Jason's justifiable reasons to burn down Wayne manor #1:
*takes drag of cigarette* Oh I see how it is.
Black Mask was going to kill everyone in Selina's life so she snuck into his apartment and killed him in cold blood.
Lex Luthor, the literal President of the United States, declares Superman an enemy of the US and demands his arrest. He has done nothing to Superman personally at this point other than put a huge bounty on his head and caused a bunch of slap-fights.
And both times mister no-killing-allowed is willing to let his love interests and/or close friends get away with these actions.
But when his own fucking son wants to kill the monster that murdered him, ohhhhh then suddenly it's a different story
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Look, I’m as much of a canon purist as anyone, but one thing that does irritate me is when other canon purists shit on people they deem “fanon fans who’ve never read the source material” because they “over-exaggerate” the interpersonal relationships between characters.
Now, don’t get me wrong, the vast majority of comic book families are at best dysfunctional, and at worst held together with questionable legality and duct tape, and none of them are like what you find in Wayne Family Adventures. BUT!!!! it’s also crucially important to me that people realise that the vast majority of relationship building in comic books happen off-panel.
Like sure, the Bats probably aren’t standing together and singing kumbaya, but it’s also not necessarily non-canon to suggest that they do have more of a sibling/friendly relationship than what we generally see on page. Just off the top of my head, we get minor references to the Dick and Jason ski trip; Jason and Tim joking about Alfred’s waffles together; the Jason, Steph, and Cass anti-Valentine’s Day dance party; Steph meeting Jason for coffee before he leaves on a plane and calling him her friend; Tim and Damian promising to still hang out even if Tim’s on sabbatical; the Batfamily group chat which has been shown to be active in multiple titles and issues. All of which implies that there was relationship building which we as readers simply were not privy to. Like sure, I don’t think that characters like Jason and Cass would be close, but it’s also important to note that comic writers are often limited to something like 20 pages – it’s up to readers to fill in the gaps with the snippets we do get, and doing so doesn’t make you a LARPer or a fake-fan.
There's something funny to me about the way some fans will be so desperate to make up kudos for Steph that they accidentally wind up laundering Cluemaster's reputation.
Let's be clear: Arthur Brown is and has always been a pathetic wannabe loser. He's arrogant, entitled and fully believes he's the smartest guy in the room, complete with full villain monologues to his lackeys about how This Time he'll definitely prove once and for all that he's sooooo much smarter than Batman. But his "clues" are childish and simplistic, every single one of his plans fail with minimal effort from the heroes, and he's regarded as so little of a threat that Bruce and Dick are more concerned about the schemes of frickin' Aunt Harriet.
Dude's most prominent position pre-Steph was as a member of the second incarnation of the Injustice League, the Justice League International version of the group -- y'know, the series that's widely beloved and occasionally beloathed for being more light-hearted and funny than other incarnations. Wikipedia calls them, and I quote,
"...a team of out-of-luck supervillains who, when banding together, become even less successful than they have been in their individual careers... defeated time and again by the Justice League International, at least when they are not making laughingstocks of themselves."
The dude. Was in Justice League Antarctica.
Even during the Dixon era when there's an effort to make him seem scarier (so Steph looks more impressive for opposing him) he's still an arrogant, entitled loser so convinced of his own superiority that he regularly gets his ass handed to him with minimal effort.
He did not read mystery novels. He did not drill himself and his child on puzzles. He is not actually smart, or threatening in a professional capacity. He is, at best, a nuisance, a pompous ass who goes in an out of jail because he never successfully commits a crime serious enough to keep him there long-term. The most threatening he's ever been was during the aftermath of Steph's death, and that was in a very different context than both his usual shenanigans and supervillian schemes as a whole.
And that makes total sense: lots of domestic abusers are losers. They can't control their shitty lives, so they exert control over their families, control in the form of violence. There is legitimate merit in the idea of deepening and darkening his character by making this former mostly-a-joke guy abusive towards his family, and letting those comparatively lower, more real-world grounded stakes be the foundation for a new hero.
But if that's true, people can't pretend Stephanie had a secret super-cool backstory where she learned skills she totally, definitely uses in her superhero work to prove that she's the smartiest of smarty-pantses. As opposed to her actual demonstrated skill set of infiltration and physical violence, both of which you can draw clear parallels with the way she would've learned to deal with Arthur at home -- by keeping out of his sight, fucking with him when she can, and countering his violence with her own.
Steph was created to be a basically normal person forcibly inserting herself among the larger-than-life cast of the Bats. But there are people who are very invested in instead portraying her as the specialist widdle princess in the whole wide world, which she can't be if her only real nemesis is a loser who's only truly threatening to her and her mother.
