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SO LETS TALK “WHOS THE TRAITOR”
I’ll just start this off by axing off a HUGE group of characters right off the bat: the traitor is not a teacher, has to be from class A and cannot be from any other class, and not a “minor” member of class A, such as Mineta or Sero. I am assuming that those characters who have been somewhat involved in the main plotline of the story are those that have the potential to be the traitor. After cutting it down from that, I’ll just run through specific instances.
Of course it’s not midoriya, or the story would make no sense; same with Bakugou due to having been kidnapped. I’m cutting out Iida, Todoroki, and Momo for their involvement in helping to rescue Bakugou in the AfO arc, and also because they all have a family history in heroics. Froppy I’m cutting out more because of the way the story is written and being geared makes her a really awkward fit as traitor. Denki is one of the theories I’ve seen floating around, but I think that from the most recent arc, there’s a little too much leaning away from Denki having the capacity for being a traitor.
Kirishima, although I definitely wouldn’t be too surprised if it did turn out to be him, still doesn’t fit the bill for me. My initial reason was that Kirishima obviously wants to save Bakugou from the villains during that particular arc - he *initiates* the entire thing. While even despite on that, I was open to the idea of Kirishima being the traitor, but thinking on it there are two other reasons I can’t sink my teeth in. The first is that Kirishima is just... so honest?? and also Bakugou’s kinda-probably best friend? If the villains really wanted Bakugou to join the villain side, Kirishima probably would have known, and also he could have easily spoken to Bakugou about the whole thing and weeded it out of him. He also strikes me as honest enough to bide his time with Bakugou and then when the time came, literally just saying ‘hey, Bakugou join me on the villains side.’
My second reason is crucial: Kirishima is just not AS close to Midoriya as pretty much every other main character. While I’m sure Midoriya would be upset if Kirishima was the traitor, it wouldn’t have the same effect as a lot of the other main characters in the series. The shock factor for Midoriya, appropriately, would be more like “oh no, how could you?” and I don’t think that’s what Horikoshi wants. Good traitor reveals are big, painful, and close to the heart. They’re someone who the main character trusts, and a lot of the time, a character who’s been there from the start.
So who is left?
A kind person doesn’t mean a good person
The first time I got a negative response to the theory (way early into picking up on this theory), my friend said “she’s just too nice,” but honestly, nice isn’t the opposite of “traitor.” It happens plenty in media, but I tend to think of Ao No Exorcist (no spoilers) and Assassin’s Creed (spoilers in the rest of the paragraph) - ESPECIALLY the latter due to how close Lucy was to Desmond during the series. Lucy and Uraraka’s personalities aren’t so far off, either, both women who care about the people around them maybe a little too much.
For a while now, there’s been clear evidence that MHA is about to take a turn toward something darker, and there’s a heavy suggestion that Horikoshi plans to blur the line between what is good and what is evil - Shigaraki being the grandson of All Might’s predecessor gives us a sense that evil people aren’t just born that way, that some of them are made; and in 115 we see that some villains are born from unfortunate circumstances. .
We don’t know too much about Uraraka’s past, but we do know that she loves her parents. Her purpose for becoming a hero was that she wanted to make enough money so that they could live happily. Which is a pretty noble deed!! But consider for a moment how the Hero Killer criticized heroes for doing good deeds only for the money. but the fact that this problem is mentioned in canon is interesting. That money and greed are mutual.
Uraraka would have a strategic advantage to the benefit of her parents if she were to alliance with villains. I don’t think she’s out there stabbing people in the back, but as a young person inside UA, it would be so easy for her to just slip information to the villains in order to protect her family, stay a hero and earn that money, AND potentially get a cut of money to pass on to her parents. Her parents would never have to know, and she could give them the life she believes they deserve.
Horikoshi loves girls
I don’t know if you’ve ever looked at Horikoshi’s pixiv, but holy shit it is filled with girls. And I’m not talking lewd pictures of girls. I’m talking like he seems to have a sincere understanding of females. I would put Horikoshi’s interest in women on par with the mangaka of like FMA and AnE... who are female mangaka for the record. I actually find it extremely weird that he, a male mangaka, pars up so well with women shonen mangaka when it comes to females.
