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Enji Todoroki - Blog Posts
“The Todoroki family would have been happy if Endeavor wasn’t so selfish.”
The Todoroki family wouldn’t have existed if Endeavor wasn’t selfish. If he hadn’t wanted to become number one and needed a child to pass that on to, he wouldn’t have married or had kids with Rei. The children never would have existed. It’s possible that Enji and Rei just never would have met.
WE’RE BACK BABYYYY — ♚ 𝕶𝖊𝖗𝖔𝖘𝖊𝖓𝖊 ♚ pt.II
(Pt.I here)
Summary: 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚐𝚎𝚜𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚃𝚘𝚍𝚘𝚛𝚘𝚔𝚒 𝚜𝚙𝚊𝚠𝚗, 𝙴𝚖𝚒𝚔𝚘, 𝚏𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚜 𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚎𝚕𝚏 𝚝𝚎𝚎𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚋𝚎𝚝𝚠𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚋𝚘𝚝𝚑 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚒𝚗𝚏𝚕𝚞𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚏𝚊𝚖𝚒𝚕𝚢’𝚜 𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚘𝚒𝚌 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚊𝚐𝚎, 𝚊𝚜 𝚠𝚎𝚕𝚕 𝚊𝚜 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝— 𝚘𝚛 𝚠𝚑𝚘 —𝚑𝚒𝚍𝚎𝚜 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚑𝚊𝚍𝚘𝚠𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚒𝚛 𝚍𝚊𝚛𝚔 𝚙𝚊𝚜𝚝. 𝚆𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚎 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚕𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚘 𝙴𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚊𝚟𝚘𝚛 𝚛𝚞𝚒𝚗𝚜 𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚌𝚑𝚒𝚕𝚍𝚛𝚎𝚗, 𝚘𝚛 𝚏𝚒𝚗𝚍 𝚋𝚊𝚕𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝚒𝚗 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚞𝚖𝚊𝚌𝚒𝚘𝚞𝚜 𝚗𝚊𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚊𝚋𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚙𝚘𝚘𝚛 𝚒𝚗𝚏𝚕𝚞𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝚒𝚗 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚕𝚒𝚏𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚏𝚘𝚕𝚕𝚘𝚠 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚋𝚛𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚝𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚝𝚘𝚙 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚘 𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚔𝚜?
Last chapter introduced Emiko, as well as a bit of her past to better understand her current state of mind. This chapter is shorter than the rest and is the continuation of expressing the conflict Emiko’s facing, as well as making one path visible to her.
The teacher's coffee nearly jumps out of its container at the sudden drop of Emiko’s textbook.
“You finished a month's worth of material,” She looked him dead in his dumbfounded eyes, nodding along as he spoke. “In a night?”
She confirms with a firm nod.
“A single night?”
“Yes sir.”
His eyes narrow, and he leans forward on his desk. “You have a month to do it. Are you sure you don’t just want to go over it before you turn it in?”
“Nope, thanks though.” She takes a few steps away, before backtracking for that morning’s assignment and continuing her path. A deep sigh fell from his lips as he hung his head.
Someone had grabbed Emiko’s arm, stopping her in her tracks. She looks back to see Shoto. Her face lights up, before she notices his untamed hair and distraught look.
“Where were you? You can’t just disappear like that.”
“I didn’t feel like fighting yesterday.” she shrugs, but he yanks at her arm trying to pull any bit of seriousness out of her.
“Then don’t fight. The old man was pissed, and we were all worried. Natsuo said you never stayed at his in the first place.”
She pulls her arm out of his grip, furrowing her brows. “What is this, an interrogation? I thought you’d have my back. You hate him just as much as I do. I offered for you to come with, y’know.”
“What do you mean ‘come with’? Come with where, Emiko?”
“Nevermind, just forget it.” she sighs, turning towards the direction of her desk.
“Hey, wait.” He grabs her again, but she doesn’t turn around. “Just- come home after school, alright? We can walk together. You could talk to me too, if you want…” he offers for any sort of support. “I know this week’s rough for you, and I think you might’ve felt like I’m siding with Dad over you.. But last night was horrifying. I don’t care what his motives are, I only want to know that you’re safe, wherever you go.”
She swallows back the lump in her throat, nodding. They stood there for a moment as the last few students flowed in before the bell rang.
·:*¨༺ ♱✮♱ ༻¨*:·
Lunch had finally come. Everyone started packing once the bell rang, but she’d been packed for the past half-hour. She’d gotten home late enough to miss dinner and left early enough to avoid confrontation. She’s hungry, to say the least. She was the first out the door, blending in with the hundreds of students.
“Emi,” Shoto called. “Wait up.”
She turns back to see her brother amongst his group of friends trying to catch up with her. In truth, everyone had wanted to introduce themselves earlier, but she’d been so cold and closed off that they figured she wouldn’t appreciate being bothered too much.
But Yaoyorozu had asked Shoto if they were really related, which made so much more sense to everyone. Who knew he had a sister? No wonder she’s so reclusive and abrasive. Shoto was intimidating at first, they thought. Maybe she’s warmer in person.
“Hey,” she mutters, at a loss for what else to really say.
“I was wondering if you’d like to join us for lunch.”
She looked amongst the group. She opened her mouth, but was quickly shut down.
“Before you say no, I think you’d really like them.”
She sighs, but nods.
After some introductions in line, she sat down more familiar with Shoto’s friends. They were nice people, really. They just didn’t seem like her kind of crowd. She’s proud of him though, proud of him for finding a bunch of people to hang out with.
They were both homeschooled ever since they had basic book smarts, probably averaging them to have been pulled out of school around first or second grade. Neither of the two remember. It was so far off and insignificant. She was more or less self educated. She had her own books and resources, but her father just didn’t put as much time or effort into her schooling as he did Shoto’s.
She’s still smart, though. At most lacking in one or two areas which she wasn’t disciplined enough to endure. The hero ethics textbook was long, and she was convinced that most of those words were made up. But it’d all gotten done and the bit of self-validation it gave her felt nice.
“I just can’t believe you have a sister,” Uraraka smiled, stuffing her cheeks with curry.
“He didn’t tell you about us?” Emiko’s expression was softer, relaxing into the casual chatter as she poked at her tempura.
“‘Us’? Todoroki, you have more siblings and never told us?” Yaoyorozu put a hand over her mouth, feigning shock.
“It didn’t seem important.” he shrugs.
“Unimportant?” Emiko quirked a brow. “I’m sure your other three siblings would just love to hear that.”
“Two,” he corrects.
“Huh?”
“Two other siblings.” he clarifies.
She presses a napkin to her lips. “Right.” She squeaks. “My bad.”
Fortunately, the others didn’t seem to catch onto the tension, carrying on with their conversation.
·:*¨༺ ♱✮♱ ༻¨*:·
Class drug on for what felt like an eternity. This time, she was more sluggish getting packed. Her second-to-last class was quirk training, which completely drained her by the time English class came around.
Shoto stopped by her desk with his bag already slung over his shoulder.
“What about your friends?” She asks, looking up at him after she shoves her books in her bag.
“They’re going a different direction,” he explains. “I thought it would be a good time to talk.”
She hums in response, standing up and throwing on her bag.
“Hey, what’s on your bag?” He asks as they make their way to the door, pointing out the sticky brown stain.
“This? Oh, I just sat my bag down. Didn’t realize the soda on the ground, I guess.” Her eyes fixate on the wall’s seam as they walk. A small white lie, she thought. He didn’t have to know that she was on a roof. It would only make him ask questions, and the answers would just warrant more questions. Short and sweet, it’s for the best.
They finally break free from campus walls, the crowd of people eventually thinning. When they reach a less populated portion of the street, Shoto takes a sharp breath in, stuffing his hands in his pockets.
“I won’t tell Dad, you have my word, you know.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Where you went yesterday. I won’t say anything, I just wanna know.”
“Selling drugs.”
He nudges her, looking her in the face. “I’m serious.” She kept her eyes on the road ahead, but his gaze remained fixed on her.
“I just needed a break, what do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know, an address? People?”
“Bold of you to assume I have people.” She scoffs. Silence falls between them. Shoto stops on the sidewalk, Emiko only doing the same a few steps ahead.
“…You know, I didn’t invite you to lunch out of pity.” He starts, waiting for her to say anything at all.
“Dad robbed us from being friends. But we’re not rivals anymore, and I really do want to be friends with you. I want to be your brother, it’s just—“
“‘It’s just’ what? I know I’m a piece of shit, alright? I’m a disappointment to dad, I piss off Yumi, I pushed away Natsuo, I’ll never be able to give mom a home to come back to..” her voice strains and cracks, her shoulders pulling close to her neck.
Shoto puts a hand on her shoulder, but gives her the autonomy to hide her flushed face and teary eyes in her arm. “Fuyumi’s not mad at you. She’s never mad at you. You were best friends growing up, you were practically at the same level as her.”
She grimaced at his words, wiping the fresh tears with the base of her palm and sniffling.
“She’s not mad. She’s worried. We all are. Natsuo is too. He said you didn’t come by the other night. That he told you it wouldn’t work and to just stay in your room. He feels bad, you know. He was worried about you getting hurt. I was worried about you getting hurt,” He escalates. “Where the hell did you go??” He spits, only to hear soft sniffling entangled in the dead silence.
“Emiko, I’m—“ He pauses, his hand falling off of her like his attacks at the wall she’s put up. He lets out a sigh.
“I should’ve come with you when you asked for back up. I don’t know what it was for, but if I didn’t brush you off then I would. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t…” she wipes the snot from her face and readjusts her bag on her shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. It was stupid, anyway.” She turns her head in his direction, but her eyes remain downcast. Wet strands of white hair stick to her bright red cheeks, no matter how hard her sleeve battles it. “Can we just go home?”
He watches her fallen and defeated figure for a moment, before silently nodding.
·:*¨༺ ♱✮♱ ༻¨*:·
“It’s not fair.” each hit Touya landed was an emphasis, a point that he could never get across to anyone. “He won’t even watch me practice. Why won’t he just look at me?” The sack barely budged, but getting some pent-up hurt out felt better. He sighs, catching his breath. “And Yumi..” Tears prick at the corner of his eyes before he goes back to abusing the punching bag. “She doesn’t think I’m good enough either. Why doesn’t anyone think I’m strong? I was before. So what if I get a little hurt? Heroes get hurt all the time!”
Emiko sits crosslegged at the corner of the tatami mat, picking at loose threads. “Hey,” his arms drop heavy with exhaustion, only swaying with each pant. “Are you listening?”
She pouts at the floor. Lip out, eyebrows knitted together, and shoulders high. She lets out a huff, shooting up and running to the center of the mat. A soft thump comes from the punching bag. His head fell to the side watching her. She seemed so… determined. Hitting the bag as hard as her little five-year-old arms could as if she were hammering something. Slowly, Touya breaks into snorts and giggles.
“And why are you upset?” He plops down on the mat right where he stands while he watches her work herself out. “Because everyone thinks I’m stupid. I’m smart all the time! You all think I don’t understand, but I do!”
He watches up until she tires herself out. When she’s done, she throws herself down and pulls her knees to her chest. Did he make her feel that way? After giving her a few minutes to breathe, a few moments of silence to really feel, he gets up and holds out his hand to her. When she stands up, he closes her hand into a fist and repositions her thumb. “Don’t punch with your thumb in your hand, and..” He moves her arm to her side. “Start from here, not above your head.”
