Hi, I know you really like Shouto, but I am wondering if you think his story and him overall is objectively well written, and where would you put him among not just MHA characters but compared it to general fiction, writing wise, and development wise. I personally think there could be things that make his development and personality more prominent and make his character stand out more, nevertheless I still think he is above average when I read the story again and again and see the nuances, tiny but important details. It is sad to see when it's MHA, people assume the character is less valuable in every way no matter what manga/show you are comparing it to.
I think people often confuse things like power, fight feats, art panels, fandom appeal, popularity when they think about "well-written". For example, many people think Mirko is "well-written", when she's more well-designed and has flashy fight moments. Several, more underrated female characters are better written than her.
When I think about "well-written", I think about these things:
What is the overall narrative role of the character in the story?
How well and consistently are the character's themes represented throughout the story and how do they connect to the "main plot"?
Does the character have an arc? How is the arc progressed?
Does the character have well developed relationships and dynamics with others?
Does the character get meaningful conflicts and challenges to his/her worldview and grow from these?
So if you translate this to Shouto:
Shouto is a "bridge" character. Because of his dual design, he connects well the different worlds / ideas in the story. He's got the genetic lottery / strong potential like Bakugou, but he's also an abuse victim like Izuku. His personal history and family drama connects the world of pro heroes to UA Class A. He's foiling with Iida on family legacy. He represents change, healing and 2nd chances. The Todoroki family is a microcosm of what is happening in the wider hero society and Shouto is the protagonist of the story, perfectly placed to be able to understand the pov of the heroes and of the family villain, Toya.
In the overall plot, the Todoroki plot becomes prominent in the SF arc and Shouto's part is "frontloaded". We learn his backstory before we know much about Endeavor or Dabi. However, even if his biggest moments come early, Shouto keeps growing. His quirk growth is tied to his emotional healing. Every time he takes a step towards overcoming trauma, he "unlocks" something new in his quirk. Taking steps towards his different family members, peaks in Phosphor which is narratively a perfect culmination of his quirk and journey. But his other themes - figuring out who he wants to be, claiming a part of All Might's legacy, the importance of being authentic, etc. also get important beats throughout the story.
Shouto's arc is foremost a healing journey. It's about overcoming / letting go of his well-justified negative emotions and pour his energy into building bridges with his family and making friends. The two worlds interplay well. The friends Shouto makes remain relevant in saving his family (Bakugou saving Natsuo, Iida taking him to Gunga, etc.), but the steps he takes towards his family also benefit his friends (most notably with Bakugou and Deku interning with Endeavor and learning things from him). I also like that his arc is not linear. He takes steps back (provisional license, JTA), but he keeps growing from his mistakes / failures. His growth as a hero is interwoven with his growth as a person, a son, a brother, a friend.
Shouto has actually a really wide circle of important and meaningful interactions. He has a distinct dynamic with every member of his family. We know more about the Todorokis than any other character's family and Endeavor and Dabi are also well-developed characters. He's most prominent friends are important Class A members (Deku, Bakugou, Iida), and he has good moments with a number of others, notably, Momo, Sero and Kirishima. He's the bridge character between UA and Shiketsu (Inasa). He's got a couple of good scenes with All Might. So he is well built into the core of the story, with diverse and interesting interactions and dynamics.
Shouto is challenged a lot. He is allowed to be wrong, fail, learn, get up and try again, which is crucial for a well-written character. His view of his own quirk and overall goal is challenged by Izuku. His confrontation with Bakugou brings out his flaw of relative aimlessness compared to his main rival. His repeated confrontations with his father force him to learn to see Endeavor as a complex human being and also to try to sift through the bits of his inheritance he wants to keep. The Stain fight gives him an early reality check on relying too much on his quirk. His confrontation with Inasa is crucial in understanding that to become a hero, he needs to process his trauma. The first family dinner allows him to connect later with Natsuo. Tetsu pushes him into a corner from which he learns flashfire and understands why he wants to be strong (to be reassuring). Failing to win his fight make him go for a 2nd internship with Endeavor and stand up for himself and lay down clear boundaries. His repeated confrontations with Touya give him the perspective of wanting to save his family, which helps him unlock his full power in Phosphor.
Overall, I think Shouto is one of the best and most consistently written characters in the manga. I think he's a bit underrated, because a lot of people think of redemption arcs when they think of a well-written character. But all kinds of arcs can be well-written and I feel like Shouto's is quite unique in this kind of medium with how much attention it's given and how well it ties in with his themes.
I mean people may not connect with his character more because he's relatively quiet, plain in tastes, doesn't get the flashiest fights, etc.
I get that it's not everyone's cup of tea, but his story is objectively a well-rounded part of the manga, and I think Shouto's endgame is one of the best parts of the final arc, where all previous threads came together quite satisfyingly, without it needing a lot of explanations.
There are of course parts where Shouto, because in the end he's not the MC, got shoved off to the side, where I expected more. This came mostly in the post-Dabi reveal era, where I think if Hori wasn't in a hurry to cut the story short, we would have had a proper fall-out for Shouto for the scandal, along the lines of what Bakugou got post-Kamino. A kind of emotional peak / release. But post-war, Hori dropped the ball on everyone, I think including Deku (despite having his solo arc).
Now, I don't read a lot of manga, so I can't really judge that well, but I think Shouto is one of the best-written characters of his own kind. If you think wider literature - I mean Horikoshi's writing is decently entertaining and his art is very pleasing, but it's not high literature. I think he excels in character design and in playing with the tropes of shonen. But when he tries to tackle more complex issues, those tend to fall flat. Actually, I think the Todoroki plot is one of the few places, where he does a fairly good job of showing nuances of abuse, trauma, victim responses, but I think it's better written in Acts 1 and 2 than in Act 3.
You don’t hafta do a long post about it with details or anything (okay, point of fact: you don’t hafta do anything at all, of course), but out of curiousity, to complete our main trio, do you have a enneagram type for Shouto too?
unfortunately I don't know how to do anything other than long posts sob. but that's okay because Shouto deserves one too.
reference links:
explanation of what the Enneagram System is
Deku's Enneagram post -- type Two (the Helper)
Katsuki's Enneagram post -- type Eight (the Challenger)
Shouto is a difficult one for me to narrow down, because a lot of his personality/identity is ironically wrapped up in his lack of an identity thanks to his upbringing as his dad's perfect creation and all that. that said, the fact that he struggles with figuring out who he is and who he wants to be is a big clue in and of itself. I kind of went back and forth between type Nine (which is my own type) and type Four for him, but eventually I settled on type Four -- the Individualist.
Type Four in Brief
Fours are self-aware, sensitive, and reserved. They are emotionally honest, creative, and personal, but can also be moody and self-conscious. Withholding themselves from others due to feeling vulnerable and defective, they can also feel disdainful and exempt from ordinary ways of living. They typically have problems with melancholy, self-indulgence, and self-pity. At their Best: inspired and highly creative, they are able to renew themselves and transform their experiences.
