#disclaimer: you can just treat tarnishing jason's memory as bad writing btw and ignore it completely

[boyfridged]

see, the thing is that (up until countdown at least) there’s no symmetry in jay and bruce's respective ways of grieving.

jay is perpetually trapped in the bargaining stage of grief, trying to reach out to bruce from beyond death.

bruce is way past this. he has settled into a quiet, passive type of mourning, devoid of hope for a reunion. and to stay in this state, he had to necessarily disregard jay’s true image – an image of an earnest, bright child, his son. the memory of jay has been reconstructed in his mind a thousand times and sealed in a folder labeled as “soldier” (or even just a personal failure). it's ugly. it's unfair. it's a coping mechanism.

so to me, the issue isn't that bruce wants his dead, sweet little boy back – the issue is that he barely remembers him. if he did, maybe he would be willing to take a leap of faith and search for that person in jason who came back. but he's not even trying to reconcile the image of 15yo jay with red hood – or rather, maybe the image of a volatile kid that he created in his grief fits with the red hood a bit too accurately. maybe it's a bit too convenient. it works perfectly well for his own self-preservation and sanity, to think that jason has been doomed from the beginning.

jason, on the other hand, is cursed with remembering. one of the very sparse concepts that i found interesting in rhato was when in #3 (2011) jason chose to give up on his happiest memory – skipping patrol to watch a movie with bruce. maybe it's because recalling these tender, sweet moments is what gives him hope, and motivates him to keep bargaining and trying to reconcile with bruce. and bargaining with reality is exhausting. the readers and jay know that it's a lost cause – both because neither bruce nor jay are the same people anymore, but also because, ironically, batman, the symbol of hope, doesn't have any left when it comes to getting his son back. bruce, in his grief, essentially closed the door. jay, in his grief, is banging on them.

#hm. you know i personally think that jay is shit at compartmentalisation. he's trying like his life depends on it!! and he's failing #bruce on the other hand is way too good at it. #to me the tragedy is. jason is still jason when he comes back. but the world is not the same and it's closing him off #who he becomes is a consequence of it.. #god i'm afraid this post came off to much like bruce bashing but #closing the door on relationships is to be expected when someone is dead! #it makes sense. #disclaimer: you can just treat tarnishing jason's memory as bad writing btw and ignore it completely #i think it's fair game because it is also a result of dc writers hating jason. #personally – i think it's quite interesting to incorporate it into my reading #for the angst! #jay.zip #jay.txt #dc #phantom pains #cemeteries are for the living