Being wrong gave her a headache. Like if she couldn’t do something simple like this, then maybe she really was stupid. For someone to point out that she was wrong, her brother of all people, she got that sharp feeling in her throat.
He eventually had her completely repositioned, before giving her the go-ahead to hit again. They’re still weak, the stillness of the sack proving this. Regardless, she spills everything she has into each punch. A tear slid down her plump cheek. She felt so small. She was painfully aware of how weak she was.
“See? It feels better to get it out, right?” with each hit, they slowly packed less power. She nods, catching her breath.
·:*¨༺ ♱✮♱ ༻¨*:·
“Oh, you’re so mature for your age!”
Those words were repeated over and over growing up.
Any time she shared a toy, or ate a vegetable, or said something just slightly intellectual, it was always met with the word “mature”.
That’s a lie. It wasn’t that simple. She was a people pleaser, just like her sister. She made sure the house stayed clean, food stayed hot, and grades stayed high. Even after Touya’s passing, she knew it was her father's fault. It was his fault that Shoto got hurt and mom went away. It’s his fault that Yumi’s “as-needed” anxiety meds run empty all too often. His fault that Natsuo moved away.
She held her head high, though. Fuyumi wanted her to. She told her that it was all alright, and that she had things handled. Emiko’s small hands rested in hers growing up, trying to believe she was honest. Now she was fifteen and seethed every time her sister washed a dish or moved the old man's shoes where they went.
Now, she sat at the kitchen table. Dinners had been silent for years. Really, what was the point in doing these things anymore? Because Fuyumi wants to. Dad was here this time. The odds are always mixed on whether he “gets home in time” or not. Emiko knows he always stays out just a bit later than he has to. Between Shoto’s glares, Nastuo’s backhanded comments, Fuyumi’s over-the-top anxiety, and Emiko’s fragile patience, she wishes he would know better and stay gone.
“So?” He starts.
Fuyumi’s shoulders tense. “Dad, not right now, please?” She pleads
Emiko’s eye twitched, sharply side-eyeing him from across the table. She would only hold together for so long. For Yumi’s sake, but for hers as well. It wasn’t fair to herself to hold her tongue, to simply take the abuse.
“I have a right to know,” he persisted in a demanding tone.
“I don’t want anyone fighting at the table,” she retorted firmly.
“Then don’t fight with me.” He directed toward Emiko, cutting out Fuyumi as the messenger.
“Dad—“
“I’m not speaking to you.” He reiterates, cutting Fuyumi off. She rests her head in her palms, before grabbing her only half-eaten plate and excusing herself. Natsuo silently pleads for her to stay, but she waves him off and tells him to sit back down.
Enji keeps his eyes fixed on Emiko, expecting an answer.
Moments pass before she scoffs, breaking eye contact and shoving tempura in her mouth.
“She was with one of my friends.” Shoto confesses in a stale tone just as Enji opens his mouth to tell Emiko off.
“She was mad, and I didn’t want her doing something stupid. So I sent her to a friends house to cool off. I’m looking out for her, like you tol—“ Shoto’s cut off by the blunt sound of his fathers fist to the table.
“I’m not playing telephone, she’s capable of speaking for herself.”
She glances at Shoto, the slight rise of her shoulder saying ‘Thanks for trying’. Silence falls amongst the table. An uncomfortable silence.
“I uhm,” her already low tone cracked, breaking under the pressure in the dining room. She stabbed through a piece of tofu. Keeping her eyes down like a vice, only briefly meeting her fathers to gauge his expression. “I just needed a break, that’s all.”
“That’s not an answer to my question.” his tone was softer than usual. Not by definition soft, but softer.
“You’re question was?” her brows raise and she shakes her head defensively.
“Where were you.” he demands, becoming irritated once again.
“I went for a walk.” she retorts, finally meeting his eyes. “What else do you want from me? I can’t tell you more than I have.”
“That’s bullshit.” He snaps. His gaze harshens, but she doesn’t back down. Not like he wants her to. She won’t tell him the truth, she wont hold her tongue, he’s losing control of her and it’s driving him to the brink of insanity.
“Prove it.” She dares. Natsuo presses his lips together, keeping his eyes firmly on his plate. Shoto kept his gaze directly on Enji. He never condones picking fights with their father, but for something so out of his control, he might as well watch the old man crumble. He can see defeat rising in him, the fact that he’s losing Emiko.
“Lose the disrespectful tone.” he starts, before his own tone drops. “I’m worried about you. You’re acting recklessly. And I feel.. Partially to blame.”
Her jaw nearly drops. Everyone’s did. Her heart almost wouldn't start beating again. He was worried about her? That felt.. Like for the first time she wasn’t on the back burner. Maybe she’d taken too long to answer. He looks back at the table and starts stacking plates. What is this man doing, he hasnt washed a single dish in his entire life?
“And I’d like to nip your poor behavior in the bud. You’re going to UA under my name. When you bring shame on yourself, you bring shame on the rest of us too.”
Just as quickly as he made her feel acknowledged, he ruined it. He belittled her and chalked up years of battling her mental health for merely keeping his house liveable to “poor behavior”. She was so, so close to an actual resolution.
Plates clinked against each other as he left, like his words hadn’t just split her chest wide open.
“I bet on losing dogs” but it’s the League of Villains.
No disrespect to Horikoshi. I genuinely feel like he was just tired and trying to wrap BNHA up. But the ending made no sense and made the entire series seem like it was for nothing.
Whether you love the League or hate them, you have to admit that killing all of them and imprisoning the remaining two is a shitty wrap to each of their stories. Like genuinely, they have actual backgrounds and real goals. I’m not saying he had to please the fans of every character, but killing them off with no resolution? All of them? And hero society didn’t become any less economy based and judgemental.
Between Magne, then Twice, why did they have to keep killing them off one by one? Those character deaths were sad, but the plot could at least carry on. An entire antagonist group was just wiped from the world.
Realistically, none of them are quiet. Especially not Dabi or Tomura. You KNOW that if they were given the chance within Tartarus walls, they would yap everyones ear off on how unfair the world was, and that no matter how hard they worked no change was made whatsoever. Plus, they’d have people there who’d listen to them. Endeavor, a character that I don’t particularly like at all, could finally *actually* atone for 20+ years of abuse. He has #1 hero money that could have kept him alive. Not to mention that Touya wasn’t supposed to live the first time around, but he did. Since Enji’s disabled now he could help Touya get his word out or something. Idk, anything is more than killing them all off.
And Tomura would have Midoriya at his side the entire time. You think Deku would throw him in prison and be done with him? No! He made a connection someone a lot like him, but was never given the chance to become anything else. I feel like the more Tomura would rant to him, the more Deku would want to help him. That was the whole point of not killing him sooner. He wasn’t *supposed* to die. The foreshadowing in previous seasons would have suggested there was more in store for him than death when Nana Shimura tested Deku.
You *know* Deku would’ve helped him, and eventually started a rehab facility or something. Deku’s whole deal is that he can empathize with almost anyone. And he *did*, so why couldn’t we pull more on that?
Like, they do quirk counseling for kids. Think about how many League members didn’t get that? Really think. Enji probably taught Touya himself. Tenko had *just* developed a quirk when he pretty much started his villain arc. if Toga had proper quirk counseling don’t you think they would have A) found out that her quirk would naturally give her a fascination with blood or B) given her alternatives for the natural bloodlust her quirk gave her? I know it’s not their quirks fault for their behavior, but it explains what lead them there. You know, the difference between a sociopath and a psychopath (*cough cough* AFO).
More on that, if a quirk rehab existed beforehand then Twice could’ve gone there after his accident. It would help him cope with being convinced he might be a double, hence saving him from the loneliness that the judgement of society left him in.
Like SPINNER. Society was judgemental over something he couldn’t even control (quirk + racism = quirkism?). All he wanted was a safe world for heteromorphs, leading him to the league. I don’t think he would specifically benefit from quirk rehab, but the point is that he very obviously wanted change for the better and he didnt even get that.
They aren’t saints whatsoever, but I feel like it should’ve been acknowledged that they *did* have goals. I could write a novel on this alone, but I feel like at some point you’ll get tired of hearing me yap 😅
Every time people ask Endeavor why he has all that fire on his face, he gives a different answer just to fuck with them:
“So that mosquitoes don’t bite me.”
“It’s a comfort thing.”
“Intimidation factor.”
“For Hawks to stop trying to kiss me.”
“There’s a fire on my face? Wait what??”
“I’m tired of having to apply sunscreen all the time.”
“So I can headbutt a villain and give them a second-degree burn at the same time.”
“I don’t know how to turn it off. Help.”
“You won’t believe how often people try to slap me.”
“But do you really want to see what’s underneath?”
“I feel naked without it.”
“I can put raw chicken on skewers, and by the time it reaches my mouth, it’s yakitori.”
“It’s the new fashion thing.”
“It only appears when the person I’m talking to is stupid. Has it appeared?”
“Fire? What fire? Are you seeing things?”
“I’m cursed.”
“It’s the only way to stop Best Jeanist from using hairspray on me.”
“I was born like this. Yeah, my mom didn’t like it either.”
“Face tattoo gone wrong. Have to cover up.”
if Things We Lost In The Fire by Bastille is not the most Todoroki family theme song ever
i qwant an mha au where instead of endeavour being an asshole to everyone he was actually a really good father, at least to shoto (took me a minute to realise I can only call him that cis they're all todoraki) . like I get it doesn't fit his character, at least not in early seasons but I really want to know how it would affect the story.
Hi so spoilers for chapter 290 of MHA but I just had to come on here and address something that i've seen a little bit if so far and it's been nagging me, this is my first post like this so just bare with me.
(Also when I refer to Touya as Touya I mean the child that was abused by enji and part of who he is now. When I refer to him as Dabi im refering to JUST the villain side of him):
Touya.is.not.selfish.for.choosing.to.expose.his.abuser!
I could end it there but I have more I need to say:
Im not talking about dabi being a villain now. Im talking about Touya Todoroki, not dabi. Touya wanting to expose his abuser for the piece of shit that he is isn't wrong, all the members of the Todoroki family have reacted differently to Enjis abuse and Touya wanting to expose him is also a direct reaction to his trauma and is by itself completely valid. Im not saying him hurting people is okay but I am saying that him wanting to tear down his abuser is.
