The DC Comics and Adam Taurus
Okay time for an analysis piece so buckle in, y’all. Been a while since I did one of these but Blake’s comic was excellent so here we are.
First, I want to say that the comic absolutely nailed Adam’s characterisation based on the show. We see him gaslight Blake in his Character Short, accusing her of not believing in him anymore because she’s unhappy with the deaths he’s caused and labelling her parents traitors in a move he knows will stop her from questioning him by making her question herself instead.
This is a prime example of how emotional abuse works. Adam created a box, and if Blake didn’t fit inside that box then he would punish her. And as she made herself smaller and cut pieces of herself away to try and fit, he would gradually make it smaller and smaller so that she could never completely be what he wanted. It’s a sadly common manipulation tactic to keep a victim in a toxic relationship and it’s exactly what Adam consistently does to maintain his control over her.
The comic shows the effects of this in full with Blake blaming herself entirely for everything that Adam did at the Fall of Beacon and even going as far as to wish that she were still deathly afraid of him because it might have meant she could have anticipated his part in the attack and spared Yang from being maimed.
So with that covered, let’s look at Adam’s character in the comic and how his relationship with Blake progresses.
They meet when Blake is extremely young, very much still just a child, and as any child would be she becomes intrigued and captivated by this charismatic, mysterious figure who appeared to be so strongly tied to a cause that she believed in so passionately. But it’s very clear that she is also terrified of him, to the point where she feels physically ill.
But of course, being a child she dismisses her gut reaction and tries to offer sympathy when she sees him crying, assuming the best about him because she’s still young and impressionable with all the blind optimism and naive hope that comes with a lack of life experience.
It’s painfully apparent that Adam sees the vulnerable child of the High Leader of the White Fang and recognises an opportunity to take advantage of Blake’s crush on him and use her for his own ends, but she’s a kid and someone she likes it paying attention to her. There’s no way she’s going to assume there are any ill intentions her even though his lines are framed incredibly ominously to the reader.
Blake seems so light and carefree, almost bubbly, at the beginning of her time with Adam in the comic. She makes her promise to Adam with such blind innocence and trust that it makes you dread what you know is coming even more.
And the parallel to this later scene with similar dialogue, but where Blake is now withdrawn and dull and resigned as she faces the truth of who Adam really is, just makes it even more clear that Blake had no clue what Adam was truly like because he was so good at hiding the toxic person underneath the mask.
Any notion that Adam could have walked a different path is soundly and effectively destroyed when he not only flat out boasts about the fact that more people died than Blake initially thought but also freely admits with no hesitation that the only reason he was crying the day that he met Blake was because he wishes more humans could have died rather than because of grief for the Faunus whose lives were lost.
He never cared for the Faunus cause, he never cared for Blake. He never cared for anyone but himself.
I think that—if they’re not deliberately burying their heads in the sand—people who still deny Adam’s abusive nature just don’t understand how abuse works.
Of course Adam wasn’t constantly horrible to Blake. Of course he sometimes seemed to be genuinely nice to her. Of course she actually liked him at one point. If none of those things were true then she never would have stayed as long as she did.
No, abusers will be nice sometimes. Even most of the time at the beginning. They’ll only let their true colours show occasionally because they need to isolate their victim first, like Adam did by convincing Blake to leave her parents behind to join him.
Only once they’ve made sure their victim is dependent on them will the ratio of “nice” moments compared to “bad” moments start to swing as they no longer need to try as hard to ensure their victim is too afraid to leave as they don’t know what they would do without their abuser anymore.
So yes, of course Blake liked Adam to begin with and of course he wasn’t unremittingly nasty to her all of the time. None of that changes the fact that he is a perfect portrayal of an abuser and you only have to look at how much her time with him affected Blake to see what a toxic influence he had on her life.
Because of the fact that he separated her from her parents as a teenager and convinced her that they were traitors, she genuinely believed that Ghira and Kali would hate her when she returned home.
Because of the fact that he undermined her judgement until she was only capable of judging herself, she second guesses her every decision and believes herself to be all of the awful things he told her she was because she doesn’t trust herself to see things clearly.
Because of the fact that he made everything her fault to avoid responsibility for his own actions, she actually wished that she had still been terrified of him because she thought it might have spared Yang the loss of her arm.
If you see the vast negative impact that Adam has had on Blake’s emotional state, on her psyche, on her life, and still think that he “deserved better” or try to act like he “wasn’t that bad” then quite frankly that sickens me. And all of this is without even mentioning the difference in age and the power imbalance between them which make their relationship even more unhealthy.
TL;DR - The comic only reinforces Adam’s already obvious abusive nature and serves to show what a toxic presence he was in Blake’s life. Anyone who thinks otherwise is deluding themselves.
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