Basic Fear: That they have no identity or personal significance
Basic Desire: To find themselves and their significance (to create an identity)
Key Motivations: Want to express themselves and their individuality, to create and surround themselves with beauty, to maintain certain moods and feelings, to withdraw to protect their self-image, to take care of emotional needs before attending to anything else, to attract a "rescuer."
that last part instantly made me think of Deku, ngl. anyway, so while this type doesn't completely fit him like a glove in the same way that Katsuki somehow embodies every single aspect of a type Eight, I think the basic fears and desires check out, and a lot of the descriptions ring true as well. Shouto's dream is to become a hero who reassures others, and I think one of the most important things he wants to reassure people of is that they can be whoever they want to be. All Might inspired him in that exact same way, and I think that's the image of a hero that he holds in his mind now.
I'm not gonna quote the entire profile here, but I'll post the stuff that strikes me as important, as well as highlighting the parts that give me the biggest Shouto vibes.
We have named this type "The Individualist" because Fours maintain their identity by seeing themselves as fundamentally different from others. Fours feel that they are unlike other human beings, and consequently, that no one can understand them or love them adequately. They often see themselves as uniquely talented, possessing special, one-of-a-kind gifts, but also as uniquely disadvantaged or flawed. More than any other type, Fours are acutely aware of and focused on their personal differences and deficiencies.
Shouto is kind of an interesting case, because he absolutely does see himself as standing apart from most other people -- but that's because he was literally raised to do exactly that. he was cut off from contact with peers and even with his own siblings from a very early age, and repeatedly told that he was special and important, which he ironically came to resent (unlike Katsuki whose ego got puffed up on that same type of praise during his own formative years).
Healthy Fours are honest with themselves: they own all of their feelings and can look at their motives, contradictions, and emotional conflicts without denying or whitewashing them. They may not necessarily like what they discover, but they do not try to rationalize their states, nor do they try to hide them from themselves or others. They are not afraid to see themselves “warts and all.” Healthy Fours are willing to reveal highly personal and potentially shameful things about themselves because they are determined to understand the truth of their experience—so that they can discover who they are and come to terms with their emotional history. This ability also enables Fours to endure suffering with a quiet strength. Their familiarity with their own darker nature makes it easier for them to process painful experiences that might overwhelm other types.
this is spot on for a kid that randomly took Deku aside during the Sports Festival and casually dumped his entire traumatic backstory on him without any prompting whatsoever lmao. Shouto really doesn't hold back or hide anything about himself, despite him being pretty emotionally reserved. the whole "quiet strength" part there is also quintessential Shouto.
Nevertheless, Fours often report that they feel they are missing something in themselves, although they may have difficulty identifying exactly what that “something” is. Is it will power? Social ease? Self-confidence? Emotional tranquility?—all of which they see in others, seemingly in abundance. Given time and sufficient perspective, Fours generally recognize that they are unsure about aspects of their self-image—their personality or ego-structure itself. They feel that they lack a clear and stable identity, particularly a social persona that they feel comfortable with.
again, all of this reads very true to me. the biggest reason why Shouto doesn't really know who he is is because he spent so much of his childhood focusing solely on not becoming his dad. he has a very clear idea of who he does not want to be, but isn't nearly as sure of who he is and who he wants to become. I think he's somewhat envious of people like Deku and Katsuki whose personalities and goals are so clearly defined in comparison to his own.
While it is true that Fours often feel different from others, they do not really want to be alone. They may feel socially awkward or self-conscious, but they deeply wish to connect with people who understand them and their feelings. The “romantics” of the Enneagram, they long for someone to come into their lives and appreciate the secret self that they have privately nurtured and hidden from the world. If, over time, such validation remains out of reach, Fours begin to build their identity around how unlike everyone else they are. The outsider therefore comforts herself by becoming an insistent individualist: everything must be done on her own, in her own way, on her own terms. Fours’ mantra becomes “I am myself. Nobody understands me. I am different and special,” while they secretly wish they could enjoy the easiness and confidence that others seem to enjoy.
shades of Earlyroki towards the end of that paragraph there lol. again, that's not to say he has an inflated ego, though -- rather, he deeply resents the fact that he's so different from everyone else around him. his time at U.A. has done wonders for him in terms of him finally getting the chance to make friends who understand and accept him. he's so much happier and more at ease with himself now thanks to that support and acceptance.
One of the biggest challenges Fours face is learning to let go of feelings from the past; they tend to nurse wounds and hold onto negative feelings about those who have hurt them. Indeed, Fours can become so attached to longing and disappointment that they are unable to recognize the many treasures in their lives.
lmao. not that you can blame him in the slightest in his case.
so for the Levels of Development section, I'm just going to post all of them and then we can briefly talk about his whole character journey such as it is.
Type Four—Levels of Development
Healthy Levels
Level 1 (At Their Best): Profoundly creative, expressing the personal and the universal, possibly in a work of art. Inspired, self-renewing and regenerating: able to transform all their experiences into something valuable: self-creative.
Level 2: Self-aware, introspective, on the "search for self," aware of feelings and inner impulses. Sensitive and intuitive both to self and others: gentle, tactful, compassionate.
Level 3: Highly personal, individualistic, "true to self." Self-revealing, emotionally honest, humane. Ironic view of self and life: can be serious and funny, vulnerable and emotionally strong.
Average Levels
Level 4: Take an artistic, romantic orientation to life, creating a beautiful, aesthetic environment to cultivate and prolong personal feelings. Heighten reality through fantasy, passionate feelings, and the imagination.
Level 5: To stay in touch with feelings, they interiorize everything, taking everything personally, but become self-absorbed and introverted, moody and hypersensitive, shy and self-conscious, unable to be spontaneous or to "get out of themselves." Stay withdrawn to protect their self-image and to buy time to sort out feelings.
Level 6: Gradually think that they are different from others, and feel that they are exempt from living as everyone else does. They become melancholy dreamers, disdainful, decadent, and sensual, living in a fantasy world. Self-pity and envy of others leads to self-indulgence, and to becoming increasingly impractical, unproductive, effete, and precious.
Unhealthy Levels
Level 7: When dreams fail, become self-inhibiting and angry at self, depressed and alienated from self and others, blocked and emotionally paralyzed. Ashamed of self, fatigued and unable to function.
Level 8: Tormented by delusional self-contempt, self-reproaches, self-hatred, and morbid thoughts: everything is a source of torment. Blaming others, they drive away anyone who tries to help them.
