I’ve answered this one privately, but it’s sweet so I’ll write it here too.
Ikky cracks walnuts. Jon keeps a bowl of walnuts on his desk every once in a while and when the mood strikes, Ikky will crack one open and eat half. Then she nudges the other half over to Jon.
Commissioner Gordon: If I shine this light into the sky, a man dressed like Dracula shows up.
Internal Affairs Investigator: I’m not sure how that’s a good use of tax doll-
Commissioner Gordon: He brings us lots of inadmissible evidence.
Are you fucking kidding me? You know how this would actually go?
Commissioner Gordon: *slaps roof* You know how much overtime I don’t have to pay on account of this bad boy?
Internal Affairs Investigator: Yeah, but still–
Commissioner Gordon: I just turn it on, and instead of paying a whole precinct time-and-a-half to never see their families, a guy dressed as a bat punches whoever we’re looking for a bunch of times and dumps them in the parking lot.
Internal Affairs Investigator:
That’s not–
Commissioner Gordon:
Sometimes I fire it up just to see who we get. It’s like having a cat that brings you guys with twenty warrants out for their arrest instead of dead birds.
Internal Affairs Investigator:
Okay, but you can’t tell people that. Like, we can’t say it out loud.
Commissioner Gordon:
So I shouldn’t have told the FBI they could borrow it if they ever feel like clearing their most-wanted list?
If I locked all the batboys in a escape room do you think they would impress all of us because of course they would figure out the puzzles in under like 5 minutes they were raised by batman. Or do you think they’ll just end up fight ing like brothers, Damian is half way through all the puzzles complaining a baby could figure this out, Jason is ready to just brute force the lock on the exit door, Dick is trying to get everyone to work together, while Tim…Timmy is just on the walkie talkie begging the guide for the answers, Tim doesn’t have time for this.
I like the Nolan movies tbh, I like all three of them, and I respect that the trajectory of the plot is the way it is, but in my personal opinion i would rather not see any more batman stories where the conclusion is “batman is a bad coping mechanism and it is destroying Bruce and thus it must be put away before he can be happy”. I know a lot of writers like to take the angle that putting on the suit every day is an act of sacrifice, and that’s… okay? I mean it’s depressing but it’s got merit. I’m just tired of it personally. I’d rather see the Bruce that feels most at home, most competent and satisfied and alive, when he’s being batman. The Bruce who still thinks of himself as “batman” even after he’s taken the cowl off for the day. Sure there are brutal nights and hard times and there will be sacrifice, but that’s the nature of living a life in relentless pursuit of your own vision.
Basically, batman is who he is, and if he’s destroying himself it’s not because of some cursed legacy of the bat suit that can be safely exorcized from him leaving him whole and happy the moment it’s gone.
I question if him being Batman is even a BAD thing, most of the time. Like, yes, if our world rules applied I would be all like ‘who does he think he is to put the law in his own hands?!’. But… in that world there are criminals that the every day police just can’t handle. And in many incarnations he heavily works with the police, so it’s practically like he’s part of the force anyway?
That said, the post is about Batman and what it does to Bruce. And… maybe it’s just me, but I don’t feel like coping mechanisms are bad? Yes, he is not a well person. Yes tragedy has caused him to become obsessed… But real talk? Being Batman, I think, helps Bruce THRIVE. As someone that has dealt with a lot of trauma in my life, I know what it’s like to latch onto things to help me get to the next day. Being Batman helps Bruce– maybe not in the MOST healthy way, mind you– deal with the loss of his parents. And in the process, do good for others around him.
I agree–I think in general the assumption is that Bruce can never have a normal life and doesn’t want to. It’s not something he even knows how to want or need. Most of my favorite stories portray his decision to become Batman as the moment of clarity for him. Everything clicks into place–and in a perfectly normal world, we might question it, but Bruce lives in a warped world, and this is the straightest path he can find for being able to live with himself and bring hope back into the world, even if it doesn’t look like hope on its face.
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