Thread by @sols99, Lots of people in the MHA community have had a whiplash from [...]

Lots of people in the MHA community have had a whiplash from Uraraka's characterization as it went from "I want to make money for my parents" to "a hero who watches over other heroes" and it's understandable

In this thread, I try to crack the mystery behind this sudden shift.

At the start of the series when the scope of MHA was pretty limited, Hori decided to go with the "I want to be a hero so that I could earn money for my parents, it isn't noble as Deku's/Iida's reason for being a hero" route for Ochaco.

A character like Stain would definitely disapprove of Uraraka's intention behind becoming a hero.

I feel like Horikoshi wanted to prove that Stain's idea of an ideal hero was heavily flawed. He would have done this by showing that there is a complexity behind the-

-commercial nature & the idolatry worship of heroes in world of MHA.

There's evidence that he was trying to do that. Remember Uraraka's original design? She had Mt. Lady's gigantification quirk.

I believe that Mt. Lady took over proto-Uraraka's original character arc.

Mt. Lady does talk shows, photo shoots and even has her own brand of Hair conditioner(?) She has shown to be in vain multiple times and has used her sexuality for her gain whenever she could. She would be deemed as an imposter from Stain's perspective.

Yet, time and time again she has come up clutch and has shown her heroic spirit for the greater good.

I can guess that this is what Horikoshi originally wanted to do with Ochaco. To show that intentions behind heroism is complex in nature and isn't as black-

-and white as Stain thinks it to be.

This isn't even conjecture anymore at the point. Yu also has financial problems as (I wonder where I've heard that before) she damages physical structures whenever she uses her quirk.

Guess whose parents run a construction company? Uraraka

My guess is that Proto Ochaco's parents would have had their construction company repair the damage caused by her og gigantification quirk.

She would have wanted to become a hero so that she could use her gigantification quirk to assist her father in his business.

Being a hero would have also given her the money to repay her parents for the damages caused by her quirk.

You can also theorize that her parents would be worn out to due to physical labour and mental stress from having to financially cover for Proto-Uraraka's mistakes.

Now that we've established the train of thought that Mt.Lady took over Proto-Uraraka's characterization, lets move on to the current Ochaco.

Hori had a fixed story for MHA in his mind, a story that would end in about 30 volumes. He didn't expect MHA to blow up.

So he goes beyond the the original scope he had for MHA. Entities like Redestro, Hawks and PLF wouldn't have been a part of his original plan.

So, what happens to Proto Uraraka? He gives her characterization to Mt. Lady and decides to focus more on the rescue angle with Ochaco.

There are three big instances in MHA where you can see Horikoshi laying the groundwork for Ochaco's character progression.

The first glimpse we see of it is during the Yakuza raid when Nighteye dies in her hands. Not being unable to save Nighteye acts a trigger

-for her growth in a new direction.

The second time is during the Joint Training Arc, where you can actually see Horikoshi pivoting away the core of her characterization from questioning the intentions behind heroism to question who watches over the heroes.

This idea of who watches over the heroes is expanded in the current arc where she sees a hero quit in front of all the chaos and destruction. Ochaco is visibly taken aback by this as she sees him getting burnt out under the stress with cries for help all around him.

Just as Bakugo & Deku both need to learn the saving & winning aspect of heroism, I feel like Horikoshi is doing the same where he is trying to explore the rescue angle of heroism through Ochaco.

Chapter 296 & 288, gives me confidence that Hori is working towards something,

-but I don't see a payoff anytime soon.

Now that we've established what happened to Ochaco's original motivations and what it was replaced with it, the only missing piece to the puzzle is why did Horikoshi try to pivot it in the first place?

We can only speculate why he did this. You have to ask himself to get the right answer. My guess,
He felt that her og arc didn't have a place in the grander narrative he was planning at that time. As he expanded MHA, he did not find it to be befitting for the heroine of the story

Tldr:

1. Mt. Lady took over Ochaco's original plot line.
2. Horikoshi seems have laid out a new roadmap for Ochaco where he's focusing on the rescue aspect of heroism. I have faith that he'll pull through with Ochaco like he did with Shigaraki and Endeavor.

This is not a defense of Horikoshi's characterization btw. I still feel that he could have handled Ochaco a bit better. While widening the scope of MHA, he could have made it way such that she had a bigger role in it.

Like she's supposed to be the heroine and has had Sakura-

-levels of irrelevance at one point. She has been much ignored at the cost of other story lines and characters.

There were awkward periods of time in the story where he didn't know what to do with her so he decided to solely focus on her relationship with/feelings for Deku

Anyways, I hope that this thread sort of answers to your doubts to the sudden shift in Ochaco's characterization. This is my reason as to why it happened.

Writing and editing on twitter isn't easy so please ignore any grammatical errors.

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