the name thing.Then afo took and gave back his dead+

family members' hands to suppress his feelings and calm him down after the tragedy that just happened, at first he felt sick wearing them, but he grew to realize that the hands help to calm him down cuz he feels like they're still hugging him in a way and to also suppress his+

feelings like afo said and intended to do, they don't erase his memory, but they do lock them away and shut them down while still remaining, like afo said, human heart is an incredible thing, anything will heal after a long time. So after this long in mva, knocking the hands off+

wouldnt matter that much anymore,but instead,redestro knocked away the shackles of his past(hands) while liberating this inner beast in a process, getting his memories back isn't gonna turn him good, but it made him even more malicious and free than before, therefore, after that+

shiggy liberated himself and broke free after the realization while embracing his purpose and the harsh reality that destroying is ALL he can do.Instead of affecting him,him leaving his past is only moving him even forward,cuz he can NEVER go back anymore,but to embrace all this.

Besides of his family,the society and quirk's influence,afo also played an enormous part in making him more twisted and twisted.But despite the fact that afo desperately tried to make shigaraki a deadly weapon, a heartless and an emotionless monster, but the "tenko" in him still+

deeply cares for his comrades, just like who he was, the compassionate and caring one little kid, no matter how liberated he is now, that can NEVER go away. For someone who claimed to destroy everything, indeed made an exception for the sake of his comrades' wishes to come true.

He may have left his past behind, liberated himself from it, BUT his comrades still live on, he abandoned all of his family's hands and past shackles, ONLY to officially and formally embrace his new found family.

In conclusion,maybe.This thread is into turning something far more massive than what I expected,I think Ive covered almost everything about his character,is there anything left?I guess not.I retyped some of these again due to some minor mistakes since twitter has no edit button