#dabi's regret for prioritizing his goals above his relationships | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

stillness-in-green · 2 years

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unpopular opinion: spinner is shiggy's right hand man and a better friend to him than dabi

(This response has me saying unusually positive things about Dabi as a League member! Fair warning that it is also followed up by some job critique and the contrast with Spinner suggested by the ask, though.)

You'll get no argument from me, anon. I don't think Dabi's there to make friends, anyway, mind you, but even if he has grown fond of these people in his own way, which is perfectly plausible, I still don't think "being a friend to Shigaraki" in any active sense is anywhere near the top of his priority list. Certainly not compared to Iguchi "I gotta do something to lighten Shigaraki's load! I gotta!" Shuuichi.

The right-hand man claim is more of a toss-up. I actually don't think Shigaraki had a right-hand man in the early days—probably Kurogiri would have been closest. Through Overhaul, through Ujiko, even to the stage after Deika, his claim is always, "We're gonna do whatever we want." That's not an organizational tactic that really requires much in the way of right-hand-manning, and Dabi doesn't act like a right-hand man would.

Dabi's thing is that he is—as All Might describes him in Chapter 340—a vanguard. And when he's on-task, he's great at it!

Because I don't usually say a lot of nice things about Dabi, let me repeat that (below the jump):

Dabi is the League's vanguard and when he's on-task, he rocks it.

Dabi gets entrusted with costly resources like the Noumu.

Dabi is the one making the final calls on things during the training camp attack,(1) at which point the new League members are calling themselves the Vanguard Action Regiment.

Dabi's the most active recruiter after Twice got scared off the job by the Overhaul mess.

Dabi is regularly right at the front of the League's combat line: at the training camp, a clone of Dabi confronts Aizawa; in the highway attack, he takes the opening move; when Slidin' Go approaches outside Deika, Spinner falls back towards Shigaraki, while Dabi and Toga move forward.

When the League and the MLA merge, the position Dabi is given is co-leader of the Guerilla Warfare Regiment, which is, going by the names, obviously the one of the four units most aimed at direct combat.

Numerous times through the war arc, Dabi successfully defends his teammates: he saves Jin from what would have been a death blow from Hawks; he fends numerous attackers off of Gigantomachia; he's the first to step up to face the heroes in Jakku; he even finds time to throw an over-the-shoulder shot at Nejire when she goes for Spinner and Shigaraki.

That's all true. Even if it's not always successful—when he gets knocked out at Kamino; when he can't manage to save Jin from the second death blow—it's still true that Dabi's right at the forefront of things.

When he's on-task.

More than any other League member, though, Dabi has ulterior motives. And when he thinks there's going to be conflict between his goals and the League's, he's always going to put his first. He's not around for the meeting with Overhaul. He specifically bails on fighting Machia. He's all too willing to use Twice's death to advance his own ends, completely disregarding his companions' grief.

And, you know? It is what it is. Shigaraki repeatedly shrugs that kind of thing off. Shigaraki himself is clearly not above using anything he can get to advance his own goals: Stain's ideology, Overhaul's research, the MLA's resources, his own master's quirk. I don't think Shigaraki would hold Touya's personal goals against him.

I just also don't think it qualifies Dabi for the second-in-command position so many people are so sure he occupies. (And anyway, I don't think vanguard groups are typically where you want to put your second-in-command types, since they're the ones most likely to run into lethal danger, and then you'd just need a new second-in-command.)

As to who is second-in-command, I think Spinner kind of appoints himself to the position after Deika and nobody really argues it. Shigaraki's going into surgery, after all, so there needs to be someone there representing his wishes to the erstwhile-MLA, and Spinner and Compress are the only two we know who attended meetings on the regular.

Then, during the raid, when Toga is about to run off on her own and no one else can (Compress) or cares to (Dabi) say anything to sway her, Spinner articulates:

A) an understanding of what the League is (a gang of strays who just happened to come together);

B) an understanding of Toga's feelings (messed up over Twice) and an intimation that he shares them (you're not the only one);

C) an understanding of Twice's feelings (the League was the only place he thought he belonged);

D) an expression of Shigaraki's wishes (that they stick together)

and sums all that up with both

E) the League's mission statement (doing as we please)

and F) a contrasting directive to follow when she's done ("Come back to us.")

The mission statement gives Toga implicit permission to take off to confront Uraraka and Tsuyu if that's what she wants to do. The enjoinder to return reminds her when she's in a very bad place that she doesn't have to go through it alone.

It's a flawless goddamn scene. You could not ask for a better display from a right-hand man.

The League's pretty broken up after the war arc. It's hard to even say they're still active as a group when they're all being pressured to dance to AFO's tune. Probably the League doesn't have much of a second-in-command at this time, or we'd have seen whoever it was stepping up in light of Shigaraki's indisposition to lead, and no one is doing that right now.

But being Shigaraki's right-hand man? Shigaraki has never once left Spinner's thoughts since that day in the quarry shack when Gigantomachia attacked, all through the raid, and on into the current arc. Dabi has yet to have a scene since the war arc in which he fails to bring up dear old dad. I think it's pretty clear who's doing the better impression of a right-hand man right now.

Thanks for the opining, anon!

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1: Though I don't agree with the fandom wiki's assertion that Dabi planned the training camp attack. Shigaraki uses a number of RPG metaphors to talk about the attack in a way that suggests his hand in planning it; moreover, Mustard says right there on the page that the group's "shadowy orchestrator" planned everything. Shadowy Orchestrator could be Shigaraki, Sir Not Accompanying You On This Raid, or it could be AFO, the mysterious voice in the TV, but either way it isn't Dabi.

#bnha #dabi stuff #iguchi shuuichi #bnha spinner #i'm not here to fight shipwars over this btw #i just legit think dabi has other priorities #revenant dabi is my favorite dabi #dabi's regret for prioritizing his goals above his relationships #will come after he gets unexpected closure on said goals #and not a moment before #just like daddy #that's like #my opinion man #but others are welcome to disagree #stillness answers

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