According to common law practices in criminal justice, if evidence shows that a defendant has committed a crime, sympathy for that defendant should never sway the final verdict. However, there is an exception to this that can be applied to the antagonist inMy Hero Academia. This principle is known as jury nullification.
Jury nullification is a rare occurrence where despite there being evidence of guilt, a jury can decide to vote for a not guilty verdict in an effort to make a poignant or political statement against a specific case. Why a jury may decide against a guilty verdict is situational and can include that the defendant was so deeply ingrained with malevolence perpetuated by an outside force that they would be incapable of changing their ways when acting out in kind. In other words, through no fault of their own, they were compelled to act maliciously and embrace dark-seeded intentions.
Shigaraki’s Tragic Past Set Him Up For His Deviant Future
His Youth and Sensitive Mindset Made Him The Perfect Victim to Mold
Villains exhibit a wide range of motives, methods, and mindsets. The reasons behind someone’s villainy are as diverse, if not more so, than the reasons behind goodness or indifference. This distinction is crucial. For instance, All For One is inherently evil, a characteristic amplified by his ideology of world domination and his Quirk, which allowed him to steal and utilize the Quirks of others for his own benefit. In contrast,Tomura Shigaraki is not inherently evil. Instead, he was a vulnerable individual with immense power who was manipulated, exploited, and abused by All For One to further his ambition of global control.
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In Shigaraki, All For One could not have found a more receptive victim. Traumatized by the accidental killing of his family due to his Decay Quirk, he was primed for manipulation, a vulnerability exacerbated when society swiftly rejected him as “dangerous.” His plight only deepenedafter All For One discovered him. Seizing the opportunity, All For One exploited his circumstances, persuading him that crime, especially when pursued under the guise of a greater purpose, such as All For One’s insatiable thirst for power, was a more noble endeavor than fighting for the public good.
Is Shigaraki Really Evil, Or Just A Victim Of Circumstance?
A jury might nullify a defendant’s conviction out of sympathy. If this applies to anyone, it’s Shigaraki. Consider his circumstances: the abuse, neglect, and isolation he endured due to his father’s cruelty, compounded by the accidental and horrific killing of his entire family when his Quirk manifested.This tragedy left Shigaraki overwhelmedby guilt, deeply traumatized, and utterly devoid of support during his most vulnerable time. These experiences would devastate even the most “mentally tough” individual, let alone a child.
Shigaraki was never given the opportunity to develop the tools needed to become someone different.
After experiencing such a negative start in life, it’s difficult to see anything in a positive light. It’s no wonder he developed a hatred for society, after all, it had never done anything for him. Likewise,it’s easy to understand how Shigaraki was drawn into All For One’s machinations; he was the father figure Shigaraki never had, someone who also shared his deep distrust of society. With such overwhelming forces of negativity, anger, hostility, and hopelessness swirling in his mind, it’s nearly impossible to imagine him becoming anything but a villain. In the end, he never really had a choice.
This is not an argument against acknowledging that what he did was wrong, but rather a recognition that he was never given the opportunity to develop the tools to become something different. In aMy Hero Academiaworld where almost everyone has a superpower, it was only a matter of time before someone like Shigaraki used his for harm.
My Hero Academia
My Hero Academia is a multimedia franchise that follows a young boy named Izuku Midoriya, who dreams of becoming a hero despite being born without superpowers. These superpowers, known as “Quirks” are found in most people after birth, but Izuku wasn’t so lucky - until a fateful encounter with All Might, Japan’s greatest hero, Izuku inherits his Quirk and enrolls in U.A. High School to learn the true meaning of heroism. Alongside his classmates, each endowed with unique abilities, Izuku faces rigorous training and lethal threats from villainous forces.
