You may have already mentioned this in some of your other metas, and I just missed it, so please ignore this if it's redundant.
Do you think Bruce is projecting onto Jason by pushing him as a Robin? Obviously, Jason wanted to be Robin and was excited about it, and Bruce let Jason do other things, but (if I'm not mistaken) before Tim came into play, solidifying the whole Batman needs a Robin/support to keep him upright, Bruce and Dick becoming Batman and Robin, in the beginning, was also sort of a coping mechanism.
I think there are a few examples of Bruce enabling this kind of mindset. Like in Gotham Knights #43–44 (sorry), every time Barbara brings up Jason's inner turmoil, Bruce refocuses on his ability as a Robin; similarly, when Jason finds out about Two-Face and his dad, he is hurt, and Bruce acknowledges that but then does the same thing, zeroing in on reassuring Jason that he made a mistake but is still a good Robin.
Like, Jason got it from Bruce, but he unintentionally encouraged that kind of thinking.
oh, i definitely think that bruce is projecting on jason and that it profoundly affected jay. and, while every single one of your observations is apt, i would add that what truly made it so tragic is that he projected his own worst traits on jason while being blind to the fact that jay already shared his best qualities.
tldr: bruce projects himself on jason in terms of grief (saying that jason needs vigilantism to work his grief through) and sees his own worst traits in jason (anger) but doesn't see his own best traits in jay (compassion, love, and sensitivity). ironically, jason does end up developing all of the (projected) worst characteristics of bruce (obsessiveness, and relentlessness in pursuit of the respective perceived idea of justice). this happens even though they were barely present in his early storylines, and only ever manifested when jason was scared or lost. later, they truly came to be because of his trauma relating to vigilantism.
and the long, long version, coming with panels and quotes: under the cut.
first i want to say that the following analysis focuses very specifically on bruce's mistakes, but i don't view the overall of jay's upbringing by bruce solely in these terms. from text it is also clear that bruce deeply loves and cares about jay, and that jay enjoys being robin. now that this is clear, let's get to particularities, and start with jay's origin story.
i truly never stop thinking about the significance of bruce meeting jay in the crime alley, the place of his parents' death. there's a lot to be said about it, but here the focus is, of course, on the fact that he sees a little boy, very much similar to himself, angry and hurt, in the same scenery that brought him so much grief. and jay in some ways does appear to be a mirror of bruce's own agonies, as well as a mirror of his own inclination for seeking justice; and somehow, bruce fixates on the first one, while almost completely dismissing the latter.
bruce looks at him and assumes that the remedy to jason's pain and anger is being robin; and he doesn't stop to think about it. (it has to be noted that there's also classism at play, classism that is mostly a result of writers' own beliefs – collins did state in a couple of interviews that that the motivation behind jason's background was to make his introduction into vigilantism seem less offensive, as jason has already been exposed to crime...)
i think, in this context, it's interesting to look at the two-face storyline even closer, and from the start too. in the beginning, bruce talks of jason's 'street' roots and assumes jay would go "down the same criminal road that took his father [willis] to an early death." he also talks of jason making a lot of progress. later, in batman #411, after jason learns that willis has been killed by two-face, bruce comments that jay "has never been like this...listless...almost pouting--"
this all, along with jay's cheerful and diligent behaviour from the previous issue builds an interesting picture for us: because we essentially learn that jay has been overall an unproblematic child. bruce, of course, attributes this "progress" to the training. however, for anyone else, the logical conclusion would be that jay's quick adjustment was simply a matter of finding himself in a safe and stable environment and receiving continuous support and attention from a parental figure. i find it rather questionable that jason's personality softened down because he had something to punch in the cave–– the more intuitive explanation is of course that he was angry and quick to fight when they first met because he couldn't afford anything else and because he was scared. but months later, in a loving home, he can allow himself to drop his guard; and his cocky attitude disappears until much later.
