#batman character analysis

[wanderintofics]

one of the many things with Batman is that if everything is his fault than everything is within his control, and if everything is within his control than he can better himself (something hypothetically possible) to ensure that no one is ever hurt again.

if it is not his fault then it is not within his control and then there's nothing he can do to prevent it from happening again.

this is why he will always make it his fault and this is why he will always accept any blame thrown at him whether merited or not. his drive for control isn't love of power it's fear of inescapable consequences

[autumngray]

Hello. I'm currently reading Patriarch and I love how you write Bruce(and all the others) Any advice on how to write Bruce? I love him but I find him really hard to write from his pov/writing something Bruce-centric. Would love some advice. Thank you🫶

Hello – I know you! I believe you've commented on Patriarch? Unless your little picture and name is a baffling coincidence.

I tend to write the same way I bake –– using recipes as guidelines that I have to really think to pin down –– so, I'll do my best here, but if it doesn't resonate, there really are so many ways to write and I think the old, basic recommendation to "read good books" (controversially, books, not fanfic, it really does make a difference) and "practice writing what you love" is best.

It's also really important to focus on having fun, I think, especially if like me you tend to be perfectionistic.

For Bruce, I know/cherry pick who I think he is essentially and then I decide what circumstances or storyline structures will bring out the parts of him (and often other characters) I most want to highlight/explore/enjoy.

Personally, I love to incorporate (and defend, I guess, by refusing to let the narrative pass judgment, though certainly, other characters are allowed to) the dichotomies he embodies: his seeming aloofness, even coldness, and the fact that he's an incredibly observant, compassionate person who will quietly do an insane amount of small to enormous things for people if it's within his power; his ruthlessly strategic and practical mind on the one hand blended with an often understated humor and appreciation for impractical things, like adding wings to the Batmobile or a gigantic t-rex in his Cave or a bat-pattern in the sole of his boots. He's the sort of extremely serious, withdrawn, slightly pathetic person you'd never expect to be silly like he often is, and yet his silliness in no way undercuts the grim way he experiences and pushes back against a hard, difficult world. He cannot "get over" his griefs, he cannot stop seeing tragedy everywhere he turns and feeling called to address it, and so, he can't "get over" being some people's idea of a stick-in-the-mud, and I personally deeply relate to that. I don't even think he should "get over" any of it, and a lot of my stories are about how, it's actually ok that he's like that. It doesn't make him toxic or childish or inhuman or impossible to live with. It just makes him a complex human being with strengths, faults, limitations, and issues who dislikes and weaponizes superficiality and distractions, who's incredibly difficult to get to know, but also incredibly dependable.

Getting into his head is fun for me, because I really enjoy finding tailored inner voices for each character and he's a dramatic comic book guy –– he can get away with literally thinking, I'm a monster, without making me roll my eyes. Instead I get to take him seriously, which I have increasingly enjoyed after dipping into the wider fandom world and finding it's actually somewhat unusual for people to give him the time of day (outside of just, you know, sports team-like chanting that Batman's the best fighter and smartest ever, rah rah)? Even fans who love the more complex characterization he can have don't often seem to *respect* him; instead, they seem to find him ridiculously overdone in the ways that I personally think can be most compelling? So, I tend to focus on those aspects of him. The challenge for me is to tell his story in a way I think still resonates with truth but also makes it easier to see that, yeah, actually, that guy *is* endearing –– heroic –– sad –– gentle –– competent, with thick skin and a grown-up interior life.

Overall, an excellent person for this kid or crisis or situation.

Tbf, as a kid, I loved the serious-loner-tragic characters who never got enough credit in my sulky opinion, so I'm used to such characters being the butt of jokes, and I have a lot of theories for why they tend to be used that way, some of which is fine, but I *love* them. I think being flippant (using humor to cope) and light-hearted and gregarious are overrated, actually. I think being withdrawn and thoughtful to even a melodramatic degree and refusing to soften those aspects of oneself can be incredibly healthy for a given individual as well as human society overall. People like that can hold our collective toes to the fire, refuse to agree even just in the way they live that reaching for distraction as the world goes to hell is ok, that distraction will somehow generate better mental health or personal resilience or courage. People like that can remind us that looking reality in the eye can sometimes mean you won't laugh as easily anymore, that you won't be as funny and comfortable and chill.

And I don't think that's necessarily a problem at all.

