#TELL ME THE TRUTH HORIKOSHI. DID YOU READ MY FANFIC. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

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Hi!! I liked your Hawks thing and I was wondering if you would say more about his visor?

Sure! I’m not sure if you mean say more about the times when his visor is removed, say more about patterns in how he wears his visor, or talk about his visor as a symbol of something. So, since I’m most interested in fanfic, I’m going to talk more about the first two things and only briefly about thematic stuff.

Like I said in my other post, the thing I pay the most attention to is when it’s removed from his eyes. (The various times I say “remove” or “take off,” what I mean is removed or taken off from his eyes, not necessarily his head.)

This happens when…

Endeavor confronts him post-ceremony about his shenanigans, and Hawks strategically pulls down his visor to persuade Endeavor he sincerely admires him, wants to thank him, and wants to help him.

When the nomu shatters it, and Hawks thinks about how he admires Endeavor, and he thinks the line about how his back isn’t reassuring.

When Hawks watches Endeavor leave Fukuoka, he pushes up the visor and remembers his promise to get his hands dirty if it’ll save people, and then he repeats his line about wanting a world where heroes have time to spare.

And, ofc, when Dabi stomps on him while shouting that sentiment tripped Hawks up after all.

Besides the automatic potential meaningfulness of removing the visor, Horikoshi also gives these moments meaningfulness through his art style: Hawks earnestly looking up at Endeavor while he thanks Endeavor for being reassuring, and Hawks grimly thinking that he’ll make a better world happen at his trademark speed, are both large, detailed panels without backgrounds, putting all the focus on his newly-bared face and eyes. The panel where the nomu shatters his visor is smaller, but it’s given meaningfulness through the slow-motion effect of the nomu’s tentacle approaching Hawks’s face.

So: there’s something important about these moments, and given how dishonest Hawks is, I’m inclined to think that they’re important because they’re honest.

The only transition moment I’m iffy about is this one:

So far, this is the only time Hawks removes his visor by lowering it around his neck instead of raising it to his forehead, and the effect is that he covers his mouth. This post is actually what inspired me to think about Hawks’s visor in the first place, and it points out that Hawks is often drawn with his mouth covered—and even something like his gesture where he zips up his mouth resonates with his position as a spy and secret-keeper for the Commission.

So, I think Hawks may not be all that honest about his feelings for All Might—it could be more complicated than he’s letting on here.

I’m ambivalent about whether the visor has meaning when it’s already in place…I don’t really see a pattern of him being more honest when the visor is off versus on. But I’ve puzzled over it enough that my brain feels like mush when I think about it, so here’s an info dump.

I think I got this all accurate, but hey, I might’ve made a few mistakes.

Times when he wears the visor:

185 - Hero ceremony

185 - Talking with Endeavor post-ceremony

186 - Lunch with Endeavor

187-189 - Nomu fight (until it shatters) (involves flying)

191 - Receiving the spy mission from the HPSC

192 - In off-duty clothing, saying goodbye to Endeavor

199 - Training Tokoyami (involves flying)

231 - Hauling Jeanist around (involves flying)

240 - Applauding the PLF rally (while remembering delivering Jeanist to Dabi)

243-5 Delivering the MLA book to Endeavor (involves flying)

246 - Interacting with the PLF (including Hawks’s internal monologue about being glad that Class 1-A is faster than him)

258 - Every interaction with Twice (“I wanna fly free”)

263-264 - Attacking Twice

Times he doesn’t, by choice:

199 - Post-patrol, when he invites/kidnaps Tokoyami to take him on a night flight (but he wears it while they talk and fly)

231 - When Dabi phone-calls him to assign him the assassination mission (involves leisurely flying)

231 - In off-duty clothing, when he pays Jeanist a visit

240 - He removes it off-screen while greeting people at the PLF rally, sometime between the end of Shigaraki’s speech and before Dabi comes over.

255 - Teaching Twice (when he receives the hint about the hospital and goes “the pieces are in place!”)

Times he doesn’t, by obligation:

190-192 - because it’s broken. He helps Endeavor defeat the nomu, prepares to fight Dabi to save Endeavor, later confronts Dabi about their mutual sabotage, and then visits Endeavor in the hospital.

191 - childhood, didn’t own it yet.

