#bakugou meta

this is mostly just to go along with the Deku post since I got all swept up in it now lol.

so if you’re not familiar with the Enneagram System, it’s basically a system of personality classification in the same vein as Myers-Briggs. the key differences from MBTI are as follows:

• while MBTI sorts people into sixteen different personality types based on how you recharge emotionally, how you make decisions, and how you perceive the world, Enneagram uses just nine personality types, and the criteria for figuring out one’s personality type is based on uncovering your greatest needs/desires, as well as your greatest fears.
• a key aspect of the Enneagram system is the fact that each personality type has different Wings (basically a second/complimentary side to your personality), and different Levels (e.g. it takes into account that we behave in different ways depending on our current emotional state and level of personal growth). so really there are more like 27 personality types, and each type has nine different levels which can vary drastically in terms of how people behave in each one. it all stems from the same place, however – those same base desires and fears.
• the nine types also have a weird relationship chart thing going on where each type shares similarities with other types and the whole thing forms a sort of intricate interconnected pattern lol. I’m not gonna bother getting into that here because it’s not super important, but it isinteresting, and that’s basically where the whole “enneagram” name comes from in the first place; it’s this alchemic-looking pattern with the nine types arranged on a circle with little triangles drawn between each one. somehow it all works out, apparently. it’s pseudoscience of course, just like MBTI is, but it’s fun pseudoscience lol.

anyway, so I’ve often found Enneagram to be pretty spot-on in summarizing personalities once you pinpoint a person or character’s type, and Kacchan happens to be a particularly great example of this. it’s seriously one of the most perfect descriptions of his character you’ll ever come across.

THE CHALLENGER
Enneagram Type Eight
The Powerful, Dominating Type:
Self-Confident, Decisive, Willful, and Confrontational

Eights are self-confident, strong, and assertive.Protective, resourceful, straight-talking, and decisive, but can also be ego-centric and domineering. Eights feel they must control their environment, especially people, sometimes becoming confrontational and intimidating. Eights typically have problems with their tempers and with allowing themselves to be vulnerable. At their Best: self- mastering, they use their strength to improve others’ lives, becoming heroic, magnanimous, and inspiring.

Basic Fear: Of being harmed or controlled by others

Basic Desire: To protect themselves (to be in control of their own life
and destiny)

Key Motivations: Want to be self-reliant, to prove their strength and resist weakness, to be important in their world, to dominate the environment, and to stay in control of their situation.

The Meaning of the Arrows (in brief)
When moving in their Direction of Disintegration (stress), self-confident Eights suddenly become secretive and fearful at Five. However, when moving in their Direction of Integration (growth), lustful, controlling Eights become more open-hearted and caring, like healthy Twos.

the Arrow stuff relates to the relationship chart stuff I was talking about in that third bullet point. type Two just so happens to be Deku’s type, btw. so basically the more that Katsuki grows as a person, the more he’ll continue to take on the best of Deku’s traits. (and conversely, unhealthy Twos often take on some Eight traits, which is absolutely hilarious to me when I think about how Deku takes on Kacchan’s speech patterns and starts cursing people out when he gets especially pissed off lmao.)

anyway so I am just going to more or less copy/paste the entire rest of the type Eight profile underneath the cut while periodically stopping to gush about how well it fits him lol.

Type Eight Overview

We have named personality type Eight “The Challenger” because, of all the types, Eights enjoy taking on challengesthemselves as well as giving others opportunities that challenge them to exceed themselves in some way. Eights are charismatic and have the physical and psychological capacities to persuade others to follow them into all kinds of endeavors—from starting a company, to rebuilding a city, to running a household, to waging war, to making peace.

or to fight battles against villains. yeah, pretty much everything here is stuff we’ve known since the Sports Festival if not even earlier than that. charismatic, effortlessly gets people to follow him, and is always looking to climb that next wall.

Eights have enormous willpower and vitality, and they feel most alive when they are exercising these capacities in the world. They use their abundant energy to effect changes in their environment—to “leave their mark" on it—but also to keep the environment, and especially other people, from hurting them and those they care about. At an early age, Eights understand that this requires strength, will, persistence, and endurance—qualities that they develop in themselves and which they look for in others.

determination from an early age, and a desire to become not only a hero, but the greatest hero who ever lived.

Eights do not want to be controlled or to allow others to have power over them (their Basic Fear), whether the power is psychological, sexual, social, or financial. Much of their behavior is involved with making sure that they retain and increase whatever power they have for as long as possible. An Eight may be a general or a gardener, a small businessman or a mogul, the mother of a family or the superior of a religious community. No matter: being “in charge” and leaving their imprint on their sphere is uniquely characteristic of them.

I don’t think I need to add anything to this. being in charge, lol.

