#im not a dc fan i never claimed to b a dc fan

[kalofi]

bart simpson allen

[bigskydreaming]

hi, im new to reading actual comics and i just read the court of owls. this was the first time id ever seen bruce actually hit dick—does that happen a lot? i was honestly shocked at it. and bruce never apologized. im trying to understand why bruce would do that—why do you think? i dont think the comic was glorifying it at all but it was still there and im a little dumbfounded as to why the writers thought that was appropriate to put in there. what are your thoughts?

Its shitty writing. That’s the ultimate answer. Every instance of Bruce’s kids ever has been an instance of shitty writing, because it never gets addressed or followed up on, and its not like there’s EVER a good reason to write a father hitting his kids unless you’re specifically centering the kids and trying to write a story of abuse and learning to recognize and accept that yes, this is actually happening to them now what do they do with that awareness and understanding....and let’s be frank, that’s not a story that DC has ever desired or intended to write with Bruce in the position of that father.

So flat out, no equivocation, every instance of Bruce hitting his kids ever, has been shitty, unacceptable writing, no matter the context or the follow-up, because the end takeaway at the heart of the matter is always, always, always, that whatever each writer’s actual intention when writing those scenes, they definitively did not ‘intend’ for it to be seen as abusive.

But that means jack shit in terms of whether what was actually shown on the page, was in fact abusive. Which has been the case, more than once, and with more than one of his kids.

So unfortunately, he has been physically violent with Dick on more than one occasion, in which there was no chance of it being spun as mind control or like, them fighting as equals because of some story position or whatever, where it was just definitively, a father hitting his son for his own emotional reasons or whatever. It happened after Jason’s death, it happened in the Court of Owls arc, it happened after Dick briefly died and was resuscitated in Forever Evil and Bruce was trying to get him to go undercover without anyone else knowing he’d survived yet. There have been a couple other times where the two of them have come to mutual blows in a fight that started as just a verbal argument, but I tend not to focus on those for a number of reasons but tbh, mostly just because its an uphill battle getting people to address even the times when its most clear that Bruce is without a doubt unjustified and dishing out abuse that is in no way reciprocated. There’s no real chance to even get around to the scenes that are complicated by additional layers.

And again to be clear, this kind of shit writing isn’t just limited to Dick. Bruce has been physically violent with Jason ever since he came back as the Red Hood in more than one altercation, with there being the flimsy justification in some of these stories that well, technically Jason is ‘the bad guy’ and Bruce is just doing what he has to in order to stop him....but with more than one instance of Bruce being overly violent with Jason in ways that he isn’t with even some of the worst criminals or villains in other stories, thus making it impossible to interpret as anything other than Bruce’s aggression being heightened by his emotional turmoil at Jason’s actions, the fact that he’s fighting his own son, Bruce’s own issues, etc, etc....

Which ultimately all just boils down to...Bruce is violent with Jason and to degrees that he isn’t with even his most notorious villains, and his own emotional state is the only explanation possible, which makes the over the top nature of Bruce’s violence in these scenes outright abuse, no matter the existence of the ‘well Jason technically was doing something that Bruce was trying to stop, it was more of a hero vs antihero thing rather than a father vs son thing’ attempt at spinning it otherwise. Notable and notorious instances of this are Bruce’s way of ‘finishing’ things in UTRH, RHATO #25, etc.

With Tim, the only real instance so far has been Batman #71, the King written bullshit I spoke of, and tbh I’m still so steamed at his attempt at justifying that, like, just read the latest issue to see the full story there because I refuse to even dignify that particular bit of abuse apologism with a paraphrasing.

And unfortunately, Bruce has definitely been written being emotionally abusive with all his kids at various points or another, with again the real culprit usually being dumbass fuckferrett writer assholes who wouldn’t know how to write a healthy parent/child interaction if your Higher Power of Choice directly appeared in their room, shining with benevolence and full-on “Do Not Test Me On This”  wattage, and then handing them a script that word for word laid out how to write out a healthy parent/child interaction for the scene they were beginning....like, they’d STILL find a way to fuck it up, that’s how bad these particular writers are at recognizing This Is A Good Action and This is A Bad Action, Bad, B-A-D, DON’T DO IT.

And the thing is, that’s not Bruce Wayne at his core characterization. I don’t believe it is anymore than even the most die-hard Bruce fan, which I most decidedly am not. I’m here for his kids, he can stay when he’s doting and on his best Dadly behavior, but he’s always on thin ice with me at this point and on his own, I’m usually just like meh, wouldn’t adopting an orphan right about now be a better use of your time?

But for sure, Bruce absolutely has been written as a good parent in canon as well, and has everything he needs character wise to constantly have that portrayal of him upheld and prioritized instead of his worse traits but like. We have definitely gotten Bad Dad Bruce in canon, and more frequently than any of us would like....which is where we usually turn to fandom, for fix-its.

