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boyfridged · 1 year

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You may have already mentioned this in some of your other metas, and I just missed it, so please ignore this if it's redundant.

Do you think Bruce is projecting onto Jason by pushing him as a Robin? Obviously, Jason wanted to be Robin and was excited about it, and Bruce let Jason do other things, but (if I'm not mistaken) before Tim came into play, solidifying the whole Batman needs a Robin/support to keep him upright, Bruce and Dick becoming Batman and Robin, in the beginning, was also sort of a coping mechanism.

I think there are a few examples of Bruce enabling this kind of mindset. Like in Gotham Knights #43–44 (sorry), every time Barbara brings up Jason's inner turmoil, Bruce refocuses on his ability as a Robin; similarly, when Jason finds out about Two-Face and his dad, he is hurt, and Bruce acknowledges that but then does the same thing, zeroing in on reassuring Jason that he made a mistake but is still a good Robin.

Like, Jason got it from Bruce, but he unintentionally encouraged that kind of thinking.

oh, i definitely think that bruce is projecting on jason and that it profoundly affected jay. and, while every single one of your observations is apt, i would add that what truly made it so tragic is that he projected his own worst traits on jason while being blind to the fact that jay already shared his best qualities.

tldr: bruce projects himself on jason in terms of grief (saying that jason needs vigilantism to work his grief through) and sees his own worst traits in jason (anger) but doesn't see his own best traits in jay (compassion, love, and sensitivity). ironically, jason does end up developing all of the (projected) worst characteristics of bruce (obsessiveness, and relentlessness in pursuit of the respective perceived idea of justice). this happens even though they were barely present in his early storylines, and only ever manifested when jason was scared or lost. later, they truly came to be because of his trauma relating to vigilantism.

and the long, long version, coming with panels and quotes: under the cut.

first i want to say that the following analysis focuses very specifically on bruce's mistakes, but i don't view the overall of jay's upbringing by bruce solely in these terms. from text it is also clear that bruce deeply loves and cares about jay, and that jay enjoys being robin. now that this is clear, let's get to particularities, and start with jay's origin story.

i truly never stop thinking about the significance of bruce meeting jay in the crime alley, the place of his parents' death. there's a lot to be said about it, but here the focus is, of course, on the fact that he sees a little boy, very much similar to himself, angry and hurt, in the same scenery that brought him so much grief. and jay in some ways does appear to be a mirror of bruce's own agonies, as well as a mirror of his own inclination for seeking justice; and somehow, bruce fixates on the first one, while almost completely dismissing the latter.

bruce looks at him and assumes that the remedy to jason's pain and anger is being robin; and he doesn't stop to think about it. (it has to be noted that there's also classism at play, classism that is mostly a result of writers' own beliefs – collins did state in a couple of interviews that that the motivation behind jason's background was to make his introduction into vigilantism seem less offensive, as jason has already been exposed to crime...)

i think, in this context, it's interesting to look at the two-face storyline even closer, and from the start too. in the beginning, bruce talks of jason's 'street' roots and assumes jay would go "down the same criminal road that took his father [willis] to an early death." he also talks of jason making a lot of progress. later, in batman #411, after jason learns that willis has been killed by two-face, bruce comments that jay "has never been like this...listless...almost pouting--"

this all, along with jay's cheerful and diligent behaviour from the previous issue builds an interesting picture for us: because we essentially learn that jay has been overall an unproblematic child. bruce, of course, attributes this "progress" to the training. however, for anyone else, the logical conclusion would be that jay's quick adjustment was simply a matter of finding himself in a safe and stable environment and receiving continuous support and attention from a parental figure. i find it rather questionable that jason's personality softened down because he had something to punch in the cave–– the more intuitive explanation is of course that he was angry and quick to fight when they first met because he couldn't afford anything else and because he was scared. but months later, in a loving home, he can allow himself to drop his guard; and his cocky attitude disappears until much later.

so the rather unsettling picture that we derive is that bruce is training jay to become a vigilante in order to "channel" his (nonvisible at this point) anger into something useful and just. and he clearly links this to his own trauma in batman #416 (that’s already starlin btw), in his conversation with dick, explaining why he took jay in: “he’s so full of anger and frustration… he reminds me of myself, just after my parents were killed.” bruce also mentions that soon after their first meeting, jason helped him and "handled himself well" in the fight, but he doesn't mention that jay has ran away from a crime "school" and intended to stop injustice on his own only because he was ignored.

