Crash Course: Lets Learn About Abuse

Sometimes Fiction can help us come to terms with reality.

Image Source: Reddit

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When the world feels hopeless, and I’m drowning in disappointment at the spineless behavior of our elected “leaders” I like to watch “My Hero Academia.” it’s an anime who’s main protagonist (Izuku Midoriya) lives in a world where everyone has some sort of super power (quirk). Because of this, some people with powerful quirks become heroes to help others. Izuku wants to become a hero, but unfortunately for him, he was born without a quirk. Things change when he runs into his idol (All Might).

Impressed with the young man's passion for helping others, All Might transfers his powers (One for all) to Izuku, and we spend the rest of the series watching him become the greatest hero of all time. I enjoy My Hero because Izuku feels human, unlike many Anime protagonists. He’s a kid with new powers trying to figure things out; he doesn’t jump into battle quickly, and for much of the first season, his body is too weak even to use his new gifts. Despite his limitations, he tries to stand up for what’s right and slowly develops his skills.

(If you plan to watch this show, or have just started, you may want to skip this part; there will be spoilers.)

To do this, he enters the number one hero school, U.A., where he works with other students to develop his powers. His mentor, All Might, also teaches there, which makes the school and students a target for All Might's greatest foe, and the most dangerous villain in the world, All for One. Despite taking extreme measures to protect the students, the villains locate their whereabouts on three different occasions, leading the school administrators to realize there’s a mole on their team. They wouldn’t find out until several seasons later that this mole was Yuga, one of the students attending the school with Izuku.

Yuga Aoyama is a minor character in My Hero. While his quirk is interesting, it’s not very powerful. He has small moments in the show, but he didn’t stand out to most fans. That is, until the most recent season when everyone finds out that he is the one who has been leaking information to the super villains. This realization comes as a shock to his classmates, friends, and teachers.

Yuga is so filled with shame over his actions that he begs to be thrown into prison and punished for his crimes. But Izuku, who considered Yuga a friend, wants to know why he did it. It is then that we learn Yuga’s back story. Like Izuku, Yuga was born without a quirk but wanted to be a hero. In a world where most people had some kind of power, Yuga’s parents were worried he would face discrimination as one of the quirkless few. This led to a sense of desperation to change his conditions. After trying many different options, they were on the brink of giving up when an opportunity they couldn’t resist arose. A doctor approached them with an offer to give their son a quirk. They quickly agree, not realizing this doctor works for All for One.

Once he transfers the power to Yuga, All for one immediately begins to blackmail the family, forcing them to send Yuga to U.A., and leak information about the student's whereabouts to them. Besides his overwhelming power, All For One has a deep network of people at his disposal and an endless cache of quirks within his body. There is no way they can escape him, and he promises to kill Yuga and everyone he loves if Yuga doesn’t follow through. On the surface, Yuga looks like any other child in school, but he’s hiding this secret, knowing that if he doesn’t deliver, he and his parents' lives are at stake. His grip is so tight that the family remains loyal even after he is defeated by All Might and thrown into prison.

After sharing his story, very few people question his actions. All For One's reach is almost limitless, and his friends know that if Yuga had shown even a glimpse of disloyalty, his family would be dead. If they tried to run, All For One would find them, and if they went public, he has control of enough people with power, they would be the ones to suffer. All for one didn’t need to actively be in front of them to weld this type of influence, he created an environment of intimidation, and that was enough to hold Yuga and his parents hostage.

The terrorizing dynamic between All for One and Yuga’s family is yet another reason I love to watch anime’s. The good ones do a fantastic job of tackling huge topics in digestible ways. More often than not, these topics are direct responses to challenges happening in the real world. For instance, have you been paying attention to the news recently? As we speak, there are two trials that have captured millions of hearts and minds.

One of these trials concluded a year ago. Unfortunately, despite a jury of his peers deciding that Tory Lanez was in fact guilty of shooting rapper Meg Thee Stallion, the public is not fully convinced, and after a small reprieve from conspiracy theories, fans of Tory are once again questioning if Meg (The actual victim) is telling the truth.

As that debate continues its endless cycle, the trial against producer/millionaire, P Diddy, is well underway, and with it we are getting an uncomfortable look into the kind of man he was behind the scenes. This includes the level of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse he inflicted on people, but especially his ex-girlfriend, Cassie Ventura. Every day of this trial has led to new details in how she was forced to bend to his will. While this information should be making us take a much longer and more complex look at Diddy, there are more people than I am comfortable admitting who question Cassie’s intentions. Even more, some believe she should be on trial as well.

It’s been frustrating to listen to these takes, but it would be irresponsible to dismiss them as rambles coming from an ignorant minority. The people saying this aren’t ignorant fuck that, some of them are nor are they a “tiny” minority. What their declarations should show us is that, as far as we have come as a society, we do not understand how abusers and abuse work, and as a result, we struggle to see the red flags in toxic behavior and question the intentions of the victims. And that is why I’m hoping Yuga’s story can help people understand what’s happening to these women.

