S1 - Ep 8: Search and Steal - Part 2
After gains a new Quirk from her friend, Luz meets All For One again in the Vestige World for a much needed talk about her powers and who he is.
This chapter contains examples of:
- Addictive Magic: Shigaraki reminds Luz that her Power Parasite Quirk's addiction won't go away after taking just one, only hold it off temporarily.
- At Least I Admit It: Despite hating his Brutal Honesty, Luz does gain a level of respect in All For One because of his attitude of his supervillain status compared to the Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist governor. Though its more because he's a Card-Carrying Villain than a case of Even Evil Has Standards.
- Big Bad: Having always found himself relating to comic book villain's, Shigaraki went full throttle with the idea of being this when he was alive.
- Bilingual Bonus: Luz speaks Spanish again. Translations below.
- Mamá! Por favor! (Mother! Please!)
- Break Them by Talking: Shigaraki gets under Luz's skin with his theory why she thinks her power is wrong preying on her fears with a brutal Villain Has a Point Hannibal Lecture with a barrage Armor Piercing Questions that leaves the poor girl wondering if her own mother doesn't love her for who she is.Shigaraki: Now I know why you don’t like the idea of taking away people’s powers. You find it to be abhorrent because you see it as taking away someone’s individuality, and not only that, but you see it as a form of projecting your pain onto others when you don’t want anyone else to experience that level of loneliness.Luz: B-But that’s—!Shigaraki: And not only do you not want others to feel that way, if I were to take an educated guess, if you could you’d also go back to being the normal, plain, no power-having Luz so that you don’t have to live with the burden of knowing that with just a simple shake of the hand you can take that person’s power. Am I correct?Shigaraki: (Psychotic Smirk) Oh…? Am I not correct? Does this perhaps mean that, secretly, deep down in your heart of hearts, you like the idea of stripping away power from others?Luz: (Stunned Silence)Shigaraki: Don’t lie to yourself, Luz. You enjoy that idea, don’t you? Even if you’d never willingly admit it, the idea of taking away power from those who you believe don’t deserve it is something that you’ve always liked. After all, everyone who you ever met who had a modicum of power over you, even your own mother, has discredited your creativity to some degree, calling it a waste of time, or worse, something that you should strip from your very being! ... Look around you, Luz! This very situation you’re in is because of those who had power over you saw your creativity, and saw it as a blight on your very soul! So, instead of helping you direct that creativity into something positive, what do they suggest to your mother?! They suggest taking you to a conversion camp meant to make you fit in line with those around you. And the worst part? Your mother agreed with them.Shigaraki: Your mother, someone who was meant to care and love you, agreed with those who said that you were “too weird” or you were “too obnoxious” for polite society. How devastating is that? To know that your mother doesn’t love you for the way you are, and would rather have you change into someone else so that HER life is easier!Luz: B-But that’s-Shigaraki: “But that’s not true!” you say?! Oh, really! Is that the case? Then why did she send you here? Hm? What, let me guess, she said that “this is an opportunity to make new friends,” right? But what was the real reason? Do you even know what the real reason was? You don’t know, now do you? [...] Well, allow me to make an educated guess, speaking from experience. Your mother caved into peer pressure, and sent you away, instead of standing up for you and making it known that she’d stick by you to the bitter end, falsely believing that what she was doing was the right thing, right? That sounds to be in line with how your mother operates, am I wrong?Luz: (Suppressed Rage)Shigaraki: My point is, Luz, is that those around you who have had power over you used it to make you feel small, weak, and little. And in the back of your mind, you’ve always wanted to strip that power from them. Now that you have the means to, are you really going to try and tell me that you would never do such a thing? That now that you have the means to point back at the world, and tell them for once that they’re wrong, that you won’t?
- Cain and Abel: The Shigaraki brothers were this.
- Cassandra Truth: Luz fears her teammates won't believe her if she tells them she took Julia's Quirk away from her with her permission.
- Death Glare: Luz gives one to Shigaraki, making it clear she's not happy that he can drag her into the Mental World whenever she closes her eyes and thus can't sleep properly.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Invoked by Shigaraki to Luz. He points out while his actions to her might seem detestable he emphasises know that they grew up in different situations.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: As far as Luz was concerned, forcing anything on anyone, be it a drug or a power, was akin to… well, just thinking of the word made her sick.
- The Dog Bites Back: Luz admits to All For One that deep down she likes the idea of taking power away from those she believes don’t deserve it, especially those that discredited her creativity and wrote her off as a weirdo.
