#DONT TAKE THIS AS A PERFECT DESCRIPTION OF HWO THEY EACH FELT

[kindaasrikal]

If theres one thing i enjoy about MHA, is the multiple perspectives of a child who was abused by their parents.

There’s Todoroki, who grew to resent both, yet once he learnt that that resentment was only hurting him he went to visit his mother, and learnt to both give her a second chance and to later forgive her. Yet with Endeavour, Shoto still kept his resentment, yet it lessened over time to a simmer because why should he let the rightful anger he held and the abuse of his past always hold him back to who he once was? Not only that, but Shoto later allowed Endeavour to try prove himself to becoming a better person, which led to Shoto later giving him a second chance in his life. NOT forgiveness nor forgetting what had happened, but a chance.

Fuyumi and Natsuo are direct opposites of each other. Fuyumi learnt to try her best to keep the family together, to keep them all healthy whilst also ensuring she herself is healthy and doing her best, yet having become the eldest sibling so young she took on too much responsibility as both the eldest siblings and only women in the house. She felt the need to stick around and carry all their burdens and do her best to have some form of a family, something she’s always dreamed of. Natsuo, on the other hand, wishes to escape from it all. He still hold his anger, rightfully so, and the only reason he stays around is for his siblings and his mother, not Endeavour. It’s like a ticking time bomb when those two are in the same room, and Natsuo is not trying to fix anything about that or the crumbles of their family. What Natsuo wishes to do is pretend it never happened and continue on with who they are now. He wishes to move on from the past yet he can’t let go of it. He will never forgive Endeavour, and would never give him an honest second chance, but he will let him be in his life if it means the rest of his family will be happy.

Dabi, on the other hand, feels no love for his family. The abuse and neglect he faced lead him down a dark path of hurting himself, others, and his family. The only thing that his keeping him living is his anger and resentment, his need for revenge and the pain that child faced all those years ago, knowing that not even his death changed the horrors of his family. It started off as anger at Endeavour only, yet as a child its hard to blame the person you look up to so much, so the little things his family did (not on purpose, never) made his anger and hatred point towards all of them. Shoto took my place, Natuso didn’t care, Fuyumi wouldn’t understand when shes just a girl, Mom is too weak, Dad wouldn’t listen to me. It all piled up and kept piling up as it left an traumatised child in the body of an adult. All Dabi wanted, all Touya wanted, was to make his family proud of him, to have them love him. At the end, it took death and sacrifice for him to realise that he could’ve had it all years ago.

Hawks grew up in a poor family, that led to them being abusive and mentally ill. Hawks did not grow up in a loving family, yet he still loved both his parents (well, mainly his mother). He was afraid of what had become of his family and grew to realise that sometimes in life the only person you can save is yourself. Yet Hawks didn’t want that to be the case. He wished he had done more, for his mother and for his father, he wished he was there with and for them, that he could’ve been their hero instead of doing everything he can to escape. Hawks felt a sense of responsibility because if circumstances were different, would they have suffered as much? If the only true struggle was money, then if he had made enough would it had fixed it all? If he was there for his mother after going pro, could he have mended his relationship and eased his own heart? I think that is why he was so proud of Shoto when he found out the secret of the Todoroki Family, because Shoto was exactly the kinda person, and the kinda hero, he wished he was.

None of these are the right ways for a child in an abusive family to behave, and none of these are the wrong ways either. They are ways that they are coping and they are so different to each other yet these are real life situations children end up resorting to and being stuck in. Some run, some hope, some hate, some cling, and some move on. Horikoshi perfectly demonstrated multiple perspectives of children in abusive households and that is something i will always love, because as much as we as viewers and readers enjoy the prospect of revenge and justice, as people that is not what we always need.