Al Ghul Supremacy

Robins are much more similar to each other than they seem

At least

Sometimes it took him 12 years from age 13

Even then he almost died in a red light district

So why did he only train Robins for 6 months

Dick is an acrobat prodigy but not everything else

So his training would still need at least 5 years

Tim Jason and Steph even more so

The only one qualified premade is Damian

It's not like he can watch them all the time

The final Gauntlet requires them to avoid him

He really views himself highly huh

They always pass their Gauntlet because of something else though like Dick exposing Two-Face's minion's trafficking even though he failed to hide from Batman

So if the Robins are actually trained like Batman

Dick would become Robin at age 13-15

Jason at 16-18

Tim at 18-19

Steph at 22

That's the fastest version

On the other hand, I also feel like there’s points in her perspectives of colonialism that fall kind of flat and uncomplicated, so unless she’s providing loads of historical / character context prior to the mention, I don’t know if the mention would be necessary. And maybe even with all the context, I still wouldn’t understand why it would be necessary to mention Israel, considering you could represent a character’s questionable perceptions of genocide and colonization without mentioning that settler state.

I don’t know, I just can’t work out why the mention was there and why she of all people would write it. Yes, she’s had issues with complexity / clarity in her books in the past, but this? I can’t explain it beyond someone on her team making a pre-print edit without her knowledge.

I read the ten or so pages accompanying the Israel mentions. I don't think she's a zionist or pro-Israel in the least. But it seems that BDS is something she's... half-assed. There are clear rules for the normalization of Israel in literature and media under the BDS guidelines. She's also very active on social media. But considering that she was attending a literary festival in Dubai last year despite a UAE boycott for Somalia and only dropped out after several authors were called out for it, it's not necessarily unprecedented. American elites are American elites.

I don't believe mentioning Israel or an Israeli character—twice—can ever be neutral or casual or a throwaway in the year 2026. I believe this pertains to Russia, too, by the way, though the situations are not identical. We should ask ourselves what would change about the story if this character's nationality were Belgian or Austrian or Lebanese or Mexican. If the answer to that is nothing, then my question is simply "Why was your character Israeli in the first place then?".

I stumbled across an interesting picture online about « cigarette psychology ». Since the characters in the first AnK smoke so much, I decided to give a shot to identify the way(s) each character holds their cigarette. I haven’t seen anybody talk about this before and I do not know if it was a deliberate artistic choice from the animators to « hide » all these details, or I’m just reading too much into this.

Anyway, it becomes very interesting to analyze the characters and how they may feel during these scenes. I’ll only do Riki and Katze here, from the 92-94 OAVs. Luke and Guy (2012’s), and others smoke too.

Ok, let’s start with Katze, of course since he’s the first that comes to your mind when talking about smoking !

Katze : The direct, cautious businessmen from the sidelines.

There were three patterns I could find in Katze’s cigarette mannerism :

Pattern E : Very tense individual, direct, straight-toward, inclined towards stubborness.

E1 : Just before Katze starts to talk about his past as Iason’s furniture. I’d say he’s feeling tense?

E2 : Katze talking to Kirie, asking him if it’s a yes or a no. That’s straightforward. Maybe has a little of F?

E3 : Extinguishes his smoke before ordering Riki’s capture. Is very direct.

Pattern C : An intellectual, a very brainy type of guy, a contemplative character.

C1 : Katze welcomes Riki in his office. Switches in his black market boss persona. Brains are in motion

C2 : In the aircar outside of Riki’s. Thinking to himself about Riki and Iason’s relationship, and quoting the title. Here has also that « man from the sidelines » behavior.

Pattern I : Very pessimistic, excessive in business caution.

I : Reporting to Iason and talking about moving Riki to Apathia and the risks of him working on the black market. In business mode, but much more focused.

Riki : Pessimistic, contemplative dreaming mongrel (plus a bit of Iason)

C : Here, he is on the balcony, in contemplative state ; remembers the past, with hints of pessimism.

E1 : tense after finishing his cigarette, his (not) « last one ».

E2 : returning to Eos, leaving the slums and Guy. Made his choice.

Pattern H : A dreamer, always off on a tangent.

H1, H2 : Iason and Riki share a smoke. After both acting out of character, each confessing their love for each other (Iason saving Riki, Riki returning to Iason). Are they dreaming ? It doesn’t matter anymore, they’re both smiling at last.

Even at a time in which Damian was still ready and willing to kill if he felt he had to, and still had a temper and made plenty of threats of harm, he still broke down at the sight of innocent children laying dead.

It just goes to show he was never heartless- he just viewed everything as a threat, because the way he was raised had shown him as much.

It was a long difficult process to unlearn what the League had ingrained in him, but wasn't reality in the real world.

[image: a comic panel of Dick Grayson lying in bed. We can only see his face with his eyes shut, it’s fairly zoomed in. Off screen, Alfred says “Good afternoon, Master Richard. As requested, your 5pm wake-up call.” end image]

reading misc batman comics and omigod i can’t believe Dick makes Alfred wake him up