more, more, more

He's the kind of person who will stop in the middle of nowhere if he sees an abandoned baby crying on the road or some homeless kid searching for food. He knows it very well could have been a trap but his conscience won't let him leave anyone in need/help behind.

Okay, first, we have to distinguish between everyday jewellery, and Martha's Jewellery.

Most rich people do not wear their actual jewels very often. They're either kept in a vault, or the person rents them from ... I think jewelers? Maybe fashion designers? Someone/thing that owns fancy jewellery, anyways. Actual jewels are only worn to very fancy occasions.

If we're talking about Bruce getting Martha's Jewellery out of the vault for Cass to wear to a gala, I have mildly positive opinions. He'd take it back after. This is normal and doesn't inspire me.

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If we're talking about Bruce getting Martha's everyday jewellery out of her room and giving it to Cass to keep? Oh, I have THOUGHTS!

I think that Alfred would STRONGLY disapprove. Most of Martha's jewellery was expensive and should be treated very delicately, something Cass isn't known for. (Yes, I know I just said that this isn't capital-J Jewellery. It's expensive at a much smaller scale.) Alfred also cared about Thomas and Martha, and doesn't want their memories to be disrespected.

I think that Cass wouldn't be quite sure what to do with the gift, but it would be very meaningful. She has nowhere to store jewellery. She has a very different fashion sense then her adopted grandmother. She's not sentimental. She can tell it's important, but not in a way she's familiar with.

But I think that she'd wear it. She'd wear a lovely gold necklace full of faux-rubies with a black leather vest and a skater skirt over striped leggings. She'd paint her nails dark red to match. And Bruce would stop breathing.

Bruce makes shrines for his loved ones. In their shrines, they live on, unchanged. Nothing gets touched - including the memories, if he can help it.

But Cass would transform these pieces of Martha. She'd wear them in ways that COULD NOT echo her grandmother, and Bruce ... Bruce would have to let go. Because she'd be beautiful, and real, and respecting his mother, and unforgettably here in the now.

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I think the first time she broke or chipped a piece would also be a moment where both of them healed, a little. Where Bruce sees pearls falling, for an endless moment; and then his daughter is there, and alive, and it's just some pretty stones on the ground. Where Cass sees something dying in Bruce's eyes, and remembers the life she took; but then it's just a broken bracelet, and Bruce is alive, and his smile is real as he picks up the pieces.

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Ra's is the last teacher, the one who reached out to him, running an extremely high-tech self-sustaining compound. Ra's' whole deal is about seeing the majority of humanity as a blight on the planet (not that he makes that view apparent immediately).

While there, Bruce discovers the compound's mountain setting means it connects to a cave system, which he explores when he can get away from the eyes on him. He's also been discreetly tipped off about Ra's' missile silo.

Bruce does not want to kill anyone! That is his core line in the sand! But how do you render these missiles inoperable and destroy Ra's' ability to make more without massive amounts of destruction?

You don't. But you can evacuate everyone out of the compound and into the huge natural cave system.

Ra's and Bruce are both about control, of themselves, and of other people. Ra's is obsessed with his narrow view of the environment, of how the Earth "should" be, and he's using technological marvels to pursue his goals.

Bruce has been learning very human-centric skills, as his focus is on stopping other humans from committing violent crimes. He learns fighting, escape arts, psychology, disguise, infiltration...but he's also taken the time to learn about observing nature, such as reading the wind. His exploration of the caves doesn't come out of nowhere, but those skills haven't been the focus. It's not what we expect Bruce to use.

Ra's claims to care about the environment while hating humanity, but it's the natural cave system he ignored that Bruce uses to defeat him without compromising his own dedication to preserving human lives.

I love that.

Then Bruce goes home. His journey is done and he goes home, to Gotham, to his city...

I love Lucie and how complicated her mentor-mentee relationship is with Bruce but this? Good lord. Like I doi think she genuinely means well, and context taken in, it makes sense. Bruce almost killed a man to boody pulp. But like, it's just so so so devastating for Zdarsky to put this line here because it introduces the idea of Batman as a curse, a someone who has violence inherently intertwined with his love for humanity. He has to channel that rage and need for vengeance into something concrete (Batman) to then become justice. And like this is a very very common theme and characterisation of Bruce but its introduced to Bruce so lovingly that it is just devastating. In a sense, because of this Bruce only is further determined to fight, because if his mentor said he's made up of violence, isn't that the only way for him to be bigger, to be the change he wants so badly in the world?

This is the point where he really can't go back, he can't go back to alfred, can't go back to Gotham, can't pretend it was just a rebellious stint like all those other times. He has to commit now, to his sabbatical that Lucie is so tenderly sending him away on and he can't go back.

Really it's Zdarsky thats tenderly sending Bruce off onto this journey, and I think it's done so in a tragically beautiful way. To really kick off Bruce's training years with a goodbye kiss and the gentle reminder that he is violence that has no yet been tamed is such a good writing choice. It's so inherently personal to Bruce because if it was some enemy of his or an antagonistic force saying it then Bruce might go to oppose that idea, to prove he's not as violent as they'd claim him to be. But it's Lucie saying that, Lucie, his first ever real mentor. Lucie, who he loves and knows loves him back. And because of that, Bruce will cling onto the sentiment, that he isn't anything more than violence and darkness and that he needs to be feared.

he understands and forgives greed and anger and fear and desperation as a reason for killing but the second you try to smear a bit of righteousness over that death he is disgusted, he is actively less empathetic, he wants nothing to do with you personally

but he tells you, you don't need to do that. you don't need to do anything. you don't owe anything to anyone. you deserve to be safe. you deserve to be happy. you deserve a normal life. he won't let you get hurt. he says all the right things, the good things, except it seems like you're the only one who can hear the other part. the unlike me.

you try so hard to be good enough. he would tell you that you've always been good enough, but you know participation trophy bullshit when you hear it. you have to be good enough. you have to be able to hold your own. you have to be strong enough. you have to prove that he doesn't have to carry it all on his own. you can help. you can be the one that saves him back.

but it's never good enough. no matter how good you are, no matter how strong, how smart, how fast, how well you save the day, there is never a time that you will get anything better than just: