lunaamatista:

lunaamatista:

Monoma, Shinsou, One For All

Monoma

So what’s interesting about Monoma is that as much of a fool as he makes himself out to be…

…he’s actually quite the smart guy. 

If stats are to be believed, more intelligent than Midoriya, even (Midoriya is 4/5!). Let’s not forget he was able to see through Ochako’s plan during her duel with Bakugou in the sports festival and was the strategist for his own team during the cavalry battle. 

It’s been remarked that Midoriya’s use of One For All resembled a child’s in its lack of control and side effects to its user. It only makes sense that a child would be unable to control their quirk, but grow up to refine their power. 

It makes it all the more impressive that Monoma’s able to use quirks at a skill level in which they don’t harm him, given that the people he’s copying from have had, on average, a decade of getting used to them.

This likely means that his observational and analytical skills are on par with and probably even exceed Midoriya’s. I’d even go as far as to say he might be even bigger a hero otaku than Midoriya himself, as a good way to offset his lack of experience with each quirk would be to be highly knowledgeable in a variety of them, much like Momo needs to know about chemistry to use her own quirk. 

Can Monoma copy One For All, though?

I’m inclined to believe he can’t, for two reasons:

The first one is very straightforward. According to All Might, a condition for passing down All For One is that the bearer must wish for it to be so. Copying might not be exactly passing down, but the condition might still make it impossible for it to happen.

The second one is more complicated and has to do with the quirk factor. We know that Eri’s quirk, Rewind, works by rewinding an individual’s body to a prior state. Aizawa states that the drug created by the Eight Precepts of Death attacks the quirk factor, and since he also seems to believe that Toogata’s quirk can be restored by rewinding, we can presume he’s working under the assumption that Toogata still has a quirk, and that his quirk factor is still there and has just been damaged beyond repair. If Eri were able to refine Rewind enough to target it specifically at Toogata’s quirk factor, restoring it should not be much different than healing Midoriya’s wounds, which she has been shown to be capable of doing already. 

Now, let’s analyze how Erasure, Aizawa’s quirk, works. 

Erasure only temporarily halts the activation of the quirk factor without damaging it. The example used to explain it is a human with a moveable tail. Erasing the quirk factor doesn’t remove the tail, just the capability to use it beyond what a normal human could. As per his example, tail – quirk; moving the tail – dependent on quirk factor. Just like the quirk-destroying drug, Aizawa’s Erasure targets the quirk factor, not the quirk itself. Quite different from All For One, who was shown to be able to target the quirk itself. This means someone like Ragdoll might have their quirk factor intact, but no quirk to use it with, and thus a rewind might not be effective in returning their quirk. 

My point is: it is possible that a quirk and quirk factor exist independently from each other. That would mean that what is perceived as “quirklessness” could be a result of not having a quirk, but it could also be a result of not having a quirk factor (as it could be both). While Aizawa can erase One For All, meaning that it has its own quirk factor, One For All does not override or merge with the original constitution of its bearer – otherwise when handing it down, a bearer with a quirk would let go of the quirk factor as well, rendering their quirk unusable, and we know that not to be true through Nana.

Assuming all of this is true, there are three results arising from six scenarios:

1. Midoriya does not have a quirk, but does have a quirk factor.

Result: Monoma can’t copy it.

1. One For All’s conditions impede copying it.

Result: Monoma can’t copy it. 

1. Midoriya does not have a quirk or quick factor. 

Result: Monoma can’t copy it.

1. Midoriya does have a quirk, but not a quirk factor, thus rendering it unusable.

Result: Monoma can copy it, but it might be a different quirk than the one we’re expecting – meaning, he would be able to attract objects like Midoriya’s mother, breathe fire like his father, manifest a combination of both, or manifest a variation of either. 

1. Monoma can copy One For All despite it being the secondary quirk, just like Aizawa can erase it.

Result: I’m wrong about all of the above or it doesn’t apply and can only wait to see what happens. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

1. See point 1, but Monoma can still copy it because what Copy does is simply seeking an active quirk.

Result: See above. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

The title says I talk about three topics and I’ve only covered one and a half, so let’s move to the second part of this…

Shinsou

Here’s the thing: I find the possibility of Monoma not copying One For All just as interesting as him copying it. I think most people are rooting on Monoma doing so and there are probably theories flying around regarding what would happen if he does, so I won’t delve into that.

Monoma being unable to copy One For All, either because Midoriya doesn’t have a quirk or because the copied quirk is a different one, are both excellent segues into learning about the nature of quirks themselves, instead of having the focus always be exclusively on One For All. The story needs it, too, if it is ever going to go back to Toogata and Ragdoll. 

So, how does Shinsou tie back into all of this? 

The person most familiar with Copy’s intrincancies is Monoma himself, and as a member of Shinsou’s team, they’d probably have to familiarize each other with the other’s quirks. 

Monoma’s failure to copy One For All, which is the only quirk of Midoriya’s that anyone knows, would alert everyone as to the strange nature of this quirk. Not only would it be immediately obvious to Monoma, but also to anyone else who knows how Copy operates. Cue Shinsou. 

Shinsou was already witness to the strange workings of One For All when Midoriya managed to break free from Brainwashing during their duel at the sports festival. Suspicious, but one time could simply be his own fluke. 

A second instance of Midoriya’s quirk acting differently than expected would only serve as confirmation that the issue is with Midoriya himself. 

Midoriya seems to believe Shinsou’s Brainwashing – the instance in which he lost control of his own body – may have been the trigger for him seeing the vestiges of One For All, something All Might never experienced himself. There’s a chance Shinsou wouldn’t get a chance to brainwash Midoriya during the training, but Midoriya is probably curious about it, and if Shinsou shares any degree of that interest…

Well, they could kill two birds with one stone.

Addendum: I just remembered, but Shinsou is the one who rags on Midoriya for being blessed the kind of quirk he has and all that, so it just makes it even more narratively perfect if Shinsou can be one of the few to find out the nature of One For All.