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It’s all for his sake - Endeavor and the Sunk Cost Fallacy

My hero academia 301 is a pretty interesting chapter, but for me, the most notable piece of it was how Endeavour reacted to the realization that Touya couldnt surpass All Might.

upon realizing that his son might not be able to do it because of inborn physical limitations, he immediatly stopped his training, which frankly was the responsible and adult thing to do. 

This stint of real parenthood did not last long however.

After taking the matter to a doctor, he is flat out told that not only cant Touya achive what endeavor wants, but it is a direct result of his incredibly selfish and irresponsible attempt to play god, by trying to breed the “perfect” hero into being.

It is how you react when you lose however, that shows who you really are, and endeavor illustrates that very, very well.

Upon being told in no uncertain terms that his attempts at Breeding an heir failed magnificently, producing a child that was not capable of resisting his own immense power, but also admonished by his doctor for even attempting it, and adviced not to try again, Endeavor instead doubled down, while focusing on the child he screwed over from the start with his attempt at genetic manipulation.

It was all for him you see. Endeavor doesnt use those words, but that is how he spins it here. it was all for Touya, all for his sake. if i stop now, then Touya was all for nothing, a mistake, im doing this for my son.

if im doing this for my son, then im not responsible for any of this.

his wife however, calls him out on it, as she understands Touya much, much more than endeavor does. or rather, she sees him fully as a human being, instead of as a thing, a weapon, a failed attempt at an heir.

Unlike Endeavor, Rei is able to see the way this all is affecting her son. She is able to see, and understand that Touya has fully accepted what Endeavor wanted him to be. a stronger, and better version of himself. however, unlike Endeavor, she only cares about him as a person.

Endeavour by comparison isnt completely uncaring about Touya. like most abusive parents, he does possess love for his offspring, but it is forever tainted by the fact that however much he might care, or not care about Touya, any familial love he has for his son is tainted by the fact that to Endeavor, he is a failed experiment, a failed heir, not his child. 

He is the golden child that Endeavor was building up as his true and only heir, who he breed, trained, and molded to for that single purpose, and now that he’s reached a point where he cant continue that legacy.

so, its time to abandon him, and start over new, despite literarily having just learned how stupid this plan was, and that it can, in fact, go completely wrong, with a quirk that will fuck over the person he brings into the world.

Of course, Endeavor doesnt use those words to frame it. there is no way to pretend to be a hero, if you phrase it like that after all. Intead, this is the words he uses.

this is a very important series of panels for a great number of reasons, some that can be debated, argued, and we will probably never know the full truth to the questions because this is a series published in 2020′s shonen jump, and there are things that probably wasnt gonna fly with Hori’s editors, if it was the case.

but lets start with what can not be debated. Endeavor’s words here.

“If we want him to give it up, then we have no choice… Touya… Cant surpass him.”

These are very telling words, and however you believe The third and fourth children of the Todoroki family was concieved, there is not denying the meaning of what he’s saying here.

The only way that my son will stop being an idiot and fall into line, is if we have another baby. that is the only Right way to move forward. it is morally right, because if we dont do this, then he’s going to destroy himself.

there are two ways to interpret this scene.

The charitable way is to read it as the fact that he used Rei’s oldest son’s mental state as a justification of guilting his wife to have a third child, to give this attempt at a superpowered breeding project another shot, despite the fact that they now know that this can lead to a child who is essentially born crippled from his own powers, and despite the fact that Rei obviously understands the effect of them continuing this insanity will have on their oldest son.

the uncharitable way to look at it, is that he used this as justification for flat out raping her, and forcing a third, and then later a fourth child on her.

I personally believe the last one, given a number of factors shown in this chapter(the way this page is framed, the fact Rei obviously didnt want a third child, given she predicted exactly how touya would react, the way her eyes would latet turn when she looks at who is presumably touya which really brings to mind how she would later react to her youngest son’s face after her mental breakdown, etc.), but i’ll frankly admitt that withouth a direct quote from Hori, its impossible to know for sure one way or another. 

either way however, this is a very good example of Endeavor both being influenced by, and using Sunk Cost Fallacy to justify bringing another potentially crippled child into the world for his own, selfish goals.

sunk cost Fallacy, is a mental reaction to when you invest more time and resources into a project, that you becomes so emotionally invested into said project that you will continue to invest into it, even if it reaches a point that it becomes clear that the resources you put into it, far, far outweighs the potential gains you can achieve.

because if you give up after having invested years, and years of effort to breed, raise, and train a kid, and then all that effort was absolutely wasted. hence he choose to keep going, despite having learned what a terrible idea this is.