the theme of bruce comparing jay to himself appears again in detective comics #574 (barr), where it is approached with a much more... critical look, thanks to leslie's presence and her skepticism of bruce's actions. after jason has suffered nearly fatal injuries at the hand of the mad hatter, bruce reminisces on his own trauma and motives. he tells leslie: "i didn't choose jason for my work. he was chosen by it...as i was chosen." leslie replies: "stop that! (...) you do this for yourself... you're still that little boy (...)" then, the conversation steers to the familiar ground and the topic of anger. in bruce's words, again: “i wanted to give jason an outlet for his rage…wanted him to expunge his anger and get on with his life…” and finishes "and instead, i may have killed him."

the recognition that bruce's projection on jason and involving him with his work might have fatal consequences is, as always, fast forgotten once jay wakes up and proclaims that he wants to continue his work as robin.

but to circle back, i think there's something else worth our attention, something deeply ironic, that is showcased in that issue: that bruce has no evidence for jay's "rage." when leslie talks of bruce's past, she recalls his tendencies to get into brutal fights at perceived injustice as early as in school; when bruce talks of jason, two pictures that are juxtaposed, are that of jason fighting as robin and jason... smiling, playing baseball.

so, in the early days of jason's training and work in the field, we see bruce talking of jason's anger a lot; but we barely see it.

that being said, jay is angry sometimes– and i think your observation about how bruce deals with it is incredibly interesting and accurate.

we first see jay truly and devastatingly angry in the two-face storyline. bruce focuses on jay's reaction as robin, which is, in fact, aggressive. but something that he barely addresses is that jason's first reaction is sleeping all day, and not beating anyone to a pulp; in fact, this vengeful instinct seems to arise only when he is put right in front of two-face. and his third instinct, once the rage (very quickly) dies down after the altercation with two-face, is crying, because bruce hid the truth about willis' death from him. jay, while crying, asks bruce: "you have taken me out into combat-- but you spare me this?" in response, bruce lectures jason about how grief inspires revenge, which is, again, deeply ironic, given that jay seeking out revenge seemed to be prompted and enabled solely by the role of robin. moreover, his question suggests that at this point he saw grief ("you spare me this") and fighting as two different things.

the final is, as you said, bruce focusing on making it into a lesson on vigilantism, or, in his own words, "tempering revenge into justice." personally, i think in this way bruce directs jason to bring his grief into the field as a powering force, something that he didn't necessarily have an own incentive to do. the flash of compartmentalisation between his ordinary life and being a sidekick that jay has shown by questioning bruce's decision is lost. emotions are now a robin thing, and they have an (informal) protocol, a moral code. and when jay is confronted with an emotionally exhausting case next – the garzonas case, i believe that the focus on "tempering revenge into justice" is exactly the problem– we don't see jay crying, we see him frantic about finding the solution. this, right there, is bruce's obsessiveness, that in my opinion, was developed in jay specifically as a result of how his engagement with vigilantism combines with his deep sensitivity.

and, needless to say, his sensitivity is all the same as that of bruce – they both can't stand looking at other people hurting, they both wear their hearts on their sleeve, caring way too much – the thing is, bruce never quite acknowledges how they are similar in this matter. instead, he focuses on his sparse bursts of anger, wanting to bring jason closure in his grief the only way he knows it – in a fight for a better world. so, as you said, he focuses on jason's ability as robin.

which just doesn't work for jason. at all. we know it from how his robin run comes to an end: in the first issue of a death in the family (batman #426) alfred informs: “i’ve come upon him, several times, looking at that battered old photograph of his mother and father, crying.” to that, bruce contends: “in other words, i may have started jason as robin before he had a chance to come to grips with his parents deaths.” he also tells jay that the field is not a place for someone who is hurting; a message that is the opposite of what he's been saying for years now, and something that i imagine was difficult for bruce to conceptualise, because then he would have to question his own unhealthy tendencies. it's a bit late to come to this realisation; bruce's self-projection that caused him to worry so much about jay's anger has already turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy that will fully manifest itself in utrh, when jason does the only thing he was taught to do with grief: try to channel it into justice.

