My Hero Academia: How Endeavor's Quirk Marriage Ruined the Todoroki Family

Highlights

Quirk marriages in My Hero Academia, like the Todoroki family's, have ethical issues and can lead to long-lasting trauma for the children involved.
Endeavor's forced quirk marriage with Rei was selfish and harmful, resulting in the estranged relationships and traumatic experiences of his children.
Quirks produced by quirk marriages can have grave side effects, as seen with Toya and Shoto's quirks, which have drawbacks that limit their true potential.

The world of My Hero Academia initially presents a perfect hero society, though this image is eventually revealed to be a mere facade. The true hero society is riddled with all sorts of ethical issues, ranging from quirk discrimination to out-right purging heroes and villains alike. One such moral issue present within the hero world is quirk marriage, a concept often overlooked due to its taboo nature. There’s no better example of the horrors of this concept than the famed Todoroki family, with Endeavor at the forefront of this social evil.

The concept itself was initially shrugged off since it was akin to how traditional arranged marriages took place in Japan. However, the added aspect of experimenting with quirk genetics makes this practice rather vile and depraved. Endeavor’s children serve as a prime example of how this concept can leave long-lasting trauma. From Dabi’s self-harming quirk to Shoto’s estranged relations, quirk marriages are clearly at the root of the Todoroki family’s ruin.

My Hero Academia: Endeavor’s Hellflame Quirk, Explained

Endeavor's Hellflame Quirk has helped him become one of Japan's strongest heroes, but it's all come at a great personal cost.

Endeavor and Rei’s Forced Quirk Marriage

Quirk marriages are based on the concept of selective breeding, with two people marrying solely for the sake of creating a more powerful version of their respective quirks. Endeavor married Rei for this exact reason, mixing his own Hellflame quirk with Rei’s Frost quirk. The reasoning behind this controversial marriage was to create a quirk that would bear his flame power, but its harmful side effects would be negated by Frost’s cooling, thereby creating a quirk that could surpass All Might.

To achieve this shallow goal, Endeavor not only married Rei but also forced her to give birth to more children until he finally found a quirk that could surpass his own. Shoto’s Half-Cold Half-Hot quirk finally surpassed Endeavor’s Hellflame, marking the end of his search for a stronger quirk, though this was merely the beginning of Shoto and his siblings’ hellish childhood.

The Todoroki Family’s Estranged Relationships

Shoto tells Endeavor that he doesn't need him in the My Hero Academia anime

The entire Todoroki family became victim to Endeavor’s selfish pursuits, and the family’s estranged relationship with their father showcases the toll of this quirk marriage. The first victim of this maltreatment was Endeavor’s eldest son Toya, otherwise known as the villain Dabi. After being neglected his entire childhood due to bearing a weaker quirk, Toya grew emotionally unstable and eventually lost control of his quirk, burning his entire body and falling into a comatose state for 3 years. These traumatic events forced him into a life of villainy, and bore disdain in his heart for his own family.

Shoto also suffered greatly from these events, as he even ended up losing his mother due to the strain of the quirk marriage. Shoto’s intensive training had already made him averse to his own father, yet his mother also added fuel to the fire by dumping boiling hot water on his face. Rei couldn’t bear to look at Shoto as he reminded her of Endeavor, leading to these events. While they are eventually able to reconcile, the scar left from this harrowing incident will forever haunt Shoto.

Endeavor's Progression in different panels

My Hero Academia: Endeavor's Progression As A Hero, Explained

Although Endeavour is the current number-one hero, he didn't get there in one day. Here's a look at how he got here.

Shoto and Toya are often considered the primary victims of Endeavor and Rei’s quirk marriage, yet Fuyumi and Natsuo also suffered considerably. The two middle children only inherited their mother’s Frost quirk, leading to Endeavor entirely neglecting them. However, the two are also victims to the quirk marriage’s toll, evident from their estranged relationship with Endeavor. While My Hero Academia tends to gloss over this aspect of the Todoroki family, the psychological effects of this quirk marriage are quite apparent throughout the series.

The Grave Drawbacks of Quirks Produced By Quirk Marriages

Apart from the psychological toll that quirk marriages have on the entire family, the quirks produced by this unethical practice are also prone to grave side-effects. Both Toya and Shoto received quirks that were more powerful than Endeavor’s Hellflame, yet their powers were also accompanied by grave drawbacks due to intermixing with Rei’s Frost Quirk.

Toya’s Blueflame is an incredibly powerful quirk, even surpassing Endeavor’s Hellflame. However, he failed to receive one crucial element of the quirk – heat resistance. Instead, he inherited his mother’s cold resistance, an entirely useless attribute for a fire quirk. If it weren’t for Endeavor’s shallow goal of producing a stronger goal, Dabi could have potentially lived a regular life free of trauma and despair.

Shoto’s quirk also received a few drawbacks, deeming his Half-Cold Half-Hot quirk an imperfect power. Shoto failed to receive both heat resistance and cold resistance, meaning overusing either of his two powers will either result in fatal overheating or frostbite. This forces Shoto to alternate between his fire and ice powers, limiting the true potential of his quirk. It’s obvious that Endeavor’s genetic experiments ended up in failure, leaving him with not a single perfect quirk. Endeavor’s selfishness to create a quirk that could surpass All Might further showcases the dark side of My Hero Academia’s hero society, proving that even Pro Heroes aren’t free from mortal sins and selfish pursuits.

My Hero Academia is available to stream on Prime Video.