you know, i was actually really mad at dick for the whole lazarus bruce thing, and im surprised i havent seen anyone talk about it
considering how absolutely shit he was to tim about wanting to use the lazarus pit to bring back stephanie, kon and his dad, and that he literally physically fought him about it until he had been forced into making the decision he didnt want to make, the fact that he just turns right around and goes on a mission to resurrect bruce without telling anyone is the most hypocritical fucking thing.
its like he went, “yeah tim, i know that youre hurting from these people in your life that died, but the lazarus pit is EVIL and you should NEVER use it. im going to give you the choice, but only if you make the RIGHT one aka the one i agree with. but its your choice! but theres only one option.”
and then when bruce died, he was like, “well yeah, i know i said that about the people you wanted to bring back, but this is BRUCE, and I CARE about him. i have to bring him back, because hes my father, nevermind that you wanted to bring back your father just as much and i beat the shit out of you for it.”
people really easily give dick too much credit. hes been shitty to jason, hes been shitty to tim, hes been shitty to damian, but because hes always so full of hope and joy and stuff, they ignore it because its like the other people are wrong for… not being optimistic? what the hell is that? its great that hes optimistic and full of love, but not everyone else is, and they shouldnt be looked at as wrong or bad or less than for that. and he may have been a much much better partner for damian than bruce, but he also ignored him when he was upset and cracked jokes when damian really needed him, and with jason, hes been consistently on bruces side ever since he came back. i love dick, hes a great character, but people need to stop giving him credit where it isnt due.
I definitely remember ranting about that arc with people, because - seriously, Dick? I think it’s another matter of Morrison only caring about certain continuity, to be honest. There are definitely other instances of Dick being a hypocrite, though. He’s so very, very far from perfect. (Which was always one of his issues, really. He’d like to be perfect, he thinks he ought to be, but he’s just as human as everyone else.)
Dick’s problem with his brothers is that as much as he loves them he doesn’t really understand them at all. I think this is why Damian can be as good for Dick as the other way round - he can force him to learn to look from other perspectives. There’s a lot Dick has failed to do for Damian, though, which is why the kid really needs other adults in his life too. People like Steph, who see him as a kid first. A kid who needs to know how to play. (I am still not over the idea of Damian and Kory meeting and bonding over suppressing their ruthlessness and acclimating to a new culture and finding a new family.) And really, Dick, half your friends have kids. SET UP A PLAY DATE OR SOMETHING.
Dick’s treatment of Jason post-resurrection is…really difficult for me to align with my interpretation of Dick, honestly. Writers don’t seem to care that Dick cared and grieved for Jason, that he resented the fuck out of himself for not being there for him, that by nature he’s a compassionate, forgiving person who wants people to be happy. He shouldn’t just be writing Jason off as a horrible villain and beating the shit out of him every chance he gets.
EXCELLENT META ON DICK’S FLAWS I LOVE TALKING ABOUT DICK’S FLAWS (sorry dick ilu baby)
i guess it’s easy to make dick out to be this perfect guy because the rest of his family is so fucked up by comparison. it’s harder to see, but there’s really a lot of him messing up. he learns from his mistakes, though, usually, which is great—he just doesn’t always know they’re mistakes, and someone else has to hit him over the head with it.
i totally agree with sage. dick loves his family, but he sucks at understanding them. dick just…the people he’s close to, he can’t get inside their heads and see from their perspectives. he can be closed-minded and self-centered.
another thing with tim—the whole taking robin from him deal. he didn’t realize that it was the only thing tim had left, he didn’t realize how tim would take it, because dick doesn’t understand tim and sometimes he thinks he has the right to make decisions like that.
he was also pretty shitty to babs and roy—and kory, too, at times. babs because he couldn’t get over her as batgirl and couldn’t realize she’d moved on, kory because he was a possessive jerk, and roy because of…a lot of stuff. it all stems from this childishness, this self-centeredness where he doesn’t quite realize he’s doing, doesn’t realize the effect it has on other people.
i think that could explain part of why he’s treated jason so badly—he doesn’t understand what’s going on with him, he feels guilty and confused and jason’s deliberately provocative and stirring up difficult shit for dick on purpose, and dick doesn’t…know how to react. i definitely think dick should have tried to reach out to him, though, and when that failed i could have seen him retreating to jason’s lashing out. dick can make excuses for himself and his own behavior just as much as anyone else—i wouldn’t be surprised if he treated jason badly because of his own guilt.
well, but he doesnt always learn from his mistakes though… he has yet to learn from several of them. he hasnt learned how to treat damian, or tim, or jason, he still acts like that. babs too, he has never really learned that babs has moved on, he always talks about how shes his batgirl, and fandom thinks its really cute, but its actually pretty fucked up. also i think the jason stuff is like… i think bruce told him like, “jason is back and hes a supervillain” and dick trusts bruce so hes just been on his side without really considering what jason is about now? and jason doesnt think he has to explain himself especially with what explaining himself got him during the under the hood arc. its like, in that outsiders issue, its like jason is resigned to being alone but he still wants to help dick out because he misses him and hasnt seen him since he came back, but he knows its not going to be like it was before, so he puts up this front like it doesnt bother him, and dick has his guard up and takes jasons provocation as bruce being right, that hes just some villain now.
i dont know, i get really tired of fandom forgiving dick for any of this? or saying it was just a mistake, or making the people who upset him or dont want his brand of optimism… seem like theyre wrong? and i dont really want to argue about it
I’m sorry if I came off as excusing Dick, or trying to undermine your position on it. Dick’s way of seeing the world isn’t the end all be all, and he fucks up regularly, and more people (and writers!) ought to acknowledge that.
I think a factor is that a lot of people are considering him in comparison to Bruce, and that’ll make most anyone look good.
Well, and his flaws aren’t always written/intended as flaws (see - him sometimes seeing Babs primarily as Once Batgirl, or treating Jason as just another villain, because that’s also what the bloody text is doing) so it can be harder to see them.
All this.
Plus, as much as Dick remains my favourite character I embrace and not derive the fact he has flaws. As a writer I hate characters that are bereft of flaws, it’s what makes the difference between a character and a Mary Sue/Gary Sue. The Bat-family is filled with characters with issues, because…well, look at the source.
It’s also a cause for annoyance with me when people state bluntly: “I hate Superman because <insert obvious reason here>”
People expect something from Big-Blue that they’re never gonna get. Look back at his origin. Clark has always been a sort of jerk, a good jerk, but a jerk nevertheless. He has a vicious temper and as I’ve pointed out frequently, he is blatantly bi-polar, jumping from happy to vicious in mere seconds.
There is a reason these superhero people, with all their failings and faults, use their abilities for good, because they know darkness, they have felt the need for retribution and they know anger.
They know how to put aside this anger and their failings and all their faults because they have learnt how to move past these things and channel those emotions and feelings into an ability for “greater good.”
I don’t think any one character deserves derision because they have failing and faults that are not constantly addressed; people should instead admire the fact that they do enough admirable and decent things that others are able to look past their failings.
That is the reality of both real life and fiction, we learn from our mistakes and we move on and try to do better.
(Sorry if I’m sounding preachy, I just hear these things so often and I’ve spent a lot of time contemplating my answers.)
[Cringes and waits for the barage of “How are you defending him when this is fact” and “I agree with you here but…”]
