Things You DO NOT Need To Be A Man

under the hood is not a conflict formed out of violent miscommunication; it’s a tragedy born out of irreconcilable differences between father and son, catalysed by the most traumatic event conceivable.

whilst, yes, batman initially believes jason was fighting him because he failed to save him then later on believes that jason is asking him to kill joker in that moment instead of making him watch the joker to be killed, the resolved miscommunication fixes nothing. you can even say it gets worse because now it’s not something that can be understood as an unavoidable hurt of the past or an easier justification of his moral line, it’s the one thing that is somewhat reasonable to ask but that batman is unable to provide- killing the joker himself or allowing jason to take the joker’s life without trying to prevent it.

jason knowing that batman attempted to kill the joker in his grief or that nightwing did succeed temporarily changes nothing because nothing changed. the joker is not dead and the fact remains that if batman and nightwing wanted him truly dead, he would be and the deaths of so many would have been prevented.

jason knows he was loved, in fact he actively mocks it because that love was not enough to save him or avenge him like he points out the same for nightwing when bludhaven explodes. but he doesn’t need just love, he needs to be prioritised by his father and batman can never let go of his morals to do so. in batman #425, batman implies that the death of so many as a result of garzonas’ fathers vengeance is jason’s fault, showing that it’s only a natural consequence for a father to avenge his son, with the only one at fault for the blood feud being the son’s murderer. jason has every right to have expected batman to kill based off this and batman just can’t do it. therefore batman hides behind his mission to rationalise his guilt to his son, causing jason to replicate his language of vigilantism and costumed conflict, using his own goal to appeal to him.

both jason and bruce are simultaneously correct on their moral stances on murder (not taking into consideration the extremes and perhaps diversion from the core of their moral philosophies), it’s been a subject debated and questioned for an inconceivably long period of human history and will continue to be done be done because there is no definitive ‘right’ in ethics. they’re both highly intelligent, motivated, and thoughtful characters who definitely considered all possibilities and landed on their moral code.

moreover, even if one of them was more ‘correct’ than the other and should move towards the other moral view, they can’t; both have made their stances on the issue as a foundational to their lives. batman can’t let go of his belief in hope and the sanctity of human life and jason can’t let go of needing vengeance to be able to continue on in his second chance at life and the question of how many more lives is he willing to risk for sustaining an individuals right to life.

also, on a meta level, their conflict is that of conventions of the superhero genre combatting criticism of it. batman does as any hero is expected to and treats jason as the antagonist he is with his murder spree whilst also responding to the final trolley dilemma by trying to find a ‘third option’ of keeping both jason and the joker alive. but jason mocks and criticises batman’s approach to vigilantism and the given tropes he embodies and we are somewhat encouraged to root for him in part of his calling out of batman’s extremes such as when he cries out for the death of captain nazi. jason pushes batman into a moral corner and he is killed by him because of it, shutting down jason’s genre awareness and serving as a final, damning critique of batman. both batman and jason todd’s defiance can not co exist because to do so would erase the valid criticism jason makes without meriting it or would cause batman to betray his own respectable mythos.

it’s a tragedy of father and son torn apart by their conflicting and extreme opposing moral principles that cannot be altered without work being put in that dc is unwilling to do. they both need to fight because they love each other and feel the need to bring the other to their side, but in their futile efforts “everybody still loses.”

there’s always a focus on jason remembering exactly how he broke out his grave but i think him remembering every step walking 12.5 miles, constantly calling a mixture of ‘bruce’, ‘batman’, and ‘dad’ to the response of nobody before he passes out into a coma and wakes up to no bruce is the more devastating (all with the injuries that killed him). then when reduced to his most instinctive course of action after being batman’s robin and bruce’s son fails him, he goes back to the streets.

THE HENCHMINIONS AND RECENTLY RESURRECTED KING YAOI WOULD LIKE TO CONGRATULATE CONNORKYLE FOR SOMEHOW BEATING THE ROUND ONE POLL FODDER ALLEGATIONS.

you said he was *checks notes* rash, impulsive, and has a uhhh “darkness” within him? This guy?

This is your canon reminder for the day that Dick is a nerdy li’l Shakespeare buff. <3

Scans from Batman #216 (1969), Gotham Knights #42 (2003), Teen Titans #36 (1971), and Batman #682 (2009).

We are in desperate need of Death in the Family rewrite, instead of trotting out a horribly racist and bizarrely paced, thematically confused story like it’s one of the greats just because it’s load bearing. This is what i’d want from it.

Bruce is again the POV character, but he is explicitly a biased and unreliable narrator. We don’t hear Jason’s narration outside of a few key moments, but we are shown what he’s doing in direct contrast with Bruce’s theorising about his spiralling. Bruce never explicitly asks. Him and Alfred make well meaning, overbearing decisions on his behalf.

Jason is struggling with Batman and Robin’s catastrophic mishandling of several sexual assault cases in a row. I haven’t decided if we’re alluding to Jason being a victim of this himself, that might be overselling it. Either way he is deeply affected by these, and he is the only one. There’s a sense of isolation and injustice around him. He thought bruce cared. He thought batman was a solution.

Jason leaves to find his birth mother, leaving only a note and no explanation. Bruce sees the robin suit is missing and is annoyed. He doesn’t investigate, prioritising the hunt for the joker.

