I've already posted this on twitter, but let's talk about Bruce Wayne and sanism, and my very shortened thoughts about it.
People often talk about Bruce Wayne in ways that reveal how deeply sanist language is baked into fandom spaces. It’s not just about him as a character. It’s about how people respond to traits that mirror real mental health experiences.
There’s a tendency to flatten Bruce’s trauma into “his parents died, he should get over it.” As if losing your entire sense of safety and identity as a child is something you just outgrow. That framing treats trauma like a plot device instead of an ongoing condition.
When people mock his boundaries against killing or using guns, they ignore that these are trauma responses. They are coping mechanisms rooted in the violence that shaped him. Saying they’re “impractical” erases what boundaries actually mean for survivors.
His paranoia, need for control, and contingency plans are often demonized too. They get written off as signs that he’s an obsessive freak or power-hungry control addict. But for many people, hypervigilance and compulsion are survival strategies, not moral failings.
Bruce is also often portrayed or described with autistic traits—struggles with emotional expression, difficulty connecting, strict routines—and these are used as insults. It’s cruel to turn neurodivergent traits into moral corruption. People live with these realities every day.
The same goes for how fans label him “sociopathic” or “narcissistic” as shorthand for “bad person.” Those words describe real, complex mental health conditions that already face heavy stigma. Using them as slurs only deepens that stigma.
Recognizing all this doesn’t mean Bruce Wayne is flawless. He’s done harmful things and made questionable choices. But there’s a difference between holding a character accountable and pathologizing human behavior that mirrors mental illness or neurodivergence.
When fandom treats trauma, OCD, autism, or PTSD as signs of villainy, it tells real people with those conditions that their existence is something to mock or fear. That language doesn’t just hurt a fictional man in a cape. It hurts the people who see themselves in him.
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