frog★

Feel free to correct me on anything!

Jason Todd’s gravestone, presumably commissioned by Bruce, is emblematic of the way Bruce viewed Jason in life, and how he viewed the consequences of his actions. The statue, a praying angel, stands above Jason’s grave with hands pressed together in prayer. Its wings are spread, yet it remains fully rooted to the plaque reading “Here Lies Jason Todd.” As long as the body of Jason would lie there, the angel would be unable to ascend. (In this sense, I wonder if the soul of fifteen-year-old Jason was only able to ascend after the reincarnation of his body. In entrusting his memory and legacy to adult Jason, maybe his soul was finally free.)

The statue’s brows are furrowed and it has a deep set frown. The hooded robe it wears casts a shadow over the upper half of its face, shadowing its eyes. In one panel, it looks as though there are tears running down it’s face, but i’m not sure if that’s because it was raining in that scene or if the statue was designed to be a weeping angel. If it is supposed to be a weeping angel, it’s unlike most others of its kind. Weeping angels are traditionally draped over the grave, wings covering the body protectively. These crying angels are angels of grief, often used for the graves of children who died too young. In contrast to this tradition, Jason’s angel stands upright and straight, only its expression betraying its mourning. I think this is very representative of Bruce’s relationship with grief and loss. It not full bodied sorrow like William Wetmore Story’s sculpture. It is instead reserved and restrained in its anguish, weathering the pain with visually strong, solid lines. Curvature or any human anatomy is abandoned in favor of a roughly cut robe that hides the body. This disregard for the inherent humanity in grief is like how Bruce’s Batman changed after Jason’s death. All harsh lines fueled by a thinly veiled all-encompassing grief.

The angel has its palms pressed together in prayer, but it’s eyes aren’t cast upwards to the heavens, begging god for forgiveness and entrance to heaven. Instead, its gaze is level with the earth, as though praying to Gotham herself. And I guess Gotham is the only god Jason has ever known, the only higher power whose will he has been subjected to. The angel prays to the earthly world for forgiveness? repentance? I wonder if Bruce chose a praying angel to absolve Jason of the sins and anger Bruce saw him as holding. From what I’ve seen, Bruce took Jason in after seeing his potential to become something bad, trying to shape him to fit Bruce’s definition of morality. Did Bruce see Jason’s “murder” of Felipe Garzonas as something he needed to be absolved of?

Or is the angel praying for Gotham? For its protection and for all the children it couldn’t save?

The hands aren’t clasped, which I find very interesting. Clasped hands represent submission and repentance because of its status as a historical gesture of surrender in ancient Rome, allowing for an ease of shackling. Jason’s angel instead has its palms pressed together in a pose resembling a Buddhist mudra. I can’t see whether the thumbs are facing the chest or not so I don’t know which mudra it is, if it even is one. But I think it is symbolic of a unification with the divine. I think Bruce trained in Tibet at some point so that could be interesting in terms of his relationships with spirituality? Or it could just be a variation on a normal clasping hands to pray, but it feels less common to me. I don’t know enough about prayer gestures to know for certain, but I think the distinction is interesting.

Also, the public grave of Jason Todd in comparison to the private “Good Soldier” memorial in the Bat cave. I think Alfred was the one who put the memorial together? I’m not sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised (i don’t like alfred in case you couldn’t tell.) The glass case, the museum-like curatorial nature of the display. The reflectivity of the glass allowing bruce to catch a glimpse of himself when looking at it, to look at himself and remind himself why, never again he would endanger a child (until the next one and the after that and so on). It was a reminder, a lesson that not even the resurrection of Jason Todd could fix. They do call Jason Bruce’s greatest failure for a reason. In comparison to his grave, this memorial outright acts as accountability of Bruce’s failure as a leader and a “hero,” whereas the angel can be read as Bruce forcing accountability into Jason.

I wonder, if in gazing at Gotham, did Jason’s angel one day hear cries from six feet under, screaming for Batman? Did the cries quiet down once he realized nobody was coming to save him, that he had been buried all alone? Cleaned and buried in a crisp suit that couldn’t hide the way his body was ripped to shreds beneath it? Always, always, dead in a suit that was never his. Did it then witness Jason, bloody fingered and beaten half to a pulp, digging his way out of his own grave, brain dead, zombied, and fractured? Did they weep together that night? Is the angel still there, still praying to be forgiven?

I didn't do any research into specifically American funerary sculpture or traditions, or the effects the gothic revival has on funerary sculpture, which this post might have benefitted from but I was mostly considering the significance of this sculpture and potential readings of it. This is just my opinion lol.

I've been thinking about Jason's grave for a while.

Graves, especially ones with statues, function as a final resting place, but also as a representation of who a person was in life. Grave statues represent the ways in which a person may want to be remembered, or the ways in which other people want to shape their history. Especially for this sculpture, the deceased don't commonly have a say in this decision. I'm personally interested in Jason's reaction to his grave, and also Bruce's (or whoever commissioned or designed the sculpture) intentions with the piece.