GOOD SIBLING, BAD SIBLING: THE FIRE SIBLINGS VS. STARFIRE AND BLACKFIRE
What could two siblings born in a royal family where one is scapegoated and the other treated like a golden child possibly have in common? More than you think.
This post is making the rounds again and I thought it would be fun to make a longer post going into depth why I think Starfire and Blackfire avert the common trope of good sibling bad sibling, by comparing it to something that fails to avoid that trope. If you like doomed siblings or bad victims then click the readmore.
Good Sibling, Bad Sibling
To start off with I'm going to explain what I mean when I use the words Good Sibling, Bad Sibling. It's a trope that's an extention of what I call Good Victim, Bad Victim. It's when a story compares two victims of abuse, and one victim is a more acceptable victim while the other is a bad victim because they're not perfect suffering Cinderellas.
Victims of course still have agency in their responses, they're still culpable if their actions go on to hurt someone, they don't have a right to hurt others, but I think it's also true most people are quick to judge victims for not being strong enough to endure abuse when they haven't been in the same situation.
It's easy from an outsider's perspective to be "I wouldn't do that". It comes from a pretty shallow view that villainizes abusers and renders them as inhuman monsters when the truth is all abusers are still humans and anyone can fall into patterns of abuse whether they mean to or not.
One reason I hate this trope besides like, the fact characters that aren't perfect victims are often considered "too far gone" and murdered by the narrative, it's also just really shallow. In the end it usually comes down to the victim getting love and support healing and the victim who didn't have support getting worse. Which is like, a no duh of a situation. A person without friends or a support system or love in their life tends to not get better? Who woulda guessed.
Good Sibling, Bad Sibling shows up when two siblings are raised under the same house, sometimes even in the same abusive circumstances and one is a hero and the other is a villain. Another version of this tropes is the fact that if there are twins one of them is usually going to be a good twin and the other is an evil twin.
I can understand where this trope comes from because like siblings are a naturally close relationship, so it makes it a deeply personal conflict when a character's sibling turns against them. I don't even think it's a necessarily bad trope, if both characters are humanized equally which almost never happens.
Examples of this trope: Gammorra and Nebula, Mai and Maki, Shoto and Toya, Dick Grayson and Jason Todd, Itachi and Sasuke.
And of course, Starfire and Blackfire, and Zuko and Azula.
My goal is to show by breaking the source material, New Teen Titans and the Avatar Cartoon down the former averts the trope and the latter plays it straight.
The Golden Child and the Scapegoat
A common trope used in dysfuctional families is dividing children between a golden child, and a scapegoat. The parent often projects all of their positive qualities on a golden child, along with high expectations. While the Scapegoat has all their negative qualities projected on them, and is often blamed unfairly for the dysfunction in the house. They are scapegoated so to speak, and constantly the victim of things like shifting goalposts.
It's like a more extreme version of playing favorites with an extra dollop of abuse on top. Also to be clear, this is an abusive dynamic where both sides are abused. They're not being seen as parents by their parents, and they are essentially being pitted against each other. There are plenty of parents who will be just as harsh on their perceived favorite. Being the golden child doesn't really safeguard you from abuse, even if it seems to be the more favorable position to be in.
Also in general when discussing abuse, arguing over who has it worse is kind of a pointless argument.
Also sometimes the playing favorites is intentional. By splitting up siblings and putting them against each other, the parent gets more control over each of them like a divide and conquer strategy. After all an abusers primary objective is to maintain control over someone by patterns of abusive behavior meant to wear down their sense of resistance.
With that being established, comparing the two royal families is interesting because the "hero" sibling is the golden child in one version, and the "villain" sibling is the scapegoat in another. If anything this proves that both forms of abuse can be the reason for a villain's tragic backstory.
STARFIRE AND AZULA THE PERFECT PRINCESS
Starfire might appear at first to be the total opposite of Azula. One of them is a hero who's like entire character is built around her overflowing emotions and the love she feels for people. While Azula is cold, calculating, and often treats her own friends like pawns instead of people. Starfire also doesn't repeat the cycle of abuse, while Azula does.
If you look past that there's a lot of comparisons to draw between the two of them. They are both raised in warrior, war-like cultures. The Tamaraneans may be all about that peace and love but like, an early conflict with Starfire's is that because she was raised on a planet as a warrior she doesn't understand why other heroes have a no-kill rule.
Azula is also a product of her culture. To begin with she's raised as a child soldier, of a nationalist and imperialist nation who are actively colonizing half the war. Azula also contributes significantly to the war effort, and never shows any doubt to the values of her culture.
