"What's Opera Titans" is a very fun episode, but if you happened to read my account's name... you know why i'm bringing it up
This whole segment of Robin having a dream about the past, when he was still Batman's sidekick, is more than just a silly dream when you take more things into consideration and are an expert yapper like me, so let's check it out.
First, this is a dream, so we have to be very careful since clearly not everything here is 100% true nor something that has happened before. After all dreams are mostly things we desire or thought about a lot.
With that in mind, isn't it interesting how Robin seems so out of character in the dream?
As we saw in "Sidekick", "Thanksgiving", and small parts of other episodes, Robin is terrorized of Batman. He is willing to do many things to not possibly piss Batman off, and is shown to get very anxious when it comes to Batman punishing him or just getting upset because of his own clumsiness.
It is true that, if we believe "Christmas Crusades" is a reflection of Robin and Batman's past relationship (and not just a parody without any deeper meaning), Dick isn't scared of him all the time. In fact, he idolizes Batman a lot and never complaints about anything, even if Bruce hurts him in any sort of way.
But regardless of Robin being or not like this in the past, he would never do something he knows would get him in trouble.
But in this dream, he purposefully goes and does the thing he's told not to do that would get him in trouble.
This is why I believe he is dreaming about something that never happened, but he wishes had.
He's dreaming about a Batman that's good with him, patting his head and not punishing him for his actions. He's dreaming about a reality where he doesn't have to be constantly scared to screw things up, something Robin really wishes could exist, but can only dream about.
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Now, with the ooc thing out of the way, I would like to point out other things I noticed too that could not be as important as the latter but are still worth mentioning.
Dick doing acrobatics is an obvious reference to how he used to do them in the circus. He looks very calm doing them here compared to the excitement and happiness he was feeling with everything else, which I say is because it reminds him of the few happy times he had in the circus before his parents passed away, or it could also be because doing acrobatics reminds him of them in a way.
And lastly, this frame of Batman giving the look to Robin is oddly similar to the other look he gives Robin in "Manor and Mannerisms", with the difference that the dream one is more silly while the one from the real world is more threating and intimidating. This one's not as deep as the other things I talked about, but I found it to be an interesting coincidence.
- oz can’t keep his hands off bruce. ever. touching his face and his shoulder and giving him a real hug in the wayne enterprise office instead of a lame bro-y side hug. and even when you reject the hug he still touches bruce’s shoulder.
- on that, oz always reaches up at bruce’s shoulders when they hug despite being shorter than him his entire life. u want his hands on your back and waist? sir?
- and bruce always bows for it too. in the office he’s meant to be guarded and angry, but he still dips his head and hugs oz back. sir?
- what does he smell like huh? exactly what you’ve been hounding for years? the blood and nicotine of gotham’s criminal underbelly? in turn, the cologne and coffee of the elite man’s world?
- oz makes it a point to warn bruce about the dawning chaos. the man who is a symbol of everything he lost and loathes in the world. but he’s still soft and sound enough to know bruce himself has never been the issue.
- when both of their masks are broken in the same way (shattered eye piece) at the debate and batman even holds it up dramatically to show the duality? yeah.
- bruce stumbling over calling penguin oz while talking to selina. he doesn’t want to let go of what he knew, nor does he want to associate penguin’s actions with His oz.
- “Batman!” + arms wide and theatrically raised. this happens 3 separate times. plus penguin admits he admires batman out loud (twice?) too? does bro have a lil crush on his vigilante adversary…
- selina points out how they’re both dramatic and morally grey. they’re tragic mirrors of each other.
- “dearheart” “bloody handsome” *smacks bruce’s ass to push him towards the podium
- he’s sinisterly flirting AFTER he secured what he coveted too, this is purely from the heart. and pants.
- “what is he doing” “he thinks he’s being cute is what he’s doing😡” if bruce goes off script as he (unwillingly) steps down as CEO. Excuse Me. Sir?
- pinning batman in the elevator. no words.
- listen, maybe oz is a touchy-feely guy, but we certainly don’t see him do it to a single other person over the course of the game. i think it’s reserved for people he has some sort of strong feelings for, including former friendship and. burgeoning homoerotic hatred
- the concerned look bruce gives when penguin punches the statue in the park. just the same as 20 years ago. but now bruce can’t stop him. and oz won’t reach to him for comfort. yayyyy
- bruce hopes for oz to redeem himself, understanding and also being devastated about their parents’ connections and conflict. oz hungers for control and power after all these years stripped of it. his “flirting” is all admiration fermented into gnarled envy.
- oz reduces bruce to something unfair, so he can stomach opposing his one anchor from his childhood. bruce really doesn’t want to see oz as one dimensional and irredeemable, but is forced to as he starts killing without thought or shame. a ruthless criminal, and a clueless prettyboy, nothing more.
ive been havin a super bad art block for the past week but i managed to get SOME stuff out tonight so thats. neat i guess. this is all v sketchy though sorry shrug emoji x100
@ telltale please just let me take john out on a date or something im dying here
