#batman discourse

Me, reading this: Oh bc you're the par--

Me: ... right of course

So, a man among the 1% should be killing whoever he thinks deserve it, abusing his power.

"Wonder Woman and Superman should kill"

So, two beings who are not humans, and way more powerful than humans physically, should be able to kill any human they think deserve it. Wonder how people would feel safe with them.

"Jason should get to shot people in the head"

So, a white man can go shot and kill drug dealers, like the cops aren't enough. Wait, this one is working outside the laws, so he cannot even be punished.

"Heroes that don't kill are pushed unto us to try to manipulate us into not using violence to fight back against oppression and the system."

People looove depicting Bruce as cold and psycopathic and paranoic and all these terrible traits but nobody likes exploring the reasons Bruce is like this, aka his upbringing after his parents' death

it reminds me of the quote "I have to believe our worst moments don't define us". Alfred's behavior after the death of the Waynes is his worst moment -- he let a grieving child turn himself into the Batman. Later in life he tried rectifying his worst moment with the children Bruce brought in.

I think Bruce's life can be best described as the result of a series of worst moments; Joe Chill shooting the Waynes, Alfred Pennyworth and his lack of parenting, Justice League allies (Zatanna, Green Arrow, Hawkman, etc) mindwiping him, Jason Todd and the Red Hood, himself and Zur-En-Arrh, etc

None of the characters above are crucifed over the acts they committed in their worst moments, bc at the end of the day it makes for a more compelling story beat. Its frustrating when Bruce isn't given the same mercy

Basically, I feel like people miss the forest for the trees so to speak, and don't put enough focus onto the more meta reasons for why things happen the way they do in comics, such as Bruce's no-kill rule. Not to say that we shouldn't engage with the stories at all (that would be ridiculous), but I feel like the nuances are lost when the context behind a certain plot point/ writers intention, political or otherwise, is ignored. As a (slightly oversimplified) example, you can't let Bruce's crusade to improve Gotham succeed without also bringing an end to his story, and DC comics as a company have something to gain in not having that happen; Batman is one of their most profitable and most popular franchises. Even though it means no real progress can be made for the city of Gotham and its inhabitants (including its criminals) for as long as the series goes on, rendering Batman's effort essentially pointless. Of course, that's an oversimplification, and the argument can be made that despite the lack of a definite "end" and continuity, there's merit to what Bruce does and MORE IMPORTANTLY the stories about them (something I agree with!). Still, it's certainly a factor into why the no-kill rule seems so ridiculous to some people.

Again, I'm NOT saying that everything else "isn't that deep" or whatever, I absolutely hate it when people say that about stuff. I just think that it's worth bringing up in the conversation as well as the actual content of the comics themselves. Those words and illustrations weren't made in a vacuum, there are a lot of factors that influenced them, and I really think they should be considered too.

I do hope this makes sense, I'm sure there's a more concise way of putting it, but I really just wanted to ramble. Hope you have a good day :]

Hi there! I'm glad you like what I post XD it feels so odd to be asked about my opinion on discourse, but I'll try my best lol

There are definitely a whole ton of meta reasons why Batman has a no-kill rule, the same way there's so many reasons why the Joker never seems to die or why Gotham never really gets better. Of course, there are some stories with temporary improvement; see my favourite panel ever from Batman:Imposter about Gotham having a crime free night for the first time in 50 something years, which really puts things into perspective just how bad Gotham was before Batman.

Well, anyways. Another thing that is often forgotten when taking about comic book rules is genre conventions. Like, this is a superhero story. I genuinely doubt that someone who kills those they deem villains would be a good superhero. There's a reason why Superman is one of the best selling comic series (afaik its the most sold one to date), and it's not because he's justifying murdering Lex Luthor for his fuckass plans. The most important part of being in a superhero comic is being marketable, and again, the best sellers are not the gunslingers. Consistently, Superman and Spider-Man have ranked highest grossing franchises, because comic books are simultaneously a commentary on the current world situations and a mode of escapism. They give us a scenario and ask us, "now what if someone could actually do something about all this mess?", and we live for it.

The reason why Batman alone faces this issue of people looking too much into it with the real world lens is that Batman stories are a lot more grounded in reality than the rest. Even with how fantastical his foes end up being (especially when the JL is involved), he's. Well. Human. And his foes are often also human. So his motivations and everything are held to real life standards, while ignoring the fact that he is in a comic book and as such can't be made to do some things that directly go against decades of characterisation (it hasn't stopped DC before *grumble grumble*, but they can't do it here, because a Batman who kills isn't Batman). Genre conventions demand that Gotham never get better (just like how Darkseid keeps appearing), despite everything that Bruce does in order to make it better, so Gotham stays cursed and wretched. They had to make Gotham canonically a cursed land with a Lazarus pit underneath it to justify why it didn't get better after Bruce’s efforts to rehabilitate and rebuild the damn city.

So yeah, there's a lot of meta factors at play when discussing the no-kill rule, because Big Comics needs the book to sell, and so there are things you can't avoid. Of course there are in-universe and character reasons for the no-kill rule as well, and they are also extremely valid and important to remember. I feel like I lost the plot in the middle somewhere lol XD maybe there's someone else who'd word this better or have anything to add to what I said. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong! Civil discussion is invited.

I firmly believe that there are wars fought over exactly how many Robins there have been, like, I think it’s probably sort of generally agreed that Nightwing is the first Robin. But was there actually a second Robin and a third Robin before we got the girl Robin, or was the second Robin just off recovering for awhile.

And yes, I bet there’s at least some degree of agreeing that Spoiler became the girl Robin became Batgirl… but do they think that she was just filling in for Robin while he was out recovering from an injury?

There has to be like die-hard believers in the six Robins vs three Robins. Is there an argument for more? Less? Like Damian is easily distinguishable from Dick and Jason/Tim, and obviously Stephanie stands out, but what are the popular perceptions about this?

Think along the lines of JARVIS to Iron Man, or how Lego Batman kept referring to it as "'Puter" in the Lego Batman Movie. Would Bruce come up with a clever acronym, or would Dick beat him to it like most other things? Bruce is definitely too vigilant to even consider a service like Google Nest, Siri, or Alexa, so I feel like if he were to ever have an AI assistant that he would program it himself. Or perhaps Tim or Barbara programs it for him as a gift?

I'm not well-read as far as the comics go, so it's very possible that I missed something similar to this that is already canon. Either way, it would be fun to speculate :) I feel like it would just be BatComputer, but that's not very inconspicuous when guests are visiting.