#ESPECIALLY if it was portrayed as like. explicitly misdirected anger towards bruce that jason is projecting onto tim

[bistephs]

anyways y’all know how much i love under the hood / lost days but even with them it’s very clear how jason’s characterization as the “bad” robin is inseparable from his characterization post-resurrection. like i love red hood jason, i think he’s an incredibly interesting and compelling character, but even the “good” post-crisis red hood stories still depend so much on the reader accepting that jason was the violent, reckless robin, the robin with the “mean streak”, the robin who never deserved to be robin. the idea that jason was the “bad” robin and that that’s what led to him becoming red hood is so entrenched in red hood jason’s characterization (both post-crisis and n52) that it’s honestly hard to imagine what his character would look like without it.

#dc #jason todd #this is... bleh thought dump but also something that really sticks out to me #ok like. for example #one of the things i think lost days did really well w/ this (and i do think lost days did better with robin!jason than utrh) #is showing that jason's grudge against tim comes entirely from the fact that he sees tim as proof that bruce didn't care about him #because not only did bruce not kill joker but he also (seemingly) immediately replaced jason right after his death #jason doesn't give a shit about tim himself he cares that tim represents the final nail in the coffin of his relationship with bruce #and then you have the titans tower incident which is like... the opposite #iirc raven explicitly says at the end that jason was motivated purely by wanting to prove himself better than tim and bruce #which if you accept the 'bad robin' characterization- as opposed to tim & dick as the Good Robins- makes sense #jason was the robin who failed and he wants to prove himself better than the Good Robins and is jealous of them being Good Robins #but alas they are still innately better than him the Bad Robin and he can never measure up to them and that makes him Evil Crazy idk #like. for the record i have no problem with jason straight up hating tim #ESPECIALLY if it was portrayed as like. explicitly misdirected anger towards bruce that jason is projecting onto tim #despite tim having nothing to do with the drama between jason and bruce besides being The Symbol Of Bruce Not Caring About Jason #but as it is it's portrayed as jason being jealous that tim's better than him #which is again a characterization based off of the readers already having accepted that tim IS a better robin than jason was #and it's honestly really frustrating to still have all these character traits that are just entrenched in red hood jason at this point #that come from his 20 yr character assassination following his own violent death #like again. TO BE CLEAR. i am not saying every bad thing jason has ever done is just Bad Characterization #i'm saying that the reasoning behind a whole lot of his characterization (even the parts that i like!) are based on him being The Bad Robin #it's just frustrating! it's frustrating that this is something we're apparently Never Getting Away From #bc without it so much of his character and reasoning just doesn't make sense anymore