Eights are the true “rugged individualists” of the Enneagram. More than any other type, they stand alone. They want to be independent, and resist being indebted to anyone. They often refuse to “give in” to social convention, and they can defy fear, shame, and concern about the consequences of their actions. Although they are usually aware of what people think of them, they do not let the opinions of others sway them. They go about their business with a steely determination that can be awe inspiring, even intimidating to others.

again, not much to add. Katsuki’s insistence on doing everything alone was for a long time the predominant weakness that he needed to overcome. even now he remains very independent, though he’s finally come around to the “teamwork makes the dream work” point of view thanks to his classmates.

Although, to some extent, Eights fear physical harm, far more important is their fear of being disempowered or controlled in some way. Eights are extraordinarily tough and can absorb a great deal of physical punishment without complaint—a double-edged blessing since they often take their health and stamina for granted and overlook the health and well-being of others as well. Yet they are desperately afraid of being hurt emotionally and will use their physical strength to protect their feelings and keep others at a safe emotional distance. Beneath the tough façade is vulnerability, although it has been covered over by layer of emotional armor.

basically the biggest reason why Katsuki had so much trouble wrapping his head around the “save” part of Win And Save was because he was so independent that he couldn’t relate to the idea of other people actually wanting and needing to be rescued. the fact that this paragraph predicts that specific bizarre behavior so casually kind of blows my mind tbh.

and then of course we get to the fear of vulnerability, which I’ve long maintained is at the core of pretty much every single one of Katsuki’s actions. he practically invented emotional distancing, and it’s 100% because of what happened between him and Izuku when they were kids (which was his own dumb fault of course, but even that just goes to show how accurate this actually is). deep down under all those layers of gremlin he is shockingly emotional, possibly themost emotional character in the entire series.

Thus, Eights are often extremely industrious, but at the price of losing emotional contact with many of the people in their lives. Those close to them may become increasingly dissatisfied with this state of affairs, which confounds Eights. (“I don’t understand what my family is complaining about. I bust my hump to provide for them. Why are they disappointed with me?”)

When this happens, Eights feel misunderstood and may distance themselves further. In fact, beneath their imposing exterior, Eights often feel hurt and rejected, although this is something they seldom talk about because they have trouble admitting their vulnerability to themselves, let alone to anyone else. Because they fear that they will be rejected (divorced, humiliated, criticized, fired, or harmed in some way), Eights attempt to defend themselves by rejecting others first. The result is that average Eights become blocked in their ability to connect with people or to love since love gives the other power over them, reawakening their Basic Fear.

emotional distancing, trouble admitting vulnerability, fear of being rejected, and misguided attempts to protect themselves from rejection by rejecting others first. someone should just send Katsuki the link to this entire profile so he can read it and come to a few long-overdue realizations about himself. then again he pretty much already has by this point. but he did it the hard way lol.

The more Eights build up their egos in order to protect themselves, the more sensitive they become to any real or imaginary slight to their self-respect, authority, or preeminence. The more they attempt to make themselves impervious to hurt or pain (whether physical or emotional), the more they “shut down” emotionally to become hardened and rock-like.

haaaaaaaaaah?! lol I can’t.

When Eights are emotionally healthy, however, they have a resourceful, “can-do” attitude as well as a steady inner drive. They take the initiative and make things happen with a great passion for life. They are honorable and authoritative—natural leaders who have a solid, commanding presence. Their groundedness gives them abundant “common sense” as well as the ability to be decisive. Eights are willing to “take the heat,” knowing that any decision cannot please everyone. But as much as possible, they want to look after the interests of the people in their charge without playing favorites. They use their talents and fortitude to construct a better world for everyone in their lives.

damned if this doesn’t lay it all out there perfectly though. Katsuki at his best is a passionate, driven person and a natural leader. everything from the emphasis on being honorable to the willingness to take responsibility for unpopular decisions is absolutely spot on.

okay, so the next section is the part with the different levels of development, and I’m going to list these in the reverse order from how they’re listed on the site, because I want to start with the unhealthiest levels and then build up to the healthy ones. we’re about to go on a spectacular journey of character development lol.

Type Eight—Levels of Development

Unhealthy Levels

Level 9: If they get in danger, they may brutally destroy everything that has not conformed to their will rather than surrender to anyone else. Vengeful, barbaric, murderous. Sociopathic tendencies. Generally corresponds to the Antisocial Personality Disorder.

so in Katsuki’s case, the “danger” being referred to is the perceived emotional danger of being hurt and controlled by others, specifically Deku. unfortunately we already know exactly how accurate this description is, because this is exactly what Katsuki did and who he was at the start of the series. he destroyed his and Izuku’s friendship and tried his best to snuff out Izuku himself (or tried to snuff out his spirit at the very least). needless to say it was not pretty. not his finest hour, or his finest decade for that matter.

Level 8: Develop delusional ideas about their power, invincibility, and ability to prevail: megalomania, feeling omnipotent, invulnerable. Recklessly over-extending self.

props to Izuku for putting a stop to this shit almost immediately in chapters 8 through 11 lol. otherwise he might have really become insufferable. thankfully he had that wakeup call by getting beaten so spectacularly, and took that moment and actually learned from it.