As a brief summary of their early characters, Azula is princess of the fire nation which went to war with the world. She's the daughter of the Fire Nation's absolute ruler. She's however, the second born and not ever expected to inherit the throne. She is introduced in season one when Zuko vents to an unconscious Aang about how everything has always been easy for his sister. In Season two she becomes the main antagonist, first tasked with retrieving her brother, and then decides to try to capture the avatar on her own. I'd also be remiss to mention that Azula is the most personal antagonist the heroes face, because Ozai is more of a final boss.
Starfire is an alien that was sold by her sister into slavery essentially (Blackfire is not a good person). She escaped to earth and became a member of the Teen Titans where she found a new family and worked as a hero. She's basically an immigrant to earth and there's a lot of culture shock. Starfire eventually returns home to her planet when it's in danger, and faces her sister as an antagonist.
This is another way in which they differ, Azula is the primary antagonist and negative foil to Zuko, and Blackfire is the primary antagonist and negative foil to Starfire.
While both basically have the tentative position of the favorite, while their sibling is demonized, it's made clear to them that they're not actually "safe" with their parents. Both sets of parents are awful and the origin of all abuse within the household. These characters also receive a slap in the face after being in denial for a long time that these parents will even mistreat their "favorite" child and treat them like an object.
Though, I would argue that Starfire is more in denial about her parent's abuse and will still see them as loving parents, while Azula is aware that her father could turn on her and strives for perfection to keep herself "safe".
Note Starfire is still saying this stuff after her parent's sold her into a political marriage.
Ozai: My decision is final.
Azula: You ... you can't treat me like this! You can't treat me like Zuko!
Ozai: Azula, silence yourself.
Azula: But it was my idea to burn everything to the ground! I deserve to be by your side!
I've seen some people's unsympathetic readings of this line that Azula throws Zuko under the bus, but like... Azula doesn't want to be abused like her brother. What a monster. Let's see how you react when the father you thought was safe turns on you, I think most people would say or do anything not to get hurt.
I don't want to sound too critical of Starfire because she has her reasons (Blackfire abused her severely) but both Starfire and Azula seem to justify their parent's abuse to themselves by saying Blackfire or Zuko did something to cause the abuse. Sliding the blame from the abuser to the abuse victim. They participate in the parent's scapegoating of the the least favorite child.
I'd like to point out though that the ultimate cause of the situation is the parents themselves. The abuse started when they are children, and expecting Starfire and Azula as children to like, go out of their way to protect their abused siblings is expecting a lot out of them.
Like Azula is afraid to lose her position as the favorite because Ozai has demonstrated before that he'll horribly mutilate his children. Who would have guessed. Blackfire severely abused Starfire in their childhood, so she sees Blackfire as her enemy and not her parents who would have guessed.
In general too, expecting Starfire and Azula to be perfect siblings in an abusive household, and always protect their siblings, is once again a lot to expect from literal children who don't have fully developed brains.
However, I would say in both cases, they both try harder to connect with their sibling. This is where I get angry anons in my inbox, yes I'm going to make the argument that Azula was a better sibling than Zuko was to her. No I also don't expect Zuko to be a perfect big brother when actively being abused by Ozai. No I don't think Zuko owes Azula anything because she too prioritized her own well being over him that's what abuse victims do.
I'm just making the argument with in text examples that Azula does more things to help Zuko, and Starfire actively tried to befriend Blackfire before the sibling abuse started. In fact I think that's what makes both relationships incredibly tragic. It's not really two siblings who love each other on opposite sides of a conflict. It's that Blackfire and Zuko can't see past their own abuse, and can't love their siblings.
Once again I'm not blaming Zuko for priotizing himself, but I also think it's unfair to critcize Azula for taking care of herself and not sticking her neck out for Zuko when they were both being abused. Wow why are people extra harsh on Azula and extra forgiving on Zuko. It's almost like women are always expected to be perfect nurturers, and when they're not allowed to be complex human beings with flaws.
My old enemy the Madonna Whore complex you strike again!
Anyway onto the examples. The big one is that Azula invited Zuko back after Ba Sing Se, seemed genuine about wanting to help resstore his honor. This is also a sacrifice on her part, because as I said even when he was banished Zuko didn't lose the title of crown prince. His status as the heir was never in question and like, letting Zuko stay a prisoner in Ba Sing Se would have ensured his inheritance would fall to her.
Why don't you let him decide, Uncle? [To Zuko.] I need you, Zuko. I've plotted every move of this day, [Makes a fist.] this glorious day in Fire Nation history, and the only way we win is together. At the end of this day, you will have your honor back. You will have Father's love. You will have everything you want.
