#doj commentary

My opinion on this subject?

Tony Stark’s ptsd is portrayed in a way that is told from ahealthy person’s perspective, for healthy audiences’ benefit. It is coherentand “cool”-looking and easy-to-understand, when ptsd in real life is anythingBUT those.

Tony Stark became more productive, more dedicated, and morefocused when he is supposedly suffering from the mental condition; while mentalillness in real life tends to turn people less productive, less dedicated, andless focused. In short:Tony’s ptsd has all the “flashy” and “cool” parts of the illness, without anyof the horrible parts that truly messed up people’s life.

Finally, Tony Stark’s ptsd is framed as something to overcome inIM3 movie narrative, and he pretty much didby the end of the movie. Frankly, it makes no sense. People don’t “overcome”mental illnesses, people learn to cope and live with it, just like how peopledo with most physical chronic illnesses.

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Bruce Wayne’s ptsd is portrayed in a way that is told from anill person’s perspective, and certainly not for healthy audiences’ benefit. Itis incoherent and jarring to experience, that people to this day are stilldebating how much of his nightmares are “real” and how much are not. Thatresembles more closely what it would be like in real life though, flashes andepisodes where patients are genuinely unable to tell the difference betweenreality and not.

Bruce Wayne became more violent and more paranoid; he getstunnel vision and zooms out on what’s going on around him, to the point that hewas called out on being blind on multiple occasion and by multiple characters(and even by some audiences). What’s more, he contemplated Suicide-by-Cop fortwo whole years.

Alfred said it is suicide.

Bruce outright stated that it is going to be his legacy, leftbehind after death.

Diana receives his Last Wish right before the gladiator match, basicallyasking her without being too explicit to take up the mission of finding theothers when Bruce is gone.

And even after all the preparation, Bruce’s ptsd still paralyzeshim on the most important battlefield of his life! Though in the end it turnsout to be a good thing, it doesn’t change the fact that if his opponent wasanyone but Superman, an episode like that would cost him his life. In short: Bruce’s ptsd was shown inits entirely, especially the parts that messed up people’s life. Not tomention, it was never framed as something to overcome in BvS film narrative;it is something Bruce learned to live with and would keep on living with it.