Something I deeply believe is that Bruce Wayne is an abusive father. I don’t know how a person can read his relationship with dick and Jason any differently, and to that point… his relationship with Damian also leaves something to be desired. With tim and cass—we see the best of him. But with his other kids, he will straight up in canon beat them half to death, and i know, this is comics, I know, when Bruce teaches them to fall and get back up in training Tim or whatever that it’s all good and ‘normal’ for comics. But if you look at Grayson, if you like at under the red hood, if you look at the infamous slap/punch to dick after Jason’s death. Well I just think it paints a deeper picture of a deeply unwell man who loves with his whole heart but is unable to fully process his trauma and love in a healthy, consistent, kind way.
Bruce is The Mentally Ill character of all time. He has control issues, he’s obsessive, he’s often mean, and he genuinely believes in ruling through fear on top of kindness. Even if he didn’t hit his kids—-he would still force them to parent him, and even if he can reason that that’s something they choose, that that’s something Batman “needs.” No adult should need a child for their own mental wellness. That’s the adult’s responsibility. To have your child have to bend backwards to coddle, console or shift around to meet your needs, provide for you emotionally… is a crazy expectation.
And yet, this is not an indictment of Bruce to me, as a character. I think that characters can be terrible people—-characters can abuse other characters—-and still be good characters. In fact, when treated appropriately and as art, art and writing, and the gothic horror i in particular like to write with him and from which all his themes are canonically based, are SAFE places to read about, write about, and view and explore abuse
Good isn’t a thing you are, it’s a thing you do.
Bruce does a lot of good and bad things. So do most people. Abuse is a pattern of behaviors from a place of power and/or privilege
I know we all hate the joker, but i really do believe it only takes one bad day for a person to fall prey to circumstances that make you feel like such a hopeless, desperate black pit of a person that you do reach out and hurt others. On purpose, on accident, a little bit of both. You don’t have to be ontologically evil. You don’t have to be a monster. You can legitimately love someone, and hurt them and your relationship beyond repair. You can love someone deeply, and not deserve forgiveness from them, or be granted that forgiveness.
Ultimately, i don’t even particularly believe in redemption narratives. I don’t believe in sin or a need for forgiveness from a higher power—-and i don’t believe that forgiveness is necessary to grow and change and be better, and try to be better, even when you fail, and you often will, which is more tangible and real to me than just ‘turning good’ one day. My Bruce does try to be better—-for @yoakkemae ‘s dick, at least. But he is still incredibly toxic and withholding. But it’s not for some kind of atonement or to make up for taking things from dick. It’s to be better so dick will stick around and let him see his grandkid. It’s so he can help dick not suffer when he’s around. Sometimes there is no noble sacrifice, it’s just a long process of ‘I’m going to be nicer. And I’m actually gonna do that this time. And when i fuck up I’ll apologize and actually mean it.’
Ultimately, abusers are people. People are complicated, people abuse people. If you ‘other’ a ‘monster’ bc you think you could never do that—you become more likely to hurt someone yourself and think you are right in doing so.
Bruce definitely thinks he is right in hurting his kids, half the time. When he doesn’t—it’s always him admitting he was wrong to view them as soldiers instead of his children. You can hurt a soldier. You can’t hurt a child. He can compartmentalize so easily when his robins become his ‘friends’ and ‘partners.’ Even in robin when we can see him express empathy for tm and tell him basically to have a normal life literally constantly——it’s because Tim already has a normal life that Bruce logically wants him to go back to. He doesn’t view him as a fellow orphan, a ‘brother’ a ‘playmate’ a ‘mirror’ or a ‘replacement.’