Now common criticisms people use to argue that Azula has good intentions.
1) Azula needed Zuko to turn the tides in battle. While Azula was kind of in a corner in the fight where Zuko turned she also had Mai and Ty Lee and the entire Dai Li on her side so I don't think she'd really assume she needed Zuko to defeat the avatar. Also she starts getting backed into a corner long after she made the offer to Zuko so she had no way of knowing that ahead of time. Also, also, she might have just been backed into a corner for the sake of drama, making it more impactful when Zuko shows up and turns the tide.
2) Azula somehow knew she might not kill the avatar and needed Zuko to take the fall. This one doesn't make sense because Azula doesn't have any idea that Aang didn't die, until Zuko hints at it. After that point, Zuko kept it a secret from her and refused to tell her even though the truth being revealed would impact both of them. Like for Azula to know ahead of time she'd fail to kill the avatar when she made her offer to Zuko, and then bring him back to take the fall would require some 4d chess on her end.
Two more examples are Azula goes out of her way to warn Zuko that he might get in trouble for visint Iroh so often. On the Beach she's the one who comforts him and retrieves him from their old vacation house. When they're in front of the fire and Zuko is troubled she asks him what's wrong and even asks if she's the one at fault. Whereas Zuko mocks her for not having problems when Azula confesses her mother thought she was a monster he doesn't say anything in response.
In Tales of the New Teen Titans we get a closer look at Starfire and Blackfire's childhood, and we're shown Starfire tried hard at first to get along with her sister. Starfire also, in spite of being a victim of Blackfire's abuse went out of her way to save her life twice.
Something Blackfire responded with by immediately trying to kill her. Blackfire, you are a piece of work. In both cases, I'd argue Starfire and Azula try at least to have a positive relationship with their siblings. Attempts that are almost completely one-sided. I don't want to demonize Zuko too much though, because as I said when you're actively being abused it's number one easy to see the other sibling as being better off, and only natural you would prioritize yourself.
Also, Blackfire was an adult and continued the abuse later on in life when she had more agency, whereas Zuko for most of the tv show was a minor and you shouldn't hold minors to adult standards. If I judge characters for having an imperfect reaction to abuse, or not being perfect siblings I can no longer call myself a bad victim enjoyer.
Both Starefire and Azula as I said, participate in the scapegoating. In both cases it's out of a desire to maintain their spot as the golden child, because they want to assume they're safe.
Starfire actively defends her aprents all the time, while insisting that Blackfire was evil to begin with. Which is understandable again because Blackfire's abuse is just so much worse than anything Azula does to Zuko. It's expecting a little too much for Starfire to see the humanity in her abuser when she's a lifelong victim.
Like little blackfire things: Killing her sister's pet.
Phsyical abuse, actively trying to kill her even before they were on opposite sides of a war.
Selling her into Slavery (where Starfire was sexually abused).
It's extra tragic because both are essentially blaming the other for their parent's abuse. Blackfire takes out her pain on Starfire as revenge for her parent's favoritism, even though it's not her fault. Starfire demonizes Blackfire because she refuses to confront the fact that her parent's are abusive.
This is behavior Azula engages in as well. If you read into her actions, you can tell she blames Zuko for his abuse, you can't treat me like Zuko, while also believing that if she can just make Zuko act more like a prince he won't provoke his father anymore. Once again, sliding the blame on the abused rather than the abuser makes Azula feel more safe, because she also believes if she's perfect Ozai will leave her alone.
Zuko and Blackfire: The Banished Prince and the DIsowned Princess
This is another pair of seeming opposites. Blackfire is essentially Starfire's most personal arch enemy, occupying the same spot as Azula. Zuko is a villain for awhile, but honestly he's bad at it, and until the end of Season 1 he's so ineffectual he's more comic relief. Blackfire like Azula is insanely competent and causes a lot of genuine harm to the protagonists, and is far far worse than Zuko or even Azula obviously. I mean I've already listed some of the things she did above, but she also let her planet be conquered by aliens, orchestrated not one but two cues, and tried to have her parents blown up on live television.
However, both characters are effectively disowned and banished from their country for their inability to fit in. Both are banished and excessively punished.
Blackfire is the first born princess of Tamaran and she should have been heir to her family, but she was stripped of her inheritance because she was born disabled. Every Tamaranean can fly except her because of a sickness that nearly killed her when she was younger.
That's right everyone, the disabled representation you've been waiting for the sibling abuser and war-mongerer.