Level 7: Defying any attempt to control them, become completely ruthless, dictatorial, “might makes right.” The criminal and outlaw, renegade, and con-artist. Hard-hearted, immoral and potentially violent.

again, this attitude thankfully got stomped out very early on in the series. he actually is a surprising stickler for the rules most of the time, although he still bristles at any kind of perceived effort to control him. but his reactions to said efforts have chilled the fuck out, for which we can be grateful.

Average Levels

Level 6:Become highly combative and intimidating to get their way: confrontational, belligerent, creating adversarial relationships. Everything a test of wills, and they will not back down. Use threats and reprisals to get obedience from others, to keep others off balance and insecure. However, unjust treatment makes others fear and resent them, possibly also band together against them.

this is pretty much Katsuki’s baseline from the sludge incident up to Kamino. “creating adversarial relationships” and how, lol. seeing everything as a test or a challenge, and using threats to keep other people off balance. it’s all true sob. this profile truly is coming straight at him and pulling no punches.

Level 5:Begin to dominate their environment, including others: want to feel that others are behind them, supporting their efforts. Swaggering, boastful, forceful, and expansive: the "boss” whose word is law. Proud, egocentric, want to impose their will and vision on everything, not seeing others as equals or treating them with respect.

finally learns how to work with others, but still insists on calling them extras lol. the swagger and pride are probably things he’ll always maintain, but thankfully he actually has learned to treat others as equals at long last. once again, it fucking kills me how impossibly on-the-money these descriptions are though, lol. the boss whose word is law.

Level 4: Self-sufficiency, financial independence, and having enough resources are important concerns: become enterprising, pragmatic, “rugged individualists,” wheeler-dealers. Risk-taking, hardworking, denying own emotional needs.

this is probably the least Katsuki-like of all the descriptions, but it still applies; you just have to remove the “business” vibes and insert some pro-hero vibes there instead. basically this is him being capable and hardworking. it even addresses the “denying own emotional needs” part, which is surprising. that’s something Horikoshi hasn’t even gotten to yet (hint hint, Horikoshi, I’m just saying).

Healthy Levels

Level 3: Decisive, authoritative, and commanding: the natural leader others look up to. Take initiative, make things happen: champion people, provider, protective, and honorable, carrying others with their strength.

the Kacchan of chapter 319. ‘nuff said.

Level 2: Self-assertive, self-confident, and strong: have learned to stand up for what they need and want. A resourceful, “can do” attitude and passionate inner drive.

we are getting so close now to what I think Katsuki will have fully become by the end of the series, and what I think he is already well on his way to becoming. this is the Katsuki who has finally overcome all of his doubts and left them all behind. he is literally one meaningful conversation with Deku away from this becoming a reality imo.

Level 1 (At Their Best): Become self-restrained and magnanimous, merciful and forbearing, mastering self through their self-surrender to a higher authority. Courageous, willing to put self in serious jeopardy to achieve their vision and have a lasting influence. May achieve true heroism and historical greatness.

you can see here where the whole thing with healthy type Eights mirroring type Twos comes into play. willing to put self in serious jeopardy to achieve their vision. chapter 285 anyone?

but yeah. true heroism and historical greatness. again, it’s almost like this was literally written about him, it’s so uncanny. that’s his dream, exactly. and he is more than capable of achieving it as this shows. I don’t think he’s ever going to become a completely sanitized, wholesome role model version of himself lol, but these qualities – courageous, heroic, and even merciful and magnanimous – are already things he possesses now. they’re mixed in with all of the ego puffing and thug posturing, but I think we all know that stuff is basically just for show now. this, right here, is Katsuki’s endgame. we literally got to watch him go all the way from level 9 up to level 1 over the course of the series, and that’s fucking incredible.

I’m gonna end this post with the “personal growth recommendations” section, which I skipped over in the Deku post, but which I can’t bring myself to do in this one because I started reading them and gave myself an extreme case of feels lol.

Personal Growth Recommendations
for Enneagram Type Eights

- It goes against the grain, but act with self-restraint. You show true power when you forbear from asserting your will with others, even when you could. Your real power lies in your ability to inspire and uplift people. You are at your best when you take charge and help everyone through a crisis. Few will take advantage of you when you are caring, and you will do more to secure the loyalty and devotion of others by showing the greatness of your heart than you ever could by displays of raw power.

- It is difficult for Eights, but learn to yield to others, at least occasionally. Often, little is really at stake, and you can allow others to have their way without fear of sacrificing your power, or your real needs. The desire to dominate everyone all the time is a sign that your ego is beginning to inflate—a danger signal that more serious conflicts with others are inevitable.

-Remember that the world is not against you. Many people in your life care about you and look up to you, but when you are in your fixation, you do not make this easy for them. Let in the affection that is available. Doing this will not make you weak, but will confirm the strength and support in yourself and your life. Also remember that by believing that others are against you and reacting against them, you tend to alienate them and confirm your own fears. Take stock of the people who truly are on your side, and let them know how important they are to you.

I love this kid so fucking much you guys.