#roy harper #dick grayson #jason todd #am I saying something controversial here? #because i’m pretty sure at least one person blocked me because I added it to the reblog of the post #where people lamented how roy harper is most often associated with jason todd #no duh they had their series together #as a team and as a duo #and they were there for each other #is it a fucking bad thing? #that roy harper had one fucking person in his life who trusted him? #and who he trusted? (via @redjaybathood)
so there are two problems i have with your argument — first, that you use panels from rhato to support an argument whose premise, as you summarised yourself, is that “people take issue with roy harper being associated most strongly with jason todd because there was no hint of their friendship pre 52″, and second, because you may have misunderstood where people are coming from with their frustration toward this partnership.
re: the first point, since we’re talking about roy and jason’s friendship (the way it stands) not making a lot of sense when taken in the context of pre 52 canon, i’m afraid all of your evidence is irrelevant? what we’re saying is that the panels you provide are ooc considering past canon, not that their relationship is ooc in present canon. and that doesn’t necessarily void your premise, because roy and jason did interact pre 52 (if rarely), and it isn’t completely implausible for the two of them to work together. which brings us to the second point — nobody is saying that jason and roy working together is a bad thing in and of itself. in fact, the general consensus seems to be that this would have been a fantastic idea if executed well — the problem is, it wasn’t. prior to the reboot, roy had far more experience than jason did in the game; he had led both the titans and the outsiders and been a member of the justice league. it wasn’t just a question of age (though there is that, too — a lot of the experience roy had on jason would obviously have come just by virtue of him being older as well, and i don’t think it makes sense that you brush that point off as if it’s trivial. it isn’t.), roy was better, especially considering that jason wasn’t exactly the most stable person and his tendency to fly off the handle did affect him as a hero (if he even was one at all; anti-hero fit him better) then.
as a lot of people have pointed out, roy’s competency did not have to be erased in order for him and jason to make sense as a team. roy could easily have seen in jason his own lost, angry teenage self, and stayed with jason in order to give him the help and companionship that saved himself once upon a time. but that isn’t what happened. rhato shunted roy into the role of a glorified sidekick. his intelligence is downplayed, he all but worships jason, and he’s treated like a plot device to further jason’s narrative first and foremost. worse, all of roy’s original relationships were erased for no apparent reason. you said it yourself: the only person who was there for roy when he was struggling with addiction was waylon jones, the only person who freed roy in qurac was jason, etc. this would never have been the case pre-flashpoint; when he was struggling with addiction, dinah, hal, and dick were there for him through both withdrawal and recuperation; and the number of times team arrow and/or the titans have risked their lives to either save or avenge him? countless.
and now he only has jason. he was literally never a son to oliver in this canon — i don’t think he ever even met dinah. and the titans? his best friends? how many times has he expressed a preference for life with the outlaws over them in titans rebirth? “Writers are trying to make Jason into Dick by giving him Dick’s friends. (thus somehow robbing dick from roy or something lmao)” “As I remember it, Roy Harper was struggling with his addiction, heavily drinking, and living in Gotham, homeless, on the streets - in Dick’s home city - to boot, at the time.” “While Roy was struggling, while he found himself on a verge of suicide by a rogue, the only person who gave a shit about him […] was actually Waylon Jones. Where was Dick at the time? Why didn’t he help Roy?” “Also, the person who rescued him out of jail? Jason. And Kory. Not Dick. Where was Dick? I don’t know.” the fact that you think this supports your point and not ours tells me that you don’t actually know a lot about roy and dick before the reboot, do you? this is a big deal. this is a problem. dick and roy were once so close they could have legitimately been a canon couple and it wouldn’t even have been out of the blue. i can’t even provide panel evidence for you because we’d be here all day (although, if you’re interested, my blog is made of dickroy, and you’re more than welcome to peruse).
you can be supportive of jason and roy’s friendship without ignoring or shitting on dick and roy’s, you know. especially considering that dick and roy’s has been around since the ’60s, and jason and roy’s barely survived a decade. i’d say that warrants some respect, wouldn’t you?
“In conclusion: While pre-52 Dick very well might have been one of the best friends of Roy, belittle Roy’s current relationships in his life, and yes, Jason was, at the time of Roy’s death, one of the most important people in his life, just because you don’t really like Jason/like Dick better is fucking petty.” no. no, that isn’t what this is about. it’s about a relationship established for over five decades in the comics getting erased just to isolate roy and make him jason’s and jason’s alone. it’s about a character getting his canon abilities, personality traits, and even friends and family taken away for the sake of a bland storyline. it’s about how that character literally just got killed off so jason could have another tale of revenge. it’s not about roy not being allowed to have friends other than dick; it’s about how jason wasn’t another friend to him, he was his only friend, about roy expressing outright hostility toward dick (and the titans) now.
it’s an insult. and we are reacting to it as an insult. i’m sure you must love jason a lot, judging from your blog, but nobody here is criticising him, we’re criticising rhato. and i’m sure you know a whole lot about jason — certainly more than i do — but i also know a whole lot about roy, and dick, and roy and dick together, and i think, perhaps, where your knowledge may be more limited than ours (and it quite clearly is), you ought to concede? i mean, imo admitting ignorance is better than being self-important enough to tout your opinions as fact when they aren’t, and you’ve misunderstood the original point @lesbiangraysons made in the first place entirely.
besides, by your own logic, i could say that belittling the damage done to roy by rhato + rebirth just because you don’t seem to know much about dick and roy’s relationship and/or like jason and roy’s better is also “fucking petty”. maybe even more so because there aren’t a lot of people (who’ve been introduced to dc via the new 52 and rebirth) who are even aware that dick and roy didn’t always hate each other, while jason and roy are comparatively well known these days. we’re not exactly on equal ground there, are we.
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