Hey, I was wondering what your opinions/feelings about bakugo were?
No stress to answer he’s kind of a bleugh character to me, me makes me ):. And I always enjoy reading about people’s different opinions on different characters. So I was wondering about yours.
oh my god.... its been long enough since the last time i've made a bakugo bashing post that i now have followers who don't even know.....
i apologize for my failure, beloved anon, here's a short summary of my issues with bakugo and why i hate him:
bakugo is, canonically, a bully. He explicitly harasses multiple people he considers weaker than him, not just Midoriya. (Though, ofc, as the POV character, Midoriya's treatment is the one we see the most often, and is by far the worst offender.) I do not like bullies. I do not like reading about them, and I find these characters pretty difficult to sympathize with, especially since we SEE the active fear and pain he puts midoriya through in incredible detail multiple times.
bakugo actively makes the character writing of everyone else in MHA worse just by existing. Every time he screams at someone, hurts them, or is generally an asshole and no one else around him comments on it or does anything to stop it (they way absolutely all of them should!! Some people have the legal responsibility to intervene, like the adults and teachers, some are characterized as hating bullies like kirishima, and all the other students are the type of people who would want to become heroes and help people/stop violence... so they should absolutely be taking these opportunities to help people and stop violence) they become accomplices and enablers. Standing by and watching and laughing it off as "there goes bakugo again" while people are Physically Hurt. As a side note, i think if it wasnt for bakugo (and the many instances of Aizawa not stepping in to stop him from hurting people) is why we see so much aizawa-bashing, because it paints him and all his other actions in a bad light. similarly, this negatively affects just about every other characterization we see, making everyone else look dumb as a brick at best and actively enabling bakugo at worst.
while there are some parts of MHA that are genuinely funny, most of the attempts at comedy are bad attempts at slapstick, specifically centered around bakugo hurting people. besides the fact that i just dont find a bully unapologeticly hurting people and facing no consequences funny, my issues with this are mostly outlined in the point above, but also the one below, because of-
bakugo's terrible "redemption arc". he starts out as a cruel, selfish, arrogant bully. ideally, if we were trying to redeem him, we'd want to slowly work to break down those traits over time and have specific instances where we show him treating people differently than he would've at the start of the story, and then make that change consistent? seems pretty obvious, right? well, apparently not, because the narrative loooves to giving him Big Emotional Moments (esp centered on/with midoriya which PISSES ME OFF LEAVE MY BOY ALONE*) and insist that hes such a changed person... and then cut to him beating people up for a gag. and like, yeah, i know the gags arent supposed to be taken seriously, but they are still actual moments that happen in canon after the point where his character arc would've needed him to grow past that behavior.
which brings me to my next point: the narrative has no idea what it wants to do with bakugo. it seems pretty clear to me that at first, bakugo was intended to be the horrible childhood bully that midoriya eventually grew stronger than and moved past- a character for midoriya to pit himself against, compare himself to, and eventually leave behind. but then for some reason i will quite literally Never understand, bakugo began consistently topping fan favorite polls, and then the writer was forced to give him a more active role (either that, or his role wasn't particularly well thought-out in the first place). now hes stuck in limbo, flip-flopping between "comedic relief", shoe-horned in emotional moments, and even more shoe-horned in moments where he gets to step up and save the day so the bakugo stans have cool moments for their fan edits.
side note- IM SO TIRED OF THE WHOLE STORY BENDING OVER BACKWARDS TO KISS BAKUGO'S ASS. he has plot armor thicker than a BUILDING, his actions are constantly excused and explained away, and his "character arc" is a constant stream of whiny "me me me". "i thought i was the best, so why was i the one to kill all might??" BECAUSE YOURE A DUMBASS GTFO
*and also, HE CONSTANTLY PUTS HIS ISSUES ON MIDORIYA, and the narrative encourages it and puts the responsibility for solving bakugo's issues, forgiving bakugo, teaching him better, ON MIDORIYA, HIS VICTIM!!! oh my god i hate that so much it makes me want to SCREAM
and then there's the issue of fandom stuff. tbh, i didnt hate bakugo nearly this much when i first read MHA. it was only after seeing fans constantly glorifying him, sweetening his relationship with midoriya into something it very much was NOT and refusing to acknowledge that their version of it wasn't canon, shipping them and refusing to acknowledge a bully/victim or abuser/past abuse victim ship is unhealthy (and dont get me wrong, i love unhealthy ships! and i really don't care if people like ships or characters that i don't! but people would/did genuinely get pissed and treat people like idiots for pointing out that that dynamic is unhealthy, instead glorifying it and refusing to acknowledge that they can enjoy something in fiction that wouldnt be good in real life), and just consistently having bakugo content shoved down my throat every time i interact with any sort of fandom space, no matter how many tags i block and how much i try to avoid it, which is genuinely really frustrating and makes it hard to interact with larger MHA fan spaces. but all of that isnt really fair bc its not about canon or how bakugo was written, just my personal experience
this is not meant to be a comprehensive meta analysis or anything!! this is just what i can think of off the top of my head. i have more posts on this subject but tumblr search function is Terrible and i cant find any of them ahsjdkf
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