Deconstruction Fic / Peace's Apprentice

• The story doesn't shy away from how bad a teacher Aizawa's behaviors would realistically make him, given his eagerness to hand out expulsions and inconsistent willingness to put in effort towards teaching:
  • Aizawa's frequent use of expulsion as a threat is treated as beyond the pale; once Izuku's expulsion calls Nezu's attention to how inappropriately Aizawa uses his privilege to expel and transfer students at whim, Nezu responds by stripping Aizawa of it and launching a personal investigation into Aizawa's previous disciplinary actions, and All Might resigns in solidarity to provide the education Izuku needs.
  • Aizawa's Trickster Mentor take on education despite not giving adequate training prior to his tests and threatening Disproportionate Retribution upon those who fail completely destroys his students' ability to actually trust him. It's made very clear they don't consider approaching him for clarification, help, or support an option because they fear they'll be punished for it, instead trying to form their own support networks at the student level to cope with the threat he poses and avoid expulsions. Because of this, it isn't until the Nomu emerges at the USJ that Momo realizes that Aizawa was telling the truth about the villains and not just giving them another cruel "test". The distrust and lack of support the students feel results in Kaminari accidentally killing several villains at the Flood Zone in a blind panic.
  • The fic also examines a lot of Aizawa's behavior that has been chalked up to seemingly inconsistent writing in canon and instead repackages it as blatant hypocrisy and flat-out incompetence. Such instances include his claim of not being a Quirk counselor having been shown as a complete lie. In the series proper, we see him coaching the students on exactly that in both the Training Camp arc and the Provisional License Exam arc even though his earlier dismissal of Izuku was near identical. Similarly, his favoritism and borderline hand-holding towards Shinsou compared to the students he's actually expected to look after is called out in this fic as what it is as detailed below. Not so much in canon where the entirety of Class 1A just seems excited over the possibility of getting a new friend and don't question why Aizawa has been giving special attention to a general studies student. Especially when many of them could benefit from personal training as well.
  • The general idea and common fic theme of "Dadzawa" is examined very harshly. In light of his general unwillingness to perform his teaching responsibilities to the class as a whole, Aizawa's investment in a select few favorites is shown to be extremely inappropriate, manifesting effectively as helicopter parenting towards Shinsou at the other students' expense.
  • Bakugo's gauntlets were so powerful they killed a dozen villains and Mineta at the USJ as they held triple the amount of his sweat that they were supposed to. Aizawa could have stopped this if he had bothered to actually read the files he was given, but he signed them without reading them.
  • Shinsou, Aizawa's favorite student, defensively defines himself by his desire to be a hero despite the supposed villainous nature of his Quirk. When brought into the Hero Course through Aizawa's Nepotism, the massive chip on his shoulder combined with Aizawa's favoritism means his defensiveness turns into hostility, a hostility that he can now express without reproach—effectively turning him into the kind of judgemental Jerkass he allegedly abhors. Aizawa giving preferential treatment to a kid with a me vs. them mentality regarding his peers just made his issues worse.
• In a more big-picture manner, the story deconstructs how UA high school is shown to run, demonstrating that the freedom and discretion given to teachers is, at best, incredibly naïve. Empowering teachers with the freedom to teach according to their own individual priorities and enforce their own individual standards means the school can't easily ensure its students receive a consistent and quality education or fair treatment. A logical consequence of this is an inherently reactive rather than proactive school environment, as providing the teachers with enormous freedom and little guidance regardless of the teacher's experience or known flaws basically ensures that mistakes will be made and something preventable will happen. This story exaggerates this freedom by contractually guaranteeing Aizawa completely unilateral power over expulsions to use at his discretion: the result is that, despite him expelling Izuku in transparently bad faith, the freedom and power granted to him as a UA teacher means there is nothing in place to stop him until after he's already done it, and by then it's too little too late.