Kryik

AO3:

Me:

Pointlessness of heroism in izuku’s face, not only does he prove his point about Izuku being ‘worthless’ in failing to save somebody, but the entire focus he has is in stealing OFA from Izuku eventually. Due to his own sociopathic nature, he has to rely on somebody who can actually get emotionally invested in order to steal the quirk by proxy, hence him using Tomura. Demoralising izuku will just make it easier for him to steal OFA when he finally shows up for the rematch, and until then he’s

gonna get his kicks out of putting Izuku in no-win situations and watching him struggle and flail to try and save others to no avail. Nagant wasn’t sent to capture izuku, she was sent to ‘die’ in front of him, and she’s only the first of AFO’s scheme to break izuku’s willpower before they fight again.

yeah, I agree with pretty much all of this, unfortunately.

so just to get this out of the way first, the one thing I do hate about all this is that it takes away from one of the few bits of agency that Nagant's character had. first she's manipulated by the HPSC into being their hired gun, and then she gets manipulated by AFO into attacking Deku. so her turning against AFO should have been a triumphant moment where she finally makes her own decision based on what she believes is right, without following anyone else's orders. it should have been a moment of her reclaiming her own agency and deciding her own fate.

but instead, assuming that this theory is true, it means that even that moment of her turning on AFO was actually part of AFO's plan all along. so even that small victory winds up being negated, because it turns out that even her betrayal was part of AFO's manipulations. which to put it mildly really sucks, and I really hope Horikoshi doesn't plan to let her character arc end on such a bitter note. she deserves better than just being a discarded pawn in AFO's mind games. I hope she has a chance to kick some ass and get some payback in the final battle.

anyway, but putting aside that gripe for now, I do think this theory makes sense, and pretty much everything in the arc supports it.

first of all, AFO never needed Nagant to track down Deku in the first place. funny how he never mentions to her that he has full knowledge of Deku's whereabouts at all times, thanks to his connection to Tomura (and Tomura's Search quirk).

second, out of all the potential assassins he could have chosen, AFO goes with one who was never a proper villain to begin with. Nagant wasn't power-hungry or opportunistic or just straight up bloodlusty like many of these other villains; she was just tired of the two-facedness of hero society. and she had never actually done anything truly villainous before. the likelihood of her following through on something as unequivocally evil as capturing a teenage boy and taking him to AFO was pretty low, all things considered.

third, as you pointed out, AFO conveniently neglected to pass on vital information about Deku's quirk, something which proved to be a game-changer during the battle. it's safe to assume Nagant would have approached the fight very differently if she'd known about Float and Blackwhip, let alone the other SIXQUIRKS. she was basically set up for failure.

and finally, Horikoshi strangely brought this up out of the blue right before Nagant's introduction:

basically a reminder that the battle between OFA and AFO is a battle of wills. and up till now, it's been a battle which AFO has repeatedly lost. not even Tomura's rage, which AFO spent years carefully cultivating, was enough to subdue his brother's strength of will, and the will of OFA's newest host.

but what if that was only part of AFO's plan? "cultivate a strong enough hatred to overcome OFA's will." that's all well and good, but as a strategy it's kind of limited in its scope. let's say that AFO is a battering ram, and OFA is a heavy door. if you want to break down the door, one approach is to keep trying with stronger and stronger battering rams until you succeed. but if you've tried all that and it still doesn't work, then another and perhaps better approach would be to try and weaken the door. burn it down, pelt it with cannonballs; whatever. in other words, chip away at OFA's will until you finally wear it down to the point where it can be overcome.

and that's exactly what AFO has been doing this whole time. he hasn't just targeted the OFA users physically; he's been aiming to destroy their hearts and spirits as well. that's likely the real reason why he specifically chose Shimura Tenko as his heir. it's more than just a grudge; it's all part of his plan.

and said plan is not just limited to Nana and All Might -- he's already started in on Deku as well.

at Jakku he witnessed Deku's reaction to Aizawa and Katsuki's injuries, and knew he'd found his in. remember how he immediately baited Deku right after Katsuki sacrificed himself, calling it "pointless"? what are the odds he was simply testing the waters to see how Deku would react. and when Deku responds by instantly losing his shit and going straight up feral, AFO knows he's found his weakness, and immediately sets in on widening the cracks.

so yeah. that's his goal. it's not enough for him to just capture Deku, because ultimately he'd still wind up in the same situation as before, unable to actually steal the quirk despite all of his efforts. capturing Deku is meaningless if it doesn't get him what he actually wants. what he wants is OFA. and for him to get that, he doesn't actually need to defeat Deku -- he just needs to find a way to finally break his spirit.

it's funny, because watching this arc play out, I'd been wondering if it might end with AFO laying some sort of trap for Deku. I was picturing a scenario in which AFO took advantage of all that angst clouding Deku's mind right now, and lured him away from his protectors. basically goading him into trying to fight alone, before he's ready. and I was so focused on that speculation that I think I might have failed to see the obvious twist here. the Deku angst isn't going to lead him into a trap -- the Deku angst is the trap.

demoralize Deku until his fears and doubts become strong enough to dampen his resolve. hammer in the futility of his goal until he finally starts to question whether he can really succeed. hurt him where he's most vulnerable. and inch by inch, slowly but surely chip away at his hope. that's AFO's plan. good old fashioned emotional siege warfare.

This is a typical result of overtagging. It is one of the reasons that many fans have advocated for a secondary characters field on AO3. Overtagging was rarely an issue on FanFiction.Net and other fanfiction archives that only allow limited tags, but Bruce Banner Syndrome may also occur on Wattpad.

I’ve been thinking about this concept for a while, and the more that I analyze Bakugou’s character and his development, the more it stands out to me.

Bakugou Katsuki places a high level of priority on the idea of being “genuine”, and it is often this attribute in another person that earns them his respect almost immediately.

I will go into more detail on this with a couple of particular characters, but it is this concept of “genuine-ness”, or the ability of someone to be honest and truthful at face-value, that Bakugou values very highly. He is drawn to people who are “real”; people who don’t put on false faces, spout false praise or put on a ‘mask’ for the benefit of others.

ALSO PIRATE TOMMY??