#as for the robins being scared of bruces violence. that depends.

[trekkele]

How much violence do you think Batman should be able to get away with while still remaining as "one of the good guys"?

There are times where he is way more brutal than necessary to just your average crook. Threatening someone with crushing their skull with the Batmobile (Arkham games), to beating people senseless and unnecessarily risking them dying (some choices in the Telltale Batman game), to cutting a cannibal's finger off for threatening only Bruce himself and no one else's life (although obviously he killed some people already) (a Batman/Catwoman comic), breaking criminals' bones as an intimidation tactic before and/or after they told him everything (comics, games, movies,...), etc.

Like that's some really unheroic things to do and Bruce sometimes admits to liking dishing out this kind of punishment. But then he turns around and preaches to everyone how they went too far for breaking ONE bone, especially to the Robins. How many people really know this vicious and cruel side of Bruce, I wonder...

How would you imagine the Batkids reacting to a video of Batman calmly and in a calculated way torturing information out of someone, almost like a real villain? And his cruelty rivals that of Jason during his utrh and rhato days where he was the most mentally unstable and that's like a Tuesday for Bruce? And what if that video is a few years old, and shows a little Robin (Dick or Jason, maybe) being sent away to stake some place out or to return to the cave just a few minutes prior? Obviously they'd be horrified, but what then? Do they go looking for what happened after the torture and maybe find out it was for vital information that relsulted in stopping the city from getting blown up and that the victim was then rehabilitated and now works for Wayne Enterprises.

Just, Batman's methods were horrifying but it was enough to shake/scare this specific person out of a criminal life style, then give him a well-payed job in one of the branches of WE in another city without Batman, now having built a family with kids and the guy looks the happiest he's ever been. And this case isn't the only one, and a majotity of criminals end up like this, with only a few ending up the same as before or worse.

Like, how are you supposed to react to that??? This is the same man that's upstairs working on a charity project for orphans and cancer patients right now! You're going to be sitting at the dinner table together! The man's a father figure to most of them! What. The. Fuck.

I mean i have an answer but i dont think youre going to like it.

I think a Batman that is unnecessarily violent/cruel, or is for the sake of being violent/cruel, is a Batman that is out of character.

And i think the fact that he does enjoy being Batman, is part of it. He knows he’s violent, he knows violence is cruel, he knows he enjoys it a little more then he should. That the reason he has such a tight leash on … literally every aspect of being Batman.

Also, scolding the Robins for being too violent is obvious? Those are kids, they’re still being trained. I know fandom likes to paint every bit of parenting Bruce does as hypocritical or overbearing, but cmon on now. Being capable of something doesnt mean you have to go through with it. His kids were always meant to be better then him, and that means keeping their hands as clean as possible.

Also torture is proven to be ineffective, and if Batman is anything efficient. So thats out of character too ¯\ _(ツ)_/¯

(And Jason wasnt mentally unstable during UTRH or RHATO. He ran a criminal empire bbyboy was very stable.)

What your real question is is “Does the end Justify the means and if so to what extent” and the answer is both “no” and “it depends but probably also no”.

Also is there a reason you sent this verbatim to @frownyalfred and then to me right after i reblogged one of their posts or is that just a fun little coincidink

Edit: that last question sounds very accusatory, its not! Im just curious because this is a pretty well thought out, thorough ask, so like it does make sense that you would have copy-pasted it, but also the timing was pretty pat. Im also not expecting an answer so im not sure why i even asked.

[boo-its-stress]

So I had a silly little idea about what if Danny was ghost king but he didn’t actually have to be in charge because he is baby. You don’t put a baby in charge you put an adult in charge until baby is ready. Vlad would be the most qualified. But he’s Vlad. So. It needs to be somebody else. Batman. I’m talking about Bruce Wayne. Death touched and not ready to rule the infinite realms in his stead. I’m full of big thoughts on this but instead of organizing them and sharing them I wrote a little Blurbo.

Bruce was on the bat computer writing incident reports on the night’s patrol. It was a quiet night and it looked like everyone might get at least 4 hours of sleep tonight. Well, quiet on the streets of Gotham. The cave was very much not quiet as Tim seemed to have had the stupendous idea to intentionally rile Damian up. Idle hands may be the devil’s playthings but apparently an Idle Tim was more likely to lose all sense of self preservation. He wasn’t too worried yet, he could hear Dick trying to keep the peace which had about 50/50 odds of working.