And there’s lots of Good Dad Bruce Wayne in fanfics. Its even its own tag. And I have no problem with most of those fics in spirit, or the concept in general, I’m just very opinionated and knee-jerk about abuse apologism across the board, so I mean...if it were up to me, I’d much rather normalize tags like “Bruce Wayne Can Be A Good Dad” and “Bruce Wayne Can Be A Bad Dad.” I don’t generally like broad-sweeping declarations made about characters that no one person can ever ensure consistent characterization for, so no matter how understandable the intent, I object to the idea of Good Dad Bruce Wayne protection squads or tags on the basis of like...how easily that can lead straight into abuse apologism, with people making the claim “Bruce would never do what he did in canon story (x)....because Bruce is a Good Dad and good dads don’t do that.” Well no, they don’t. In theory. Cuz problem is in reality, supposedly good dads do things like that all the time, because nobody IMO is truly good or bad, they just do good or bad things and even a person with a track record of doing mostly good things can occasionally surprise people, even themselves, by doing something horrific.

 And like, when we’re talking about fictional characters I’m all for arguing that something was out of character because with fiction you CAN actually consider a writer’s intent and compare and contrast it with what’s on the page, like you CAN technically say well, the writer SAID in this interview here, that they did this because they were thinking x, y and z....and then you could feasibly point to the actual on the page depiction of that scene and say okay but look at x, y and z here...what we actually got clearly isn’t what they claim they were actually going for, so they fucked it up, it wasn’t even their own intention, so like....I argue that this was out of character and shouldn’t be given too much weight. 

You can’t do that in reality. Impact is what matters. The effect. Not the cause. The intent. No matter how uncharacteristic an up until that point  ‘good dad’ striking their kid is for them....they’re not a character. They’re a person. It CAN’T be out of character, its them that did it, their action that caused the effect of their kid being abused, with no take backs for that, no rewind that will ever undo whatever effect that has on the rest of their relationship from that day forward, or whether they even have one at all.

And people have trouble setting firm boundaries on what they will defend in fiction versus what they will defend or call out as indefensible in reality, it isn’t nearly as either or as a lot of people try and tell themselves it is, IMO....like, my stance tends to be that if you can’t even condemn a fictional character for doing a clearly abusive thing, how do you think you can definitively say you’re sure you’d be able to condemn a loved one for doing a clearly abusive thing? Y’know? Its not as easy to separate as people like to make it out to be, so I’m hugely against abuse apologism in fandom because I think a lot of times....the way we react to these things in terms of favorite fictional characters can potentially end up a training ground for how we react to these things in real life, if they end up happening at a later point.

So I’m very critical of Bruce in a lot of my posts, but its not because I don’t want him to be good for his kids or don’t think he can be written that way....and not even because I don’t get the thought process behind ‘well I don’t view his character as being capable of that when he’s written the ways that drew me to his character in the first place, and this kind of behavior isn’t what I’m here for, it isn’t escapism for me and it just depresses me so I choose not to interact with or acknowledge these specific parts of canon.’

My issues arise from the specific ways a lot of fans attempt to write around these instances of canon, in order to not have to factor it into Bruce’s character and their view and depiction of it...while often times failing to apply similarly transformative energy to the characters Bruce hurt in these instances of canon. And when that happens, its a problem, IMO....because you end up writing Good Dad Bruce Wayne....and his kids who are at times resentful or bitter or argumentative or wary...as they are shown at times to be in canon....largely BECAUSE of those moments in canon where he’s written at his worst and does fucked up things. But without acknowledging those parts of canon at all, AND without similarly rewriting the course of events in his KIDS’ lives as much as you do in Bruce’s himself.....the end result often ends up being that you have Good Dad Bruce Wayne and a bunch of stubborn brats that according to this narrative spin have no reason for being as resentful or bitter or argumentative or wary as they’re being here...since THEY’RE still being written according to their full, overall canon characterization, with no specific chunks chiseled out.

And then of course, my other major issue with abuse apologism in fandom arises from how often fans seem willing to tackle the possibility or instances of Bad Dad Bruce Wayne in order to write fix-it fics and headcanons and meta for the times he’s hurt Jason or Tim or Damian, etc.....but then selectively erase or ignore the instances he’s done similar shit to Dick...because so much of this fandom insists on this take that he’s specifically favored by Bruce and has received special treatment that justifies the others’ occasional resentment of him, and the resentment of their fans for him. So there’s this kinda thing where you end up with a lot of fandom ignoring or refusing to acknowledging some fairly pivotal canon events because Bruce Would Never Do That, He’s A Good Dad.....AND then on top of that you have a lot of the rest of fandom ignoring or refusing to acknowledge some equally pivotal canon events because Bruce Would Never Do That To Dick, He’s A Good Dad To Dick...Its Just Everyone Else He Fucks Up With.

And that kind of selective acknowledgment of abuse for reasons of personal character preference like...get under my skin, BIG TIME. *Shrugs*