Based on the tags, the girl on the left is an original character (correct me if I’m wrong), and please take a look at the drop dead gorgeous Momo’s belly rolls. THIS MAN CARES ABOUT WOMEN; he’s not drawing fanservice, he’s drawing how women would actually look if they worked out a bunch or if their body was hunched over. If you dig around the pixiv tag some more, Horikoshi even drew the FEMALE protag of pokemon XY instead of the male one, looking crazy as fuck surrounded by the scariest looking pokemon he could. Besides that, did you know Horikoshi’s last series actually featured a female protag?
You might be wondering why the actual FUCK it matters that I make such a strong point about Horikoshi’s love for women in a post about why Uraraka is the traitor. Well for one, I think it’s awesome and beautiful and we should be talking about this more. But more importantly, Horikoshi’s dedication to women actually makes Uraraka’s storyline fucking WEIRD comparatively, along with a few other things.
Uraraka has never been featured as the center piece on a cover despite being the heroine. Todoroki has gotten one, Bakugou has gotten one, All Might has gotten one - you could argue that Midoriya also hasn’t gotten one, but I think that has more to do with Horikoshi loving his supporting characters and wanting to give them a little extra attention. And actually, Momo is the first girl to get a center feature on the cover, indicating that in Volume 8, *Momo* is the star next to All Might, Midoriya, and Bakugou.
If we base “main characters” on merchandise creation, Uraraka is one of the only main characters who has not gotten an arc that really revolves around her and gives her some establishment as a character. Bakugou has the hero-villain fight, Todoroki has the sports fest, Iida got the Hero Killer arc. Tsuyu doesn’t get much either, but even Tokoyami seems to be about on par with Uraraka for story involvement, and Momo who has nearly no merchandise has about as much breadth as Uraraka does, despite Uraraka being the heroine. If you consider Naruto (god help us), even Sakura starred in her own little arc for about a volume by the, iirc, 7th volume. MHA is up to 11.
What I’m saying is, something is coming. There is something about Uraraka that we’re not seeing. Although she’s honestly an adorable character, and I am certainly fond of her, I do think that something about Uraraka comes up short. It’s as if every other character in the story has taken on their role, but Uraraka has yet to fill hers. Instead, what we’ve seen of her so far is her losing to Bakugou, and then never showing us exactly what she’s made of. Instead.... we’re met with a love story?
Love can’t be all that there is to it.
This is also why I had to emphasize so heavily on Horikoshi’s love for women. I really do not... cannot understand how it is that our heroine’s primary storyline for a good 50 chapters was about her crush on Midoriya, and we’re only a little over 100 chapters in. For a guy who handles female characters like the Queen of my Heart, Hirumo Arakawa creator of Fullmetal Alchemist, I cannot believe that our main heroine’s crush has been handled in such a way that it almost seems like Uraraka was TRICKED into falling in love with Midoriya. I asked myself for ages if it happened like this because Shonen Jump required it of Horikoshi when he presented the manga to him, and SJ is the one who fucked it up. Honestly, I do not know.
But it just got weirder to me when Uraraka resolved to crush her feelings for Midoriya. I would be delighted about this resolution if I didn’t feel so uncomfortable about how the love story was handled in the first place. But then this happens and... what? For what reason would she ever have to crush her feelings? Back to Naruto (god save us), Sakura NOR Hinata had to crush THEIR feelings in order to get stronger - in fact, both those girls used that love to empower them. Same with Winry (god bless the Queen), who had CLEARLY always cared for Ed showed him compassion and love. There is literally no reason for Uraraka not to be in love with Midoriya if she wants to. Is Horikoshi breaking the mold?? Sure.
OR..... Uraraka is the traitor, and if she continues to be in love with Midoriya, it would interfere with her work for the villains because she has become too attached to Midoriya. I cite Assassin’s Creed once again, where in Brotherhood there was certainly a clear dynamic between Lucy and Desmond that suggested the two of them were VERY into each other, and Lucy was probably falling for him; but nevertheless Lucy seemed to keep her distance from Desmond to a certain degree. I am dead certain this isn’t the only instance of a story being told where the woman has to crush her feelings for a man because she is actually working for the other side.
Tying the last point and this point together, I think what we’re waiting for from Uraraka won’t actually come for some time; and I’m guessing that we won’t know who our traitor is until a time skip occurs (assuming one will happen). If Uraraka *is* the traitor, we’ll be watching her at a level just below everyone else, still prominent in every arc, but not rising above anyone in particular, still treading the surface.
Also like. What the hell is this face???? Like, lmao: Yes, this is absolutely the face I make when I decide not to have a crush on someone.
