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Tweak says, "HARRY POTTER!!!"

mysteryfan (mysteryfan) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-09-25 14:23:00

Entry tags:

char: batgirl/cassandra cain, char: batgirl/oracle/barbara gordon, char: batman/bruce wayne, char: robin/red hood/jason todd, char: spoiler/robin/batgirl/steph brown, creator: andersen gabrych, creator: cam smith, creator: pete woods, title: detective comics

Jason's Eighteenth Birthday

From Detective #790 and War Drums TPB

tags: title: Detective Comics, char: Batman/Bruce Wayne, char: Batgirl/Cassandra Cain, char: Oracle/Batgirl/Barbara Gordon, char: Spoiler/Robin/Batgirl/Stephanie Brown, char: Red Hood/Robin/Jason Todd, creator:Anderson Gabrych, creator: Pete Woods, creator: Cam Smith

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trelas
2009-09-25 08:17 pm UTC (link)

I think that Bruce talking to Cass about the matter was such a natural progression for their relationship at that point. As for why he chose Cass to talk to this about, as I mentioned, I think it's because they're are so alike in being broken. What happened to Bruce as a child was extremely traumatazing and set him on a path from which it was too late to deviate when it even became a possibility. He can't be anything else than Batman, there's nothing else to him but to try to stop what happened to him from happening again. There is no possibility for a happy ending, for a great love or anything of the sort, it's too late for him and he realizes that.

Dick on the other hand had managed to grow in to an extremely well-adjusted young man, who had made his own legacy, but at the same time did what he did because he wanted to, not because there wasn't anything else he could do. Tim had surviving family, at that point at least, and it actually looked like he could give up on being Robin at some point. There was no unhealthy obsession in him, no force driving him as great as with Bruce. And Babs? She was another tragedy, another casualty in Bruce's war and another thing he blamed himself of.

Cass instead was someone who was also broken as a child and from whom that possibility of a normal life had been taken from. She, of the choices, was the one who could understand what it means for people like them to have that choice of living a normal life, how in the end it is what they desire other people to have. It's almost a shame, as I again read this, because I do honestly think they might have put more focus on the relationship between Bruce and Cass in the main titles if they hadn't been forced to do an emergency juryrigging of the Steph-as-Robin storyline.

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	mysteryfan 2009-09-25 08:24 pm UTC (link)
	That's interesting and a good point. I do also think Bruce and Cass are very similar in other ways, too, like the ones I mentioned. And that she'd respond to him in this situation in a way entirely differently than say, Dick or Tim would. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	trelas 2009-09-25 09:19 pm UTC (link)
	Of course I also agreed with the points you mentioned, I just forgot to mention that in my reply before yammering on about my interpretation. Sorry about that. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	mysteryfan 2009-09-25 09:25 pm UTC (link)
	No worries. We're agreed then. All is good! I like your interpretation. It's making me think about it kind of a lot. And I shouldn't have said 'support'. I just went back and reread, and he's really contacting Cass for her sake, not his. I just want to imagine that he also perhaps got something out of talking a little. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

trelas
2009-09-25 09:42 pm UTC (link)

I don't think contacting Cass is actually that simple. We see Bruce going through people he could call and talk to after Babs calls, we see him face his mortality in the mirror, prior to the story we saw him project Jason's fate to girl who OD'd. Bruce needs to tell someone to talk to, but at the same time he isn't someone who just goes to talk to people about his feelings.

So I don't think it's fair to say he contacted Cass for her sake, I think it's for both their sakes. He needs Cass to understand why he did what he did and why he is behaving the way he does, to comfort her, yes, but he also needs to talk to someone who understands what a normal life means to people like them. That speech he gives to Cass is filled with regret and is quite rare in revealing how Bruce wonders about his own actions. It isn't just about Cass, it is also about Bruce, and the scene in the scans, to me at least, indicates very strongly that Bruce also realizes that.

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	mysteryfan 2009-09-25 09:46 pm UTC (link)
	Oh, I like that very, very much! And good! It wasn't just me projecting, then. This really is a well-written story. (Reply to this) (Parent)

sistermagpie
2009-09-25 10:41 pm UTC (link)

It is very typical of Bruce to find some indirect way of getting the emotional support or connection he needs. I don't think he'd ever be able to ask for absolution or something like that about Jason, but telling Cass about him he can see as the Right Thing To Do. But it's no accident that she's the one he's talking to there, and I agree it's not even just about Cass having, say, less baggage/history with Jason. He does, I think, see some instinctual understanding there.

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mysteryfan
2009-09-25 10:53 pm UTC (link)

He does, I think, see some instinctual understanding there.

I agree. And also, I was thinking, it's so human, right? To mourn someone by talking about them, their quirks and details and the things they liked. So it's really great that he could 'introduce' someone to Jason. If it'd been someone who knew Jason, he couldn't do that. Not that *that* would be the only reason not to bring Babs, Dick or Tim, but it's something that occurred to me.

But more than that, she is the perfect one to take with him, and he really does open up to her.

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