Level 9: Despairing, feel hopeless and become self-destructive, possibly abusing alcohol or drugs to escape. In the extreme: emotional breakdown or suicide is likely. Generally corresponds to the Avoidant, Depressive, and Narcissistic personality disorders.
okay, so! my takeaways from this:
Earlyroki strikes me as having a lot of the level 7 and 8 stuff going on. especially the part about him being self-inhibiting. he literally refused to use his own quirk because he hated that part of himself. and obviously he had a ton of self-esteem and self-contempt issues, mostly stemming from the subconscious fear that he has too much of his dad in him and will turn out to be like him somehow (hence why he became so obsessed with rejecting all of the Endeavor-related parts of himself). I'm sure Rei's breakdown didn't really help matters here (not that it was her fault, but that only added to his subconscious hatred of himself and his fear of being contaminated by his father somehow).
pretty much none of the Average Levels stuff applies to him at all lol. Deku's talk no jutsu was so effective it immediately catapulted Shouto all the way from levels 7-8 to levels 2-3. small wonder that Shouto admires him so much. sacrificed all his fingers for his friend's character development.
anyway so yeah, I think levels 2 and 3 are basically where he's at now. out of all the main characters in BnHA I feel like Shouto is the one most in touch with his feelings. and the more at ease with himself he is, the more his true nature reveals itself and we see how insightful and compassionate he is. he's a good egg.
should I post some of the compatibility stuff with other types?? this post is already so long as it is but I can't help myself lol. okay, so Deku first.
This can be a very warm, even passionate, couple when both parties continue to share their feelings openly together. Both are seeking warmth and connection, and both are willing to provide it when they are healthy. Hence, once they have gotten over the initial hurdles of intimacy, Enneagram Twos and Fours can be a safe place for each to share their hopes, fears, and insecurities. They can be good medicine for each other: Twos contribute sociability and energy, giving Fours the confidence to interact more easily with others. Twos are warm, outgoing, thoughtful and considerate, generous, and encouraging. Twos are also practical and action-oriented, willing to pitch in where needed and to do the things that need to be done, no matter how unpleasant or unglamorous.
this is such a healthy and therapeutic relationship for them. you love to see it.
and then on the other side of things we have Katsuki.
This can be one of the most creative relationship couplings, although it is also one of the most inherently volatile. Both Enneagram Fours and Eights are intense and have strong emotional responses; both seek to get a reaction from the other, and both can be dominating of their environments—Eights are socially dominant, Fours are emotionally dominant. Both types bring passion, intensity, energy, and deep (often unconscious) feelings to all aspects of the relationship. They are attracted to each other's storminess, the other's vulnerability, and the other's "hidden" qualities: neither is what they seem to be on the surface. Both types are also highly intuitive—Fours by being self-aware and knowledgeable about how they are feeling, and Eights with their intuition about external phenomena, often with an extremely accurate insight about the potentials and possibilities exhibited by others. Because of their passionate natures, both types can become impulsive and reckless, taking extreme risks for love of thrills or for the sensation of being alive—and this can be tremendously exciting to the other. But there are trade-offs: Fours tend to depend on the Eight's practicality and ability to protect and provide for them, whereas Eights tend to depend on the Four's sensitivity and mysterious sense of challenge—the Four's emotional life and heart may be one world that the Eight cannot easily conquer.
On the other hand, Fours see strength, charisma, and solidity in Eights. Both feel that the other can meet their intensity—that the other will not be boring or non-responsive to them. They make each other feel more alive—something that both want. Intensity, vitality, passion, and immediacy are the emotional hallmarks of this couple, and they relate to each other (and to others in their world) from an unusually high emotional pitch—there is always something happening in their relationship, and they like it this way.
some TodoBaku manifesto shit right here lol. love the descriptions of what they each admire and are attracted to in the other, because I think that's right on the money. Katsuki gets suckered in by Shouto's emotional honesty like the tsundere he is, and is excited by the thrill of rivalry with him. and meanwhile Shouto sees the whole picture of Katsuki and isn't fooled at all by his loud angry front because he can clearly see of the good traits that Katsuki makes such an effort to hide -- particularly his focus and determination, which I think Shouto especially admires because he struggled for a long time with having such a clear focus himself.
anyway so yeah! while a lot of the "artistic" stuff doesn't necessarily apply here because he is a character in a shounen superhero manga, I really do feel like this type fits him pretty well overall. if anyone else has any thoughts on this please feel free to chime in, this is basically my favorite type of discussion lol.
I know alot of people say Enji losing his Quirk to AFO will take away the importance from his choice in trying to be a better person and he will instead be forced into it.
The problem is that's NOT TRUE
It is a recurring theme throughout MHA that when backed into difficult situations true heroes emerge
Best example is the first chapters where Izuku saves Bakugo from the sludge monster without the use of the quirk.
Whether he loses his Quirk or not doesn't matter but how he deals with it, and Endeavor has been backed into corners before and he has always reacted the same way with selfishness, anger and complete disregard for others except his own needs and wants.
So in a scenario where Endeavor loses his Quirk to AFO when Endeavor will be backed into a corner again he can either choose to runaway on his no Quirk excuse or choose to FINALLY CONFRONT TOUYA. Remember Endeavor is a person who relied too much on physical and overall Quirk strength and believed those attributes make a hero.
When backed into a corner people reveal who they are and Endeavor has shown time and time again he'll always make an excuse for himself QUIRK OR NO QUIRK.
So yeah I hope he loses his Quirk tbh maybe it'll FINALLY make him realize that strength doesn't make a hero.
so in light of recent bnha events, i wanted to write up a real quick thing on unreliable narrators based on some things i’ve seen going around and some stuff from my own experience based on my work with unreliability.
just because someone says something in canon story, doesn’t actual mean that’s exactly how things are. there’s some important factors that play into how much you can trust information from a character.
some of the main ones being:
how old were they?
what circumstances were they in?
could they be reliably asked to remember this event?
how much information were they privy too and how much are they assuming?
do they have a reason to lie?
let’s look at shouto for example:
shouto is the youngest of four. he is probably about 9 or so years younger than his eldest sibling. that means there was a lot of time before him for family relationships to strengthen or in this case deteriorate.
additionally shouto went through some pretty severe trauma when he was very young. reliably we know he was trained to the point of throwing up at five years old, witnessed his mother’s mental state deteriorate and be abused by his father, walked in on his mother having a severe mental breakdown overhearing her talking about his left side being unsightly and proceeding to pour boiling water on it, and was kept separated from his siblings with little social contact.
