#quirkless discrimination isnt a consistent thing which is a shame

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Tbh, I've never understood people saying "because Quirklessness is rare, people don't discriminate against it." This is Japan, a country that enforces conformity. If anything, they WOULD discriminate against the Quirkless because it's different.

I agree with you that the heroes (at least in good consciousness) wouldn't go as far as leaving Quirkless people to the wolves, but you'd definitely see it in the attitudes people have towards their supposed usefulness. Izuku and All Might believed they were useless without a Quirk, and Aoyama's parents went as far as to go to All For One of all people, because they knew how Aoyama would be treated for being Quirkless. That clearly didn't come out of nowhere.

If Hori had the foresight to develop Izuku and the world of MHA more in depth, we most likely would have seen it in action.

Hi @nutzgunray-lvt 👋

I personally do think that quirkless discrimination exists but I do see people who say that it's just there to belittle Izuku or that its not there in the narrative because let's be real we see the effects of quirkless discrimination but not how, where or who or why it exists!

The story is literally about how people aren't born equal yet society limits them into one little box that they must try to fit into and conform into. We see many characters struggle to do this and either feel useless or be labeled as villains or outcasts of the story.

The problem is we see the supposed effects of quirkless discrimination and that's it. We see Izuku and all might have a huge feeling of uselessness, we see yugas parents do anything for their son to be normal and have a quirk even if it hurts him, we see bakugo say that he thought that he (someone with a superior quirk) should be on top of a quirkless being, we see ochako comment to izuku in disbelief that he is going to fight quirkless, we see nighteye's reaction to all might making a quirkless child his successor, we see inko's reaction to izuku being diagnosed quirkless and so on and on.

Like you said reactions like these don't come from anywhere there must be something that causes them. Heck Iam not saying that quirkless discrimination is quirkless people being experimented on or anything like that but they are literally people who don't have an "individuality or quirk" they by society would be seen as people who aren't special and who can't do anything.

I wish we got to see make of quirkless discrimination and in all honesty it made sense if we did since 1) izuku is the main character 2) it would be crucial worldbuiling and 3) it was already something hinted at the beginning of the series.

Heck it's stated that quirkless are shunned away from society but we don't get any more development or Intel other than that

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Speaking of Inko.

The differences between how Inko reacted/responded to Izuku’s quirkless compared to how Mrs./Mr. Aoyama reacted/responded Yuga’s quirkless is so interesting. Honestly, I wish there was a scene or something where Inko interacted with Mrs./Mr. Aoyama. The fact that Izuku could’ve ended up in Yuga’s situation is so so interesting. (You know what, I kinda need a fic where Izuku is the UA Spy and Yuga is the ninth user of OFA now tbh)

Also, I really wish that Inko got to interact with David and/or Melissa.

Actually, both yuuga and Izuku's parents have very similar responses to their child being quirkless and have very similar responses when their child gets a quirk.

There is this idea in MHA that being quirkless would bring the child a life of pain as they aren't able to fit in with their peers and the parents of these children take this incredibly seriously as we see with inko breaking down and yuuga's parents going to extreme measures to make sure their son does indeed fit in.

I think a key interpretation as to why the parents think this way is because the idea of a quirk and actually the translation for the word quirk in the early chapters was labelled as an "individuality," meaning something that makes the person unique. A quirk is essentially viewed as something that makes the person them, so its an int and contradicting idea that someone has to be unique, has to have a different power to fit in and if they don't have this power they won't be able to fit into society and will be shunned. Essentially, I find Ochako's comment about calling izuku plain interesting in the context of her talking about Izuku, who has only recently gotten a quirk. He is plain because he lacks an individuality/quirk that is his. He doesn't stand out because he doesn't have a quirk or power to make him a person in a society that label's and treats people so differently due to their quirks.

Again, the idea ends up being interesting and contradictory because someone who doesn't have individuality should be able to fit in, right? I mean, they are essentially perfect molds, no? However, mha focuses on the idea that quirkless people or people without individuality are invisible and rather have a lot of their capabilities hindered especially socially and economically.

Both parents are relieved when their child does get a quirk. However, that relief quickly fades away as they learn the price that they must pay for their child to fit in. A price far too great, one where the child has to sacrifice so much.

Both of these parents come to the conclusion that it would have been better for their children to stay quirkless. Both of these parents are happy that their child can chase their dreams bud realising the costs they would of begged for their children to stay quirkless.

