nartothelarAnonymous asked:
deafmic answered:
OH BOY
okay, let’s talk a little about foil character in writing. foil characters are characters who commonly display opposite traits to another character they are closely tied with. it’s a common misconception that foil characters are always the rival to the character they foil and that they have to be opposite in every way–neither of these are true. it’s actually fairly common for a foil character to be set up as the character’s best friend and contrast only the traits the author wants to highlight in that character. i like talking about foil characters a lot because i feel as though they are very good in narratives when written correctly.
like i said in that one ask, mic and aizawa read like foils to each other to me. or more, mic is a foil to aizawa, since aizawa is far more of a main character than he is.
let’s start here–there was a post going around about how hizashi and aizawa’s hero names are pretty much opposites of each other, with erasing something being the opposite of presenting something and a headphone being the opposite of a microphone. that’s a good place to start, because those names are:
1. something that defines them, their careers, an who they are as people
2. fundamental to their relationship and their interconnectedness as characters, given that mic gave aizawa the hero name that he’s kept for 15 years and counting and the name that he operates his entire career under. mic essentially gave him part of his identity, and the name itself is pretty much the opposite of mic’s.
going a bit further, aizawa is characterized as not caring about appearances, introverted, and relying far more on technique than words when fighting/acting. mic is the opposite in every way, with his characterization being primarily very extroverted, obviously putting care in his appearance (i will never forgive him for That Hair), spending most of his career in the public eye, and literally using words to speak. mic is characterized as a person who pretty much never stops talking, while aizawa is much quieter and seems to pick and choose more when to speak. similarly, mic is much more visible about his emotions, whereas i think aizawa would rather die than admit he actually has feelings. mic is always moving, whereas aizawa relies a lot on stealth and being still. mic has neverending energy, aizawa can often be seen in the background asleep or just generally very lethargic. i could go on, but you get the point here for the most part.
also, their designs are opposite of each other, too. i realize that both mic and aizawa wear all black, but you cannot tell me that the thing that sticks out with mic’s design isn’t his hair. it is literally the first thing people notice. the fucking cockatoo hair. and it’s bright fucking yellow. the closest to the opposite of black you can get without going for white. because of this, people assign bright yellow and bright colors as mic’s coloring, whereas with aizawa, everything is just black. dude literally does not wear any color (unless you count his goggles, in which case, bright yellow. literally the same color as mic.). going a step forward, mic obviously puts care into his appearance and has that weird 80′s aesthetic where all he wears is tight leather. meanwhile, we have aizawa, who wears a baggy enough jumpsuit that he could probably just wear a garbage bag instead and no one would be able to tell the difference. mic, who seems to meticulously care for his appearance, if that hair and weird mustache says anything, and aizawa, who looks like he hasn’t had a haircut or seen a razor in 14 years.
then we get to the whole style thing. mic lives his life in the spotlight. dude is a radio (and also television, maybe?) star who is well known, the head of a department, and a well-known pro hero. aizawa, on the other hand, very specifically stays out of the spotlight and works in the underground and acts like he is in actual, physical pain every time he has to talk to the press. with their fighting styles, aizawa is far more passive and would be categorized as either a support or a defense hero, since his quirk is purely non-physical. his gimmick is stealth. however, mic is completely offensive. even in the final exams, mic didn’t even chase the kids down. he literally just stood at the entrance and screamed, while aizawa has to get the drop on his opponents to attack them and usually has to be the first to attack.
speaking of quirks, i made a post a while ago about this, but mic’s quirk absolutely does not have many counters. the best thing mic has to a counter is aizawa’s erasure. mic is insanely powerful and knows how to control his quirk and would’ve easily won the final exam battle had it not been for his fear of bugs. i mean, when aizawa got hurt at usj, he easily leveled a bunch of villains with a single attack. countering mic’s quirk is very hard since he has so much control over it, and really the only counter he has in canon is aizawa right now. which, is pretty significant when you consider that these two are pretty interconnected.
so yeah, i do really think mic is a foil to aizawa. mic usually doesn’t show up by himself in the manga or the anime–aizawa is usually somewhere to be found either directly or indirectly in the scenes he’s in. mic is used to highlight a lot of aizawa’s quiet nature, especially since these are the first two veteran teachers we see in the series–aizawa, who’s quiet and strict, and mic, who’s loud and pretty friendly. i think mic is set up to be his foil and i hope their relationship is expanded upon more in the future, since i personally think it’s one that’s important to aizawa’s character.