FURTHER, we’ve only ever seen shouto actively place blame on two people. himself and his father. even though it is for very valid reason, we know that at least to start he was more than willing to assume the worst of endeavour.
we also have canonical proof that shouto had suppressed/forgotten important memories of his childhood. so we know his memory might not be the most reliable.
what does all this mean?
shouto is in no way the most reliable narrator to discuss about the todoroki family. while he doesn’t really have any reason to lie about what happened, he was in a position to misinterpret or remember things.
this doesn’t mean he’s wrong. it just means there’s too many blank spots in shouto’s memory and understanding and too much bias for him to be an actively reliable perspective into his family’s situation as a whole.
he can probably pretty accurately speak about his experience, but anything he’s said about his family before he was born can pretty reasonable be called into question.
and you can run down the list of todoroki’s and see that well…none of them are necessarily reliable.
natsuo:
second youngest, most of his memories are from a time that we know was definitively bad
closest with some of the family members who suffered the most
neglected by endeavour, shaping his opinion of endeavour but also not leaving him privy to much info
fuyumi:
her biggest issue is the information she is privy to.
has expressed a very clear desire to mend the family, and does have reason to downplay certain events or moments
she was still a kid when things happened and most of her memories are probably largely tainted by emotion
in general i’d say fuyumi is probably the one of the most reliable of the todoroki’s though.
rei:
suffered severe mental distress
we don’t know much about rei and her experience before shouto which makes it hard to judge how reliable of a narrator she is
enji:
went through at least some period of time where he was a shit father
did have strong emotions and ambition that could have blinded him — but since his atonement arc has started, has very little reason to deviate from the truth
in general though, hate me for saying it, at this point in the story he is probably the most reliable narrator in the todoroki family.
and then of course there’s dabi, which brings us to the whole point of this post.
dabi is probably the most unreliable of all the todoroki’s as a speaker. not only was he a kid when shit went down, he also is the only todoroki who has motive to lie or over-exaggerate events.
dabi’s play right now is to ruin endeavour. and yes, most of what he says probably has some truth involved. but keep in mind dabi is a very biased perspective and is gunning for maximum damage. he wants to destroy endeavour’s legacy (and probably shouto’s by extension). he wants to hit them where it hurts.
which means that any new information dabi gives isn’t automatically what happened. we already know in his grand reveal video he’s willing to bend the truth, remove context and leave out important details (exhibit a — hawks). we should expect that he is doing the same in regards to his story about endeavour. he’s trying to cast endeavour in the worst light possible so he is not revealing anything potentially redeeming about the man.
compare dabi’s story to the flashbacks endeavour has. they are full of contradictions.
so which one do we trust?
if endeavour says one thing and dabi says another — quite frankly, it’s probably more likely that endeavour is telling the truth. even if its not an intentional lie on dabi’s part. dabi’s experience was when he was younger, very emotional charged and in a very negative place. that has probably coloured his perspective of everything.
and as mentioned before, he has very clear reason to not tell the whole truth if it might be able to help endeavour’s case.
on the other hand, especially internally, endeavour has no reason to lie or hide the truth. his whole atonement is about him acknowledging that what he did was wrong. and he has — internally at least. he has acknowledged his faults. and really there’s no motive for him to lie to himself. he was old enough to understand and process his actions. and it wasn’t quite as emotional for him as the kids (who were developing at that time and emotion often would take precedent over fact).
so just keep that in mind as official translations come out and future chapters and more information gets exposed.
dabi wants to paint endeavour in the worst possible light. some of what we know about the todoroki’s come from shouto, who could very well be a very unreliable narrator in that regard. all of what we know about the todoroki’s could be very biased and influenced by their collective awful experiences.
(the follow up to this is that when somebody has an interpretation you don’t entirely agree with — they might not be wrong. there is a lot we don’t know. and a lot that we assume to be true but could very easily be proven false. both dabi and endeavour have done wrong and the story we get might not be 100% accurate. so whether you are pro or anti endeavour — keep unreliability in mind. you can’t necessarily take every character at their word)
Shoto say "let use share the burden" to Izuku in the newest chapter. OSKSJDJJ IM GONNA CRY OMG
It means a lot from a kid that was taught to never accept help from anyone, to be better than others, to become the number one and step on anybody else.
Shoto is here learning what he's gonna need in the future to save his brother. He's angry and frustrated because he wants to be the hero people goes to for help. And there he is, his best friend, not trusting that he is able to help him.
Sadly, Shoto learns with fights or so Horikoshi has showed us so far. Every time he gets a character development is during a fight. So this is the part when he grows to become the person that can save Dabi.
Izuku doesn't want their help, so as Dabi doesn't want to be saved. How is Shoto going to solve this problem? Does he understand that violence is not the answer? Does he know what to say? What to do?
He should step on Izuku's shoes and asks him before anything else. Izuku has a very important piece of information he hasn't shared yet. They can only keep going once they start communicating again, properly.
In order to "share the burden" to become "one burden for them all", they need to understand many things and change their minds, get rid of what they know and get ready to adapt, to accept.
No, hear me out! Doesn’t have to be a florist. Maybe he can work at a coffee shop. Or run a successful YouTube channel or podcast. Or go to college and switch majors seven times until he settles on Communications because you can use it for basically anything, and he’s probably going to end up employed at an animal shelter anyways.
Mostly, I just want him to get out of heroics and explore all the other options that he has in the world.
Todoroki’s interactions with Endeavor after Endeavor’s redemption arc feel to me like they’re heavily tinged with Horikoshi’s personal understanding of morality and what makes a good person. There is not much to address what the events of not only Endeavor’s arc but Todoroki’s whole life mean for Todoroki himself. Todoroki has grown over the course of the story, but he only even opened himself up to the opportunity of growth during the sports festival. He has never, at any point, actually existed fully outside of the scope of Endeavor’s will.
I would actually be quite happy with Todoroki continuing to put himself in situations where he's training with Endeavor and such if the story treated it as something that very much could be a continued source of emotional trauma and an impediment to his recovery, rather than him "overcoming" his trauma in the style of, "Well, I'm still gonna learn from the guy because he's the best of the best and I gotta take advantage of my connections by doing the exact thing he's always wanted me to do: letting him train me to be more like him and a successful hero! This situation is tenable now that he feels bad for his actions, and I'm sure this won't be harmful to my emotional well-being in any way."
It’s not that I want Todoroki to be flipping Endeavor double middle fingers while doing an acrobatic pirouette off the handle. Not doing that is an extremely valid emotional response in as confusing of a situation as the one Todoroki is in. I do hardcore want more canon acknowledgment of the fact that he experienced very serious trauma, is still under his abuser's thumb, and that there is still a lot of recovery-to-be-had and emotional complexity to Todoroki’s situation.
Todoroki attaining heroism through the path set forth for him by Endeavor without having had a chance to process any of his childhood experiences or his relationship with his father can be pragmatic but is also undoubtedly self-destructive.
after the boiling water incident, when did shoto go back to school? how did his teachers react to his injury? they’d obviously ask how it happened right? kids are typically honest (and shoto is honest/blunt if you think about it) so wouldn’t he say something like “oh my mom threw boiling water on my face and now i can’t see her anymore because my dad put her in a mental hospital” ???
and we know that shoto, even at the time of the incident, knew that endeavor had everything to do with his mom snapping. would he tell that to his teachers? if so, did endeavor manage to keep them quiet? how did shoto’s injury go (presumably) unnoticed when he was a child?
i feel like the most realistic/in-character scenario would be that endeavor told shoto’s teachers something along the lines of “i don’t know where [rei’s outburst] came from” or “i didn’t know she was capable of something like that.” like he’d put the blame entirely on her because she wasn’t there to defend herself. then the situation may have been dropped.
if not that — and the teachers did know and didn’t do anything about it — that’s a whole other story. there are three reasons i can think of that would explain their complacency: (1) that endeavor either intentionally or unintentionally threatened them into staying quiet, (2) endeavor bribed them/bought their silence, or (3) the teachers just didn’t give a shit.
either way, it’s fucked up to think about. the todoroki family lore is very depressing.
