Warning: Spoilers for My Hero Academia, Season 6, Episode 11Things have taken a turn for the worse for My Hero Academia's heroes, and that trend isn't changing any time soon now that Dabi has revealed his true identity to the world.
Dabi's true identity has been a point of fan speculation for quite some time. Despite the blue color of Dabi's flames in My Hero Academia, his fire powers seemed suspiciously similar to those of Endeavor and Shoto Todoroki. Dabi also seemed to have a distaste for Shoto in particular, a fact that also caught the attention of fans. He's clearly had secrets but was always careful not to reveal them--until now.
In the latest episode, entitled "Dabi's Dance," Dabi releases a video confession of who he is and his past, which is broadcast simultaneously online and on TV, all across Japan. The video begins with him itting to the bad things that he's done in order to build a level of honesty before revealing that he is, in fact, Toya Todoroki, Endeavor's eldest son who was long thought to be dead. He reveals the suffering that he underwent as Endeavor's child, and then goes on to talk about Hawks and how he brutally killed Twice while fleeing. Using Endeavor and Hawks as symbols, Dabi declares that heroes aren't protectors, but rather people who use the privileges afforded to heroes for their own ends. As the video is transmitting, Dabi pours water on his head to wash out the dye, revealing white hair to Endeavor and ensuring that he understands fully that Dabi really is (or was) Toya.
Dabi Being Toya Todoroki Changes Everything
While this particular twist was already known to many due to the manga being ahead of the anime, it's still a pretty massive reveal, especially since this message went to essentially everyone in-universe. Not only does Endeavor know, and Shoto know, but now the whole world knows. Many of them will place responsibility for Dabi's crimes on his family, particularly after the tragic backstory that Dabi revealed. It also proves that being a hero doesn't automatically make one a good person; while Hawks may feel his actions are justified, he still stabbed someone in the back, and he was specifically trained as a hero to do exactly that sort of thing by the morally ambiguous Hero Public Safety Commission. Endeavor, of course, comes out looking particularly bad, since child abuse is hardly the sort of behavior one expects from a hero, and his reasons (to sur All Might) were shallow and only meaningful to him. Even within minutes of the video's ending, there has already been a massive shift in the public's faith in heroes, and that's only going to get worse when the full extent of the Paranormal Liberation War is revealed.
My Hero Academia's reveal of Dabi as Endeavor's son may not have been a surprise to some fans, but it was certainly a surprise to the world in-universe. It's clear that Dabi had a real plan here, and as a result, the heroes have been caught unprepared. They'll have to be careful of whatever future tricks Dabi might have up his singed sleeve in My Hero Academia.
New episodes of My Hero Academia currently premiere on Saturdays on Crunchyroll.
