#or maybe I'm uniquely viewed as incompetent. who can say.

[redjaybathood]

so okay, it's really frutstrating for me when you see someone who say something that isn't actually - like, true? and you respond to it? and explain why? and people like - no, i'm not talking about this, i'm talking about that specific thing that doesn't actually happen (or doesn't happen as much as i am implying it does, at least), so go make your own post.

Here I am, making my own post.

Look, Jason stans - who among you thinks any Robin dying except Jason (which in fact is only Stephanie and Damian) cheapens Jason's death? Please raise your metaphorical hands by replying to this post.

Which - I don't think you exist en masse. Like, 90% of the blogs I follow, servers I'm active in, etc, are about Jason, or made by Jason fans, or at least by people who aren't anti-Jason. And I frequent Jason's tag on tumblr. So I have seen a lot of bad Jason takes, but this? This is the most fucking bogus thing I ever heard of.

Well, there is a misinterpretation of some takes on canon - what Jason's death brought him to a villainous path. Which is true, in a way. Because here's an approximate timeline: Starlin hates kid sidekicks and especially Jason, who's Robin, and a sidekick on Batman's book, which Starlin writes - he wants to kill him off and lobbies for it - he gets a go ahead from editorial - he makes Jason seem angry or incompetent - he kills him off - Robin's death raises uncomfortable questions about Batman - DC makes it so that Jason, retroactively, remembered as solely the bad angry reckless incompetent Robin. And it's how Jason gets remembered in general.

And how do you bring a character like this back? Well, why not a villain. Cue Under the Hood (and it only goes worse from there).

And then you get anti-Jason fans, most of them Dick and Tim fans, who actually are behind the take "any other Robin dying and coming back as not a murderer invalidates Jason's 'excuse' to become a villain" which, in short hand, "any other Robin dying invalidates Jason's experience" which is now assigned to Jason's stans. Who - and I saw these exchanges before I started blocking people a lot - see that bullshit and go, hey, no, Jason has a totally valid point of view when he goes and murders people - he fucking died! Whereas anti-Jason stans reply: he's not the only one, so there! And I mean. If Stephanie decided to go apeshit after her resurrection - I would honestly support it, as long as it doesn't make her another dumb villain that Tim Drake takes down by the sheer superiority of being a white middle class male with a personality so bland everyone could project on him or something. Not Damian, though. I don't trust DC with Damian at all.

But in all seriousness, I do understand people that say that Jason's being a murder victim kind of gives him a unique perspective on killing being a last resort in keeping people safe. Which is what his villainous arc in UtRH and, to a lesser degree, from then on, is about. He didn't start with killing everyone and their mother - he didn't even end that way; like, he never is shown to take a life of an innocent person on-page. This never happens. But he started with a plan to take down Joker. And honestly, you think there's any need for jury, judge etc for Joker? The same Joker, who at one point, walked himself into jail just to flex how untouchable he is? This Joker? Are we really sure that murder cannot be allowed ever, within this fictional universe? Sorry, I got off topic again.

But in a nutshell: anti-Jason fans use "other ppl died and didn't become murderers" as a way to invalidate Jason's very traumatic experience and a grim but more realistic outlook on crime-fighting within the DC universe (not real life though; please don't murder people in real life). It's their gotcha! moment.

And I maybe can see where are they coming from, except their need to put down other characters to validate theirs: other people really died. Stephanie did. Damian did. They were the same victims of dumb and dare I say, malicious, decisions of DC editors and writers. And they didn't come back murdering people.

So I see where you would think the argument of "Jason wanting to kill the killers is valid, actually, because he died" falls apart. But you can, in fact, take different approaches to the same problem? Whatever works. (In case of DC, though, nothing really works - neither killing nor not-killing villains - because what would the stories be about if all the criminals were actually defeated? Wayne Family Adventures is a niche thing, even if it tries to be a broad-appeal)

It also is a wrong fucking way to look at this, as I've mentioned before: Jason was returned as a villain because they thought it would be a great dramatic thing people would buy comics for. It's not like Jason has agency and one day he woke up in his grave and decided, well, it's a beautiful morning for some murdering.

It also even more wrong way to look at this, because you compare characters like: this one is more morally in the right because they do not kill! (and therefore they are a good character and stanning them makes you a better person than other stans) This one is in the wrong because he does kill! (and therefore they are a bad character and stanning them makes you a burgeoning serial killer)

In the post I'm referencing I did go off about Tim and Dick stans because they are the worst offenders: not only they say "Jason isn't the only one who died" - I mean, duh; they say "well, Tim/Dick died also" which is a fucking lie. It honestly feels like they are trying to, I don't know. Invalidate Jason's (and Steph, and Damian) experience, or make Tim/Dick seem as the most tragic characters (because of course the only valid feelings are from deep trauma; the characters you should love the most are the ones who suffered the most; is it Christian morality in play again? or what? I don't get it). When Dead Robins Club tragedy is not just what they have gone through in-universe, but the treatment of poor, female, and people of color in DC comics overall. They are killed off - for a long time, Jason; planned to be made permanent death, Stephanie; and Damian, for a short time, but the repercussions are still felt to the same day if not by Damian himself, then by his mother Talia.

