Endy/Hawks/Dabi Ask Round-Up

Three asks, all in the general sphere of Current Events With the Fire-Folk and Attendee. Hit the jump!

lolol not sure what you mean, anon; Endeavor’s probably my favorite Todoroki, and I love watching him have a bad time.

(Note: This ask says “latest chapter,” but I got it just after the 354 leaks, so it’s about the last last chapter, not the one coming out officially later today.)

More seriously, Endeavor having a paternal meltdown here strikes me as a positivesign.  I think the pragmatic, for-the-greater-good approach espoused the way people like Hawks and the HPSC espouse it is a sign of the rot in a system that writes off people it deems too difficult to help.  Endeavor being unable to close his eyes and harden his heart even if that complicates the battle in front of him is a good thing.  The heroes of a story shouldbe facing difficult odds; if everything were easy, why would the audience even care?  Maybe in some light novel isekai power fantasy, or a comedic series like Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto, but that is decidedly not the mode BNHAdoes its best work in.(1)

Endeavor’s arc isn’t about him becoming a stronger hero; it’s about him becoming a better person.  So while him losing his cool to AFO’s taunts is not totally optimal—presumably optimal would be having+expressing confidence and faith in his youngest child’s capabilities—it’s still better than being so detached from his sons’ circumstances that he can fire off witticisms like Hawks can.

I’m a lot more shrugemoji about Hawks, who I like aspects of in theory but find has been diverted away from some of his more interesting potential paths.  I never expected him to actually turn traitor and join the League, but I do think his Icharus theming has been largely betrayed by largely weightless consequences—he can still do whatever the plot needs him to do even with damaged wings; he’s freed from his handlers through no effort of his own;(2) he’s suffered no significant repercussions for admitting to manslaughter on national television.

So, Hawks having a bad time this past week, suffering setbacks and consequences for continuing to abet the status quo, is what I wantto see.  Fair, though; I suppose if you’re a Stan who thinks he was right all along, this would be pretty painful!

1:  [insert complaining about the Muscular rematch here]
2:  I don’t buy the whole thing about how Hawks dithering about killing Twice saved him because it gave Re-Re-Destro time to kill the HPSC President.  Firstly, I think the evidence suggests that Twice’s clones can endure even after the original’s death—else how would one have saved Toga and Mr. C?—and RRD just dissolved from damage taken, not automatically upon Twice’s death.  Secondly, while it sounds nice at first blush, all it would really mean is that Hawks hesitatedbefore doing something terrible but ultimately did the terrible thing anyway, and was then rewarded for it with his freedom.  That’s, like, the oppositeof earning your karma.  I’d be much more on board with the read if Hawks had followed his gut and notkilled someone he thought was a good person out of brutalistic expediency.

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He wants Endeavor to stop getting back up.

Endeavor’s whole thing as a hero is that he doesn’t win things easily, like All Might, but he perseveres.  He persevered until he was Number One by sheer dint of holding onto the Number Two spot until All Might retired.  He got back up and got back up until the High End didn’t.  He lost his son on Sekoto Peak and got right back into what he was doing.

As Fuyumi said back during the Hood-chan fight, Endeavor’s defining trait, for better andfor worse, is his stubbornness.  The final straw that turned Touya into Dabi was seeing that not even Touya dying was enough to make Endeavor give up his dreams of strength.  What set Dabi off about the press conference was Endeavor getting up and making a bunch of calm statements of fact that concluded with the news that Endeavor intended to go on doing hero work regardless of what that hero work led him to do in the past.

Dabi wants to break Endeavor.  I don’t think that hasto mean Endeavor’s death, but it does have to mean Endeavor stops coming back for more.  Time will tell if he’ll get that, much less in a timely manner,(1) or whether Shouto et. al. will come up with some other way to pacify him.

1:  By which I mean that Horikoshi would have to work very hard to sell me on Dabi being satisfied by Endeavor retiring from being a hero if Endeavor doesn’t do so until the epilogue.  Narratively speaking, Endeavor doesn’t really sacrifice or risk anything to prioritize his family if he waits until after the greatest threat of the modern age is defeated and the kids have demonstrated that they can handle things without him.

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Sorry to hear you’re having a bad time with it, anon, and my sympathies on the writing woes.

I think I about halfway agree.  I’ve been enjoying the Endeavor we’ve had in these last few chapters—as stated above, I think the meltdown is good for him.  I can’t say the same for the Endeavor we had during the Edgy Deku Arc, Sad Man In Trenchcoat!Endeavor, whose writing just mystified me.  I never got a sense for why he was apparently willing to just helplessly follow Deku around, reaching new depths of impotency in Chapter 316, where he was apparently incapable of having a scene in which he didn’t look to Deku for approval or to yell unheeded warnings.

Like, my god, Enji, you successfully mentored this kid for weeks; step the fuck up already.  Watching Endeavor trailing steps behind Deku feebly calling for him not to be reckless as Deku completely ignored him and strode on towards the CRC mansion was physically painful.

It really annoyed me at the time, because like, here’s this guy trying to atone for the way he treated his wife and kids in his pursuit of strength, but he’s….totally willing to let this clearly emotionally compromised sixteen-year-old take the lead in the hunt for All For One and the League?  For no apparent reason but that the sixteen-year-old is the heir of One For All, the strongest quirk there is?

How does thattrack?  Am I meant to understand that Endeavor hasn’t given up his belief in strength at all, he’s just come to believe he himself doesn’t have it, so he’s lost all sense of authority and willingness to pull rank?  Is it just that he’s in despair, incapable of mustering the energy to assert himself, and thus spends the arc letting himself get steered by Deku and Hawks?

I suppose the idea was that he was only barely keeping it together, and is too much a product of the Hero Society status quo to figure out how to evolve on his own, but man, it was just embarrassing to read. 

In fairness, this profound sense of Cringe could easily be a result of how much I hated the way that arc executed every potentially interesting idea it had in the most banal and safe way imaginable.  It does not escape my notice that I like broken Endeavor when he’s up against villains or weeping in his hospital bed, but have no time for him at all when it means he’s letting Deku run over him.

Anyway, I’d be curious to read more of your own thoughts, anon!  You’ve got me very curious for how you’d prefer to see Endeavor handled post-Jakku.  Feel free to follow up!

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Thanks as ever for the asks, anons.  ^^