I know I don’t post but I wanna praise My Hero’s world building so bad / a Bakugou Katsuki appreciation post.
I wanna talk about society, specifically it’s views on heroism.
Bakugou and Deku are products of their society obviously. But what I don’t think people see is that they’re meant to be different extremes of the same problem.
The problem is that society has given a specific set of criteria that defines a hero... ie a Licence. It’s the whole thing Stain despised, the idea that a hero no longer can be defined by their deeds or who they save but by a government issued card for passing a test. It completely takes away from the concept of a hero existing for the people and turns it into straight capitalism.
There’s a quote that I heard and can’t remember where it came from that goes along the lines of ‘A villain can exist without a hero, but a hero cannot exist without a villain.’ Which I think is true, being a hero revolves around the existence of villains but that’s entirely ignored in BNHA’s world.
And those heroes are glorified. Put on a pedestal by civilians, and I’m not saying they shouldn’t be, they’re heroes but what it results in is expectations for the next generation to live up to. So children are encouraged to be like those hero’s and unwittingly the parents place value on children based on their quirks. They’ve internalised this idea that Good quirks = greatness. And it’s not something new, often times fiction is a reflection of reality, because reality gives context for the issues within that fictional world. You’ll always find things that remind you of the real world. Here this idea that what you’re born with biologically determines greatness reminds me of how Chinese family’s used to value male babies over female babies, simply because that’s part of my culture. Others might read into it differently. These issues are transcendental, that is why there can be so many interpretations.
Anyway, willingly or not, the adults perpetuate this idea of Good Quirk = Greatness, thus stigmatising No Quirk/ bad Quirk = Failure.
Deku is quirkless, he’s the opposite of what society wants and therefore suffers at the hands of hero worship. He’s pushed aside as the minority, and if you think about it that 20% of the population being quirkless is going to mainly consist of the older generation since quirks are genetically inherited so he’s really insulated, I wouldn’t be surprised if the first person he met his age who was also quirkless was Melissa (From The Two Heroes movie). His own mother telling him she’s ‘Sorry’ after he finds out that he’s quirkless only backing up this idea that he’s different and that he should be pitied. And we look up to our parents, so coming from Inko, Izuku was on the way to internalising that view also. And in some ways he has, I might be wrong about this but when he finds out that Melissa is Quirkless he apologises to her also, he’s doing to others exactly what had been done to him because that’s what humans do, we replicate behaviour.
Bakugou is exactly what they want and from the moment he’s gotten his quirk he’s not only been put on a pedestal by peers but by adults too, adults who should be his superiors are putting him above themselves, no wonder he gets an inferiority complex. He’s told he ‘will be a hero’. Unfair expectations to ever put on a child who hasn’t had the real world experience to decide his own career just yet. And so it manifests into an inferiority complex that the show actually admits to him having. He was never given any other option than to be a hero.
He was told for his whole life he’d be the best so to see someone who was always behind him move forward made him feel inadequate obviously, his lashing out isn’t excused by society’s involvement but can explain it. He’s working on it though. Working with Deku. Helping him improve. He’s shown character development. And it’s not just that, he’s driven solely by the idea of ‘winning’ which some might see as conceited but ‘winning’ is vague, it has no meaning, he chooses the challenge, he’s the only one who can define what ‘winning’ means to him. Some might think ‘winning’ means glory, or money or fame and he wants to be No.1 so there’s an aspect of that but it could just mean no casualties, everyone surviving, everyone being saved. Which I think is interesting.
Something else I think is admirable is that in his mind all opponents are just that, opponents. That’s why he goes all out when fighting Uraraka during the Sports festival, he said it himself. That it doesn’t matter that she’s a girl, she’s a girl that shouldn’t be underestimated. He doesn’t see her as weak. Even when the crowed and Present Mic got mad at him for being rough while fighting her. A fucking feminist Icon.
And he’s not just the typical 2 dimensional bully. He’s canonically got the best grades in the class, above Iida even. He goes to bed at reasonable times (8:30) most of the time. He studies, he even helped Kirishima. He works hard and it’s not just a natural talent which makes his character even better.
He feels guilt for being the catalyst for All Might’s down fall. They both idolised the hero and he felt like a fucking BURDEN. The self awareness he has is impeccable, understanding that he cannot control everything and being so angry about it, and why? Because he was told he could do anything he put his mind to, and he was discovering for the first time that that was a lie, that those adults were liars.
And when the villains kidnapped him he told them to fuck off. He was a hero through and through. He wouldn’t join them.
He’s a hero. A terribly misguided hero born from unrealistic expectations of children
He’s the epitome of gifted kid syndrome. He’s got a complex and major anxiety issues because of it. Imagine being told that they’re better than everyone else your age as a kid? You’ll believe it. Of course you’ll think you’re better bc the adults told you you were.
And it contrasts so well with Deku, Because their issues are due to the same societal pressure albeit different sides of that same scale.
That’s why ppl like him. He’s trying but just like Deku he was given an unfair disadvantage
He’s as much of an underdog. He’s a child who’s unlearning everything he’d been taught about himself.
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