I've seen people say "Him choosing to expose Enji is so selfish because what about the rest of his family?" How people think when dealing with a current or past abuser isn't always logical, for him he is dealing with years worth of past pain and trauma, he's grown from it in the sense that he can say "yea fuck you enji I don't need you" but he also hasn't in the sense that he's never gotten a real chance to heal both emotionally and mentally, he's fixated on his past pain which is not uncommon for people who GREW UP in an abusive situation with no professional help, so for him to see the very man who abused not only him but his family get to slide under the radar and essentially walk away from what he's done must be incredibly angering/hurtful for him and rightfully so. Him calling Enji out will definitely have an effect on how each of the Todoroki's deal with the topic of Enjis abuse and we KNOW that (because mind you they may not all be against it, it'll be hard to cope with because now the public knows but we can't assume that ALL of them won't be somewhat okay with this new development, im thinking maybe natsuo but I could be wrong) but as I said before Touya wanting to bring his abuser/father to some form of justice in this way is not un heard of and it's not out of line either, he has the right to feel what he feels. Not all abuse survivors heal by simply forgiving their abusers, sometimes that hurts them more. A lot of yall seem to be to be forgetting that Touya spent YEARS forgiving endeavor while he was still with the family. You can not validate one victims feelings on their abuse while in the same breath condemning another, that's not how that works. Im not saying that all responses are healthy (like todoroki blaming himself and shutting people out) or that they are morally correct (like Touya becoming Dabi) but what I am saying this that all responses to individual trauma are very real and very valid, so my point is that while yes this puts his family in a tight spot now Touya is NOT inherently selfish for having this kind of response towards Enji and as I said before not all responses when dealing with trauma/abusers are "logical" and Touya/Dabi is clearly not completely sound in the mental department right now. And speaking of Dabi, I'm not saying him being abused gives him the alright to hurt others because it DOESN'T, being hurt/abused doesnt give you the right to hurt/abuse others. Im simply saying that Touya isn't wrong about how he's chosen to confront his abuser and his past traumas in this specific situation, (if there even is a "wrong" way to do that) him exposing Enji doesn't make him an asshole, it doesn't make him evil (im not talking about him being dabi right now), it just makes him someone who has chosen to confront his abuser in this way.
This is getting long and if you happen to read this and want me to address anything else send an ask and I will but for now im tired and will stop. Good day to you all
-appleblondie0397
(A/N: the paragraph at the top is also taken from a comment I wrote so if you see it 😃 unsee it)
I was incredibly bored during the car ride home, so I went down the rabbit hole that we call Pinterest and got inspo for this.
Hawks def uses a ton of emojis. He’ll spam the same few, too. He’ll be winking and blowing kisses. ESPECIALLY TO ENDEAVOR LMAO
Canon idc this is hawks texting endeavor (*wife is his sidekick or one of his kids lmao)
Profic Party Day Three - Your Most Problematic Ship
(featuring everyone's favorite fazacon)
Enji whos guilt consumes him and makes him enable Toya's bad behavior >>>> (prolly ooc but idgaf im balling ⛹️♂️)
No Text | No Filters | More Burns 🤤
this took so long, I'm finally free 🕊
If I messed anything up no i didn't. close your eyes
Endeavor: Physical Strength vs Emotional Strength
Or The Total Mess that is the Todoroki House.
*Note: The following is not a defense of Endeavor nor is it excusing his actions. It is a deep-dive analysis into the complexities and nuances of his behavior and how it affected his life and everyone else in that family based on observations I’ve made throughout the series. There are also comparisons with other objectively violent characters from other series.
Trigger Warning for domestic and child abuse.
...
We're gonna start out by looking at what happened to his character over the available time frame. Endeavor did not start out as a violent person to his family. We can see that in the flashbacks of the family's early days.
Starting here, note that he’s not cold toward Rei in this scene. The way they’re walking around out here in the garden gives the impression that negotiations between him and Rei’s family are going well so far, but they’re out walking and talking in private just to make sure this arrangement is going to work and making sure further negotiation isn’t going to be a waste of everyone’s time. I say this because if he was dead set on ice powers for this Quirk marriage, Rei probably wasn’t the only option.
It's also important to remember Rei did choose this. She chose for her family rather than herself, but it wasn't her parents' end all be all decision. (And maybe there was familial pressure on her side, but it's not explicitly stated in canon so exactly how much free will Rei actually had is up for interpretation.)
However what I think shows here is they weren’t really talking all that much. Specifically, he is not ‘talking down to her.’ He is not treating her with any particular disrespect or putting her down as inferior. He doesn’t have the arrogance he later exhibits. This also isn’t him being aloof and ignoring her either. Look at his face, specifically his eyes. That is the same blank, deer in the headlights, “I have one brain cell dinging around in my head that is struggling to find a way to interact with people,” stare he shares with Shouto.
He has no idea what to say to her.
So finally, Rei turns off to the side to admire the garden, and he asks, “Do you like the flowers?” It’s a small thing, but it does show that in some capacity, he did show some interest in Rei and making her happy. He’s just stupidly awkward about it at this point. (Even if his ultimate goal was…well, we’ll get into that.)
But this trait of never knowing what to say is a massive defining part of Endeavor’s character that has manifested in a myriad of disastrous ways throughout his entire arc.
Now I don’t think there’s enough shown about Endeavor and Rei’s relationship that we can conclusively say they ever loved each other at any point, but I do think they were, at the very least, cordial in the beginning. They got along, they loved their children, and that in their minds was good enough for them. If you look at the scenes that are Touya and Fuyumi's early childhood, the family seems content. There's no sign of the abuse we see later.
The other big indicator that Endeavor was not originally a violent person to his family is the two very different ways he approaches training with Touya and Shouto. His motive for training them hasn't changed, but compared to the warmth and pride extended toward Touya we see in the above picture, Shouto’s experience with training in the second screenshot is harrowing and traumatic.
So why the difference?
A big reason is it has to do with age. When Rei defends Shouto, telling her husband that, “He’s only five!” and Endeavor is still pushing their son to achieve the standards of an older child, yes, this does show his impatience. However, the other unspoken sentiment here is he himself is not getting any younger. When Touya was born, Endeavor was twenty-two and had his whole life, career, and all his hopes with it ahead of him. His kid has a greater Quirk than his, his legacy is secure, nothing to worry about. But then they learn about the genetic issue with Touya’s Quirk. He can’t use his fire safely, he’ll never be able to use it safely, and he will never be a hero in the way Endeavor can.
Touya: Failure
Fuyumi: Failure
Natsuo: Failure
Shouto was probably viewed as his last chance. Endeavor was getting older and running out of time. If Shouto didn’t work out, then this legacy was dead in the water. At least, I hope Shouto was the last chance, otherwise he might've tried getting another kid out of Rei, divorced Rei and married someone else for the same reason, or attempted securing his successor through a grandchild.
Which is some freaky medieval way of thinking.
Anyone else getting Henry VIII vibes here?
Remember what I said about him never knowing what to say? The most obvious example of this is his complete and total inability to control the situation with Touya.
The tragedy of both Touya and Fuyumi's characters is they are the only two kids in the house who remember the happier childhood, and they both cling to that in their own way. It's why Fuyumi is so determined to 'fix things.' She's trying to regain the family they lost. For Natsuo and Shouto, things have always been bad in the house, hence why Natsuo bailed as soon as he could.
Then we have Touya. His flashbacks start with him at a toddler age. It is very common and normal for a child that young to prefer one parent over the other, but usually it's the parent they're most familiar with: The one that stays home with and takes care of them. Remember, to a toddler, everything is new and potentially scary, and that can also include a parent that is not always present: The parent that's working. In the Todoroki house, Endeavor has his career as a hero, so we have the indication that Rei was the parent who stayed home. In that situation, the probability of Rei being the 'familiar parent' was more likely, so for Touya to prefer his father over his mother shows just how close he was to Endeavor. Or because Fuyumi was the new baby and needed more attention, he could have gravitated away from Rei and gone to his father instead. He didn't see his father's ambitions for him. He didn't see that he was a successor as opposed to a son.
What he, through a child's innocence, saw and understood was that his father loved him and wanted to spend time with him.
Cue the genetic disparity of his Quirk: Where Endeavor failed as a parent was him never talking to Touya about what had happened. He didn't sit down with him and explain it wasn't safe for him to use his Quirk.
The My Hero world has a social problem of Quirks defining one's worth. It's not just the PLF's philosophy. Having no Quirk is viewed with pity and having a Quirk that can't be used could be viewed as a disability by this society, regardless of the fact it's completely possible to live a healthy life without having a Quirk. So Touya's 'issue' required compassion and understanding, especially from a parent. What Endeavor needed to say and what Touya needed to hear was, "This is a path that is blocked to you, it isn't your fault this happened, and I will love you regardless."
Instead, he just dropped him completely. (Given his character, I doubt he's even the one who broke the news to him.) In Touya's eyes, he didn't have the adult nuance to understand why he was being ignored; he just had the child innocence of, "I don't want to hang out with Mom and Fuyumi, I want to be with Dad. Why is he ignoring me? Why won't he train me anymore?"
What Touya learned from this is he only has value in his father's eyes as a hero. So he began training himself to be a hero because he was desperate to get that love and affection back. When Endeavor discovers the fact he's been training and burning himself, Touya never apologizes for disobeying him. He just repeatedly says variations of, "I can do this, then maybe you'll finally be proud of me."
Fuck, dude, just tell the poor kid you're already proud of him. That's all he needed to hear.
And Rei does call Touya out on this. She asks him, "Do you want to be a hero because you want to be a hero or are you doing this because it's what your father wants?"
In order words: "Are you doing this because you think it will make your father love you?"
And we come full circle to the 'death' of Touya where he realized, "I was never a son. I was a product."
...
Endeavor never addresses the problem going on under his roof. He handed the problem off to Rei. He didn't know what to say, he didn't know (and still doesn't) how to be a parent, and instead of confronting that lapse in his character, he instead made a coward's retreat back into the safe and familiar territory of being a hero.
This was the catalyst for his violence to his family.
Being a hero means fighting villains.
Fighting villains is often solving problems with violence.
Because he never knows what to say, he didn't know how to properly navigate a complex emotional situation, so he resorted to the only method he knew that worked:
Beat it into submission.
And since we have the previously mentioned signs they were once a happy, normal family, I have a feeling the violence began very suddenly and without warning.
...
To back this up, I'm gonna give a little personal insight here. I used to work in an orthopedic clinic and a lot of injuries that came through were hand injuries due to someone punching a wall out of anger/frustration. You may think this is fine since they didn’t hit another person and only hurt themselves, but the issue with taking your aggression out on even an inanimate object is you are unwittingly training your brain to associate anger with violence and make it all the more likely for you to lash out violently against another person.
Throughout his career, Endeavor has conditioned himself into this same mindset of repeatedly forging and reinforcing the physical connection of violence with the mental/emotional connection of anger.
Look at this scene from Arcane.
If you haven't seen this series yet, 1.) Get on that. You're missing out. (Don't worry, there's not too many spoilers below.) and 2.) This is Vi and this screenshot is from a scene where she, in a moment of anger and grief, strikes her little sister hard enough in the face to knock her to the ground.
Look at the horror in her eyes when she realizes what she’s done.
Now before and after this moment, we see Vi undoubtedly loves her sister and would die for her. (Season 2 pending...) The first thing she does when they're reunited is hug her and tell her how sorry she is. But Vi has also been a fighter all her life. The sisters grew up in the rough part of town, they had to fight to survive, and they've experienced a violent atmosphere from a young age. We also see that when Vi gets frustrated or angry, she punches/slaps inanimate objects, so she too subconsciously associated violence with intense emotions, and in a moment of blind rage/grief, she failed to dissociate and she hurt her sister.
It wasn't a conscious decision, but it happened nonetheless.
What follows is she walks away from Powder. She doesn't go far, she just puts some distance between herself and her sister to calm down and process what's happened and hopefully find a way to move forward. Only, for unrelated reasons that don't pertain to this topic, she is apprehended by authorities and spends the next 6-7 years in prison, obsessing over her regrets and finding her way back to Powder.
She is never going to forgive herself for this.
I bring this scene up because as far as fiction is concerned, we as the audience do often excuse a character losing their temper and hitting a loved one once. What Vi did was not okay, but because it only happened that one time, nobody is labeling Vi as 'abusive.'
