#“I will purge my heart” Bruce Wayne are u ok

[batboopp]

I’ve been digging around in the Jason Todd tag and I saw a very interesting take, “batman exploits his robins.” I actually think this is true, but for different reasons than the original poster was saying.

so, it’s common knowledge that Bruce left Gotham at 13-15 to gather experience about how to fight, survive, plan, scheme, make horrible scarring decisions, and not die or mentally break in the process (so basically how to BE Batman). but i think that people forget that to do this, Bruce had to completely break himself down mentally, and in some cases physically. to do and follow whatever his current mentor said because he was so desperate to prevent what happened to him to some other eight year old. i mean, rereading some comics, all i see is already shady people (because to be on top you probably don’t make the best decisions) getting their hands on a desperate borderline suicidal teenager who is ABSOLUTELY ready to die for his cause (even when he fully transitioned into batman he still never grows out of this “im worthless unless I contribute to the safety of Gotham” mentality). he exploits his robins because that’s how he was raised. he literally doesn’t know anything else. and he can’t stop because he just doesn’t know HOW. he was completely free to whoever was considered the best, to him, at least.

Do I think this makes his actions towards the robins excusable? no, definitely not. do I think that him being exploited in all categories growing up contributes to his strange parenting? YES. ABSOLUTELY. and I think this aspect of his “childhood” should be talked about more because so much of his behavior can be explained by this. it’s a huge part of him and it always gets glossed over.

AND IT ALSO TIES INTO THE “BRUCE LOVES HIS CHILDREN MORE THAN LIFE ITSELF BUT HE IS NOT A GOOD FATHER” TAKE. HE CANT PROPERLY SHOW POSITIVE EMOTIONS BECAUSE HE NEVER COULD. AUGHHH AU EUGHHH AGAHGGAGAG

don’t take my stupid brain vomit too seriously😭 i probably could’ve worded all this better