Red Hood Characterization
This is really long so I'm putting a cut here, I've been thinking about Jason Todd's character motivations and the question of whether or not his actions are based in a Moral Code (I don't think so, not to say he's without any morality) and I talk about that in more depth here.
I saw someone say on here that Titans: Beast World: Gotham City was some of the best Jason Todd internal writing they'd seen in a while, and I've been a Red Hood fan for 8 years or so now? pretty much since I read comics for the first time, so I went and checked out and I thought it was good! The way the person I saw talking about it as if it was rare and unusual made me wonder though, because as well-written as i thought his stances on crime were, there wasn't really anything in it that went against the way I conceptualize Jason?
This kinda plays into a larger question I've been thinking about for a while with Jason though, which is that, do people think that the killing is part of a fundamental worldview that motivates him a la batman, and that worldview is the reason he does the things he does?? Because 8 years ago i was a middle schooler engaging with fiction on the level that a middle schooler does, so I simply did not put much thought into it beyond "poor guy :(" but ever since I actually started trying to understand consistent characterization, I don't really see Jason as someone who's motivated by a moral code in his actions the way batman or superman is!
tbh my personal read is that he's a very socially-motivated guy, his actions from resurrection to his Joker-Batman ultimatum in utrh always seemed to me like every choice made leading up to his identity reveal was either a. to give him the leverage and skill necessary to pull off his identity reveal successfully, or b. to twist the knife that little bit more when he does let Bruce find out who he is. Like iirc there's a Judd Winick tweet like "yeah tldr he chose Red Hood as his identity because it's the lowest blow he could think of." And I think that's awesome, I think character motivations rooted so deeply in character's relationships and emotions are really fun to read! I also think it's where the stagnation/flatness of his character comes from in certain comics, because if his main motivation is one event in one relationship that passes, and he is not particularly attached to anything in his life or the world by the time that comes to pass, it's a little harder to come up with a direction to go with the character after that, because there isn't much of a direction that aligns with something the character would reasonably want? But I do think solving this by saying "all of the morally-off emotionally driven cruelty he did on his way to spite Batman was actually reflective of his own version of Batman's stance that's exactly the same except he thinks it's GOOD to kill people" isn't ideal. To be fully honest, it seems to me like he never particularly cared one way or the other about killing people to "clean Gotham of crime," he just did everything he could to get the power necessary to pull off his personal plans, and took out any particularly heinous people he encountered along the way (like in Lost Days.) Not to say I think the fact he killed people keeps him up at night anymore than everything else in his life events, I just never really thought he was out there wholeheartedly kneecapping some dude selling weed or random guy robbing a tv store for justice.
Looping wayyy back to my question, Is this (^) contradictory to the way he's written/the overall average perception of the character? Because like I enjoyed his writing in Beast World i have zero significant issue with anything there, I just didn't believe it would be a hot take, like yeah, that is Jason. It's been a while since I've read utrh and lost days, but I don't think my takeaway directly contradicts either of those too bad iirc. Idk all this to say I think Jason killing and being alright with killing is an obvious and objective fact, but i guess i've always seen it as more of a practical tactic than a moral belief, and I think taking the actions made during the lowest points of a character's life where he is obsessively focused on this ONEEEE thing and trying to apply it as a Motivating Stance to everything he's done after that, doesn't really follow logically for me.
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I just. The theme of guilt. In Hunter. And Wrecker. And Crosshair. These three specifically.
Hunter is the one who calls the final shot. Makes the final decision. It's his word.
He had to make them leave Crosshair on Kamino. He had to make them work for Cid on dangerous mission after dangerous mission. He had to make Tech leave him behind. He had to choose not to trust Crosshair. He had to choose to let them sit in watertight chambers they didn't know would work. He had to make them leave Crosshair again. Hunter picks and chooses everything. He has to make the calls. He has to pull through. He has to prioritise.
He helped Tech get on top the rail cart.
Do you ever wonder how many times these decisions play through his head? The amount of sleepless nights, tossing and turning, thinking over and over about what he could have changed? Could have fixed? He could have saved Crosshair from the beginning, he could have avoided Cid. He could have found Phee and Pabu another way, he could have stayed with Rex. Things didn't need to happen the way they did.
Tech didn't have to die. Crosshair didn't have to be stuck with Hemlock.
These are the things Hunter mulls over, countless nights, days, hours, spent thinking of what could he have done different? He'll never be able to go back. He'll never be able to change.
He barely got to teach Omega anything. She, full of life, full of joy and wonder, lost to monsters Hunter was supposed to protect her from. And in the end, Omega was lost trying to protect him.
Him, who could hardly keep his brothers from falling other the edge. Literally and figuratively.
Hunter's lost everything. And he can only blame himself.
