Dick & Rachel and the Invisible String theory (part 1)
Well, I finally gave in and decided to write it all down. How can I not when the show is basically slapping me in the face with it? It's all right there, if you're only willing to look. I've been dropping the phrase invisible string in relation to these two here and there for a while now and it's time to give it some more sense.
And yes, I am well aware this might be a stretch - it's Titans, nothing is ever intentionally that deep. But if there's one thing that show ever did right, it's this relationship, from the pilot to the end. So it's worth looking into it for me even if it's only my delusion speaking and it's not officially a thing.
So what is the Invisible String in this case? It's a connection, most likely supernatural, linking these two characters together and tethering them to each other in a way that is unexplainable by either logic or feelings. It plays into the definition of soulmates, though in this particular case other things like fate or magical powers might be connected. It's a bond made of love, fueled by love, but not responsible for it - the characters' feelings feed into it and strengthen it but they are their own and aren't affected by the existence nor strength of the bond. After all, even with the connection already in place, Dick and Rachel could have met and ended up hating each other.
Which means that not every scene they share will end up on this list I've put up here. Most of the time, the characters' actions are driven by their feelings, and the circumstances surrounding the scene are easily explainable. But sometimes, something strange happens and no matter how you look at it, you can't figure out how it happened without the so-called "higher power" at play.
(the higher power in question is most likely my delusion but fuck it we ball)
So where does it start? Obviously, in the pilot episode.
The dream that had started it all. The show is opened by it, it sucks you right in. This is where the String is born. Rachel walks right into Dick's memory of his parents' death and lives through it with him, even though she has no idea about it at the time. The dream we see in the pilot is also not the first time she has it; when she wakes up screaming and her mother comes in to comfort her, Rachel tells her what happened in half-sentences and broken words, not bothering to explain further and Melissa's look of understanding tells us that she already knows the story. The most important detail proving the connection's existence here is in Rachel's words.
"He was so scared. I felt it."
Somehow, thanks to her still developing powers, she was able to feel what he was feeling in that moment, proving that she is indeed inside his memory. Rachel didn't sense Mary's or John's emotions - only Dick's. Because they are gone and he's still alive so the memory is still alive as well.
The only thing the show had never bothered to explain here is the why. Why him? Why this? It feels a little random at the surface level, dreaming about a memory of some stranger you've never met. Even if we're talking about fate, about destiny bringing them together, the question still stands. Why Dick? Why didn't Rachel dream about the moment Gar became a metahuman? Or the moment Kory came to Earth? That one would have made sense, since Kory had been sent with the mission to kill The Raven. Guess we'll never know.
The connection is the most visible from Rachel's end, because her powers come into play. They might even be the reason the String exists in the first place. After her mother is killed, Rachel runs to her hometown's bus station and seemingly randomly picks Detroit as her destination, unaware that this is exactly where Dick is. The String is leading her to him without her even knowing.
But we can see it working through him as well, even though he's human and doesn't have any magical abilities.
We're introduced to a detective/vigilante, who's known in his day job for helping kids. The very first scene we see him in, he's looking through a file of a physically abused child. So the situation in the pilot is not his first rodeo. He's been dealing with kids in his line of work before, troubled kids more often than not. Rescued them from sticky situations (either with or without the Robin suit), and most definitely signed off some papers and handed the kids over to social services. And he never got attached. No matter how bad the situation was. His job required him to not get involved.
But then this kid shows up, a kid who recognizes him somehow (she can sense something familiar about him the second he walks in but doesn't clock it until he tells her his name) and she knows things about him she's not supposed to know. She tells him her mom was killed and his demeanor changes from slightly hostile to compassionate immediately because it's something he can relate to. She's begging for help with eyes full of tears, so blindly trusting despite just meeting him, talking like he's her only hope and his resolve is already starting to break.
And then she takes his hand. Whether intentionally or not, she dives into his head, and her dream and his memory become one. They expand, giving Rachel further glimpses into his past. And they both feel it.
