Corruption begins at home— because home is the first place Power is given, to abuse it or to shape it.
I'm sitting in a corner, hugging my knees and thinking about how powerless and helpless little Tenko Shimura must've felt when he was relentlessly, consistently abused by his own father....
while everyone else only watched.
The comparison between Tenko and Izuku is popular with how Izuku receives loves and emotional availablity when his family discovered that he was quirkless.
But don't you think both Shimura's and Todoroki's family are parallels too, even more than Tenko-Izuku?
One family stood on the sidelines...a mother and grandparents who couldn't do anything but look away, a sister who betrays in fear of punishment...and little Hana watches the adults in the family actively avoid the wrath of their oppressors, now internalizes silence and avoidance as safety.
"If I say nothing, maybe I’ll be safe. If I give them what they want, maybe I’ll be spared.”
Embedded, in the child's neural pathways:
Fawn and Freeze.
This is a common trauma response, especially when the family seems to be financially dependent on the Opressor— Tenko's father.
A rich business man at a young age.
Another family, on the other hand... actively protects and grieves each other, each family member had their own role, even to defend the oppressor, Endeavour himself.
FIGHT AND FLIGHT.
Fuyumi who yearns for repair and redemption.
Natsuo who holds Endeavour accountable.
Rei who claims her voice.
Shoto.... we have watched little Shoto defend his mother, punching his tiny fists in the air to create a distance between his mother and father.
(We all hear the joke: "He's punching the air."
But Shoto knows Endeavour would fear accidentally harming his prize and weapon more than harming his wife on purpose.
Shoto Todoroki at age 5, was already rather emotionally intelligent given how he detaches himself from trauma and intellectualize it as a coping mechanism.)
And Toya...Oh, Toya Todorki. The Icarus, the Lucifer, the reminder of grief, regret and karmic backlash. If I were to write about him, it'll overshadow Shimura's analysis.
But here's the conclusion:
The Todoroki family doesn't look away. They confront.
Seems like trauma is shaped by the family's collective trauma response, doesn't it? It creates a whole different dynamic and structure of identity, doesn't it?
Had the Shimura family dynamic been a little different, would Tenko even become Shigaraki in the end?
AFO's plans rely simply on the nature of others, it seems like. The cause-effect that he predicts rather than direct intervention.
Would that just not prove him right?
Had the old lady on the streets helped Tenko when he was alone and scared, had the heroes come to his rescue...would Tenko have a chance at being a child instead of doomed to be a calamity?
It is as if he knows, after all, everything falls into place as it should've happened. Everyone is reacting the way they are meant to. Their nature, compels them to.
With strong principles of cause-effect and knowledge of everyone's past, perhaps AFO had gambled the entire future as a fatalist manipulator with pure determinism.
All For One doesn’t play god.
He plays odds. A calculated nihilist betting on decay