Hello, so since there's always this debate on whether or not tim should stop being robin and just move on to something else, people are saying that he should stop being robin since he (and the writers) have said that he'll stop once there's another robin, that he'll stop with the hero life all together. But I think that doesn't work anymore because that was back when he had a life outside robin. I just wanted to ask you on your opinion on this
I think my opinion on this is rather well documented. Tim cares about legacy and symbols. He cares about Robin. Being something else is arbitrary and only makes sense if he's pushed out or purposefully temporary. And even then, it should probably be another legacy or a name someone else gave him. He's not internally motivated to come up with something himself and never has been, nor does it make sense for him to care about that. He will never find the idea of being or returning to Robin degrading, and if you write that, you are essentially writing a different character. He does care about being a civilian and wants that, but it will never stick.
Overall from a character perspective it goes like this (best to worst):
Robin > civilian > anything else
With some gradients in there, in particular if they are temporary. For instance, covering a different Legacy mantle temporarily makes sense for him, enough to put it above civilian, but less so if it's meant to be permanent.
Now, if you want to read about him, from a meta perspective, "civilian" is one of the worst things that could happen, but it does make sense for his character as a desire.
It was taken more out of the running for a while starting at post-War Games, where is when you see most of his turning around to vocally support the idea of staying Robin forever, which he hadn't before.
Which, to be clear, was always contextually about the civilian thing. People who say that he was written that way are correct. People who try to use it as proof that he "didn't want to be Robin forever" in the sense of "moving on" to something else are twisting it out of context.
And he did loose that for a while, however a large part of his character arc recently (and he HAS had one, people who like to try to argue he's been stagnant are just wrong and refusing to see it because it's not the specific arc they want it to be) was attempting to find that again. It's the character thread that was followed to the current "break" situation. He wanted to know who he was without Robin again, who "Tim Drake" was. He's rediscovering that portion of his life and once again desiring that.
There are two major things you need to understand Tim Drake on a core level
One is that he will always desire to not be completely consumed by the vigilante life. He wants his civilian life. And he wants something substantial there. And he wants that part of his life to be sincere. He doesn't want to be like Batman or be like Bruce in the way that he handles his civilian persona.
And the second is that he has extreme difficulty with the idea of leaving people to get hurt if he could do something. Even if those people are vigilantes themselves, he doesn't so easily accept that as the cost of the choice they made. He cares too much. And he takes it personal.
I've said he's best understood as a compassionate busybody, and I stand by that every time. He's motivated by the desire to help, and doesn't know the meaning of his own business.
And so, as a result, we get something similar to me wanting to get more sleep, but also wanting more time to do things, and thus essentially wanting more hours in the day.
He wants or is driven toward both parts of his life, but they interfere with each other. It's his essential conflict as a character.
He always wants to "eventually" quit (except for that one section of his life), but he never can. Because committing to doing so is contrary to his nature. It's leaving people behind that he can't bring himself to without regrets.
He didn't want to be a hero, but it is in his nature to be one regardless.
He's basically a pocket Robin you can easily move between leaving and coming back as whatever you want dictates, if you want to look at it from the outside as far as how his character can be used as a storytelling tool.
By the way, literally the first time a story was told where he quit Robin and heroing altogether only to come back to be Robin in the same story was in the 1991 Batman annual which showed an alternate future. This was written the same year as his official Robin debut.
Now like I touched on earlier, if you are a fan of his character, you don't want the civilian thing to stick, and from a meta perspective, unless you're like me consider him being severely out of character on a similar level to being dead, it's the "worst" thing that could happen (beyond actually being dead) if it isn't temporary.
Of course, his current situation is already confirmed as temporary, so there's nothing to worry about there.
And it is perfectly in keeping with his character to want a civilian life and return to Robin. It's basically what he does. And wanting him to be something different to me isn't regular character development so much as something in-line with wanting Bruce to stop being Batman.
Which maybe people do want, but it ain't me.
