i have a lot of thoughts on the megumi slander and the idea of megumi "never reaching his potential" that stem from my time in jjkcord and talking with ppl who have diff opinions on his character. at the basest of all levels, a lot of slander is due to ppl not caring to look at something beyond surface-level feats and power. the idea of powerscaling is actually fun and a great way to understand someone's abilities, but ppl ignore other factors when it comes to fighting.
with megumi, especially, there are a lot of underlying emotional factors, outside forces, and general characteristics that affect his battle strategy and how he uses his technique. this leads to the potential man meme—the idea that he will never reach a certain set goal. this is actually something reinforced to him by gojo bc of the current mindset he carries. half of sorcery is a mindset thing, and we see him struggling with his sense of self often—mostly due to how he views his morals in comparison to someone like tsumiki or yuuji.
bc he doesn't view himself to be a good person, he doesn't understand why his life would matter as much as his sister's or yuuji's. if you look back at the baseball game, it's a perfect metaphor for why he relies on mahoraga as a trump card. it's not that he wants to be out, and no, he's not fucking suicidal. megumi is a character who would rather take the sacrifice, bc he'd rather it be him than anyone else, because he feels as though they deserve it more.
this affects his fights and his motivations to win. he WANTS to win, but he's not DRIVEN by it because there are other things that he cares about more. these are common characteristics of a kid with too much responsibility but doesn't really want it, which makes sense for him. think of it like an heir to a company who secretly wants to be an artist or smth. megumi doesn't WANT to be a sorcerer—not really—so it makes sense that his growth follows a more natural and normal path for a sorcerer (AKA: not a fucking world-ending anomaly).
ppl who "hate" characters bc of their strength—ESPECIALLY IN JJK—actually fall into the same toxic mindset of the higher ups that gojo wants to dismantle. gojo WANTS megumi to exceed beyond his means, yes, BUT he wants megumi to want it, too, AND he wants him to do it naturally. that means that no, by 15, megumi isn't going to be a badass, special grade sorcerer, and we shouldn't even expect him to be a grade 1. gojo doesn't WANT that for him. yuuji, yuuta, and maki are all anomalies created by the toxic and dangerous system that gojo wants to END. he wants megumi to be a kid, first and foremost, and with megumi, specifically, there is no "potential" to be reached. he always just wanted to be good enough to protect his sister and ensure her future. when tsumiki dies, he loses all motivation bc his purpose died with her.
from there, it's not about a power-up arc—we got that in the culling games, when he was still very much motivated by her. after her death, his character is about emotional growth and realizing that he doesn't have to be like gojo or yuuta or yuuji if he doesn't want that himself. he can enjoy a simple life, bc that's what he TRULY wants and deserves (hello?? 266!!!). gojo wants megumi to be "greedier," if he wants to get stronger, but megumi's greed always extended beyond sorcery, where he could live the life he actually wanted.
basically, the potential man meme is a gross display of lack of empathy, media literacy, and understanding characters—ALL characters!!!—in jjk. it's proof that a lot of themes in the series went right over readers' heads, and they'll likely never get the point. if a person cannot set aside their expectations to understand that this is something meg never wanted, then they are missing the point why gojo killed the higher ups, they are missing the point of meg's character & what he represents, and they are missing the entire point of jjk.
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