#I mean to be fair YJ:DW takes about a billion years to update

[threewaysdivided]

Hey, I know this is like a billion years from where you are in YJ:DW, but I had this thought strike me: what if Danny could see and talk to Jason Todd's ghost? (assuming Red Hood isn't YJ canon) There's so much potential for angst there, especially if Danny is the only one who can see him, and decides to try and get Jason to cross over. Or heck, what if Danny had a hand in Jason's revival?

That’s a neat idea that definitely has some good angst potential.  Have to admit though, I’m not entirely sure how it would work within the ghost-lore headcanons I’m using for YJ:DW specifically.  

I can write a longer post on this if anyone wants but Basically ghosts in the Deathly Weapons-verse break into 2 unrelated categories that get lumped together for looking sort-of-similar on the surface:  Ectoplasmic (the ones we see in DP) and what we’ll call Shades (DC ghosts like Secret, Deadman etc).  Ectoplasmic “ghosts” are their own inter-dimensional entities so they can’t really “revive” in the traditional sense, and “passing on” is pretty much limited to accepting what they are and chilling in the Ghost Zone forever or straight-up discorporealising/ re-dying.  Shade ghosts are the more traditional original-soul-bound-to-the-physical-world; either because external force is trapping them there, or because they were willful/ powerful/ knowledgeable enough to bind themselves.  These ones can potentially be “revived” more easily, and can “pass on” if they’re released from whatever is holding them to this world.

If Jason came back as a Ectoplasmic ghost he’d work the same way DP ghosts do; most likely everyone would be able to see him unless he had some kind of Young Blood-esque visibility condition (in which case anyone who fit the criteria would also see him), and outside of extreme edge-cases revival would be off the table.  (Throw a ‘plasmic ghost into a Lazarus Pit and they’ll just climb back out,  except now wet and mad at you for giving them a skin condition.)

More likely that Jason would come back as a Shade-ghost (especially since he seems intended to revive in some capacity in YJ canon), in which case he might only be visible to certain people.  In such a case though, I’m not sure it would be Danny who sees him. 

I feel like Danny would be the least emotionally and symbolically connected to Robin!Jason of the Wayne-household residents who’ve appeared in YJ:DW.  As mentioned in this post Danny kind of falls in this weird spot of being Dick’s Brother first and foremost where all the other Bat-Kids are Bruce’s Son/Daughter, and he has some personal qualms about Dick handing off the Robin mantle (and how close he feels he can/ “should” be to Jason) to work through because of that.  Outside of the both-technically-death thing, I’m not sure there’d be much reason for Jason’s shade to attach himself to Danny as an anchor compared to Bruce, Dick, Alfred or even possibly Tim or some location of personal significance (unless Danny seeing him is due to the ectoplasm, in which case other ecto-ghosts should see him too).

Although, in this very specific hypothetical, Danny is probably one of the better people Jason’s ghost could attach too.  We’re about a billion years from the end of YJ:DW right now but Grief and Healing is going to be a major theme of the core emotional arc, so by the time Jason comes along Danny’s going to be much better equipped to deal with even his canon death.  Add to that that Danny’s had to work with ecto-ghosts and therefore tangentially-death-related problems since he was 14 and he’d be less thrown by Jason’s “reappearance” and more likely to think “this could be a ghost problem” early on compared to Bruce and Dick whose first thoughts would likely be “this is an illusion caused by losing my mind from guilt/grief”, especially if Danny can’t also see him.  Plus, by that point Dick and Bruce do trust Danny pretty implicitly and let him take point where ghosts are concerned.

If Jason did appear as a Shade ghost, Danny’s process would probably look a little something like this:

Confirm that Jason is, in fact, a ghost and not a product of him going nuts

Work together to find a way to prove this to the others (while also working through any personal feelings and unresolved communication/ conflict issues)

Call in Bruce, Dick and Alfred and let them know

Family drama/ angst ensues

Collectively find Dr Fate/ John Constantine/ any other amenable magic-spiritualist hero who exists on Earth-16 to figure out how best to Deal With This.

As for Danny helping Jason (or other ghosts) to “pass on”, I kind of feel like that’s…. not really his ballpark.  I don’t see Danny as someone who’d compulsively seek out other ghosts and feel obliged to “move them along” unless they were actively in distress or causing damage/ distress/ fear/ pain to others.  Like, Johnny 13 wants to ride his motorcycle at full tilt through the streets of a town, terrifying the citizens?  Get in the thermos or get out.  Johnny 13 wants to ride his motorcycle at full tilt down a long, deserted county road?  Fine, just don’t go into towns or bother other drivers.  He’ll leave them alone so long as they leave other people alone.

In that regard I see Danny as sort of the fixer compared to Jazz’s counsellor - if a ghost is acting up because of some problem (or comes to him for help) then he’ll deal with it so that they can leave, or at least chill out.  And if he can’t fix it (because the solution is harmful, the ghost’s nature/powers are too inherently dangerous or they’re just there being dicks by choice) he’ll capture and send them back to the Ghost Zone (or find someone who can exorcise a Shade) to remove the problem that way.  He might gently float the suggestion, but if Jason wanted to pass on then that would be Jason’s choice to explore unless he specifically asked for help or became distressed/ disruptive enough to force Danny’s hand.

Similarly, I think revivals wouldn’t really be Danny’s ballpark either; it’s not a solution he’d like and he has neither the knowledge, interest, skills or equipment to actually facilitate any of the rare reliable edge-cases methods of resurrection.  Danny prefers to keep to the ‘best left alone’ side of ‘Meddling with dark forces best left alone’ as much as is possible.

Personally I kind of prefer the revival stories where Jason isn’t around until his actual return.  I think there’s more easy gut-punch mileage in most of those versions.  That structure forces the other characters to accept that he’s “not coming back” and try to process all the conflict and pain that it brings, only to then sledgehammer the new status-quo by having him reappear, now changed, at point where his death has significantly altered their dynamics with him, his memory and the other characters.  By comparison, having him come back as a ghost and then revive kind of smooths and flattens that trajectory to one where anyone who can interact with him (even indirectly) gets their emotional healing accelerated, and the status quo eventually slips back closer to how it was (with them mostly just having to adjust to physical limitations of the new form he takes), only to reform fully when he “comes back” for real.

But, anyway, that’s part of larger personal nitpick with the use of “ghosts” in stories.  I find that the meaningful thing about death (and that seems to get weirdly missed by a lot of works) isn’t the moment of impact itself so much as the persisting loss and how the survivors cope.  We are haunted by absence more than by presence.  Most cases of bringing the dead character (or at least their mind/personality) back in some capacity tends to soften the weight of that for me, unless the ghost is meant to function as a some kind of metaphor for the healing/ acceptance/ closure process and “move on” when the other characters do.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this long and somewhat tangential ramble.  It probably won’t be happening in YJ:DW or YJ:DW-EU but in a story which took a more hardline all-ghosts-are-dead-people/ horror approach to world-building, I can definitely see the someone-seeing-Jason’s-ghost set-up having a lot of angst and uncanny potential.  (I know there are a couple of fics like that already out there but I can’t remember their titles right now, sorry!)