#character driven story arcs only work of yiure honest to the character

[societysonlooker]

So. In Death In The Family a possible scene is Jason fighting the joker while the gcpd closes in on them, and when joker is finally cornered, Jason reveals who he is, and the FIRST thing out of Jokers mouth is "One Bad Day", which, if you've been around here long enough, or just watched the killing joke, is this Jokers whole philosophy. He honestly believes one bad day us enough to drive anyone to his level of insanity. Now, while this scene makes it look like that WAS true for Jason (if he kills the joker, not so much if he spares him), I'd like to counter that.

Because in this scene, Jason is the red hood. Not hush, and not a Jason that lived while batman died. No, this is [mostly] honest to canon Red Hood Jason. And the thing about red hood, is that it wasn't even what joker did to him that pushed him over the edge. Was it the catalyst? Yes. But what made him finally commit to flipping his morals and be the antihero/antagonust we all know and love was the combination of his dip in the Lazarus pit, and the manipulation by the Al'ghuls he was subjected to.

It's canon that the Lazarus pits make you angry, fucj with your ability to think, and can make you very impulsive. When Jason came out of the pit, 16 and with his last memories being of crawling out of his own grave, the first thing that happened to him was Talia caring for him, and feeding him vitriol abiut batman the whole time. How he didn't go after joker, didn't avenge Jason, replaced him and dragged another child into his war (if you know anything about tim, you know this last one... isn't really true).

She feeds into Jason's pre-death ideas that some crime can't be caged, just killed, and feeds him the al'ghul philosophy of ruling by fear. Batman follows his own moral code for human, emotional, moral reasons. But Talia feeds Jason anger and practicality, and post-pit Jason obviously believes her because everything she said makes sense, and the "proof" she shows him is cultivated to feed her narrative. Of course she never tells him that batman went damn near feral after Jay died, of course she didn't tell him that he didn't want to take tim on as robin (she might not have even known that one, really) she wanted to shape Jason into something that would antagonize and hurt Bruce, and she did that.

In this scene, Jason doesn't even properly remember everything he did when he was first in Gotham, he's repressed most of it, it was A) horrifying B) traumatizing and C) still pretty lazarus-affected.

In this scene, Joker says "One bad day", and honestky believes he caused all this. That Jason's death and revival and the trauma THAT caused is what made Jason do this. The problem is this isn't true. If Jason had come back and been surrounded by family and people who hinestky wanted what's best for him, he would have been fine. In fact we SEE him be fine!

Thus movie has a version where Bruce dies in that warehouse instead of Jason, and when that happens, we see that Jason is honest to god on the path to recovery before he goes into that diner and meets joker in plainclothes. AND!!! If je escapes the cops immediately after that, yes, he becomes red robin and goes on a villian killing spree, but stops after the events with two face. Be it from shame and dropping the gig entirely, or from Tim showing faith in his ability to do the right thing and be the good, righteous person batman wanted him to be.

(If he doesn't escape the cops immediately, then he goes to prison, and then that's basically just a headstart, minus batmans existence, to a canon incident where he kills like 200 prisoners after getting convicted. In which, he eventually gets out (I think Nightwing helps him escape in exchange for help with something involving Jay's ex-partner? I'm unsure), and doesn't really kill on that scale ever again. I dont remember if this is prior to or after battle for the cowl, but I DO know that N52 happened shortly after and then he formed the outlaws. What is and is not canon between then and now is... up for debate, to say the least. Thing is though, by that point, he was trying to at least be amicable with his siblings, if not with B, amd he was toning down the fucked-up-ness of his methods. Still killing, still ruling by fear but like, not decapitation gang lieutenants in the street for fucks sake. Lazarus shit is begining to stop, and we see him finally begin to mature past what happened to him and who he was manipulated to be. The n52 happened and we started all the fuck over. But. Ya know. We're getting back there.)