...
So consider the first time Endeavor hit Rei. We don't see it in canon, but with all the indicators of a relatively happy home, I believe that first act of violence was the culmination of these factors:
Endeavor's ongoing inferiority complex with All Might and the frustration in his inability to surpass him, and then projecting that frustration onto his family.
The career of solving problems with violence.
The subconscious association of anger with violence resulting from that career.
I'm also going to throw out the possibility of multiple head injuries incurred from his career playing a role. Traumatic brain injuries can and often do lead to behavioral changes where an individual has trouble managing emotional responses, experiences anxiety, has a shorter temper, etc.
Obviously, none of the above should be treated as excuses (not even the TBI possibility because there's therapy options for that), but they are potential contributors to the pivotal moment of frustration and impatience where Endeavor, like Vi, failed to dissociate and did something he couldn't take back.
Striking Rei is his tea kettle incident. Think back to the awkward moron who didn't have a clue what to say to her when they first met. That young man never thought he would do something like this. That first moment when he hit Rei, I really don't think it was a conscious decision and it may have taken him off guard as much as it did Rei. Like Vi, he probably acted out of blind anger and may have been just as horrified by what he'd done, and I can imagine Endeavor walking away from that to calm down and process that he crossed a line he thought he would never cross.
Unlike Vi, who was going to return to Powder after calming down so she could apologize, beg forgiveness, and move forward, Endeavor is an emotional coward who never knows what to say or how to confront a complex emotional hurtle. So he did the same thing he did with Touya: He retreated from the problem and pretended it didn't exist, and because it was never addressed and he was never held accountable, it only got worse. The lid was off and there was no getting it back on.
I'm not saying there was a definite chance he could have come back from that (that ball was in Rei's court as much as it was Powder's) but Endeavor had a choice:
He could have addressed what he'd done and made amends by submitting to whatever consequence Rei set down for him.
Or he could have rationalized his own twisted justifications for what he did.
He chose wrong.
For another comparison of the violence aspect, I’m also going to bring up Shizuo Heiwajima from Durarara!!, a character who I think flies off the handle far more frequently than Endeavor does.
If you haven't seen Durarara!!, same as above with Arcane.
The nuance of Shizuo is the intense rage he experiences, the violence that follows, and his own inner turmoil. He associates violence with anger, but these are traits that he fully recognizes as detrimental to himself and his personal relationships with other people. He has a temper, he gets violent, he lashes out with abnormal strength and has seriously injured many people.
But the people he's attacked are usually people who provoked him, whether it's thugs who opted to harass him on the street or he heard that a friend was in trouble and rushed off to help them. Not that violence is the answer, but they were people who arguably deserved a beating. More importantly, though, is the way Shizuo treats his relationships with caution. He's a loner by choice. He does want to connect with other people, but he keeps his distance because he legitimately fears harming someone he cares about. Because of his caution and self-awareness, he is a complicated and likable character that I think anyone with a short temper who has said or done things they regret can relate to.
If he didn’t have that level of control on himself and was violent with everyone regardless of who they were to him, he would be despised by the fandom as much as Endeavor is.
This is how Durarara!! can get away with presenting a violent character in a comedic fashion. Shizuo, despite his temper, is an absurdly strong guy, a little bit of an idiot, and fiercely loyal to his friends. All three of those are endearing qualities.
And in the right framing, Endeavor's violence is also presented as comedic.
This scene is funny, but grabbing Hawks like that and lifting him off the ground is technically assault and it is intimidation. Replace Hawks with Rei and this scene changes drastically from funny to very unsettling. Replace him with Touya and it's a fight.
...
Where Endeavor really differentiates from Vi and Shizuo is marked by two important factors:
Shizuo, for all his claims at being unable to control his anger, has it very much under control around the people he cares about. He really only lets loose against a perceived threat.
Vi mostly has that same control even though she lost it for a moment, but she was also separated from her sister in an indirect punishment for her actions.
Endeavor does not have Shizuo's restraint nor did he face any immediate consequences like Vi.
Which brings us to Rei.
I have mixed feelings when it comes to Rei, and the absolute harshest opinion I have of her is that she is pathetic and she failed her children. And I know that's a very black and white, cold-hearted view, but hear me out because it's a lot more complicated than that.
Endeavor is ultimately responsible for his own actions, but Rei also had the option to deal with the problem when it started. When he started hitting her, she could and should and have taken the kids and run as fast as she was able and not looked back. No amount of financial security, family appearance, or whatever justification one finds in this scenario is worth it. She should not have tolerated that abuse against herself and she definitely should not have subjected her children to that. While there's nothing conclusive to say Endeavor was physically harming any of the kids aside from Shouto, not fighting for her autonomy/safety was inadvertently teaching all four of them this is how men treat their wives, women are supposed to tolerate this treatment, and a marriage like this is 'normal.'
And in the end, she straight up abandoned her children. We see from Shouto's point of view right before she attacked him with the tea kettle. She's talking to her mother on the phone, saying she 'can't take it anymore' and she just wants to 'run away from this life.' Well...considering she goes on to spend the next ten years in a psych ward and left her children to her abusive husband...she did get what she wanted. Ten years and she really didn't put any more effort in trying to get back to them? She knew Endeavor was hurting her youngest. Going home and protecting her babies should have been her priority. For a long time, I legitimately thought she was in Fujiya because she was considered unsafe to rejoin society whether she was a danger to herself or to others. When she shows up in Endeavor's hospital room, I stared at the screen and thought, "The fuck? She could discharge herself at any point?"
All right, now that I've gone over my hard-line point of view, let me dial back the judgment and consider what else is going on here:
Rei is a refrigerated character.
She has very little characterization beyond her abuse and being the victimized mother in Shouto's story, so we don't know all that much about her. In all fairness, her oldest son suddenly dying while she was hospitalized certainly would have contributed to her downward spiral and account for her prolonged hospitalization.
She tolerated her abuse longer than she should have, but it is possible:
She learned that from her own parents. Tolerating abuse is often a byproduct of generational trauma. Maybe her father treated her mother the same way and she grew up thinking this was normal.
Maybe the first time Endeavor hit her, she rationalized it into a point of acceptance where she told herself that everything was fine and that it was only the 'one time' and it wouldn't happen again, a sentiment she kept repeating every time it happened.
Maybe she was raised to believe ‘the man of the house is always right,’ and that is a mindset that is hard to break if instilled from childhood.
Her parents certainly didn’t seem all that supportive with what was going on, but we also don’t know how much she told them. We don't even know if that one phone call she had with her mom was the first time she reached out for help after years of pretending everything was fine or if this was was something she was repeatedly updating her parents about and those parents chose to be aloof to it.
Maybe she really did grow up in a loving home and just didn't know what to do when confronted with the violent relationship she found herself in.
Maybe she was gaslit into believing it wasn't abuse.
Maybe she really did report the abuse and the godforsaken, root-of-all-evil Safety Commission told her, "Your husband's a hero. Stay quiet and don't ruin that public image." Basically told her to suck it up. That is also a possibility, and one I think could be the most likely, but the series doesn't really go into just how corrupt the Commission was, so we're in headcanon territory.
Maybe she did try to take the kids and run but failed to get away. (Unlikely since it’s never mentioned in canon.)
Not everyone is fortunate enough to have an upbringing that instills the belief, 'if your partner hurts you, they are dead to you' and not everyone has the good fortune of a reliable support network that can help them recognize a bad situation and get them out of it.
Given how well-known Endeavor is to the public, maybe Rei was afraid no one would believe her about the abuse. "A hero would never do such a thing. She's making it up for attention. Her family was poor, so she must be a gold-digger trying to screw over her hero husband in the divorce proceedings."
There is also the important fact that Japan has a social stigma against divorce. Persevering for the sake of family stability and maintaining an ideal appearance is a deeply ingrained cultural norm, which does introduce a troubling power imbalance between a husband who works and a housewife who doesn't have her own independent income. We also have to remember that Rei and her family were financially dependent on Endeavor, so she may have feared the monetary fallout at the prospect of leaving him. Also, with the popularity of the hero ranking system, the No. 2 Hero's wife divorcing him would have been very public and potentially humiliating for all involved.
And we can’t ignore the fact that Endeavor systematically broke her down into a shell of a person who couldn't see a way out of her situation and was tormented to the point she had a psychotic episode and attacked Shouto, the very child she tried to protect. And this too could have contributed to her prolonged hospitalization if this was the final straw and she viewed herself as a failure of a mother.
Maybe it was a combination of two or several of the above factors.
At the end of the day, abuse is a multi-faceted beast, and just as the abuse comes in many forms, the victim can have any number of reasons for staying in their situation.
So even though I have my harsh opinion of Rei and I think she should have done more to protect her children, I do 100% sympathize with her. She is a victim and she in no way deserved what she went through.
But while her inaction wasn't the cause of the crisis in her family, it was definitely a contributor to how badly it got out of hand because whatever the reason Rei didn't expose Endeavor or try to take the children and leave him, that lack of accountability opened up the opportunity for him to rationalize his own twisted justifications for his actions. “It’s fine. She deserved it because ______. She was 'acting out.' She was overreacting. She doesn't know what she's talking about.” Whatever he needed to tell himself to believe he didn’t do anything wrong even though he knew he wasn’t fooling himself or anyone.
She didn't stand up to him. Their children couldn't stand up to him.
So he continued the physical abuse unchecked.
...
Moving on into the redemption arc.
After the Kamino Incident, Endeavor finally, finally, finally got that vaunted No 1. Hero spot he'd been chasing for two decades. But he didn't earn it the way he wanted to by proving he's the best of the best. All Might retired, so he won by default.
And then he finds it's just one spot further up on a ranking system that means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. So he looks back at what's really important and he sees the charred skeleton frame of a house he burned down.
One institutionalized wife
One dead son
One daughter who clings to the memories of a happier home
One estranged son
One son who only has a use for him as a teacher and not a parent and will probably drop him the second he no longer needs him
In spite of everything, I do genuinely think the man deserves some credit for at least being willing to make an attempt at reconciliation. Not a lot since he dug that hole himself, but let's face it, a lot of lesser people would have looked at that mess and thought, "Fuck it, no going back now," and continued business as usual. So the question becomes:
Is Endeavor trying to redeem himself out of a need to make himself feel better about everything he's done or is he truly doing it for the benefit of the people he's hurt?
I tentatively think/hope could be a mix of both--I believe there is a part of him that cares about his children--but it definitely skews more toward making himself feel better because there's never a moment before the redemption arc begins where he's isolated, thinking back on everything, and just has the appropriate, "What have I done?" revelation. If his remorse was genuinely all about his family, we would have had that 'crying in the hospital scene' a whole lot sooner.
I think if Horikoshi wanted to portray Endeavor's redemption as genuine remorse for what he did to his family, I think he would have put more of a focus on Endeavor actually seeing the impact of what he'd done and feeling the inner turmoil and regret. Not just Natsuo's anger but also seeing firsthand Shouto's isolation and complete lack of social skills as a result of his training or having a conversation with Fuyumi where she admits she never wants to marry or have children because she doesn't 'want to risk ending up like Mom.' Seeing the effects of his behavior, realizing it's his fault.
So no. While there may be a part of Endeavor that loves his children (or he tells himself that he does), his wanting to atone is inspired mainly by his self-worth. He realized the ends did not justify the means and he tries to fix it.