Uraraka wasn’t always the heroine
This is just a small point, but it’s interesting to note what is mentioned here in the description. I think it would be fair to say that there’s a GOOD chance that Uraraka is going to be going down roughly the same route that Mt. Lady was intended to go down; meaning that we can expect that Uraraka and Midoriya have a lot of interactions to go through (this part is quoted later in this theory), and that Uraraka is likely heading down a dark path. It makes sense why Horikoshi would need to change her; although we don’t know very much about Mt. Lady’s personality (her being a sexier character in her final form, I can only speculate), it could be inferred that if Mt. Lady did become the traitor, that the relationship between her and Midoriya may have been more stilted due to a personality shift, and thus didn’t work as powerfully as Horikoshi wanted. So instead of working with the darkness Mt. Lady provided, to change the character and create Uraraka in order to provide a more relatable character for Midoriya to attach to, then the traitor concept holds a lot more weight to the story.
By extension of this consideration, remember how above, I mentioned that Kirishima being the traitor wouldn’t have the right effect towards Midoriya? This “effect” is SO much a part of the reason why I think Uraraka is going to be the traitor. Uraraka is his friend, someone he trusts, someone who he may have a crush on too. To have her betray him like that would be devastating, and similar to how Shigaraki’s betrayal has devastated All Might, the betrayal of Uraraka to Midoriya could have that same effect, thus giving Midoriya a greater understanding of the world of villains, and why the problem is what it is.
No other character, besides Bakugou, could give Midoriya the same cold emptiness that betrayal leaves behind.
Uraraka is Bakugou’s “heel”
Okay to understand this section, I’m going to drop a definition here first.
Now you might be looking at me like I’m crazy “But Bakugou is obviously villainous” BUT HEAR ME OUT FOR A SECOND, because if we run with this theory that Uraraka IS the traitor, then yeah, she’s the heel. But there’s a lot more to it than that.
Bakugou and Uraraka have obviously been set up to be opposites of each other from very early on in the story. Moments after encountering Bakugou’s dark and pissy attitude we’re introduced to Uraraka’s bright and sunshining smile. But Uraraka is quickly established in a particular way early on in the series, for when she changes the meaning of “Deku” to something more positive, it immediately connects her to Bakugou in a very particular way, for these two are the only ones who ever call Midoriya by this nickname. The way the story builds, it’s almost like we, the readers, are tricked into viewing Bakugou and Uraraka a certain way. Because Bakugou is such a negative character, he comes off as the villain and then is established as a villainous character during the hero-villain exercise. By contrast, Uraraka is a very positive character who is then established as Midoriya’s partner and a hero in the same arc.
This opposition continues between them through out the storyline, with Uraraka and Bakugou going head-to-head in the sports festival where Bakugou is called out as a villain. If you look at official art, like the one linked above, there’s also a sense that the two of them are weighted against each other in Midoriya’s life, too. There’s something to be said about their character profiles. These are just some quotes from the VIZ translations of the Omake in Vol 1.
Even their character profiles makes a suggestion for how we should view the characters; and by describing Bakugou as a “rotten thief,” we’re predisposed to view him in a certain way. The same goes for Uraraka, and the way that the words are framed, we are predisposed to trusting her.
But.... even despite Bakugou being positioned as a villainous character, as the chapters develop, we’re seeing more and more that Bakugou truly, deeply, and honestly wants to be a hero. He wants to be one who brings about justice to evil doers, and he is clearly trying to understand what it means to become a hero. And so what we can expect from the series is that Bakugou is likely going to become an ally to Midoriya.
The potential connection Uraraka and Bakugou have around Midoriya is such an interesting writing mechanic, that it would be amazing to see her turn over just as Bakugou has turned over. All this time, Uraraka’s kindness has set Bakugou up to be a terrible person, making her his heel. So when the tides turn and Bakugou moves to be a better person, to have the tides turn both ways and then watch Uraraka slowly reveal that she has been the traitor all along? It would be a fantastic reveal, and I think Horikoshi is a good enough writer that he’s basically already pulling it off.
I’ll just start this off by axing off a HUGE group of characters right off the bat: the traitor is not a teacher, has to be from class A and cannot be from any other class, and not a “minor” member of class A, such as Mineta or Sero. I am assuming that those characters who have been somewhat involved in the main plotline of the story are those that have the potential to be the traitor. After cutting it down from that, I’ll just run through specific instances.
