My Hero Academia

Viz is already going with Geten.

Anyways, yeah, Re-Destro is desperately needing a good talk with Shinsou to revise his opinions on the whole Personality Powers thing.

Even more tragic is that holding his hand like she always did might have been what killed her when the Quirk awakened…

Otherwise, to reiterate my question of last page…

Edited by Lyendith on Jul 7th 2019 at 2:00:49 PM

How so?

Guy with creepy brainwash powers is actually a decent and honourable young man

Re-Destro is correct in that people's Quirks help shape their personalities, but what I think he, and a lot of readers, get wrong is thinking the Quirk literally causes personality traits, instead of them just being one (albeit, likely important) factor in a person's life who shapes who they are.

Unless that is what he meant, in which case, fair enough. And you can see this with Shinso's case. Yeah, he's not some obviously evil villain like people would insinuate about him, but he is standoffish and a bit sharp-tongued for reasons relating to his Quirk.

Edited by LSBK on Jul 7th 2019 at 7:27:11 AM

His power is also not very strong and can be easily undone, suggesting he doesn't have it in him to fully control people especially if it makes him seen as "bad"

Basically the idea that your quirk decides your personality. I think Re-Destro has a point, but only insofar as quirks can have influences on the mind. Shigaraki I think wouldn't have ended up the way he currently is now if his quirk hadn't also killed his whole family, and if he hadn't been taken in by AFO.

In general it seems like a mixture of situation and quirk influence. Toga had a blood fixation, but hypothetically with proper care one could have gotten her some methods of keeping it in check without it running wild, but she was ridiculed and forced to hide herself so she eventually snapped and became who she is today. Shigaraki might have potentially been able to manage his quirk like he does now if he had received counseling after the incident had someone helped him, or if things simply didn't go as badly as they ended up going in his background.

And thats on the presumption society would get him that help, because falling into the cracks especially as an self-made orphan means society likely wouldn't. Just like with Twice.

Whereas a hero who is rich and from a well off family like Endeavors can get the help his wife needed.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Jul 7th 2019 at 5:32:41 AM

There was apparently some family drama involving the father.

That most likely did not help.

I can imagine AFO always being kind of an asshole even before realizing his Quirk's abilities, with the Quirk further enabling his megalomania and kleptomania. So in his case the Quirk didn't so much determine his personality as it did indulge in his worst aspects. If he had never gained the Quirk, the guy might have "just" become a sociopath CEO or something.

Edited by M84 on Jul 7th 2019 at 10:05:32 PM

Though it's fairly obvious that you're supposed to remember Deku from chapter one, something that doesn't come across in English is that it's exactly the same line. He even does a pronoun switch from "ore" to "boku" just like Deku.

Anyway, this is five pairs of hands accounted for, but that still leaves two. Where there some other family members he was close to we just haven't seen yet, or are those hands just a different story all together, I wonder.

It seems like whatever effect a Quirk has on the personality has less to do with the Quirk itself but rather the challenges and/or benefits they bring to the person and how they and others deal with them.

In Toga's case, her Quirk and whatever taste for blood it granted her has been less important to her development than being forced to suppress it for years.

In Shinsou's case, his personality has little to do with his Quirk itself and more to do with everyone around him being terrified of his power and saying it's a bad guy power.

In Spinner's case, his mutation Quirk made him the target of bigotry growing up.

In AFO's case, his Quirk fed into something that was likely always there. Becoming one of the most powerful beings on the planet and gathering a growing cult of slavish devoted worshipers and gaining more and more Quirks clearly went to his head.

And so on.

Edited by M84 on Jul 7th 2019 at 10:15:23 PM

I mean, if my quirk involved having chainsaws for hands, yeah, I think that would have a pretty profound effect on my psyche.

Granted, you also have someone like Toga who even as a small child was chomping on the local wildlife. Hard to make the case if she would still be doing that if it wasn't her ability, which just raises more questions about just how profound an effect quirks really have on people and their perception of the world beyond the obvious.

Edited by SkormSnow-Strider on Jul 7th 2019 at 11:23:18 AM

The point is that while the Quirk probably did give her a taste for blood, it's spending years suppressing it rather than dealing with it in a constructive manner that has had more of an impact on her personality.

I'm talking about before she snapped and drank Not!Deku like a pouch of Capri Sun. Is that something that's a natural impulse that's entirely unique to her because of her quirk, or did she just happen to be a bit of an odd kid who liked eating birds if she didn't have it? Because if its the prior, that at least would lend some credence to quirks having impact on a person beyond the obvious ramifications of having a sentient shadow as a super power.

Edited by SkormSnow-Strider on Jul 7th 2019 at 11:31:43 AM

Oops, read it wrong.

Edited by LSBK on Jul 7th 2019 at 10:35:32 AM

I'm not saying that Quirks have zero effect in and of themselves. I'm saying that whatever effect it did have in her case was less important than the years of hiding behind a mask.

Really? I always interpreted Re-Destro's claim about "Personality Powers" as "The personality of the user itself manifests as their quirk" and not "the quirk becomes the personality of the user".

Which makes a lot more sense after thinking about it for a couple of days.

Twice: A lonely man who desperately seek companionship, even at the very bottom of the barrel? Of course that trait would manifest as a "cloning" quirk. It even fits in with his "Sad Man's Parade" as even if he creates more company, that company would still be just him, all alone, hence forcing him to create more company to try and compensate for it, creating a even bigger loop. The chain of loops only stops when he creates someone else but himself, hence "finding company" for himself.

Spinner: a NEET without any job, economic income, or independence to speak of who has to live on other people just to stay alive? A position in society that is considered "lesser" when compared to the ones of students or people who're actually working, capable of sustaining themselves? Of course he would get the "Gecko" Mutant quirk, since he is clingy and mutants in MHA are still (more explained in the Vigilante series) considered with prejudice about being more "villainous" than the other two types, based on the appearance alone. (This coming from a Praying Mantis Mutant in the same series).

Shigaraki: (This one required my experiences from the psychological courses I took long ago...) His "Decay" might be the manifestation of a wish to simply "deteriorate" the bad relationship he had with his father, but ended up too strong and ended up hurting the entire family instead as without the father in the household, as the saying goes "the entire household crumbles", both socially and economically and psychologically. Shigaraki is pretty resentful, and would rather not look at things he could have had or don't want to have, but rather than just walk away from it, he just settles for basic destruction of the physical aspect, (perhaps from simple jealousy).

Shinso: A young man who gets constantly prejudiced for who he is and that "nobody" is actually willing to "listen" too in favor for their own image and opinion of him when he tries to dispel those notions with the truth, drowned out at every turn? Of course he gets the power that allows him to basically make those people to "shut up and LISTEN to me for once!". This quirk is a perfect representation of such a personality that isn't actually villainous, but just the trait of a frustrated young man who can't get a word in the air otherwise.

Toga: A girl who tried to become "someone else", someone "normal" for the majority of her life to the point where she basically snapped due to repressing her own self for too long? Of course she gets the "Imposter" quirk, (as her main deal, might not be the actual blood itself, but the desire to be someone else, and the blood is a way to achieve that goal, rather than the goal itself).

A girl who tried other ways to make herself "normal" which didn't work, so she resorted to a method that "would" work, (except it doesn't, Toga is still Toga, no matter how many imposters she put on herself. Forcing her to keep trying until she perhaps reach the point where she will become the real deal "permanently" and essentially shift forms while wearing another form and not have to dispel it first.

Kind of like how Alex Mercer can appear as a assimilated soldier, walk up to another soldier (while disguised as the soldier) assimilate that other soldier, and clad the disguise as that soldier without having to reveal his true form in between first to change.)

That might be her ultimate goal: To live as "herself", just not as the "Toga Himiko".)

Just to mention a few examples...

(I know all of this is just speculation, but still, a psycho-analysis is a great mental exercise...)

Short summary: "Quirks" do not determine one's personality. It's personality that determines the "quirk".

That's how I see it.

(Thank you for reading this far, much appreciated.)

Except that actually makes no sense at all, for how Quirks have been described, and shown, to work in this story.

I could probably go through all of your examples, but I don't feel like doing that so I'll just point out the most obvious in that Twice's life only went to hell when he was teenager, long after he must have manifested his Quirk. His longing for companionship at that point couldn't have influenced his power.

Edited by LSBK on Jul 7th 2019 at 11:00:07 AM

At the end of the day, Quirks are just biological functions.

Really, the only Quirk specifically tied to personality is OFA, and that's because its bearers specifically look for people of the right mindset to inherit it.

Edited by M84 on Jul 8th 2019 at 12:00:24 AM

Like, Horikoshi is definitely intentionally tying the characters' Quirks into their personalities and their life circumstances (for better or worse) but to say that's actually what made their Quirks what they are, in story, is...

You do realize that lonely people tend to have been lonely for a long time during their lives, not just the teens, don't you? (I'm speaking from experience regarding this one...)

That said, quirks came from somewhere, and the "coincidence" that they tend to match the users' personalities tend to draw conclusions that perhaps, they are the physical manifestations of one's personality, rather than the other way around.

Edited by TitanJump on Jul 7th 2019 at 6:05:01 PM

And you do realize that's pure conjecture on your part, yes?

When the story starts actually saying that these people's personalities directly contribute to how these genetic elements express themselves, I'll believe it. Until then, though, I stick to my point about you looking at this entirely in reverse.

Edited by LSBK on Jul 7th 2019 at 11:08:56 AM

Yes.

But you're making a mistake to think of this topic as a simple "" or "" directional debate.

It's shaped more like a uroboros (a "O").

We actually don't know where it came from and what affects what or manifested from where.

Edited by TitanJump on Jul 7th 2019 at 6:14:24 PM

I'm not mistaking anything. I can acknowledge that something like Toga's blood craving probably is at least somewhat induced by her Quirk, but that's far different than arguing "Twice was lonely and wanted to talk to someone, and that's why he has a cloning power".

One seems to be an actual compulsion, the other are ordinary feelings a great many people experience and yet the vast majority of people don't have clone powers.

Edited by LSBK on Jul 7th 2019 at 11:19:20 AM