Why does Dabi want to kill Shoto

Kofi Outlaw

12/01/2020 07:16 pm EST

My Hero Academia has an entire war between superheroes and supervillains erupting all over Japan, but right now, fans are on the edge of their seats for some intimate family drama. As the League of Villains collided with No. 1 hero Endeavor and a squad of top heroes (including Izuku Midoriya and Bakugo), Dabi decided the moment was right to reveal a major secret: he's Endeavor's son, Toya Todoroki. Things have been busy as Tomura Shigaraki and his Gigantomachia monster have finally linked up and regrouped, but in the latest My Hero Academia chapter, Dabi finally gets a moment to talk with his little bro, Shoto Todoroki!

Warning: My Hero Academia Chapter 292 SPOILERS Follow!

Best Jeanist arrived on the scene just in time to save Endeavor, Shoto, Bakugo, Deku, and the rest of the heroes from being taken out by Dabi and the League of Villains. Jeanist snares the villains in a massive fabric thread trap, but it's not enough to hold Dabi's flames at bay. Dabi severely burns Big 3 member Nejire Hado, just as an example to Endeavor of the dark legacy he created. Dabi's taunts push Shoto over the edge, causing him to jump in and face his brother, with both the flames and ice necessary to counter Dabi.

Dabi being Dabi, it's not just enough fr him to face-off with Shoto on the battlefield - he has to mind-screw his little brother in the process. Needless to say, Shoto is still reeling from finding out the truth about his family and is getting angrier by the second, as he pieces recent history together - like the Nomu attack on Endeavor that almost killed his third son, Natsu. Shoto tries to remind Dabi of how Natsu was the brother Toya cried to every day - but Dabi is having none of it:

"'Amost killed?' What a shame," Dabi says to Shoto. "That would've really hurt Endeavor."

Shoto loses it at that point, straight-up asking Dabi "Are you freaking insane?!"

Dabi's short answer: yes.

"Sure am, Shoto. See your brother's not so big on 'feelings' anymore. And now I get to kill you after all."

The Dabi vs. Shoto battle is something that My Hero Academia fans have been waiting years for, ever since the Dabi-Todoroki theory first became popular. Now it's about to go down, and like the best duels, it's the personal connection and dialogue between these two firebrand brothers that are as exciting as the action of seeing them go to war.

You can read new My Hero Academia manga chapters FREE Online. Season 5 of the anime is in production.

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Will Shoto kill him? from BokuNoHeroAcademia

Watching Shoto’s fight in the class battle arc animated I noticed for the first time an interesting parallel, between the battle against Tetsu Tetsu and the accompanying flashbacks which is the first time Touya’s name is ever brought up by Endeavor (ch. 202-206) and the flashback chapters explaining what happened to Toya on Sekimoto peak (ch. 301-302). 

In 202, when Tokoyami casually mentions that both he and Shoto are “honor-bound to uphold their reputation” due to being the students of the number one hero, Endeavor and the number two hero, Hawks, he unintentionally triggers a flashback where Shoto remembers how his father forced him to learn his techniques before he was ready. 

This is when Toya gets mentioned for the first time, when Enji reflects that his first student was almost perfect because his fire quirk was stronger than Enji’s, but Rei’s ice quirk made him give up on training. 

Now of course we all know the story by now, Enji arranged a marriage just to breed for a chance at a perfect hybrid quirk for his children. However, here’s a parallel that becomes much more obvious when you line these two scenes up. 

Shoto’s thoughts when he tries to push himself past his limits in chapter 205 is this: Even hotter, I can get hotter! Ignite myself! To become the person I want to be! 

It sounds deceptively motivational at first. Shoto is pushing himself hard and is no longer afraid of holding his fire quirk back. However, if you look closely at Shoto’s words and the way he resembles Dabi at the moment it sheds a much more unhealthy light on it. Number one, Shoto does not actually win the match by pushing his flame quirk this hard, he burns himself out. I know everyone says plus ultra, but Shoto doesn’t actually gain anything from burning himself up like that.

Shoto even ends the match unhappy with himself and feeling like he’s failed again. Despite pushing himself this far, and doing exactly what his father said which is to break his limits, he still doesn’t feel like he’s closer to being the person he wants to be. 

Number two look at the words he says. “Ignite myself, to become the person I want to be.” Now everyone points out that the panel drawn in Shoto’s match against Tetsu, looks similar to the pose Dabi assumes when he’s attempting to burn Shoto up in Dabi’s dance. 