The death and build up happens exclusively in Africa, in a country with its own local vigilante, who wants to know what this American is doing here. (I don’t know enough about DC’s African heroes to know who it should be, but it needs to be one who is already established and competent in his own right.) Batman is in a state of awkward overreach with a patronising tilt to the way he hoards knowledge in the pursuit of the joker in someone else’s backyard. They agree to a partnership that in practise is unequal in Batman’s favour. We are externalising the themes here, mirroring Bruce’s personal relationships with his professional ones.

Jason and bruce run into each other by accident once again. Both are surprised the other is there for a different mission. They opt to combine forces anyway, since they’re both here. Bruce is touched and naively optimistic about Jason’s search for his birth mother. He is projecting. For a moment it is blazingly obvious bruce identifies as a fellow orphan to his sons first, and a father second.

There are local victims, arguably of the joker but it’s not definitive. Their deaths aren’t just numbers. They are real people. The local vigilante is very angry. Jason sympathises heavily, but he too is an outsider here. He sits apart from the funerary rites, listening in, uninvited, unable to mourn, unable to move on. Batman calls him to continue working the case.

Bruce isn’t blind, Jason is struggling. He makes a plan to reach out to him if they don’t find his mom, which will of course negate the need for action.

They find Sheila.

It all falls apart in the same way as the original. Jason does not try to take on the joker, although that is how it’s interpreted after he’s dead. He is trying to rescue his mom. She gets clobbered over the head by a joker goon on the way out and bleeds out while the bomb’s timer is still ticking down. Jason dies, alone, trying to shield the body of his dead mom.

None of the post-death UN stuff. Stupid.

Bruce disguises the death for publicity’s sake. He changes Jason out of robins clothes and hides the joker’s presence there to protect batman’s identity.

Time skip. The African vigilante knows he has been lied to. His country’s legal system paid off, and justice perverted. He comes to Gotham in pursuit of both the Joker and Batman, looking for justice.

At this point Bruce is in deep grief, swinging wildly between rage and self hatred. He is shutting out everyone. He loses track of a human trafficking case in crime alley to focus on the joker and the other vigilante.

The ending is an echo and inverse of the climax of Under the Red Hood, but nobody has set it up, it’s just the way a messy fight between the three remaining players works out. Bruce must choose between inaction and saving the joker. He doesn’t choose. He is frozen, and we do not know if it’s a choice or if he shut down too much to act. He is not in control. Joker appears to have died.

Joker is found, injured but alive, and gets locked in Arkham. The vigilante goes home, disgusted, having gotten what little justice Gotham offers.

The human traffickers escaped in the background of the fight. It isn’t called out, just a detail in the artwork.

Batman goes back to work in an empty house haunted by the dead. Jason’s grave stands alone. Everything has changed. Nothing has changed. Batman won, and everybody loses.

under the clarity of i have still not slept and it’s half past 4 in the morning, i can safely say that i was wrong:

jason would have a plan for being caught, in fact he would have a whole speech prepared complete with citations. this doesn’t mean that at this point he wouldn’t crumple like damp paper as soon as bruce tries to bring him home, either going with him or running away, but he’d give a valiant effort. (maybe, secretly, he was hoping or even relying on being caught here, making him all the more at a loss when faced with the detonator in the actual comic.)

lost days jason being picked up by the scruff of his neck after batman accidentally catches him planting the bomb on the batmobile. jason immediately goes to attack but because he’s not trained to kill as well as he is later on he’s disarmed quite easily. jason looking so young, not having killed anyone yet, and not being in control of the situation through careful planning meaning bruce is more likely to accept him but jason’s emotions are completely raw to where his actions are just fully calculated fury and hurt. also this is before wargames and stephanie’s death so that would make bruce have less emotionally vulnerable because his lack of fresh grief and guilt.

yet another reason why queer romance in media that is very subtle or more queer-coding than actual explicit rep is so much more compelling than the wealth of straight stories that are out there is bc I think a lot of romance writers forget that you have to like. show not tell. and imply things. and if you hustle things along and put two characters together for the sake of it instead of really working to build their relationship and show how well they work with each other it's not really going to be as interesting to people. and for some reason, a staggering amount of people do not know how to write romance properly so you get a very bland forced dynamic that either feels like an afterthought (he's a boy and she's a girl, hey they could be together because that's what happens!) or the only thing that matters about their characters (see her? she's the Love Interest. that is all she's there for)

however if you're being censored and you literally can't make your characters say "I love you" or kiss or maybe even hold hands you're going to have to come up with more creative ways to tell your audience that they're in love and that usually results in the most poetic beautiful stuff you've ever seen that's SO much more interesting than two characters who make eye contact and go into the slow-mo rose petals scene that's basically screaming at you "hey look at these two. they're in love. you're supposed to be invested in their relationship now. do you get it?" eye contact held for slightly too long in an emotional scene is more compelling. a hand very lightly touching their back is WAY more compelling.

and might I add this is not even impossible to achieve with uncensored straight romances at all like Pride & Prejudice is wildly popular for this exact reason. how many times have I seen people going insane over the hand flex scene. they didn't even kiss in that movie unless you count the extended ending. and everyone loves it. because it's done RIGHT.

tldr; romance is hard to write and you have to put in the effort if you want people to care about your ship. now go forth and imply something

QUICK EDIT TO ADD ALSO when things are more subtle that gives people more space to interpret the dynamic as whatever they want. something might be subtle because that's all they're allowed to show, but something might be subtle because that literally what it's supposed to be. as an aroace person I personally see a LOT of queerplatonic vibes from more subtly played relationships and it's so incredibly exciting and heartwarming for me. and that's a whole new realm of relationship that I think should also be given more attention