But either way, how does he go about it?
The biggest change he makes toward earning forgiveness is to his hero career, which tracks with his character. That's familiar territory, so it's easier for him to navigate. He takes a significantly gentler method of teaching/mentorship with Shouto and he tries a kinder approach with his fans. That's progress, but it's still avoidance of the main issue that is the rift he caused with the other members of the family.
His relationship with Fuyumi doesn't have much friction. Fuyumi clings to their family's happier memories. With Touya gone, she was the only child who could remember a childhood without fighting parents, abuse, and suffering siblings. In a twisted way, this is something she and Touya have in common. So it makes sense that she would be the one who's the most receptive to Endeavor's attempts to be a better father. She sees this change as their best chance at being a normal family again. Like Touya, she wanted her father back.
Natsuo is different. He was 3-4 years old when the toxicity in their household really began to spike and when the violence started. Incidentally, this is also when memory cells in the brain start to fully develop and form concrete memories. Compared to his older siblings, the abuse is all he knows and that is why he's the child who left and went low-contact. The only thing Natsuo's really done wrong is start family drama when there's company over for dinner. I mean, c'mon. That's just rude. Don't do that in front of guests.
While Endeavor makes attempts to better his training methods/fan interaction, what he doesn't do is call a family meeting to discuss things, not that this would have resolved anything by a long shot, but it would have established a baseline of where everyone in the family was at and whether or not forgiveness was even on the table at all. It is an extremely arrogant thought for Endeavor to think forgiveness for something of this magnitude is possible, and if he wanted to seek forgiveness (or to atone, whatever the hell that means) for the lifelong mistreatment of family, he should have been more prepared for the most abject, humble groveling to the people he wronged that he could manage.
He should have admitted to his mistakes and faults, laid out everything he'd done wrong, apologize for that as best he could, then express he wanted to repair their relationship and be a family again while also acknowledging that he understands if that is not possible. Lay down that groundwork, maybe be open to family therapy so that a professional third party can act as a mediator and provide impartial guidance, figure out where the boundaries are, acknowledge he can't give them back their ruined childhoods but he can *insert anything Fuyumi, Natsuo, and Shouto ask as recompense, even if it's just leaving their lives forever*, and listen for once to what his family is saying.
Instead, he tries to have normal conversations with his children as if nothing bad ever happened. He offers to come watch Shouto's remedial training like that's a totally ordinary thing for him to do. He tells Natsuo during the family dinner that he would like to try his cooking some time. That is a good olive branch! There is nothing wrong with saying that, but without that prior baseline conversation, it comes off as contrived and that's how Natsuo interpreted it. He sends flowers to Rei, also a good signal to send, but he should have done the the uncomfortable thing and contacted her through her physician to see if she's open to meeting with him for a conversation or sending her a letter she could choose to open at any time (or send back unopened.) That would have established that same baseline and helped move forward towards the atonement he wanted.
But he does the same thing he always does: He pretends the real issue just doesn't exist and he tries to control the situation to suit him.
Why?
Say it with me: He never knows what to say! He can't navigate complex emotions!
He doesn't try to find out if his family is even willing to forgive him, frankly because he's an emotional coward who doesn't want to hear the answer.
However, we cannot say he has no character development at all.
There is one thing worth noting around this point in the plot that I think is important to recognize. If Endeavor ever had any character development that was in favor of his redemption, it was when Natsuo was kidnapped and nearly killed, and it's not because he ran and hugged him in the street.
In this scene, he admits to Natsuo that his actions might as well have killed Touya.
This is a small thing, but it's also huge because you have to consider that up until this time, Endeavor has been gaslighting himself into believing it was Touya's fault for getting himself killed or Rei's fault for not doing as she was told and watching him. He could even have been irrationally blaming All Might for just being a barrier to his goals. Any warped excuse and justification he could think of to escape the blame.
It's not a lot, but he did finally give voice to the guilt that he is the reason he failed and his child died. He finally acknowledged that the blame lies squarely with him and no one else, and acknowledging he drove Touya to his own death means way more than just talking about his intentions to atone.
He took accountability here, at least within the family.
That is one point he's earned. We as the audience can begrudgingly concede that one.
But this progress is again stalled when Endeavor makes the decision that it would be best for his family if he distances himself from them. He chooses to build another house for them where they can all live together with their mother and away from his shadow.
The initial reaction I had to this decision was, "Okay, your solution is kicking them out of the only home they've ever known?" But then I considered that having those kids leave a house where they lived through a traumatic and stressful childhood was a good call. Natsuo already bailed, after all. And then there's Fuyumi... Yeah, you know what, maybe a conversation would have been appropriate here. Instead of finding out what they want, he goes and decides it for them like he always does.
Touya has a genetic disparity that prevents him from using his Quirk safely? Endeavor decides he shouldn't be a hero, disregarding any possibility of finding a potential workaround.
Shouto finally uses his fire at the Sports Festival? Endeavor has his whole speech that pretty much shows he has Shouto's entire life planned out after graduation.
He wants to do what's best for his family? He decides what's best for them.
And we're back to the big dumbass never knowing what to say and still running away from the main issue by making assumptions and decisions without actually considering the thoughts/opinions of the people around him and controlling the situation to his benefit.
He may have his intention to do better, but he has no idea what he's doing. He doesn't know how to relinquish his authority role.
And then we have Touya with his, "Bitch, you thought!" grenade. Or is it a nuke?
It's important to note is that failure to articulate emotion in a healthy way is a trait that is shared by all of the Todoroki family members.
Endeavor - the emotional coward who resorts to violence when confronted with an uncomfortable situation
Rei - the passive mother
Fuyumi - the peacekeeper and people-pleaser
Shouto - the child who was systematically deprogramed into an angry husk imitating his father that he has only recently started to recover from
Touya and Natsuo are the only two who actually have some pushback against the bullshit in their family. Touya's a whole kettle of insane fish who's warped psyche deserves a character analysis of its own, but the point is, even as a kid, he doesn't creep around his father or try to make peace with him. Natsuo also has no problem calling out Endeavor for everything that went wrong in his childhood, plus he moved out and went to college as soon as he could.
Touya - the unstable sociopath who shares his father's tendency to violently lash out while stuck with the mental fragility of his mother
Natsuo - the traumatized avoidant
Neither of them have a functional way of dealing with their issues. (In fact, Touya is so unhinged about it that the door has peaced out and is halfway down the street.)
Endeavor wanted to atone for what he did...by burying and not actually taking any real accountability until the unavoidable moment Touya is screaming down to him, "Is it because you became No. 1 that you finally paid attention to your family?"
Touya has a warped view of the world brought on by years of trauma, but he hit the nail on the head.
Endeavor's main motivation for atonement is for the self-satisfaction.
So we have the symbolism of Endeavor, who has always used his physical strength to solve his problems by beating them into submission and used his intimidating height to glare down at everyone beneath him, and then we have Touya standing on top of a mountain, shouting down. Endeavor's in a position where he's looking up at his dead child, who is arguably the broken bough, elephant in the room, core unavoidable reason a full atonement was never going to be possible, bringing about a twenty-year overdue reckoning.
And he once again doesn't know what to say.
As the story ends, this is where we leave him: Crippled, looking up at his dying child, and confronted by one of the lives he ruined. By choice, he's going to sit here and face what he did. These talks are not going to be pleasant. I doubt Touya is so burned out and exhausted that he doesn’t have the heart to spit out more of the lifetime of vitriol he’s built up.
I know a lot of fans were disappointed Horikoshi didn’t kill Endeavor off in the end, but I personally prefer to look at it this way:
Some characters deserve death.
But some deserve to live in despair.
...
To revisit Arcane, I think this quote neatly sums up Endeavor.
Endeavor: Physical Strength vs Emotional Strength
Or The Total Mess that is the Todoroki House.
*Note: The following is not a defense of Endeavor nor is it excusing his actions. It is a deep-dive analysis into the complexities and nuances of his behavior and how it affected his life and everyone else in that family based on observations I’ve made throughout the series. There are also comparisons with other objectively violent characters from other series.
Trigger Warning for domestic and child abuse.
...
We're gonna start out by looking at what happened to his character over the available time frame. Endeavor did not start out as a violent person to his family. We can see that in the flashbacks of the family's early days.
Starting here, note that he’s not cold toward Rei in this scene. The way they’re walking around out here in the garden gives the impression that negotiations between him and Rei’s family are going well so far, but they’re out walking and talking in private just to make sure this arrangement is going to work and making sure further negotiation isn’t going to be a waste of everyone’s time. I say this because if he was dead set on ice powers for this Quirk marriage, Rei probably wasn’t the only option.
It's also important to remember Rei did choose this. She chose for her family rather than herself, but it wasn't her parents' end all be all decision. (And maybe there was familial pressure on her side, but it's not explicitly stated in canon so exactly how much free will Rei actually had is up for interpretation.)
However what I think shows here is they weren’t really talking all that much. Specifically, he is not ‘talking down to her.’ He is not treating her with any particular disrespect or putting her down as inferior. He doesn’t have the arrogance he later exhibits. This also isn’t him being aloof and ignoring her either. Look at his face, specifically his eyes. That is the same blank, deer in the headlights, “I have one brain cell dinging around in my head that is struggling to find a way to interact with people,” stare he shares with Shouto.
He has no idea what to say to her.
So finally, Rei turns off to the side to admire the garden, and he asks, “Do you like the flowers?” It’s a small thing, but it does show that in some capacity, he did show some interest in Rei and making her happy. He’s just stupidly awkward about it at this point. (Even if his ultimate goal was…well, we’ll get into that.)
But this trait of never knowing what to say is a massive defining part of Endeavor’s character that has manifested in a myriad of disastrous ways throughout his entire arc.
Now I don’t think there’s enough shown about Endeavor and Rei’s relationship that we can conclusively say they ever loved each other at any point, but I do think they were, at the very least, cordial in the beginning. They got along, they loved their children, and that in their minds was good enough for them. If you look at the scenes that are Touya and Fuyumi's early childhood, the family seems content. There's no sign of the abuse we see later.
The other big indicator that Endeavor was not originally a violent person to his family is the two very different ways he approaches training with Touya and Shouto. His motive for training them hasn't changed, but compared to the warmth and pride extended toward Touya we see in the above picture, Shouto’s experience with training in the second screenshot is harrowing and traumatic.
So why the difference?
A big reason is it has to do with age. When Rei defends Shouto, telling her husband that, “He’s only five!” and Endeavor is still pushing their son to achieve the standards of an older child, yes, this does show his impatience. However, the other unspoken sentiment here is he himself is not getting any younger. When Touya was born, Endeavor was twenty-two and had his whole life, career, and all his hopes with it ahead of him. His kid has a greater Quirk than his, his legacy is secure, nothing to worry about. But then they learn about the genetic issue with Touya’s Quirk. He can’t use his fire safely, he’ll never be able to use it safely, and he will never be a hero in the way Endeavor can.
Touya: Failure
Fuyumi: Failure
Natsuo: Failure
Shouto was probably viewed as his last chance. Endeavor was getting older and running out of time. If Shouto didn’t work out, then this legacy was dead in the water. At least, I hope Shouto was the last chance, otherwise he might've tried getting another kid out of Rei, divorced Rei and married someone else for the same reason, or attempted securing his successor through a grandchild.
