I don’t know if it’s my own bias but hearing endeavor say that he wanted to stop training touya because he was injuring himself with his quirk and didn’t want to see him hurt sounded hypocritical or fake considering this is the same man who beat up a 5 year old shouto and his wife. He didn’t seem to have a problem with his son getting injured. This may be the ‘retcon’ some fans think horikoshi is doing trying to backtrack some of endeavor’s abusive actions.
It’s confusing to me that this man was apparently worried about his son’s health and that’s why he stopped training him and supposedly had more kids, but he also still wanted to surpass all might with his children, so it wasn’t JUST to convince touya to give up. And the dialogue in this flashback makes me question another flashback scene before where endeavor says it was rei’s idea to have more kids, but this flashback seems to suggest she was against having more kids because she knew touya would understand why.
I don’t know if its my own bias that I can’t get over what he did to shoto as a child and maybe I can’t accept he was never that bad before, as endeavor fans seem to suggest.
Do you feel it’s odd that endeavor refused to train touya because of his burns, but he eventually would beat up shouto and his wife? Or maybe despite shouto being the golden child with the perfect quirk, touya was endeavor’s favorite and that’s why he seemed more cautious with his burns and wanted to protect him? Sorry this is long or if you’ve answered it before
No worries! Well...
I guess my opinion on The Great Retcon Debate is that in a weekly manga, to present things one way and then switch and switch and switch again is messy execution at best, especially when the manga as a whole isn’t great with nuance. When you're dealing with such sensitive subject matter, it can be hurtful to readers. I wish people defensive about the retcon debate would acknowledge this, even if they don’t agree with it.
However, remember how Horikoshi stated he once didn’t intend to write sympathetic villains and I’ve expressed my doubts because Shigaraki was framed as sympathetic from chapter 20ish? One example of a character where I do wonder is Endeavor. He was framed as a monster in the beginning with very little nuance (seriously, there is no redemptive framing around him in the sports festival arc).
It may not be an intentional retcon (meaning for all we know Hori’s plans were always the same, but the only way we know that is through the work), but either way I think I’d call it a writing flaw exacerbated by the weekly schedule--a flaw that comes across as, well, a retcon.
Then we have the Pro-Hero Arc and beyond, where Endeavor basically stepped into the role of protagonist of the Todoroki subplot, widely a fan-favorite subplot. People are always eager to excuse protagonist flaws (see Eren Jaeger in SnK) and reluctant to consider that the narrative might be criticizing them.
I think the fandom divide fixates too much on the initial framing or too much on the framing Pro-Hero Arc and beyond. This is exacerbated by the fact that sometimes we still get the initial framing, like in the Joint Training Arc and when Enji was mad that Deku and Bakugou were also interns; hence what I said in the first paragraph about switching framing.
(I mean, the latter’s maybe intended to be humor, but is it really the right place for that humor given the past framing and his storyline? Imo it’s something that’s fair to critique.)
Most likely we’re supposed to meld the framings together when predicting where the story might go (people can have their own individual reactions to his arc of course), but it’d be better if the story melded them together on its own (I think it’s starting to with these recent chapters). However, it would have been much better written if framed that way initially, but I think assuming Enji won’t actually complete a redemption arc is misreading. Whether or not it’s satisfying or tasteful, though, is entirely up to the reader.
This chapter itself did not strike me as a retcon. I liked it. It is abundantly clear Enji is at fault for this situation, and people refusing to acknowledge that are ignorant and misreading themselves (and, in the case of many given their behavior, fandom bullies themselves; I wonder what they see in Enji). But this isn’t unique to BNHA; in every fandom I’ve ever been in, abusers or neglectful parents get defended before their victims.
As for Enji and the disconnect, I think it’s an example of the sunk-cost fallacy as written by @thekingofwinter here. People change, and don’t, and abuse usually escalates, so this chapter’s expanding on the situation doesn’t strike me as terribly odd.
I do not personally think it is a retcon that Enji stated Rei wanted Fuyumi. The implication is that Fuyumi and Touya are close in age--but the age gap between Fuyumi and Natsuo and then Natsuo and Shouto is 3-4 years (when quirks manifest).
Enji’s narration is not reliable, so he only told us that glimpse, and now we’re seeing that there was a lot more to it than he let on. I think this is a decent way to show the lack of reliability in his narration. However, what I said earlier still stands: given the subject matter, this may not be the best place or the best way to convey things and is subject to individual opinion.