- The Dreaded: All For One became this in his world that it got to the point where there was a resistance force created solely to try and kill him.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Seemingly played straight then chillingly averted with All For One in regards to why Luz doesn't like the idea of taking other people's Quirk's.
- Evil Mentor: Shigaraki offers to be one for Luz. Not just to teach her about her powers (including Ability Mixing) but to avoid and learn from his mistakes as a villain.
- Fantastic Racism: All For One admits to Luz she shunned by his peers for having Quirk in his youth. His people were seen as monsters, were culled, and it was even worse with those who had mutations.
- Faux Affably Evil: All For One is almost always polite and cordial towards Luz seemingly happy to greet and talk to her. But he soon tries to get under her skin by making an educated guess about why she doesn't want to use their Quirk, why she sent to the camp in the first place and mocking Luz's mother for not sticking for her, smiling all the while the poor girl is left on the verge of tears by his Hannibal Lecture.
- Freudian Excuse Denial: Shigaraki tells Luz he'd most likely still be a tyrannical monster on purpose with his Quirk even if he didn't suffer from the Fantastic Racism in in youth, much to the girl's annoyance.
- Gratuitous Spanish: Luz has done this.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Shigaraki admits to Luz that creating One For All was the beginning of his downfall that eventually led to All Might killing him. He notes in hindsight he shouldn't have given his little brother a Quirk.
- Horrifying the Horror: Luz learns after taking Julia's power, that one side-effect of her Quirk-stealing ability is that she also gains black, shadowy vestiges shaped like the original holders in her Mental World, that include echoes of their personalities. These are incomplete so long as the person Luz stole the Quirk from is still alive. Both she and even Shigaraki are unnerved by their existence.
- Imagination Destroyer: All For One paints the real Reality Check Camp as this to Luz, noting that stripping away her creativity isn't the answer to Luz's behavior problems, as it would be better to give her guidance and direction for it instead. He even goes as far as to compare the place to a conversion camp.
- Manipulative Bastard: Trying to manipulate Luz into developing hatred towards her mother for sending her to this “prison” camp. Now that’s something All For One would definitely do.
- Never My Fault: Surprisingly averted with All For One. He freely admits that it was wrong for him to take advantage of the Mass Super-Empowering Event situation and become a tyrant. However,that doesn't mean he's sorry for any of it.
- Noblewoman's Laugh: Julia gives a chuckle version of this. Luz finds it cute (in a totally platonic sense!).
- Not Quite the Right Thing: Camila agrees to send her daughter to "Reality Check Summer Camp", and Luz is forced to go... only for the camp to be a front for a Deadly Game where the campers are forced to fight each other. Shigaraki later gives Luz a Breaking Speech about this that leaves Luz questioning whether her mother even loves her for who she is.
- Pensieve Flashback: One is shown in Luz's Mental World of All For One forcibly giving a Quirk to his younger brother, which made Luz sick to her stomach.
- Pragmatic Villainy:
- When an angry Luz believes Shigaraki is implying she should kill Julia after taking her Quirk, he quickly corrects her he isn't, as it would make her quality of life worse. Though its most likely he doesn't want to lose what little trust girl has in him.
- Shigaraki strongly recommends that it would be better for Luz if she didn’t kill anyone she took the Quirk of if it can be helped. Otherwise, they'll be bombarded by the voices of those who Luz has stolen the Quirks of.
- Psycho Psychologist: He's not an actual doctor but the way All for One can read Luz truly speaks to his vast experience and intelligence, especially the fact that he was so easily able to read into Camila's thought process with such huge accuracy, despite having never met the woman.
- Rage Breaking Point: Luz hits her's at Shigaraki after being dragged back to the Vestige World again against her will, casusing her to lose her temper with him. Its noted that making Luz, of all people, angry was a very hard thing to do. However, Shigaraki being The Sociopath had a natural talent for doing so and regards her outburst with only mild annoyance.
- Resentful Guardian: As part of his attempt to break Luz, Shigaraki suggests that her mother Camila secretly despises her. As evidence, he harps on how Camila forced her to attend Reality Check Summer Camp, which was intended to crush her Blithe Spirit and force her to conform to what's considered "normal".
- Shout-Out: In the cold opening, the final enemy team member last thoughts were he and his team wasn't trapped here with Luz. But they were trapped in here with her.
