An unhinged, crispy man, Dabi is a villain known for his fiery blue attacks in the My Hero Academia universe. Despite Dabi’s villainous nature, he is considered a fan favorite among My Hero Academia fans.
Dabi's attractive looks, dark personality, and enigmatic past make him an intriguing character for many. How has this League of Villains member changed over the last several seasons?
Revenge is a Personality Type
In Season 2, Dabi is mostly calm and collected with a hint of deranged villainy. He prides himself in destroying things with his fire and enjoyed setting the training camp forest aflame. Not much is known about his relationships or personality at first. Dabi League of Villains but keeps his motives a secret. His motives for being a villain aren’t truly revealed until Season 6. Once that mysterious layer is peeled away, most of his character revolves around revenge and hatred. In Season 6 of My Hero Academia, Dabi is more unhinged than before. His hatred for Shoto Todoroki and Endeavor are in full force and it looks like his entire personality revolves around murdering his little brother and making Endeavor miserable.
Misery Loves Company
Whether Dabi has solid relationships with others is debatable. In the episode featuring Twice’s death, Dabi tells Hawks that he cares deeply about his friends but can’t cry because his tear ducts were burned away by his own quirk. Going off of this, one might assume Dabi actually cares about the League to some degree. On the other hand, he does use his supposed friend’s death as a way to manipulate civilians into hating heroes more. While Twice wanted to protect his friends, it’s unclear if he had wanted Dabi to do that.
Dabi doesn’t seem to have much of a relationship with the other league members, with Mr. Compress commenting that he’s the only one who never shared his backstory with them. It’s possible that Dabi only really sticks around with the League because it helps further his own goals without really having a connection to them or their cause.
As for other relationships, Dabi burned those bridges when he became a villain. He hates Endeavor with a burning passion and wants to murder Shoto. Prior to becoming a villain and nearly burning himself to a crisp, he confided in Natsuo about many of his problems. Had he not become a villain, he might have had a good relationship with at least one of his brothers. Due to his upbringing, he hated his sister and mother prior to becoming a villain.
Blue Flames Burn Hotter
Dabi’s quirk started out incredibly strong in Season 2. He lights the entire training camp forest on fire. The flames Dabi can create are blue, which are considered the hottest flames that can be produced. His firepower spreads incredibly fast and he has immaculate control over it when viewers first meet him. This is likely because he was training since he was a child to become a hero, which viewers find out when his past is revealed. Because Dabi's quirk was already strong and he had excellent control over it, further development is more challenging. Similarly, Bakugo’s quirk can only get so much stronger before strategy needs to be improved instead.
In the current season of My Hero Academia, Dabi’s firepower seems greater than before. This is shown with his new moves such as his own Prominence Burn. He likely developed this move to mock his father. There are more Dabi-centric episodes in Season 6, which allows viewers to see more of Dabi’s quirk. His quirk likely seems stronger this season due to the fact that he is more motivated to watch Endeavor fall. As Dabi grows closer to his own goals, his morale grows stronger. This, in turn, makes his quirk grow stronger.
When the Past Defines Someone
It’s revealed in episode 124 that Dabi is actually Touya Todoroki. The viewers learn that Dabi actually started out similar to people like Deku and Bakugo, who wanted to become heroes when they were older. Over time, Dabi is slowly worn down by his father’s demands of becoming the number one hero. Due to the fact that Dabi’s body can’t handle his quirk, Endeavor stops paying attention to him. This dramatic 180 in how his father treats him eventually leads to Dabi’s downfall. Distraught that his father won’t pay attention to him after Shoto is born and he is deemed “useless,” his flames engulf him and the surrounding forest, practically burning him alive. He somehow survives and makes it his goal to enact revenge on the person who made him this way: Endeavor.
Dabi’s past furthers his character and the series as well, showing how Endeavor's actions don't just affect Shoto but his other children as well. The trauma Endeavor’s family endured affect other people outside the Todoroki family as well. Due to Endeavor’s horrible parenting, Dabi is now a villain who kills and terrorizes people. At the beginning of the series, he was simply a mysterious villain with a fire quirk who seemingly knew too much about Endeavor. With his added backstory, he becomes a character with real motives and resembles a lot of the others in the League of Villains. Toga and Shigaraki also have tragic pasts that have spurred them on to be the people they are. The League of Villains is truly made up of people who were wronged by Hero Society.