InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "i've came to save the stage"

runespoor7 (runespoor7) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-06-07 21:34:00

Entry tags:

char: batgirl/cassandra cain, char: batman/bruce wayne, creator: dylan horrocks, creator: rick leonardi, series: one perfect moment week, title: batgirl

Cass Cain's one perfect moment
From Batgirl #50.

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jarodrussell
2009-06-07 06:34 pm UTC (link)

You know the old expression "to a man with a hammer, every problem is a nail"?

Yes, but to quote you, "The problem is, Cass can't communicate in any other way." At this point in the the story it was either someone talk to Cass on her level so she could work past the current issues so she could get on with learning how to use those other tools or insist that it was up to Cass to bend how she thought so the others could help in their way because her way was unhealthy. However badly issue #50 fits into continuity, I appreciate the fact that Batman chose the former in this issue.

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bluefall
2009-06-07 06:45 pm UTC (link)

But the thing is, it doesn't work her past her current issues. Not at all. It helps her make up with Batman, sure. It doesn't do a thing to make her better prepared for the next boy in her life, and her relationship with Babs only gets worse throughout Horrocks' run (not that Horrocks ever seemed to have much respect for Babs or her importance to Cass to begin with). It's not healthy to pretend that she's totally okay now, or that what he and Cass did here was effective, when that's manifestly not true. What makes a coping strategy unhealthy is not typically the coping strategy itself. There's nothing physically detrimental to the human body in, say, always running away from your problems. The thing that makes a coping strategy unhealthy is that it doesn't work - it doesn't address the actual problem. In beating up Bruce until she feels better, Cass has completely failed to address the actual problems in her life. In pretending that was effective therapy, Bruce has encouraged her to continue to fail to address the actual problems in her life. In letting Bruce get away with that, the rest of the cast has encouraged her to continue to fail to address the actual problems in her life.

They let her use nails when screws were called for, and now she's got a shelf that won't hold together right and she's that much less willing to use screws next time.

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jarodrussell
2009-06-07 07:03 pm UTC (link)

I'm taking a step back here and focusing on a larger scope for second...

The thing that makes a coping strategy unhealthy is that it doesn't work - it doesn't address the actual problem.

This is the core of our disagreement here, and why I think so many writers fail to grasp the Bat-family. The Bat-family is one giant coping mechanism. Batman exists because he can't say he misses his parents and move on past being an eight year old in an alley. Oracle exists because Barbara can't accept she lost control one night and her entire life is looking through every peep hole for danger. Batgirl using combat as a way to express herself is a coping mechanism because she can't put how she feels into words. That's what makes them work, that's why they're the best at what they do, and that's why writers stupidly keep trying to fix them and make them happy people.

Batgirl's coping mechanism fails in later issues, not because coping mechanisms within the Bat-family are bad things, but because coping mechanisms in the real world are bad things, and 99.9% of writers who write these books insist on cramming real world psychology into the lives of billionaire vigilante fighting savant super hackers.

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	bluefall 2009-06-08 12:04 pm UTC (link)
	You're at the wrong scale. Becoming Batgirl is a coping mechanism, sure, just like becoming Oracle or becoming Batman - and those are effective coping mechanisms within the world of the DCU. Beating up Batman is not. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	runespoor7 2009-06-08 04:02 pm UTC (link)
	From her point of view, she's not beating up Batman, she's arguing with him. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

bluefall
2009-06-08 04:11 pm UTC (link)

Which is great. If she only ever had problems with Batman. It doesn't do a thing to help her problems with herself, or with Babs, or with not being able to read, or with not being able to save everybody, or with anything else that she stressed over that she thought she could solve (and which Bruce and Babs are here encouraging her in that belief) by beating the crap out of Batman.

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runespoor7
2009-06-08 04:18 pm UTC (link)

Here, she has a problem with Batman. He agrees to speak her language to deal with it. I don't think Cass ever attempts to solve her problems with other people the same way. She certainly doesn't with Babs.

It doesn't do a thing to help her problems with herself, or with Babs, or with not being able to read, or with not being able to save everybody, or with anything else that she stressed over that she thought she could solve

It's one scene, it can't deal with all of Cass' problems.

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bluefall
2009-06-08 04:30 pm UTC (link)

Except that this is the climax of an entire storyarc about all of Cass' problems, during which Cass has gotten more and more stressed and unhappy, and then immediately after her resolution with Bats, without any kind of resolution for anything else, we see her flying away all cheerful as the day she was born and all of those problems are filed away as "solved," with Bruce explaining that this is the only therapy she could understand. There is no other method, no help for her Black Wind angst or her fears of inadequacy or her lack of communication with Babs, because all of that would be therapy, and the only kind of therapy Cass understands is beating up Bruce. And then on we go to the next storyline and none of Cass' issues are brought up again. They were all somehow magically laid to rest in that single moment of beating up her father figure, or at least we're all meant to believe as much, because certainly the characters seem to.

Which is absurd, and insulting, and a massive disservice to all characters involved.

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	runespoor7 2009-06-08 04:38 pm UTC (link)
	No, Cass being unable to read is brought up in Batgirl #54. It's an excuse to break the bond between Babs and her by editorial mandate, probably, but you can't argue that Cass' problems are magically solved by this point. (And before that, Batgirl #53 is Steph as Robin, and #51-52... yeah, I got nothing on 51-52. It's got pretty art.) (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

bluefall
2009-06-08 04:47 pm UTC (link)

Cass' emotional problems, from this arc, are all solved at the conclusion of this arc by the single act of fighting with Bruce. Regardless of the fact that 80% of them were unrelated to Bruce.

Yes, the fact that she doesn't know how to read shows up again as a problem shortly thereafter, but it's a separate event, a *new* problem. For a comparable issue, imagine an arc where Two-Face recruits Scarecrow and Croc, and the three of them go on a rampage. Bruce, after eight issues of exhaustive combat and detective work, brings in Croc. He then flies off into the night smiling, and Two-Face and Scarecrow aren't even mentioned again. Then, four issues later, Scarecrow shows up once more, in a scheme completely unrelated to Two-Face or Croc or anything he was doing last time, after not a single mention in the intervening issues. That's what happened with Cass, here.

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runespoor7
2009-06-08 05:01 pm UTC (link)

Regardless of the fact that 80% of them were unrelated to Bruce.

How? Batman is the one keeping her from having any normal flirtation with Superboy, Batman is the one sending her on a cruise where she won't be on holiday...

I don't view Cass breaking away from Babs as an entirely new problem. In both cases the issue is communication. When she fights Batman, she has the means to defend herself (or to be the aggressor), and they can reach a point where they both win; in Batgirl #54, Babs uses words against her, Cass is hurt, and they both lose.

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