[writing-nothing-but-spilled-ink]

as someone who's suffered through abuse and as someone who's comfort character is batman or more accurately batman comics and media as a whole as i like numerous characters within the series i actually truly despise the plot lines that have bruce be truly cruel to his kids especially jason.

narratively its almost repulsive because when batman first began he wanted to do good. clean up his city help people it wasn't strictly a martyr complex it was a genuine need to do something good. to bring about change to give gotham something it's never had before which was hope. batman became that symbol of hope, justice, and fear (for criminals).

at his core bruce is a good dad thats at least how he began batman was a good dad, he took dick in because he felt a sort of kinship with dick because there experiences were similar and he wanted dick safe. and the circus was no longer safe due to what happened to dicks parents and bruce had the means to take dick in so he did. he gave dick hope by letting him be robin it gave dick a purpose. mind you should bruce be letting children fight criminals no but also (side note the writers created robin so kids could relate to robin so they could see themselves in robin) at the end of the day it gave dick purpose it made him feel in a way safer. he did everything he could to make sure dick had what he needed/wanted.

same thing with jason bruce saw this child steal his tires and laughed out loud for the first time in a long time okay and when he eventually took jason in he gave jason whatever he needed and was showing him that the world wasn't all bad hell i think at even one point jason said robin was magic and had another surogate mom via nocturna. the point is in these issues bruce never mistreated any of them not a single one now how did we go from kids that are taken good care of to what we have now.

i mean some would say it was the grief of losing jason but i'll raise you this in real life people lose people all the time its just part of life but the grief doesn't completely change who you are on a fundamental level we had a somewhat empathetic and caring batman to now a controlling logic fueled bruce who tries to control everything and everyone even to the detriment of his own kids.... like yes bruce was a mess right but the writing was lazy they should've explored more of bruce's grief and then let him heal but they don't they constantly have bruce regress into abusing his kids and being overly cold. and using them as living weapons at times. sometimes it even seems as though he doesn't even care for them at all and i think the moment that we should've seen bruce break out of that rage filled grief cold numbness bullshit was that quote jason says to him.

"i've never seen you hit joker that hard and you hate him".

that shouldve been the moment writers pivoted to have bruce truly begin to heal and better himself narratively it would've made for a richer story instead they constantly exploit jason grief, trauma and loss for shock value and as someone who's been through alot of trauma im tired of it because this has never been what batman should be and right now the only batman depiction we have thats close to the original is absolute batman's comic run written by Scott Snyder. And absolute batman is being put through the grinder with the shit he deals with.

also i wont ever forgive dc for how they handled jason's death because the original writer wanted to do a exploration of grief but whoever was higher up was like no lets do nothing but action sequences and destroy any character growth. also on that note free jason from his shackles to constantly dying and bruce constantly abusing him.

(as always be kind and respectful in the comments section if i see one hateful rude disrespectful or nasty thing in the comments section i will block, report, and delete your comment as well as turn comments off lets keep this a safe place for all batman enjoyers also this is my take on it so no fighting the comments section or ill just delete the post altogether.)

[specialinterestsgalore]

The thing that really gets me about the wasted potential of Jason and Bruce's relationship post Lazarus pit is that the animosity between could really be used as a vessel to talk about the self hatred that both of them feel.

We know that Bruce sees himself in all of the kids he takes in, probably most obviously in the male Robins. The fact that he feels the need to care for and/or mentor every orphan and young vigilante he comes across show his compulsions to save Gotham on the microscopic level and his desire to save himself as a child. Bruce already had concerns about the level of violence Jason had shown and when he comes back as a murderous crime lord not only does Bruce have to contend with the ideas that he got his son killed and that he wasn't there for him when he was brought back to life and trained by the League of Assassins, he also sees his son as what he would become if he allowed himself to kill.

Admittedly I haven't thought as much about this from Jason's perspective but there is the obvious angle that Jason sees himself as a failure and replaceable. Seeing Bruce with a new Robin and feeling the anger that Bruce has for him would only increase that. He was never enough. It was cruel for Bruce to take him in and train him because he was never going to be enough.

I think many writers choose to flatten their relationship somewhat into just anger and hatred. I mean there's plenty of stories that explore a bit of the complex mixing of love and hate there but I just feel like no story I've seen has explored the relationship to its full potential. Of course there's a ton of comic storylines I'm not familiar with so maybe someone has

[benbamboozled]

Inspired by a recent discovery regarding Barbara and a sniper rifle (I can send pics if you wanna see) who do you see among bat affiliates as most likely to kill, or if they have, kill again?

PLEASE POST PICS PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!

Ahem…

ANYWAY, let’s go ahead and just leave Jason as a free space.

I’m going to break this up into Batfam Who Have Killed (And How Likely They Are To Kill Again), and Batfam Who Haven’t Killed (And How Likely They Are To Do So).

(Also, sticking with the usual “core,” minus Jay for obvious reasons, so—Alfred, Bruce, Barbara, Dick, Cass, Steph, Tim, and Damian.)

(I’m also leaving Duke off because I just don’t know much about his character, I still have so many arcs to catch up on.)

NOW…

Batfam Who Have Killed (And How Likely They Are To Kill Again)

Alfred is number one on the list. He’ll straight up kill people (his weapon of choice is a goddamn SHOTGUN) and pretty much only holds back out of consideration for Bruce.

Next up I’d say Damian, because, as per the recent Robin series, he’s pretty much Krombopulos Mike from Rick and Morty (he just loves killin). Granted, he knows killing is bad and yadda yadda, but…kid wants to cut loose, and he’s good at it. Also, he’s trying to figure out his “thing.”