so the rather unsettling picture that we derive is that bruce is training jay to become a vigilante in order to "channel" his (nonvisible at this point) anger into something useful and just. and he clearly links this to his own trauma in batman #416 (that’s already starlin btw), in his conversation with dick, explaining why he took jay in: “he’s so full of anger and frustration… he reminds me of myself, just after my parents were killed.” bruce also mentions that soon after their first meeting, jason helped him and "handled himself well" in the fight, but he doesn't mention that jay has ran away from a crime "school" and intended to stop injustice on his own only because he was ignored.
the theme of bruce comparing jay to himself appears again in detective comics #574 (barr), where it is approached with a much more... critical look, thanks to leslie's presence and her skepticism of bruce's actions. after jason has suffered nearly fatal injuries at the hand of the mad hatter, bruce reminisces on his own trauma and motives. he tells leslie: "i didn't choose jason for my work. he was chosen by it...as i was chosen." leslie replies: "stop that! (...) you do this for yourself... you're still that little boy (...)" then, the conversation steers to the familiar ground and the topic of anger. in bruce's words, again: “i wanted to give jason an outlet for his rage…wanted him to expunge his anger and get on with his life…” and finishes "and instead, i may have killed him."
the recognition that bruce's projection on jason and involving him with his work might have fatal consequences is, as always, fast forgotten once jay wakes up and proclaims that he wants to continue his work as robin.
but to circle back, i think there's something else worth our attention, something deeply ironic, that is showcased in that issue: that bruce has no evidence for jay's "rage." when leslie talks of bruce's past, she recalls his tendencies to get into brutal fights at perceived injustice as early as in school; when bruce talks of jason, two pictures that are juxtaposed, are that of jason fighting as robin and jason... smiling, playing baseball.
so, in the early days of jason's training and work in the field, we see bruce talking of jason's anger a lot; but we barely see it.
that being said, jay is angry sometimes– and i think your observation about how bruce deals with it is incredibly interesting and accurate.
we first see jay truly and devastatingly angry in the two-face storyline. bruce focuses on jay's reaction as robin, which is, in fact, aggressive. but something that he barely addresses is that jason's first reaction is sleeping all day, and not beating anyone to a pulp; in fact, this vengeful instinct seems to arise only when he is put right in front of two-face. and his third instinct, once the rage (very quickly) dies down after the altercation with two-face, is crying, because bruce hid the truth about willis' death from him. jay, while crying, asks bruce: "you have taken me out into combat-- but you spare me this?" in response, bruce lectures jason about how grief inspires revenge, which is, again, deeply ironic, given that jay seeking out revenge seemed to be prompted and enabled solely by the role of robin. moreover, his question suggests that at this point he saw grief ("you spare me this") and fighting as two different things.
the final is, as you said, bruce focusing on making it into a lesson on vigilantism, or, in his own words, "tempering revenge into justice." personally, i think in this way bruce directs jason to bring his grief into the field as a powering force, something that he didn't necessarily have an own incentive to do. the flash of compartmentalisation between his ordinary life and being a sidekick that jay has shown by questioning bruce's decision is lost. emotions are now a robin thing, and they have an (informal) protocol, a moral code. and when jay is confronted with an emotionally exhausting case next – the garzonas case, i believe that the focus on "tempering revenge into justice" is exactly the problem– we don't see jay crying, we see him frantic about finding the solution. this, right there, is bruce's obsessiveness, that in my opinion, was developed in jay specifically as a result of how his engagement with vigilantism combines with his deep sensitivity.
and, needless to say, his sensitivity is all the same as that of bruce – they both can't stand looking at other people hurting, they both wear their hearts on their sleeve, caring way too much – the thing is, bruce never quite acknowledges how they are similar in this matter. instead, he focuses on his sparse bursts of anger, wanting to bring jason closure in his grief the only way he knows it – in a fight for a better world. so, as you said, he focuses on jason's ability as robin.
which just doesn't work for jason. at all. we know it from how his robin run comes to an end: in the first issue of a death in the family (batman #426) alfred informs: “i’ve come upon him, several times, looking at that battered old photograph of his mother and father, crying.” to that, bruce contends: “in other words, i may have started jason as robin before he had a chance to come to grips with his parents deaths.” he also tells jay that the field is not a place for someone who is hurting; a message that is the opposite of what he's been saying for years now, and something that i imagine was difficult for bruce to conceptualise, because then he would have to question his own unhealthy tendencies. it's a bit late to come to this realisation; bruce's self-projection that caused him to worry so much about jay's anger has already turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy that will fully manifest itself in utrh, when jason does the only thing he was taught to do with grief: try to channel it into justice.
