honestly? the one that really gets me is that bruce just kinda assumes that dick will drop everything to take care of the family when things happen to him. and because of that, heâs never grateful when he does.
like in 2009 when batman got himself fuckin nerfed, and dick dropped EVERYTHING. his mantle, his city, his teams, everything he cared about, and moved back to gotham to keep bruceâs life going. took in his feral kid that murdered and spent all his time disrespecting him, dealt with jason going off the richter, actually improved batmanâs relationship with the gcpd (with multiple officers saying they preferred the new, kinder batman), and just kept the family together in general, as best he could. all while it destroyed him. he wasnt sleeping, he wasnt in contact w any of his friends, he was injured CONSTANTLY, and his team mates were furious with him. and he just sat there and bore it all. he did his best and he fucking succeeded. then batman came back and told him none of it was good enough. tim should still be robin, even tho it was a) dicks mantle to pass on and b) the only way to integrate damian healthily into the family and society. that he was too soft even tho he put a REAL dent in crime and was congratulated for it by commissioner gordon. he lead the jla, kept the business going, and the only person that was harmed here was himself. and the first thing he did was yell at dick that he didnt have what it takes and didnt do a good enough job, and that was exactly what he had expected to happen. because he knew he was flimsy and weak, even tho dick had proven himself the exact opposite.
like. can we talk about how dick is always willing to throw everything away for bruce or the family. that the second he doesnt come through the love is withdrawn (a lĂĄ nightwing year one and like. a bunch of other arcs) and hes terrified of that. like he would go to the ends of the earth for bruce and he doesnt care. he just expects that of dick. and so do the kids, i cant count the number of times tim has just assumed that dick will be there, and called him sloppy when he isnt. the number of times jason has derided his devotion as bootlicking. ive just. ive had enough
and im not saying that dick does this for thanks. he doesnt. he does it because he loves his family and wants whats best for them. i just HATE that that sentiment isnt returned.
like its pretty evident that dick lives in fear of having love withdrawn, which is why he has the tendency to both seek out connections then run from commitment. because love cant be withdrawn if u leave first. and like obviously the root of this is bruce and his parenting strategy. dick doesnt come thru for him? he gets torn to shreds, then eventually kicked out and dumped from the duo. something that was REALLY formative and valuable for him. but if dick does come through? he gets nothing. alfred talks about this all the time like, just give a kid a pat on the back. and bruce has started getting good at that! with tim and damian, and to a certain extent jason. but still not dick. hes just left out there drowning, doing anything he can to SHOW bruce how much he cares about him and the family. and the only signal he gets is that it isnt good enough. And this bleeds over into how his siblings treat him, with tim (and damian early on) looking down on him as emotional and scattered, because he doesnt have 100% laser vision on gotham. Like no, he has his own life, his own shit, and itâs just so disrespected by them. HE is just so disrespected by them.
Also can I just point out another heavily criticized behavior of Dickâs that traces straight back to Bruceâs parenting, and then was perpetuated by his siblings?
Dick being so private about things that happen to him, and not opening up to his family or friends, and so they genuinely donât even KNOW whatâs going on with him half the time.
But like, its not hard to see WHY he might be that way, when Bruceâs tendency with Dick, whenever he gets hurt is likeâŚ.GET HIM OUT OF MY SIGHT IMMEDIATELY BECAUSE I JUST AM NOT EMOTIONALLY EQUIPPED TO HANDLE SEEING MY KIDDO IN DISTRESS, IT HURTS MY SOUUUUUUL.
Like literally, this is Bruceâs behavior whenever Dick gets hurt in a nutshell. And Iâm pretty confident, his underlying reasoning. And Bruce doesnât love Dick more than his siblings, its justâŚ.Bruce had Alfred after his parents diedâŚ.but he had Alfred BEFORE his parents died too. I fully believe that Dick is the FIRST person Bruce allowed himself to care about what happens to him as much as he cared about what happened to his parents, before he lost themâŚ.and so he literally never LEARNED with Dick how to likeâŚ.just freaking COPE with bad shit happening to Dick on his watch.
And thatâs why when Two-Face nearly beat Dick to death in Robin: Year One, Bruceâs reaction was to blame him, fire him as Robin, and basically tell him to get out of his sight. Its why when the Joker shot Dick years later, Bruceâs reaction was AGAIN toâŚfire him as Robin. When Blockbuster systematically dismantled Dickâs life to the extent that in the aftermath of Bludhavenâs destruction Dick had a passive deathwish and was running headlong into danger at every possible opportunityâŚ.Bruceâs reaction was to wait until Dick literally wore himself out with exhaustion and had to be brought back to the Batcave, and THEN yell at him for having spent the past six months basically trying to get himself killed. AND I believe its why after Forever Evil, Bruce did what he did, as much as I loathe itâŚbecause he literally just saw Dick get murdered before his very eyes, he had no idea how to save him and Dick wouldâve stayed dead if not for Luthor of all people, the person who also killed Dick in the first placeâŚ.and now with Dick unmasked, there was going to be a literal target on his back 24/7, and Bruce I think, had NO plan for that, no idea how to deal with that, protect him from thatâŚ.and he FLIPPED. Make no mistake, even if he told himself he was doing this for his own good, I still heavily class the events of Nightwing #30 as abusiveâŚ.but I DO think this is what Bruce was telling himself probably, while he was doing it. At least on a subconscious level. He wanted to get Dick FAR AWAY and hidden, like, ASAP. No matter what it took.