I've been searching for in depth Todoroki character analysises. Especially with just his personality and how trauma impacted it. Feel like doing one or linking one?
This meta is long overdue, and I’m sorry for the wait. Fair warning: this got really long (6k words long), so make yourself comfortable and grab some popcorn before reading!
Shouto is essentially someone who is struggling with his self-perception. He’s acutely aware that the only reason he was conceived was to fulfil his father’s ambition, and that he was raised as a tool accordingly. As a result, he struggles a lot with identity. What part of himself is really him, and what part of it is the product of his father’s grooming? This is a question that Shouto hasn’t fully found an answer to yet. The entire manga so far details his process of relearning himself, first in opposition to everything his father represents, then by trying to define what his own concept of heroics is. Both ways are flawed, because both coping methods are born out of Shouto’s limited agency.
I’m going to divide this meta into two sections, and try to expand on why that’s the case.
1) Trying to deny Endeavor
Before his quirk manifested, Shouto still had a support system of sorts in place. He lived a (mostly) normal life. He watched heroes on tv and dreamed of becoming one himself, much like the rest of the kids his age. He was able to express his emotions freely, and he didn’t even think of suppressing them. His mother took care of him, loved him and supported his dream.
All of that changed abruptly once Enji decided his quirk was fit for training. Suddenly, Shouto is thrown in a world of violence: he realizes that bad heroes exist. That his father is one of them, because he lashes out at his mother when she tries to defend him. He is told over and over that he needs to be his father’s heir, but if his father is such a violent and horrible person, doesn’t that mean that Enji is trying to make Shouto become a bad hero, too? Shouto refuses this notion, and latches onto his mother for emotional support, because his mother represents stability and kindness where his father is chaos and violence. He decides he doesn’t want to be the kind of hero who hurts innocent people.
Then the kettle incident happens, and Shouto is cut off from his last stable, healthy connection. He’s isolated, lost, hurt. He’s also too young to have developed the emotional tools to process such complex feelings in any healthy way, or to understand fully his situation. All that Shouto, a five year old, can retain from that incident is that his father is a terrible person, and as such, Shouto needs to be the opposite of everything Enji stands for.
But what can Shouto do, realistically? Enji is the patriarch, and within the constraints of their house, his authority is absolute. This is where the concept of agency comes into play.
Agency is defined as a character’s freedom and capacity to live and act in a defined world (e.g. the ability to make choices, act freely, control their lives). Shouto’s agency is limited by Enji’s despotism. He cannot rebel against the training, and he cannot choose a different career, because his father forces both onto him (the latter less so because Shouto wanted to become a hero, but becoming one wasn’t really his choice). Agency is also defined by how a character decides to act when their predicament doesn’t allow much room to wiggle. Shouto decides to be reactive. The only thing Shouto has full control over is his quirk. So he decides to suppress half of it, and to rebel against his father’s authority by rejecting him as a role model.
He blames Enji for what happened, and represses the parts of himself he deems to be the product of Enji’s influence. That’s a very human and realistic response to abuse, by the way. He is a child, and he literally has no other way to oppose his father’s dominance.
In an attempt to deny Enji’s grooming though, Shouto ends up suppressing a part of his identity as well.
Repression is a key concept of psychoanalysis, where it is understood as a defence mechanism that “ensures that what is unacceptable to the conscious mind, and would if recalled arouse anxiety, is prevented from entering into it.”
Shouto does not simply reject his fire side - which is still a part of himself - but he also subconsciously represses the memories of his mother associated with it.
He forgets Rei’s lesson: that he shouldn’t be bound by blood, and that he will be a good hero, as long as he remembers what kind of man he wants to be. That’s likely a result of trauma as well. The last thing his mother saw before she had a breakdown was Shouto’s fire side. And while Shouto outwardly blames his father for the worsening of her health, part of him also subconsciously blames himself.
So the problem with resorting to repression as a coping method is that it alienates part of Shouto’s own identity. Shouto doesn’t perceive his body as his own, but as a mere receptacle: of his father’s ambitions, of his mother’s fears. He is not Shouto, he is the sum of his parents’ quirks.
This mindset is, once again, the result of his father’s abuse. As I explained before, Shouto is acutely aware that he was born for a reason. He knows that his father arranged the marriage and then “trained” him in order to achieve a specific goal. Enji himself diminishes Shouto’s personhood on a constant basis, by reminding him that he cannot have a free will, and by referring to him as livestock.
in order to be a good hero, and thus use his body to its full capacity, then, Shouto thinks he needs to let go of his father’s shadow first and then to set his mother free; he thinks it’s partly his responsibility to do the latter, despite the fact that he literally did nothing wrong, and that the circumstances of her worsening health were entirely out of a five year old’s control.
He thinks he needs to make up to her for his existence, for being born, despite having had no say in his parents’ decision to procreate. Self-blame is also a really common reaction to emotional abuse, but in Shouto’s case it also goes beyond that. Shouto’s self-perception is inextricably tied to his father’s image.
Everything Shouto does, he does in an effort to prove his own personhood in opposition to his dad’s, but he fails, because he doesn’t have the emotional tools to process it in a healthy way.
There’s a point that can be made here about how hero society exacerbated this feeling of being unable to get out of his father’s shadow, too. For the public, he’s Endeavor’s son. Every single one of his accomplishments is praised as a result of Enji’s parenting. I wrote a separate meta on how hero society is hopelessly oblivious about the darkness lurking behind Enji’s training. But, for the sake of this meta, suffices to say that all the constant shallow comparisons to his dad weren’t helpful at all for Shouto’s self-perception. They only made his wish to prove he’s different stronger. More extreme. More desperate.
His fire side then becomes just a physical manifestation of everything Shouto has sworn to himself never to become. When he accidentally summons his flames against Midoriya at the sport festival, he thinks he failed at this; so he pulls Midoriya aside, and tries to explain himself.
Since he once again cannot fully perceive himself as something separate from his father, to explain why he never meant to use his fire, he needs to overshare about his past. He needs to say: this is what my father has done in order to reach the top; I will not do the same because I’m different. He stopped at nothing. I have still a moral code.
In other words: he’s apologizing for using a part of his own power in order to reach his goal, even if he used it on instinct; but if his mind and body didn’t align, it’s because his is a conscious effort to repress part of himself. It’s not natural, because he’s not supposed to suppress part of his dna, part of what makes him Shouto. But the struggle around which Shouto’s character is based is that he can’t think of his fire side as his own, because he subconsciously superimposes Enji onto half of his identity. He alienates himself from his own body, and thus from complete ownership of it.