And boy, does it spook him. The weird and very conscious feeling of getting sucked into his own head, the unexplainable connection to this kid in front of him who for some reason is able to dig in his brain, a connection that only seems to be fueled by his growing concern for her and her situation. It clearly freaks him out. He's a lone wolf, he doesn't get attached. Neither his day or night job allow it. So what does he do about it? He runs.
"I can't give you the kind of help you need." But he wants to. And it scares the shit out of him because this shouldn't be happening. This should be easy. Get her statement, check it, call social workers. Sign off a few papers and be done with it. Just another kid, another file, another day at the office.
And yet he has to force himself to leave the room and not give in to her desperate begging. He goes to do what he's supposed to do, turns it into just another case.
He tries to leave it. Makes some calls, grabs his coat and heads out. Dude is already out of the building, ready to call it a day and let someone else take over but something stops him in the middle of the parking lot. A sense of duty? Strange worry twisting his gut? Instinct telling him that something isn't right? Something is pulling him back to this girl and no matter how hard he's trying, Dick can't walk away.
Because you see, the moment Rachel took his hand and they both experienced the memory at the same time, the String solidified. I visualize it in my head as two opposite ends slowly reaching toward each other and when this happens–
–the ends meet. They snap together and two separate pieces of the String become one. Only the thing is, right now it's just a thin thread. Now it's up to them to either break it or make it stronger.
(if somehow you're still reading, I assume you know what happens)
As we dive further into Season 1, there are plenty of moments along the way that show how the String strengthens with Dick and Rachel growing closer. 1x04 especially has a moment that is a definite milestone in their relationship — Dick making a conscious decision to stay and take care of Rachel, no longer afraid of the connection and responsibility. But we don't see the String at work again until episode 1x07, "Asylum".
Now, as a singular event, this next scene doesn't necessarily qualify, because it can be logically, scientifically even, explained. But it's here because it's the first of the several instances creating a pattern across all seasons: a pattern of Rachel bringing Dick back to reality from the confines of his own mind.
She seems to be the only one to have this ability to such an extent as she does, and as the seasons go, we even watch it grow in its effectiveness.
When she finds him, he's been pumped with drugs and kept trapped inside his head for an unspecified amount of time, we can assume more than an hour. He's limp, completely unresponsive and it takes her several tries to wake him up. And what does it? A reminder of what connects them, of the promise he made her, the promise that he will never leave her.
It's not that easy to notice unless you look closely but his eyes gain focus and snap to hers the second she says "You promised!" Unknowingly, Rachel tugs at the String and yanks him back with those two words — she needs him to remember, she needs him back because she's scared, and even though her own mother is standing right behind her, none of it matters because Rachel won't feel truly safe unless he's there to keep her safe — and it works because keeping that promise is a priority to him, it's what keeps him going. "Yeah, I guess I did," he says as he comes to his senses and gives a tiny reassuring smile to let her know that he remembers. And we all breathe with relief (well, I did).
Then we move to the very end of episode 1x10 "Koriand'r".
Why is Dick the only one able to cross the cloaking barrier around Angela's house? Why did he run at it at full speed, determined and so sure he'll break through even though he risked literally crashing into a wall, and went right through it with no problem, while neither Kory nor Donna couldn't? It's simple: Trigon allowed it because he knew about the String. Having similar powers to Rachel, he could sense it in his daughter and decided to use it against her. He even knew when Dick and the girls appeared in front of the barrier. Trigon recognized how important all these people are to Rachel, but there was something about this particular bond that caught his attention and made him realize Dick is the perfect pawn. If he wants to break his daughter, he first needs to break the one person she loves the most.
What deserves a special mention here is a little moment at the end of episode 1x11 "Dick Grayson" because this is the first time in the show that the word "love" is used to describe Dick and Rachel's relationship. And it comes from none other than Trigon himself.
Because you do. He knows. Despite never having met either of them before. Trigon has been back on Earth for what, an hour? And he sensed it right away.
That's it for season 1. I was originally planning to put all seasons in one post but obviously didn't consider that there is a 10 image limit and that I talk too much lol
So if you're curious for more, read part 2 and part 3 here. They will dive into how the Invisible String manifests itself in season 2, and check out part 4 for seasons 3 & 4!