Which is some freaky medieval way of thinking.
Anyone else getting Henry VIII vibes here?
Remember what I said about him never knowing what to say? The most obvious example of this is his complete and total inability to control the situation with Touya.
The tragedy of both Touya and Fuyumi's characters is they are the only two kids in the house who remember the happier childhood, and they both cling to that in their own way. It's why Fuyumi is so determined to 'fix things.' She's trying to regain the family they lost. For Natsuo and Shouto, things have always been bad in the house, hence why Natsuo bailed as soon as he could.
Then we have Touya. His flashbacks start with him at a toddler age. It is very common and normal for a child that young to prefer one parent over the other, but usually it's the parent they're most familiar with: The one that stays home with and takes care of them. Remember, to a toddler, everything is new and potentially scary, and that can also include a parent that is not always present: The parent that's working. In the Todoroki house, Endeavor has his career as a hero, so we have the indication that Rei was the parent who stayed home. In that situation, the probability of Rei being the 'familiar parent' was more likely, so for Touya to prefer his father over his mother shows just how close he was to Endeavor. Or because Fuyumi was the new baby and needed more attention, he could have gravitated away from Rei and gone to his father instead. He didn't see his father's ambitions for him. He didn't see that he was a successor as opposed to a son.
What he, through a child's innocence, saw and understood was that his father loved him and wanted to spend time with him.
Cue the genetic disparity of his Quirk: Where Endeavor failed as a parent was him never talking to Touya about what had happened. He didn't sit down with him and explain it wasn't safe for him to use his Quirk.
The My Hero world has a social problem of Quirks defining one's worth. It's not just the PLF's philosophy. Having no Quirk is viewed with pity and having a Quirk that can't be used could be viewed as a disability by this society, regardless of the fact it's completely possible to live a healthy life without having a Quirk. So Touya's 'issue' required compassion and understanding, especially from a parent. What Endeavor needed to say and what Touya needed to hear was, "This is a path that is blocked to you, it isn't your fault this happened, and I will love you regardless."
Instead, he just dropped him completely. (Given his character, I doubt he's even the one who broke the news to him.) In Touya's eyes, he didn't have the adult nuance to understand why he was being ignored; he just had the child innocence of, "I don't want to hang out with Mom and Fuyumi, I want to be with Dad. Why is he ignoring me? Why won't he train me anymore?"
What Touya learned from this is he only has value in his father's eyes as a hero. So he began training himself to be a hero because he was desperate to get that love and affection back. When Endeavor discovers the fact he's been training and burning himself, Touya never apologizes for disobeying him. He just repeatedly says variations of, "I can do this, then maybe you'll finally be proud of me."
Fuck, dude, just tell the poor kid you're already proud of him. That's all he needed to hear.
And Rei does call Touya out on this. She asks him, "Do you want to be a hero because you want to be a hero or are you doing this because it's what your father wants?"
In order words: "Are you doing this because you think it will make your father love you?"
And we come full circle to the 'death' of Touya where he realized, "I was never a son. I was a product."
...
Endeavor never addresses the problem going on under his roof. He handed the problem off to Rei. He didn't know what to say, he didn't know (and still doesn't) how to be a parent, and instead of confronting that lapse in his character, he instead made a coward's retreat back into the safe and familiar territory of being a hero.
This was the catalyst for his violence to his family.
Being a hero means fighting villains.
Fighting villains is often solving problems with violence.
Because he never knows what to say, he didn't know how to properly navigate a complex emotional situation, so he resorted to the only method he knew that worked:
Beat it into submission.
And since we have the previously mentioned signs they were once a happy, normal family, I have a feeling the violence began very suddenly and without warning.
...
To back this up, I'm gonna give a little personal insight here. I used to work in an orthopedic clinic and a lot of injuries that came through were hand injuries due to someone punching a wall out of anger/frustration. You may think this is fine since they didn’t hit another person and only hurt themselves, but the issue with taking your aggression out on even an inanimate object is you are unwittingly training your brain to associate anger with violence and make it all the more likely for you to lash out violently against another person.
Throughout his career, Endeavor has conditioned himself into this same mindset of repeatedly forging and reinforcing the physical connection of violence with the mental/emotional connection of anger.
Look at this scene from Arcane.
If you haven't seen this series yet, 1.) Get on that. You're missing out. (Don't worry, there's not too many spoilers below.) and 2.) This is Vi and this screenshot is from a scene where she, in a moment of anger and grief, strikes her little sister hard enough in the face to knock her to the ground.
Look at the horror in her eyes when she realizes what she’s done.
Now before and after this moment, we see Vi undoubtedly loves her sister and would die for her. (Season 2 pending...) The first thing she does when they're reunited is hug her and tell her how sorry she is. But Vi has also been a fighter all her life. The sisters grew up in the rough part of town, they had to fight to survive, and they've experienced a violent atmosphere from a young age. We also see that when Vi gets frustrated or angry, she punches/slaps inanimate objects, so she too subconsciously associated violence with intense emotions, and in a moment of blind rage/grief, she failed to dissociate and she hurt her sister.
It wasn't a conscious decision, but it happened nonetheless.
What follows is she walks away from Powder. She doesn't go far, she just puts some distance between herself and her sister to calm down and process what's happened and hopefully find a way to move forward. Only, for unrelated reasons that don't pertain to this topic, she is apprehended by authorities and spends the next 6-7 years in prison, obsessing over her regrets and finding her way back to Powder.
She is never going to forgive herself for this.
I bring this scene up because as far as fiction is concerned, we as the audience do often excuse a character losing their temper and hitting a loved one once. What Vi did was not okay, but because it only happened that one time, nobody is labeling Vi as 'abusive.'
...
So consider the first time Endeavor hit Rei. We don't see it in canon, but with all the indicators of a relatively happy home, I believe that first act of violence was the culmination of these factors:
Endeavor's ongoing inferiority complex with All Might and the frustration in his inability to surpass him, and then projecting that frustration onto his family.
The career of solving problems with violence.
The subconscious association of anger with violence resulting from that career.
I'm also going to throw out the possibility of multiple head injuries incurred from his career playing a role. Traumatic brain injuries can and often do lead to behavioral changes where an individual has trouble managing emotional responses, experiences anxiety, has a shorter temper, etc.
Obviously, none of the above should be treated as excuses (not even the TBI possibility because there's therapy options for that), but they are potential contributors to the pivotal moment of frustration and impatience where Endeavor, like Vi, failed to dissociate and did something he couldn't take back.
Striking Rei is his tea kettle incident. Think back to the awkward moron who didn't have a clue what to say to her when they first met. That young man never thought he would do something like this. That first moment when he hit Rei, I really don't think it was a conscious decision and it may have taken him off guard as much as it did Rei. Like Vi, he probably acted out of blind anger and may have been just as horrified by what he'd done, and I can imagine Endeavor walking away from that to calm down and process that he crossed a line he thought he would never cross.
Unlike Vi, who was going to return to Powder after calming down so she could apologize, beg forgiveness, and move forward, Endeavor is an emotional coward who never knows what to say or how to confront a complex emotional hurtle. So he did the same thing he did with Touya: He retreated from the problem and pretended it didn't exist, and because it was never addressed and he was never held accountable, it only got worse. The lid was off and there was no getting it back on.
I'm not saying there was a definite chance he could have come back from that (that ball was in Rei's court as much as it was Powder's) but Endeavor had a choice:
He could have addressed what he'd done and made amends by submitting to whatever consequence Rei set down for him.
Or he could have rationalized his own twisted justifications for what he did.
He chose wrong.
For another comparison of the violence aspect, I’m also going to bring up Shizuo Heiwajima from Durarara!!, a character who I think flies off the handle far more frequently than Endeavor does.
If you haven't seen Durarara!!, same as above with Arcane.
The nuance of Shizuo is the intense rage he experiences, the violence that follows, and his own inner turmoil. He associates violence with anger, but these are traits that he fully recognizes as detrimental to himself and his personal relationships with other people. He has a temper, he gets violent, he lashes out with abnormal strength and has seriously injured many people.
But the people he's attacked are usually people who provoked him, whether it's thugs who opted to harass him on the street or he heard that a friend was in trouble and rushed off to help them. Not that violence is the answer, but they were people who arguably deserved a beating. More importantly, though, is the way Shizuo treats his relationships with caution. He's a loner by choice. He does want to connect with other people, but he keeps his distance because he legitimately fears harming someone he cares about. Because of his caution and self-awareness, he is a complicated and likable character that I think anyone with a short temper who has said or done things they regret can relate to.
If he didn’t have that level of control on himself and was violent with everyone regardless of who they were to him, he would be despised by the fandom as much as Endeavor is.
This is how Durarara!! can get away with presenting a violent character in a comedic fashion. Shizuo, despite his temper, is an absurdly strong guy, a little bit of an idiot, and fiercely loyal to his friends. All three of those are endearing qualities.
And in the right framing, Endeavor's violence is also presented as comedic.
This scene is funny, but grabbing Hawks like that and lifting him off the ground is technically assault and it is intimidation. Replace Hawks with Rei and this scene changes drastically from funny to very unsettling. Replace him with Touya and it's a fight.
...
Where Endeavor really differentiates from Vi and Shizuo is marked by two important factors:
Shizuo, for all his claims at being unable to control his anger, has it very much under control around the people he cares about. He really only lets loose against a perceived threat.
Vi mostly has that same control even though she lost it for a moment, but she was also separated from her sister in an indirect punishment for her actions.
Endeavor does not have Shizuo's restraint nor did he face any immediate consequences like Vi.
Which brings us to Rei.
I have mixed feelings when it comes to Rei, and the absolute harshest opinion I have of her is that she is pathetic and she failed her children. And I know that's a very black and white, cold-hearted view, but hear me out because it's a lot more complicated than that.
Endeavor is ultimately responsible for his own actions, but Rei also had the option to deal with the problem when it started. When he started hitting her, she could and should and have taken the kids and run as fast as she was able and not looked back. No amount of financial security, family appearance, or whatever justification one finds in this scenario is worth it. She should not have tolerated that abuse against herself and she definitely should not have subjected her children to that. While there's nothing conclusive to say Endeavor was physically harming any of the kids aside from Shouto, not fighting for her autonomy/safety was inadvertently teaching all four of them this is how men treat their wives, women are supposed to tolerate this treatment, and a marriage like this is 'normal.'
And in the end, she straight up abandoned her children. We see from Shouto's point of view right before she attacked him with the tea kettle. She's talking to her mother on the phone, saying she 'can't take it anymore' and she just wants to 'run away from this life.' Well...considering she goes on to spend the next ten years in a psych ward and left her children to her abusive husband...she did get what she wanted. Ten years and she really didn't put any more effort in trying to get back to them? She knew Endeavor was hurting her youngest. Going home and protecting her babies should have been her priority. For a long time, I legitimately thought she was in Fujiya because she was considered unsafe to rejoin society whether she was a danger to herself or to others. When she shows up in Endeavor's hospital room, I stared at the screen and thought, "The fuck? She could discharge herself at any point?"
All right, now that I've gone over my hard-line point of view, let me dial back the judgment and consider what else is going on here:
Rei is a refrigerated character.
She has very little characterization beyond her abuse and being the victimized mother in Shouto's story, so we don't know all that much about her. In all fairness, her oldest son suddenly dying while she was hospitalized certainly would have contributed to her downward spiral and account for her prolonged hospitalization.
