I've Been Thinking A Lot Lately About How Dabi Feels Post Dance And The Paranormal Liberation War In

I've been thinking a lot lately about how Dabi feels post dance and the Paranormal Liberation War in regards to losing Twice and Compress all in the same day.

Obviously he's ecstatic that he finally got to reveal himself, got to see his father face the consequences of his neglect, and tell the whole world about what a piece of shit the Number One hero is to his own family.

But after those scenes, despite all the recent promotional art of him smiling, he doesn't actually seem happy. In some cases it even seems like he's doing worse mentally.

We missed out on a lot in not getting to see how the remaining League members feel immediately after that battle. We don't even get to see Shigaraki acknowledge losing Twice and Compress, if he even knows what happened to them with AFO trying to take him over.

All we really get are these panels when AFO is breaking other villains out of prisons around Japan. And he and Spinner just look so exhausted.

Dabi is clearly upset about losing Twice given his confrontation with Hawks, but after that we don't see him talk about it at all. We do see him with this look when Compress brings up that he believes Twice died, but Dabi doesn't even mention that he was there with him in his final moments.

He just immediately switches gears and decides to focus all of his energy into hunting down Endeavor, kickstarting his plans for revenge much earlier than he expected.

The only other time we see him mention Twice is this moment with Toga (this scene is also the only time we see him smile post reveal and before the war).

We get even less when it comes to Mr. Compress, even though Dabi seemed the closest to him out of everyone in the League. Nothing gets said at all about him. Compress helps Dabi escape and tucks him away with Spinner before he sacrifices himself for them. But I don't think Dabi knew what Compress was really doing, that he wouldn't be coming back with them.

I also don't think the world had the reaction Dabi was hoping for after releasing his reveal video. Sure some people lost faith, and there was a press conference, but ultimately Endeavor didn't face any consequences. It confirmed what Dabi already knew, that nobody cares and heroes will continue to get away with anything in this society.

After this, in the few scenes he's in before the war, he just has blank stares.

Or he's annoyed that AFO isn't letting him go after Endeavor immediately.

He doesn't care about taking down the world, or AFO's plans, he's just impatient to kill his father and ultimately himself. Like Shoto said, he's been ready to die from the start. And I think losing the people he was closest to in the League only exacerbated his fatalistic mindset.

With Twice dead, Compress in prison, Shigaraki being possessed, and with what happened to Spinner, it's really just him and Toga left. He doesn't have a reason to really stick around for anyone anymore.

Which just makes me wonder if he blames himself. He's the one who brought Hawks in after all. If it wasn't for that, Twice and Compress might still be around, they might still have their base, their army. They lost everything, and he's partially to blame.

He's been deemed a failure since he was a child, by Endeavor, by AFO after his three-year coma. And then he failed in protecting the League, in judging how much of a threat Hawks actually was. He only brought Hawks in once they had formed the PLF. He thought with numbers behind them Hawks couldn't touch them when/if he turned on them. And he definitely didn't think that Hawks would actually kill anyone. But he was wrong.

In the end, he got exactly what he wanted, but I don't think he ever expected that the League would pay the price for it. Along with everything with his family, he might think that he deserves to die for what happened. For failing the people closest to him one last time.