I think Blackfire's abuse covers a common way parent's treat their disabled children, where they don't want to make accomodations and make it clear they' don't want to take care of a disabled child and spend all their attention on their abled children instead. This trope is often called "Better dead than disabled."
Also I'd be remiss to point out that Tamaraneas have access to hover technology so Blackfire's disability doesn't inhibit her in any way. Like damn, parents will do anything but try to accomondate their disabled child.
Zuko is punished needlessly for a small offense of speaking out of turn in a meeting for not wanting to sacrifice young soldiers, and then refusing to fight back against his father in an angi kai. At which point he's banished and sent on a fool's errand of hunting the avatar.
Blackfire's reason for being banished is uhhh, because she tried to kill her sister in combat training, but also she was stripped of her inheritance just before being born disabled. She awas punished for things she couldn't control before she did anything wrong.
Both siblings also try to make up for their trauma and perceived deficiencies by constantly projecting violence. Blackfire is like, obsesed with war, Zuko's definition of honor is more focused around glory gained by combat more particularly killing the avatar in the first season. Both of them actively participated in colonization, Blackfire helped colonize her home planet, Zuko burned Kyoshi village and helped Azula with Ba Sing Se. Blackfire brought back an army to colonize her home planet, then attempts a military coup of a rather peaceful reign her parents secured not once but twice.
Both are blamed for their parent's abuse, it's Blackfire's fault because she was a violent and unlikable child she made it impossible to love her. It's Zuko's fault, he just didn't try hard enough to please his father and fit in as a prince.
While I may sound overly critical of Avatar's writing I do like how they gave Zukio a lot of chances to make mistakes and screw up, and instead of condemning him or dismissing him as too far gone they kept reinforcing that he always had a chance to better himself.
Both characters are really jealous and tend to blame the other sibling who's treated as the favorite for their abuse.
Zuko: "You're like my sister. Everything always came easy to her. She is a firebending prodigy and everyone adores her. My father says she was born lucky. He says I was lucky to be born... I don't need luck though - I don't want it. I've always had to struggle and fight and that's made me strong. It's made me who I am".
Though to give credit to Blackfire, while as a child she blamed Starfire for everything and used her as a punching bag, as an adult she seems to understand that the cause of their conflict was their parents and in fact tries to explain this to Starfire multiple times. So she's matured enough to see that Starfire is ultimately a victim too.
As I said too, Zuko is a child, he's also like still actively being victimized by Ozai while at the same time under the notion that if he does the right thing he can earn Ozai's love for 3/4ths of the show it's easy to understand why he'd blame Azula for his position as the scapegoat instead of Ozai.
Zuko never attempts to convince Azula to change sides with him, or considers that an option. When Azula is like, falling through the air about to die he doesn't tell his friends piloting the bison to try to save her. His stated goal when fighting Azula in the fignal agni kai is to put her in her place. That's literally a line he says.
Zuko, the empath when noticing she's having a total mental breakdown says "She's kind of off" and decides to take advantage of that to win the fight. When Azula finally breaks down and is screaming and crying, he just kind of sits there looking bored.
I'm not arguing that Zuko owes her anything that's a personal opinion, just that it's inconsistent with Zuko's writing. Zuko is presented to us as a character revolving around redemption, that learns that love and forgiveness are key to growth and healing and then just... doesn't apply those same lessons he learned to his sister.
That same kind of hypocrisy is present in Starfire, but it's like intentional. Starfire's inability to empathize with her sister, when her entire character revolves around empathy and love shows just how damaged her relationship with her sister is. Even then Starfire like, saves her life twice and was never able to kill her. With far more reason to not empathize with her sister, while blatantly hating her, Starfire still has that tiny bit of empathy for her. It's also like, Tamaraneans are a violent warrior people, and they're also extremely emotional and full of love, Starfire embodies both sides of that.
It's not just Blackfire either, it takes Starfire a long time to learn that she can't just kill criminals (again understandable, a cultural thing, in fact people like Dick are a little bit too harsh on her for this instead of trying to explain and understand where she's coming from). It is consistent with Starfire's writing, she is openly loving, but she's not the team mom that's Donna.
Zuko like, not even trying to redeem Azula or just like, not really caring is inconsistent with the writing that's trying to tell us that deep down Zuko is a caring person that is going to help heal the fire nation by showing them a better path forward. Zuko's double standards towards his sister, and his unfairly blaming her for his father's abuse is not written as a flaw. Blackfire unfairy blaming Starfire for her parent's abuse is a flaw. Blackfire's abuse of Starfire is her own fault, which is something she continues to do well into adulthood.
