What Is It With People Using Minorities To Uplift/defend Their Fav White Boys? Cass Is More Empathetic

Tim: Duke, you're an optimist. Try to see the bright side.

Duke: The bright side is on fire, Tim.

Tim: And it's warm! See, that wasn't so hard. Now you try.

Duke: .....

Duke: I suppose it's kind of pretty.

Tim: That’s the spirit!

Bruce [voice far away]: Are you two insane! The building is on fire! Get out!

cain and bruce and cass are sooo interesting to me... long rambles (with comic panel receipts!) under the cut (also batgirl 2000 spoilers)

Cain had tried many times before to make The One Who Is All, but Cassandra is special in a way the others weren't because she worked. She didn't defy instructions, she was amazing at combat, she didn't go insane, she was perfect. And David grew to love her in a way he hadn't loved the others, even though he hurt her, because it was the price he had to pay to get his little girl perfect. Yes he shot her, but it was to keep her on her toes, and she had to be that to be perfect - it’s the price he has to pay. He rarely touched her, because it was a price he had to pay, but in the times that he did, he cuddled with her on the rooftop and pointed to the stars. He couldn't talk to her, because it was a price he had to pay, but he could make their own little language and keep her progress on tapes.

And when the time came for her first real foray into being The One Who is All, he dresses her up in a frilly pink dress and pigtails.

And she runs away and David doesn't know what to do. The first kill is always hard, he made her do it too soon, too young, she wasn’t ready, he knows it’s his fault.

And then, years later, when his baby girl is almost an adult (but really he'll always see her as that little girl with pigtails and a bloody pink dress on), he meets her again and she yells at him to stop.

And he cries, because it was the price he had to pay, but his daughter can understand him now, fully, and she's using it to ask him to stop, so how can he say no to that? Now they're dangling over an edge and he's pleading for her to hold on but she can't, she won't, and she survives anyway like she always will but she survives in a cape and ears and a bat across her chest.

David thought that Bruce was perfect when they were training, but he wasn't. He wouldn't kill. But maybe he can be good enough for David's perfect little girl anyway because she won’t either, and god knows David isn't perfect. So he concocts a test, and tries his damndest to keep those tapes of his daughter because that's all he has left of her.

David loves Cass with all of his heart, but his heart isn't big enough to fit things like hugs and speaking and care. The biggest problem is that he sees her as a weapon first, no matter what.

Bruce isn't like that. Cassandra isn't a weapon— she's a bat, of course, she’s perfect for it! And to be the bat, yeah, you have to make sacrifices sometimes. Keeping your identity a secret is much easier when you have no (legal, public) identity to speak of, and he doesn’t understand when Barbara insists on frivolous things like vacations, identities, names, and peace. Why call the girl Cass when she can simply be Batgirl?

If Bruce had a choice, he would just be the bat. And so this girl who is just like him— better, even! Well, of course she’d agree. Yes, she’s young, she’s just seventeen, but… come on. You can barely say a perfect soldier like her is a kid, still. And it’s tragic that Cain made her like this, made her like them, but… it happened. She is like this. So why wouldn’t he help her use it for good? 

He never had to teach Batgirl, this girl who is just like him, about the value of life. Her hits are perfect and measured, to knock them out and nothing more. The first thing he noticed about her was her willingness to die and insistence that no one else does, and he encourages these things. 

And her death wish is ineffective and annoying and dangerous, but it’s inescapable and she doesn’t let it affect her missions anymore.

Batman asks Batgirl if the dozens of lives saved because of what she did is enough. She says no, and he says good. 

When Batgirl loses some of her skills, she runs at an armed man and gets shot 4 times (one in each thigh, one through her shoulder, one in her stomach). But she survives anyway, like she always will, and when she wakes up Batman asked why she did it. She responds instinct. He says, “Good.”

Then he finds out about her upcoming fight with Shiva. Batgirl knows that she will lose. This is not a competition or arrogance for her— this is suicide. She needs to move past this death wish and… well. She might not move… past it, per se, but she will be rid of it, and perhaps the world will become of rid of her. But it’s necessary. So he lets her leave, because he knows she needs to do this. At least she will die with honor.

Later, when she survives even after dying, because she always survives, Batman needs to do something. Something dangerous and reckless and, maybe, a bit suicidal. Batgirl wants to help but he just says “I let you fight Shiva because it was something you had to do for yourself. Don’t say thank you. Return the favor.” 

The tragedy of Batman and Batgirl is unlike the tragedy of David Cain and The One Who Is All, where she is only an assassin to her father— not even that, just a killing weapon. It’s unlike the tragedy of Cassandra and Sandra, where she is just a pawn for her mother’s suicide. And it is especially unlike the tragedy of Babs and Cassie, where she is seen by her mom as so much less than she is, as something that she can never be— regular. Normal. Innocent.