By comparing it to Dabi, the unhealthy attitude behind those words becomes apparent. If Dabi and Shoto are characters both hopelessly stuck in the past because of past abuse, Shoto afraid to use his fire or ever feel like a proper hero because he’s too worried about being chained to his father’s legacy, and Dabi not wanting to forgive or for the world to forgive the past damage an abuser has done believing he shouldn’t be allowed to be a hero by covering up the past, they both use their fire quirk to achieve their methods. Shoto states he’s going to burn himself up with his flames, and Dabi states he’s going to burn up other people with Endeavor’s flames to show the world Endeavor is not a good person and how much destruction he has caused. 

It seems like their flames are pointed in opposite directions, Dabi’s at other people, and Shoto’s at himself, but it’s not because they both learned the same lesson Endeavor more or less. Enji only cared about Toya and Shoto in regards to their fire quirks, not only was that his motivation for having children in the first place but it’s what he remembers first and foremost about Toya that Toya could have been the one to carry on his dreams. 

This is a metaphor for a lot of things of course, fire is a flexible metaphor. However, to simplify, both Toya and Shoto have a tendency to burn themselves up in fire and this reflects what Enji has continually taught them. That, they themselves are not good enough. 

Enji’s desire to train up a successor is based around his feelings of inferiority in the first place. No matter how hard he tried, he always felt inferior to All Might. Rather than dealing with those feelings himself he pushed them onto both of his children, first Toya and then Shoto. Rather than fostering those children to be healthy individuals, he continually made them feel inferior and unworthy of his attention. Despite raising both children in completely opposite ways, abandoning Toya, and controlling every aspect of Shoto’s life, Shoto and Toya both learned the same lesson ultimately: they are unworthy. 

Enji did this to Toya by cutting off all affection and attention one day to continually punish him, because Enji was unable to face his own flaws as a parent and it was easier to blame Toya for causing disturbance in the household, and hoist his kid off on someone else rather than face the problem he caused. Toya reminds Enji that he is a bad father and a bad hero, so rather than face this problem, Enji just punishes Toya instead by cutting off all the attention and making it Toya’s fault. 

However, canon states that despite immediately stopping the training with Toya when his body could no longer handle it, Enji pushed Shoto harder and harder during their own personal training sessions, constantly insisting that his body could take it. Now, there’s a lot of possible explanations for this contradictory behavior. Perhaps, because Toya was so eager to train Enji expected Shoto to be just as eager. Perhaps, Enji got worse over time as the stress his career took a toll on him. THe motivation for the action doesn’t really matter though, because in essence, Enji was punishing Shoto for the same reasons he did Toya. When Shoto was unable to learn the techniques fast enough, that reflected badly on Enji’s own inferiority, which made him want to punish and blame Shoto instead of facing the idea he did the wrong thing. Thus, we get this behavior. I know that the term gaslight has been overused to the point of meaninglessness but, this is an actual proper use of it. Enji insists that Shoto can do better, and then tries to coerce him into believing that it’s his fault he’s underperforming, he’s purposefully holding back. 

Basically, the way both children were treated is the same even if the roles they served in the family household were different. Enji basically held them both to unfair and impossible standards. Enji then punished them when they failed to meet those standards. Toya for not being born with the wrong quirk. Shoto, for not being physically able to train at five years old. However, the behavior of both Shoto and Toya is also the same in response to that punishment. Both of them as children did everything they could to meet their father’s sliding scale of standards. 

Toya wasn’t even using his fire quirk over and over again to disobey him. Toya’s intentions were clearly stated from the start, he believed if he could push his fire quirk to the limit, and beyond that, he would earn his father’s attention back. Ironically what Toya says is what Enji literally repeats word for word to Shoto later. 

I know my own body. I know I can push myself harder than this. I can surpass my limit if I try hard enough. Shoto is punished for not pushing himself hard enough, whereas Toya is punished for pushing himself over and over again. That’s how impossible to meet the standards in the Todoroki household are. It didn’t matter what Shoto or Toya did, because no matter what Enji would have been dissatisfied with their behavior because it was never about them and always about him.

The parallel between Shoto and Dabi is that they are constantly burning themselves up because deep down both of them believe they are not enough. They were raised in such an inconsistent environment that neither of them can ever be happy with themselves or have a healthy image of themselves. It’s what their father taught them, their own emotional health is less important than his dream of raising them up to have strong fire quirks. 