The symbolism is clear. Shouto wishes to hide away the part of himself he considers ugly. He covers it up, because he doesn’t want it to be seen, but it’s still there, because it’s part of his identity.
This is why repressing it is not going to work. Shouto spends most of his time trying to outrun the expectations that choke him. Trying to become someone else. He largely fails at this, because 1) he can’t ignore that quirks are just another body function, and thus he can’t outrun himself, and 2) he’s still held back by the circumstances that caused his trauma in the first place: his father is still a hero, and he’s still a large influence in Shouto’s life.
The latter point deserves to be expanded on further. There are a number of learned behaviors that Shouto unknowingly acquired from his dad, and a lot of other ways in which Enji’s shitty parenting stunted his growth.
Broadly speaking, a learned behaviour is a skill or an action that is acquired through routine interactions with others, by observing their behaviour and subconsciously or deliberately mimicking it, or by developing reactive behavioural patterns in response to it.
Individualism
Early on in the series, Shouto used to be aloof, distant and overly self-reliant. It’s not a coincidence that the very first arc shows him facing a bunch of villains on his own, and come out of it unscathed. That was both a way to introduce early on Shouto’s coldly analytical, creepily efficient fighting abilities (unnatural skills for a normal 14yo, signs that Shouto wasn’t allowed to have a childhood), as well as a visual way of showing his lone-wolfish attitude.
This is not just a quirky thing he grew past, though. Not even after Midoriya quite literally smashed through his defenses. It’s shown to be an ingrained character flaw Shouto has to actively work to smooth out.
When he’s paired up with Momo against Aizawa, he doesn’t spare a second to consider her own contribution to their team’s strategy, despite noticing that she had something to say.
During the licence exam, he ditches his classmates early on because he considers them an hindrance; they would just get caught in the radius of his ice. He doesn’t think for a second that they might be an asset.
Before entering U.A., he was so focused on his end goal of getting the best results that he didn’t even look at Inasa long enough to retain any memory of him. Worse yet, he completely brushed him off by subconsciously emulating his own father’s cold attitude. In much the same way as Enji is dismissive and rude with others because he can’t see past his nose, Shouto too ends up making a rival out of Inasa without even noticing or caring.
Later on, when he meets Inasa again and doesn’t even recognize him at first, he’s forced to concede the point that he hadn’t even been looking him in the face; Inasa hadn’t even fallen on his radar.
His excessive self-reliance is a result of Enji’s training. It’s reflected in Dabi’s behaviour as well. Both of them are slow to open up to their comrades, and both have been remarked to be the types to act on their own multiple times. This behavior is reflective of Enji’s mindset.
Shouto has been trained to take charge and not rely on others. Even when he’s paired up, he tends to take on leadership positions (cavalry battle, the aforementioned Momo scene) with people gravitating around him less because he’s actually a good leader, and more because he projects an aura of someone who knows what he’s doing.
His aloofness, his excessive self-reliance, his tendency to brush off others, his assumption that he should be on the frontlines… those are all things he internalized because of his father’s own mindset.
Socializing problems
Another way in which Enji negatively influenced Shouto’s growth is on the interpersonal relationship front. Shouto struggles to understand others and to bond with them. At the beginning this was made particularly obvious, but he does show traits of it still.
Early on in the series, Shouto was too tangled into his own issues to relate to others well. Shouto himself acknowledges this. His hatred for his dad made everything else disappear, and sort of gave Shouto tunnel vision.
His lone wolfish attitude that results in the war declaration towards Midoriya is also a learned behaviour from his dad. His father taught him not to rely on others and to consider them all rivals on his way to the top. And at first, Shouto did. Enji’s bad influence is made painfully clear by the fact that Shouto only elected Deku as a rival as soon as he perceived a fraction of All Might’s power in him.
Shouto’s true personality, though, is far from that cold and detached shell that was born out of a need to protect himself, though.
Shouto is a genuinely caring person. He’s not bright on the social front, but he does pick up on a lot of things that most others miss, if it’s something he can relate to. For example, he picked up on Tenya’s mounting hatred for Stain, and how it could’ve made him lash out violently if left unchecked, when everyone else only noticed something off in his behaviour.
Shouto is essentially a person who is strongly motivated by his emotions. He’s probably one of the most emotional characters of the series, together with Shigaraki; but just like Shig, he isn’t fully in touch with his feelings.
Shouto feels really strongly about a lot of things. Even his cold and aloof persona is a result of this. It’s not that he was actually distant and uncaring and then did a sharp 180° turn and became the mom friend of the dekusquad. Since he never had any emotional stability, since he was denied a healthy way to vent out his negative feelings, or friends and connections to shoulder them with, Shouto’s emotions began to… burst out of him wildly at times, without him knowing how to rein them in.
You could say that he represses and represses until the dam bursts. His cold and aloof persona was just him being unable to see past the overwhelming anger he felt towards his dad. But once Midoriya breaks through his walls and triggers the re-examination of Shouto’s motives, he starts warming up to his classmates. He keeps a close eye on Iida when he thinks he might do something stupid; he starts bantering with Bakugou; he hangs out with everyone for the dorm king competition despite feeling sleepy; he backs up Mina’s proposal for the culture festival and suggests a solution that will make every party happy.
The manga details Shouto’s growth as both a process of relearning himself, and of learning how to connect with others. He attempts the latter a lot, but in doing so he often encounters the struggle of not really knowing how to relate to people or form meaningful relationships.
It was easier for him to reach out to Iida because he saw his own past self in him; so he knew what kind of words were most likely to get to Iida while his mind was clouded by anger and despair. With Deku, it was less his choice to become friends, and more of a given: Deku basically planted himself in Shouto’s close circle, and refused to leave. Plus his connection with Deku was also sealed by the fact that Deku unknowingly repeated Rei’s words to him.
So. Connection through shared understanding is something Shouto can do. But connecting in general, and processing social situations, don’t seem to come easy to him.
Times and times again, Shouto is shown not to be able to pick up social and situational cues. He takes a lot of things literally, missing out on the intended meanings. I see a lot of people calling him stupid or dorky or even sassy because of the things he says in those panels, but honestly, intelligence doesn’t strike me as a relevant factor. He’s actually a pretty smart child, and not just bright on the academic front (he’s top of his class); he also shows the ability to think on his feet, and under the right circumstances, he picks up on people’s most negative moods.
I wouldn’t say he’s particularly observant, because he does show several signs of being oblivious and kinda in his own bubble. But he’s certainly attentive. He can’t read people well, because he struggles to understand and relate to them, but he does spend a lot of time trying to.
His struggle to pick up situational cues and his interpersonal relationship problems seem then to be the result of the isolation he faced as a child; sometimes children have a hard time picking up social behaviours when they aren’t socialized from a young age.
Shouto wasn’t socialized like a normal child. He was cut off from his mother and his siblings pretty early on, and encouraged to keep all his feelings inside to avoid encountering his father’s ire. His own relationship with his siblings is stunted.
