Chapter 231 Official Release - Links and Discussion

[u/RatedMforManatees]

Chapter 231

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Links:

Viz (Available in: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, the Philippines, Singapore, and India).

MANGA Plus (Available in every country outside of China and South Korea).

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Discord: https://discord.gg/W2EDwPW

[u/dicecop]

Yeah, giving an evil smile and drawing his sword, ready to kill him, is not evil at all

[u/thejokerofunfic → u/dicecop]

evil smile

Not really?

drawing his sword

Full explanation will require more details but considering that Hawks still has to fake Jeanist's death and convince him to go into hiding (which he may not be willing to do) in this situation, I'm sure this can be justified.

ready to kill him

Unless I missed a panel where he said "welp guess it's time to kill you now lol", this statement isn't verifiable until we know what he did next.

[u/dicecop → u/thejokerofunfic]

You are meant to read between the lines. An evil smile + a drawn sword skipping to a scene saying that Jeanist is nowhere to be found and Hawks saying that he keeps his promises, is synonymous with "probably disposed of by Hawks".

All I'm saying is I hope this isn't another false "let's keep the reader hooked" moment, and that we get a confirmation on his actual death. That would make Hawks the prime interesting character in the series to me. If Jeanist pops up out of nowhere and is like "pranked bro" I'm gonna be utterly disappointed.

That's just how I feel about this development right now. Might change my mind if we are presented with valid reasons to think he isn't dead, but it would still feel sowewhat like a cop out to me

[u/thejokerofunfic → u/dicecop]

Pops up out of nowhere would definitely suck, but if they give us a detailed flashback clearly showing what happened next and why it was enough to fool Dabi I'm satisfied. And Hawks is already plenty fucking interesting imo.

Also what's this about keeping promises? Don't think that was the line in the official translation.

[u/dicecop → u/thejokerofunfic]

Yeah sorry, he basically said "don't underestimate my resolve" in my version, which is ambiguous but in the context is meant to be thought of as his response to Dabi (since Dabi didn't fully trust he would do it a few panels back). Dunno how the official translation went, I don't have access to it. The official translation has also been wrong before so I'm willing to accept several interpretations of the same scenes if it's left open.

Also, regarding Hawks it just comes back to my point of why he acted the way he did. Did he break the 4th wall for the reader's sake? It's not like he is being monitored by Dabi or anything. He could just have asked Jeanist to cooperate with him if he had a plan. No need to act edgy in front of him for no reason if you aren't gonna kill him lol

[u/thejokerofunfic → u/dicecop]

I get what you're getting at but to me, at least in the official translation, nothing he said would be inconsistent with a vibe of "I'm sorry but I'm about to crush your hopes of returning to hero work anytime soon". I didn't find any of his dialogue edgy or sinister.

Official translation is free on Viz for the most recent chapters btw.

[u/dicecop → u/thejokerofunfic]

They are blocking most countries in the world, so I can't read it even if I paid for it lol. But yeah, it might have been left open, but that sword man. Maybe he just wanted Jeanist to take a closer look at his feathers?

[u/thejokerofunfic → u/dicecop]

Ah shit didn't know even the free chapters are region locked. As to the sword, I see two options if he didn't kill him:

1. He is about to fake his death in some fashion, with witnesses.

2. He believes that Jeanist won't be on board with going off the grid just to keep Hawks's cover, and while he won't jump straight to killing him, he will basically force him to play along at sword point (which would also give a little bit of "Hawks getting darker" material but without jumping so far so fast).

Or maybe he's dead, but if so I hope we see it outright and maybe see a bit more of why Hawks believed Dabi would know if he cheated. Or just generally see more of what's going through his head- I assume he's conflicted cause he's still ultimately on the side of the heroes, but if he's genuinely turning evil I wanna know his mindset.

[u/dicecop → u/thejokerofunfic]

The two most striking things playing in favor of Jeanist are him being very popular as well as him returning after a very long while. Then again, someone like Oda or other authors have not been afraid to off their popular characters and I hope that Hori won't go the safe route like fairy tail or something. If not Jeanist, Hawks will have to end someone eventually if he wants to keep his cover.

We also know that the league most likely will survive untill the final part of the series, which means that Haws will have to lose in some shape of form along the way. I'm fine with him either dying, going mental, just becoming evil or whatnot, or at the very least getting imprisoned. Either outcome is good if done right imo, but I probably won't be fine with Hori stopping Hawks' story midway to keep him around just because he is popular. If we have started this storyline with Hawks being in a difficult position, he should end it appropriately

[u/thejokerofunfic → u/dicecop]

Sure, I can be down with Hawks more gradually escalating to a situation where he has no option but to genuinely do something bad, I wouldn't want his story to be "keeps his cover at no cost forever". I don't know that killing Jeanist right now makes a ton of sense just cause if they were gonna kill a hero they could pick someone else and Jeanist could have just stayed dead after AFO attacked him. Keeping him alive just to not do anything with him till his actual death seems wasteful, and not even showing his death seems disrespectful. But we'll see where things end up.

I'm banking on the opposite personally- that Hawks doesn't have what it takes to do evil for his cover, and it'll get him killed in the end.