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Warning : This post is going to be a very personal rage dump/rant.
There are heavy topics involved, including cancer and death. Also explicit language.
Out of consideration and respect to those of you who would prefer not to read it (since I completely understand why you wouldn’t want to), I will continue under the cut
Also pictures of my dogs, to break up the doom and gloom ^^"
-------------------------
I absolutely despise, loathe, hate toxic people.
Especially when those toxic people are the “wolf in sheep’s clothing” type.
Especially when those people don’t have the fucking balls to confront others directly and just choose to slink about behind the scenes like scummy little vermin.
So… my uncle Joe passed away a few days ago.
It was expected. He had been battling pancreatic cancer, which ended up spreading into his liver and lungs.
With that being said, even though he will be dearly missed, at least he no longer has to suffer.
I was close with my uncle.
In fact, it’s no exaggeration to say that I was much closer to him than I was with my own father (my Dad was a permanent presence in my life up until the day he died, but we had an extremely tumultuous, dysfunctional, volatile, abusive relationship.)
We visited my uncle Joe regularly ever since I was a baby, all the way up until somewhat recently. He spent countless hours at our place throughout the years. He was super close with my parents, doing tons of outdoorsy activities with them. I spent a good amount of my childhood with his family. When his wife passed away, my parents helped him and supported him. He helped us move twice. My Mom took his kids places when she was just dating my Dad. When my Dad passed away, my uncle Joe was there for me without me even having to ask.
Literally everything was good between us, and always has been.
It’s also thanks to my uncle Joe that we gained a new furry member of our family last year, who we named Dandy 💙 my uncle’s dog had puppies, he asked how many we wanted, so we took one lol
(I’ll include a few poor quality pictures because… well, I should probably break up this message with a little “positivity”, right?)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This was Dandy when he was still just a baby, 4 weeks and 3 days old.
Look at the cute little potato 🥹
We visited my uncle Joe every week to see him grow and develop, anxiously waiting until he was old enough to bring home.
And this was the day he finally joined our family ~
Look at how tiny he was compared to my one Black Lab (sorry for the terrible quality picture. Our carpets are old, but I swear they don't look that dingy ^^")
And here's Dandy today, one year and five months later ~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Anyway! Back to my rage-fueled rant :
My uncle Joe met someone about a year and a half ago, and she moved in with him pretty quickly.
Which certainly wasn't a bad thing. We were genuinely happy for him.
She seemed very nice, sweet, accepting, kind, receptive, and welcoming.
But for whatever reason, the dynamic changed the moment my uncle fell ill and the control landed in her hands.
Since my uncle Joe was sick, we all mutually decided that it would be best if communication was between my Mom/me and her (we would text her to check in to see how he was doing, as well as find out if/when it was a good time for us to visit)
This is where some inconsistencies started to appear.
For example :
She would tell us not to visit because my uncle was too sick (which was totally understandable!), but then would tell us a few days later how he was doing great and had fishing trips planned all week.
I 100% believed her at the time.
After all, everyone has both good and bad days.
But then when we would visit, my uncle Joe told us how he couldn’t fish anymore because the chemo was causing neuropathy in his hands, and he couldn’t hold his fishing pole or cast/reel the line in.
Though we just assumed he discovered those issues after she told us about those supposed fishing trips.
But the true eye-opener happened during our one visit. My uncle Joe welcomed us into his home, we talked, found out some updates about his health (which was declining), etc. He was open/transparent with us about everything.
