#/lord she's an empath too she could inflate certain feelings probably/

[penandswords]

Rima, Isn't your Minor in Phycology? Why not just do some brain shit to make your enemies yield?

"I really only picked that Minor because I thought it would help me with my quirk..." She thinks about it.

"But yeah maybe I could? I don't know. I'll consider it next time I get an opportunity."

[quirkycombatants]

Look at the way the narcissist treats others. If the narcissist lies, manipulates, hurts, and disrespects others, he or she will eventually treat you the same way. Don’t fall for the fantasy that you’re different and will be spared.

Okay so since I wrote about Mineta being written as being like, completely unwell, let’s talk about Bakugou. Now, I should preface this by saying that I actually like Bakugou being a character; I like the idea of him having slow burn growth and actually developing and being a good contrast to Izuku. That said, I don’t think that the writer realizes that what he’s writing is a complete and total narcissist. 

Now I should point out as well that part of the problem is that we’re meant to empathize with Bakugou, and that’s very hard because he’s not exactly a sympathetic character. You can root for him, but you can root for Endeavor too, and they share a lot of characteristics. 

But a major problem is that he’s narcissistic to the point of it being extremely unhealthy; he divides everyone and everything in his life into winners and losers, and if you’re not winning, then you’re losing. He plays a zero-sum game with everything and everyone. He treats everyone around him as being things to benefit himself, to the point that his great development in the first year class battle was that he could use other people to enhance himself. That’s not so much a character development as it is the understanding that self enrichment is better when you use other people to do it. 

Speaking of which, the fact that he continually berates and degrades everyone around him, including people who are supposed to be his friends, is a bit of a problem. It’s worse when he continues to do it even when they object to it or it makes them unhappy. He shows so little regard for their feelings or their needs, that it almost reaches the point of parody. Hell, he didn’t both to learn their names, because that would require him to see other people as people, and it’s clear Bakugou sees other people entirely through the lens of how they benefit or restrict him. 

All of his vulnerable moments are also in relation to himself; when he’s captured in the beginning, he’s upset that he’s being saved by someone he considers subhuman. When he’s upset about All Might losing his quirk, he’s upset that he’s the one that did it, rather than the great loss the world has now suffered. It’s like if you burned the Mona Lisa and then thought the worst thing about it was how much it impacted you. 

But that’s relatively small potatoes to the fact that he seems entirely against the idea of other people being happy. Example, when everyone else is enjoying themselves in a snowball fight, Bakugou’s first reaction is to pelt Deku with a snowball covered in ice, despite knowing that this would hurt, and that it’s a dick thing to do. It’s a lot like a cat when people aren’t paying attention to it; it’s first reaction is to cause a problem to focus attention back on it. It’s not just that no one is paying attention to them, it’s that they’re having fun, and if they’re not the one having fun, then no one else should be either. The inability to just let other people be is a real problem. It’s also a problem that they are still bullying Izuku, someone who he routinely bullied his entire life, but that’s a whole other kettle of fish. 

But I feel like the single most problematic issue with Bakugou is his idea of what makes a hero. When he’s captured by the league of villains, his response to them as to why he won’t join is that All Might always wins. Thus, his idea of a hero is someone who wins. Not a good person, not someone who helps others, not someone who does the right thing; a hero in his mind is someone who wins. And ‘winning’ means violently defeating your enemy with overwhelming force. 

To put it another way, Bakugou is like a cop that joined the police force for the sake of being able to lord power over other people. 

Made worse, is that there’s no tragic backstory to explain this. He himself admitted that he got a quirk, he realized he was naturally better than other people, and then came to the conclusion that this meant that he should be allowed to do whatever he wanted. That rules and conventions didn’t apply. The strong do what they want and the weak suffer what they must. It was entirely find to beat up Izuku, because Izuku was weaker than he was; it was entirely fine to do whatever he wanted to people who were beneath him. 

This is not behavior that you would tolerate from anyone in any industry. You would not pair that guy up with explosives and put that guy in a position of power, because people who see themselves as the arbiters of what is and is not right get out of control very quickly. 

So when the public goes ‘yeah isn’t he sorta acting like a villain’ we’re supposed to think that they’re out of bounds, but they’re right. If it wasn’t for All Might existing, there’s no reason to believe that he wouldn’t have been a villain. At present, there’s little separating him from Endeavor, other than Endeavor treats his employees better than Bakugou treats his friends. 

Now this isn’t to say that he hasn’t improved or grown as a character. He has. In fact, he’s grown beyond the point where he tried to murder Izuku during the first time they fought. How no one, no one, at this school looked at that behavior and went ‘this is clearly someone who is unstable and unwell, we should probably get this guy a councilor’ is beyond me. There’s being abrasive, there’s being abusive, and there’s being unstable. If anyone acted like that in any school, you can be certain the police would probably be involved at that point. 

And again, I actually like having him around as someone who can force other people to engage in character development. I like having him as a contrast. But he’s not actually developed that much. Instead, he’s the same narcissist as ever, to the point where the idea that anyone, anyone, might know something he doesn’t makes him irate and actively aggressive. The idea that he’s not always on top makes him violent. That’s really bad behavior for anyone, but especially a child. 

