#damian analysis

Looking at his family situation, the boy clearly has never received much love or care - so it makes sense why he doesn't know how to express such feelings in a healthy way.

I also feel like he is scared to open up to people and show his warmer, kind (and true) self - Because if maybe the other person is just using him for possible benefits, having shown them his more kind (and by extension vulnerable) side would make it hurt even more.

On the surface, he claims that it's about his pride, but I think that this is also just an act to cover up his insecurities and fears.

Because he fears treating someone with kindness and warmth only to be used in the end.

I don’t usually get asked for my opinions on things so this was a joy to find in my inbox! You asked for an explanation on my feelings evolving, so prepare for one of the lengthiest responses you will ever get to anything: 

Honestly, my first impression of Damian was that he was kind of a jerk, before I even knew just how much of a jerk he truly used to be (spoiler alert: as we all know, a lot). But this is before I ventured from comics that weren’t Nightwing, back when I was mini and flying by the seat of my pants when it came to DC (AKA picking up random books I saw on the shelves in the library and conveniently finding Jeph Loeb instead of the mess of current continuity that may have turned me off comic books forever). I saw him first at a convention when I found the Batman and Robin series and thought it was Dick. I turned to the back and saw something about some assassin kid and stared for a bit, put it down, and went, “Oookay, new Robin doesn’t know if he wants to be a murderer or not, that’s… fun.”

Then I read the New 52 Nightwing run, before I realized that I don’t really like the New 52 and don’t want to do that again (Nightwing was one of the few runs that didn’t suck, at least, but I wasn’t a fan of how dumb he was written). Damian appeared in there a few times, and it was honestly the sweetest thing. I remember falling in love with their relationship at that moment, right then and there, no going back. The videogame scene did it for me, when Dick talked about getting a videogame that Damian really wants to play and playing it with him, and then next thing you know the game is abandoned in his living room and he’s standing next to Damian’s grave giving a frankly amazing inner monologue about what it’s like to constantly move forward. Considering I wasn’t ‘in’ with DC yet, I was heartbroken – I had no idea Damian had died, and wouldn’t find out why for at least another year (and it broke my heart even more).

There was an offhand comment from my cosplayer friend some time later about how I should cosplay Damian. I was short, I was “brown”, I would make an accurate cosplay. I was a little iffy about being told to cosplay a character just because I was I appeared brown, but I was desperately trying to find a cosplay where I wouldn’t have to hide my eyebrows. I have yet to cosplay him, but it did make me look into him a bit more. I fell in love with his costume design, which is the first thing I look for in my cosplays – recognizable as Robin, distinguishable by fans as which Robin. And then time went on and I became more and more conscious of the fact that no other character I like resembles anything near my ethnic identity. Except, of course, one.

This all conveniently falls into the period of my life when I struggled with being stuck expressing a conglomeration of three different cultural identities. I needed something in media, some character to project myself onto to remind me that the way I do things isn’t crazy or imaginary. That my identity is real and it doesn’t have to conform to anyone else’s, because my situation is weird but it’s still mine.

I latched onto Damian. Reading the Son of Batman books cemented it for me, too. I’ve given a lengthy response as to why the Al Ghul’s aren’t stellar representation and I don’t believe Damian is either. He isn’t a representation of a Middle Eastern or Asian person. I’ve thought for hours and hours about what his cultural identity might be. I won’t get into it here, but it was fascinating, and while I couldn’t relate in every way, the fact that it was up in the air, the fact that he’s been raised so uniquely and it makes you wonder what he really identifies with, if he identifies with anything at all and doesn’t just think “This is the way I do things, fuck you”, was so familiar. 

I read fanfiction with him and became disgusted about how there seems to be only be two ways to write him: Don’t acknowledge the Middle Eastern part of his ethnicity or fetishize it. I was pissed. Still am. I’ve experienced Middle Eastern fetishization in literature, but not with something I had made so personal to me. So I resolved to write him more, in the way I wish he was written. Most of what I’ve written about him is tucked away into my files. In fact, what I have on my AO3 profile really doesn’t do justice to the variety of things that I write just for myself.

(I’m going to divide the post right here because the rest can probably be considered more of a tangent. It does, however, go more in depth as to the personal reasons why I love Damian).