So I did a little mini meta on Twitter about what I think Dick and Kory’s love languages are so why not share it with my folks!
Kory is emotionally intelligent and she can really hit all five languages depending on who she is with but her personal languages are physical touch and acts of service.
In s1 Kory immediately goes into protector mode when she rescues Rachel. She not only uses physical touch to show affection but also her physical power. The duality of her physical whether to heal or to harm is displayed throughout the season.
Although it wasn’t her intention to sleep with Dick that night, he used physical touch as avoidance while she used it in hopes that it would open him up emotionally.
After the physical trauma of being experimented on in the asylum, she turns to the physical touch of someone she trusts to combat the feelings of being violated.
In s2 she used her physical powers to heal Conner and her AOS Language came fully into play when she left her own problems behind to help the titans and Dick.
In s3 She’s now fully comfortable with her new family and uses touch a lot to comfort Gar. She hugs Hank immediately when she sees him. She also uses her physicality to show Conner her frustration. She also heals Dick by stitching up his wounds. (This was the only time they interacted physically 🙃) And steps in front of him to protect him from Gar’s anger.
In s4 her tendency for physical touch is highly utilized. Now she’s completely cemented her position as co-head of the family. She’s comfortable. She’s touching Dick whenever she can. To flirt, to calm him down, to stabilize herself. She’s hugging everyone all the time.
Whereas Dick’s love language is firmly placed in acts of service. It took until s4 for him to even be emotionally available enough to delve into the other placements but that’s fine because one thing you can count on is Dick showing up for you to give or get you what you need.
In s1 he drops everything to protect and help Rachel once she re-enters his life. He tries to find better help for her than him but realizes it’s ultimately best for him and Kory to do it. He uses all of his abilities and connections to do this.
This continues in s2 when he feels like he can’t protect his friends any longer he makes the decision to go to jail. He is the person they need protection from, therefore he will remove himself from the situation no matter how bad it hurts him.
In s3 he tries to do everything in his power, including to continue to sacrifice himself to save Jason, protect his family, and Gotham. Kory and Gar remind him that sacrificing hisself is not the way to go about it and it takes him dying for that to really sink in because he’s crazy. But yes.
In s4 he does everything he can and uses ALL of his resources to help everyone to fight this prophecy and their destiny. His efforts are a bit futile because his lesson was to learn to trust. Trust that Kory knows how to defeat this evil, that Rachel can control her darkness, that Gar has control over his abilities, that Conner will ultimately do good, that Tim can stand on his own. By providing them the tools he was able to help and not just be the tool. He also explored quality time with the road-trip plan in general which is Gar’s love language.
The thing to remember about love languages is to love the other person in theirs and not yours. Dick and Kory learned this overtime together. Kory gives the ultimate act of service in sacrificing her life for Dick everyone. Which is a language he can completely understand.
Dick shows up physically for Kory everywhere. Being her literally shoulder to lean on when she’s feeling weak. Now he could’ve done a bit more with this emotionally but well let him cook for now. And finally once he realizes what he could’ve lost shows her exactly how he feels in that final kiss. He’s no longer using affection to deflect or escape but to express.
So what do we think their languages are? Feel free to add on. I’m going to add the other team members as well!
14. Roy - No one liked Roy’s evil arc. You didn’t like it, I didn’t like it, Roy didn’t like it, it erased all his characterization and put him on a path he hasn’t recovered from since. NOT ONLY THAT but
he was retconned with the worst anti-hero backstory possible. Yes, of course Roy Harper would be so want to “surpass Oliver Queen” that he would create a mercenary team called “Iron Rule” and then murder his own team bc they killed people. Also that stupid cap I hate it. This arc was character, fashion and competency assassination at the same time. Thanks Lobdell.
13. Garth - He doesn’t really turn evil, he just gets brainwashed and zombified a little. Personally, I think Garth deserves a little bit of time to go apeshit, but his arcs so far of getting murdered and zombified by his dead wife and girlfriend and getting brainwashed by his Scottish water evil spirit girlfriend are not it.
