gonna be honest... this one has been spinning in my head for a while! so imma do an analysis of touya/dabi (I might switch between the two but its whatever) and just how much his arc makes sense for him and plays into his character. also his trauma and how it affected him. SO! with that being said this will kinda be ramblely and not very coherent but fuck it we ball.
also i have NOT read the manga so uh.... yeah-
(p.s this is REALLY LONG-)
so basically I'm gonna be going over about why it makes sense that touya is a villain and why he chose this path specifically over the one that most people would do, especially after his incident which would be go back to your family and talk it out or whatever. (which he didnt do because hes a totally EDGELORD- excuse me-).
One thing that's been essential about touya's character, from the very beginning (talking childhood) is that he always wanted his father's attention. From a young age touya was raised as practically an only child because lets be honest with him inheriting fire and with endeavors whole 'i want an ice quirk so i dont overheat stuff' he likely payed a lot more attention to touya rather than fuyumi.
touya took in this affection from a young age and seeing how apparently endeavor only got worse as the years went by the view that touya had of his father was likely in somewhat of a good light, glad to be receiving attention from someone in his life that he clearly looked up to at the time. although this did have side effects like his disrespect for his mother (which he also probably gained from being around his father so often).
remember that touya most likely gained a lot of attention from his father, that and his standards from a young age with no one to tell him 'hey this is wrong that hes doing this' as he didn't really care for his mother and her opinion because of guess who? his father. (this is where shoto and him differ as shoto clearly looked up to his mother, who was probably a lot more in his life than she was in touya's).
so the moment when its revealed that 'hey your quirk hurts you, dont use it' is the moment where everything shatters, not just for endeavor but for touya. imagine being told your whole life that you were gonna do something to make someone you looked up to so proud only to find out that you couldn't because of your bodies limits, something thats out of your control.
not only this, but touya likely would've been fine if endeavor had still shown some interest in him. but that wasn't the case. he moved on. touya already had these expectations built in his head that he's going to surpass All Might like his father wanted, so why isn't his father paying attention to him anymore? he probably figured out 'its because my quirk hurts me' so his response was 'its fine i'll push through the hurt and make him proud and show him that i can still do what he wants. so he'll have to pay attention to me again'
touya was so obviously raised on endeavors attention so when its ripped away all that remains in his is 'oh ive done something wrong, how can i fix it?' so once again he keeps training his quirk and hurting himself. not to mention that once again its clear how he looked up to his father
not to mention that he knew what endeavor wanted. he wanted an ice and fire quirk, so when endeavor kept having more and more children it was probably only worsening his dread and anxiety. 'what if this one had the quirk?' 'would dad still love me?' 'would he still look at me?'
he sees this as his father trying to get rid of him, as his father not having enough time for him in a way, which given how much attention he was raised on by his father, is absolutely devastating. SO- lets get to the main course shall we?
TOUYA'S BREAK DOWN!! PART ONE-
at this moment i cant remember the exactly what happened but its where basically endeavors like 'STOP WITH YOUR QUIRK DAMMIT' and touya cant understand that. because if he stops then endeavor will stop looking at him. to touya he has to disobey endeavor, thats the only way all of his attention doesnt go to shoto who clearly has the right quirk his father wants with his split hair because quirks or whatever-
(also fuyumi's face is hilarious in the second picture but moving on-)
in this scene he out right says 'look at me endeavor'. the kid who has been so basically pumped full of attention and praise has had enough of his father trying to constantly trying to seemingly get rid of him and throw him to the side. he wants his father's attention more than anything now, whether its endeavor yelling at him or praising him he just wants to be noticed by someone he's looked up to all of his life.
so he attacks shoto, no quite honestly i don't think that he was trying to kill shoto in this scene, as much as he was trying to scare endeavor/harm him. but thats just a personal opinion. so back to everything else i guess-
NOW- BREAK DOWN PART TWO!!!
in this he very excitedly tells endeavor to come to sekoto peak. endeavor wonders why and checks under the boys shirt only to find burns. and tried to tell him off but touya doesn't listen. he instead says that its really cool and that he might be able to get to shoto's level not only that but its also evident that what his father told him from a young age is still present in his mind as below he claims that he doesn't think that he'd lose to All Might, meaning even after when Endeavor's long thrown touya's training away forgetting about the boy ever being able to surpass All Might touya did not. most likely thinking about how this is his chance to impress his father.
now with these next few lines it reveals a few things, touya doesnt think that endeavors happy with him. he thinks that hes not glad that his own son exists and reasonable it makes him sad as he starts tearing up. but keep in mind, he looks up to endeavor at this point and if the person he looks up to isn't happy with his existence at this point than what the hell is he doing. now this is totally different from before as he just wanted attention, good or bad as he yknow... tried to hurt/kill his younger brother- this is him actively wanting attention. and likely... this is the most healthy he's been mentally for a while.
he went from. this person who i look up to expects something from me, to uh oh i upset them what am i doing wrong? to why arent they paying attention anymore? if theyre not then im gonna harm someone to make them look at me for once. But now his mindset is more 'okay well maybe im not trying hard enough, if i try harder than he'll like me more'
once again... probably his healthiest mindset, that and we see the excitement on his face about this new move or power or whatever. he's genuinely excited over this and the fact that his father just blows it off is gonna take a toll on him. as what did he do wrong again? well we know he did nothing but he doesn't know that. after all the person he looked up to must have a reason right?
he starts crying and with that everything burns. he can't control it and he ends up hurting himself in the process. covering his body in burns as he turns into basically what we see today.
but why didn't he go back? it would make sense right? well probably because of a few reasons.
how could he go back? what would they say? endeavor would be mad at him and plus he wanted to prove himself to his father on that peak. yet it seemed he only did the opposite
why didn't endeavor come? thats all he wanted, all he ever wanted so why didnt he? he no longer holds endeavor up to his high standard anymore, he's angry at him. and rightfully so
would they want him back? maybe natsuo would be there for him but what about the others? would they care for him?
of course the last one might be pushing it but you get the point. the second one probably affected him the most though and is why he became dabi, training his quirk so that he may surpass his father as a petty victory, trying to say 'i was right all along i can surpass you and all might and shoto'. its his last attempt at making his father look his way and he wants to do it right.
he wanted it to be something that his father couldnt just shove off hence the video and him taping it. one last time he wanted his father to look at him and be reminded of everything that had happened with him. and it worked, the todoroki's do go over what happened with touya and saw went went wrong, that being that they neglected him after building him up so high only to say that he was useless after all (its all endeavors doing but... whatever-).
so yeah those are basically my thoughts on it- might be slightly inaccurate but yknow what... this is getting long and i dont wanna type anymore :D
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