She tolerated her abuse longer than she should have, but it is possible:
She learned that from her own parents. Tolerating abuse is often a byproduct of generational trauma. Maybe her father treated her mother the same way and she grew up thinking this was normal.
Maybe the first time Endeavor hit her, she rationalized it into a point of acceptance where she told herself that everything was fine and that it was only the 'one time' and it wouldn't happen again, a sentiment she kept repeating every time it happened.
Maybe she was raised to believe ‘the man of the house is always right,’ and that is a mindset that is hard to break if instilled from childhood.
Her parents certainly didn’t seem all that supportive with what was going on, but we also don’t know how much she told them. We don't even know if that one phone call she had with her mom was the first time she reached out for help after years of pretending everything was fine or if this was was something she was repeatedly updating her parents about and those parents chose to be aloof to it.
Maybe she really did grow up in a loving home and just didn't know what to do when confronted with the violent relationship she found herself in.
Maybe she was gaslit into believing it wasn't abuse.
Maybe she really did report the abuse and the godforsaken, root-of-all-evil Safety Commission told her, "Your husband's a hero. Stay quiet and don't ruin that public image." Basically told her to suck it up. That is also a possibility, and one I think could be the most likely, but the series doesn't really go into just how corrupt the Commission was, so we're in headcanon territory.
Maybe she did try to take the kids and run but failed to get away. (Unlikely since it’s never mentioned in canon.)
Not everyone is fortunate enough to have an upbringing that instills the belief, 'if your partner hurts you, they are dead to you' and not everyone has the good fortune of a reliable support network that can help them recognize a bad situation and get them out of it.
Given how well-known Endeavor is to the public, maybe Rei was afraid no one would believe her about the abuse. "A hero would never do such a thing. She's making it up for attention. Her family was poor, so she must be a gold-digger trying to screw over her hero husband in the divorce proceedings."
There is also the important fact that Japan has a social stigma against divorce. Persevering for the sake of family stability and maintaining an ideal appearance is a deeply ingrained cultural norm, which does introduce a troubling power imbalance between a husband who works and a housewife who doesn't have her own independent income. We also have to remember that Rei and her family were financially dependent on Endeavor, so she may have feared the monetary fallout at the prospect of leaving him. Also, with the popularity of the hero ranking system, the No. 2 Hero's wife divorcing him would have been very public and potentially humiliating for all involved.
And we can’t ignore the fact that Endeavor systematically broke her down into a shell of a person who couldn't see a way out of her situation and was tormented to the point she had a psychotic episode and attacked Shouto, the very child she tried to protect. And this too could have contributed to her prolonged hospitalization if this was the final straw and she viewed herself as a failure of a mother.
Maybe it was a combination of two or several of the above factors.
At the end of the day, abuse is a multi-faceted beast, and just as the abuse comes in many forms, the victim can have any number of reasons for staying in their situation.
So even though I have my harsh opinion of Rei and I think she should have done more to protect her children, I do 100% sympathize with her. She is a victim and she in no way deserved what she went through.
But while her inaction wasn't the cause of the crisis in her family, it was definitely a contributor to how badly it got out of hand because whatever the reason Rei didn't expose Endeavor or try to take the children and leave him, that lack of accountability opened up the opportunity for him to rationalize his own twisted justifications for his actions. “It’s fine. She deserved it because ______. She was 'acting out.' She was overreacting. She doesn't know what she's talking about.” Whatever he needed to tell himself to believe he didn’t do anything wrong even though he knew he wasn’t fooling himself or anyone.
She didn't stand up to him. Their children couldn't stand up to him.
So he continued the physical abuse unchecked.
...
Moving on into the redemption arc.
After the Kamino Incident, Endeavor finally, finally, finally got that vaunted No 1. Hero spot he'd been chasing for two decades. But he didn't earn it the way he wanted to by proving he's the best of the best. All Might retired, so he won by default.
And then he finds it's just one spot further up on a ranking system that means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. So he looks back at what's really important and he sees the charred skeleton frame of a house he burned down.
One institutionalized wife
One dead son
One daughter who clings to the memories of a happier home
One estranged son
One son who only has a use for him as a teacher and not a parent and will probably drop him the second he no longer needs him
In spite of everything, I do genuinely think the man deserves some credit for at least being willing to make an attempt at reconciliation. Not a lot since he dug that hole himself, but let's face it, a lot of lesser people would have looked at that mess and thought, "Fuck it, no going back now," and continued business as usual. So the question becomes:
Is Endeavor trying to redeem himself out of a need to make himself feel better about everything he's done or is he truly doing it for the benefit of the people he's hurt?
I tentatively think/hope could be a mix of both--I believe there is a part of him that cares about his children--but it definitely skews more toward making himself feel better because there's never a moment before the redemption arc begins where he's isolated, thinking back on everything, and just has the appropriate, "What have I done?" revelation. If his remorse was genuinely all about his family, we would have had that 'crying in the hospital scene' a whole lot sooner.
I think if Horikoshi wanted to portray Endeavor's redemption as genuine remorse for what he did to his family, I think he would have put more of a focus on Endeavor actually seeing the impact of what he'd done and feeling the inner turmoil and regret. Not just Natsuo's anger but also seeing firsthand Shouto's isolation and complete lack of social skills as a result of his training or having a conversation with Fuyumi where she admits she never wants to marry or have children because she doesn't 'want to risk ending up like Mom.' Seeing the effects of his behavior, realizing it's his fault.
So no. While there may be a part of Endeavor that loves his children (or he tells himself that he does), his wanting to atone is inspired mainly by his self-worth. He realized the ends did not justify the means and he tries to fix it.
But either way, how does he go about it?
The biggest change he makes toward earning forgiveness is to his hero career, which tracks with his character. That's familiar territory, so it's easier for him to navigate. He takes a significantly gentler method of teaching/mentorship with Shouto and he tries a kinder approach with his fans. That's progress, but it's still avoidance of the main issue that is the rift he caused with the other members of the family.
His relationship with Fuyumi doesn't have much friction. Fuyumi clings to their family's happier memories. With Touya gone, she was the only child who could remember a childhood without fighting parents, abuse, and suffering siblings. In a twisted way, this is something she and Touya have in common. So it makes sense that she would be the one who's the most receptive to Endeavor's attempts to be a better father. She sees this change as their best chance at being a normal family again. Like Touya, she wanted her father back.
Natsuo is different. He was 3-4 years old when the toxicity in their household really began to spike and when the violence started. Incidentally, this is also when memory cells in the brain start to fully develop and form concrete memories. Compared to his older siblings, the abuse is all he knows and that is why he's the child who left and went low-contact. The only thing Natsuo's really done wrong is start family drama when there's company over for dinner. I mean, c'mon. That's just rude. Don't do that in front of guests.
While Endeavor makes attempts to better his training methods/fan interaction, what he doesn't do is call a family meeting to discuss things, not that this would have resolved anything by a long shot, but it would have established a baseline of where everyone in the family was at and whether or not forgiveness was even on the table at all. It is an extremely arrogant thought for Endeavor to think forgiveness for something of this magnitude is possible, and if he wanted to seek forgiveness (or to atone, whatever the hell that means) for the lifelong mistreatment of family, he should have been more prepared for the most abject, humble groveling to the people he wronged that he could manage.
He should have admitted to his mistakes and faults, laid out everything he'd done wrong, apologize for that as best he could, then express he wanted to repair their relationship and be a family again while also acknowledging that he understands if that is not possible. Lay down that groundwork, maybe be open to family therapy so that a professional third party can act as a mediator and provide impartial guidance, figure out where the boundaries are, acknowledge he can't give them back their ruined childhoods but he can *insert anything Fuyumi, Natsuo, and Shouto ask as recompense, even if it's just leaving their lives forever*, and listen for once to what his family is saying.
Instead, he tries to have normal conversations with his children as if nothing bad ever happened. He offers to come watch Shouto's remedial training like that's a totally ordinary thing for him to do. He tells Natsuo during the family dinner that he would like to try his cooking some time. That is a good olive branch! There is nothing wrong with saying that, but without that prior baseline conversation, it comes off as contrived and that's how Natsuo interpreted it. He sends flowers to Rei, also a good signal to send, but he should have done the the uncomfortable thing and contacted her through her physician to see if she's open to meeting with him for a conversation or sending her a letter she could choose to open at any time (or send back unopened.) That would have established that same baseline and helped move forward towards the atonement he wanted.
But he does the same thing he always does: He pretends the real issue just doesn't exist and he tries to control the situation to suit him.
Why?
Say it with me: He never knows what to say! He can't navigate complex emotions!
He doesn't try to find out if his family is even willing to forgive him, frankly because he's an emotional coward who doesn't want to hear the answer.
However, we cannot say he has no character development at all.
There is one thing worth noting around this point in the plot that I think is important to recognize. If Endeavor ever had any character development that was in favor of his redemption, it was when Natsuo was kidnapped and nearly killed, and it's not because he ran and hugged him in the street.
In this scene, he admits to Natsuo that his actions might as well have killed Touya.
This is a small thing, but it's also huge because you have to consider that up until this time, Endeavor has been gaslighting himself into believing it was Touya's fault for getting himself killed or Rei's fault for not doing as she was told and watching him. He could even have been irrationally blaming All Might for just being a barrier to his goals. Any warped excuse and justification he could think of to escape the blame.
It's not a lot, but he did finally give voice to the guilt that he is the reason he failed and his child died. He finally acknowledged that the blame lies squarely with him and no one else, and acknowledging he drove Touya to his own death means way more than just talking about his intentions to atone.
He took accountability here, at least within the family.
That is one point he's earned. We as the audience can begrudgingly concede that one.
But this progress is again stalled when Endeavor makes the decision that it would be best for his family if he distances himself from them. He chooses to build another house for them where they can all live together with their mother and away from his shadow.
The initial reaction I had to this decision was, "Okay, your solution is kicking them out of the only home they've ever known?" But then I considered that having those kids leave a house where they lived through a traumatic and stressful childhood was a good call. Natsuo already bailed, after all. And then there's Fuyumi... Yeah, you know what, maybe a conversation would have been appropriate here. Instead of finding out what they want, he goes and decides it for them like he always does.
Touya has a genetic disparity that prevents him from using his Quirk safely? Endeavor decides he shouldn't be a hero, disregarding any possibility of finding a potential workaround.
Shouto finally uses his fire at the Sports Festival? Endeavor has his whole speech that pretty much shows he has Shouto's entire life planned out after graduation.
He wants to do what's best for his family? He decides what's best for them.
And we're back to the big dumbass never knowing what to say and still running away from the main issue by making assumptions and decisions without actually considering the thoughts/opinions of the people around him and controlling the situation to his benefit.
He may have his intention to do better, but he has no idea what he's doing. He doesn't know how to relinquish his authority role.
And then we have Touya with his, "Bitch, you thought!" grenade. Or is it a nuke?
It's important to note is that failure to articulate emotion in a healthy way is a trait that is shared by all of the Todoroki family members.