Of course it’s not midoriya, or the story would make no sense; same with Bakugou due to having been kidnapped. I’m cutting out Iida, Todoroki, and Momo for their involvement in helping to rescue Bakugou in the AfO arc, and also because they all have a family history in heroics. Froppy I’m cutting out more because of the way the story is written and being geared makes her a really awkward fit as traitor. Denki is one of the theories I’ve seen floating around, but I think that from the most recent arc, there’s a little too much leaning away from Denki having the capacity for being a traitor.
Kirishima, although I definitely wouldn’t be too surprised if it did turn out to be him, still doesn’t fit the bill for me. My initial reason was that Kirishima obviously wants to save Bakugou from the villains during that particular arc - he *initiates* the entire thing. While even despite on that, I was open to the idea of Kirishima being the traitor, but thinking on it there are two other reasons I can’t sink my teeth in. The first is that Kirishima is just... so honest?? and also Bakugou’s kinda-probably best friend? If the villains really wanted Bakugou to join the villain side, Kirishima probably would have known, and also he could have easily spoken to Bakugou about the whole thing and weeded it out of him. He also strikes me as honest enough to bide his time with Bakugou and then when the time came, literally just saying ‘hey, Bakugou join me on the villains side.’
My second reason is crucial: Kirishima is just not AS close to Midoriya as pretty much every other main character. While I’m sure Midoriya would be upset if Kirishima was the traitor, it wouldn’t have the same effect as a lot of the other main characters in the series. The shock factor for Midoriya, appropriately, would be more like “oh no, how could you?” and I don’t think that’s what Horikoshi wants. Good traitor reveals are big, painful, and close to the heart. They’re someone who the main character trusts, and a lot of the time, a character who’s been there from the start.
So who is left?
A kind person doesn’t mean a good person
The first time I got a negative response to the theory (way early into picking up on this theory), my friend said “she’s just too nice,” but honestly, nice isn’t the opposite of “traitor.” It happens plenty in media, but I tend to think of Ao No Exorcist (no spoilers) and Assassin’s Creed (spoilers in the rest of the paragraph) - ESPECIALLY the latter due to how close Lucy was to Desmond during the series. Lucy and Uraraka’s personalities aren’t so far off, either, both women who care about the people around them maybe a little too much.
For a while now, there’s been clear evidence that MHA is about to take a turn toward something darker, and there’s a heavy suggestion that Horikoshi plans to blur the line between what is good and what is evil - Shigaraki being the grandson of All Might’s predecessor gives us a sense that evil people aren’t just born that way, that some of them are made; and in 115 we see that some villains are born from unfortunate circumstances. .
We don’t know too much about Uraraka’s past, but we do know that she loves her parents. Her purpose for becoming a hero was that she wanted to make enough money so that they could live happily. Which is a pretty noble deed!! But consider for a moment how the Hero Killer criticized heroes for doing good deeds only for the money. but the fact that this problem is mentioned in canon is interesting. That money and greed are mutual.
Uraraka would have a strategic advantage to the benefit of her parents if she were to alliance with villains. I don’t think she’s out there stabbing people in the back, but as a young person inside UA, it would be so easy for her to just slip information to the villains in order to protect her family, stay a hero and earn that money, AND potentially get a cut of money to pass on to her parents. Her parents would never have to know, and she could give them the life she believes they deserve.
Horikoshi loves girls
I don’t know if you’ve ever looked at Horikoshi’s pixiv, but holy shit it is filled with girls. And I’m not talking lewd pictures of girls. I’m talking like he seems to have a sincere understanding of females. I would put Horikoshi’s interest in women on par with the mangaka of like FMA and AnE... who are female mangaka for the record. I actually find it extremely weird that he, a male mangaka, pars up so well with women shonen mangaka when it comes to females.
Based on the tags, the girl on the left is an original character (correct me if I’m wrong), and please take a look at the drop dead gorgeous Momo’s belly rolls. THIS MAN CARES ABOUT WOMEN; he’s not drawing fanservice, he’s drawing how women would actually look if they worked out a bunch or if their body was hunched over. If you dig around the pixiv tag some more, Horikoshi even drew the FEMALE protag of pokemon XY instead of the male one, looking crazy as fuck surrounded by the scariest looking pokemon he could. Besides that, did you know Horikoshi’s last series actually featured a female protag?
You might be wondering why the actual FUCK it matters that I make such a strong point about Horikoshi’s love for women in a post about why Uraraka is the traitor. Well for one, I think it’s awesome and beautiful and we should be talking about this more. But more importantly, Horikoshi’s dedication to women actually makes Uraraka’s storyline fucking WEIRD comparatively, along with a few other things.