The sudden silence was the absolute worst thing he could be hearing right now. He spun around in that chair as fast as bathumanly possible and stood up. Prepared to deal with an attempted fratricide. But what he saw froze him in his tracks, though not quite as literally as everything else. Damian was frozen mid leap towards an equally frozen Tim who's laughing face was in the midst of shifting towards regret while Dick was reaching out to catch him. He was instantly on guard for whoever had done this, it would be an unlikely coincidence for him to be the only one (or even one of many) left unfrozen if this was a global event that had nothing to do with him. No this was likely a deliberate act but the question remained if the intent was hostile or not. Not that it really mattered because they froze his boys and he would not be relaxing until that was undone.

He felt a presence above him and threw a batarang even as he was turning to face them. And the batarang passed straight through a floating blue humanoid. A being who radiated an aura of power that was only somewhat ruined by the pendulum clock in their chest and a total lack of concern for the weaponry thrown their way. There was a beat of tense silence before they shifted into the form of a child and gave the impression of raising an eyebrow despite not having any above the unsettling wholly red eyes “Did I catch you at a bad time Bruce? I can come back.” And just like that his guard was up even further. An intruder in the batcave with this kind of power and he knew his name? That could not mean anything remotely good. He was mentally preparing alternative methods of attack should this turn to violence, as most forms of physical attack would be useless depending on what form of phasal shifting that just was.

“Oh there’s no need for any of that Bruce. I’m just here to congratulate you on your ascendancy to Kinghood.” That left him wrongfooted and before he could even muster up a response and begin with any proper Questioning, the being continued. “Well, King Regent at least. The rightful ghost king is still a child and you possess the familial relation necessary to stand in until they’re ready to ascend the throne. Should you choose to refuse this position you have 30 days to find a suitable replacement and contact the high council of the infinite realms with this information.” And just as suddenly as the… Ghost? Just as the possible ghost had appeared, they were gone.

All at once life returned to the world and there was an audible thump as one Robin collided with another. But it was Dick who screamed. For if one were to view things from his perspective, Bruce had teleported from across the room and he thought he was immune to the Batman jump scares now! With Dick and Tim briefly caught up in their own individual terrors it was Damian who noticed something was wrong. He shoved Tim aside with contempt, rising to his feet and dusting himself off as if he felt especially dirty after the physical contact he himself had initiated. “Father? What is it?”

Bruce let out the slightest huff of relief at seeing his boys in motion once more, most wouldn’t notice it at all, but the collection of current and former robins were not most people. They were all at attention, waiting to be told and willing to resort to trickery if he wasn’t in a sharing mood. “Something was in the bat cave.” All three stiffened, knowing this was serious. He returned to the computer to begin a profile on the (man? Ghost? clock?) and also to avoid looking his children in the eye. No need to give away how badly this had shaken him. “They were capable of freezing time selectively. And froze all of you while we spoke. Possibly everyone else. Oracle, is it still 1:27 outside the batcave?”

He could hear rapid fire typing before she replied. “Matches up with the time in Gotham and there’s no noticeable time delay between here and anywhere else on Earth. I’ll have to get back to you on if we fell out of alignment with other planets, but I can tell you there’s no gaps in the footage in the batcave either, it… it looks like you teleported.”

Well that was not comforting news in the slightest. Whoever this was, they were incredibly powerful. Possibly capable of stopping all of time with (hopefully) no consequences. Looks like he might actually have to take what was said seriously. For such a powerful entity would have little reason to lie about such a thing. But could he really? He might have had a few close calls with death but he was still living? His heart was still beating? How could a living man be the reigning king of ghosts? Even as a regent? And regent to who exactly? A child? Is that by human or ghost standards? Bruce seemingly didn’t qualify as a child but would Dick? The ghost had said familial relation which was incredibly vague and unhelpful. Did his adopted children count or was it only Damian? Could it possibly be some distant cousin? He didn’t know and unfortunately he had no leads to speak of. How was he even supposed to contact this High Council of the Infinite Realms? He got the sinking suspicion that was the point. That he wasn’t being given a choice in the matter.

His eldest broke him out of his thoughts with a hand on his shoulder, reading what he’d written before locking eyes with him. “And what exactly did he want to talk about B?”

He couldn’t help the slight downturn of his lips as he answered, “Apparently I’ve been named the Regent King of Ghosts.”

And with the widening of Dick’s eyes and a muffled curse from Tim as he missed a step and collided with a table he couldn’t help thinking he was right. The intruder hadn’t brought anything good.

When he later called Constantine asking if he knew how to contact The High Council of the Infinite Realms and the man promptly swore before hanging up? He was absolutely sure he had found himself tangled up in something that was bound to cause him at least one headache in the near future.

When he found the first green sticky note that appeared between one blink and the next he was ready to have words with whoever put him in this position. He sincerely hoped the King he was playing regent for wasn’t Jason.