Is Garou actually evil?


So, Garou apparently doesn't kill his opponents.

Later in the manga, he

> saves a kid from monsters.

And in the webcomic, Saitama says what Garou actually wanted to be is

> a hero.

Is Garou actually supposed to be evil?




Well it sort of depends on how you define "evil".

* * *

Fair warning: everything after this point is a spoiler if you haven't already
read the Garou arc in the webcomic.

* * *

Garou romanticizes and idealizes "monsters". He sees them as hardworking
individualists who pull themselves up by the bootstraps, only to get trodden
over by conformist heroic ideologues. As a child he was always disappointed
that the monsters invariably lost, no matter how cool, or strong, or
hardworking they were.

Moreover, the people attach themselves to the concept of heroes and become
dependent upon their inevitable victory. The people do not work as hard to
prevent wars, catastrophes, and monsters in general because they have the
safety net of heroes. So, somewhat paradoxically, the efforts of heroes to end
suffering and calamities actually ends up making these into a pandemic. Garou
sees this as a pox upon humankind, and sets himself the goal of rectifying it
by becoming the ultimate monster who triumphs over all heroes and justice, and
forces the world as a whole to achieve unity and peace in their opposition to
him. Everyone, not just the heroes, must be part of the hard work to achieve
peace and avert calamities. A classic "world peace via worldwide fear"
solution.

So if that sounds like evil to you--terrorizing the world in order to unify it
against you--then sure, he's evil by your definition. In a literary sense he
would probably be classed more as an anti-hero: his goals broadly coincide
with those of heroes (world peace), but his methods are more like those of
villains (brutish and callous). Put another way, he's Machiavellian: the ends
justify the means. The point of his existence within the work is more to
deconstruct the concept of heroes and challenge its value and goodness to a
society, than it is to be "evil".

Now one of the major features of Garou's arc is his lack of self-awareness
about all of this. He professes to have abandoned all of his humanity and
goodness, and that he is a true monster. But his actual behaviors belie a
gentle nature: he constantly goes out of his way to protect children, and
while he does severely injure and hospitalize several heroes he doesn't
actually end up killing any of them (though possibly some would have if they
had not received medical attention quickly). In a way he finds the insistence
of other monsters that he must kill things to reek of the sort of conformist
ideology he wishes to rebel against, and seems to subconsciously resolve
himself to ignore them and do as he pleases. A wanton killer, be he hero or
monster, is a slave to impulse, not a free being.

At the end of the Garou arc, it is Saitama and Bang that end up berating Garou
over his good nature, and how all this monster business of his has been
misguided and childish. That he wanted attention and praise and to achieve
something great; not to be evil and destructive. Saitama even says that Garou
became weaker as he became more monstrous, and was at his greatest power as a
human. So he was also being counterproductive.




Well it sort of depends on how you define "evil".

* * *

Fair warning: everything after this point is a spoiler if you haven't already
read the Garou arc in the webcomic.

* * *

Garou romanticizes and idealizes "monsters". He sees them as hardworking
individualists who pull themselves up by the bootstraps, only to get trodden
over by conformist heroic ideologues. As a child he was always disappointed
that the monsters invariably lost, no matter how cool, or strong, or
hardworking they were.

Moreover, the people attach themselves to the concept of heroes and become
dependent upon their inevitable victory. The people do not work as hard to
prevent wars, catastrophes, and monsters in general because they have the
safety net of heroes. So, somewhat paradoxically, the efforts of heroes to end
suffering and calamities actually ends up making these into a pandemic. Garou
sees this as a pox upon humankind, and sets himself the goal of rectifying it
by becoming the ultimate monster who triumphs over all heroes and justice, and
forces the world as a whole to achieve unity and peace in their opposition to
him. Everyone, not just the heroes, must be part of the hard work to achieve
peace and avert calamities. A classic "world peace via worldwide fear"
solution.

So if that sounds like evil to you--terrorizing the world in order to unify it
against you--then sure, he's evil by your definition. In a literary sense he
would probably be classed more as an anti-hero: his goals broadly coincide
with those of heroes (world peace), but his methods are more like those of
villains (brutish and callous). Put another way, he's Machiavellian: the ends
justify the means. The point of his existence within the work is more to
deconstruct the concept of heroes and challenge its value and goodness to a
society, than it is to be "evil".

Now one of the major features of Garou's arc is his lack of self-awareness
about all of this. He professes to have abandoned all of his humanity and
goodness, and that he is a true monster. But his actual behaviors belie a
gentle nature: he constantly goes out of his way to protect children, and
while he does severely injure and hospitalize several heroes he doesn't
actually end up killing any of them (though possibly some would have if they
had not received medical attention quickly). In a way he finds the insistence
of other monsters that he must kill things to reek of the sort of conformist
ideology he wishes to rebel against, and seems to subconsciously resolve
himself to ignore them and do as he pleases. A wanton killer, be he hero or
monster, is a slave to impulse, not a free being.

At the end of the Garou arc, it is Saitama and Bang that end up berating Garou
over his good nature, and how all this monster business of his has been
misguided and childish. That he wanted attention and praise and to achieve
something great; not to be evil and destructive. Saitama even says that Garou
became weaker as he became more monstrous, and was at his greatest power as a
human. So he was also being counterproductive.

