#[god...]

favorite, favorite moment in the arkham knight novel is when jason (internally) jeers at bruce's choice to wear a cowl that reveals the lower half of his face – a decision jason reads as bruce trying to people-please despite it all, to signal to others that he's still human and trustworthy, and even vulnerable. which is very interesting commentary because jason himself is covered head-to-toe, both in that verse and in his pre-muzzle days in the main verse. i wonder if that has anything to do with jason's dehumanization of himself (and others), the way he lives in service of a pyrrhic mission and intends to burn everyone who gets in the way of said mission. a lack of empathy for others, a lack of empathy for himself. which just makes the last scene of the VIDEO GAME quite insane to think about, because there's a scene where bruce is about to punch jason and jason purposefully turns the visuals of his helmet transparent so bruce can see his face. and it's like. was he testing bruce's vulnerability or his own? was he showing bruce he was still human or begging bruce to show him some humanity? it's both obviously. it's such a frail moment, compounded all the more by this throwaway dialogue about masks and faces. and then you start thinking about how jason always wears his helmet but when he's confronting bruce, he always takes it off and it's so evident how significant it is to him to be showing his face because he clearly believes you shouldn't. he's clearly against that. even in battle for the cowl, his batman suit had a muzzle on it, and yet....every single time he's with his father...the mask has to come off. he has to humanize himself because he wants bruce to humanize him, to make him feel real and not like a shell of himself. it's such an interesting representation of the extremes to which jason takes things – a way of saying, if you're going to be batman, go all the way. which is what he does of course, but, as we know, his desire to be loved makes him waver, makes him back out at the last minute. and what's one of the first things jason does when he sees batman in under the red hood? takes a dagger to the cowl to unmask him. to make him feel weak, to humiliate him yes, but....to bring out his human side as well? most definitely.