#Bruce has been cruel many times but I've never seen him as creepy as he was in Batgirl 2000

[cologona]

The thing about Bruce making Dick Robin is that it can be read as empathy. Bruce and Dick both lost their family in the same way, and so Bruce tries to help Dick by giving him what he wanted as a young orphan. Justice, closure, power, meaning. Something to make the world right again, some way to move forward, someone who understands.

But that same reading is not as easy to apply to Jason

If I were to read Bruce in a particularly unflattering light, I'd say Bruce fundamentally saw Jason as more expendable than Dick. He was so afraid of losing Dick that he totally sabotaged that relationship, but he's fine with this much younger kid playing the same dangerous role? Jason is a tough street kid sure sure, but is he tougher than 18 year old Dick motherfucking Grayson??? No.

If I were to read Bruce in a more sympathetic light, I'd say that in Bruce's mind orphan = craving-for-justice-that-can-only-be-satiated-with-vigilantism, and since he found out Jason's father was dead he was trying to give Jason the same guidance and empowerment Dick got. He genuinely thought it would work. He did this at the same time that he was actively hiding the death of Jason's father, because this intense self-projection is happening at the subconscious level. He simultaneously wants to comfort the orphan and prevent the orphan from becoming "real" by hiding the truth. It is not logical but it is well-meaning.

(This self-projection is also the source of Bruce's bizarre assertion that Jason has anger issues- he isn't a classist asshole he's just sensitive! 👉👈)

Either way, there is clearly an instability to the concept of Jason's Robin. Batman and Robin requires suspending one's disbelief about child soldiers to degree higher than other superheroes, but there's not quite enough to support that suspension here.

Because how exactly is being Robin supposed to help Jason? What about Jason's supposed anger issues lend themselves to being helped by vigilantism? Jason could've just been Bruce Wayne's son, so why is he also Robin?

...Would Jason have just been Bruce Wayne's son?

I.. don't think so. I don't think Bruce adopted him just to offer a good home- not really. Bruce certainly wanted Jason to have a good home, but that's what sending him to Ma Gunn's school was supposed to be. Ma Gunn didn't work out sure, but it's not like she was the only option. Bruce could've just done more research the second time around. If Jason had rejected becoming Robin, would Bruce have still adopted him? If Batman had not intended for Jason to become involved with hero work, could you see him still sending Jason off to Wayne Manor to be adopted?

Bruce didn't just want a son, or even just a Robin. He wanted something specific- he wanted the feeling of having Dick back. Bruce praises Jason for how similar he is to Dick in his head, and based on Alfred's warning and Jason's own behavior, he apparently compared Jason to Dick quite a bit during training. When Dick himself eventually comes to confront Bruce about why there's another Robin, he pretty much lays it bare: Jason is Robin because he missed Dick. That's the core of it.

Now on one hand this is flattering for Jason! It means he was chosen for the Robin mantle because he demonstrated the good qualities similar to the original. In another universe maybe Jason Todd's Robin isn't the angry one or the dead one, maybe he got to develop and he could've become the Robin that came from sharing laughter and life rather than grief. A Cinderella? A little lotus boy.

On the other hand that's not the universe we live in and this reason has absolutely fuck-all to do with Jason.

As for Tim, parentification is straight up the basis of his Robin. It’s impossible to read his “Batman needs Robin” spiel without reading it as a meta statement because in-universe it’s just an extremely frgiggi depressing scenario.

I think Dick might be the only person for whom Bruce's intense self-projection kinda worked out. Not that their relationship was good, but the core of it was okay? Cassandra comes close but Bruce sorta… lives out his dreams of being all-Batman all-the-time through her. He pushed his bad impulses onto her and she didn’t understand the value of not being Batman so it came off really creepy. He was encouraging her to rely him. Like a tool.