nothing/nobody can nor will ever make me turn my back on arkhamverse jason todd.
i’m just gonna be quoting the arkhamverse genesis comic from here on out but:.=
i realise there’s that schtick of “my fav fictional man did bad things, so what” but this rly rings is so true for me when it comes to arkham jason.
like, he is completely in his right to retain hate for bruce—raw, brutal, unadulterated hate for him—for all bruce did to him. or, rather, for all bruce didn’t do for him (read: leaving him alone, adopting him at a distance).
despite the words of his mother, jason already had one foot out of the grave (the grave being gotham in this analogy) and was making a conscious effort of freeing himself from the city’s gravity.
jason was heading down a good track—literally—he used bruce’s paid opportunities as a jumpstart and was excelling at school; working hard; and was on his way to becoming a track star.
bruce lets kids give life to robin to give them purpose, but jason already had a purpose prior to putting on the suit—and that was breaking his parents’ curse, living a good life for himself.
bruce "gifted” jason the suit, in turn weighing so much leaden responsibility onto his shoulders, a responsibility that would come to haunt him for the rest of his life.
you maybe could try to argue that jason’s being robin “gives him magic”utter these words to scare a mean!robin jason stan (batman 1940 v1, #385), but he was already creating a good life for himself.
even as bruce was tossing jason his robin getup in arkhamverse, he said “let’s see if you can do anything other than steal” while jason hadn’t sunken to those measures ever since he’d dug himself out of his grave (lol).
bruce did a lot. adopted him; paid for his future (that would’ve been otherwise successful); got him books while indulging jason in his interests. bruce should’ve recognised that he’d already done enough, already given jason the stepping stone that he’d needed to succeed.
but on the other side of the coin, you could look at arkham jason’s fate as something that was destined.
he was born to two drug addicts that had little grievances with their lifestyle. perhaps his woe was unavoidable, perhaps the todd family’s curse caught up to him.
all i’m saying is bruce had the power to make things better for jason, to stop seeing through his tunnel vision of “purpose” for the children he “saves”, to stop seeking absolution through kids or fulfilling the promise of a ten-year-old, instead just ultimately egging on a cycle that began with his parents.
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