But end result isâŚ.why the fuck would a kid who is raised like thisâŚ.ever grow up to be someone who SHARES his trauma and hurts, when in his experience, that results in very little comfort and instead a distressing tendency to only get MORE hurtâŚ.by the very people who can hurt him MOST. Because his friends and other family call him out for this too, but likeâŚ.look at precedent. Historically, NONE of Dickâs acknowledged traumas ever stay CENTERED around him. They become an opportunity for Jason to insist Bruce loves Dick more, for Tim to show how he cares about Dick more than Damian, and Damian basically doing the same thingâŚand so on, and so on.Â
Dick DIES, and somehow it became more about EVERYONE ELSEâS feelingsâŚ..with ZERO canon instances of anyone at any point asking himâŚ.hey are you doing okay after likeâŚ.being tortured and unmasked on live TV last time I saw you? HeyâŚ.any bad shit happen to you while you were undercover in a shady spy organization this past year, with absolutely no backup and no time in between that wholeâŚtorture business, during which you possibly could have had time to regroup and recover?
Thereâs likeâŚvery little incentive for Dick TO open up about his hurts and whatâs going on with him everâŚ.and practically every reason in the world for him NOT to, in his perspective.
Also, despite how long this got, lol, I quickly want to mention that its extremely problematic how both canon and fandom casually reference Dickâs childhood with the circus, without ever really taking into account that he was eight when he ended up staying in Gotham with Bruce. Thatâs plenty old enough to develop some lifetime habits and preferences already, and a lot of the conflict heâs faced from friends and family over certain choices and behaviors of his could be argued to stem from the fact that likeâŚ.everyone just took it for granted that because Dick had to stay in Gotham and adjust to the routines of life there, that he should just have changed everything about himself that differed from their norms, in order to fit in. Its taken for granted that Dick doesnât HAVE any holdovers from his previous life in the circusâŚ.
Even though one major conflict was Bruce and Dick arguing over Dick not wanting to go to college. Why should he want to? Five generations of his family were acrobats, his parents never went to college, it had no effect on them doing what they wanted to do, and Dick already had multiple degrees worth of knowledge from his superhero training, and a clear idea of what he wanted to do with his lifeâŚ.vigilantism. A college degree never held any value for Dick because as long as he had a job that paid his bills, he already HAD the education he wanted, or plenty of alternative means to get any further education he required.
Or similar to his not being quick to open up to people about his traumasâŚ..his âperformative nature.â How he so often wears an emotional mask, or how easily he commands attention or becomes the center of a crowd. Heâs often resented by his siblings or teammates for how âeveryone loves Dick,â with no examination of how Dick feels about that attention. Thing is, Dick was raised from birth not just to be an acrobatâŚbut to be a performer. The show must go on wasnât just an adage for him, it was a way of life. As a child entertainer, he grew up knowing he had to be able to paste a smile on his face no matter how he was feeling or how he felt about whomever he was performing for. Just because he naturally drew a crowd at the galas Bruce took him to while he was living with him, doesnât mean Dick WANTED to be at the center of those crowds or was having a good timeâŚ.he was simply using the tools heâd been trained to have from birth to work a room to his best advantage. Most of the people fawning over him at those galas went home to gossip about the circus brat Bruce took in, like he was some exotic pet or charity case and Dick was well aware of thatâŚ.but if he couldnât change how people felt, he could at least manage them while forced to be in the same room as them so some of that was on his terms.
And lastlyâŚDick is frequently called out for being âflightyâ and not committing to a single place like most of the other Bats do with GothamâŚ..heâs been condemned by friends and family, by Babs, at various times, for leaving Gotham in the first placeâŚfor relocating to BludhavenâŚfor relocating to New YorkâŚback to Bludhaven, etc. Sometimes its called an example of the commitment issues you were talking about OP, which he definitely has and I agree with your assessment of whyâŚ.but also Iâd point out here that the most common narrative around these instances is that theyâre examples of Dick âfleeingâ and ârunning awayââŚ.instead of simply being true to his early childhood. In the circus, they moved regularly. Its just what they did. Dick canonically visited tons of cities before he ever came to Gotham, and likeâŚ.why isnât he allowed to just miss that? He never stayed in Gotham by choice. It was because he HAD to. He NEVER chose that for himself, so upon reaching eighteen and age of majorityâŚwhy shouldnât he just return to at least some semblance of the lifestyle he missed so much?Â
In something like a traveling circus, sometimes you go to a place, and its not as good as youâd hoped. Bad economy, poor weather, limited audiencesâŚ.circus just underperforms, things are tight for everyone, and what happens? Nothing. You just pack up and move on to the next location, hope things are better with a change of scenery. Thatâs not fleeing from problems. Its not running away from anything. Its just the nature of life on the road. And its pretty much exactly what Dick does as an adult. Bad shit happens to him in one place? He packs up, moves somewhere else and starts fresh with a change of scenery. How is it really running awayâŚ.when his friends and family all have access to a billionaireâs resources or alien tech or superhero teammates that can easily reach him no matter WHERE he goes on the globeâŚ.which is exactly what happens each time he moves anyway? Heâs never any harder to reach whether heâs in Gotham, NY or Bludhaven, so why is it always seen as him running away from his problems, instead of just likeâŚ.Dick doing something that feels safe and comfortable and familiar, beforeâŚ.still engaging with the same problems he had before anyway.
Anyway, great post OP and I already reblogged it once with a ton of tags so figured Iâd actually comment this time soâŚthe tags donâtâŚcut me off. For am I a wordy asshole.
Some interesting thoughts here.
Certainly some of the more convincing explanantions for Bruceâs shitty behaviour Iâve seen in a long while.
