How Loneliness Corrupts: Endeavor
[Repost from my Twitter with some fixes/additional thoughts!]
I've seen people make fun of Endeavor, his trauma and isolation, so I want to very surface-level explore his loneliness because I think his story is fascinating and I want to delve into it.
A lot of characters in MHA have lost people of importance to them that changed their entire lives, but Enji stands out as the only one to truly have no one, even when surrounded by people. He and All Might both lost their parents and were orphans by at least middle school, potentially earlier (we know nothing of Enji's mother, so I'm just assuming she's dead/not in the picture).
Both felt weak, helpless and desired to do something about it, but the difference is that Toshinori eventually had Nana and Gran Torino (the latter being essential to him picking himself back up after Nana's death). Then he had David, Melisssa, Sir Nighteye, Tsukauchi and so on who knew him and his situation personally. He had true friends.
Enji, as far as we know, has never had that sort of support since his father's death. Only Recovery Girl mentions his potential self-destructive nature in one of the novels (before Shoto interrupts her, I get it but how dare you, I need lore), but even then, she’s conversational about it, not concerned or worried. For years, no authority figure has taken teen Enji under their wing nor noticed his spiraling nature (He had no Aizawa, Best Jeanist or Gang Orca to keep him in line), and even as a Pro-Hero, there’s no sign of personal camaraderie before Hawks despite the Flaming Sidekickers being so loyal, casual and comfortable around him; they still don’t know Enji Todoroki.
Aizawa and Yamada lost Oboro, and Aizawa was on a self-destructive spiral, but Yamada was there to hold him together, and having Aizawa by his side kept Yamada from cracking. They went through a similar trauma as Enji, but they had each other (plus Midnight) and as standoffish as Aizawa was, he always had people checking up on him personally. We see that a lot in Vigilantes (which I have a lot of nitpicks when it comes to characterisation, but it's all we have)
We don’t know if Enji had family outside of his father (I’m assuming he didn’t), and there’s no mention of friends, teachers or staff being there to check up on him and make sure he was alright after his father’s death. We don’t know how old he was, but he looks 10-13. A preteen boy saw his father die; nobody was there to help him grieve, he blamed his father's weakness and his own for his father's death. Enji, as a child, had to save himself and give himself a purpose to survive, and that took form in hating his own weakness and striving to be the strongest (or, later on, hating himself as a whole and focusing solely on making Shoto stronger...and then after that the first way he thinks on how to atone is to build a new house for his family and isolate himself in the old one...old habits ig)
(Also, while I interpret the death differently in my stories, the fact that Enji saw his father's corpse as 'scorched lumps of burning flesh', his reaction/disgust/horror at Touya burning himself sure is...uhuh. That's some unpacked PTSD you got there, Enji.)
He had no mentor, no individual idol, no friends and no family as far as Horikoshi has told us, he seemingly raised himself and put all his life into training to being a hero that would prevent situations like his to happen again. Seeing his solved cases record, Endeavor has succeeded in this completely, but untreated, unsupported and isolated Enji Todoroki failed, tragically and horrifically.
Enji is an outcome of the ‘bystander effect’ that is criticised all throughout the series, and only thirty-something years later when his obsession (All Might) retired and they finally had a normal talk (don't make me start on how Enji never cared about getting the n1 title, he wanted to be the strongest), and Hawks becomes his friend, the sole person to actually make an effort to understand and reach out to him (cough save him cough), does Enji start being able to heal from his lifelong grief that wasn’t his fault, and start to work towards atonement for the grief and hurt that is his fault.
Despite everything, Enji didn’t start off with the intent to hurt anyone, in fact, the very opposite, which is why his story is so wonderfully tragic to me. He’s a deeply traumatized character whose mental health spiraled to irrationality and because he had no idea how to deal with it, he ran away and blamed everyone around him instead while despising himself, like a villain (DON'T MAKE ME START ON THOSE PARALLELS, I WILL LOSE MY MIND). But the difference between him and the actual villains is that he takes responsibility, is able to self-reflect, dedicates his life to taking the blame so that his family is left alone and actually changes for the better because that's the right thing to do. That's what he should do, and he does. He stops running away (something all the Todoroki do, and something they all stop doing to face Dabi together)
Only at the very end of his story, when the absolute worst of himself has been shown to everyone, when he's proven to be working towards atonement and change, is Enji finally not alone. Endeavor, his coping mechanism, needed to "die", he needed to lose everything to finally face himself as Enji Todoroki, his grief, his self-hatred and his many weaknesses. And when the dust settled, he might have accepted Touya's dance in hell, but he's not alone anymore.
There's A LOT I could say, but my endpoint is that seriously (not jokingly/teasing/banter) mocking his character takes away from the overall tragedy and point of MHA as a whole. I'll end it on that.
(I AM GOING TO GO INSANE WITH THE ENDMIGHT PARALLELS RAAAAAH)
