A Hawks commission for the lovely (and exceedingly patient) @byrdybyrd02! This guy made me want to tear my hair out a little bit, but it was all worth it. And in the end, I think I had a little bit of fun!
I’m so damn worried about him, ch 271 is disaster! I really222 don’t want him losing his wings, or worse dying. I just start fangirling over him, and there, I found him dying. :’)
I really like his way of thinking/?. He’s hero but he’s not afraid to do bad stuff for greater goods. This is the best character I’ve ever found in bnha, and it would be awfully a shame to kill him, or cripple him.
- No crown, no gold, no coins at all. They trade without money and sometimes your payment can also be “living another day”. Their territory is three times as big as that known by humans.
- Keigo is not a prince.
- The next in line to be King is whoever can kill Shinyo. The skulls are from beings that challenged him.
- The King’s job is to protect the territory from humans, ancient giants and eldritch gods.
- The Kei can litterally walk around and disrespect monsters. They’re not gonna touch him.
Something I’ve realized about the heteromorphs of BNHA is that there’s a distinct difference in reaction to our very own Heteromorph Representation - that being Hawks and Spinner
See, when Hawks was introduced, we see instantly that he’s a mutant. He has wings (and maybe some kind of eye thing going on but idrk what that is)
But he’s never actually seen as some kind of inspiration for heteromorphs, is he? Like as far as I can remember, he’s never had some mutant come up to him and say he’s an inspiration for representing heteromorphs by becoming the Number 2 Hero
In fact, nobody really seems to talk about him in a Representation For Mutants way. Every time we see him with fans, he’s mostly regarded for his looks rather than what he is. The fans are even pettinghis feathers as he addresses others about autographs
And there’s that one heteromorph girl in the crowd with the phone scene, but apart from that, we can’t see any other mutants in the crowd
And while Hori could have just not shown us Hawks’ effect on people his kind yet, it makes me think about the difference between his influence and Spinner’s influence
Hawks is a heteromorph. Ideally, he should be seen as a step-up for the mutant race, right?
But here’s the thing, the thing that is so important between both of these characters
See, Hawks doesn’t look “ugly”. Lets think about the possibilities that Hawks could have had for a wing quirk related to birds; He could have had a beak, clawed feet, he could have had feathers sprouting around his body, he could have even squawked and chirped like a bird. But he doesn’t do any of that at all, and he has none of those features
Hawks isn’t “ugly”, because he doesn’t look like the standard heteromorph, the kind that have extra limbs pointing out, the kind that look the wrong side of odd, or, say, even the kind with scales over his skin
But you know who does? Spinner
Spinner is “ugly”. His heteromorph body is covered in scales and there’s no escaping that. As much as he wants to, he can’t hide those scales unless he does a full body cover-up like Compress, and I doubt that he’d even want to
And, see, that’s the difference - Hawks isn’t “ugly” so he gets away with fame, popularity, shrieking fans (and murder). Spinner is “ugly” and he’s been discriminated against since he was a child
Spinner KNOWS what it’s like to be abused over who he is, to be discriminated against, to be scorned from the world so much so that he didn’t even want to go outside anymore
Hawks, as far as we know, hasn’t had any kind of discrimination over him, and I suspect that’s because he “passes” as a human being
Hawks only has wings on his back, and eye thingies that make him look stylish. Apart from that, he’s literally a human man. And thats pleasing to the eye, right? Hori created him as someone who is “nice to look at”
Spinner though? Spinner has scales covering the whole of his body. Spinner has a beak. Spinner has claws. He’s been discriminated against for the way he looks. He’s not “nice to look at”.
And the thing is, nobody has said anything about Hawks’ placement in the ranks as a representation for heteromorphs because of this I think. At least, it isn’t shown to us that mutants look to him for inspiration. Hawks looks “normal” so he’s basically a human, right?
But Spinner? Spinner created a movement. He has inspired fellow heteromorphs, just like him who don’t have “conventionally attractive” features, to rise up and start rebelling. They even dress like him!
