Not drunk yet cause boytoy is teaching a class so I can’t leave the bedroom lmao but I decided I’d start with these panels and discuss a bit
Bakugo has been watching closely the entire time. I don’t think for a second he took his eyes off of Deku, do you see how detailed he is? He knows EXACTLY what Deku is doing, and he knows EXACTLY what it’s doing to him, because he’s seen it all before. Todoroki has seen it, sure, but not to the level Bakugo has.
Not in the context that Bakugo has.
Bakugo has witnessed first hand that broken body running for him. He has witnessed Deku, with no ability left in his arms and barely able to move, running to save him. So of course he’s going to be paying complete attention. How does he end up like that? What has he been doing? What led to all of those scars? This is the first time he is seeing Deku in a battle like this, he has never witnessed it before, just how extremely Deku breaks his body in the name of saving.
Now he knows. The way he looked before Bakugo was kidnapped, this is why. Throwing himself completely away in order to save the people he cares about, letting himself suffer more and more for the power granted to him. It’s a power meant to save, but at what cost? The cost of the user, and Bakugo isn’t having that, which is why we see him move so quickly and so calmly.
This is literally, split-second thinking. I don’t estimate they were standing there any long than 5 minutes before he started giving orders, because he knows who Deku is, and he knows someone would have to stop him.
Hell, he even knows why they’re still up there, because he’s in Deku’s head. Couldn’t get him with the first hit, gotta keep at it. Doesn’t matter what happens, gotta keep fighting till he’s down. Have to WIN, no matter the cost.
Bakugo knows, because it’s how he thinks.
A symbol of victory, but at what cost? Will having Deku see his fight to win nature push him to keep acting like this?
How could he get him to see, to understand?
Which is where their flip comes in, and we see this.
Deku isn’t All for One. Deku isn’t like that. That’s not his heart, and Bakugo knows Deku’s heart better than anyone in his life. Which is why these panels above are so important, because he sees there is such a fine line right now due to Deku’s rage, and he knows it can’t keep up this way.
Not if he wants to hold onto the Deku he knows. The Deku who saves
The Deku who always does his best!
What is winning if it means he’ll lose himself?
Just like with Deku in chapter 1, when we’re given the variety of reasons for why he jumped out, we got the same from Bakugo, but with images. Beautiful, heartbreaking images.
All of his reasons for jumping out, they’re all just…Deku.
It’s solely, completely, 100% because the person that is there, about to wind up hurt or killed, is Deku.
The person who has thrown himself into harms way again and again, who has risked everything for other people. The person Bakugo could never bring himself to understand, because he was so scared of the feeling of being close to someone like that, someone who he could lose so easily. How could he friends with someone for them to just..die?
Now we see it again, where Deku is throwing himself away, but it isn’t to save now. It’s to win. It’s to beat Shigaraki and All for One, and maybe it could be said that Bakugo even sees himself in that moment.
“I break and bend until I can’t anymore, if that’s what it takes to win.”
Those were Bakugo’s words. But at what cost? To bend and break and bleed and cry, to lose yourself to the battle, to the need to win. That’s what he saw while down on the ground, and even more when he got into the air and witnessed what Deku looked like, almost like a beast, silhouetted in darkness and anger. But that isn’t Deku.
Not the Deku he knows, and not the Deku he’ll accept.
So he moved, and he saved, because now it’s his turn to act without thinking. To have one image in his mind, the image of a savior. Deku, to him, was and is that. The image of a Savior. Not a symbol of peace, because that isn’t Deku’s true goal. His only goal is to save, and so a Savior is the proper title for him.
When they come together, they make a Symbol of Peace, but respectfully, on their own, they’re the Symbol of Victory and the Symbol of a Savior.
We have come full circle, one has learned what it means to want to win, one has learned what it means to want to save.