We as a society should get more “treating Willis like the human he is” instead of “Willis is a neglectful vermin of a man that should’ve died because he’s a criminal and also Bruce Wayne is a 100% a better parent” type of vibe yk. I’ve been reading some pre-Bruce Jason and I’ve just like,, fallen in love with Willis’s premise his character like sure he’s barely there but when he’s there? God it does something to me.
There’s something so insidious (like so extra insidious outside of the dc fandom norm of “so incredibly classist we could go toe to toe with a French elite before the revolution”) and so dehumanising about taking a story of a man’s desperation to give his son a better life then turning it into a story of a man who’s abusive and evil because of the crimes he committed in that desperation. God. And then ontop of that comparing it to Jason under Bruce’s care as if as if there’s any stable footing for any kind of meaningful comparison “Jason had a better life under Bruce” yeah and Bruce has about at least 7 more zeros in his bank account your point?? Like if we assumed both wanted a better life for Jason, like no fucking shit the one with near infinite amount of resources would provide a better life than a man who has essentially nothing- then taking the fact that he has nothing then equating that to he’s abusive and a bad father is just like. Wow. Are we reciting the classist manifesto???
And yeah in some in my eyes extremely classist iterations of the story (because I haven’t delved into classism of dc editorial themselves yet) Willis is an objectively bad father, but here’s the difference Bruce is consistently a bad father- no no no we aren’t gonna start with that whole “he’s trying his best!” He is an objectively selfish father. Doesn’t matter what his genuine intent is if he really loved them or not, his actions especially with Jason is unequivocally selfish. At least it reads as incredibly selfish to me, covering up your own son’s murder to continue your vigilante hobby- letting the man who murdered your son go off Scott fucking free basically again inaction is endorsement- to go off and kill and ruin more families for your own moral code- and don’t start with the “oh of course the Jason fan doesn’t understand the moral code” I DO and that’s why I said selfish- I said selfish not amoral not immoral selfish. Because that’s what Bruce Wayne is. He is a deeply flawed man, a deeply flawed father and pretending he isn’t in comparison to Willis is classist. I highly doubt most iterations of Willis would purposely cover up and hide the death of his own son for his own personal vendettas I highly doubt of Willis was in the position he would let a man who’s done so much evil go because of his own aversion to death.
A lot of yall claim Bruce Wayne isn’t affected by his wealth but like,,,, yall do know having a moral code is a luxury? Like he has the resources to throw at problems till they go away to make himself more comfortable, Willis doesn’t have that- Willis will never have that. Bruce Wayne is a billionaire like any other and hoarding his wealth to “improve” the health of Gotham (caused by that same hoarding of wealth) doesn’t make him an acceptable billionaire.
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