12. Gar - Went crazy for some reason, became a really gross throw up monster, whatever, no one remembers it, he figures out how to be sane eventually Dick didn’t even let Gar figure his stuff out he needed to announce his wedding instead.
11. Lilith - Imagine getting rebooted into the new 52 just to be a minion torturing victims with your mental powers before a ripoff hunger games starring a ripped off young justice, but also it was just a dream. idk I wasn’t paying attention.
10. Terry - we all knew there was something up with him tbh the evil arc wasn’t a surprise. He’s only this high because I find it hilarious that dc made Mav Wolfman’s self insert get a restraining order for Donna so she couldn’t see her son, immediately got killed in a car crash with said son and then just come back in increasingly graphic evil dream sequences. Don’t write your self-insert into comics, kids.
9. Kory - She gets to look cool when she’s evil but that’s it. Got killed by her sister in JLO and she wasn’t even her own evil person! She was taken over by Darkseid. Slightly cooler in flashpoint but didn’t even get to shine cause she got killed in a gasoline explosion :///. She can explode into a supernova I feel like she should be more powerful when she’s evil!
8. Wally - Yes, he manipulated the entire justice league and framed innocents for a murder he committed, and yes he watched every single superheroes trauma therapy confessions, at least when he murdered Roy he put their dead bodies together bc friends.
7. Joey - Listen, no one liked Titans Hunt, You didn’t like Titans Hunt, none of the Titans liked Titans hunt. Joey wasn’t even in control of him being evil and he kidnapped all the titans and kills a bunch of them, doesn’t even succeed in taking over the world and he does with an evil organization it in matching fur suits!? There are better ways to come out as a furry, Joey. At least Gar doesn’t make all his EVERYONE wear the same fur suits. Points for the homoerotic tension with Dick tho I guess. Also the idea of him having the trauma of everyone he possessed could have been cool but they bombed it so rip.
6. Hank - Listen, listen, I know the monarch story line is dumb as shit and a retcon because dc was mad everyone figured out who monarch was supposed to be but I can’t help it its so funny. fr imagine you’re Hawk, your brother and crime fighting partner is dead, as a result you get blacklisted in twelve countries because you keep beating people up. You get a new crime-fighting partner that is able to stop you from getting blacklisted in more countries, a villain named monarch seemingly kills her. You kill the villain, SIKE! It turns out you were monarch the entire time! Time to be evil, I guess. You join Hal Jordan because he’s vibing as Parallax and then you create an alternate dimension in order to train a fake version of the titans as sleeper agent assassins for the time crisis or whatever idk. You find Terra alive and you just add her to the team?? You brainwash some dude into thinking he’s Dick Grayson to be the leader of the team for some reason even tho u hate Dick Grayson???? You use time travel to populate your team with a bunch of OCs and a vampire??? I’M SORRY HES SO FUNNY!!
5. Sure, Donna may have tried to murder all the titans (Wasn’t cool that she suffocated Karen in her hospital bed), but she’s immortal and she was having a bad day, she deserves it. Plus she acknowledges it’s because she loved them all so much she had to kill them so she wouldn't get too attached to her friends. She also had the arc where they retconned her as evil in Wonder Woman back before ntt was canon again we don’t talk about that.
4. Dick - Pretty successful Elseworld evil arcs, good villainy, he knows how to pull it off but one big problem. Every time he’s evil, he’s so mean to his friends! In New Order he takes over the world and creates a new world order. Stephanie and Tim get like a suburban house and chill life and what the titans just have to fight the resistance against him? And then he asks them for help??? And in the vampire universe he just takes Kory captive for her blood. Dick, c’mon. Take an example from Raven, she wanted to rule with the titans as the seven sins. Or at least Wally who lay his dead body next to Roy’s bc Titans forever <3.
