#I like deconstructing media and attempting to fill in the blanks on character relationships

[scarlet-streak-rambles]

I’m Going to Fix It: BakuDeku

Hello, and welcome to a series where I take things I see in media I like and repair the issues I see with them. I’m going to preface this by saying that this isn’t necessarily about the romantic ship–it’s more about the dynamic and relationship between the two characters where we’re supposed to believe a genuinely terrifying bully and his victim managed to put aside years and years of issues in less than a year. While this is going to incorporate a lot of my headcanons, I’m going to be pointing to specific spots in canon where these headcanons would make sense to fill in the blanks. If this feels like something that’s going to upset or anger you, please just scroll past? 

Since this is going to have plenty of triggering content, it goes below the cut.

The first thing I think is important to cover is the reason behind Bakugou’s bullying of Midoriya. In the show, we’re led to believe that it’s simply because Midoriya is quirkless and offered to help Bakugou, which in his eyes meant Midoriya was looking down on him. This, of course, makes little to no sense, especially when coupled with how he still responded to Midoriya after he inherited One For All. Specifically, Bakugou became angry not at the idea that Midoriya could be more powerful than him, but at the belief that Midoriya had hidden this power from him for years, accepting up his bullying without a fight and lying about being quirkless just to mess with him. In short, Midoriya potentially lying to him long term and having had the ability to fight back and defend himself from Bakugou’s abuse this whole time was the thing that angered him most, which doesn’t match up with the initial reasons he was bullying Midoriya.

It’s worth noting, for the second point, that Bakugou’s bullying started around when they both turned four. This would be when Midoriya was officially diagnosed as quirkless but also when Bakugou gained his quirk and was praised by his parents, teachers, and peers about how strong and powerful he was. This little kid found himself at the top of the food chain with nobody who could equal him in power. We also know that this was when Bakugou talked about how All Might was his favorite hero because he always won his fights and when he himself fought and beat a group of fourth graders for bumping into him. This is an extreme reaction of self-defense to a perceived physical threat and an idealization of heroes always being able to win against threats, which is what Bakugou still maintains is the best kind of hero. In short, for the first time in his life, he had the ability to (in his mind) successfully defend himself from any physical threats–more specifically, an ability born from being able to finally fight back and win–and he latches onto it completely.

Now that I��ve explained the particular behavior that came from his quirk’s manifestation, I want to cover a potential reason for that in his home life. After the Kamino arc, we see All Might and Eraserhead talking to Class 1-A’s parents to convince them to allow the students to move into the dorms. When at Bakugou’s house, all of the following things are done by his mother in the short span that his teachers are there:

- She physically hits him, causing him to become more angry and try to threaten her back

- When he shows that he’s trying to fight back, she raises her hand at him again, and he retreats, visibly shaking at the threat

- She blames him for getting kidnapped because, even with his powerful quirk, he was still too weak

Basically, his home life is not a very warm and fuzzy experience. Even taking those as just normal, if a bit extreme parenting, his approach to changing the behavior of the kids during the remedial classes to obtain his Provisional Hero License removes that potential entirely. His suggestion is to tie up the leader of the children and force the others to throw rocks at said leader(a physical attack) until the child realizes that they’re weak and powerless. When the other students present express concern about this plan, Bakugou insinuates that this was how he was raised and he turned out just fine. In his mind, physically abusing a child until their self image breaks down is a perfectly logical course of action for a caregiver to take, and that would make sense with his mom’s behavior. They obviously don’t follow this plan, and Bakugou ends up learning that it’s ok for him to have weaknesses and getting help/support from others isn’t something to look down on, something that we actively see him trying to follow in the rest of the series. For example, in the season 4 OVA (Make it! Do-or-Die Survival Training) even though he doesn’t outright ask Midoriya to help him walk, he gives him permission to be his cane, effectively admitting that he can’t walk on his own and needs the other’s support.

On Midoriya’s side of the equation, he has an absentee father and a doting mother. He sees all of his weaknesses clearly, but also has an immense appreciation for the support and help that those around him give him. This is an exact opposite to the kind of environment that Bakugou was learning from. When Bakugou’s quirk came in, he figured out that fighting back against physical and even verbal threats would make you safe, but shows of weakness would make it worse–he may have even assumed how his mother acted towards him was her form of love and teaching him this lesson. With two four year olds, it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to guess that Bakugou would first try to model this behavior for Midoriya (fighting the fourth graders) and, especially after finding out his friend would be quirkless and therefore potentially too weak to fight back without practice, try to force him into situations where Midoriya would have to fight back against him. Instead, Midoriya saw a person who he idolized and respected telling him that he was worthless and useless and internalized all the insults and abuse as truth, while Bakugou saw Midoriya’s offering of help as Midoriya calling him weak in return. 

Little side tangent, but Midoriya’s startle reflex when a paternal figure raises a hand towards him and the visible shock on his face when said paternal figure embraces and praises him (see Midoriya and All Might’s conversation on the beach after the Kamino arc) does make me think his father may have been physically or verbally abusive towards Midoriya and/or Inko before becoming an absentee parent, which is something Bakugou would have witnessed and definitely could have influenced him to try to teach Midoriya how to stop it from happening.

He continually escalates the bullying until the point we see at the beginning of the series–when he tells Midoriya to dive off the roof. His friends even ask him later if that was maybe going too far, and Bakugou says he hates Midoriya’s optimism and is trying to teach him how the world works, which obviously hasn’t worked. Even worse (in Bakugou’s eyes), Midoriya still tries to save him from the Sludge Villain attack later that same day. This one’s a double hit–someone acting as if he wasn’t strong enough to save himself from a threat and Midoriya, the one who he’s been bullying and trying to get to fight back, willingly risking his life to save Bakugou. Fighting against a threat is something Midoriya hasn’t shown a willingness to do for himself but did without a second thought when Bakugou, his bully/threat, was in trouble. Bakugou’s bullying of Midoriya never reaches this particular level of intensity again, especially after Midoriya’s quirk is revealed–we already talked about the reaction Bakugou had to that.

Children mimic the behaviors they’re show by others, especially caretakers like parents, and I think that plays a really big part here. If Bakugou grew up thinking you show care and love by teaching people to protect themselves, he’d obviously try to do that for his best friend, especially one that is genuinely weaker than him and 80% of their society. Of course, this whole thing hinges on Bakugou having actual affection for Midoriya past the age of four, so I have one main thing to point out for that: Midoriya’s nickname for Bakugou.

Kacchan is a shortening of Bakugou’s first name attached to the -chan suffix. That particular suffix is an affectionate diminutive, expressing that the speaker finds the other endearing, cute, etc. It’s very childish and isn’t generally used for boys past a certain age, with high school definitely being past the social cut-off for non-family members. Despite this, Bakugou has allowed Midoriya to continue calling him by it through, as far as we know, the entirety of their friendship. To clarify, this is something that could actually be taken as an insult when used for someone who is too old for it/you are not familiar enough with, but Bakugou still allows it and Midoriya still uses it. This doesn’t say “Oh, so they were friends the whole time” to me–it does say that Bakugou cares about Midoriya and vice-versa.

Now, don’t get me wrong, Bakugou’s behavior and treatment of Midoriya were still obviously unacceptable, but we’re supposed to think that their relationship wasn’t unfixable. We’re supposed to believe that they somehow still care about each other despite everything we’ve seen, and I think that this is the way that makes the most sense with what we’ve been given.