If we are thinking of the same bad 'Duke' meta, it's so wild that people defend the line of Duke saying that he couldn't get away with half the stuff Jason did. Jason did time in Arkham and Blackgate he just can't be held in either of those long term. Also, the last arc Duke was in with Jason was when Jason got the fear lobotomy (I think). It doesn't actually make sense for Duke to think Jason gets away with everything right now unless he is completely out of the loop. Jason has always been 'punished' for his actions, he isn't getting away with it.
(Sorry if this is too aggressive, I struggle with tone and your post resonated with my own feelings)
We probably are thinking of the same meta I think so, though the details might be fuzzy since that was a while ago.
I think there's a misunderstanding when it comes to a good bunch of JT fans complaining about the way characters in-world speak about Jason, and the idea that it comes from people being defensive of him and being all "no one can be mean to my blorbo ever". Truth is, I don't mind Jason eating shit- honestly looking at my fics, I'm swinging him around and hitting him like a piñata. And I don't just do it for projection purposes; the truth is, I've grown to prefer this ending to The Protector, as it is more optimistic, but that fic was originally supposed to end as a tragedy, with Jason being used as a cautionary tale against the culture of taboo around csa that some canon writers seem to cultivate as a narrative tool in canon. The only reason this fic lacks the tags "hurt no comfort" and "major character death" is because I had a friend who started this fic and I promised myself I would never make her cry with one of my endings again. When it comes to canon, I don't mind some of the situations in which Jason is victimized -I mean, I loved Legends, I liked The Cult, and hey, yk what, even if I do wish for resolution of this eventually I do like the Gotham War fear lobotomy story -like yeah, let's go, give us that realistic depiction of abusive family dynamics and the way the repetition of violence systematically dismantles a person's sense of their own worth and leaves them wishing for death! You didn't do it on purpose, but you certainly did something there. 👍 (Also I love it when the narrative of the story, accidentally or not, makes a meta-commentaty on the comic history itself, that's so cool.)
So what's the difference between Bruce being an asshole to Jason and Duke victim-blaming Jason? Well, to be honest, I love Duke, and I don't care for Bruce (it's why his full name and persona name are censored in my posts, so they don't come up in searches). When Hatman acts shitty towards Jason, I love it, because I love picturing him as a villain, it makes sense to me on a meta level and he is such an interesting antagonist to so many characters I love- and Red Hood, in a way, is a reckoning of those flaws that I love to explore. (As I've said before, this is my choice to not engage with better Bruce stories because I like him better as evil, and I understand that I am missing out on things because of that; I don't mind, just as I understand why other people don't share my perception.)
But Duke? He wouldn't say that shit. I love him, and he is a character that I associate with hope and community and a lot of values that I hold very dear, and I find it super frustrating that he would be written to say that stuff. We spoke about it in a discord server with other fans who liked both Duke and Jason, and what's annoying is that the comic was making a super valid point, so it's a shame that it was undermined by the denial of everything Jason's been put through- which, combined with DC's repeated classism, isn't a good look. To be honest, I don't want this to be too much of a harping on the author talking point, because it was an off-handed comment in a Duke comic and I don't think staying updated with Jason's most recent appearances is a reasonable requirement for a Duke comic- and the talking point about white privilege does remain very relevant. However we did feel like it came off as "wanting to make a valid point and being only allowed one acceptable white male target by DC", like, that was a parallel that would have made way more sense about another character (like, say, a character who hasn't been continuously put through ridiculously cruel punishments for the actions he's supposed to have gotten away "scott-free").
Back to that one meta for a minute, I will say it kinda made me laugh? Because it was accusing Jason with no proof of something another character had already done. Like, I don't even like Under the Hood that much, but Jason does plenty of bad stuff in it enough to not have to make up shit that he literally didn't do? Let's recap the context of Under the Hood:
-Bruce has a plan to take control of the underworld.
-the plan goes wrong and a lot of people, capes and civilians, die -including a highschooler dying in Tim's arms, on page, as well as Orpheus and Steph (two characters I think Duke would very much care about!) dying in pretty terrible ways.
-In the immediate continuity, Jason comes up with a pretty similar plan to take over the underground and drives circles around Black Mask (the grand winner of War Games).
-to my knowledge, no civilian death is portrayed in this story, and the only teenager to get grievously wounded on-page is...Jason.
-Bruce, in the cave, has some kine of existential crisis and tells Alfred that "maybe the son has surpassed the father".