Unclear:

While delivering Jeanist’s body to Dabi, Hawks is strangely faceless, we never get a proper look at him. I think there’s a blurry visor on there, but idk.

So?

My brain is mush again and I don’t have much insight into how Hawks decides whether or not to wear his visor at a particular moment. He wears it where it’s sort of pointless (i.e., indoors) and he wears it when it’s kinda rude (one-on-one meal with Endeavor). Bidding farewell to Endeavor is the closest Hawks comes to being off-duty, but he’s wearing it then, so I don’t think the visor is purely part of his hero costume. He has it off during ch255 while he tutors Twice, but he has it on in ch258 while he tutors Twice—did something change?

I think there could be a weak correlation between the visor and Hawks feeling guilty or nervous. Hawks wears it as much as he can around Endeavor, and once he grows attached to Twice, maybe he starts to wear it around Twice, too. He wears it during the PLF rally while he’s shaken over how formidable the PLF is, but once he acclimates and gets down to work chatting people up for info, he takes it off (off-screen).

It’s also possible that not wearing the visor is a sign that he’s excited. He’s not wearing the visor when he nabs Tokoyami and takes off, he’s excited that Dabi has folded and contacted him again, he gives Jeanist a very special smile, and he could’ve been excited when he was first befriending Twice.

Or there could be a connection with how hard he’s trying to seem sincere. In ch185, he takes off the visor to try to persuade Endeavor that he is sincere (and in this case, is sincere), and maybe after that he’s not so concerned with appearing earnest, so he puts it back on. Wanting to appear truthful could explain why he’s not wearing it while he’s chatting with people at the PLF rally or when he’s initially charming Twice, but it wouldn’t explain why he wears it around the PLF so much in general (other than battle-readiness), or why he wouldn’t wear it while he’s on the phone with Dabi.

…I know it’s not much, sorry. Maybe someone who reads this can come up with a better idea?

I think the most suspicious—and therefore, most potentially meaningful—incidences of him not wearing the visor are when he’s on the phone with Dabi (Hawks is flying, but he has it off) and when he visits Jeanist, which is the only time Hawks voluntarily doesn’t have a visor with him at all. (Did he take public transit to and from Jeanist’s apartment? Or did someone from the HPSC drop him off/pick him up?)

Anyways, my favorite of my three ideas is that he doesn’t wear the visor while he’s excited, so that’s what I’d go for if I were writing him in fanfic. It meshes well with the honesty-gesture of removing the visor.

Misc interesting notes:

When Hawks is flying, he is obliged to wear his visor as protection against high winds. Flying=freedom is generally common, and it’s especially poignant in Hawks’s case since his ability to fly diminishes the more feathers he sends out to save people. So if the visor itself symbolizes something, then I think that “something” is important to his freedom as well as his honesty. He can fly without his visor…but he won’t see where he’s going. (Unless he has a third eyelid.)

Both of his iconic lines about flying, “Those who can fly, should!” and “I wanna fly free,” are spoken while wearing his visor.

Both Twice and Shigaraki wear things on their faces (or in Shigaraki’s case, previously wore). There could be a foiling between the visor and the mask or hand.

It’s also worth considering, who is Hawks’s honesty for when his visor is removed? For the audience? For himself? For whoever he’s in the scene with?

I don’t think Horikoshi has ever drawn Hawks putting his visor on; he’s only shown Hawks taking it off. In the first scene with Endeavor, Hawks replaces his visor off-screen, potentially while Endeavor’s back is turned. He also replaces it off-screen before flying with Tokoyami.

Horikoshi avoids the cliché of “light flashes off the visor to obscure Hawks’s eyes while he’s being deceptive.” because then we would never see hawks’s eyes Instead, when Hawks’s visor obscures his eyes, it’s usually either during comedy or to make him seem menacing. It is interesting that the same technique is used for both amusement and fear.

The only time I’ve noticed Horikoshi use the cliché is in ch245, when Hawks remarks he recommends everyone to read this book because it’s going to be very important going forward.

Edit: Whoops, I forgot to mention! I read an interesting post yesterday that talks about how vision and telling the truth are such integral parts of Hawks’s character that they’re included in his name. Definitely worth considering in relation to his visor.

#bnha #bnha meta #hawks #takami keigo #spoiler!hawks #asks #no.13 #thematic content isn't my strong suit #sorry if that's what you were looking for anon #bnha manga spoilers

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