The First User's Quirk Wasn't "Useless"
This was a theory that I had... for over a year. I guess I'm glad I waited because we now know more information about One For All as a quirk.
As you can see, this is a theory about the quirk of the First not being as useless as you may think. When I say his quirk, I'm talking about his original quirk.
It's been stated that the First User's original quirk was ability to just pass itself on. This itself is under the assumption that this ability was indeed the only ability the og quirk had. (Also, what's with this emphasis on the dude being "useless" and "powerless"? Like that's not like someone else we know... *cough* Midoriya *cough*)
Okay, maybe the ability to just pass itself on to someone else is a bit useless, and maybe more harmful than helpful as you know what happens when this thing gets passed on to someone who already has a power.
But what if I told you that there was actually more to the original quirk than we all thought? And this was staring right in our faces this entire time?
While All Might did indeed say that the First User's original quirk may have only had the ability of transfer, we can't exactly see this as reliable information. We've seen him get debunked before, mainly with the vestiges.
The thing is, all the information All Might currently has is information relayed from one user to the next.
This means that everything that we're told about OFA and its power from All Might are most likely just merely assumptions or theories from the past holders of One For All that just got passed down to the current generation. This is the same with All For One, despite him probably being the closest to knowing what OFA is.
This is the one of those instances where we explore deeper into the quirk. Here, we get to see a real visualisation of One For All.
One For All has always been commonly visualized as a flame. Here, we find out that deep within those flames, there's this small, seemingly insignificant dot that has now started to grow in size.
To me, the core seemed to stand out from the flames. Almost as if it's made to appear as something that wasn't a natural part of it.
What if this core wasn't a part of the Stockpile quirk, but was actually the original Transfer Quirk that the First User had?
It may seem like I'm jumping the gun, but Banjo's words seem to very subtly imply that the core isn't quite the Stockpile quirk. It's the flames.
The core of One For All is stated to be separate from the Stockpile part of the quirk. It's wrapped up within the accumulated power, but doesn't seem to be the one accumulating it.
With almost 100 chapters later, we see First mentions the growth of the quirk. And he says this.
THIS GUY, who has always been like "our power" this, "our power" that, for brief moment refers to OFA as "my power".
But he wasn't talking about OFA as a whole. He was only talking about that small little core that has grown exponentially.
Alright, so the core may be the First's original quirk. But what does this have to do with the Transfer quirk not being useless?
It was the core of One For All that has been stockpiling the quirks and consciousness of the past wielders this entire time. And if this core is indeed not the Stockpile quirk, but rather the First's original quirk, this means that the one stockpiling quirks wasn't the power given by All For One, but it was the so called "useless" Transfer Quirk all along.
The Transfer Quirk actually had the ability to also stockpile the quirks of those who previously held the power, as if done so to preserve those who are long gone. It's a lot like what Nana previously said about One For All.
In fact, it may have been the same quirk as All For One, but due to their different will and ideals, the way their quirks manifested their abilities very differently, both of which are able to interact with quirks and the consciousness behind them. I kinda consider these two powers as "Meta Quirks", special quirks where their abilities revolve around quirks itself.
May explain why Midoriya is able to use multiple quirks of OFA. Because despite there being multiple quirks, both OFA and AFO just stockpile them into one quirk, so it technically still counts as just using a singular quirk.
So First's quirk wasn't a useless quirk after all. It had the ability to pass on itself, while also stockpiling the quirks of the past users of the quirk.
But if this is the case... Why did only Midoriya start manifesting the quirks of past users?
It's because of the Stockpile.
It's been stated above that the core has been wrapped up within the accumulated power of the Stockpile. Compared to the huge, great flames of all this power, the core is been shown only a small dot within it.
I believe the Stockpile quirk actually surpressed all the abilities of the First's quirk, except for its ability to pass on itself. Rendering it "useless"
The ability to actually use the quirks held in One For All may have been something that was meant to be it's main ability, meaning all users should've been able to access this. But the Stockpile just simply overpowered the original quirk, so this wasn't able to truly use its power.
The ability of accessing the quirks of those who previously held OFA wouldn't have been noticed up until the Third User wielded it. At that point, the Stockpile would've probably grown enough to completely surpress this power.
So OFA may have gotten a very powerful quirk when combined with the First's original quirk, but at the cost of the true power of the quirk's ability. When you see it this way, it's almost symbolic. AFO somehow managed to surpress the true ability of his brother's power.
(This kinda makes me wonder if the real reason why First didn't use or realized that he had a quirk was because he was made to believe he was quirkless or useless, since we know OFA and AFO follows the will and beliefs of the user...)
Midoriya just so happened to get One For All at the perfect time. When the original quirk finally started to come out of the flames, allowing him properly use the true hidden ability of One For All. Which is probably what Banjo meant with this.
So... TLDR: First User actually had a power that resembled his brother's, which was the ability to pass on his own quirk, and when a quirked user passes it on, it stockpiles probably some copy of their quirk (since OFA is transferred through DNA, which probably has the quirk gene in it), which allowed the current user to wield the quirks of those who originally owned it. It wasn't able to use this ability since Stockpile nommed on the quirk until it started to come out of the accumulated power, which just so happened to occur when Midoriya had it.
Welp, that's what I got. Dang, I'm so glad I finally got this out there, haha. There's a lot of things I wanted to post as well, but then again, wasn't really able to. I'll try to be more active on this blog, especially while I'm more hyperfocused on bnha currently.
I'll see you guys in the next one!