And I’m not taking the tact that it’s his fault. In my eyes, he’s immensely unwell. Just look at the traits common with Narcisistic Personality Disorder: 

Grandiose sense of self-importance

Grandiosity is the defining characteristic of narcissism. More than just arrogance or vanity, grandiosity is an unrealistic sense of superiority. Narcissists believe they are unique or “special” and can only be understood by other special people. What’s more, they are too good for anything average or ordinary. They only want to associate and be associated with other high-status people, places, and things.Narcissists also believe that they’re better than everyone else and expect recognition as such—even when they’ve done nothing to earn it. They will often exaggerate or outright lie about their achievements and talents. And when they talk about work or relationships, all you’ll hear is how much they contribute, how great they are, and how lucky the people in their lives are to have them. They are the undisputed star and everyone else is at best a bit player.

Needs constant praise and admiration

A narcissist’s sense of superiority is like a balloon that gradually loses air without a steady stream of applause and recognition to keep it inflated. The occasional compliment is not enough. Narcissists need constant food for their ego, so they surround themselves with people who are willing to cater to their obsessive craving for affirmation. These relationships are very one-sided. It’s all about what the admirer can do for the narcissist, never the other way around. And if there is ever an interruption or diminishment in the admirer’s attention and praise, the narcissist treats it as a betrayal.

A sense of entitlement

Because they consider themselves special, narcissists expect favorable treatment as their due. They truly believe that whatever they want, they should get. They also expect the people around them to automatically comply with their every wish and whim. That is their only value. If you don’t anticipate and meet their every need, then you’re useless. And if you have the nerve to defy their will or “selfishly” ask for something in return, prepare yourself for aggression, outrage, or the cold shoulder.

Exploits others without guilt or shame

Narcissists never develop the ability to identify with the feelings of others—to put themselves in other people’s shoes. In other words, they lack empathy. In many ways, they view the people in their lives as objects—there to serve their needs. As a consequence, they don’t think twice about taking advantage of others to achieve their own ends. Sometimes this interpersonal exploitation is malicious, but often it is simply oblivious. Narcissists simply don’t think about how their behavior affects others. And if you point it out, they still won’t truly get it. The only thing they understand is their own needs.

Frequently demeans, intimidates, bullies, or belittles others

Narcissists feel threatened whenever they encounter someone who appears to have something they lack—especially those who are confident and popular. They’re also threatened by people who don’t kowtow to them or who challenge them in any way. Their defense mechanism is contempt. The only way to neutralize the threat and prop up their own sagging ego is to put those people down. They may do it in a patronizing or dismissive way as if to demonstrate how little the other person means to them. Or they may go on the attack with insults, name-calling, bullying, and threats to force the other person back into line.

And, when dealing with others:

Your needs won’t be fulfilled (or even recognized).

It’s important to remember that narcissists aren’t looking for partners; they’re looking for obedient admirers. Your sole value to the narcissist is as someone who can tell them how great they are to prop up their insatiable ego. Your desires and feelings don’t count.

Look at the way the narcissist treats others. 

If the narcissist lies, manipulates, hurts, and disrespects others, he or she will eventually treat you the same way. Don’t fall for the fantasy that you’re different and will be spared.

It’s important to see the narcissist in your life for who they really are, not who you want them to be. 

Stop making excuses for bad behavior or minimizing the hurt it’s causing you. Denial will not make it go away. The reality is that narcissists are very resistant to change, so the true question you must ask yourself is whether you can live like this indefinitely.

Let’s not beat around the bush, we can all visualize moments where Bakugou has demonstrated all of these behaviors, often repeatedly. 

I like to think that he recognizes this, because he is trying to develop. He is trying to be better, supposedly. And that’s a good thing! that’s what makes him an interesting character. But as someone who lived with someone with NPD, who was abused by such a person, Bakugou has all the same signs. That’s not to say that he can’t overcome this. But it also requires a real examination of the fact that, at present, Bakugou is not someone who demonstrates any kind of healthy relationships with anyone. The guy is antagonistic and violent and abusive towards everyone and everything, to an extreme, unhealthy degree. 

My hope of course, is that the thing he’ll learn that he’s missing from Endeavor is either humility or empathy, because without those, he’s basically an abuser who uses his strength to avoid repercussions from others. It’s honestly amazing to me that his aggressiveness isn’t made a bigger deal of by his classmates, because that sort of person is hard to be around, and people tend to avoid provoking or rocking the boat around such a person to avoid their scorn and hostility. The fact that his default mode of interaction towards people is to browbeat them with whatever he thinks make them feel insecure about themselves is pretty much NPD in a nutshell. He’ll laugh at other people, but no one is allowed to make jokes about him. 

Honestly, the best result would be for him to realize just how unhealthy his approach is, and change for the better. But at the same time, it would be good if the characters, and we as a fandom, realized what he is and what he suffers from, and how to deal with it. 

In an ideal world, it would be good for him to realize that his way of dealing with others is very, very fucked up. Because at present, he doesn’t.