Which is why it's kind of all the more baffling, that Blackfire is way worse, is humanized a lot more by her narrative than Azula is. Now we reach the final part.
The Final Agni Kai
Now to trash on everyone's favorite scene that I absolutely despise as the end to Zuko and Azula's arc, while praising what is my favorite arc in the whole New Teen Titans manga. In the series finale of Avatar, Zuko after reuniting with Iroh is tasked with challenging Azula for the throne in the Agni Kai. They fight, and Zuko comes out on top.
In what is essentially the final fight between Starfire and Blackfire, Starfire is alerted by her brother that things are going down on her planet. She leaves earth with the Teen Titans and returns to her planet for a second time. Where she learns that she is being sold by her parents into an arranged marriage, as a part of a peace agreement with the invading force of her planet. Something that Starfire does not take well too, because she's currently in love with her longtime boyfriend Dick Grayson.
I'm going to skip over the Soap opera that is Starfire and Dick, because it's soon revealed that Blackfire too has returned in order to orchestrate a coup to overthrow her parents once more.
In the end Blackfire reveals her plan that she's set up an ion bomb to hold the whole planet hostage unless her parents abdicate and declare her ruler. At which point, Blackfire succeeds.
Both plots involve the scapegoat finally reclaiming their heritage and beating their sibling for the first time, one is the hero, the other is the villain... or are they?
There's a reason I love one arc and hate the other. It's that Blackfire is eventually allowed to be her own seperate character from Starfire, whereas Azula is ultimately just a plot object to strengthen Zuko's arc. This is shown in just, the amount of focus Zuko and his inner world are compared to Azula, how he has one of the most lovingly tailored redemption arcs shown throughout the entire show whereas Azula's mental breakdown is rushed through the entire end.
However, to further illustrate this let me show how well the New Teen Titans humanizes Koriand'r. To begin with, we see their childhood from both perspectives, to show both are biased narrators. Starfire represents her sister as being born evil, while Blackfire believes Starfire being the favorite took all her parent's love away from her.
Blackfire also gets, sympathetic motivations that demonstrate she's also capable of love and craves it deep down but suppresses it because she believes she needs to be a weapon of war. Something that is directly stated by the comics and only like implied by offhand by the avatar show.
In fact Blackfire gets to star in her own comic which tells a story where she is temporarily blinded after her first defeat to Starfire. After feeling helpess she feels like she's lost the will to fight, the will to kill, the will to rule which is how she defines herself.
Blackfire survives with one of her soldiers who doesn't abandon her, and helps teach with her rehabilitation teaching her how to fight while blind. Their relationship grows so close that Dorion feels like the first person that ever took care of Blackfire, and she breaks down and admits how much she wants to be loved. She almost seems willing to give up her conquest.
However, Blackfire misses out on the chance to be loved because her fanatically devoted soldier tricks her into killing him in order to show her that she still has the edge to kill.
This also clues us into more complex motivations for Blackfire. She is actively a patriot who believes that her father's rule is weak (she turns out to be right) and believes that conquering her planet is in effect her way of saving it. She has to put on this persona because the cause is more important than anything in her life, even love.
(This also contrasts Starfire who has no interest in being a ruler and runs away to live on earth with her love).
Also I'd be remiss to mention at the end of this particular arc Starfire doesn't forgive her sister or reconcile with her. I've never believed she owed her that. The arc just shows that Blackfire a human being (or a tamaranean I guess) who is capable of both good and evil. That her motivations are more complex than being a power hungry usurper and she actually can have good intentions. She's more of an example of the 'Well-intentioned Extremist" trope.
It's the complete opposite of Azula who's reduced to the mad queen stereotype in the end. Which is another knock against Avatar, Blackfire might not be the best disabled representation in the world but as I said parent's only treating their disabled child as a burden and that disabled child watching their parents take care of and love their abled children is a real thing that happens all the time. The comic also goes to show how competent Blackfire is in sipte of her disability.
Whereas, I can't imagine what it feels like to see yourself in Azula's mental breakdown, only to watch her last moment on the show have her offered no support, and not even a single sign that she might recover one day. Blackfire's motivations are tied to her abuse, but she's not demonized for being disabled in fact she's fantastically competent. Azula's like, readuced to an inhuman, ugly monster, and her mental illness takes all of her agency away and once again we're shown no hope for recovery.