He doesnt care about the fact that his next child might be even more crippled than his firstborn, he doesnt care about his son’s actual wellbeing. he cares about the fact that if he doesnt continue this insanity, then not only will he not achieve his dreams, but everything he did to get to this point was for absolutely nothing.

and endeavor cannot accept that. and so long as he can justify breeding more children into the world, and there being any chance they might inherit both quirks perfectly, he doesnt care about anything else.

and the moment he realised that this kid wasnt gonna cut it either, he did it again. it is not a coincidence, that the age gap between Endeavor’s second, third, and fourth children were all 3-4 years apart. because thats the age where you can usually tell when a quirk will manifest or not, as established earlier in the series.

While she isnt brought up directly by Endeavor as a justification, it is very telling that Endeavor decided on having a third child, only after his second child was old enough that he could tell that that there was no chance she could take the place as his heir instead.

So, he had his third child, and as time passed and it became obvious that he wasn’t gonna be able to fulfill Endeavor’s goals either, he dumped him, and instead breed a fourth child into existence.

and finally, he struck gold. he did it. he produced Shoto.

everything was finally worth it, and now, everything would be absolutely fine. the cost fallacy had reached its end, and it was now all full sails ahead.

except of course it wasnt.

His oldest son, now in middle school, had been raised from birth to believe he would surpass his father, only to be thrown away, and getting to see his father try to replace him, not once, but twice.

frankly, this scene is probably my favorite in the chapter, because it goes to show Endeavor’s mindset. Natsuo made a point that their father completely ignored his older children. and he did… from Natsuo’s perspective. however, having a more thourough picture of things, we can clearly see that this wasnt the case with Touya.

Endeavor genuinly cared for Touya, enough that once he got that child he tried to breed into existence 4 times, he genuinly wanted him to just abandon trying to be a hero. he genuinly thinks of himself as a good dad here, wanting his son to abandon the mission he set out for him before he was born. of course, with context, this heartwarming scene is incredibly sad and insidious, because we understand why Endeavor got so attached to his oldest child. because he WAS the golden child. he was the child Endeavor genuinly cared about, and invested in, and trained personally with great warmth and enthusiasm.

And not only did he abandon him as a failed project the moment he realized he wasnt gonna live up to his ridiculous standards, but he literarily created 2 more kids to try and replace him, just as his oldest son was old enough to understand what exactly his dad was doing. over the course of this chapter, we get to see Touya’s start as a 5-8 year old, his deteriorating mental state over the years, until he finally seemed to reach the breaking point with Shoto’s birth sometime in his middle school years 12-15. 

Endeavor is in this scene, just not capable of understanding why Touya so desperately wants to become a hero, when obviously he isnt physically able to do so. he isnt able to understand that he is 100% to blame for the fact that his son is having a full emotional breakdown after literaly being replaced by his siblings. 

In other words, Endeavor genuinly think’s he’s a good person. a person who has made a few mistakes along the way sure, but a person who was always justified in the end, and now that he’s having to face the fact that as dabi would later say “The past never dies” and has to face the aftermath of his inane attempt to play god for the pettiest of reasons, things simply arent going to work out.

He isnt going to have a happy family, who can now put the awful early years behind them, he put way too much effort, caused too much suffering and sacrificed too many years of his life for this not to work out as he wants.

after all, if he walks away from this project now, and lets Shoto have a normal childhood, and decide for himself, with no pressure from him, wheter or not to become a hero, then the sunk cost fallacy will have reached a negative end. it will all have been for nothing.

and we know he did eventually double down on this mentality, literarily beating into Shoto that he WAS going to become a hero, and there was not but’s or no’s about it.

there was no way that Endeavor was EVER going to let things be for nothing. His treatment of his older children could not be for nothing. His treatment of his wife could not be for nothing. His treatment of Shoto, and the way he beat him black and blue to train him, could not be for nothing.

Because if it all was for nothing, if everything he feels guilty about was for absolutely nothing, then he was in fact, a bad, bad person, who had no justification for anything he ever did.

Fanart by PH6y0

BNHA 356 - Thoughts

First the leaks confused me, so I thought I'd wait for the scanlation. Then the scanlation confused me, so I waited for the official. But tbh, I'm still confused a bit with the central part of the chapter - Young Enji's appearance and what it all means.

