Kohei Horikoshi in his latest manga chapter, “The Lovely Lady Nagant” has used Nagant’s character to pack more depth to the ethically ambiguous facet of My Hero Academia. To remind you, there will be major spoilers for chapter #314. The series has been building hype for Lady Nagant all this time so, it’s no big deal that she holds such a crucial spot in the list of main villains.
But to see how much of a messed-up character ‘Lady Nagant‘ really is has truly helped unravel many layers that surround the society and the heroes within it.
The story behind the name ‘Nagant’
It is fascinating to know how this character is named, its meaning, and what actually that brand stands for. The name has a lot of significance and research to it. Mosin-Nagant is a very famous rifle that has been constantly modified and changed by different countries over the period of history, which was initially used in the Russian-Japanese war in the early 1900s.
Similarly, she was commissioned as a piece of artillery, a killing machine with absolute efficiency until that one incident that changed the whole course of her life.
Lady Nagant’s ability: Boon or Curse?
Lady Nagant’s quirk is built for assassination. This is the tragedy of being a quirk-holder, what would be a better job for someone who is literally made to kill because of their quirk? She is a living Sniper Rifle. Her body takes shape to form a sniper rifle and her curled arms appear as a whole barrel of a sniper rifle that comes straight out of her arm.
She uses her hair to produce bullets from a hollow type bullet to a regular bullet apart from these she has a lot of different variations. While dangling in the air, she can land a blow. Eyesight which remains unaffected whatever scenario appears whether it’s darkness or bad weather conditions she can fire 3 km away precisely. Don’t forget that extendable rifle arm adds to the perfection of this killing machine!!
Nagant’ Journey from Pro Hero to Villain
In the midst of the ‘Deku vs. Lady Nagant fight’ in chapter #314, Nagant spoke to Deku in regard to her treacherous past. She was part of the society which is living up to the standards of the pillar of peace once. She was an agent of the Public Safety Commission and was a terminator in the literal sense. Villains or otherwise, thanks to her there were no threats to Hero society left.
She was doing anything and everything that they asked her to do because she believed in order to maintain peace they have to pay the price. In the daylight where the heroes were saving the day, among those who were picking up the slack and be torn apart for it Lady Nagant was one of those knights.
But over time it became too much for her – the blood on her hands and the fragility of their system bothered her so thoroughly that she was pushed to a state of the depravity of questioning her doings. What is the effect of this long-running cycle of removing unsavory heroes on society?
Then came the D-Day when she was brought by a former leader of the Public Safety Commission to take out a couple of heroes once more. She couldn’t help but question her subordinate? Being taken aback by the unusual question and in an attempt to remind her that getting out of this process is inevitable, he got killed by Lady Nagant. This is the extent to which she has been broken down and torn apart.
Dead Society in MHA
When it comes to the darkness in the Hero society, it is nothing new, we have seen time to time different forms and versions of how hero society is very messed up and Lady Nagant is again the creation of falsehood of hero society as it swept her pain under the rug and this ultimately led to her siding with All for One.
Her wish for transparency shows how broken this character is, how far she has been pushed. According to her, at least the world will be freed from the lies and the shrouds of depression when All for One will bring transparency.
She realized that the idea of a hero. They are trying to maintain peace at the cost of lives, stress, fear, and anger from both the heroes and the villains. The heroes are only adding fuel to the fire as they are trying to fight chaos off with even more chaos.
Lady Nagant has stained her hands with blood and has been working underneath the pillar of peace for a weak and degrading society that is at the brink of being uprooted and broken apart.