Third is Dick, in this category because he did, canonically, kill the Joker. Honestly, metatextually, I don’t think Dick is going to kill anyone again (even if Batman can bring them back to life). I think he’s become too “core” to the entire Batman ethos. (Hence why he keeps being chosen to kill Batman in the horror elseworlds, lol.) On a character level, I think Dick would absolutely kill again, BUT I think it would be less of a “I am choosing this” the way I see Alfred (and could see Damian) doing it, and more of an act of desperation or intense stress.

Fourth is Cass. OUTSIDE OF SOME HORRIBLE OOC BITS WE DON’T TALK ABOUT, Cass is the Batfam member who most believes in Batman’s No Killing philosophy. It’s not an optics things for her, or because it’s Batman’s rules, or about a symbol…she genuinely, whole-heartedly believes that killing is wrong. (But she did kill a guy so she goes in this category.)

Okay, now…

Batfam Who Haven’t Killed (And How Likely They Are To Do So)

Okay, possibly controversial, I’m going to put Tim as number one, for two reasons.

One—Captain Boomerang Death Trap.

Two—In the Robins mini he argues for letting the guy died who killed his mom and paralyzed his dad. It turns out to be (*sigh*) someone disguised as him, BUT their deception was based on Tim’s psychological profile, so even Tim’s like “Yeah, no, I probs woulda done the same thing, lol.”

So, yeah, Tim can definitely get pushed too far.

Next is Barbara! She’s actively associated with heroes who kill, her thoughts when Dick killed the Joker were “idk, maybe he shoulda stayed dead…would that’ve been bad…???” She’s the one I can most see choosing to kill someone as part of her philosophy, but she’s never put anyone in a death trap, so she’s second.

Third is Steph. Mostly because she’s one of the least likely Batfam members to completely fucking lose it, and I can’t see her taking up killing as an active philosophy. (Even outside of the fact that she believes in the Bat, I think if she were on the edge, she wouldn’t want to damage her relationship with Cass.)

Finally, there’s Bruce. Okay, this one is tricky because, on the one hand, Bruce is never going to outright kill someone in the actual canon continuity. It’s just not going to happen.

On the OTHER hand, he’s tried to kill people multiple times(!!!)—both in a “I’m making the active choice to kill this person” way AND a “heat of the moment” kind of way—and only been stopped by circumstances/other Batfam members.

So, metatextually, he’s last in this category, because it just won’t happen. On a character level, he’s first, because Bruce Wayne is like…constantly one ill-timed Kick Me sign away from finally going ape shitt.

OKAY WELP WENT AHEAD AND WROTE AN ESSAY! SOOOO there you have it!

Everyone, please feel free to disregard if it doesn’t line up with your thoughts, and apologies if I left out stuff from canon that would have impacted the list—see note above about Duke and being behind on reading.

[wanderintofics]

i do wonder about the friction between what Bruce considers his mission and what the other members of the batclan consider their shared mission

cause Bruce says his mission and he does mean helping Gotham and people and the world but more and most he means "avenging his parents" and "making his parents deaths mean something" and "making sure no one gets hurt like he's been hurt" so he feels guilty and awful whenever anyone gets injured or traumatized in the pursuit of HIS mission. but none of the Robin's or Batgirls signed on to honour Martha and Thomas Wayne or soothe the eternally crying little boy inside of Bruce, they signed on because there was a bleeding, gaping wound in their city and in their lives and attaching themselves to Batman and his cause meant a better shot at closing that wound.

so when Bruce pulls back or snaps at them out of guilt for what he thinks his mission has cost them, when he says they shouldn't be involved with his mission, of course they're angry! they took on this mission (saving people, helping the city, giving their own lives purpose) knowing it would be hard! he's spitting on their conviction and their understanding and their skills! but they are talking at cross purposes, they are not actually talking about the same mission, so Bruce is too much in his own head thinking HIS need to bring meaning to his tragedy has unnecessarily hurt the people he loves, and the people he loves are furious that Bruce seemingly doesn't believe they are in on a shared mission together at all

[wanderintofics]

one of things I think modern(ish) Batman comics get wrong, and I vaguely think stem from the is Batman the mask or is Bruce Wayne debate, is that Batman is a persona made to inspire fear in criminals and Bruce Wayne is a man who desperately wants to save people and that the audience is supposed to know this. and what I mean is in universe it’s fine if Batman deceived people, villains and teammates alike, into believing he’s merciless, that he’d kill anyone he has to and do anything he has to to achieve his goals, but the audience should always be able to know that Bruce wouldn’t, the story should always let the audience in on the fact that Bruce is ultimately putting on an act to protect both himself and others. otherwise you get someone who isn’t a hero and certainly isn’t Batman

[wanderintofics]

Bruce arguing with his father about being Batman should always be an exercise in frustration, because no one can say Thomas didn’t get his hands dirty for Gotham, Thomas’ hands are covered in the blood of all the people he tried to save and so is Bruce’s but they are coming at the problem from such opposite angles they shouldn’t agree on anything

Thomas should be an echo of Leslie in the ways most designed to hurt Bruce