ya know what, i’m doing this again. Jason Todd character analysis. this is one of many Jason Todd related or batfam adjacent analyses i’ve done in my notes app but uh, here it is, and i welcome healthy debate or add ons. all of this is my opinion as someone who wants to hopefully become a comic writer/artist and work on a Jason comic based around his all blades and magic adventures kinda thing.
Jason Todd’s character is a character whose entire purpose is to love and either not be loved back, not be loved enough, or be loved too much and not grieved enough.
he went to Ethiopia to find his bio mom. She gave him up to the Joker and he paid the price because she didn’t love him. and even then, he still tried to save her when they were both about to die.
as Robin he was prone to violent outbursts because of how hard he loved Gotham and hated the evil and corruption that haunted his city. he watched the woman that raised him, his mother in every way except for biologically, overdose on drugs. he shoved her drug dealer down the stairs and killed him (see: Batman Urban Legends) because he loved Catherine Todd, his mama.
hate isnt the opposite of love, it’s just a parallel, the opposite of love is indifference.
as Robin he was happy and kind as well as angry and violent. but he was never indifferent.
and when he died, nothing changed, that’s why he was angry when he came back. because his death meant NOTHING. it changed NOTHING. it did NOTHING. Gotham was still a cesspool of a city, crime still ran rampant, all his death did was make Batman punch harder, but crime didnt drop. people didnt stop dying. people didnt stop killing. the Joker was still alive.
as Jason says in the Under the Red Hood movie
"Bruce, I forgive you for not saving me. But why, why on God's earth is he still alive!" and "Ignoring what he's done in the past - blindly, stupidly disregarding the entire graveyards he's filled, the thousands who have suffered, the friends he's crippled! You know, I thought... I thought l'd be the last person you'd ever let him hurt. If it had been you he'd beat to a bloody pulp, if he had taken you from this world, I would've done nothing but search the planet for this pathetic pile of evil, death-worshiping garbage... and send him off to hell!” and "I'm not talking about killing Penguin or Scarecrow or Dent. I'm talking about Him. Just him. And doing it because... because he took me away from you.”
Jason is doing all this to prove to himself that he mattered to SOMEONE. because his costume as Robin sits in a case in the batcave with a plaque that says “a good solider” and not “a loved son”. Jason utterly and truly thought of Bruce as his father, and he is the only one who does to this day. Dick sees Bruce as more of a best friend and older brother, Tim sees Bruce as a friend and coworker and kinda uncle situation, Damian sees Bruce as his father, but Dick raised Damian for nearly two years while Bruce was dead, Dick is who Damian sees as his Dad. Cass, Cass may be the only other one who sees Bruce as her Dad aside from Jason, but it was Jason first. Jason was Bruce’s first adopted child, Dick was still only a ward. it was Jason that he adopted, Jason that he called his son, Jason that he grieved like a father, but he didn’t grieve enough.
Jason’s resurrection isnt just about rage. no. it’s also about grief. about the fact that his life, his death, his sacrifice, meant absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. hes angry that the world didnt stop for a single moment when he suffocated under that rubble. because it wasn’t the bomb that killed him. it was Bruce getting there late. it was the rubble over him that took his last breath. Jason could’ve lived if Bruce had been just a few minutes earlier. but he didn’t.
Jason Todd is a tragedy not because he died, but because he loved so fully in a world that never knew how to love him back the way he needed, or the way he deserved.
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