#AHHH this took me so long for no reason at all. so sorry anon <3 #anyway. i'm obsessed with your observation regarding bruce's focus on robin in the two-face storyline #i've already briefly considered it but you made me go back and reread it #and i just stared at these panels of jason in bed all day for like good 5 minutes thinking. jesus christ. jesus christ #“you spare me *this*?” <- this line is making me feel SICK TO MY STOMACH.#so maybe bruce is right when he says that he made jason like this in tfz.#and jay is of course even more right when he says that he didn't make him. he raised him #also don't apologise for bringing in gotham knights #i actually talked about it some before because it is a very good illustration of bruce projecting on jay #<- i didn't include it here bc my post was getting insanely long.#anyway back on the topic. i think it's so deeply sad that jay genuinely has no idea #that this is what bruce thinks #i think he would be DEVASTATED if he knew the way bruce fixated on the idea of his anger #hm. normal now.#thank you so much for this ask. you can tell i was delighted to answer it <3 #i actually already had a draft about it when you sent it... but i'm sooo slow with editing my word vomit #outbox #jay.zip #jay.txt #dc #jason todd #core texts

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dreadnotau · 7 months

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Its been a decent couple of months of productive work, so it's sadly time for a schedule change. I'll be posting pages two weeks apart again. Details provided below if you're curious as to why.

In all honesty there's no big dramatic reason this time around. I've just slowly lost drive to work on Dread Not as often and as thoroughly as I used to be able to. As I said in one of my previous posts (that sounded suspiciously like this one), I want to focus on other projects as well. One of those is my personal art blog, which I've neglected even though I've had art on the backburner that I've been meaning to post for AGES. Kingdomrune is another one of those, where I have shit I could post that I just... never did. Dread Not takes a lot of time and I miss being able to dedicate that time to consuming media instead of just grinding and trying to produce my own. One of the most important things to do as an artist is to broaden your horizons and take in as much art as you can, to diversify and expand what you know and what you can make. But, when all day every day I'm just sitting and drawing my own thing, it's like I have tunnel vision and my creative resources run dry. It's starting to feel weirdly soulless on my end, because I don't feel nearly half the inspiration to make the pages as I did when the big hiatus ended. It's all dependent on time and exposure, and I can only crunch for so long before it starts to feel damaging to me instead of fun and creatively fulfilling.

So what does this mean, practically speaking? Well, for one, I'm spacing out the page upload for the rest of Act 1, as previously mentioned. I'm well aware this will kill the pacing and it'll drag out longer than it theoretically needs to, but I'd even rather that than trying to rush out a page in the Two Days I have free this week (yeah, ONLY two days free out of the ENTIRE week. Don't ask me why it's not even my fuckin' fault this time). If pages become even more scarce than 1 page per 2 weeks, blame it on college. I'm getting new subjects and I don't even know the class schedule yet. Concerning Act 2 though, I'll be changing the structure of the pages from their core. I'll be switching to a different drawing software (probably Krita, suck my dick Photoshop) so it'll take some getting used to. I can't even promise bonus content or anything during the necessary break between acts because of that shift in software happening, I've never done a massive technical move like this. However, it'll allow me to, not only work on Dread Not better, but expand my art overall, so it's definitely worth it. I've wanted to get into animation for YEARS and Krita seems like an okay place to start (the gif on this post WAS made with Photoshop, but shitty gifs are about all I can make as animations in Photoshop). Act 2's style will, predictably, differ heavily from Act 1 and (with how long writing the dialogue alone for it is taking), it might end up being Longer than Act 1, too. Visually, it'll probably be something like cleaned up and coloured sketches, with simpler colour palettes and simpler (big airquotes) visuals overall, and it'll speed up the process and possibly allow me to post more than one page at a time. Possibly. That's not a promise.

I'm sorry if that's disappointing to anyone, but I physically can't make myself continue the current artstyle across all acts. It's just not feasible.

For those curious about the FARTHER future of Dread Not, I have plans to turn Act 3 into a series of fics rather than full comic pages, and something maybe a bit more insane for Act 4. I don't have everything figured out yet, and I don't want to make any false promises or give any grand ideas I won't be able to commit to, since only time will tell how my creativity will flow years from now. If you all want more content from me specifically, again I'm planning on reviving my art tumblr like a half buried zombie, and you'll probably see more there than you bargained for once I actually get into the habit of posting things. If you're mayhaps interested in my original stuff, keep your eyes peeled for a guy called Duro, I might start posting about him some time soon.

As always, thank you for your patience, and apologies again if this news was disappointing to anyone. I'm just one guy and this comic is a titan of biblical proportions. I'll keep you all posted on any further developments and plans for the future! Stay tuned!

#dread not #dreadnot #dread not au #dreadnotau #not comic #kris #schedule update #i was supposed to post this yesterday but then i got fucking sick #spent all day in bed hardly awake #so those two free days i mentioned in the post?#gone. just like that.#fuckin pray for me

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