When my uncle went to the bathroom during that visit, his girlfriend made the comment “I probably should have told you guys not to come here, since he’s in a lot of pain today.”
Knowing my uncle, I didn’t budge from my seat. I knew that if he wasn’t up for company, he wouldn't hesitate to tell us to leave.
And I’m glad we didn’t leave… because literally 10 minutes later, her granddaughter came waltzing in to visit her.
My uncle came out of the bathroom, sat on the sofa doubled over in pain as he was talking to me and my Mom (at this time, we asked him directly if we should leave, since we knew he was dealing with a lot and we didn't want to overstay our welcome. He told us not to leave, that we could stay because he felt like shit regardless).
But as he was sitting there, clearly in pain, his girlfriend and her granddaughter asked him to get up and carve a watermelon for them instead of doing it themselves.
What sense does that make?
'I should have told you guys to stay away, but I’m gonna make him strain himself and carve a watermelon for us even though he’s already suffering and struggling enough'
…. Okay. Fuck you too.
We obviously didn’t say anything. We just visited for a little while longer, then left with a friendly/cordial “goodbye, nice to see you again” to her and her granddaughter, told my uncle that we would be thinking about him and see him again, and wished them a good day.
Two and a half months passed before we heard from them again.
Why? Because she refused to answer our numerous calls and texts.
She deliberately ignored us, which actively prevented us from having an opportunity to see my uncle.
And she knew damn well that we wouldn’t just show up at my uncle’s house unannounced because we didn’t want to disturb him if he wasn’t feeling up for company.
We only got in contact with him again after he directly called our phone and left a message saying “hey, just checking in. I hope you’re both doing okay, since I haven’t heard from either of you in a while. Stop by when you can”.
So we went to his house.
When we explained the situation to my uncle Joe/passive aggressively confronted his girlfriend, her excuse was “oh, sorry. The reception here is bad so my phone was probably just acting up.”
For two and a half months?
Even though she was literally using her phone in front of us, which appeared to be working perfectly fine?
Even though she’s always on her phone every time we see her?
Even though she could have reached out to us, yet chose not to? Not even once in two and a half months??
I call bullshit.
My Mom even told her that she was on the verge of sending a text that said “okay, cunt.” since we thought she was ignoring us after not responding to our multiple texts/calls.
We all laughed it off as a joke, Joe's girlfriend even said “hahaha, I probably would have laughed if I got a text like that!” … but it most certainly was not a joke.
(My Mom is extremely outspoken and normally doesn’t hold back, especially when it counts. She’s the type of person you either love or hate, but she’s definitely one of a kind and the perfect example of a strong, independent woman who gives zero fucks lol)
Anyway, that visit went well. We behaved like usual, talked to both my uncle and his girlfriend normally, caught up on stuff, etc.
After that interaction, his girlfriend miraculously responded to every single call and text (bad reception, huh? Funny how she had zero service issues after we called her out in front of my uncle)
But basically every time we talked with her, she would say “it’s not a good time to come by, he’s really sick.”
And we would always respond with things like “we totally understand”, “thank you so much for letting us know”, “we wish there was something we could do to help”, “we’re here for you if you ever need anything or anyone to talk to since we know this also isn’t easy for you”, “we’ll check in next weekend”, “please take care of yourself”, “we’ll be thinking about you”, etc.
Then finally, my uncle Joe told us to stop up again two weeks ago. So we did.
He was extremely sick and remained in bed, but we said hello and he told us that we are more than welcome there and we could just visit with his girlfriend. So we did. The visit remained cordial and friendly.
The next day, my uncle called and apologized for not getting up when we were there.
We immediately told him that he has absolutely no reason to be sorry, that we completely and wholeheartedly understand, that we would understand even if he told us to leave the moment we arrived, and that we were keeping him in our thoughts.
The week after that, his girlfriend said he was too sick for company (which again, we obviously understood and thanked her for letting us know, wished them the best, etc).
We didn’t visit my uncle Joe after that. He passed away before we had another opportunity to see him.
