#sunlitroom

06/05/22

starting fresh.

1736 hrs | 20th march, 2021 | day 87/100

mental health (or rather, the lack thereof) robbed of a solid hour today. anyway, manifesting coffee and sunlight for all ❤️

(making a new post so I don’t word vomit on op’s gifset)

Your tags on this set made me think about the Tetch virus essay that I’ve had floating around in my head for ages, so if you don’t mind, I’m going to use them as a starting point to meta all over the place.

'#the notion that the essence of Jim's personality was a desire to kill #was absolute nonsense'

You’re 100% right in that I don't believe that's the virus' effect on Jim at all. What's explicitly driving Jim the whole time he's infected is a desire to help, protect, and save, whether it’s Bruce, Lee, or Gotham itself. What the virus does though, is twist how far he’ll go to do that, how far he’s afraid to go in order to protect people.

Jim’s not killing people because he wants to or because he secretly enjoys it or whatever, he does it because they’re standing in the way of him finding the cure. Jim’s afraid of being a killer certainly, but he doesn’t (and wouldn’t) kill for killing’s sake, or for his own sake. He’d do it for others, and he’s afraid that it’s something he’ll do again.

Because it is exactly what happens with Galavan – Jim kills him to protect the city and the people he loves, having been convinced/convinced himself that it’s the only way to get justice. Jim didn’t kill Galavan in the line of duty, or in a split-second life-or-death moment. It was murder, whether the reasoning behind it was valid and understandable or not. It involved kidnapping and working with another known criminal. It was murder and it was wrong, and that is what Jim’s afraid he’ll keep doing if he’s not careful. He’s afraid that it will become acceptable to him if he lets it, if he allows himself to start on that slippery slope. Even on a smaller scale, Jim breaks rules, makes deals, crosses lines in the service of others, to protect others, and he’s afraid of what lines he might have to cross in the future, what he might have to, or what he might be willing to do.

And it is precisely what happens when he’s infected. The virus takes those fears, Jim’s overwhelming desire to protect and help others, and his willingness to do whatever it takes to do so, and twists them, heightens them. He fights it, because even infected he knows it’s wrong, he knows how much he doesn’t want to hurt people, but when he slips, when it’s too much to fight, you can see, the cost of protecting the city no longer matters. He’ll do anything. The virus strips away his restraint, his conscience, the majority of his morality until anyone who stands in between him and the mission is a threat, an obstacle that needs to be removed. His sole focus is to save the city (stop the bomb, find the antidote, cure Lee) and he’ll do whatever it takes to make sure that happens, even if it means killing. Jim doesn’t spend those episodes running around killing people on a whim. He doesn’t go tracking down the various people that have hurt him to get revenge or whatever, which you might expect if the reasoning was simply “Jim is a killer”. Instead, his only concern is the mission, and it’s only when he comes up against people who are standing in the way of that, that he goes over the edge.

And it’s not even about killing itself. Jim is willing to trade Oz to Ed, is ready to stab Tetch in the neck (and then tape up the wound, mind you) because it will help him find the cure. He doesn’t kill them, because it’s not about them, nor is it about Jim himself. It’s about saving the city, and if doing what he does helps that, then infected Jim will do it. He’ll do whatever it takes.