I’ve only done some light reading on Selina, but even so, details on her past seem few and far between. Maybe there’s a reason, maybe I just haven’t looked hard enough, whatever. Someone can enlighten me in the comments. What I do know, however, is that she’s eluded to have experienced some form of abuse as a child. Now, this research came on the heels of brushing up on the rest of Batman’s rogues’ gallery and I gotta say, abuse as a backstory comes up a lot. And I’m just sitting here, like, “There are so many unique people in this world with unique traumas and hurts that this feels almost cookie cutter.” Am I wrong? I just wanna be more specific and explore problems more intimately. So… Selina Kyle. What to write for her backstory? I thought a lot about who she is as a character present day—her playful aloofness, her decision to become a cat burglar, breaking rules as if they don’t exist, always on the run, never settling down with anyone long term, stealing nice things for herself—it led me to this backstory: When Selina was a child, she was horribly neglected. Her father was almost never around and her mother was depressed, anxious, under the influence of alcohol quite often, and wished she never had a daughter. Selina found that it was always easier to live as though she were invisible. If she never got caught making a mess or being noisy or causing problems, her mother would never get mad at her, or even a acknowledge her, and neither would her father if he ever showed his face. She never received birthday gifts—or if she did, they were pitiful—and all of her attempts of reaching out via gifts to her mother and father were rejected. She was never loved and grew to believe that the only way she would ever feel cared for is if she just took care of herself and only herself. She was good at being invisible, and so she became good at stealing. She treated herself to nice things whenever she felt like it, and she rarely ever got caught. She never made close friends. She never really fell in love. She built up walls so high that no one could ever break them down… until she met Bruce. Suddenly, here was a guy who could consistently catch her red-handed. Who told her she needed to stop robbing people. Who believed she could be better. Who saw her. And even though she kept double-crossing him, escaping his grasp, and escaping justice, she found that it was a little bit harder to return to crime every time. She had always found him attractive… but the longer they chased each other around Gotham, and the longer he showed that he wasn’t going to ignore her or give up on her, the more that attraction turned into a deep feeling that Selina had never felt before. True love. She was scared of it. She didn’t know what to do with it. It was completely the opposite of everything she had ever known, and she secretly didn’t think she deserved it. After all, she was a criminal. She was a “bad guy.” Someone who stole from others for pleasure and profit. And yet Bruce believed she was a good person deep down. He believed she had the capacity for change. And in time, he would find himself falling in love with her too. By the end of their story, naturally, those walls had come crumbling down and they had each learned how to love again, something they both thought would never happen to them. 💜