Because of these paths we know for a FACT that it's not just the warehouse that drives Jason mad, and while crawling out of his own grave had to be fucjing terrifying, that's not really a "gonna kill all criminals" trauma that a "welp. Guess who's never sleeping in a dark room or putting themself in a small space ever again" type pf trauma. Point is, we KNOW that it's the events with Talia that make Jason snap (a cold, calculating kinda snap, but Snap he does).

And because of the Hush timeline, while its his hatred of joker that pushes him, it's also his own pride. He STILL thinks Bruce failed him. Still wants revenge on the joker, and its his PREVIOUS problems within the batfam that cause his discontent and wounded pride to fester. It's not so much what joker did, as it is what batman WONT do. Batman WONT kill criminals, he won't always gives them the "punushment" Jason thinks he deserves, and frankly, its not beyond ken to say that a Jason who grows up without the warehouse incident still grows up to have "looser" morals than batman.

Some therapy to address his childhood trauma might also bring forth a much, much more prevalent, and adult hatred of the kinds of monsters that made his childhood hell. Once he's grown, once he's far enough past it to truly comprehend and understand what he lived through, when he sees kids passing on the street, or babysitting his niece and nephew, and imagines someone hurting them or abandoning them, it would very likely make him angry all over again. A Jason who grows up and heals might also be a Jason that's angrier at the injustice in the world in general, that will see a kid starving on the street or getting mugged and snaps, killing the person doing the hurting and doing everything he can to make sure the kid is alright.

In fact, his teen years might already be evidence of that. There was an incident back in the 80's involving Jason and a domestic abuser, they were fighting, and the guy fell off a high rise balcony, and Jason made no move to save him. To this day, we don't know if the guy actually fell, or if Jason pushed him off. And frankly, it doesn't matter, because the point is that Jason didn't give a fuck the man was dead, even if it was kinda his fault (chasing the man to and fighting on the balcony).

While Bruce, quite vocally, believes ALL life is precious, even the lives of evil individuals, Jason decidedly doesn't, and even as early as thirteen or fourteen years old. Hes not shaken up about it the way Bruce would've been, and isn't even regretful of it like dick would have been (as robin or as nightwing, ie, the blockbuster incident). It happened, he believed the man got what he was due, and he moved on.

All of the information we have on Jason, both comics, movies, and alternative futures (death in the fam) show us that it's not Jason's "One Bad Day" with joker that leads him down that path, it's a series of underlying problems, beliefs, and situational unlucky bullshit that leads him down that path. In two out of three universes, he is clearly and obviously either A) redeemed or B) trying to be redeemed. And in hush, there's no guarantee that he actually follows through with raising damian to hate Bruce, its his initial goal, yeah, but there is every possibility that he mellows out with time, and just raises Dami as /slightly/ more vicious than he canonically is.

(And EVEN THEN! B would still like right after dames gets to gotham, dick still takes him in, and sunflower smile boi Dick Grayson is actually just, an amazing fucking dad to this boy and helps him heal. Like seriously, what kind of hate is Jay gonna spew abt nightwjng? That he's the golden boy? Yeah. Ok. But he also wants nothing to do with Bruce's rich person Wayne life so Damian doesn't really have a reason to hate him. And we have NO idea what happens with Tim drake in that universe so who tf knows what happens with that. Maybe he gets mad good with computer and apprentices under oracle when she find him, who knows? The WORST case scenario here is that Damian sees dick as a failure, and has his worldview changed as dick raises him. And sure, Jason could try to get Damian back, but there's no guarantee he could. Between Talia, the league, Dick, Alfred with his shotgun, and Damian being home-schooled, there's kot a great chance of Jason actually getting him back unless Damian actively tries to run away. Which. He didn't. He believes Batman is his birthright, he's not going anywhere).

The literal WORST case scenario (other than dying again) for Jason is joining the league of assasins, and that's really not like, THAT horrible. (If they were led by anyone other than Ra'as and stopped acting like an international court of owls, they might actually be ALLIES with the batfam. Just some food for thought).