- Sincerity Mode: Shigaraki is genuinely curious about why Luz thinks stealing other people’s powers is wrong.
- The Sleepless: Shigaraki at one point in his life stole a Quirk that made it so he didn’t have to sleep, so that he didn't have to deal with the vestiges haunting his dreams.
- Sucky School: Luz sees her high school as this, or rather her fellow students made it that way for her.
- Supervillain: Luz correctly pegs All For One as one before he admits it.
- Tears of Joy: Julia does this while hugging Luz, thanking for taking her powers away.
- The Teaser: The beginning the chapter foreshadows with an injured, superhuman, teenaged boy who happened to be a survivor of a Total Party Kill on the enemy teams crawling for his life in a forest fire before being brutally killed by his vengeful assailant. Said attacker is strongly implied to Luz that has finally snapped and out for Revenge.
- This Is Unforgivable!:
- As far as Luz was concerned, everything that Shigaraki did in his life as a villain is this.
- Luz also heartbreakingly considers Camila to be sent to Reality Check Camp in order to convert her into a "normal" person to be this. No matter how she sliced it or diced it, that was something that only someone who hated a part of that person would do, even if peer pressure was involved.
- The Unapologetic: When Luz asks Shigaraki if he ever regrets becoming a Card-Carrying Villain, he replies that the only thing he'd change if given the chance is his approach, tweaking things here and there to make his plans more effective.Luz: Do you… regret what you did?Shigaraki: Do I regret my actions? [...] Hardly. The only thing I regret doing is going about it in the way I did. I made a lot of errors back then, and if I were given a second chance, I would do it again, only perhaps with a less violent approach, and perhaps I wouldn’t have created One For All with my future knowledge. To give a very short version of my answer. No. No, I do not. But if I could change small bits and pieces of what I did to make for a more healthy outcome, then I would. Otherwise, I’d keep things the same.
- Useless Bystander Parent: Rather than defending her daughter from those who painted her as a problem for her differences, Camila signed her up for Reality Check Summer Camp, a place that was supposed to force Luz to conform to what others deemed "normal". Shigaraki exploits this to convince Luz that her mother is actually a Resentful Guardian who won't even care about the fact that said camp turned out to be a death camp. Luz also notes as much as she loved her mama, she was the type of person to cave under peer pressure.
- Villain Has a Point: All For One is a horrible person, but he's an extremely perceptive one, especially to Luz's situation. His Breaking Speech to Luz in this chapter in particular is cruel but full of this.
- He points out that no one tried to understand Luz's Cloud Cuckoo Lander and No Social Skills habits, including Camila, and instead dismissed it as an inconvenient weirdo to those around her to varying degrees.
- He also points out it would have been better for Luz to have her creativity directed into something more positive and productive than being forced to think inside the box, like the original Reality Cheek Camp intended to do. He goes as far as to compare it to a conversion camp.
- While he is exaggerating to unfairly paint Camila as a Resentful Guardian and Useless Bystander Parent, All For One isn't wrong in his deduction that Luz's mother caved to peer pressure from the very people who thought her daughter as an inconvenience when she should have stood up for her more. This fact hurts Luz more than anything else.
- Luz quietly admits that All For One is right about her: deep down she has always resented the people in her life having power over making her feel small and weak, and wanted to give them a taste of their own medicine.
- Before that he points that Luz is in a murder game that, as far as they knew, was being sanctioned by the U.S. government. Whether she likes it or not, there'll be people here who'll try to kill her. That's a good justification to take powers away from others and she shouldn't be afraid to do what is necessary to protect not only herself but her new friends, too.
- Before Luz wakes up, Shigaraki tells her there's no such thing as an evil Quirk, only an evil Quirk user.
- Villains Never Lie: All For One is also completely honest to Luz about his villain backstory: from his rise to power in his world, to the creation of One For All to his demise at All Might's hands.
- Virtue Is Weakness: Shigaraki tells Luz that she shouldn't force limitations on herself because of some sense of misguided morality.
- Who's Laughing Now?: All For One admits to Luz, he eventually got fed up with the Fantastic Racism from those around him, and I acted upon his Power Parasite urges. He started to amass power, steal from those who I thought didn’t deserve it, and redistributed it to those who he believed knew would never lay a finger on him and his younger brother. Eventually he became Japan's most powerful supervillain.
- You Monster!: Luz sees All For One as evil through and through, and there was nothing he could say, do, or change about himself in his vestige form to make her think otherwise.