Endeavor - the emotional coward who resorts to violence when confronted with an uncomfortable situation
Rei - the passive mother
Fuyumi - the peacekeeper and people-pleaser
Shouto - the child who was systematically deprogramed into an angry husk imitating his father that he has only recently started to recover from
Touya and Natsuo are the only two who actually have some pushback against the bullshit in their family. Touya's a whole kettle of insane fish who's warped psyche deserves a character analysis of its own, but the point is, even as a kid, he doesn't creep around his father or try to make peace with him. Natsuo also has no problem calling out Endeavor for everything that went wrong in his childhood, plus he moved out and went to college as soon as he could.
Touya - the unstable sociopath who shares his father's tendency to violently lash out while stuck with the mental fragility of his mother
Natsuo - the traumatized avoidant
Neither of them have a functional way of dealing with their issues. (In fact, Touya is so unhinged about it that the door has peaced out and is halfway down the street.)
Endeavor wanted to atone for what he did...by burying and not actually taking any real accountability until the unavoidable moment Touya is screaming down to him, "Is it because you became No. 1 that you finally paid attention to your family?"
Touya has a warped view of the world brought on by years of trauma, but he hit the nail on the head.
Endeavor's main motivation for atonement is for the self-satisfaction.
So we have the symbolism of Endeavor, who has always used his physical strength to solve his problems by beating them into submission and used his intimidating height to glare down at everyone beneath him, and then we have Touya standing on top of a mountain, shouting down. Endeavor's in a position where he's looking up at his dead child, who is arguably the broken bough, elephant in the room, core unavoidable reason a full atonement was never going to be possible, bringing about a twenty-year overdue reckoning.
And he once again doesn't know what to say.
As the story ends, this is where we leave him: Crippled, looking up at his dying child, and confronted by one of the lives he ruined. By choice, he's going to sit here and face what he did. These talks are not going to be pleasant. I doubt Touya is so burned out and exhausted that he doesn’t have the heart to spit out more of the lifetime of vitriol he’s built up.
I know a lot of fans were disappointed Horikoshi didn’t kill Endeavor off in the end, but I personally prefer to look at it this way:
Some characters deserve death.
But some deserve to live in despair.
...
To revisit Arcane, I think this quote neatly sums up Endeavor.
Natsuo is more like his father than he wants to admit...and it is both tragic and unsettling.
He does what he wants without regard for what the people around him want.
Sure, he'll go along with certain requests, like going to the family dinner because Fuyumi asked him to.
However, rather than be a polite host, he decides he'd rather embarrass his sister by being angry at their father all through said dinner and making things awkward for their guests. He didn't have to be there. Whoever he's talking to on the phone after the fact, maybe the girlfriend, he apologizes for bailing on their plans. He didn't even have to white-lie to Fuyumi. He straight up had other plans that night. So there are two ways you could look at this:
He conceded to a request to support his sister...then half-assed it.
Or he canceled his plans and went out of his way to be a prick.
He's not wrong for hating his father, that is 100% a normal reaction to an abusive parent, but he is wrong for not establishing his own concrete boundaries or respecting Fuyumi's.
Like Endeavor, Natsuo is pretty isolated within the family.
Mom’s out of the picture and contact with her is limited.
We all know what his relationship with his father is like.
His closest sibling 'died' when they were kids, but even then, Touya and Natsuo's relationship wasn't a good one. We know Touya spent years trauma-dumping on Natsuo, and little bro took it like a champ. Supporting one's siblings like that is admirable, but it does highlight a key difference between the brothers. Touya has memories of a happy childhood with their father. Natsuo does not. So he had to listen to his older brother crying for a past he knows nothing about, which had to have brought on a little resentment. "At least Dad loved you once. I never even got that much."
As stated above, Natsuo doesn't see eye to eye with Fuyumi. At least not enough that he respects her decision to forgive their father. Whether he supports that decision or not, he should love his sister more than he hates their father, and starting shit unprovoked over a dinner she asked him to be at is not a supportive decision.
His relationship with Shouto is hard to gauge. They were raised apart, sure, but they lived in the same house. So the fact that he didn't know Shouto's favorite food until he was fifteen is...odd. Natsuo never tried to have a conversation with him in passing? But I have a theory about that. With how Shouto behaved in the very beginning of the series, the mirror-image of their arrogant father, I think Natsuo had a, “Fuck, now there’s two of them," moment and actively avoided association with his younger brother. This may have contributed to him moving out even though he attends a college that's close enough that that he can casually stop by for dinner.
He Actually Does Get Violent.
Not with other people, thankfully, but he does slam his fist against the door in this scene, which is an act of aggression.
This makes for an intense moment in animation, sure, but if you saw a person do this in real life, you’d be nervous about where that fist is going next.
I already went over this in the Endeavor analysis that I made a few months back, but the gist of it is taking out your anger on inanimate objects is unhealthy because you're training your brain to associate anger with violence, which has the potential to make it harder to dissociate in the long run.
In his own way, he did abandon his family.
Fuyumi tells him to leave the family circumstances to her....and he just left her to it? She went to college to become a teacher and made a career work in spite of living in a volatile home. The series doesn't say where Natsuo is a student at, but he clearly lives close enough to home that he can drop by for a visit, so it's not like he went to some prestigious university out of town.
So yeah. Left his remaining brother and sister to their father.
The other point, though, is he's canonically studying medical welfare.
Medical welfare is the consideration of patient wellbeing, preserving individual dignity, promoting quality of life, and taking a holistic approach to healthcare that applies mental and emotional care to a patient, not just physical.
So it's ironic this is where his brother ends up and he says absolutely nothing about it. Nothing about promising to come see him, nothing about asking the staff if this really the best arrangement they could come up with, no promises to Touya that he'll figure something out. He just ghosts and, like their father, that is really hypocritical.
In the end, he puts his own hate and feelings above everyone else’s.
This one's pretty closely related to my first point, but it does bear reiterating for the finale. Natsuo's decision to never see his father again is ultimately going to hurt his family more than it's going to spite Endeavor. Going no-contact is a healthy choice and I don’t fault him for it at all. But if he sticks to it, it’s going to lead to some serious ramifications down the road.
If he's strict enough to refuse to be in the same vicinity as Endeavor:
He won’t attend Touya’s funeral and support his grieving mother and siblings if Endeavor will be there.
Since we see in the epilogue Rei stays with Endeavor, Natsuo visiting her is going to be complicated.
If Fuyumi gets married, she might want her father at the wedding. Is Natsuo going to skip his sister’s wedding out of spite?
If Shouto gets married and decides to let their father be there, same story.
If Endeavor outlives Rei, will Natsuo miss her funeral?
And finally, Natsuo might have to come to terms with the fact his own children may want to meet their grandfather, which is a decision he can only control until they’re legal adults. He can tell them how much of a monster Endeavor was all he wants, but those kids may still be curious about meeting the man in person, especially if they hear stories from other family members and know the former No. 2 and No. 1 is their grandfather.
I’m not saying Natsuo should forgive Endeavor, or even stop being angry with him because he has every right to his anger. But if he still wants a relationship with the rest of the family, he is going to have to exercise some form of compromise. Especially with his children because he unfortunately has all the hallmarks to become the next Kotaro Shimura. This is a society where kids want to be heroes, and then there's Natsuo who has a history with the dark side of hero society, no matter the good Shouto does.
im sick of my parents trying to reconcile
What happened few minutes prior to this:
Endeavor: Move your feet. I want to sit.
Rei: Make me.
Omg i don’t know if you already have an idea for what to do.. but if you don’t yet could you make Dabi a winged dragon like creature for Dekus creature chronicles? your art is so amazing and i’ve always loved the dragon dabi aus and i’m curious to see your take on it. if not that’s totally okay i’m sure i’ll love it no matter what you think of since i’ve loved everything so far the details are so amazing 🥹💕
This is very sweet- I am afraid I'm not in the fandom to be familiar with AUs, but dragons are always a favorite pick amongst reimaginings. There happens to be only one true dragon in this particular story... but I can show you the Todoroki's now that I have them finished- (I plotted them as a unit)
You can learn a little more of the myths under the cut if you like :)
part 9! Nav: 1 // 2 // 3 // 4 // 5 // 6 // 7 // 8
tidbits under cut
Dabi was the lynchpin design-and his family was built around him! They are all creatures of reincarnation, but with various meanings-
Canon Touya threw around some strong words about being reborn. The way he seems mentally stuck to his childhood, felt like a Phoenix who can't (or perhaps won't) allow himself to grow beyond a certain point, doomed to repeat his self-destruction. Like the other villains though - he's a little more morally grey in this story.
Firebird (Slavic) are often harbingers of either good fortune, doom- or unattainable goals in their tales. If that doesn't sound like Endeavor I'm not sure what does. They differ from phoenix in which they are 'always on fire', but they don't self immolate - they're just 'built like that'.
Tsurara onna (icicle woman) are created from the loneliness of single men during the winter time. When a man gazes longingly at a strong, beautiful icicle, they may appear. They disappear in the summer, and may reappear in winter. The love stories invariably end in tragedy. Considering Rei's dynamic to Enji, it felt fitting.
A Snegurochka (Russian- Snow Maiden) the fairytales often echo tsurara onna, of maiden that melts due to "shenanigans" (not always tied to love stories).
Simurgh (Persian) is more of a reach - you can really dive into their different lore and variations, but they are similar to phoenix in which they also immolate to reincarnate after a very long time. They have connections to both fire and water.
There's no myth creature equivalent of both fire and ice. Yet in canon, Shoto is the only one who doesn't provide himself a hero title. His name is his identity. So- he's the only "undefined" creature. There's a number of myths you could read him as if you wanted (he doesn't care).
... Dabi's pheonix fire also plays into forming the character Juzo (Not that anyone asked- this is reaaaaaaaallly reaching into the semantics on the yliaster, or prima materia that forms the philosophers stone- which mentions pheonix fire purification as a metaphor... ah don't worry about it).
Gashadokuro's are the scariest creature I could think of for a nomu.
Rei: This is not what I signed up for. Children, sure. Exercise equipment, definitely not.
Endeavor: Are you done?
Rei: Using your wife as resistance—you ought to be ashamed.
Endeavor: If you want to go back inside—
Rei: You know when most couples try something new, it’s usually a sex thing.
Endeavor: Holy shit, Rei.
Rei: However, since I don’t see myself getting out of this, we might as well get it over with, so mush!
...
Deities above, I hope these two were silly once.
I have a headcanon that since he does have a personal driver, Endeavor does not know nor has he ever learned how to drive. In Japan, you can't get a driver's license until you're eighteen. He would have graduated UA by then, and after multiple years of using public transportation, he probably had the practical mindset of, "If it ain't broke," and just never bothered until he was successful enough to hire someone. (Actually, headcanon that he just lived in his office until he made it big.)
In contrast, Rei definitely knows how to drive and prefers to floor it whenever possible.
He got into a car with her behind the wheel once and vowed never again.
More café doodles :D
I like to think Endeavour sent Shouto to hockey and/or skating lessons to "better understand ice" or something cuz he doesn't understand how ice works lol
Keeping with my headcanon that Endeavor, like Shouto, cannot comprehend euphemisms or metaphors:
Rei: Hey, people are like hardboiled eggs. Sometimes you can get the shell off easily, other times you gotta work at it a little bit.
Endeavor: ....what?
At this point, if I can imagine Touya and Shouto saying it, I can also see young Rei and Endeavor saying it.
Horikoshi drew him really sexy that one time and never again...💔
The smile that was supposed to be there.
Can't go back
For the thrill of the fight
Bonus: messed up boys