It was a visually pleasing chapter, and I get why many people like it, but to me, it still feels a bit meh' because of how messy that middle part feels.

Tokoyami getting a big smash looked cool. And that's all it did. I wish this fight would bring back my immense love for the Hawks & Tokoyami content that I adored during the war arc, but so far, it just feels like an echo of the hype I felt then.

AFO eating the vestige. OK? I guess. AFO vestige stuff is so non-sensical at this point, that there is no point to comment.

Hawks is growing on me again. Him moving from wanting to score a killing blow to shielding the kids - this little featherless chicken certainly is pulling his weight in this fight. His expression as he turns to look back at Endeavor really got me.

He's not even surprised, because he knew that Endeavor would get back up, but also it's sad seeing Endeavor's sacrificing his arm.

4. I'm glad Endeavor is back up and trying to protect the kids who stepped in when he faltered.

5. On the one hand, his young self doesn't say anything shocking, but on the other, it reveals a deep self-hatred, that ties somehow to the loss of his own father, who died trying and failing to save a girl. We don't know much else. Whether he was a hero or a civilian. Whether he had the same quirk. Whether he was a good dad or another abusive asshole. Whether Enji watched it happen helplessly or learnt it later. It's all left open.

But what it gives us is a reason for Enji's endless thirst for power and strength, his obsession with All Might and how he turned to power to try to shield his heart.

It is tragic and sad and ironic how young Enji's loss of his family because of weakness leads to Endeavor's obsession with strength, which then leads to the destruction of his family at the first sign of his son's weakness. It gives context, but not an excuse. It doesn't lessen Endeavor's responsibility towards his family.

As the resident weakness expert said - there is more to strength than a strong quirk. Endeavor should have listened more.

I have to admit, Endeavor growing a flaming arm is a pretty cool visual - even if this is not the moment I'm waiting for. There ought to be a more emotionally resonating closure - something where it really feels like Endeavor is letting his "ugly heart" to be fully exposed and vulnerable, and fall to pieces, and where he lets himself grieve and accept and embrace both his own father's memory and his family who suffered so much on account of his "ugly heart".

The fight obviously continues, so maybe it will all makes sense in a few days. Until then, I keep believing that the story won't let Endeavor punch himself into redemption, because clearly his weakness has nothing to do with his quirk and everything to do with his heart.

(I this context also see Shouto's Phosphor coming from the center of his heart, and Touya's mystery glowing, which is also in the center of his chest.)

family tree

I just wanna see them as a happy family... please...

My first post on tumblr... and it has to be TodoFam 🥲

W/o filter

Enji's the only one who can get the vicious little dinosaur to sleep.

Could you speak some more on Natsuo? I feel like the general consensus is he absolutely hates his father, and I would agree with that if not for a few things. He was just as worried as Fuyumi during Endeavor's fight with hood and like you mentioned in your last post, his reaction to his father making a new house for them isn't at all positive. I'm of course not saying he doesn't dislike Enji, I just feel like his feelings are a lot more complex than people choose to acknowledge.

Sure! I love that boy!

Again, this is a personal opinion, I'm not Horikoshi, I can only speak for the feelings the story gives me and for how I interpret the scenes.

I think Natsuo's feelings for his father are more complicate than 'he just hates him and that's it'.

It would probably be more accurate to say Natsuo is totally furious with him, and that's because Enji deeply hurt him, keeps on doing so even when he doesn't mean to and he also hurt the people Natsuo cared about.

But maybe we could start from the beginning.

When Natsuo had birth, the Todoroki family was already slowly starting to break down.

Enji and Rei's marriage was one of convenience for both, she wanted his economical help for her family, he wanted her to bear his children in hope their Quirk would mix in a positive way.

I'll quote the anime because it sums it pretty well:

"It was more or less made to look like an arranged marriage, but this was a Quirk marriage. Choosing a spouse to make one’s own Quirk stronger and passing it on… The purpose of the marriage was to have babies. It’s what I wanted. If my flame Quirk and the ice Quirk of the Himura family were to mix, I thought we could give birth to a hero who could surpass even All Might. And even though the Himura family was once prestigious, they were now struggling. Wanting the status and prestige of the number two hero, and the bride price, her father easily agreed to my proposition. She could have refused. However, even knowing that it was a Quirk marriage, she became my wife for the sake of her family."

Rei though, wanted to make the effort to keep smiling. In short, we can assume she wanted to try to make it work... and, for a while, it works.