There’s a big big difference in how Spinner and Hawks influence mutants, and it’s incredibly important to acknowledge this difference, because its an example for how heteromorphs are treated
Miruko for example! Miruko is a mutant with a rabbit’s kick. She has bunny ears and a tail. It’s assumed, as well, that she has bunny feet. But she “passes” as human
The ears and bunny tail could be seen as sexy (Hori draws her as a part of fanservice but you think I haven’t seen you people thirst for her and her bunny rabbit look? I see you fandom. Don’t think I don’t), the feet are just feet (as in they aren’t important and can be ignored), and apart from those, she’s literally a human person. She covers up her feet as well, obviously for armor, but it’s one way that it doesn’t seem that much of a problem and adds to her “sexy image”
And when we think about it, a lot of the heteromorph Hero kids are quite “conventionally attractive” too. Tokoyami does have a bird head, but he mostly has a human body. Mina is just pink with black eyes and cute lil horns. Ojiro is a whole ass human with a tail. Tsuyu has more human attributes than frog. Kouda doesn’t have any features sticking out and he just looks like a shy lil boy. Shouji does have his multiple arms, but he’s been seen to keep them down and make them look more like one arm, and apparently, his face is the scariest. And what does he do? He covers his face up
All of these kids “pass”. They look mostly human. Does it matter if they actually are human? No, but does it matter that they look mostly human? Yes. Definitely
And this is why Hawks really isn’t that much of a “representation” of mutants, because he only has his wings, he’s mostly human, and because of that, he looks attractive
One example I want to bring up is Ryukyu as well. While she isn’t a heteromorph, her quirk allows her to turn into a big dragon, and I think that could also tie in with how she is viewed
Because it makes me wonder if a quirk that turns you INTO something is an exception in the publics eyes. I could definitely see that being something they would let slip, because outside of her quirk, she’s “attractive” and human
But I want to briefly touch on how she covers her eye with a big mask. Because it’s not just a hero costume thing, it’s a civilian thing for her too
And it makes me wonder if, like Shouji, she’s covering a mutant part of herself to “pass”. I have no evidence for this, and it could easily just be simple character design, but it’s something to think about. Focusing more on her quirk though, the dragon could be seen as “ugly”, and if in another universe where she was a dragon heteromorph, I can see her being not as popular as she is now
Because look at this
She says “I’m honestly not sure I deserve this…” and you know what? That makes me think about how, without her human form, she would be a heteromorph. She would be seen as “ugly”. But because of her human form, she’s “normal” and “attractive”, and circling back to the eye-covering thing, she’s possibly covering a part of her body to pass
She even fell a rank. It makes me think, why? When she’s so useful, when she becomes so big but doesn’t do any damage to the surrounding area she’s in? (And when she took a role in the War Arc with trying to stop Shiggy but that happened later. It does show how useful and incredible she is though). There’s a lot in this scene that makes me think about why she fell a rank, and her reaction to being in the top 10. That scene has always been quite interesting to me
(This Ryukyu part is mostly just speculation, so don’t take it too seriously as solid evidence for this analysis. Who knows, Hori could reveal something about her or focus on other things, but it does make me think a lot about her character)
The same thing could be said for Amajiki, who is human but can acquire all sorts of features to defeat an opponent (cows hoof, squid tentacles, chicken feet etc etc). His quirk could have an effect on the public similar to how Ryukyu is seen; as an exception. This is only speculation though, based off the Quirk Exception theory.
Fully circling back tho to Hawks and Spinner, I focus on these two more because they are both people who have had a great impact on the story. They are also very opposite sides of heteromorphic features.
And it makes me think about how someone like Hawks got into the HC so easily and was given his own agency at such a young age possibly because of that privilege. While Spinner is someone who hit the bottom of the barrel and was hated by everyone, to the point where he couldn’t stand it any longer and left
He became part of the League Of Villains and became friends with people who appreciate him for who he is. While Hawks doesn’t even have a “who he is”, because he has an entire persona, and mostly acts as someone popular and on duty, never seeming to relax
Actually, the only time he relaxes, as in puts the persona down, is when he’s threatening Twice. And maybe when he was smiling at Nagant (I’ve seen a lot of people talk about how that was a Real Smile, and I think they are right to an extent) but apart from that, he never puts everything down. In his job, he can’t do. He always has to be on duty and working
One last thing to note as well is that this
is Hawks beta design. I think I remember Hori said that he asked for advice about this design and the response wasn’t exactly negative but it wasn’t that positive either. But when he introduced the Hawks design we have today, his staff loved it and so Hori decided to go for that one. I think I also remember him saying something along the lines of “I chose this design over the beta design to make him nicer to look at.” (Please take this with a pinch of salt because I’m not sure if thats exactly what he said or not)
I wonder how differently things would have been if this was the final design for him
Regardless, Spinner and Hawks have a lot of influence over people, and yet have two very separate reactions from citizens and other heteromorphs. It’s very interesting to think about, and it makes me wonder if Hori will focus on this at some point
It’s certainly relevant, and it’s definitely something to think on
Thank you for reading!
This analysis is dedicated to @villainsandvictimsalliance because they made this post and it got my brain gears working lol. Idk if this is what you were talking about in your post, but regardless, you inspired me to write about this, so thank you for that!