3. Tara - Got a pep talk from Dick Grayson, destroyed the entire world 20/10 iconic. She just needed a bit of self esteem
2. Demon raven, icon, many arcs, most of them bangers, crashed a wedding like an icon, slowly became evil bc George forgot what her forehead looked like, ect. She can pull it all off! The only reason its not number one in the list is that’s it’s done enough that writers are bad at it sometimes. And yet! they haven’t even touched on half of the excited concepts that could have come from this. Demon Raven ruling a dimension with Trigon? Maybe backstabbing Trigon? Demon Raven still wanting to save her friends or maybe destroy them? raven grappling with what she’s done with Demon Raven? An examination of what part of Raven feeds into her demon side? GUYS COME ON
1. Vic - Showstopping, incredible! Vic losing his humanity and wanted to protect the people he cared the most to regain that humanity again .... so beautiful. Giving the titans all they wanted! Giving Garth that weird mix of girlfriends in one person and Dick Batman saying he’s proud of him and Donna her child again it wasn’t perfect but he was trying so hard. So what if he destroyed the moon a little bit in the process, these things are messy. Plus he did it 11 years before despicable me. What a trailblazer.
Anyway coherent meta when i've actually slept/am not absolutely fuming fucking mad at blockberry/lisa (this will not happen) about how i'm actually feeling really interested in the plot titans has been lining up for dick since the end of s3 that is putting the sort of edgelord kind of spin they gave his character to bed and showing him growing past that and how having a romantic partner that's his equal and his confidante and someone he can make a 2-person team with, be an us with, is fundamental to his growth. Soon
hey let’s talk about the contract agreement that dick signed I assume after coming into the role of robin or thereabouts, perhaps even before then if the flashbacks we got of dick as a kid arriving at wayne manor are indication -- particularly that note from bruce about offering to teach dick how to face his fears. in the contract agreement that kory finds tucked safely in dick’s old bedroom at wayne manor, signed by both dick and bruce, we see the statement, “I, Richard D. Grayson, under no circumstances, not death, nor love, nor loneliness, will ever give comfort to fear.”
like. wow.
barring the clearly stupid but likely honest prop mistake that is changing dick’s middle name to something that’s obviously not his rip john grayson you didn’t deserve this, clearly, this contract is an ambitious vow that’s impossible to not break, but the point isn’t to not break the agreement. it’s meant to be broken. the point is making the agreement in the first place, to recognize and exact control of one’s emotions, decisions, thoughts, and actions, in order to train oneself enough for it to even become possible to entertain the idea that one doesn’t have to give in to fear. it’s a mantra. but the fact that it’s a mantra that took the form of a contract, complete with the wayne crest and framed to boot, is what I personally find so fascinating. that can tell us as much about the kind of household that bruce ran while dick was growing up with him, as much as it tells us about how bruce managed his own relationship to fear, and why he might offer the same to dick.
but I mostly want to focus on the caveats to the contract: death, love, and loneliness. while all of these are quintessential aspects of superhero life for anyone, powered or not, it’s particularly interesting to think about how non-powered heroes relate, and especially how bruce and his allies relate in gotham. it’s obvious for anyone remotely associated with the concept of batman that the fear of these three things are not fears that batman has because he cannot be batman otherwise. so it’s not that batman is not afraid of death, but that he will not allow the fear of death to drive him from being himself. it’s not that batman is not afraid to love, but that he will not allow the fear in risking to love to drive him from himself. and it’s not that batman is not afraid of loneliness, but that he will not allow the fear of being alone to drive him from himself.
and I think that’s the key: that fear is to be expected, to be prepared for, to even be accepted. but it is not to be coddled, or to be allowed to stay too long or immobile too much. according to bruce, fear should not change you. fear is not to be comforted -- that means acknowledging the presence of fear, understanding that fear is ever present, but that it cannot be made comfortable to live in or by. that’s not how batman handles fear, and that’s not how bruce handles fear, which means that’s not how dick has been taught to handle it either.
of course dick is his own person, whether he’s willing to admit that to himself or not. and we know that anytime he’s close to bruce or to gotham or even his early days as a titan, he quickly slips back into a perception of himself that cannot see where the boundary to his own self ends and begins next to the people and the city that made him who he is. because of that, it’s not hard to imagine dick eagerly signing this contract, eager to emulate someone as confidently controlled and perceptive as bruce, at whatever young age dick likely was when he did sign the contract. what’s interesting is dick’s unique experiences with death, love, and loneliness over the course of the series, and how these things impact his relationship to his own fears -- a relationship that is increasingly nothing like the way bruce has learned to live with his.