Rei's family get the money, Enji gets children who aren't the perfect mix of his and Rei's Quirk but he still think he's satisfied.

This scene is important because it shows Enji basically babysitting Touya and Fuyumi. He's looking after them, he's looking at them for something that's not training and he claims he's satisfied. They aren't masterpieces, he won't even try to train Fuyumi, but he's okay, Touya has potential and Touya will show he's delighted to train with his father.

But then Touya can't use his Quirk anymore and things start to go downhill.

This scene too is important.

It's well known Enji is a bad father but, credits when it's due, when he's told Touya shouldn't use his Quirk, he doesn't shrug it off and says who cares, I want him to surpass All Might, who cares if he does it as a charred man, no, he stops training Touya.

However... in this scene it's Enji's day off, he could spend it with Touya, even though Touya wants them to train they don't really have to, instead he's leaving. He's starting to neglect his kids, likely for the same reason he'll neglect them in the future, he doesn't know what to say and wants to dodge the responsibility. Touya reacts by training harder on his own.

Enji can't stop him, which is frustrating and painful and he can't even get what he married for, a child who would surpass All Might.

It's in this setting he decides they should conceive Natsuo.

He dresses it as something done for Touya, so that Touya will give up, but it's actually something that's done for himself, so that HE will give up.

Rei initially disagrees with the plan but in the end she likely gave up. She know she was married for the purpose of giving Enji children after all.

Natsuo though, can't be the child Enji wanted. He has an ice Quirk. We don't know if it's a powerful ice Quirk but Enji still was biased against ice Quirk or if it was just an ordinary ice Quirk, what we know is that Enji doesn't even take into consideration the possibility to train him, even though, as far as we know, his Quirk doesn't hurt Natsuo.

And this is, according to the School Briefs, how Natsuo was in his own early years:

"Even now, Natsuo would beat himself up over how he used to be before the abuse really began, recalling the period in his life that had made him feel pathetic and ashamed. Before Shouto was born, Natsuo had sought his father’s love and care, and when Endeavor was around, he would turn into an excited ball of energy, eager for attention.

But that love never came. It was only thanks to his warm and caring mother that Natsuo had survived those early years and learned to cope with the rejection from his other parent. But after Shouto was born, even their mother grew distant, though not out of indifference. Natsuo could sense how much energy she’d had to devote to protecting her youngest, her baby, from her husband’s so-called training-which most would label abuse-but at that age, Natsuo couldn’t help but feel that his mother had been stolen away from him. After witnessing his mother and brother crying and screaming on that horrible day, Natsuo had been overcome with crushing shame."

Natsuo started out as a normal child who wanted his father's love but NEVER experienced it. He had to cope to such lack and uses a pretty strong word to define how hard it was, he said it was thanks to Rei he SURVIVED.

Now, I don't really know the original text so it can be that's just the translator using an excessive word but the bottom of the line is Natsuo had to learn to cope NEVER feeling loved by his father.

We can speculate the result was he likely distanced from him, stopped hoping... then his mother too couldn't give him all the time a small child like him needed. Let's remember Shouto had birth when Natsuo was three and, short after, it was decided he would be kept apart from his siblings. An infant needs his mother a lot and since he has to be kept away from his siblings when Rei was with him, she couldn't be with Natsuo.

But then things go further downhill, Enji begins abusing Rei.

He and Fuyumi look scared.

And then Rei is hospitalized, Shouto is scarred for life and Touya is dead. And all this should have been terribly painful for Natsuo, who was merely 8 back then, and the root cause can be traced back to Enji, his enstranged father.

Using anger to cope with pain is a really common thing.

Add to it that Natsuo also had to cope with guilt, he was ashamed of himself for having wanted Enji's love, he felt guilty for haivng felt neglected by Rei, for not having wanted to listen Touya as he vented. Natsuo should have been feeling really bad, and turning all that pain in a ball of anger directed at Enji (who definitely deserved it) should have helped him to cope.

But they didn't heal him. Natsuo is angry... but the anger is just a way to cope with the hurt.

In a tamer way he accuses his father of the same thing Touya will accuse him, of wanting to leave them behind.

It pains him and it makes him angry. He lacks a way to vent his anger.

Fuyumi doesn't want to talk about it (here but in the "School Briefs" as well), she had known the good times and wants them back. Natsuo isn't the type who, like Touya, would try to murder his father and can't even do what Shouto was trying to do at the start, get revenge on him by refusing to use his fire Quirk and becoming a Hero solely with his ice Quirk. Natsuo doesn't have a fire Quirk and no wish to become a Hero after all.