No, the tragedy of Batman and Batgirl is that her dad sees Cassandra as, yes, eventually a daughter, certainly a soldier, but most of all, an extension of himself. And he does not treat himself very well, or with much caution, or with any gentleness.

I love Obi-Wan Kenobi because he is a character who is designed to be good.

He is a character who believes in the right thing, who tries to do the right thing, and is innately good. Yet he still fails. Obi-Wan, despite the fact that he is smart, compassionate, loving, loyal, kind, selfless, and humble, all traits of a protagonist, is not one. His fatal flaw is his self-doubt. Obi-Wan is a person who exists to show others the light.

He is a character who leaves you wanting because he never gets what he deserves.

He is a character whose point is: sometimes being good is not enough. Sometimes people are good and they still live in pain. Sometimes a person is good and they make others good and they suffer for it.

Warriors 

Constantine’s Kids

Because no one would ever be able to convince Cass that her dying wasn’t a good thing. She can’t explain why the first time was so liberating but it was and that’s that. But the second time? Cass changed someone’s mind by dying and that’s worth everything.

I really like the idea of her continuing to see her death and life by extension as this tool to save others. Because first it saved her and then it saved her friend who’s to say dying won’t work again?

Yessss like does Cass want to die? Not anymore. Is she willing to die? Absolutely. It's a tool in her arsenal, a break glass in case of emergency tool, but a tool nonetheless. Not death, death is the worst thing that could ever happen to someone and she will fight with everything she has to prevent it. But HER death? If the price is worth it, then sure.

Someone else risks their life and Cass is so furious, tears streaming down her cheeks, that she doesn't talk to them for a month. The next day she takes 20 bullets to stop two mobs from shooting each other and just rolls her eyes sullenly through Bruce and Barbara's stressed lectures. She could have died sure, but she didn't want to, it was just a necessary risk to save lives worth more than hers.

I always find the melodrama around Obi Wan being Anakin's master a bit funny. Basically a teenage dad! Struggling single parent! Traumatized child in the care of a traumatized child! Eldest daughter syndrome etc..... Yes, he was grieving, and it must have taken courage on his part to present that ultimatum to the council, and had he had to leave the Order to train Anakin, I can see how that would have been deeply challenging, true. But like,

It's the clone wars cartoon that really renders it for me. Anakin was.... I think quite objectively less ready for knighthood at the end of aotc than Obi Wan was at the end of tpm, but the cartoon basically has it happen right away. He was an actual teenager. He, unlike Obi Wan, canonically did not really want a padawan at that time. Also, he had to raise a padawan in a warzone? Hey, he also had just lost a parent, wow, the parallels. The show also establishes quite thoroughly that jedi learn to look after children and teach... possibly even before becoming padawans themselves, judging by Ahsoka, and that there is also a good degree of communal teaching even with the apprentice system, judging by Ahsoka. But never mind all that

So we're cuddle-piling the 25 year old trained teacher with a solid support system who was applying for a position that he expected to include raising a padawan, i guess... truly the meowest of meows, the burdenest of burdens. No wonder Anakin fell!

nightmare mission trio

Ngl I feel like Cassie is baned from training any one cause it’s traumatizing.

Like they left her alone with Young Justice for an hour and came back to find them all shot and crying in corners while Cass calls them babys.

It isn’t even her fault because that’s how she trained and was going easy.

Okay imagine this; Cassandra with the same exact upbringing but the family somehow doesn’t know. She learned to talk and did the whole Shiva thing before meeting Bruce, and she knows Shiva is her mom.

Batman (talking to an assassin who he had to track down because for some reason every big name is staying away from Gotham, not that he’s complaining, but he’s worried); why is everyone staying away from Gotham?

Assassin (small enough to be scared but big enough to have helped train Cass); I am NOT getting near that psychopath! I don’t know how she got away, there, or even learned to talk! No way am I taking that risk, fuck off Bats, I’m more scared of her than I am of you!

Now the fam is even more confused. Everyone is trying to figure this out, Cass is laughing in the corner. (Maybe with Dami)

A few days later, Talia storms into the cave and bitch slapped Bruce, she turned and hugged Cassandra.

Bruce (holding his cheek because that woman has a mean slap); what was that for?!?

Talia; not telling me my daughter is okay! I should do more than slap you! My poor daughter, I’ve been so worried, so has Nyssa. I should have murdered him and taken you as my own the second we met. Of course, father would be furious, but you are much better than him. I assume your mother knows, considering my beloved is still breathing.

Cass; yes, mother knows, approves of Bat. Says it good branching out, got away, yay!

Talia; I did not expect that. Anyways, if you have trouble with your grandfather, just call. You left fair and square, I shall protect you, not that you need it. Be good, my child.

Cass preened under the praise and watched one of her adoptive League mothers leave. Talia and Nyssa were always nice to her, wanting to help but not being able to, she loved them. She refused to answer questions.