Side-note, Jason becoming hush was also only indirectly caused by Jokers torture. We KNOW he heals fine from that. We know that post-death it's the manipulation that does him in, but in hush, do to the damage caused by the explosion, he has to lay in bed, barely even capable of speech, for months. Imagine being more angry then you've ever been in your life, and having absolutely no way to express that. Half the bones in your body are shattered, your entire body is bandaged, suspended, and hoked uo to gid knows how many different machines, and you can hardly even talk, because between the smoke inhalation, fractured skull, and facial burns that are gonna leave you permanently disfigured, moving your mouth and producing sound is torturous. Amd throughout that whole time, you're stewing in so much rage and betrayal and hurt that you could put your hand through every window in that manor and still not feel better.

Cause I've imagined that, and I'm pretty sure it would drive me crazy too.

It wasn't one bad day, it was 3 torturous months after a few months of continued and really, really bad familial strife. And yeah, I completely understand going a little homicidal after that. If my fam was a little worse and I was a little more crazy and a little less sad I probabky would too.

Hush timeline aside, Jason is the kind of person that sees evil and injustice and gets angry about it. Sure, batmans methods work for some, for criminals that can actually be reformed, but some people only commit crime for economic reasons, some people do it cause (in gotham) its easy, and some do it cause they're evil. We see in a few different things that mature, Lazarus-effect-free Jason only kills the last kind, and honestly tries to help the first. As for the second, batman's method DOES actually work on them. Batman is scared of how easy killing would be, but Jason, a few years down the line, kills to protect innocents. Not to "solve crime".

It's not "One Bad Day" that makes Jason insane in the 2, arguably temporarily 5 outta 6, timelines he is,, nor is it One Bad Day that makes him a killer in ANY timeline. Its his worldview, moral philosophies, and complicated, traumatic past that defined him as robin, and continue to define him into adulthood. The incident at the warehouse was just one domino in a line that started with Jason birth to a mother who didn't care and an abusive father, and ended with him as the red hood. The ONLY DC timeljne where Jason doesn't end up as some kind of antihero is the one where batman never picked him up off the streets, and he went to the clergy instead. This in mind, jts even arguable that kts BATMANS teachings that inevitably make Jason into the man he becomes. EVERYTHING in a person's life is situational,.and psychology is a lot more comolicated than people like to believe.

Without the warehouse, maybe Jason never grows up to kill, maybe he follows in dick's footsteps, capable and somewhat willing to kill but unwilling due to his morals. Or maybe he's more like tim, able and willing to kill, but deciding not to for batmans sake. Or maybe he actually grows sick at the idea of killing over time, the way dick did (unlikely) or maybe, like in the red robin timeline, he kills for a while after a catalyst incident, then pulls a "Ex-League Kid" like cass and dami and stops, ashamed or even horrified at his past actions and unwilling to return to those ways.

Maybe he becomes the red hood anyway, because he never quite agreed with batmans "no killing EVER" rule; because joker needed to be stopped. Or black mask. Or hush. Or fuck, maybe he sees what blockbuster is doing to his brother in bludhaven and decides to step in, even without his family ever knowing it was him. Maybe he sees a far too young kid getting beaten or kidnapped on the street and steps in the way he'd wished for someone to when that kid had been him.

Maybe he does something completely different, maybe even moves on with his life when he goes to college.

While there's no way of knowing for sure, all of these are plausible speculations because of who he was as robin. Not because of a catalyst incident, not because of One Bad Day, as Joker puts it but because Jason Todd is a complex individual in an altogether hopeful but shitty situation who needs time to learn and grow and mature into who he is going to become, and a bunch of people attempting to brutally steal that right and independence from him before he's even 16 is fucking horrible for his mental health.

