Ugh you just reminded me how stupid it was that they had Tim narrating how he had more training and was smarter than him when Jason had more training than Tim. Honestly, I see a lot of fanon that tim admired Jason but from what i've seen canonically it seemed like he admired Dick and didn't have a high opinion of Jason but that was also due to the writer's view of Jason as well.
Oh I’m so gonna use that ask to do some more ranting against DC, thanks for that gratuitous occasion.
I think as Robin Tim did have some more training (what with Shiva etc, the writing insisted more on his formative days than with Dick or Jason) but saying, like was often the case, that Jason was thrown on the field before he was ready or that he was “the dumb brash Robin” is indeed part of the retcons that he suffered.
Jason was ready. Jason was an excellent Robin. And a very bright kid at that with an interest for detective work. None of that was ever put into question before Starlin waltzed in and casually retconned the character to fit his child-murder agenda. The mere idea that Bruce ‘I prepare for every contingency’ Wayne would’ve let an ill-prepared kid on the streets is one convenient overlook of his character.
Honestly out of all the legends that surround Tim, the one that has him idolizing Jason always confused me the most. Dick was indeed the one Tim idolized. And it’s not just that Tim didn’t admire Jason— he was more touched by the fact that Robin died, and he worried about the effect it had on Bruce. But Jason himself? Lmao no shit given. Tim only showed the slightest bit of respect for Jason once, in ‘Tec #618. Every other time he mentions Jason it’s more in that tone.
And there starts DC’s bullshit because not even considering that they conveniently kept Starlin’s “Jason’s default mode is anger”, it’s Sheila who caused Jason’s death not his anger but look, looook how absolutely nothing is there to contradict Tim, if you read the full scene then not even Bruce tells him anything, no character ever puts Tim into question when he’s trashtalking Jason, Sheila will never ever be mentioned again in preboot and that’s not a frickin coincidence, I hate it
Even under Nicieza’s dodgy “partnership” the whole writing consists in making Jason incompetent af, insisting on how much Tim despises him, and emphasizing that he freed him of prison for Bruce & that he regrets it.
Part of Tim’s role as a character was to establish in the reader’s mind that he’s better than Jason, that Jason had some fatal flaw that caused his own death and wasn’t worthy for the Robin legacy (read: the child’s violent death is not DC’s or even Bruce’s fault) & that Tim wouldn’t repeat his mistakes. DC went as far as to instrumentalize other characters to drive that point through.
(I thought I remembered other similar mentions of Jason in Tim’s solo but I couldn’t find them. 183 issues man.)
Tim showed more respect to the memorial than to the person it was supposed to commemorate; he was introduced as worried that Robin would die permanently but not particularly touched that a child had died; he merely worried on the disastrous effect it’d have on Batman/Bruce. I think A Lonely Place of Dying made all of that pretty clear.
DC just couldn’t have Tim empathize with Jason, lest the readers themselves start empathizing with him too much which DC absolutely didn’t want. As a result Jason was used as a device to further prove Tim was dedicated and took Robin seriously (as if that wasn’t clear enough), and Tim came off as highly dismissive & disdainful of Jason on more than one occasion because it’s literally how DC wanted the reader to feel about Jason.
Tim was written in an era that constantly and viciously victim-blamed Jason. It impacted Tim’s portrayal and his view on Jason too. There are ways to exploit that— Tim was just a kid and never got to know Jason before his death, it’s not completely aberrant that he might’ve had misconceptions about him & I wouldn’t blame the character for it. But I blame DC a hell of a lot for framing Tim’s opinion as the absolute truth.
Tim idolizing Jason is a cute idea, really, and it’s a convenient place to get started if you want them to be pals in a fanfic. But as of post-crisis it’s completely fanon. It also pushes DC’s shittiness under the rug while they really don’t deserve their decades of ill-meaning and manipulative writing to be exonerated or simply forgotten.
And for all that I want Jason and Tim to get along (and Jason’s characterization is inconsistent enough that you can select the parts that’d make it work with Tim), I’m not a fan of how reboot went fanservice mode to make Tim & Jason best pals out of nowhere… especially at the cost of Tim’s and Dick’s dynamic.
Plus, how interesting would it be for Tim’s character growth to involve a change of mind about Jason? Tim’s usually pretty self-aware and knows to recognize his own inadequacies or faults. When the writer wants you to consider there’s no fault to speak of, though, it sure doesn’t help.
