This is the exact reason I made this gifset. I was rewatching the movie with my boyfriend last night, and I was talking to him about this, and I realized even though I had loved this parallel, I had never giffed it. I’m going to add a few more notes to what said above:
Confirmation of Erik’s lack of honesty about how he truly feels about the loss of his father can be found in the fact that once the movie shifts from child Erik to adult Erik again, he’s shown with a tear running through his face. Because the childish mask of denial is off.
Erik being tied to the past in constrast with T’Challa, I believe you can also see this with the setting. T’Challa immediately steps into the field of the ancestral plane, free of his past even if not indifferent to the pain. Erik is stuck in the apartment in California. He cannot get into the plane, because he is trapped inside the past, his anger feeds on his personal pain more than his ideals.
The movie raises the question of what a good father does. At first you’re left to wonder “is it true what T’Chaka says? That a father who hasn’t prepared his son to be without him has failed as a father?”. You’re only getting an answer an hour later or so. Erik’s father in tears says “Well, look at what I have done”.