A Thing About Kaminari's Good Nature

A thing about Kaminari's good nature

I know Kaminari is most likely not the traitor and not a cold-blooded villain but can we like.

Have him snap one or two more times?

The way he snapped at Shishikura during the provisional license exam.

Give me angry Kaminari. Give me Kaminari scaring his opponents to hell by dropping the smug sarcastic attitude. Give me that oh shit that boy is actually dangerous as fuck thank GOD he's not a villain moment.

It's already been established that his quirk is trouble to deal with, by both heroes and villains. He's been one of the key players during the Liberation War. And frankly, just think how fucking scary this boy would be in a fight if he wasn't goofing around all the time. Think Midoriya vs Overhaul.

His character makes me think of a certain saying:

If you're a pacifist incapable of violence, you're not peaceful, you're harmless.

Give me Kaminari knowing shit well what he could do with his quirk but actively choosing not to. The looks he throws Shishikura? Boiiiiiii. ⬇️

[Edit] I don't know why I didn't notice this before but the way he literally doesn't defend himself against Shishikuras insults? He's mad he's saying all these things about Bakugo and Kirishima. "I'm not talking about me." Okay. Hell. Maybe that's cause he doesn't see himself as a proper hero? Because he feels he doesn't have the right to deny Shishikuras accusations?

This is his reaction to: "Even in this form your friends are well capable of feeling pain. Your electricity will still hurt them, Kaminari Denki." ⬇️

Which obviously hits a nerve. It's practically the setup line and scene for his new sharpshooting gear. Most of his developement as a hero is centered around him figuring out ways to fight without hurting his friends. I'd love to see if maybe there was an event in his past or a circumstance that made it important to him, apart from the impracticality of hurting your own allies.

I know in context of this scene, Kaminari's pissed because Shishikura keeps dragging Bakugo and Kirishima and everyone else through the mud. Which is a fairly natural reaction. But consider:

Maybe the reason he looks so angry in reaction to this specific line is because the simple nature of his quirk hurting the people around him is his wound point. Or maybe it's because he's willingly used his quirk in a bad way in the past and is trying to better himself. We have seen him casually tossing around 1.3 million volt in training fights against students in the past, but he hasn't used that in a long time.

In canon he probably does not have the urge to fry someone or kill with his quirk. The opposite. He's a good noodle, Horikoshi has never implied that he had anger issues or villainous tendencies in the past. Every time he chooses to not use his quirk, the focus lies specifically on him genuinely not wanting to hurt his friends. Or, like with Shishikura, he's defending them. He's harmless so to say.

But I love the idea of him being peaceful. The idea of him going through anger management as a kid to get his quirk under control. That he keeps up that goofy positive attitude because he actively wants to be a good person, but if he chose to could and would absolutely fry a bitch. Which again, we have seen him do. See the Sports Festival arc.

I'm trying to see this in slack context of the split-personality theory. Like electricity has a positive and negative side, Kaminari might have a dark side he's trying to conceal. Not to the extreme of a personality disorder, but the fact that if he's angry, he's scary.

The thing is, most of the time we see him yelling or angry or frustrated, it's in a funny context. Comic relief. The only time we've ever seen him seriously mad is during the license exam.

I honestly think Kaminari is one of the most realistic and fleshed out characters in the whole series. He feels super human, because he contradicts himself in lots of ways, because he has flaws and gray zones in his behavior and morals, because his emotional reactions to all the shit getting thrown at the students are absolutely relatable. And at the same time he doesn't exactly lean towards one extreme of an archetype as we often see in anime characters.

So adding another layer to that by breaking through his fundamentally good nature and maybe showing how it came to be would absolutely fuck.

Also just.

Goofy characters snapping. Please.