And I'm sorry, but Tim and Dick have never, even at their worst, been treated the way those three characters were. They never made out to be a bad Robin, an angry or reckless one, a Robin that deserved to die - a Robin that didn't deserve to be Robin. A Robin to kill off.

So no, they did not die. They wouldn't have.

#jason todd #long post sorry #meta

[see-fee]

One Redditor’s interpretation of why we all love Daneel so much

https://www.reddit.com/r/asimov/comments/2wxxy0/why_does_everyone_like_r_daneel_so_much/covfdxm/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3

Sooo... wall of text incoming.

I'll start by saying that the answers such as "you have to read the later books" miss completely the point. R. Daneel Olivaw was well beloved before the later books - as a matter of fact, Asimov included R. Daneel in the Foundation books because the public wanted to see more of him: R. Daneel needed only two books and a short story to be remembered forever. His fame would be increased and affirmed with the later books, but what made him so famous and beloved in the first place?

Let's admit it, the popularity of a character is sometimes a mysterious thing. Why was Star Wars' Boba Fett such a fan favorite? I have no idea since I have no liking for his character. Sometimes a character resonates with the audience because he just does - and maybe Daneel just did. But let's try to see if we can find a reason for Daneel's prevalence.

I will here argue that R. Daneel Olivaw used to be a very unique character 50 years ago, when the first two Robot mysteries were written (1954 and 1957): he was nothing short of groundbreaking, despite the sketchy characterization (not Asimov's forte, as you correctly say).

Elijah Baley himself, you see, is a good character (I'd even say he's an unusually well-sketched character for Asimov), but he's nothing new. He's your usual hardened and capable detective, self-doubting and claustrophobic (in more senses than your usual one): a good character, as I said, but very much the usual fare. Literature, already back then, was packed with the same sort of no-nonsense, slightly flawed but genial police detectives. Gladia is a good character, but the accused but desirable widow or the exotic apparently-out-of-your-league damsel in distress are old tropes (she surpasses this roles only in her 1985 appearence). Han Fastolfe is a character I'm surprisingly fond of, but once again, conventional in his ways (the mix of the dedicated and genial scientist and of the consumed politician).

On the other hand Asimov himself, in one essay, recounts how very few Robots had been portrayed as "good" (most were evil, or flawed, or incompetent, or defective, or rebellious, or a combination thereof) - think of Metropolis' Maria, of Clarke's Hal2000 computer, of the silent and deadly warden of The Day the Earth Stood Still, and so on. In the most benign portrayal of robots back then, they were helpful - but somewhat stupid and possibly humorous - servants (see, much later, Star Wars' C3PO and R2D2). Of all of Asimov's robots, R. Daneel Olivaw is the one that first subverts most of these tropes. He is unmitigatedly "legal good" - a true paladin of the Three Laws. He is strong and independent and confident and clever and unyieldingly loyal. Most of the psychological tension in Caves of Steel comes from Elijah Baley actually worrying that a robot like Daneel could take his place. Obviously, Elijah always solves the case which suggests that, despite his being apparently a superhuman Daneel still lacks "the spark" (intuition? humanity? geniality?) to equal Elijah - and this, finally, makes Daneel imperfect, and thus acceptable and improvable (you can see Daneel learning from Elijah).

We, the reader who read a book written from the point of view of the human Elijah Baley, can see him going from mistrust and envy to respect and appreciation. We can see how the human Elijah Baley starts considering Daneel worthy of his affection - a friend, that is.

Daneel is not only the first robot detective (to the best of my knowledge) to be ever created, but also one of the first robots to be portrayed as an equal to a human being and deserving to be a friend: in one word, groundbreaking. Today he feels less interesting because he opened the way to lots of similar robots: but, say, Star Trek's Data or Aliens' Bishop owe everything to Daneel Olivaw (without implying any explicit causal connection between them).

To me, for what he represented, for what he is in relation to Elijah Baley, for what he shows us about the potential of robots (and, in a way, of humanity), for being the first and opening the way, R. Daneel Olivaw is one of the best, and most meaningful, characters to have ever existed in science fiction.

#Daneel olivaw #elijah baley #isaac asimov #c/fe