Warning: The following article contains spoilers for the My Hero Academia episode "What's the Big Idea?," streaming now.
As My Hero Academia's Provisional Hero License Exam arc comes to a close, it makes the surprising choice to focus on Zuko-scarred student, Shoto Todoroki instead of Midoriya or Ururaka. Todoroki has seemed to be in a good place ever since the Sports Festival Tournament arc where he was forced to confront his past with his father, the hero Endeavor, and his mother, who scorched half of his face in a fit of madness.
A major exam seems to be the worst place to really confront your own demons, but this episode saw Todoroki confronting the hero Grand Orca in order to buy time for the rest of his friends to save the "hostages" to pass the exam. In the process, Todoroki confronted his legacy like never before.
Todoroki's Legacy
Todoroki is the son of Endeavor, the second-ranked hero, right behind the now-retired hero All-Might. Endeavor, in order to surpass All-Might's legacy, deliberately bred a child with a hero of contrasting abilities. Endeavor's Quirk gave him fire powers. Todoroki's mother, Rei, has ice powers.
Endeavor always saw Todoroki as a tool to advance himself, which led to a strained relationship between the two. Rei, however, seemed to have more than a few issues herself, as the strain of her "relationship" with Endeavor drove her, in a fit of madness, to attack the first thing that reminded her of her husband: her son.
So the trauma of living with his sociopathic father and his unstable mother led Todoroki to resolve to only use his ice powers, just to spite his fire-fueled father. Inl Todoroki;s fight with Midoriya, where Izuku helped Todoroki reclaim his powers, and the two are now the best of friends.
Where Was Todoroki Before This Episode?
Leading up to this episode, Todoroki found himself in a far healthier place emotionally than he had been previously in the series. Following the Sports Festival Arc, Todoroki embraced both sides of himself. He took an internship under his father to learn from him, which helped him be at the right place at the right time when Stain the Hero Slayer showed up.
He also attempted to recover his relationship with his mother. He has opened up to his U.A. classmates more, who now accept him as one of their friends. Ultimately, it seemed like Todoroki had a good handle on his issues, until this episode.
The Lingering Past
Several of Todoroki's issues come to a head thanks to Inasa Yoarashi, a hot-blooded student from the rival school Shiketsu. He was one of the top students recommended to U.A., but he withdrew his application. He's also taking the Provisional Hero License Exam and joins Todoroki in facing off against Gang Orca, a professional hero who is roleplaying a villain during the Exam's second phase, where the students rescue hostages from a villain.
Unsurprisingly, Todoroki and Yoarashi get into a fight, which leads to them struggling to restrain the professional hero. The core root of this fight, however, appears to be a difference in philosophy. Yoarashi argues that heroes need to be passionate and courageous, but both Todoroki and his father possess too much hate in their hearts. This inflamed an already-intense situation, since both Todoroki and his dad blew off Yoarashi when he asked them both for an autograph earlier.
The residual hatred Todoroki still feels for his father finally comes to the surface, forcing him to realize that, while he has come a long way since the start of the series, he still has a lot of issues that need to be worked out. The internal struggles are reflected in the exterior ones, since, as Todoroki is able to work better with Yoarashi as he moves past his anger.
While that seemingly marks the end of the exam, Todoroki and his classmates will have to wait another week to find out if they passed.