Ggguuuh.. Hawks (based Off My Kin Mems)

crazy how hawks meets a guy who's a lot like him and that guy burns his back really badly and almost kills him but he just brushes it off like it doesn't get followed up. i just know hawks dreams of that encounter every night for a couple of weeks

dedicated Hawks post i love him sm 🦅

day trip :D

messy

もっと高く ver.2 (refine)

He has his hero suit under the biz suit, a sword at his back, has resumed being cheerful & expressive, & continues to be called “Hawks.” I’m still digesting all of this. Many change but also not much at all.

I'll be actually serious in answering this - yes, some of the development is lacking, but I also think there's a step in the right direction.

I've said over the years a lot of Hawks's issues are over agency and choice, yes?

He spells out here: he cannot refuse. In some ways it's because he as a person (as Hawks/Keigo) could never just sit back and not do anything, but also because they won't let him. Let's remember what else is in this part of 192 because I think it shows how clear the relationship is.

He's bowing. He's acknowledging his subservience here. He's below her.

One of the worries of the manga with Hawks's narrative is that he would always fall into this pit of letting other people make decisions for him no matter what. I strongly believe he essentially also caged himself here because while he could break out, there were consequences.

However, let's look at Hawks's "breaking free", which I think was illustrated to be looked at along with these panels.

While I argue Keigo isn't free here, not of the cage he's imprisoned himself, he is literally free of anyone ordering him to do anything he doesn't want to again. Nagant even mentions he must have been ordered to do horrible things. So, I do want to say that one the biggest issues, it seems, at the end was Keigo not having control of his own life.

While I do think there's more he could be doing, the idea that he can make his own decisions, that he's now so high above everyone that his life is no longer as expendable as it once was, might indeed be an improvement.

I'll save this for a longer meta, but Keigo was always curious for being a caged bird who couldn't fly free in his imagery, but his skills were always impeccable control - over his quirk and over others. The manipulation was really what caught my eye initially. And it provided lovely irony for someone who hasn't ever really controlled his life and desperately believes he can't.

He could have said no. Mera was there, even if he sorely needs a nap. Hawks doesn't have to or need to be the new Prez/Chairman. I think he wants to be, because he realized he can't shape the society he stated he wants all along from where he was. That it was the people running the society who made him false promises and maybe he can do better. Can he? Pardoning La Brava and Gentle is the right step. Retiring the Hero part and likely making "heroes" less prominent in their society is a good step. Allowing Nagant to whatever she likes is a good step. We need to see what happens with Toga/Spinner/Compress as well, because Hawks now controls their fates, too. He has a lot of work to do. He has a LOT to make up for. But he can do more like this, than as a hero. He doesn't need his wings to cause change. Just the mouth and sharp wit he had all along - and that made him interesting in the first place. And that's why I think this final image pulls it together. It is literally the image above, but a very different sort of Keigo. Maybe it's the light-hearted one we should have wanted all along.

you know I just now realized that I have seen a thousand posts about That One Jacket but I have never seen a single question about why Hawks is wearing high waters as part of his hero costume

it's dabi day ( ๑>ᴗ<๑ )

do you ever think about how Hawks had the biggest failure in the manga? Like if the core theme is that people who are left of society need others to reach out to them and that if people genuinely try to understand others there can be a connection, essentially the character and narrative who completely failed this theme is Keigo and Jin. Keigo failed Jin. Like, Keigo's even been the mouthpiece for this theme of connectedness in the manga and bringing people together (his comments when Deku was brought in), several times over, and I keep thinking of how it will look when Shigaraki is saved and reached out to by Deku, how this will look when Touya is finally home with his family, when Himiko gets to have a normal night with Ochako and just be a normal girl. Keigo's just going to have to live with the very apparent realization that the kids succeeded where he failed and that Jin's blood is on his hands needlessly. He'll look at the kids and the villains they saved and look around himself and realize he could have had that, too, if only he'd tried to connect. Hawks has always been a really tragic character, and I know from the start we were into this idea of a boy thrown into tragic circumstances with no freedom out of them, but I think there's something to be said that the biggest failure in this manga, and likely of his life, was due to his own actions and buying into his own narrative of never having another choice.

Intermission