He appears surprised when Natsuo first fights their dad to defend him; he’s still confused when Fuyumi laments that they cannot be a normal family.
I think that Shouto basically doesn’t know how to reach out to people, and his process of learning is akin to that of a child approaching social situations for the first time. His evolving dynamic with Bakugou proves this point. Thanks to the remedial lessons, he spent time with Bakugou, got to know him better, and assumed they were friends as a result. I think he was being completely genuine when he declared that. No teasing, no sassing involved.
You can see how abstract and theoretical his thinking is. It feels like he’s quoting off a rule book. “Friends spend time together”. Bakugou, understandably, notes that (“forced”, from his perspective) proximity alone is not a good way to judge the emotional closeness of two individuals. But Shouto didn’t take that into account. His is a coldly analytical - if surface-level - assessment: Bakugou and I spent a lot of time together lately + spending time together is what friends do + Bakugou banters and roughhouses a lot with people he considers friends (Kirishima and Kaminari for example) + Deku now trusts him = Bakugou and I are friends.
Personally, I think there’s merit in headcanoning him as falling somewhere on the autism spectrum, because a lot of his actions can be read that way. The aforementioned difficulty at figuring out bonds and social relations, his struggle at picking up situational cues, and even his special interest in / obsession with soba. But that might just be me.
Point is, Shouto struggles at relating to people and at forming meaningful relationships, and this might or might not be related to his trauma as well.
Shouto is stubborn and impolite
I already touched on this but to make it more clear… Once Shouto makes up his mind, you literally cannot sway him at all. He stuck to his vendetta for years, despite how hard it must’ve been to talk back to his father. He was ready to throw hands with the chief of police over a divergence in ideals. He got into an argument with Iida because he refused to learn from his near-death experience in Hosu, and decided to embark into another one. He visited his mom against his family’s protests. He tried to out-stubborn Bakugou several times during training camp, when Bakugou refused to be cooperative.
So, one of Shouto’s character traits, and a learned behavior from his dad, is that he’s super stubborn. He doesn’t let anyone boss him around, not even his teachers, not even the law.
Then there’s the impoliteness factor. For one, Shouto never uses honorifics. This can be sometimes indicative of closeness between two friends. In Shouto’s case, it’s more to show that he’s rude. In Japan, not using honorifics when referring to your seniors and to your teachers in particular is considered pretty impolite.
This probably also refers to that time he talked back to Tsuragamae. He wasn’t just aggressive in both his tone and his body language, but he also used an anti-heteromorph slur.
That’s something Dabi has done before as well. Several other meta writers have commented on this parallel, and it’s really likely that both Shouto and Dabi are rude as a result of Enji’s own severe conservatism and brashness.
Mistrust of authority & of lawfulness
I think we have established that Shouto isn’t submissive, and that he’s not afraid of speaking up. He talked back to his abusive father since the tender age of five after all. But it goes beyond that. Shouto also acts out against authority if he thinks they’re wrong.
He was ready to throw hands with the chief of police because Tsuragamae was daring to punish him for doing what Shouto believed to be the right thing.
Shouto, understandably, doesn’t trust authority figures by default. Nor does he blindly believe that the law will always safeguard everyone. And why should he? The law did jack shit to protect him and his family from Enji. Enji who is still an authority of his own, and a symbol of justice amongst others that actually deserve the title.
That is why Shouto embarked in not one, but two unlicensed rescue missions. Shouto has a strong moral compass, and he does believe in justice. However, he also believes that bending the rules a little is something that can be overlooked, if the end result far outweighs the negative consequences. Shouto acts within the law, as a hero (or a trainee one), but he also isn’t afraid of getting around the law when people’s safety is at stake. I guess we could make a point here that human life is worth more to him than rules.
The reason why he gets so mad at Tsuragamae, the literal chief of police, is because Tsuragamae at first made it sound like he prioritized keeping up appearances by choosing to give more value to rules than to human lives. That’s something Shouto cannot condone, and isn’t willing to compromise on. Again, a result of his father’s influence. This time in opposition to Enji’s mindset.
Enji is also someone who managed to keep up appearances despite committing domestic violence for over 22 years. Shouto is understandably pissed at the mere insinuation that people’s safety should come second to lawfulness. On top of that, Enji is a pretty rash hero. Of all the three times we’ve seen him fight, he’s always rushed into battle without a care for his surroundings. He isn’t known for being the type of hero who holds back.
In Hosu, Gran Torino had to contain Endeavor’s damage twice; first, by taking out a noumu before Enji could get to it and roast the two civilians who were too close to the battle zone, and then by shouting at him not to attack Stain and harm Izuku in the process.
During the fight against High End, Enji immediately jumped into fight mode and expected Hawks to rescue hundreds of people by himself.
During the recent fight against the Glass Manipulation villain, he showered burning hot glass on top of the civilians who were unfortunate enough to be underneath him during his attack.
So basically: Enji is the type of hero who cares more about how strong he looks by immediately jumping to the flashy side of a villain attack, the fighting; he has to be held back from directly injuring civilians in the crossfire of hero work. Shouto is instead the type who focuses on people’s safety instead of on overachieving results, and doesn’t trust people who care more about appearances and about keeping a facade of lawfulness than doing the right thing.
Shouto vowed to be the kind of hero that is essentially the very opposite of everything Endeavor is. And while sometimes he succeeds, sometime he also shows the signs of his upbringing.
I think it’s worth mentioning again though that Shouto acts within the restraints of his limited agency. He can’t fully get away from his father, because he’s still a child living under Enji’s roof (even if he’s now at U.A., his dad is still technically his legal guardian). He can’t fully escape the expectations, because for the public he’s still Endeavor’s son.
As a result, a lot of his choices, even the most reactive ones, tend to reflect his limited agency. As that’s the case with a lot of victims of abuse, he’s acutely aware of certain patterns of behaviour he has inherited from his father, but remains oblivious to other internalized behaviours he subconsciously also picked up. That happens because the environment he grew up in was toxic, but it still shaped his way of thinking; so it stands to reason that even when he tries to retain a modicum of freedom, he only knows how to do so by subconsciously using the tools that his father taught him.
But this changed slightly once he finally stopped repressing half of his identity, something that triggered the beginning of his real growth.
2) Trying to learn from / exploit Endeavor
When Deku shouts “It’s your power” at Shouto, something shifts. Those words act as trigger for Shouto to retrieve a long-suppressed memory; with it come a lot of confusion, self doubt, and the first steps towards developing a better coping method for his trauma.
Recovering that memory acts like the cannonball that puts a giant hole in Shouto’s walls. His mother, the one person he thought he’d wronged, the one person towards whom he’d harboured all that repressed guilt, was actually the one to encourage his dream in the first place. Rei had originally acknowledged his personhood, and reassured him that he wouldn’t be the same as his dad.
