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there should be a term for characters you personally don't care about but you defend them anyways because the way people treat them is really uncomfortable. like ok this is a very middle-of-the-road character for me but the fandom's either been super misogynistic, racist, etc. about them or harassed innocent people who try to genuinely explore that character warts and all, and i find that more annoying than the actual character.
the term should by 'my client', like you're a lawyer defending your client that you are completely indifferent to but you are obligated by your job (or your morals) to defend
with all the recent (justified) talk about how Talia's character continues to be lambasted and how Damian affects her character permanently -- it just makes me think... like, I've noticed that there are a lot of opinions that essentially see Damian's backstory as set in stone. We can't ever get any of the al Ghuls being written well -- but especially Talia -- because Damian as a character is tied way too tightly to racist storylines/orientalist tropes. Idk, it's always felt too pessimistic to me, and for DC's writer's, kind of a cop-out. More specifically though, I've seen these kind of opinions veer off towards sheer doomposting -- that all of the al Ghul characters are fundamentally flawed (which is true) so that it means these characters are better off not existing/being used at all.
which honestly, I'm sorry, that's total bullshit. If we made a list of every single comic book character with racist origins/tropes baked into their beings -- we'd come up with more than half (at least) of all comic book characters. That's not even just DC and Marvel, if we include early comic strips and marketing campaigns/brands -- it'd be way more. Not to to mention the sheer number of white comic characters who get involved in racist stories and whose existence's have been used to essentially justify the creation of such racist side characters/villains/plots. Everyone blames Damian's character for ruining modern Talia, but no one blames Bruce as the entire reason she's written that way in current publications.
Fraction's run is emblematic of this -- like, looking past any of his prejudices -- and just at the double-spread pages/panels:
Why is Talia being portrayed like this? Because Bruce (Fraction) needs to justify why Damian is Robin to Annika (the readers). Talia is being dragged down because Bruce needs a convoluted excuse for why his son is the sidekick to Batman, but that he isn't Batman, either. (Side note: Bruce's speech in the textboxes reads like a racist man belittling his ethnic ex-wife and justifying why he isn't raising/connecting with his mixed son....to his new girlfriend...) Fraction has done this because he apparently couldn't come up with anything else.
All this to say, I don't like the moral hand-wringing some people have about characters like Talia and Damian. Even if you are acknowledging and criticizing the racist writing/tropes there, if you're not also advocating for better -- and instead just going "oh well....its not like we can change anything...why don't we just leave those characters alone?" -- you are spineless to me. You are essentially claiming that racism is inevitable and unchangeable, and that we can't expect any better from a comic book company much less anyone else. Instead, we must reward mediocrity and accept bad products and bad art.
Also, it's not like change has never happened. When writers actually care, characters like Shang Chi or lore like Iron Fist's can be made better. Yes, their racist origins will never be erased from history -- but writers can absolutely do more to not repeat that past. To that point, Damian is in a slightly more unique position in that he has more than one "proto"/alternate versions of him -- some of which prove that Damian's backstory could be altered to still include Bruce and Talia as his parents without bringing either down (Tallant Wayne.) I also don't think it'd be impossible to alter his characteristics to lessen the blow on Talia or Ras, while keeping the key points of his personality and lore.
Damian as he is, is already incredibly detached from both of his parents, narratively. Bruce is not a good father, by normal standards, and a weird one, by superhero standards. In the years of Damian's publication history, Bruce has rarely been written to be a consistent father figure. His closeness with Damian varies a lot, and if we look at Damian's in-universe age/timeline, Bruce looks worse. Likewise for Talia, her actual influence as a mother widely varies -- same with Ras as a grandfather. Just looking at past comics before those were soft-retconned (Morrison's run, Resurrection, etc), he had no parental figures until he was ten years old at least. It'd be remarkably easy to retcon Damian's childhood as an assassin as something independent from all three of them. None of them have to be the one to raise/train him up until that specific age (10). People say it further ruins Talia's character if she isn't aware of Damian being in the League, and then say nothing of Bruce's character apparently having a major blindspot. Taking that route, you could also retcon the League of Assassins or add more to them as an organization. It's not like they have a strict canon or even have a particular run where they were popular enough that fans would dislike the League being changed. Hell, it's not like DC bothers to specify what actual cultures or philosphies the League is based around --- Damian doesn't even have to be apart of the League if we want to go that far. Go deep enough, and Ras could be changed too. Villains have been redeemed before, or at least made more multi-faceted -- which Ras already has been. Writing is writing, and acting like all of this is fixed in place is stupid -- especially for a medium as flexible, prone to choleric fits, petty changes, and un-static as superhero comics.