So it's like. You know who your description of Jason reminds me a lot of? 🏏man! Obviously, there is no hard evidence that Jason's takeover didn't lead to homeless teen civilian deaths, but that interpretation would completely cheapen the point of UTH for Bruce's character, not to mention, if you like Jason's post-crisis Robin run, it makes for an even more questionable interpretation of the class dynamics at play than UTH already does. But in general, I just think it's weird to make up something that Jason most probably didn't do to justify Duke doing abuse apologia, first up because I don't believe that's how abuse apologia should be handled and second because... someone else literally did do what they accused Jason of in canon, and I don't ever see Duke upset about that? Like. Don't get me wrong, I don't want DC to write a story like that, because they would definitely put the whole blame on Steph rather than acknowledging B's responsibility, and that would piss me off tremendously. But it's weird to justify abuse apologia as in character because of something that someone else did that Duke doesn't seem mad about, when you could just as easily wave it off as "the writer wanted to make a point and their option for who to make the parallel with were limited by DC editorial, and this combined with an understandable lack of knowledge of Jason's lore has led to an accidentally OOC line on Duke's part".
Obviously the charitable interpretation, that I always attempt to lean towards unless signs point to otherwise, was that the person who wrote that meta didn't know all that stuff -even if you've read UTH, if you haven't also read War Games there are elements of the narrative that are missing -and I don't fault someone who doesn't even like Jason for not knowing/not wanting to read fucking War Games- War Games suck! But I will say, it's still making up things that were not shown in UTH while missing important relevant information, and I'm just saying it doesn't hurt to be careful, because writing meta about a character you don't like without having all the information is a good way to write abuse apologia, on accident.
Again, I'm aware that I don't make the choice to engage with all the characters myself, and am probably missing out on info because of this myself, but I do try and be careful a. to tag anything close to anti-🏏man as such and b. to attempt to not impose my perception of bruce on his fans too much. I don't write B meta, and when I write B & Jason meta, or B & Cass, etc, etc., I try to make it clear that I'm centering the conversation on those specific runs rather than speaking in the abstracts about Bruce's one canon characterization (something that I find would be both impossible considering the amount of writers he's had over so long, and insulting towards his fans). Again, I'm not infaillible, and it might not come across as such in everything I say, especially since I talk so much, and I might, still in that, accidentally spout abuse apologia or some form of accidental bigotry simply because I am ignorant on that front one day. Nobody is perfect, and I sure as hell am not. For that reason, I'd encourage not taking what I'd rather interprete as a pretty understandable misinterpretation of UTH too personally. I get why that might be frustrating, and I did myself make a vent post about it that I kinda regret after blocking (I'm trying to do that less, I think it's a bit unfair and I should just block and move on rather than talk shit when people aren't capable of defending myself even when I'm keeping it vague, especially since this ask is evidence that people do in fact know who I'm talking about even when I do try to keep it vague. For what it's worth, I truly am sorry about that.) So like yeah, I get why it might be frustrating, but also I don't have that much resentment towards op about it. Tbh, that was a long time ago, so there's even a possibility I'm misremembering some details. I can't expect people to be indulgent of the mistakes I'm bound to make if I don't try to reign in my inner bitter bitch myself. (Note: I hope this doesn't come off as too sanctimonious towards anon, I'm the bitter bitch here, I completely understand the ask and don't find it too aggressive I just wish I hadn't written that vague post lol.)
Anyway, the reason I'm bringing this up and answering this ask isn't to admonish anon for not being super peace and love about something I wasn't a good sport about whole simultaneously dragging my issues with the post around. Mostly, it's not even that much about whether Duke and Jason would get along or arguing over the semantics of a post. Though I do think it's not entirely pointless to ponder why the post felt frustrating in the first place, while trying my best to not be unkind about it,
I just wanted to make the point that a lot of Jason fans aren't just Jason fans and do also often like other characters -and I do wish it was taken a bit more into account. Because when I say "Duke wouldn't say that" I'm not talking about Jason, I'm talking about Duke, and I happen to love him too. Same with my criticism of Dick in BiB, whomst I actually find more ooc than Jason's own writing in it, or with Superman randomly dissing jaybin mid-conversation- when I say "I find this writing of a character I like OOC", it's about the character in question. Not another character who isn't even in the room. And we don't have to agree on everything, I know for example that there's a lot of people who like Dick's characterization in Bib. I just don't like this tendency to look for a way to justify it within Jason when it's not about Jason, or just like, generally (definitely not the op in particular, I don't even recall if they gave that vibe at all), reacting to this criticism as if it were a defense of Jason, when again, it's not about Jason. Yeah, I know I love him lots, but I also love Duke a lot, and sometimes it is in fact about Duke.
I don't know if that answer made much sense at all I feel like I talked about two different things rather incoherently, but yeah that's more or less my thoughts on the topic. Tbh in my heart I'm choosing to ignore that Duke said that at all, I'm choosing peace. The valid point was made, but without the abuse apologia. It's a very fun place in my head, where I can decide to believe whatever I want. I shake my head and reject the written word. This is fun.