I think an unfortunate amount of people see Jason as proof of Jokers One Bad Day philosophy, and I think they see him as proof, while character like batman and Gordon, who are arguably literary paragons, as exceptions. The problem is, they're not exceptions. They're the rule. And while the killing joke is the most obvious in-universe example of it, just about every Joker movie including the batkids is, more subtly, also proof, ieJason is a complex individual, even after weeks of torture Tim killed Joker instead of Bruce, then retired from vigilantism to heal. Even the comics Dick ALSO kills Joker on his "Bad Day", but still heals and moves on after the fact.

Not to mention, gotham blows up on the weekly, do you KNOW how many citizens have One Bad Day every goddamned week? If Jokers philosophy was true, we'd see gotham completely overrun and inundated with criminally insane villians and mobsters. But that's not the case. Yes, gotham has far more crime then most, but thats canonically a socioeconomic and corruption problem. Beyond that, yes, far more of their rogues are criminally insane than in say, central city, but other than Joker, most of these rogues have long, complicated, traumatic reasons why they're like that.

No one else excuses their actions with "one bad day". It's JUST the joker, and even then, it's just ONE version of the Joker. Mobster Joker is just a sadist, and harmless hat tricks Joker (silver age) is just... The ridler but a clown instead, and certainly not as clever (sorry not sorry. Clever is different from smart Bite Me).

(Also... this is me refusing to accept Three Jokers answer that silver age Joker killed Jason. Firstly, his death didn't happen in the silver age. Secondly, luring a boy to a warehouse just to beat him to the brink of death, then let him think escape was possible before blowing him up isn't silver age jokers MO. Sikver Joker loved the spectacle, the ridiculous. He might tell a joke, but it was almost never a joke that would ever be funny (and like, killing jokes end joke was actually kinda hillarious. I'd laugh if it wasn't Joker who told it) it was something dumb that would make the rest of the world mildly uncomfortable while he laughed at it, well, like a clown. The actions of the Joker Joker killed Jason are very, very much in line with bronze age Joker, who im gonna call the manipulater. While it's kinda in line with mobster joker, this isn't done just to hurt Jason physically, and it's not just to scare him, it's to mess him up emotionally. Joker fucks with Jason's psyche in that warehouse, his uses his birth mom to get to him, taunts him, makes a show out of thinking the whole thing is hillarious, and compares Jay to dick the whole time. He's not just hurting Jason for the sake of hurting him, he's doing this to scar the kid emotionally. He wants it to be so that even if Jason survives, he's mentally scared for the rest of his life. THAT is bronze Era Joker in my book. Plus, silver jokers idea of spectacle is in the hurting, in the trap, the plan, while bronze Joker ALSO likes that, he's also A-okay with the whole of the spectacle just being a big ol boom. Silver Joker would have his head for that kinda lackluster performance)

Hell, do you know how many serial killers and suoervillians we'd have in the REAL world of jokers philosophy was correct? I'm from a family of social workers and let me tell you: far, FAR more than even batman could deal with. Humans have quite the capacity for cruelty when they so desire, and the world is kinda a shit place to a lot of people. But instead of being overrun by prohibition style mobs and tacky OR terrifying supervilkians, theres just a lot of us highly traumatized individuals out here constantly seeking to make this world better. We can't change what happened to us but we can damned well try and make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else, ever again.

Sure, we don't have any masked vigilantes running around (for the most part), but there's still heroes in the real world. Crash victims who go on to be doctors. People who grew up in foster care and struggled, and now that they're settled will foster to help give the next generation a better chance. Ex-addicts becoming social workers. Domestic abuse victims volunteering to help victims escape. Delressed kids becoming therapists. Any kind of civil servant, first responder, or reform worker who does what they do to help others, all of them are living proof that Joker's idea of One Bad Day is utter Bullshit.

The movies do their job and point this out, the comics... mostly show this. The DCAU just about always shows this head on. But way, WAY too many people missed the point for me to feel comfortable, and besides that I enjoy literary analysis.