This is an absolutely phenomenal breakdown of how Mic and Aizawa act as foils for each other! If I may, there’s something I’ve been thinking about when it comes to the two of them that I’d like to add here.
My thoughts all began when there was a special BNHA event at the Animate stores in Japan. It was a big event celebrating the series, and so a alongside the main cast a lot of smaller characters got buttons and post cards, including our wonderful Present Mic (we can talk about how we live in the alternate dimension where Aizawa has more merch than Mic another time).
After staring at these matching post cards for 10+ hours I realized, “Hey, wait a sec. One of these post cards uses their actual name (”Shota Aizawa”) while the other uses their hero name (”Present Mic”) That’s…weird.”
Except, it’s not really weird, not given the context of the show. Out of all the teachers at UA, Aizawa is the only one to have the kids call him by his real name instead of “hero name-sensei”. Heck, even in this wonderful analysis of their relations as characters, we’ve been referring to Mic as “Mic” and Aizawa as, well, “Aizawa”. And why does all this matter? Because the names they use are in fact representations of the relationships each of them has with heroism and their own personal identities.
Whether you meet Aizawa in the classroom or in a dark alley, he’s fundamentally the same person. He doesn’t care about his appearance or his hero name, and he doesn’t don a real costume or persona when he goes out and does hero work because there is no distinction between Shouta Aizawa and Eraserhead. Aizawa is a hero. This is a fundamental and unchangeable part of his character. It’s hard to imagine him doing anything else (note that as far as we’ve seen, even as a teacher he only teaches things relating to heroics). He’ll probably die in battle or be forced to retire only after he physically can’t fight anymore.
Mic, on the other hand, is a completely different story. Present Mic cares about his appearances and his hero name because, for Mic, being a hero is all about performance. Mic looks outrageous and talks exuberantly because he’s trying to entertain the crowds, but you notice throughout the show that when he’s not on a stage (or, well, a mic), he doesn’t act the same. This is because, fundamentally, Hizashi Yamada and Present Mic are NOT the same person. Heroism is not fundamental to Hizashi’s identity, but performance, PRESENTATION, is. This isn’t to say that Hizashi/Mic isn’t a hero who does good, it’s just that I have no problem imagining him retiring from hero work in his 40s and focusing on teaching and/or his radio show.
What’s really cool about all of this is that it shows how Mic and Eraser each embody separate halves of the hero identity All Might’s existence promotes. All Might is the perfect combination of hero as identity and hero as performance, and so there’s no surprise that both Mic and Eraser find some annoyances in him. A great example from canon that quickly explores all these dynamics is when All Might’s ringtone goes off in the teacher’s lounge. Aizawa and Mic are both there as All Might’s phone sounds his own voice doing a pun on one of his most famous lines, and they’re both very annoyed, but I think for different reasons. Aizawa’s annoyed because the ringtone is just a reminder of how loud and in your face the performance of All Might is. Hizashi’s annoyed (and I say Hizashi here because I think the character of Present Mic would actually very much love to have an annoying ringtone of his own voice) because the ringtone demonstrates a blurring between professional and personal life.
As foil characters, of course, Mic and Aizawa’s different relationships with their hero identities both compliment and complicate the other. I think it’s really really cool to explore the different ways of being a hero, but I’ve already talked for far too long, and I hope all of this made some sort of sense.