So he's with this huge ball of unresolved pain inside himself and tries to cope with it through anger.

What hurt Natsuo? He says it.

Enji never looked at him, he kept him away from Shouto, made him feel like he was a failure, hurt the people Natsuo loved, caused Touya's death.

Natsuo was hurt over and over and hid everything behind anger. When you strip him of the anger only pain remains.

Enji has left inside him psychological scars, the mere seeing of Enji causes him to remember all that and feel pain.

And to cope either he avoids Enji or he tries to summon up anger.

Staying away from Enji doesn't fix things. After all Enji kept away from him for years before he decided to start his atonement arc and Natsuo remained as hurt as he was the first day. The most staying away from Enji does, is not pocking to his wounds.

Being angry with Enji doesn't help either, it's just a temporary relief, he vents but that's all. It helps him to lower the pressure, I guess, but it doesn't heal him.

And what Natsuo truly wishes is likely to heal. Seeing Enji in troubles, risking his life, gave him no relief.

Natsuo isn't after revenge... he just doesn't know how to help himself, he's stuck with his pain and with, as only means to cope, his anger.

He doesn't know how to heal. The fact Enji initially expected him to just put aside his pain hurt and made him angry... but Enji deciding to keep away likely doesn't solve things because to him it likely feels like what his father had done his entire life... ignoring him.

And if it hurts being ignored... well, this is likely the sign inside him there's still an inner child who's love for his father to look at him...

...a bit like how in Tomura little Tenko is still alive.

BNHA has plenty of characters plagued by the past, who just can't let it go and, since the past hurt them, they claim to hate it.

It's a defense mechanism.

And Natsuo is also another character plagued by the past. He's not to the point he'll destroy the world like his brother or Tomura, he's psychologically much better than them but he's still hurt and needs to heal.

So yeah, if you ask me his feelings for Enji are definitely very complex but that's what makes him realistic and interesting as a character, after all.

At least, that's what I think. I'm not Horikoshi, I don't own The Truth, so of course other people might feel differently.

Thank you for your ask!

My Freaky Academia.

Headcanon: Fuyumi learned to walk super early because Touya was annoyed she couldn't do it and kept pulling her to her feet when she was trying to crawl.

Internal toddler monologue: "Walk, dammit, this is stupid! Do better!"

Actually, what's also tragically funny is the fact that even though Shouto got the favorite child treatment in this family, his childhood is probably the least documented. For new parents, milestones like first words and first steps and birthdays are exciting and those get photographed and recorded in albums. By the time the third or fourth child is born, the novelty has long worn off and the sentiment becomes a pragmatic, "My only excitement is for the day that you can feed yourself and poop by yourself." Just saying, Natsuo and Shouto's baby albums are probably pretty sparse compared to Touya and Fuyumi's.

Know what really pisses me off? When people try to devolve Rei's character as a mouthpiece for Enji. Trying to say she's easily forgiving Enji when it's clear her feelings are (rightfully) conflicted.

In this scene, she makes it clear that she's still too afraid to face Enji yet has optimism. That flower signifies that Enji doesn't forget that he still has a family that he has a lifetime to make up to, even if he's never forgiven. And the idea that the narrative is trying to make Enji easily forgiven when one of his best moments is him dropping this iconic quote

Next, the scene in the hospital.

She doesn't let Enji drown in self-pity, reminding him that everyone in that family has suffered more than he is right now. But she still knows her husband is actively trying to change and doesn't take the chance to fucking put him down unnecessarily like so many people want her to. Enji needs to get back up and help not just his family but also those in need from the 1st war's aftermath.

People who think she's someone suffering from Stockholm Syndrome are full of shit. This is a strong woman, someone who can see a former hateful person wanting to change and gives them the words they need. Trying to use that chance to be full of vitriol and hate will not break the cycle that the Todorokis are trying to escape from. And finally, the Todoroki reunion. She showed up not just to save Toya but Enji as well. She knows he wants to atone and she makes it clear she's saving them both.

And btw, this shows how much Enji regrets what he did and despite the marriage being arranged, he still loves Rei. He doesn't want to lose her too. But Rei doesn't want him to die either. People think that having faith in your former abuser is akin to forgiveness is just...ignorant. She wants him to live to continue atoning and she still has faith that he has changed and wants to do what's right.

Rei Todoroki has my respect for all this.