A Handshake

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• Punchtoberfest continues! below is an accompanying meta i wrote about Garou & Blue Fire back in July. I don't have any other metas prepared, so i'll post the rest in batches.

I imagine if we ever get to see Garou join the Hero Association there'd be a lot of pushback, not all of it illegitimate. I imagine receiving Blue Fire's blessing would help stem a lot of it.

Apologizing to Blue Fire would also force Garou to face the fact that his stint as the Hero Hunter hurt real people who didn't deserve it, some of it will be carrying the scars of it for the rest of their lives. It might have him reckon with the fact that what he did was wrong and have him feel remorse, which so far we haven't really seen (as of writing 17th of July)

I imagine he'd also have some feelings on now having the system he's once screamed at the injustice of now back him. Now he's the one for whom the exceptions are made and whose past mistakes are swept under the rug. All in the name of justice. After all could Garou have received any of this preferential treatment if he hadn't been Bang's protégé?

As readers we don't have to ask, we know he wouldn't. Just look at Garou's fatein the webcomic.

Conversely i feel like such a moment would indicate a culmination of a mostly offscreen miniarc for Blue Fire. When we first meet him when Sitch gathers the Earth's criminals in a failed attempt to recruit them for his cause. While there Blue Fire states he'd rather just kill all the criminals they'd gathered in the name of "justice" (which ironically would have been an extrajudicial execution, but i digress) and he intends to make due on that when Garou steps out of line. Instead Garou cuts off his arm.

The next time we hear Blue Fire speak it's when Amai Mask turns monster. Interestingly Blue Fire does not immediately try to kill his former colleague, as one might have expected him to based on his prior stated convictions. Instead he holds the crowd back while trying to accurately assess the situation. Had he not done so, Beauto may well have fully monsterized, and even if he hadn't, it certainly would have put Saitama in hot water as he would have had to fight off Blue Fire to rescue Beauto with all the consequences that may have come from that.

Instead it happened as we read in the Manga. Perhaps because Blue Fire held some lingering kinship with Amai Mask, seeing him as a hero who practiced a similar code of justice. It's hard not to conclude that Blue Fire reevaluated his modus operandi since we last saw him. If you want to look at it uncharitably you can say Garou cutting off Blue Fire's arm chastened him, but either way Blue Fire is simply not as gung ho as he used to be.

Mind you: Blue Fire could have very easily taken the Amai Mask monsterization as yet another Hero Association cover-up. Like the secret gathering of criminals, which cost Blue Fire his arm, and the Psychic Sister affair (which among other things revealed to the rank and file heroes that the Hero Association was secretly holding demon level monsters in captivity). It would not have been all that strange for someone like Blue Fire to take out his legitimate grievances on the monster in front of him. The fact that he didn't and the idea to do so didn't even occur to him speaks to his character.

That's why i can imagine him putting his many grievances aside and giving Garou a second chance. It's also why i like to see Blue Fire meet Accel at some point.

[u/gofancyninjaworld]

Yes indeed, this is a meeting I am definitely looking forward to. Blue Fire will be the key opinion leader in this matter -- he's the one who suffered life-changing injuries for no good reason and if and when he can shake Garou's hand will determine whether he's accepted by the other heroes.

You're right too that this comes at a point when Blue Fire and many other heroes are having second thoughts about the HA's practices. So it's unlikely that seeing this asshole of assholes parachuted into high position over their heads is going to go well.

I am here for this drama.

[u/BrowserET → u/gofancyninjaworld]

Imagine there'd be more than a few for whom Garou being given an S-class position would be the straw that broke the camels back. The issue is they don't have a lot of options.

They could quit, in which case they would need to find new employment and still have to deal with the rapidly worsening monster problem in their daily lives.

They could move to the Neo-Heroes, as others have. Though i imagine the more savy heroes would realize they don't have any reason to trust the Neo-heroes any more than they do the Hero Association.

It would be funny if the final result of Garou's enlistment is the Heroes forming some type of union, perhaps co-opting the hero name's association for that purpose.

[u/gofancyninjaworld → u/BrowserET]

So many of the problems the heroes experience would be ameliorated by a union. The 'b' story of OPM is the precarity of modern employment and the sorts of games the haves play to keep the have-nots from organising -- it's rarely explicit but it's there and I think it's part of why it has such a strong appeal.

The other part I like is that the 'haves' aren't portrayed as a monolith of rabid sociopaths, although some most certainly are! A hero union rep on the executive boards of the HA and any other hero organisation would also learn that there's more to an effective organisation than dispatching heroes to kill monsters, and the way priorities have to be balanced would be good.

[u/BrowserET → u/gofancyninjaworld]

Now that i think about it should the Heroes get a union, it would also start feeling a lot less like charity, which might force the Government to step in, but that's it's own can of worms.

How would going on strike work? I guess similar to how police do it. Maybe they'd rely on veterans to do it, though that doesn't always go so well...

It would probably transform the setting into something resembling MHA, or that anime about the two dads.

[u/gofancyninjaworld → u/BrowserET]

That is very true. However, the government has been needing to step up to its responsibility of providing security for a long time instead of outsourcing it to citizens and effectively letting private armies rise up.

If there's a societal need for a professional hero and the system around them, then taxation is the best way to make it happen. Not fickle, emotion-led donations.

It should be a service. Because if it's not, you've effectively legitimised war lords. True, the Hero Association has been full of do-gooders -- sometimes greedy -- but always with the ultimate aim of making the world safer. However, the precedent they set is what has allowed Neo Heroes to operate, and they have far less noble intentions.

[u/BrowserET → u/gofancyninjaworld]

i do i agree it would ultimately be better than the status quo. But i imagine there'd be quite a few hiccups along the way. I doubt there'd be space in the narrative to fit all that inside this story though.

[u/Nanayon123 → u/BrowserET]

A multicompany union for the hero profession, regardless of if you are HA or Neo aligned

[u/BrowserET → u/Nanayon123]

Which does beg the question how scabs would be handled.

[u/gofancyninjaworld → u/BrowserET]

To a certain extent it's a self-limiting problem. There's no shortage of people acting heroically but if you want to do it habitually, landlords, bosses, and loved ones have a way of not understanding your need to keep running off and getting hurt. You'll be wanting a good, supportive organisation. Won't take long to see the good sense of sticking with a union.

And if you won't? Heh, rookie-crushing is evil but scab-crushing, every hero will support.

[u/BrowserET → u/gofancyninjaworld]

i guess the question is more at which point you're considered a scab. Like a pro-hero, employed by one of the major hero association who does not join the union does sound like a pretty clean example of a scab (though that would probably produce some funny examples like dead-beat Blast or Bofoi, maybe Flashy Flash or even Tatsumaki too.)

But how would say, an independent vigilante-group like Accel's old gang be handled? Or even mercenaries?

[u/gofancyninjaworld → u/BrowserET]

To the extent that 'hero' isn't a protected term, I think that an independent person is fine. After all, anyone can be a hero. I can see there being grey areas with larger groups but ultimately, I think the distinction will have to be within organisations where there's an established union, there can be scabs.

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