Azula is reduced to a screaming incoherent mess. She has basically no agency in the end. Not only does Blackfire have agency, but like she has acutal points to make? The story values her point of view and gives credence to it? Myand'r is a weak ruler. She's not wrong when she says that their parents are the source of abuse for both of them. In fact, the narrative directly states the ones who started the abuse are their parents while it only implies it again with Azula and Zuko. Maybe the reason so many people deny that Azula is an abuse victim is because we only see the abuse from Zuko's perspective not Azula's. Whereas we get both conflicting accounts of Blackfire and Starfire's childhood and the narrative trusts us to judge things with nuance rather than needing it fed to us.
The planet has been invaded twice now. She's also, like, more popular with her father's weak rule?
Also like the story shows us why Blackfire will make a better ruler than Starfire. The narrative doesn't really illustrate how Zuko will be a better ruler, it just follows the "good king" trope.
I mean it's a fun little parallel that both Zuko and Blackfire are both an exiled prince and princess respectively, who return home to take back their throne. On one hand though, it feels like Zuko does it out of like, wanting to reclaim his birthright, or his feeling that the throne is his destiny. That's part of Blackfire's motivation too, but as I said, Zuko never states onscreen how he plans to improve the fire nation, Blackfire's got like actual policies.
Which is where the difference ultimately lies, Blackfire and Starfire are ultimately characterized as two sides of the same coin who need to come together to save the planet. Killing blackfire or putting her down won't fix shit or end the cycle of abuse on Tamaran. Blackfire and Starfire are much like Tamaran defined by love and war, and there's love and war in Starfire, and love and war in Blackfire and they both need to find a balance between the two.
This is in contrast to Zuko and Azula who's final conflict is just putting Azula down like a mad dog, quite literally. Blackfire is allowed to be human, with good and bad traits, and like actual points to make whereas Zuko's narrative only cares about Zuko's thoughts, and in general instead of coming together the narrative seems to think the only way that Zuko can triumph is if Azula is dragged down into the mud.
Blackfire is a character, and Azula is ultimately just a plot obstacle.
So that's my long ramble on a sibling relationship I absolutely love, and a sibling relationship I can't love no matter how much I like Zuko and Azula individually.
I think the way people villainize jason is so interesting considering that at his core jason embodies true empathy for victims of both violent and non-violent crime more than any of the bats.
Like you can't cut addicts off cold turkey, that only causes more harm. So he'll make sure your drugs are clean and you get clean needles. And when you wanna get clean he'll help. He'll kill your abuser, your rapist. Not JUST for you, because he will do it for you. But not only for you, but for anyone else that person could hurt.
Also ppl in fanon make it so that cass would hate him (and she probably might but not for what they think), but i think he'd despise her moral code just as much.
Her empathy for (1) singular individual has eroded her ability to empathize with any victim of any crime of any magnitude hereafter to ease her own sense of guilt.
Jason's entire moral code rides on doing whatever it takes to make sure that victims are safe and comfortable. Sometimes you aren't comfortable until the monster that stalks your nightmares is dead.
But they won't let him or other victims have that. They let people live in that nauseating perpetuity of "will they hurt me again?" And their only moral leg to stand on is that they don't kill. Like a prolonged death from extreme violence is any better.
I think cass would hate him for the moral dilemma he presents FOR HER. How does she grapple with the fact that the lives taken/hurt by the persons she CHOOSE to let live, is infinitely more than it would be if she killed like jason. (Didn't she break into a prison to free a serial child rapist on death row??? I cannot remember the exact comic but feel free to correct me)
Also people act like jason kills indiscriminantly, which he doesn't. We know he targets persons who target women, children, and people who enact sexual violence.
Idk i think the way people view jason moral code is a direct reflection of how they see real victims of crime and bad circumstances. They're quick to say violence isn't the answer but sometimes it's the only option between life and death. And its not wrong to want to live
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You can tell that some people have no fucking clue what harm reduction is based on the way they talk about Jason. Like “he was a crime lord he dealt drugs!!” BUDDY HIS ENTRANCE ONTO THE SCENE WAS “DON’T DEAL TO KIDS”
There’s something to be said about Jason doing anything to make a victim comfortable vs Cass doing anything to prevent death
I do find it interesting that people are always like “Cass should hate Jason” but never addressed the fact that Jason would hate her right back.
Aoughhhhh something about Cass only viewing herself as a murderer and Jason being a victim of murder and how it shaped their ideology in different directions is soooooo.
I also think that Cass’ moral code is one of the most fascinating. Because it goes beyond not playing Judge jury and executioner. Cause like you said, she broke that guy out of prison. He was on death row. Aside from my feelings on the death penalty. (Abolish it) the judge, and the jury had made a decision. And it wasn’t even like she went to the governor and beat him up until this guy was given a stay of execution. She took justice into her own hands like Jason is condemned for doing just in the opposite direction.