Now, here’s where my anger starts to come into play :
His girlfriend didn’t let us know when he passed away.
We found out from my other uncle, Mike, two days later. (My Dad had 3 brothers. His eldest brother is my uncle Joe who just passed away. His youngest brother is my uncle Mike who let us know what happened.)
So my Mom called her and offered her condolences, asked how she was doing, told her that we’re here for her, and asked about the arrangements. My Mom also told her that Mike was the one who let us know about Joe.
She made the comment “there’s going to be a small ceremony, but only for immediate family.”
Which didn’t make sense to me or my Mom. We were both very close with my uncle Joe, we are family. So that comment seemed a bit… off?
But we dismissed it and instead talked to my uncle Mike.
We asked him to please keep us updated, since we wanted to pay our respects to my uncle Joe and our family.
Well… I don’t know what the Hell that lady said to my cousin (Joe’s son), but he told my uncle Mike not to tell us anything else.
That snake in the grass obviously ran back and told my cousin that we found out about Joe’s passing from Mike.
But uhh... We deserved to know.
Now, we literally just found out this morning that the ceremony was held yesterday. We weren't invited (the day/time wasn't publicly announced).
We were excluded. We were denied the opportunity to say our final goodbye.
I blame his girlfriend. Completely and entirely.
I especially find it super interesting that she didn’t attend the ceremony either… almost like she was afraid that we might possibly show up and confront her (which we would never do, purely out of respect for my uncle Joe)
When my uncle Mike told us, he apologized. But we told him that we don’t blame him, since we certainly didn’t want to put him in the middle of it.
It just pisses me the fuck off.
Bad enough she actively prevented us from seeing my uncle Joe, even on his “good” days. But then to keep us away from the ceremony too?
And she HAD to have fed my cousin a bunch of lies and bullshit to cause him to tell my uncle Mike not to inform us of anything. (Luckily for us, my uncle Mike loves to talk so he didn’t mind spilling the tea. He just felt guilty for not doing so sooner. But I understand why he waited, and I hold zero animosity towards him)
It’s especially confusing and upsetting since we always remained on good terms with all of my cousins.
We saw my cousins regularly, got along well with them, joked around with them.
Literally nothing that we did or didn’t do would warrant such a reaction from them.
If there was any fault on our end, I certainly wouldn’t be angry about this situation or waste my time typing this up. (I'm not the type of person who plays the victim, I admit when I'm wrong and own up to my faults/wrongdoings. That just isn't the case here.)
So it’s seriously a mystery to me… which is why I blame my uncle Joe’s girlfriend.
Absolutely nothing changed in the decades of knowing my uncle and his kids. Literally the only recent change was her coming into the picture.
(I also want blame my cousin, since he’s older than me and has a mind of his own… but I also know that he’s grieving the loss of his father, so I feel like that bitch took advantage of the situation to say whatever she wanted about us while my cousin is vulnerable and not thinking clearly/properly).
Regardless of the finer details…. I am absolutely livid.
It’s like a giant “fuck you” to us, like we aren’t good enough, like our feelings don’t matter.
And that pisses me off beyond belief.
I’m debating whether or not I should confront her.
On one hand, I probably should just let it go and move on.
But on the other hand… I want to play dumb, call her, and be like “How are you doing? Do you know when the ceremony is?“ just to see what she says.
And then tell her to go fuck herself.
Is that immature of me? Sure.
But I’m angry. Annoyed. Irritated. Fuming. My rage is boiling, my wrath is building. And I feel like exploding.
Needless to say… my Mom was right. That lady is a cunt. A toxic, festering, diabolical, oozing, gaping, pungent cunt.
If you’ve read up to this point, I genuinely apologize for dumping all of this off here.
I just needed to vent a bit.
I also owe everyone who has tagged me a HUGE thank you. You have all given me a much needed distraction from everything, plus I genuinely love being tagged.
So I will absolutely start posting/replying to those a little later (I've already started on them and have them saved in my drafts, I just want to finish them all and post everything at once lol)
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