All that unbalances Shouto. Recovering repressed memories is already a taxing and overwhelming experience in itself, but this particular memory is emotionally charged, incredibly so. It’s a memory that stands against everything Shouto has believed for an entire decade. It’s too much to process at once. Plus he’s in the middle of a fight, so he cannot slow down and sort out his feelings properly.
As a result, his emotions go into overload, and in the exhilaration that follows, Shouto temporarily loses all inhibitions. He uses his fire, because in that moment the feelings of inadequacy and guilt that prompted the repression in the first place are overshadowed by something drastically opposite.
Afterwards, he tells his father that he “forgot about him” because his mother’s acceptance temporarily freed him of the burden of carrying a legacy he’d never chosen to endure. In that moment alone, Shouto’s fire was his own. Shouto was acknowledging his own personhood, and taking ownership of his body, instead of denying and surrendering half of it to the ghost of his father’s shadow.
It was, however, just a temporary freedom.
His issues with self-perception aren’t magically solved when he allows himself to think of his fire as part of himself. Quite the opposite, actually. After thinking of his fire as a destructive and bad thing for so long, he’s unbalanced when he finally has to account for it.
To make peace with it, he needs to understand it. He needs to figure out what it means for him to use that kind of power. He needs to set his own boundaries again. What is allowed and what isn’t? How can he tame it to avoid it getting the better of him and everyone he cares about? And most importantly, is it okay for him to be freed of his father’s legacy, if his mother is still held prisoner by it?
From then on, Shouto’s journey details his process of acceptance towards the other half of his power, and the continued struggles with self-perception that follow.
The first step is, of course, bridging the gap with his mother. Shouto is determined to be the kind of hero who doesn’t leave anyone behind, so he can’t ignore that his mother is still suffering. In other words, his first step towards self-acceptance is proving to himself that Rei had been right about him.
That, despite the shared dna with his father, he can still be a hero who doesn’t hurt others.
It’s barely a step forward, because as you can see, he still thinks he needs to prove something, to catch up to an invisible standard of goodness he somehow still think he fails on because of his blood. But it’s a step forward nonetheless; from then on, his goal becomes less that of proving his father wrong, and more that of proving to himself that he can self-improve.
With this shift in perspective, he’s finally able to realize that his vendetta was giving him tunnel vision. As I mentioned above, he starts a process of relearning himself, and of learning how to relate to others.
Shouto finally internalizes Rei’s words, enough so to try and pass them on to Iida. A good hero is someone who decides to be good. Doing the right thing is a choice.
Since then, Shouto consistently chooses to be the kind of hero who keeps people safe. He rescues Iida from going down the same path of hatred and revenge he used to be stuck on; he makes a valid effort to protect Bakugou against the League, and then embarks on an illegal mission to save him.
The latter in particular is indicative of his newfound resolve. Shouto admits that his motivator to save Bakugou is entirely selfish. That people will not thank them for it. He’s doing this both because it’s the right thing to do, and because he wants to prove to himself that he can.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Hori chose Kirishima and Shouto as the catalysts of the rescue mission. I think that they were meant to foil each other a little there. Kirishima was motivated by his frustration, by his need to prove to himself that he’s changed from his “weak” and cowardly self. He wants to take action because it’s what a hero would do, and because he wants to be true to his ideal of heroism.
Similarly, Shouto is also motivated by frustration and by a need to figure out what being a hero means to him personally. Dabi literally snatched the Bakugou marble from his palm and taunted his efforts.
Not exactly in this words, but I always read this line as Dabi saying “How sad of you to think you can save anyone, Todoroki Shouto.”
I think that’s probably how Shouto read it too. On a symbolic level, there’s another added layer of meaning there. Dabi is someone who uses his firepower freely. He doesn’t hold it back the way Shouto does because he’s afraid of it. How can someone who is still holding back, how can someone who is still prisoner of his own body and of his circumstances be a proper rescue hero?
So, if Hosu was Shouto’s starting line as a person, as someone who can be good despite his blood, Kamino was his starting line as a hero. Someone who rescues and who does the right thing, minimizing casualties and taking rules into account. Avoiding violence when necessary, because heroes know when to pick their battles.
His fire doesn’t doom him anymore but it becomes instrumental in his growth. Using it means accepting that he has a responsibility over others, and that he consciously decides to use his fire for good.
In order to do that, to learn how to use it properly, he then feels like he needs to intern for his dad. We, as readers, are able to discern that he had other options. In terms of field experience, Hawks would’ve been an equally good choice as a mentor. Especially since Hawks and Shouto share basically the same idea of what heroics is about. But, once again, we have to take into account that Shouto’s agency is influenced by his circumstances.
There’s a point that can be made here about how hero society as a whole idealizes a concept of strength that comes pretty close to Enji’s own toxicity. The kind of strength that comes from defeating villains in flashy fights using strong offensive powers. The more Enji defeats big bad scary villains, the more he gets praised by everyone as a true hero deserving of the top spot. Enji is physically strong; his power is flashy and attention-grabbing, and his obsession with victory means that he’s often on the frontlines. Shouto understandably looks up to that kind of experience.
So despite the fact that he had options, he chose Enji based on a cold, purely logical assessment. His father is the most experienced fire-user Shouto knows, and as such, his fine-trained control is something Shouto needs to learn.
Shouto himself acknowledges that his control of his fire is not yet on par with his control of his ice. He’s been suppressing it all this time, so it’s only normal that it wouldn’t come easy to him. There’s psychological as well as physical reasons for that.
Of course it would’ve still been better for his mental health if he chose to distance himself from his father more. But it’s worth noting that Shouto remains clinically analytical of his situation. He doesn’t cut Enji any slack. He’s just there to train his fire side and learn how best to be the kind of hero he wants to be. Forgiveness is nowhere on his radius. Ch 247 made that particularly clear, so I don’t think I need to expand much on that.
He still has no intention of seeing Enji as a role model, or to welcome him back in his life. Shouto is still modeling his hero persona after All Might, because All Might inspired him as a child. At the same time, though, he’s acknowledging Enji’s strength and field experience, because he’s been trained to value those things as necessary skills for a hero. So it’s a complicated issue, really. His wish to exploit his father’s knowledge might be read in a positive light, as him finally standing up for himself in front of a crowd, but also in a negative one, as him still having to prove his personhood in opposition to his dad’s, and him still internalizing a concept of strength that’s biased and unhealthy.
To sum up this mess of a post, I guess I could say that there are a lot of ways in which trauma shaped or otherwise influenced Shouto’s personality. I chose to analyse the ones that are the most blatant for me, but there are probably more. Shouto is a flawed character, so a lot of his choices are also flawed, and rarely as clearcut black and white as he makes them out to be. A lot of his issues have to do with self-perception, and with the lack of understanding and help he had to endure growing up. He’s a beautifully relatable character though, and I really love that complexity of his. I hope my overview managed to do his character justice!
Hit me up if you found this an interesting read (it sure as hell wasn’t easy to write down. His mind is… complicated), or feel free to add up to this post if you have anything to contribute!