I don’t know if Hawks has made any actual dent in heteromorph representation or anything, or if he ever will, but from what I remember, he’s hasn’t really elicited any reaction within the mutant world, so I thought I’d talk about it
There is the possibility of such a thing as Mutant Solidarity I think, similar to Quirk Solidarity, but maybe its just reserved for those who are on the same level as mutant i.e. a squid person seeing an octopus person hero or smthg
There is the slight possibility of him and Miruko having had an impact, which I would love, but when I saw your post, I mostly thought about Spinner and Hawks and how they conflict each other in terms of who they are and as mutants. So I hope you don’t mind that lol
EDIT: okay so apparently I have to actually say this, but I don’t think Spinner is actually ugly. This wasn’t about me saying my opinion on their looks. From what I’ve gathered, a lot of mutants seem to be judged on how they look and I’m under the impression that maybe this has to do with how much discrimination some characters may get. I mean Twice wasn’t mutant but he still got judged on his looks and ended up in a really bad position, so who’s to say those with mutant features don’t get the same or even worse treatment? Again, this hasn’t been shown to us, but sometimes I do look at the Hero kids with heteromorphic features and see a pretty stark contrast between those like Spinner and other heteromorphs and the Hero kids who got into UA of all places. It just makes me think about how the world of BNHA works, and I think its something to consider when looking at new characters or even characters we already know. Thats also why I used quotations for ugly and attractive, because its not about if they actually ARE ugly or attractive, its how I think society could view them. Same with how I used quotations for the word Pass because I don’t like thinking about how some characters are more accepted than others, but its the way that I can see Hero society operating in that shallow kind of way, y'know? Anyway. Little disclaimer at the end here because I just wanted to make it clear why I wrote it the way I did, and not cause any confusion
IMPORTANT UPDATE!
@sanssa had some great comments about stuff that I didn’t get to go in depth about or just straight up didn’t mention in the analysis, and imo explained it better than I ever could!
Y E S LITERALLY THIS!!!
I’m still bitter about what happened in MVA and how chap 220 got yoinked. So now I’m gonna rant about the allagories in MHA and its mutant type (MT) quirk users and how they’re treated.
I’ve been saying this for a while now, but in the world of BNHA really the public only like “aesthetic” MT (mutant type) quirks. Like it’s safe to assume that MT quirks and the discrimination against them is an allegory or racism.
Think about it. Spinner grew up in a small country town where everyone used to call him an in universe slur (for those who don’t know/didn’t pay attention, comparing an MT to an animal, like saying lizard/mutt/etc is considered a slur in the mha universe-or at the very least is considered derogatory to some degree). Dabi also uses this word towards him, and despite Spinner correcting him multiple times-clearly stating it’s offensive-regardless, Dabi continues (yikes).
Spinner also goes on to say in the manga that his town was very aginst “scary looking” quirks. A title that mainly fell on MTs. Not to mention there’s a whole cult dedicated to destroying MTs (the CRC) and hold similar motivations to the kkk-I wish I was kidding, they even have masks and hoods.
But what does this have to do with Hawks and other pro-heroes with MT quirks?
In short, it’s an allegory for colourism we see in the entertainment industry.
Hear me out, what do all proheroes with MT quirks have in common? The face that most, if not all are able to pass as human, or are able to hide a majority of the aspects that come with their mutant type quirk. They appear to be closer to “fully human” so it’s easier for the public to digest their existence in the spotlight. Hawks has his big, bold, and bright angelic wings. Miriko has her ears and tail. Ryukyu can literally hide her dragon form. And Uwabami is a celebrity who has three quirky snakes on her head. While there are some situations one can make up where these heroes face some for of descrimination, by all canon accounts, these heroes have had very little pushback based on their quirk.
(Not saying they haven’t had a hard time. For example, Hawks. But that was less about having a mutant type quirk, and more about the hero commission using his speed, hero skills, and cherisma for extracting information.)
The way these more “human appearing” MTs are percieved by the people in MHA, is the same way many people view lightskinned people in media. can be compared to the amount of lightskinned POC we see in media, especially when it comes to popular franchises/pieces of media (think Rue from hunger games, Starr from the hate you give, majority of the cast crazy rich asians). It’s difficult for people to see POC on screen and in shows, but to see a darkskinned POC is even less likely. This can also be seen in cartoons as well. With animators often going with the lightskinned/racially ambiguous route.
Now back to Spinner. He can’t hide any aspect of his quirk (save for his wall climbing) from the public eye. Spinner isn’t able to pass as “human”, which makes his existence in the world of BNHA difficult to digest. He isn’t considered aesthetic by the world of BNHA (and to some extent to the readers/watchers of BNHA). This is a common experience many darkskinned people face, often being labeled as “less than”, “more scary”, or “uncivilized” when compared to lighterskinned people.
(Wanna make it clear that I’m not saying that lightskinned people don’t face oppression/discrimination, they absolutely do. But when compared to experences darkskinned people face, there are differences in treatment due to how light or dark they are)
And there are heroes that face this same struggle as well. The forst two coming to mind being Shoji and Gang Orca, who have canonically been shown to be considered “scary” by the public. We also see proheroes like Centepedier, who are able to get by in life, but are ultimately forgotten. And while we do see kids in UA with more noticable MT quirks, (such as Tokoyami, Manga from 1B, and Shoji), there’s not as much development given to them compared to their classmates.
However, there is a bit of hope. We see that Spinner has inspired others like him to stand up to the same society who told him he didn’t deserve love and happiness. A world that told him he was a freak, a monster for merely existing. Little by little, Spinner is making steps towards a future where he can live out in the open as he is