Like Cass’ no killing goes farrrrrr beyond Bruce’s and I don’t see that talked about enough
I do wanna say that I fact checked with my Cass friend, the guy she broke out just killed someone he was not a rapist.
But you’re so right about how people like to view Jason through real world lenses. It’s insufferable sometimes.
All that is to say honestly? I fear Cass’ moral code is not the bastion of purity people treat it as.
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hi thereeeee is it alright if i Ask for your thoughts on wally west & the cycle of abuse in terminal velocity…..👀
Totally!!
Alright, before Terminal Velocity, we get the zero issue. This issue is connected to the end of the event Zero Hour: Crisis in Time! DC's second crisis event, which mainly helped tidy up some of the continuity left wonky post Crisis on Infinite Earths. Wally seemingly dies in Zero Hour but! of course we know he does not. Instead, we get him thrown through time (and seemingly in the Speed Force, though he does not know that yet, as it is still being unveiled by Waid). He sees a number of important moments in his life. What stood out to me were these moments with his parents:
Wally describes his parents "shoving reality down his throat" here and this is not the first time he shared this sentiment. They were always trying to get his head out of the clouds, trying to get him to be realistic about the future as to not be disappointed. Though we also see what Wally won't verbalize: abuse. His mother throwing his comic away while he is crying, likely thinking he is too wrapped up in a fiction world. His parents arguing and yelling at one another. Later. when Wally arrives in the past before he ever got his powers, we see Rudy smack a young Wally on the butt to stop him from spilling soda:
Young Wally was distracted, and this is how his father responds to his distraction. This story culiminates in the answer to a question that had been plaguing Wally for a few issues prior to this one: who was the man that told him everything would turn out good when he was young. Hehad held onto that man's words his whole life but never knew who he was... and that's because it was his older self. I find what Wally says to his younger self interesting.
He says that now, looking back, he understands his parents were trying to protect him. I don't think he is wrong here. Nor do I think he is wrong on the next page:
Wally has grown to a point where he can understand his parents intentions, despite disagreeing with them. But he does not ever verbalize that, despite them wanting to protect him and being fearful, they still hurt him. They were wrong to attempt to go about it the way they did. (and of course we know the people his parents become and that Wally's father, in particular, was a damned hypocrite, but that's beside the point). I think that Wally's failure to make this connection about his parents being wrong is a big part of why Terminal Velocity goes how it does.
As issue 95 opens, Wally witnesses something terrible, something that makes him declare that it's "all over". This thing that he witnessed is what drives the plot of Terminal Velocity, Wally's fear. He knows three things: he is going to die, Keystone is going to be destroyed, and Linda is going to die. He, unlike his parents, has actually seen the future and knows exactly what will happen. But, very like his parents, he allows fear of the future and what it is going to do to his loved one, to drive his choices. So, to protect Linda, he does not tell her she is going to die. He does not tell anyone, in fact, instead determined to change the future by manipulating those around him: Bart and Jesse in particular.
Throughout the next few issues he is, frankly, terrible to everyone. He drives Linda away through his refusing to tell her what is coming. He yells at Bart endlessly. He decides the best way to get Bart to take things seriously is to supposedly hand the reins of the Flash mantle to Jesse Chambers. He could have been straightforward with Bart and communicated that he saw his potential. But he is so focused on his own fears that the actual feelings of the person he is trying to protect and the others around them don't matter to him.
Terminal Velocity shows us Wally at some of his worst. And when he is at his worst? He is like his parents.
It's a little annoying seeing people shit-talk that guy Dean who Steph was on a date with when the quake hit for...actually following proper civilian protocols for a disaster?
Like. The first rule for people who are not trained as disaster responders is "do not create more victims".
Don't run into the structurally damaged building, now you're an additional person to dig out. Don't jump into the water, now you're an additional drowning risk. Don't run into the area with the gas leak, now you're an additional patient in need of oxygen.
Dean was a random untrained dude facing the biggest earthquake his area has ever seen, and his response of not running into the collapsing mall and discouraging Steph from doing so is actually the correct response.
Dean does not know that Steph has been training as a caped vigilante, which in their universe means she's probably qualified for this. The rules of the fictional universe means she can run to the rescue, but when she tried to get Dean to do so too, that was irresponsible and dangerous. That would be risking the life of an untrained civilian and creating more work for the actual disaster responders. And Dean is not in the loop here!
There are things bystanders can do to help first responders, but running into the collapsing building is not one of them. This being a superhero comic means Stephanie running in to help is the right choice for her, but that doesn't mean Dean's choice was wrong.
