there's literal hell in the Tim Drake tag and so I'd just like to ask, what are the actual positives of Tim's character? Everyone likes to completely shit on him and claim he's the worst and others claim he is the only true pure cinnamon. And I'm just confused.
Okay, here’s the thing (and I go over this more on my liveblog whothefuckistimdrake):
Tim’s origin story is terrible. He did not sleuth out Batman’s identity; he was simply obsessed with Dick Grayson and Batman after witnessing the Graysons’ deaths and thus recognized a flip Robin did when he was watching the news. He then went into a grieving household, acting bizarrely out of touch emotionally, and claimed “Batman needs a Robin” with 0 evidence. Bruce didn’t need a Robin, he was grieving his dead son (something Tim only gives passing thought, having never cared much about Jason) and needed support, which Dick agreed to provide as Nightwing. But Tim is obsessed with Robin and said that wasn’t enough, and donned the suit anyway.
It’s OOC and plot hole-ridden. How could Dick and Alfred encourage a stranger and child to put himself in danger after Jason? Is it not extremely fucked up that Bruce needs a kid (not even his OWN kid) to do that for his emotional stability? And it’s never even backed up - in subsequent stories Tim does absolutely nothing for Bruce’s wellbeing. In fact Tim acts affronted when Bruce’s mood disorders manifest or his PTSD leads to him getting triggered by reminders of Jason. Also, by the point of Tim’s origin he has absolutely no personal relationship to crime to justify becoming Robin. The “child sidekick” thing only works when the kid really needs it, like Dick and Jason did.
So “Batman needs a Robin, Tim saved Bruce!” is a total utter lie. “Tim is so brilliant, he figured out Batman’s identity!” is also a lie. And later it’s also clear that “Tim is the best staff fighter and skilled from his training with Shiva!” is a lie too; he spent one week getting kicked around by Shiva in a yard. That was it.
The truth really is that Tim is a white rich boy with tons of privilege, specifically created in the aftermath of the classism that killed Jason Todd, as well as a DC executive mandate that decided the comics needed a Robin again.
Now, some facts about Tim:
He is not a great fighter and in fact tended to get beat up even by people less trained than him. However, he IS good at trickery and roundabout techniques that allow him to win anyway.
He’s not a great detective, but he seems to be good with research and hacking.
It is unintentionally implied throughout his run, starting in his earliest appearances, that Tim is neurodivergent, possibly on the autism spectrum. He also was prone to hallucinations in times of great stress.
Tim’s parents did indeed spend most of their time traveling, leaving him with a nanny or at boarding school. But Tim was never left alone or went hungry, he was just raised the way a lot of rich kids are.
Tim hated school, dropped out, and did not want anything to do with corporate business. Even Red Robin, which bigged up his sueness and paved the way to New52 Tim, limited his Wayne Enterprises involvement to an offshoot charity program.
Tim did like tabletop rpgs and videogames, but he really was not a nerd in school. The popular kids seemed to like him just fine.
Tim being asian or originally coded asian is a total myth. Across his run in comics, from his early appearances ~1991, he’s explicitly called white.
Tim consistently considers himself more Drake than Wayne, and always puts Jack Drake before Bruce in terms of who his father is. But he never felt neglected by Bruce, who was canonically a very attentive and supportive mentor to Tim.
Tim is canonically a cheater who had both physical and emotional affairs and never confessed them to either his girlfriend, or the girl he cheated with.
So the critiques people have on Tim are valid. He was created to be palatable to white middle class men as a self-insert after DC wanted a Robin again, and thus a lot of his character today gets undermined as a result.
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