So Izuku Regarding Him As The Image Of Victory Ends Up As A Fat Lie - Tumblr Posts
Hi! I'm not exactly a fan of BNHA and most of my knowledge about it came from fics and your blog. Curiosity about Bakugo's "death" led me to read the last 3 chapters, and the newest one confused me. I'm hoping you could shed some light on it?
Why is it important to the heroes that Bakugo lives? To the point an older, more experienced hero is prepared to sacrifice himself to revive Bakugo? Does he have some kind of secret weapon the heroes can use? What makes him /that/ important and vital to the current crisis?
Thanks for the help. I hope you have a fabulous day! (。・ω・。)ノ♡
I think you already know the answer to your question.
More seriously, I have waited quite a while before answering this ask because I wanted to see what the next chapters would deliver and also so I was sure not to be instantly proven wrong after unleashing a vast quantity of salt. But I don't want to wait longer so here are the usual warnings: this is going to be a salt post, this is my opinion and not some absolute truth, and I accept the risk of being disproved.
Bakugou's death and everything that happened afterwards was pointless and cheap.
I personally found Bakugou's "death" very underwhelming because, especially for such a popular character, there are far better ways to bring one incredible death scene. The manga tried to show us that he went Plus Ultra and how much he had changed but the way it was brought made it underwhelming. His death could have brought more damage to Shigaraki. Or, one could have gone in the opposite direction and shown that yes, he didn't stand a chance against ShigarAFO but put more emotion into it to show that he fought for every additional second. Or he could have "died" protecting someone, which would nicely tie-in with his character arc of learning to be a hero who saves people.
Instead, the result was lukewarm. And the fact that pretty much everyone knows he isn't really dead doesn't bother me. But the last chapters did, especially when Bakugou already got seemingly killed by ShigarAFO during the war arc (and got away with only a couple of cool scars).
But what was a "Ah! That happened! Pretty cool quirk application moment and I like the change we see in Bakugou once he is waiting in purgatory with Flame Might!" moment because a clusterfuck of epic proportion with what is done to try to bring Bakugou back.
The asspulls of all asspulls. The most "WTF" moment of the entire manga and I am saying that while fully aware that Mirio twerked in front of Shigaraki one chapter later.
Edgeshot decides to kill himself on the off chance of bringing Bakugou back to life. He intends to fold himself à la Plus Ultra to become Bakugou's new heart, performing one of the most WTF open-heart surgeries ever on the middle of the battlefield while ShigarAFO is stomping on the remaining members of the Dream team.
How does he know how to do that? Is that how one of his parents die? Why is he doing that? Because his generation failed Bakugou's so he must atone and as an adult, he must save the kid.
The sheer troll logic one must attain to decide something like that is beyond my comprehension.
Edgeshot isn't dying at the time. It's not a "At least, my death might save him" moment. No, this is a top hero, who decided that he had to die to save one kid while the Big Three are fighting for their lives. In the time it took him to pull that not-so-life-saving procedure, Miruko has now lost all of her limbs, now channeling the Dark Knight of Monthy Python but hey, at least, she is certainly doing a better job than Edgeshot at trying to stop Shigaraki from killing them all and destroying UA, which is, in case I need to remind someone, FULL OF PEOPLE WORKING TO KEEP THAT THING IN THE AIR.
To answer your question, not only was "saving" (because, again, Edgeshot doesn't even know if it will work) Bakugou detrimental to the whole operation because they sacrificed a top hero during a situation where all hands on deck were required but it might have been for absolutely nothing.
Even if Bakugou, now part jeans and part ninja, starts breathing again, no one sane of mind would expect to get back to his feet and to fight again.
Now, I will hazard a guess as to why this so-called death was necessary. I could be wrong. But I feel that this was a desperate attempt for Bakugou’s character to have an excuse not to do anything while Izuku is fighting Shigaraki.
Because there has been kind of an elephant in the room for several arcs now.
The manga doesn’t want to outright say that by now, Izuku is stronger than Bakugou. Not just stronger, as in “in a fight, Deku would win”. I am talking about Izuku being in a league on his own by now.
Because here is the thing: you have Bakugou who is a really popular character, who rose to the rank of deuteragonist, and who is defined by two things: he never stops fighting and he never loses. And now that he is fighting the big bad (well, one of them), it’s a problem because if Bakugou wins, that means the entire hero society is incompetent, so is the villain (since he got beaten by a first year) and the MC and OFA is useless. But if he loses or just shown not to be able to keep up with ShigarAFO and Deku and has to stay on the sideline, it’s almost out of character for him because one of the things he keeps repeating to Izuku is “Don’t try to do things alone.” (The Jakku battle and the solo arc, in case you’re wondering.)
I disgress but that’s another thing the solo arc could have been useful for. Really setting up the fact that Izuku can fight with Shigaraki on his own and that he was now in a different power category than his classmates. Instead, we got the “This is the story of how we all become heroes” and the plot must now bend over backwards to justify it.
Also, there is a 75% chance that Bakugou wakes up at some point, with Edgeshot’s quirk, and helps finish ShigarAFO.
So, to answer your question, no, there was no reason for Edgeshot to kill himself over the possibility of reviving Bakugou. Bakugou and Edgeshot had no prior interaction that could justify this. And if Izuku arrived ten seconds later, this sacrifice would have been for nothing.