Not only does this show in their emotional well being, but also in the way they use their quirks. Shoto has an ice quirk. An ice quirk is capable of cooling down flames and is even effective against Dabi as shown in the fight against Geten, but Shoto didn’t even think to use his ice quirk against Dabi. Why? Enji has only ever taught him that his fire quirk matters. Enji thinks the ice quirk only exists as a cooler to reinforce the fire quirk. 

Enji will never, ever be able to teach Shoto to reach his full potential because ultimately he only cares about his fire quirk and Shoto has two quirks he has to learn how to use together. So Shoto has been interning with his father nonstop and comes to learn that his brother is still alive and trying to kill him, what does Shoto do… he tries to match his fire quirk. He tries to make his flames stronger, because that’s what Enji has taught him. This is what Shoto has been shown, that he needs to push his fire quirk to his limit because that is the only way to be a hero. 

Both Shoto and Dabi regard themselves as inferior, because they have been treated inferior to their father’s wants and needs all their lives, but I think the fact that Shoto still has a really unhealthy way of viewing himself is something that Canon does not spend enough time dwelling on. Basically, if Shoto’s biggest flaw is his lack of emotional health, his inability to reconcile between his fire and ice sides, or feel like he’s his own person making his own decisions because he’s had so much of his life dictated to him by his father’s wishes then. Shoto’s mental health on that front has been dwindling lately. 

Shoto wants a family. He wants to reconcile with his family. Because of that, as of late he has been giving his father lots of second chances. 

He pretty clearly states that by interning for Enji he is going to give him exactly what he wants, but also adds that the only reason he wants to intern for Enji is to gain experience as a hero, not because they’re father and son. However, Shoto waffles on that later when he spends family time with Endeavor and Deku mentions that Shoto is leaning on wanting to forigve him.

The writing in these scenes is kind of imperfect, but I think it makes sense because one, Shoto is insecure in pretty much all of his decisions, and two Shoto isn’t actually angry at his father for what he did to him. Shoto is unable to forgive Enji for what he did to Rei their mother, and because of that has been holding a grudge against him. This has been pointed out by other people who are not me, but, Shoto doesn’t seem to regard himself as a victim of abuse. He does verbally acknowledge a couple of times that he was beaten, and that hitting children is an improper way of raising them, but he never seems to call out his father for what he did to him specifically, only his mother. 

If Dabi’s anger and hate is a flaw, then so is Shoto’s complete lack of anger and hate. I know that makes no sense, but let me explain. I spent so long detailing both of their origins to argue that, it comes from the same place. Both Shoto and Dabi are unable to view themselves as victims to their father’s abuse in a healthy way. Dabi can’t reconcile the fact that he was abandoned, Shoto can’t reconcile the fact that he was beaten, so they both go on trying to ignore it. They both try to fight against their abuse. 

Dabi’s catchphrase is: take a look at me. I’m watching you. 

People often accusing Dabi of playing the victim, but that’s not necessarily true, he villainizes himself. He calls himself the incarnation of evil among other things, he just doesn’t want Endeavor’s evil to go unnoticed too. 

Shoto’s catchphrase is: I have to reassure other people. 

I don’t know if you’ve noticed this but Shoto is not mentally healthy at the best of times. Shoto wants to become a reassuring hero because that’s what he didn’t have during his childhood. Whereas, Dabi’s goals are ultimately to get people to watch because that’s what he was lacking. 

They both believe if they achieve some external objective they can correct the circumstances of their abuse. If Shoto becomes a perfect hero than all the bad feelings will go away. If Dabi becomes the worst villain and takes down endeavor than all the bad feelings will go away. 

Neither Dabi or Shoto can exist as themselves. They can’t just be some teenage kid, and some loser twenty year old. They’ve never been loved as themselves.

Both of them exhibit the behavior of stepping into roles. And for both of them this is self destructive. In order for Shoto to become the hero he wants to be he has to burn himself. In order for Dabi to become the villain he has to burn both others and himself. Neither is the behavior of a healthy and well adjusted person. I would say Shoto’s waffling on his arc is, a symptom of this conflicting need he has, he wants to to just be his own person, but he’s so used to fulfilling other people’s needs that it’s where his self worth comes from.