In the Anime, All For One has overwhelming power, but his greatest skill is a little more subtle than his ability to move mountains. It lies in his ability to control and contort people through manipulation. And while he is a character from a Manga/Anime, his archetype wasn’t created from magic; it came from the behavior of certain types of people, abusers.

Whether in romantic, professional, or platonic relationships, abusers use a handful of tactics to create a surround sound of power and control over their victims. For example, All For One used Yuga’s parent’s desperation to help their son, as a tool to pull them into his web. When they had taken the bait, he used physical and implied threats to hold them in line, and when they tried to break out of his control, he manipulated social systems to keep them in line.

When those tactics failed, he would gaslight Yuga and the parents, telling them this situation was their fault, and claiming they would be the only ones to get in trouble if they went public. These tools create doubt in the minds of victims, and makes them hesitate to reach out to others for help. In the case of Yuga’s family, they kept this burden to themselves from fear of what would happen if All for One Found out. The tools All For One wielded against this family weren’t a part of his power set, but they can be found in the tool-kit of most abusers.

Throughout Cassie’s trial we have heard witnesses discuss Diddy’s excessive use of physical violence to control Cassie. When that didn’t work, and she started dating Kid Cuddi, he allegedly broke into the rappers house, blew up his Porsche, traumatized his dog, and opened his parent’s Christmas presents. When Cassie’s parents tried to intervene, Diddy allegedly used financial abuse and demanded her parents reimburse him $20,000 in damages. They had to take a second mortgage out of their house to pay him. If all of this is true, can anyone be surprised that Cassie stayed for as long as she did? If even one details is true, is Cassie’s character the thing we should be debating right now?

In the case of Meg Thee Stallion, before her and Tory’s case went to trial, the Canadian rapper launched a campaign of stalking and abuse that was so aggressive, the evidence of his behavior was used against him before he entered court. In one instance, Lanez had his bailed increased after violating his protective order against Megan, when he and rapper, Da Baby, tried to rush the stage while she was performing at “Rolling Loud” After being found guilty, she was awarded a five-year restraining order after providing court documents proving the Canadian rapper was still harassing her through third parties while behind bars. Meg described her experience in court saying,

“I’m scared that even when he gets out of jail, he’s going to still be upset with me, and I don’t know if he’s going to continue being violent toward me. Because even from behind bars, he keeps showing me that he can get to me. Like, he won’t give me a day of peace,” she said. “I feel like when he gets out of jail, it’s going to be worse. … I feel like maybe he’ll shoot me again, and maybe this time, I won’t make it.”

The judge believed her and approved the restraining order. Like All for One, Lanez hasn’t let being behind bars restrict his behavior, and has manipulated his social network to bully and harass the Texas rapper. The only difference between All For One and Lanez is that one of these people is a fictional character.

It might feel silly to compare the actions of two real-life men to those of a supervillain from a comic, but art imitates life more than some of us may realize. I am not here to judge, at least not intentionally. Because, as frustrating as the attacks on Cassie and Meg may be, many people questioning them merely view these incidents through the lens that our society and culture gave them. That lens has consistently told us that women are not to be trusted, and any man accused of abuse or harm has likely been set up.

In almost every accusation of abuse or harm from a man against a woman, rumblings that it must be a “witch hunt” against the man. The reasons vary, sometimes it’s because he’s Black and the system is “trying to make an example out of him.” That’s what many of Tory’s supporters believe, or because he’s rich, and the woman who is throwing accusations his way is out for a “money grab.” That seems to be what Diddy’s supporters believe about Cassie. And yes, there have been examples of men being unfairly targeted for the above reasons. But more often than not, survivors are not lying, and according to recent studies, less than 10% of all abuse accusations are considered false.

More often than not, abuse and assault victims do not report the harm they have gone through, and that usually happens because of the stress and harassment many survivors will have to endure once they speak up. Meg Thee Stallion is constantly ridiculed online despite being the victim of a shooting, and Cassie is having her morales questioned despite video footage of Diddy beating the shit out of her abusing her. If these two high-profile women can’t cry out for help, what hope do the women in our communities have?

It can be hard to face the truth about people we admire, because for some, it may raise questions about ourselves. Still, if we’re unwilling to stand up for what’s right and stand with survivors, we might keep the image of our hero intact, but we are sentencing millions of people to suffer in the shadows. We can be a hero to survivors, and if we’re not interested in being heroes, we can at least stay quiet as they tell their stories. It may seem easy to question the one who has been through the storm, but that’s only because you don’t understand it. Let’s continue to educate ourselves around what abuse looks like, the way it impacts victims, the way to see it in others, and how it might be showing up in us. If we’re willing to do that, we can be our world's heroes.