we can almost chart this season by season: dick opens the first season still struggling with death and loneliness in his empty life between being robin and becoming nightwing, and the fear of confronting these forces in his life only grows by the time we get to the second season, love is a part of all of this too -- or at least the fear of loving too much, which is perhaps one of the things I have always loved the most about dick grayson: that he loves with his whole entire fucking heart and soul and mind and strength. he loves his family. he loves the titans. he loves his city. we saw him lose all three of these things, and yet he still chooses love: he still fights like hell to get bruce back and rescue jason, he still builds the new titans, and he still goes home to gotham. if someone reaches out a hand to him, you bet your last buck that dick will take that hand.
and what’s fascinating is that this has always been the case for dick, but he spent so much of the first two seasons really trying not to let this be true, really trying in small and big ways to still emulate bruce. it’s not that bruce wouldn’t also reach out a hand to someone who had extended theirs to him; it’s that dick would have done so and always does so without you even needing to reach out first. he will reach first -- until he doesn’t, which is how we first meet dick at the start of the series, a time when he’s the farthest from his core self, and this being the primary reason he broke with batman in the first place. interestingly, we see this distancing as a defense mechanism -- as dick still following the mantra/contract -- in how he comports himself through much of the series so far, particularly anytime he’s especially emotionally overwhelmed by a situation or when the situation feels out of his control. when that happens, dick routinely reverts back to what bruce would do, even as he’s trying to force his true self into the mix, like when he chose to rescue rachel and carefor gar, or open up to kory, or return to donna and the others.
thus far, we know that dick struggles the most with holding up his end of the mantra, this contract with himself, or perhaps with the idea of himself that he so wants bruce to believe is his true self, because following the mantra just completely falls out of line with the core of who he is. for bruce, the mantra works because the core of who he is doesn’t change, or he won’t allow it to change, and especially won’t allow fear to change him. but for dick, the core of who he is isn’t fixed. he’s not rigid. he’s not bruce. death, love, and loneliness inevitably mark dick’s life, and always will. but his potential experiences with death, love, or loneliness won’t change the core of who dick is, and never have. they already shape him.
Honestly the third episode of this new season left me with my jaw on the floor. Who wrote this horror, cause this was horrible, in a sense of FEAR inducing, HORRORific, horrendous thing. And I'm talking about how *spoiler*
... Hank dies.
Someone on the writing team, did this, this I dunno, huge damn metaphor, like in your face, subtle like stubble, metaphor.
Hank, is being trapped, while being on that thin line of "saving someone younger who doesn't know better" and knowingly walking into that trap, at some point it was obviously noticeable -
He is stripped naked at a derelict gym (with tons of sexual innuendos and objectification happening in the process), swims in a murky pool to the other end in nothing but his birth suit, and gets attacked from nowhere, and a literal ticking bomb is attached to his heart.
How more cringey than that could it be, I have no idea. I had goosebumps.
Later, Hank dies - just read this slowly - by the hand of his beloved, albeit being an unwilling proxy. Instead he could've been saved by a harmless replacement of his ticking bomb. REPLACEMENTS!!! DAMN TITANS SHOW!
Let me make it even more blatant:
A man who was sexualy assaulted as a boy, by the school coach, in the gym, was living with this trauma that would never go away. It's his horror, his personal horror. He was threatened into that horrible situation, he was a boy trying to defend his younger sibling. That abuse was his ticking bomb, and saying that, people who have lived with such a burden, might die by a hasty decision of their most loved ones, who don't know better... While the "good" alternative is to REPLACE THAT TRAUMA WITH A SIMILAR YET NON LETHAL ONE (mind you it was Dick's idea, how damn perfect, PERFECT, on a subtextual level this is) - that would be there, ticking forever still.