Uraraka has never been featured as the center piece on a cover despite being the heroine. Todoroki has gotten one, Bakugou has gotten one, All Might has gotten one - you could argue that Midoriya also hasn’t gotten one, but I think that has more to do with Horikoshi loving his supporting characters and wanting to give them a little extra attention. And actually, Momo is the first girl to get a center feature on the cover, indicating that in Volume 8, *Momo* is the star next to All Might, Midoriya, and Bakugou.
If we base “main characters” on merchandise creation, Uraraka is one of the only main characters who has not gotten an arc that really revolves around her and gives her some establishment as a character. Bakugou has the hero-villain fight, Todoroki has the sports fest, Iida got the Hero Killer arc. Tsuyu doesn’t get much either, but even Tokoyami seems to be about on par with Uraraka for story involvement, and Momo who has nearly no merchandise has about as much breadth as Uraraka does, despite Uraraka being the heroine. If you consider Naruto (god help us), even Sakura starred in her own little arc for about a volume by the, iirc, 7th volume. MHA is up to 11.
What I’m saying is, something is coming. There is something about Uraraka that we’re not seeing. Although she’s honestly an adorable character, and I am certainly fond of her, I do think that something about Uraraka comes up short. It’s as if every other character in the story has taken on their role, but Uraraka has yet to fill hers. Instead, what we’ve seen of her so far is her losing to Bakugou, and then never showing us exactly what she’s made of. Instead.... we’re met with a love story?
Love can’t be all that there is to it.
This is also why I had to emphasize so heavily on Horikoshi’s love for women. I really do not... cannot understand how it is that our heroine’s primary storyline for a good 50 chapters was about her crush on Midoriya, and we’re only a little over 100 chapters in. For a guy who handles female characters like the Queen of my Heart, Hirumo Arakawa creator of Fullmetal Alchemist, I cannot believe that our main heroine’s crush has been handled in such a way that it almost seems like Uraraka was TRICKED into falling in love with Midoriya. I asked myself for ages if it happened like this because Shonen Jump required it of Horikoshi when he presented the manga to him, and SJ is the one who fucked it up. Honestly, I do not know.
But it just got weirder to me when Uraraka resolved to crush her feelings for Midoriya. I would be delighted about this resolution if I didn’t feel so uncomfortable about how the love story was handled in the first place. But then this happens and... what? For what reason would she ever have to crush her feelings? Back to Naruto (god save us), Sakura NOR Hinata had to crush THEIR feelings in order to get stronger - in fact, both those girls used that love to empower them. Same with Winry (god bless the Queen), who had CLEARLY always cared for Ed showed him compassion and love. There is literally no reason for Uraraka not to be in love with Midoriya if she wants to. Is Horikoshi breaking the mold?? Sure.
OR..... Uraraka is the traitor, and if she continues to be in love with Midoriya, it would interfere with her work for the villains because she has become too attached to Midoriya. I cite Assassin’s Creed once again, where in Brotherhood there was certainly a clear dynamic between Lucy and Desmond that suggested the two of them were VERY into each other, and Lucy was probably falling for him; but nevertheless Lucy seemed to keep her distance from Desmond to a certain degree. I am dead certain this isn’t the only instance of a story being told where the woman has to crush her feelings for a man because she is actually working for the other side.
Tying the last point and this point together, I think what we’re waiting for from Uraraka won’t actually come for some time; and I’m guessing that we won’t know who our traitor is until a time skip occurs (assuming one will happen). If Uraraka *is* the traitor, we’ll be watching her at a level just below everyone else, still prominent in every arc, but not rising above anyone in particular, still treading the surface.
Also like. What the hell is this face???? Like, lmao: Yes, this is absolutely the face I make when I decide not to have a crush on someone.