And Wrecker, sweet Wrecker. Wrecker who fought through the chips control for days. Who struggled and choked back every little instinct until it was physically impossible. Who, while holding his brother in a death grip, fought with everything he had not to kill him. It would have been so simple for him. Wrecker thinks about just how simple far too much for his liking.
Wrecker thinks about how easily he went through them. How easy it was to knock them down and beat them. Wrecker could have ended the entire squad, and no one would've ever known. Wrecker didn't even need his second hand. He thinks about that constantly.
He thinks about how hard everyone else seems to have it. How stressed Hunter is, how angry Echo became, how Tech always put himself into trouble. How Omega had begun to notice the troubles of the galaxy, and the struggle she would always have. Wrecker couldn't protect them, not from that. He tried, truly he did.
Everything from physically to mentally. Watching their backs to comforting them. Shouldering weight when he could, anything to ease the stress, to quell the pain. His strength stretched thin wasn't enough. Crosshair never came back. Echo left to fight without him. Hunter let them leave Pabu. Tech fell.
Wreckers fear had always stemmed from falling. He never imagined he'd fail to catch any of his brothers. He couldn't do anything but watch, shouldered to the side again. His strength wasn't enough again. Wrecker doesn't know what he is if not his strength.
It kills him, not knowing. Being so useless when he's meant to be in his element.
I guarantee he regrets not listening more. Not paying enough attention. Not realising just how much he'd miss it. The silence gives him time to simmer. Wrecker misses the days he didn't know that would happen.
Oh, Crosshair. I have not forgotten him.
Crosshair has watched himself hurt his brothers for maybe months. He's watched himself hunt his brothers like they were animals. All he wanted was for them to be together again. He had no idea the price was so large.
He can't separate himself from the chip. He can't separate himself from the clone that shot his brother in the arm. From the clone that almost incinerated his brothers with an ion engine. With the clone that, despite wanting to be whole, couldn't bring himself to bend his own twisted morality for them. His brothers. Who he had convinced himself he'd done all this for. He spilt this blood for them.
Why couldn't he care for them normally? Crosshair questions that every day.
Why could he care more for a reg than his own brothers? They left because he didn't want to go with them. His loyalty drove them away. And it was that loyalty that drew them back in. Drew his brother to his death. Drew Omega to the last place Crosshair wanted her to be.
He tried to make up for it, and now everything's worse than before. To Crosshair, he's once again brought about an end to their lives. He's tainted, ripped apart another part of them.
Crosshair is the reason they had to run. They could have pretended. Crosshair wouldn't have given them up. Ever. Yet his selfishness, his own personal vendettas pushed them away. Crosshair hasn't even thought to blame the system they tried to save him from.
Now, he's living with the consequences of his attempts at saving their lives. They'll never know how hard he fought for them, all they'll ever know is what happened because of it. What happened because of brotherly devotion.
Crosshair won't be able to fathom that Tech was a result of shared adoration. He'll only see it as another failure on his part. As everything he's ever done has been.
I just- guilt and the bad batch. The way its woven into their souls. It hurts me so much.
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Sorry what’s up w the Ethan slater stuff? I know him only from your posts / SpongeBob stuff
HI HELLO please buckle in
yep -- the same guy from the spongebob musical, and my posts abut the spongebob musical.
he blew up completely and now the general public knows him as 'ariana grande's new boyfriend' - their relationship seems to have started off the back of co-starring in the upcoming wicked musical film adaptation.
it's just been like. a monkey's paw curling sort of a way for him to get catapulted to fame, as i had always really enjoyed him as a performer (as spongebob, yes, but also in the other roles i'd seen him in,) and my biggest hope back around 2017 was that he would continue in and be really successful in theatre, get a lot of broadway roles, maybe take on some existing parts i thought he'd really suit, like seymour in little shop or ogie in waitress.......... but instead he booked the role of boq from wicked in a massive hollywood film production instead, where he met ariana grande. THE ariana grande.
and then yeah. at some point, he and grande broke up with their respective partners, (slater leaving both his wife AND newborn son) jumped into a new relationship, and now the whole wider internet knows who he is but certainly not for the right reasons.
there's been speculation regarding whether or not grande and slater had cheated on their previous partners before their relationship began with various sources coming out of the woodwork saying "yes they did" and others saying "no they didn't" -- humans are all perfectly capable of making stuff up, the media especially, so i simply don't know who to trust and i admit it had completely shattered my whole good impression of him - PLUS it gave the wider internet an absolutely awful first impression of him, resulting in, yeah, the (frankly, unflattering, sometimes downright cruel) memes of him popping up on twitter and, as i discovered yesterday, in non-theatre youtubers' videos who would literally never have heard of him if not for the slater-grande romance 🥲
FULL COVERAGE of the situation as it was happening can all be found on the lovely @notasimpleslater's blog under the tag 'ozgate' if you want to delve deeper!
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