To be perfectly honest, my biggest issue with handwaving away Bruce’s worst behavior with his kids as bad writing is it results in not only Dick being expected to fix or compensate for his own father’s badly written bad behavior for the sake of his siblings in canon…..but ALSO throws Dick under the bus by making him solely responsible for the canon problems he’s stuck fixing, as if HE’S the reason those problems exist, not Bruce.
This is a huge part of the problem with how he’s written in fandom imo and it desperately needs addressing.
Bruce fires Dick in various canons, is unsympathetic and unyielding resulting in Dick leaving in frustration, callously gives his name to Jason.
Canon results: Dick eventually comes back on his own, takes all initiative in repairing his relationship with Bruce, the one broken by his father’s canon bad behavior, and puts aside his initial resentment of his feeling replaced by Jason, for Jason’s sake.
Fandom spin, because fans don’t like seeing Bruce written as this poor a father: mitigating the reasons Dick left in canon by mixing and matching continuities so sometimes Dick left because he gave up Robin on his own, thus also had little reason to be upset Bruce gave it to Jason, or else generally just de-emphasizing Bruce’s firing of Dick in favor of emphasizing his bad behavior with Jason thus rendering Dick unsympathetic and leaving readers unconcerned with what made him leave in the first place.
Bruce hits Dick, blames him for Jason’s death and kicks him out of the Manor telling him to leave his key with Alfred.
Canon results: Dick retreats to the Titans and avoids Gotham and Bruce while Bruce gets excessively more violent and reckless as Batman, leading to Tim seeking Dick out and begging him to return as Robin, and while Dick refuses to do that, he IS at least motivated to return to Gotham to check up on Bruce, leading to him and Bruce being endangered by Two-Face, rescued by Tim as Robin, and Tim then becomes Robin with Dick’s approval and help, leading to Dick returning to Gotham more regularly to help with his training and thus by extension resulting in his relationship with Bruce slowly repairing over time, with Tim often credited as being the reason Dick and Bruce started talking again.
Of course, this also means (unacknowledged) Dick once again took the initiative in regards to repairing his relationship with Bruce…while Tim might have been the catalyst, all of the above nevertheless required that Dick yet again put aside his legitimate grievances with his father and his actions towards him, forgive and forget regardless of the fact that like with his firing, while Bruce may at times express regret for the way things happened or express that he missed Dick, this also never involved or led to Bruce actually apologizing for any of his specific actions or taking accountability for them, as well as forcing Dick to put aside his personal feelings about there being another Robin at all, given that initially in his grief for Jason, he was not at all on board with the idea of him being replaced in any way, or another child similarly being put in potential danger.
Fandom spin, because fans don’t like seeing Bruce written as literally having abused Dick in his grief: Either Dick had simply retreated to the Titans and stayed away from Gotham and Bruce because of his own grief for Jason, in which case Tim really was more responsible for getting him and Bruce to talk again, because he convinced Dick to stop thinking just about himself and realize how this was affecting Bruce too….or else Dick was selfish in his grief and blaming Bruce for Jason’s death, and it took Tim to knock some sense into him….or else Dick just had no patience for Bruce’s grief or else simply no idea how to help him or else stayed away out of guilt, because he felt like Jason’s death was his fault for being ‘a bad brother’ or else simply hadn’t cared all that much about Jason so felt uncomfortable intruding on Bruce’s grief, and either way, not only is this why he wasn’t there for Bruce and why it took Tim to get him to step up, its also why he was so quick and able to be a better brother to Tim this time around, by choice, and also legitimizes Jason’s hurt and resentment about being replaced and no one caring and Dick being a better brother to Tim and more invested than he ever was with Jason.
Or another example, from the Reboot era for some variety:
Bruce loses his shit after seeing Dick die in Forever Evil, and unable to process it well or healthily or react to it or the future threats to Dick because of being unmasked in any other way than get him the hell out of Gotham at all costs, he guilt trips, emotionally abuses, manipulates, victim blames and physically beats Dick into accepting the undercover Spyral mission despite Dick’s extreme protests, almost all of them centered specifically around the effect believing him to be dead will have on the rest of their family.
Canon results: Dick is hung entirely out to dry, with all of his family effectively holding him and only him to blame for their feelings of hurt and betrayal, on the specific grounds that they expect Bruce to make shitty, callous choices like this and by extension they expect Dick, his son, their brother, to be the one to pump the brakes because he knows better, regardless of the fact that Dick is just as desperate for their father’s rarely doled out approval and thus just as vulnerable to going to extreme lengths to please him, those lengths logically being further and further the more desperate and vulnerable he feels….such as being in an intensely vulnerable state post being tortured and feeling guilty and responsible for failing Bruce and his family and friends by getting captured in the first place, the very things Bruce exploited to get him to agree to the mission.
Fandom spin, because fans don’t want to view Bruce as being capable of being so callous and cruel and outright hurtful to his eldest son (often hypocritically given how many MORE fans are completely willing to view the events of RHATO #25 as viable Bruce characterization, in order to milk the hell out of his abusive behavior with preferred family victim Jason, an ‘actual’ abuse survivor and thus thematically more compelling to have been abused by Bruce): All record of Bruce as the motivating factor in Dick taking the Spyral mission is stricken from fandom record by these fans, as are all of Dick’s protests for his family’s sake, ironically the very same points echoed by those characters when they later crucify him for not caring enough about them to take into account how they would feel because of all of this, or just Dick thinking the mission was more important than that anyway.
