Given all this recent talk about Baku being restrained, I wanna port one of my analyses over from tumblr 'cause I feel like it's relevant. the sludge villain has flavoured ALL of his actions throughout the whole of BnHA. So.

Bakugou Katsuki and the Sludge Monster

+ what I think was one of the key moments in him making his Very First Friend (Kirishima, of course)

He had a childhood full of people telling him that he’s the best (so he /has/ to be).

He had his insistence, always, that he didn’t ever need anyone’s help, and he knows he’s gonna be the best fucking hero anyone’s ever seen

And then

then there’s this /thing/ trying to crawl down his throat and smother his light before it’s had a chance to really shine, and he fights it, oh yes, just like he’s been training himself, but…

it turns out that he’s /not enough/

his first fight with a villain and he’s losing

his first fight with a villain and he’s dying

his first fight with a villain and he desperately needs the help he’s been disdaining his whole life

only this time he gets exactly what he wants

no one steps in

there are heroes there, but all they’re concerned with is the fires he set trying to fight

there’s a crowd of people, watching. fascinated. horrified.

/entertained/

and he’s fourteen years old and he can’t BREATHE

and he’s going to die and all these heroes are doing is whining about their quirks not being compatible with the fire or the sludge (what does that matter? shouldn’t they try to win? aren’t they heroes?).

they’re waiting for someone else to arrive. anyone. anyone who might be just a little more effective against the villain’s quirk, and-

and then someone does step in, /runs/ in, even, only-

it’s not a /hero/ coming to help him. it’s stupid, pointless, /Deku/, who has /always/ thought he was weak enough to need helping

and then Bakugou’s eyes are rolling back in his head and he passes out from the lack of oxygen

He wakes up and it turns out that All Might appeared - and of course All Might won. /He/ was a /hero./

and then one of those other heroes tells him he did a good job, that he’d have a place at their agency

and the expression on Bakugou’s face is /intense/

all his life he’s been praised for his quirk and now here it is again, from a pro-hero. this is a potential in for a career, if the hero is serious, if Bakugou wants to pursue it.

but there’s that look on his face

because this hero was willing to let him /die/ just minutes ago, all of these pros were.

Bakugou is smart. His world shifts.

The praise is empty and self-serving, an attempt to get into his good books in order to siphon off some of his glory.

It always has been.

No one’s ever been praising /him/. It’s always been his /quirk/. It's the first realisation he's had that the quirk and the person are not the same thing.

He confronts Deku about it all, briefly. What he says isn’t all that coherent. But look. 'trying to win me over'

Yeah.

For ten months after that Bakugou is far more reserved, withdrawing into himself a little as he deals with the fact that he has no real friends (they didn’t hang around after he got attacked now, did they?) and the fact that he’s already famous.

Famous for being attacked, for being rescued, for not being in control, for nearly dying, for his quirk.

when he talks to Deku again at the exams, he’s calm. he’s /almost/ polite, in his own way. he doesn’t think Deku stands a chance.

we think he hasn't changed, because we see him get /angry/ again pretty soon afterwards. but that's kinda the key.

he only loses his cool /afterwards/, when he finds out that Deku made it in to Yuuei and thinks he cheated, somehow

Bakugou himself did good in the entrance exam. he won. he was the /best/, and it was /all/ him.

UA starts, and Bakugou is his old cocky self. because he’s the best, didn’t the exam score prove that?

He’s not happy about Deku being there, but he probably figures it won’t take long for a quirkless loser to be kicked out for being incompetent.

Then Deku does have a quirk after all & that’s when Baku gets /really/ mad

the next day they have the first practical exercise with all their costumes and stuff, and Bakugou has his breakdown over losing to Deku and realising that he’s not on the level of the recommended students.

then

after that, while they’re in the bus to USJ, the students are talking about their quirks & Kirishima

A) talks himself down

B) says something along the lines of ‘hey you know who’s got cool quirks? Bakugou & Todoroki’

& Bakugou looks over at him & away again.

I can’t help but wonder what he’s thinking here. He’s in a new school, with new people, and then this guy calls his quirk cool just after putting himself down

I can't help but link it back to those heroes on the Sludge Villain scene...

I think Baku is thinking about the pros whose own quirks were 'unsuitable' to rescue him, & maybe he thinks /pah, this kid’s gonna end up just like them./

Except...

The USJ arc is widely hailed as the moment Kiri looked past Baku's hotheadedness & decided to be his friend.

I think the same is true in the other direction! Bakugou looked through Kirishima's insecurities and saw someone worth fighting /with/.

Bakugou realised that Kirishima wasn’t like the pros that had abandoned him.

/two/ students jumped forwards after Kurogiri, and since when was a rock effective against smoke?

It wasn't a great matchup but Kiri went for it anyway! Nah, Bakugou didn’t have to worry about /this/ kid being a wimp & leaving him in the clutches of a villain.

I don't have to put a picture here to explain where that line of reasoning goes, do I? Haha

Anyway the sludge attack was one of Bakugou's Key Formative Moments! Don't brush it aside 'cause it only happened right at the beginning!

ty for reading my rambles lmao