Yuuga's parents say that they want to give him a chance at letting him chase his dreams, inko saying something similar when izuku gets a quirk and she becomes supportive of his dream. However, the quick fade as both parents see the reality of that dream and how both of their children are too deep in to get out, they try to do something but ultimately fail.

Alas, the only parent who actually has a positive reaction and is shown to be incredibly supportive of their quirkless child is David.

You can read the one-shot chapter here

However, I think that even with this, there is still the obvious theme because of your quirklessness you won't be able to chase your dreams and you won't be able to fit in with the other kids whether that be in all of you sharing the goal to be a hero or even when playing the popular kid game of heroes and villains that is shown in Melissa's chapter.

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I've already said that in my rewrite, I'm thinking about discarding Bakugou from my version and putting in a character inspired by his beta version. But I'm having doubts about this issue. How will I demonstrate the bullying that Izuku suffers at the beginning of the story? Or should I make the story start with the UA entrance exam arc?

Quirkless discrimination isn't particularly something that Canon material delves deeply into (me and many others speculate that it was avoided so as not to make bakugo look bad)

Now, discrimination, as we see in MHA, comes in many forms. From what we see in Canon, Izuku's primary aggressor was bakugo without a doubt, and due to you reverting bakugo to his first draft, this means that we won't see bakugo antagonising izuku.

However, izuku will realistically still suffer from discrimination, and this could be through:

Introducing a new character that basically ends up taking bakugos place as the bully

Showing microagressions that izuku experiences due to his quirklessness, whether that be people limiting their interactions, talking behind his back, or simply ignoring him. Ghosting him as if he doesn't exist.

Teachers could be depicted as passive-aggressive with izuku, whether that be with things like not taking him seriously or simply ignoring his presence.

I think a mixture of options 2 and 3 would make the most sense. Izuku lives in a large city in Canon meaning that the discrimation he would experience wouldn't be as physically violent or aggressive as if it was in the rural sides as we have seen hori view it.

Due to the increased diversity in the city and maybe better policing (could be argued or shown not to be better policing), Izuku's experiences would mainly be very detrimental social aspects of his life being significantly hindered in reality which would still heavily effect his character whether that be the obvious anxiety, decrease in self esteem, desire for belonging which drives him to heroics and more.

From what we do see in Canon, the world of MHA very much emphasies the idea of conformity and how its basically one's social death (which ultimately leads them to a mu h more horrible life) if they don't achieve it. We see this with characters like toga, shoji, yuuga, and izuku.

Mha has a huge emphasis on fitting in and being the status quo being like all Might and giving it your all for a society that probably despises you and constantly exploits you.

Ironic, don't you think? For a society where quirks are labelled as a form of "uniqueness" and "individuality." That same individuality or lack of is being policies, having a label stuck on it, determines the fates of innocent children who have yet to see the dirt that society has. Those who don't fit the status quo will break themselves trying to fit in. They will long for family and will die doing so. Some may succeed in putting on the mask, but how long will it last? Toga sure didn't, and neither did Yuuga's. How many more will suffer for everyone to look and see the other as a human?

I won't lie to you it will be hard to accurately present quirkless discrimination without it wildly going to human experiments and people treating you like dirt type of fanon.

It will also be hard to write quirkless discrimination from the little time izuku is in aldera Middle School. However, even if you choose to start your story at the UA entrance arc exams you also have to actively explore why izuku is the way he is which is due to quirkless disceimation and his childhood!!!

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Overhaul (and partially Tomura) viewing being quirkless as worse than death is kind of just glossed over.

In their return, you'd think a lot villains against OFA would be frustrated that Izuku & All Might were handed their Quirk.

If what you say is correct anon than this has been glossed over so well that I can't even remember it.

When were first introduced to overhaul he held the strong belief that quirks were basically illnesses and mutated diseases that tainted mankind.

Overhaul isn't actually confirmed to hate or like quirkless people and individuals. Now that I think about it overhaul and what he does is actually hypocritical and that's and integral part of his character. To that one anon who compared spinner and amon I think a much more better comparison is amon and overhaul!!

I would expect overhaul to probably like and tolerate being around quirkless individuals a lot more since they are free of the disease that he claims to be quirks but you can argue that even overhaul sees quirkless individuals as useless seeing his expression as he himself became quirkless due to shigaraki.

