#i just find the cognitive dissonance between ‘jason is so misunderstood!’ and ‘jason isn’t interesting if he doesn’t kill’ to be very weird

[jostenneil]

Look, dgmw, I 100% understand the appeal of Red Hood conceptually, especially as a revenge fantasy- I do! The idea of Jason filling a narrative role of representing the anger of trauma victims or those the system fucks over (which I bring up bc it’s a lot of the “keep killing” camp tend to see him this way in my experience) can be very interesting to see explored or think about, especially when taking into account the societal power structures at play in Jason’s life & in Gotham, more specifically Crime Alley. HOWEVER there are many many reasons that it just… is not a good position to keep Jason in. Like, first of all, DC has been shown to write Jason’s ideology incredibly inconsistently (*coughs* in part due to the classism that led to his post-dying character assassination *cough*) & has it’s been shown that, generally, they are not able to examine it enough to execute it well. Or, more likely, they’ve never even really cared to beyond maybe UTRH & LDs. Secondly, even Jason’s most lauded post-resurrection writer (Winnick) has an incredibly reductive view of the character & his reasons for violence. He views Jason as a “complete psychopath” who slept with Talia out of an Oedipal desire to get back at Bruce &, if given the chance, would have likely used to play into the deranged bisexual trope (do I want Jason to be bi? Yes, but keep Winnick away from it). DC’s intention has very never been to actually explore Jason as a sympathetic anti-villain/anti-hero who’s representative of trauma victims (I’ve not read Outlaws yet but from what I’ve heard it does not count). They probably didn’t even think about it beyond whatever hamfisted way they could shove it in to make a quick buck off fanon. There is no reason to think this will change. Thirdly, there are other characters who will this niche better & more consistently, namely Bertinelli. Fourthly, I’d argue that you cannot fully separate Jason’s anger from the classism that led to it’s modern portrayal. For all people like to complain about it I’m honestly shocked that more people don’t take into account that Jason was nearly completely re-characterized after his murder, leading to a lot of his character development-regardless of whether it’s positive or negative- utterly illogical. Like Jason has been shown to be on some level aware of the cycle of crime since his first post-crisis appearance & I would not be at all surprised if a majority of people who’ve written for him post-resurrection were unaware of it. That is a problem. Lastly, destructive anger like this is not something that was thematically super present for Jason prior to his death- indignation at injustice sure, but not that level of rage- where as compassion was. Anger is also not sustainable to base one’s entire life & belief system around, compassion is. Not only is there more reason to explore Jason from that lens based on logical development, but I’d argue it’s more interesting. Tldr: Jason’s name literally means “to heal”, where the fuck is his trauma recovery regaining compassion arc???? Where?? Have 90% of his backing cast be civilian women w varying views on red hood’s methods & maybe I’ll pay you real money DC.

Sorry this is so long. Jason is just my blorbo sckrinly & therefore I’m very passionate about this. Thank you for being intelligent, I hope you have a nice night/day/whatever time it is for you☺️.

no like i don’t even have anything to add to this this literally says it all