Uraraka wasn’t always the heroine
Early on, Mt. Lady (who appeared in chapter 1) was going to be the heroine, but when it comes to a girl whose only power is growing... Taking that to its logical conclusions just brought about all sorts of problems, and the character started getting pretty dark. So I changed her. -Uraraka’s Character Profile, Vol 1 Omake, VIS translation
This is just a small point, but it’s interesting to note what is mentioned here in the description. I think it would be fair to say that there’s a GOOD chance that Uraraka is going to be going down roughly the same route that Mt. Lady was intended to go down; meaning that we can expect that Uraraka and Midoriya have a lot of interactions to go through (this part is quoted later in this theory), and that Uraraka is likely heading down a dark path. It makes sense why Horikoshi would need to change her; although we don’t know very much about Mt. Lady’s personality (her being a sexier character in her final form, I can only speculate), it could be inferred that if Mt. Lady did become the traitor, that the relationship between her and Midoriya may have been more stilted due to a personality shift, and thus didn’t work as powerfully as Horikoshi wanted. So instead of working with the darkness Mt. Lady provided, to change the character and create Uraraka in order to provide a more relatable character for Midoriya to attach to, then the traitor concept holds a lot more weight to the story.
By extension of this consideration, remember how above, I mentioned that Kirishima being the traitor wouldn’t have the right effect towards Midoriya? This “effect” is SO much a part of the reason why I think Uraraka is going to be the traitor. Uraraka is his friend, someone he trusts, someone who he may have a crush on too. To have her betray him like that would be devastating, and similar to how Shigaraki’s betrayal has devastated All Might, the betrayal of Uraraka to Midoriya could have that same effect, thus giving Midoriya a greater understanding of the world of villains, and why the problem is what it is.
No other character, besides Bakugou, could give Midoriya the same cold emptiness that betrayal leaves behind.
Uraraka is Bakugou’s “heel”
Okay to understand this section, I’m going to drop a definition here first.
In professional wrestling, a heel is a wrestler who is villainous or a “bad guy”, who is booked (scripted) by the promotion to be in the position of being an antagonist. - Wikipedia
Now you might be looking at me like I’m crazy “But Bakugou is obviously villainous” BUT HEAR ME OUT FOR A SECOND, because if we run with this theory that Uraraka IS the traitor, then yeah, she’s the heel. But there’s a lot more to it than that.
Bakugou and Uraraka have obviously been set up to be opposites of each other from very early on in the story. Moments after encountering Bakugou’s dark and pissy attitude we’re introduced to Uraraka’s bright and sunshining smile. But Uraraka is quickly established in a particular way early on in the series, for when she changes the meaning of “Deku” to something more positive, it immediately connects her to Bakugou in a very particular way, for these two are the only ones who ever call Midoriya by this nickname. The way the story builds, it’s almost like we, the readers, are tricked into viewing Bakugou and Uraraka a certain way. Because Bakugou is such a negative character, he comes off as the villain and then is established as a villainous character during the hero-villain exercise. By contrast, Uraraka is a very positive character who is then established as Midoriya’s partner and a hero in the same arc.
This opposition continues between them through out the storyline, with Uraraka and Bakugou going head-to-head in the sports festival where Bakugou is called out as a villain. If you look at official art, like the one linked above, there’s also a sense that the two of them are weighted against each other in Midoriya’s life, too. There’s something to be said about their character profiles. These are just some quotes from the VIZ translations of the Omake in Vol 1.
“KATSUKI BAKUGOU
At first, I made him a natural-born genius who would inadvertantly insult people, but that got pretty boring. So I went the other route and turned him into a nasty guy with an explosive personality. I’m glad he came out so unlikable. // His face just screams “I’m a rotten thief.”
“OCHAKO URARAKA
I’d planned to have her appear with Izuku a lot, so she needed to be cheery enough to drive their conversations. // She’s unexpectedly brazen and frank. Proof that there’s no hidden side to her, if you catch my drift.”
Even their character profiles makes a suggestion for how we should view the characters; and by describing Bakugou as a “rotten thief,” we’re predisposed to view him in a certain way. The same goes for Uraraka, and the way that the words are framed, we are predisposed to trusting her.
But.... even despite Bakugou being positioned as a villainous character, as the chapters develop, we’re seeing more and more that Bakugou truly, deeply, and honestly wants to be a hero. He wants to be one who brings about justice to evil doers, and he is clearly trying to understand what it means to become a hero. And so what we can expect from the series is that Bakugou is likely going to become an ally to Midoriya.
The potential connection Uraraka and Bakugou have around Midoriya is such an interesting writing mechanic, that it would be amazing to see her turn over just as Bakugou has turned over. All this time, Uraraka’s kindness has set Bakugou up to be a terrible person, making her his heel. So when the tides turn and Bakugou moves to be a better person, to have the tides turn both ways and then watch Uraraka slowly reveal that she has been the traitor all along? It would be a fantastic reveal, and I think Horikoshi is a good enough writer that he’s basically already pulling it off.