spawned from a convo with @postmortemboobjob
#< hmmm i was gonna talk about masculinity. batman. and lining up with their future selves here#but for the life of me i cannot articulate it#but! from the (limited) versions of gordon i have seen he doesn't seem like an angry dude?#no more angry than an average (relatively) decent person in gotham#so my hope (that probably will not come true) is that eventually he mellows out#maybe after seeing what excessive anger does to the rogues?#or to bruce
I agree that he's not inherently an angry person though he does carry (rightful) rage against the system and the people who keep the corrupt system going. but he does have a penchant for aggression? when push comes to shove he does get loud and aggressive and violent. and at first (early s1) he feels bad about it but to me it seems over the course of s1 he becomes more and more used to it and desensitised to it. partially this is probably the theme throughout the show how gotham (the city) changes people to become more jaded, rougher, violent, mentally unwell etc. partially it might also just be who he is no matter how much he tries to tell himself he isnt. the way he interact with some of the children in early s1 shows he is very much capable of being gentle and compassionate and soft hearted. and I miss those instances because they become rarer. and compassion is like the number one thing any human desperately needs. compassion, love and a sense of belonging. and when people dont get that they can escalate into a severe mental health crisis. (there is an idea that sometimes floats around my brain, sort of a crack thing: what if all the people in gotham who get sent to arkham, who are going through severe mental health problems that lead them to become criminals etc... what if they all got access to actually helpful mental health care? therapists and psychologists, medication if they need it. (same also goes for the people who commit crimes or join the underworld for other reasons).it wouldn't be gotham, because that fundamentally isnt the kind of city it is. but what if xD prisons like they have in scandinavian countries, free health care regardless of employment status, universal basic income, etc)
what I also keep forgetting is that he is ex-military. I'd imagine he joined voluntarily and given the fact that someone (maybe harvey?) in early s1 sarcastically calls him a war hero, I'd imagine he has some reputation of being a good fighter and reliable etc. and you can't really get anywhere in the military by being gentle, kind and soft.
lining up with their future selves I know very little about the general batman media canon but I do know Jim ends up as commissioner, so he stays within in the oppressive system, rises up through the ranks. so for what the narrative has planned for him, it's never an option for him to stop being a cop or leaving that general branch. he can't choose to go rogue entirely, he can't choose to volunteer with humanitarian organisations because he needs to stay within in the corrupt environment that is the police force. I do wonder at which point he gives up on the idealist wish to be able to change the system from within without entirely dismantling it. I know at some point in later s1 he still has it. or maybe aligning himself with some of the mob becomes the way he thinks he can do it.
maybe after seeing what excessive anger does to the rogues? or to bruce that would be so nice honestly. having the realisation how much anger and rage eats away at someone and how destructive and unproductive it is. but unfortunately I see a few factors going against that 1) he would always find a way to convince himself his brand of anger is justified. or that the people he's angry at are morally right to be angry at even if the rogues are angry at the same people as him. he is very capable of that hypocrisy xD 2) the kind of show that gotham is. it is at it's core at least partially a us-american cop show. the amount of violence and aggression that specifically the male characters show is unfortunately very normal. and I think the role Jim plays in the narrative is the male action hero. so he gets to be angry and aggressive because he's a man. he has his damsel(s) in distress to save, he has his holy mission that he must succeed in and any morally grey things he does are ultimately in pursuit of justice/the greater good so can in the end be justified as morally correct.
is this coherent enough?? idk xD feel free to add on, idk if this goes in the exact direction you were thinking