A circle, a horrible circle was made for Hank, through his back story, him meeting Dawn and what they did to that coach, and how he met his end, by her unwitting hand. With the simple push of a trigger. It was... Awful.
Titans, you nailed it, you fucking nailed it, and this. This is horror.
... And I really will have some huge, huge trouble seeing this version of Jason as redeemable. They will have to convince me. A lot.
.... I've said it before, this show they are cooking is nothing like most of the stuff on tv. In many ways it's a successor to Supernatural of all things.
((Okay after rewatching Young Justice, I can finally better articulate my feelings on Titans Batman.
Titans Batman simply put, is not Batman. Much like in recent comic books he is an edge lord fascist twist on a good superhero. All nice things done to draw parallel to Adam West and Ben Affleck’s Batman interpretations, the only thing Batman is seems to be a fascist that actively seeks to make child soldiers. Something even in the comics he has never done outside of earths made of dark or anti matter. He also expects Dick to become the next Batman as to where in the comics though he would have preferred it, he allowed Dick to become his own person and even went as far as to find an alternate replacement. To be perfectly blunt, Titans takes and over exaggerates Bruce’s flaws as a parent while also erasing the vast majority of his virtues. What little times we do see his virtues only seems to try and shield Titans from perfectly relevant criticisms on how badly they hardly Bruce, and he is far from the only character they handle badly. As much as I love it, it really shows the bottom of the barrel of Executive Producer Greg Bertlanti. Perhaps he needs to read Batman’s peek characterization again instead of hailing the edgy, for good measure add the rest of the production team. Because doing it to Bruce is just a symptom. They have been doing it to Dick since season one. So maybe I shouldn’t be surprised there.
So how does Young Justice tie into this? Simple. Upon my rewatch I have remembered just why it is one of my favorite DC cartoons.
Aside from it’s focus on relationships between the characters and the perfect highlighting of how they are different in and out of costume, we see their flaws and their virtues highlighted.
Bruce is no exception. Seasons one and two heavily highlighted Batman’s flaws as a leader, but his virtues as a friend. Seasons one and three focused heavily on his flaws as a father, but also showed his virtues and that no matter what he truly does love his children. Even if he is not the best at showing it at times. We see him constantly called out for his flaws but never once praised for his virtues and both are placed well.
To be blunt, Titans seems incapable of doing such a thing. It shows flaw after flaw. And then makes a throw away parallel to either Adam West’s Batman or Ben Affleck’s Batman. That is then overlooked as everyone starts screaming about how much of a SOCIOPATH he is (we get it Titans, you hate Sociopaths but do not even know what the word actually means. It shows.). So yeah. That is why Titans Batman is irredeemable garbage and there is nothing they can do to salvage my opinion on the writing.))
I’ve been corresponding with a discreet fan who is hitching, like me, to write some meta on this scene from Titans; or rather, on all scenes showing Bruce Wayne from the mental perspective of Dick Grayson. Why is the real Bruce so different from the phantasm Bruce ? Why do these scenes arbor such audacious and paradoxical companion or contradictory subtexts, mixing daddy issues with Daddy issues, anger issues, and true father-son tenderness juxtaposed to homoeroticism ? Is it because the show-runners have something up their sleeves ? Is it a tip of the hat to the ambiguity that has *always* accompanied readings of this duo, ever since the 60′s tv show (and possibly in the comics too) ? Or is it more simply because Iain Glen cannot NOT infuse all his performances with eroticism ?
Have you heard of the Eros of performance ? It’s not about lusting or inducing lust. It’s much more elusive and powerful than that. It has to do with the subterranean currents at work between performers or between the shaman and his audience, seducing us into relinquishing control over to them, for us to go to Hades with them and back out again, renewed, rejuvenated, in a cathartic cleansing involving the soul, the heart, the mind and yes the senses.
THIS, this magic, is what Iain Glen has whenever he steps on the stage, whenever the light strikes him and the camera magnifies him, regardless of whom he shares the spotlight with... though surely his partners partake of the experience the same way we do.
I’m completely fascinated !
Below, all exhibits to the aforementioned thesis...