Notice how not only is Dick written in canon as being expected or responsible for compensating for Bruce’s worst written behavior in regards to both himself and his siblings…..but when fandom attempts to compensate for Bruce’s worst behavior by ignoring, mitigating or justifying any of his actions or choices in these matters…
It is always, always, ALWAYS additionally at Dick’s expense, as the inevitable end result of removing or lessening Bruce’s own culpability in character conflicts that he himself instigated….is inversely, MORE culpability is heaped on Dick for those same conflicts in order to justify or keep the conflict’s very existence, even if he bore NO initial culpability or responsibility for the conflict in the first place, in canon!
When the core conflict is between two characters, and Dick is one of them and the other, Bruce, is deliberately UPLIFTED on the conflict see-saw so as to raise him out of the depths of badly written canon behavior and restore him to the heights of Good Dad Bruce….of fucking COURSE the extension of that sees Dick dumped down to those same depths of shitty behavior that Bruce was just raised out of, in order to make this possible.
AND IN ADDITION TO THAT….
Notice how in all of those instances, its not just that Dick is spun by fandom to be worse than he is in the actual canon instances….first, fans actively ignore or erase or explain away the EXTRA MILE that Dick was written going, in all of these instances in canon, in order to….compensate for Bruce’s shitty behavior and ‘fix’ what Bruce broke in each instance….
Even BEFORE fans THEN proceed to make Dick go the extra mile in the REVERSE direction, such as when FIRST its ignored that Dick put aside his resentment for Jason’s sake, THEN its added on that Dick was a total asshole to Jason. Or like FIRST its ignored that Dick put aside his legitimate grievances with what Bruce had done to him when Dick went to CONSOLE Bruce in the first place after Jason’s death, in order to help train Tim…THEN its added on that Dick only ‘stepped up’ and patched things up with Bruce because TIM got Dick to see that the father he was avoiding because he kicked him out of his own home NEEDED him. Or like FIRST its ignored that Dick literally, physically FOUGHT Bruce over the fact that Bruce wanted him to do this thing he KNEW would massively hurt the rest of the family…THEN its added on that Bruce didn’t even play much of a role in Dick’s decision at all, definitely not something that Dick actively pushed back against for his family’s sake.
On top of ALL OF THAT, fandom repeatedly insists that the reason they go to all of these lengths when ignoring or avoiding addressing Bruce’s worst writing….is because they prefer him being a good dad, and having a good relationship with his sons, including and even especially Dick….and that’s WHY they do all this.
Ie….this is supposedly for DICK’S BENEFIT. In order to make Bruce a better dad FOR him.
How the FUCK does it work or make any kind of sense to take a son who has literally been written being abused by his father in canon - WHETHER YOU LIKE TO ADMIT THAT OR NOT - and THEN not only disregard how often canon expects Dick to essentially be the parent canon chooses at times not to depict Bruce as capable of being…..but ALSO actively write Dick as being WORSE than he is in ANY of these canon instances….in order to make HIM the catalyst, instigator or responsible party in these instances that BRUCE initiated….so as to avoid having Bruce be the bad guy.
How do you possibly spin that that’s for DICK’S BENEFIT?
I’ve said before that I don’t have a problem with Good Dad Bruce Wayne in and of itself, that in fact I WANT that, ideally, I WANT him being a good dad to Dick and the others, being good FOR Dick and the others - and I stand by that!
But when the go-to default method of making this happen always ALWAYS seems to be….’make Bruce better…..by actively making DICK WORSE, so that Good Dad Bruce has an opportunity to actually ride to the rescue in situations that initially, in canon, HE CAUSED, and that DICK had to ride to the rescue on for himself and everyone else, like….we obviously need something for Good Dad Bruce to FIX, to make BETTER, to PARENT….ergo Dick logically has to fuck up some how, NEED Good Dad Bruce to fix it, to tell him its all okay, to make it better in the same way canon expects Dick to make it better for his dad’s fuck ups’…..
When that’s the modus operandi by which its believed Bruce is being made into or shown as being a better loving, caring, supportive father?
THEN HOUSTON, WE HAVE A FUCKING PROBLEM.
You fundamentally just can not claim to be making things better, healthier, happier FOR a character….by literally writing that character as WORSE than he is in canon, particularly in specific canon instances like the above.
(And on a personal note, I really really wish the people who were as defensive and protective of Good Dad Bruce Wayne and all ensuing fics, headcanons and meta, could be as aware and understanding of the fact that many fans can and DO relate to various Batkids BECAUSE of canon instances of Bad Dad Bruce Wayne, because THAT’S specifically relatable to some of us, and while that doesn’t preclude us from wanting to see the inverse of that just as badly or as often as you do, it does mean it REALLY FUCKING SUCKS to see the kid we acknowledge as having been abused and neglected at key points in canon….ACTIVELY WRITTEN AS BEING RESPONSIBLE FOR THE HARM DONE TO HIM BY HIS OWN CANON ABUSE.)
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