Caution: Spoilers for The Umbrella Academy ahead!

The Umbrella Academy season 1 treated viewers to several flashbacks of the early days of the academy, including one which alludes to Reginald Hargreeves' greatest flaw. The academy—comprised of seven supernaturally gifted children adopted by Hargreeves—in many ways was a sort of found family for the children. However, Hargreeves’ eccentric tendencies and delusions of grandeur, which took on a variety of forms, also had toxic consequences for him later on, and revealed one of his greatest flaws as a surrogate father.

In the pilot episode of The Umbrella Academy, Hargreeves gives the young children a speech about unity and trust. As this monologue plays out, viewers learn how the seven kids of the academy received their signature umbrella tattoos. It turns out, the potentially alien Hargreeves’ hired a tattoo artist to brand the children early on in their stay at the academy as a means of bonding them all together.

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This scene in which the children forcefully receive their tattoos actually reveals Reginald Hargreeves’ greatest flaw—his complete lack of care for the children’s feelings. The tattoos that the children receive reveal that Hargreeves viewed them more like property than his offspring. Additionally, in branding them in a similar fashion, he unwittingly plants the seed that would eventually turn his “children” against him after his death.

The Umbrella Academy as children with their father

From the very beginning of The Umbrella Academy, Hargreeves is painted as a man and father who cares little for his children’s wellbeing. Even Grace, the children’s android mother, names the adoptees, whereas Hargreeves only refers to them as their Umbrella Academy numbers. Hargreeves’ treatment of the children implies he thinks of the kids not only like property, but as though they have no autonomy of their own. His speech about unity in the tattooing sequence alludes to this as well, as he explains to the children that he values their worth as a unit comprised of numbers more so than as individuals.

Additionally, in a much more metaphorical sense, the Umbrella Academy’s tattoos serve not just as a reminder of their coalition, but also of Hargreeves’ years of mistreatment and abuse. Even as the siblings of the Umbrella Academy come to mourn Hargreeves' death, Diego tries to get his siblings to recall all the horrible things their father did to them. As soon as he says this, the flashback of the children receiving their emblematic Umbrella Academy tattoos begins. The tattoos, in this way, are the ultimate symbol of their father’s callousness—and one that later backfires on him. In season 1 and beyond, the Umbrella Academy’s hatred of their father even leads them to turn against him not only in the present, but in the past and in alternate timelines.

While the Umbrella Academy’s tattoos are, in many ways, a symbol of unity between the siblings, they are also a symbol of a schism between the children and their “father.” Because of their permanent nature, they will always be a reminder of Hargreeves’ callousness, turning the siblings against their mysterious father (whose origins are slowly being revealed) in the future. Despite their now iconic nature, the Hargreeves siblings’ tattoos will always be a motivating force driving the children against their father not only in season 1 of The Umbrella Academy, but beyond.

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