Thread by @flashfireshoto, *MHA 301*There's too much to unpack here. We've only ever seen snapshots [...]

*MHA 301*

There's too much to unpack here. We've only ever seen snapshots of the Todofam's past from different, somewhat biased perspectives, but never the full picture.
But now we're seeing what happened up until Shoto was born, their situation's true complexity shows itself.

One thing that was made clear was that they were pitifully unprepared for kids, especially Enji. They entered their marriage with unresolved baggage that permeated their actions and decisions, and it bit them in the worst way possible with Touya.

Touya's downfall was that he was - more than any of his siblings - his father's son. He had inherited Enji's obsessive ambition and drive, but was unfortunately born without the ability to handle it. I think Enji only partially understood just how similar Touya was to him.

Enji's biggest mistake was mixing family and work. He wanted Touya to stop hurting himself but he still wanted the perfect quirk (messed up in itself tbh) and siring more kids coincided with both objectives. But he overlooked the impact it'd have on Touya, who he'd been grooming.

And he didn't have to be a genius to know what it meant when Natsuo was born. You can see it in his face; he understands that he's actively being replaced. Enji was 20 when he realised he'd never be good enough and look how he reacted. Touya went through that at half Enji's age.

And that's the point at which Touya began questioning why he existed, since Enji had taken that reason from him for his own good - something that Touya couldn't accept, just like how Enji never gave up trying to surpass AM despite knowing deep down he never could.

All the way back at the start of the series, Aizawa said that there was nothing crueler that killing someone's dream midway. And despite Touya being so young when it was cut short, the potential repercussions of what Aizawa wanted to avoid is exactly what happens with him.

Touya's breaking point wasn't only Shoto's birth, who was living proof that he was now obsolete despite how he destroyed himself to be good enough for his dad's attention, but it was Enji telling him to give it up, and that there was a world beyond heroics.

In just this, what Shoto told Deku back during the Forest Training arc rings SO damn loud.

Words backed without action are virtually meaningless if you want to change someone. Enji's attempt to dissuade Touya displayed this, because he failed to lead by example.

Enji's words ring hollow, because he himself never put his own words into practice. For him, surpassing All Might was EVERYTHING. We saw how it consumed him throughout the chapter. Enji would never believe and act on his own advice, so why would Touya, his clone in temperament?

As the No 2's son, expectations of him were already sky high, and he pushed himself to his limit hoping he'd fulfill what he had been raised to believe was his life's mission. That pent up resentment and self-inadequacy bubbling over the way it did isn't surprising to me at all.

And I suspect his attack on Shoto played a part in Endeavor isolating the latter from his other siblings. That was probably his original reason, which then morphed into something much more twisted as Enji's ambition gradually corrupted him with time. We'll see next week I guess.

Overall, this family is as grey as it gets, and they're so easily the most narratively compelling aspect of the series. I saw some people saying that they felt like Hori was retconning aspects of Endeavor to help his atonement arc along, and that simply isn't the truth.

We're just getting all the information at long last, which recontextualises it all. Shoto and Dabi were both convinced that Enji forced Rei to marry him, but how would they know? It clearly wasn't a technicality of their arrangement that they felt the need to share with the kids.

And Shoto in particular was the catalyst to his family's collapse - all he's ever known was the worst of it. He's only ever seen the worst of his dad and his mum being afraid of who Enji became. Assuming that Rei wouldn't marry him by choice isn't a stretch from his perspective.

But there was always hints that there was more to it than that, especially from Fuyumi and Rei's perspective, who had seen and experienced him when he was a decent person.

Btw, it makes me deeply sad that Shoto hasn't known a day of peace literally from the moment he was born

But the fact that Shoto has ALWAYS been Touya's target and the embodiment of all the insecurities that gave birth to Dabi just cements that he was always going to be Shoto's alone to face. And Shoto's own experiences means he's the only one whose words and actions could move him.

Whether he can reach Touya at all is another matter, but for all intents and purposes, it's a showdown that's been destined to happen since Shoto was conceived, because his very existence is in itself represents a denial of Touya's aspirations and purpose in life in Dabi's eyes.

And, as sad as it is, that was literally the secondary reason for Shoto being conceived to begin with - to deny Touya
that purpose in an effort to save him.

Ultimately, while Enji was largely driven by his ambitions, he did care about Touya and wasn't willing--

--to put him in harm's way. He tried to do what was best for both himself and Touya, but ended up emotionally scarring him, unintentional as it may have been. Per usual, he never succeeds in protecting his sons, no matter how hard he tries to.

This also raises another question - even if he wasn't the terrible father we thought he was before Shoto came along, why did he then go on to torment him in the name of training, knowing full well what placing his ambitions on Touya's shoulders did to him?

My guess for next week is this: Touya had Endeavor's self-destructive drive but not the ability. Shoto was the opposite: he had the ability, but not necessarily the ambition. He took far more after Rei than Enji in disposition, which for Enji's purposes grated on his nerves.

Coming off of Touya, who was all too eager to train with him, the idea of Shoto being much more reluctant to follow suit, combined with his increasing restlessness to surpass AM, likely accelerated Enji's decline to flat out abuse between Shoto getting his quirk and Touya "dying"

Basically, Enji was taking his frustrations out on Shoto, not just because of his fading ambitions, but for not being who Touya was. There's no excuse at all for either Dabi or Enji's actions, but there's certainly logical reasons behind it.

Rei acknowledging the part she played in creating Dabi is also important to note. She may not have taken an active role in it like Enji, but she still complied with Enji's wishes, knowing full well what it would do to Touya. She was, for all intents and purposes, an accomplice.

This also explains why Natsuo sees Enji as a stranger - he was just the intermediate step before Shoto came along and at that point Enji's obsession was already beginning to take over, so he was probably paid the least amount of attention of all his siblings

The summary though is that no one in this family is guiltless other than the younger 3 siblings

Anyway, 10/10 Todofam chapter to the surprise of no one

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