I would imagine that overhauls reaction to learning about izuku and his situation would be one where he thinks that izuku has been infected by the disease that is quirks and not him outright hating izuku for formerly being quirkless (that's not saying that he likes izuku quirkless though)

Shigaraki on the other hand doesn't cannonically have a problem with quirkless individuals. Like @mikeellee mentions that shigaraki actually uses a lot of quirkless/ pre quirk fashion and stuff. Mikeellee also mentions a scene where shigaraki found out that Izuku used to be quirkless and simply didn't have a reaction of hatred or disgust so I doubt that shigaraki would hate Izuku for his past or for him gaining OFA.

However it can be argued that the idea that the quirkless are useless is very popular within the MHA society and that it creates heavy bias and probably a strong foundation of quirkless discrimination if done right

[sapphic-agent]

I actually think Horikoshi did this intentionally.

It would have been about 10x harder to redeem Bakugou if quirkless discrimination was a wide social issue. So many "progressive" fans- a lot of whom happen to see Bakugou as a feminist- would not have felt as comfortable stanning or even liking Bakugou if he was the in-universe equivalent of a racist or ableist. If Horikoshi drew attention to this issue, Bakugou stops being a childhood bully and starts being an outright bigot.

Quirkless discrimination definitely exists to some capacity. At the very least, quirkless people are widely seen as weaker and more incompetent and less likely to succeed. But Horikoshi never expanded on that because it would mean a) having to treat Bakugou a lot harsher than he did and b) going to a darker place with Izuku that he frankly isn't equipped to do.

I actually think this is why he pivots and starts focusing more on discrimination against mutant types. Before the MLA Arc, mutant discrimination wasn't nearly as prevalent in the narrative. There were hints of it with Spinner and Shinsou made some snide comments, but it becomes way more focused in later arcs in a way it wasn't in earlier arcs.

Horikoshi knows that he intentionally set up quirks as being an indicator of someone's worth, so he couldn't abandon quirk discrimination altogether. So he focused on an entirely different aspect than the one he introduced.

Aoyama's reveal would have been a great time to not only focus on this, but to hold Bakugou accountable. Aoyama's parents canonically made that deal to protect him from discrimination, the same kind of discrimination that Bakugou was the perpetrator of.

But of course, this isn't brought up because then the plot manipulation surrounding Bakugou's character gets undone

Tbh, I've never understood people saying "because Quirklessness is rare, people don't discriminate against it." This is Japan, a country that enforces conformity. If anything, they WOULD discriminate against the Quirkless because it's different.

I agree with you that the heroes (at least in good consciousness) wouldn't go as far as leaving Quirkless people to the wolves, but you'd definitely see it in the attitudes people have towards their supposed usefulness. Izuku and All Might believed they were useless without a Quirk, and Aoyama's parents went as far as to go to All For One of all people, because they knew how Aoyama would be treated for being Quirkless. That clearly didn't come out of nowhere.

If Hori had the foresight to develop Izuku and the world of MHA more in depth, we most likely would have seen it in action.

Hi @nutzgunray-lvt 👋

I personally do think that quirkless discrimination exists but I do see people who say that it's just there to belittle Izuku or that its not there in the narrative because let's be real we see the effects of quirkless discrimination but not how, where or who or why it exists!

The story is literally about how people aren't born equal yet society limits them into one little box that they must try to fit into and conform into. We see many characters struggle to do this and either feel useless or be labeled as villains or outcasts of the story.

The problem is we see the supposed effects of quirkless discrimination and that's it. We see Izuku and all might have a huge feeling of uselessness, we see yugas parents do anything for their son to be normal and have a quirk even if it hurts him, we see bakugo say that he thought that he (someone with a superior quirk) should be on top of a quirkless being, we see ochako comment to izuku in disbelief that he is going to fight quirkless, we see nighteye's reaction to all might making a quirkless child his successor, we see inko's reaction to izuku being diagnosed quirkless and so on and on.

Like you said reactions like these don't come from anywhere there must be something that causes them. Heck Iam not saying that quirkless discrimination is quirkless people being experimented on or anything like that but they are literally people who don't have an "individuality or quirk" they by society would be seen as people who aren't special and who can't do anything.

I wish we got to see make of quirkless discrimination and in all honesty it made sense if we did since 1) izuku is the main character 2) it would be crucial worldbuiling and 3) it was already something hinted at the beginning of the series.

Heck it's stated that quirkless are shunned away from society but we don't get any more development or Intel other than that