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tim drake is supported for things jason todd is punished for, and jason todd is supported for things damian wayne is punished for, and then damian is belittled for "attacking" tim when tim was the adult in the situation, and jason is hated for attacking "baby" tim when they were the same age in the situation. never ending cycle where the whole time damian wayne is unarguably the best person out of all of them and also we should kill tim drake who's with me
i’m officially beating a dead horse here but bruce saying “she threw him on my lap and ran away laughing” was especially egregious. even as early as resurrection of ra’s al ghul it’s obvious she “threw damian in bruce’s lap” to SAVE DAMIAN’S LIFE. why is it still so hard for ppl to believe she loves her son???
okay, so let's break down whatever this monstrosity is.
"I was only ever a tourist in her world" could not be a more inaccurate statement. if you've read any comic involving talia and bruce's relationship from the 70s-90s, you'd know they were obsessed with each other. while they had their flaws, it was a genuine, mutual relationship
"...and an unwilling one at that." aaand this is the magnum opus of this panel. we all know the retcon and how the fandom (and apparently authors) treats it. putting that phrase in any context with talia & bruce is like asking for people to take it and run with the "oh, it's canon again, let's all hate her now" or something along those lines. now, having that on its own just brought up would've been bad enough, but putting it directly above an illustration of the two of them clearly being intimate is like pulling the pin to a hand grenade.
"all steeped in her unorthodox cultural traditions" holy anti/arabphobia. the concept of this line even being thought of, let alone being written, making it past editorial, and being published. but then again, it's DC, so i'm not surprised.
"convinced his presence in my life would destroy me, she threw him [damian] in my lap." honestly, this may be one of the worst things ever written. the entire reason she sent him was to keep him safe and so damian could meet his father. could she have had other motives? yeah, maybe, but it wasn't to destroy bruce's life, nowhere near that extreme.
"... and ran away laughing." while i'm sure this is hyperbole, and she didn't literally walk away laughing, by saying that, implies she took pleasure in just dropping damian off with bruce and found it amusing. which, again, could not be any further away from the truth as this was one of the most difficult decsions she ever made + one of her biggest regrets. and due to the wording it implies she could basically care less about damian and just dropped him off without a second look, again could not be an even falser statement
"it became my job to both dismantle that time bomb, and to make it stronger." ah yes because the feral child will learn how to control himself, all thanks to his white father, after living with his arab maternal side for the first ten years of his life, yes, yes, exactly. and the whole "make it stronger" bit is so odd because you want to dismantle, which the definition of dismantling is: "to take apart a machine or structure so that it is in separate pieces." OR "to end an organization or system by gradually in an organized way." (oxford dictionary)
so you want to take what he learned from the league apart and just essentially reteach him? pick and choose what "pieces" from his time in the league he gets to keep and use while being robin? you do you i guess.
now the big thing is, well, he would not fucking say that. bruce genuinely loved talia to the point he had her scent memorized. he respected her AND ra's. no way would he be caught dead talking about her or damian for that matter like this.
moral of the story, this whole thing is orientalist, and rascist. also i take back what i said about how talia fans have been eating lately. we are in fact on the edge of being sent back to purgatory & it was fun while it lasted.
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Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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Fanart for exodus, a fantastic story by @deadchannelradio. Highly recommended if you're interested in Damian and Talia's relationship (devastating), well-researched and realistic worldbuilding (inspiring), and pain (in general). Rated for violence.
yousharknotpass
tangentwithtanner
baratheonpilled
snowghoul
theartofmadeline
dailybridgerton
