The issue I take with the whole asshole-Shinso depiction is that it exaggerates the things Shinso is spouting off during the Sports Festival as things he actually believes, as opposed to a tactical attempt to use the one tool in his arsenal to get the job done. During the intro to the tournament fights, Present Mic even goes on record saying that dirty tactics are A-OK, so it wouldn’t be any different than any of the other characters going straight Combat Pragmatist and whipping out a shot to the groin. When Shinso is firing off that rant that everyone loves to gives him so much flack for, you can see from his expression that he’s literally throwing stuff out there for the sake of getting a response, and afterwards, he’s shown accepting his defeat with good grace.
And yes, while it’s fun raking the noodle boy over the coals for going up against the guy who spent ten months cleaning up a junkyard’s worth of trash on a beach, it’s easy to forget that, once upon a time, Izuku was the same way. If All Might hadn’t shown up with One For All in one hand and his American Dream Plan in the other, it seems that canon Izuku was originally planning to tackle the entrance exam with nothing more than Hopes, Dreams, and the Power of Positive Thinking. While fanon has frequently asserted that his bullying was so bad that he couldn’t get a proper workout routine going, his initial response to All Might’s plans is more along the lines of, “Really? Why would I need to do that?” suggesting that the idea of physical fitness had never really occurred to him. And once he starts, the only major hitch he faces in canon is that brief stretch where he starts working too hard. And Shinso’s post-festival appearances have other characters noting that he’s putting on muscles, before he shows up at the joint training session a lot more well-built than before, which shows that he is willing to knuckle down and put in the work when it’s called for. He just needed Eraserhead to do for him what All Might did for Izuku and get him to whip himself into shape.
Yeah, fanon depictions of Shinso (the ones on the other end of the spectrum from this kind) do tend to play up his victim status to an absurd degree, especially the ones that go to absurd lengths to depict him as coming from an abusive foster system or as the victim of multiple hate crimes…or both…at the same time. However, on this end of things, I see a great many writers attributing things to Shinso that he hasn’t really said or done…or said but doesn’t really seem to believe. They call him out for playing the victim card and claiming that he’s been discriminated against. (He doesn’t. The most we get in canon is a brief flashback of Shinso’s middle school peers reacting to his Quirk, which is occurring entirely inside his head and not something he’s throwing at anyone in the present.) They call him out for being a lazy bum who never bothered to work out before attempting the entrance exam (you know, like Izuku would have, if he hadn’t met All Might) and have him continue that behavior in subsequent appearances, even though canon shows that, when he’s given the impetus to, he can and will put in the work. When he’s set to join the hero course, they depict him as still antagonizing his new classmates; even though, in canon, Shinso’s shown to be pretty chill during joint training and does a pretty good job at working with his teammates both times he takes the field.
TLDR, your interpretation of Shinso is fine, and fun to read…but it’s not really any truer to text than the depictions of him at the other end of the spectrum. The main issue lies with Horikoshi, and the severe gaps his writing leaves in the timeline that writers then work to fill in with their own interpretations of what the characters are doing during that time. On one hand, that leaves people with a lot of room to work with, but it also leads to characters with big holes in their stories that writers tend to fill in like you do here.
I don't think he meant the stuff he said earlier, but he still forced people into being on his team between the matches. Like, he took their control away when choosing a team without even bothering to ask them to join of their own free will.
I don't have a problem with him brainwashing Izuku DURING the match, since they were opponents. I do have a problem with him brainwashing his own teammates since they literally don't even remember the second match.
In a sense, you’re right. My general counter goes into that “filling in the gaps with fanon” territory I was talking about, since we don’t see the actual act of Shinso building his team. But from his perspective, he probably saw himself as being in a lose-lose situation. He’s got no reason to believe that anyone would team up with him willingly; being one of only two non-Hero Course students to make it past the cut, and the only one from General Education at that. On top of that, thanks to his “declaration of war” a few chapters back, he’d be understandably concerned about not having made the best first impression (again this is another segment where writers take liberties, as Shinso never bings up his or anyone else’s Quirk during that conversation, merely pointing out that the Sports Festival is an opportunity to move up and he intends to make the most of it, and also making that parting shot about Hero Course students potentially losing their place as well…which is a whole other can of worms). Unlike Mei, who can at least leverage the support gear she’s made as a means of marketing herself as a teammate, Shinso’s got nothing but the Quirk he’s kept under wraps to work with. Because of that, I can see him, rightfully or wrongly, assuming that no one from the Hero Course wanting to team up with him.
So, from Shinso’s perspective, he can either try to team up with someone, get shutdown, and possibly lose his place due to not having any teams wanting to take him (the rules aren’t clear on what would happen to someone who wasn’t able to join a team, honestly, so this might or might not be a legitmate worry). Or he can use his Quirk, which is the only weapon he has in his arsenal at this point, to get teammates for himself. If he succeeds, then his teammates will still move up the competition along with him, so they’re getting some benefit too; which probably made this the lesser of two evils to Shinso’s mind.
Unfortunately, this is where the gaps in the narrative create problems, because we never get to see if Shinso made an actual attempt to recruit teammates in good faith, only to get shut down, or if he jumped straight to using his Quirk out of the assumption that it was his only option, so it becomes a matter of filling in his actions and intentions for ourselves. An important thing to note though, is that this isn’t treated as something wrong. Aizawa’s favortism aside, there’s Present Mic, who’s also providing commentary (and as the fight between Uraraka and Bakugo shows, not entirely shy about keeping his opinions to himself, even if they might be unprofessional). On top of that, Midnight is the referee, and the one actually enforcing the rules of the competition. On top of that, unlike the students, the teachers know exactly what Shinso’s Quirk is and how it works, which means they would have seen him doing this…and said nothing, which would imply this is a legitimate tactic…though, granted, even non-Aizawa teachers don’t always seem to give a very good accounting of their commitment to their jobs sometimes, so make of that what you will.
In another TLDR bit, I’m more inclined to apply Hanlon’s Razor to Shinso’s actions, with him using his Quirk out of the assumption that it’s his only viable option, and perhaps not thinking through the possible long term implications of what he’s doing, rather than maliciously enslaving his teammates and not giving a damn about their agency. But again, this is just my coloring in between the lines, so my interpretation and opinion isn’t necessarily more valid than yours in that respect.
In Izuku's defense, he does say right after All Might leaves that he knew on some level that he was chasing a pipe dream - what All Might said was just the confirmation of it.
As for everything else - yeah, my gripes with Shinsou come down to how he's written (which is honestly true for the characters in this series that I don't like). If we were to actually see examples of him being bullied due to his Quirk (outside of that "hey, that actually sounds cool! Just don't brainwash me!" flashback), or see him putting in the effort after the match instead of just time skipping to when he's been training with Aizawa, I'd respect him a lot more.
My point of view is this: if Shinsou's allowed to be angry due to how he's been treated, Ojiro's allowed to be angry for how HE was treated in the Sports Festival.
Thanks for being civilized about your comment, though. I respect that you didn't just jump down my throat.
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