Some Thoughts On Dick's Parents, Away From The Rose-tinted Glasses.

Some thoughts on Dick's parents, away from the rose-tinted glasses.

[Obligatory ‘new to comic canon’ warning!]

I was working on writing up my thoughts on young!Dick in general, when I kept getting stuck in my thoughts around how there are particular personality traits he likely already possessed before coming into Bruce’s care. This led me down the Grayson family route, which is always interesting. In everything I have consumed so far, this is always portrayed as a very loving relationship that hasn’t really been explored in much depth in canon. Which leads me to…

I completely understand why Dick loves his parents so deeply and don’t doubt at all that they loved him, but there is also this interesting selfishness with them that I find difficult to ignore.  I can’t help but keep coming back to this: they included Dick in an act where they chose not to have a net.  A position where, if he makes a mistake, it could mean his death or (probably worse for Dick) the death of his parents. This isn’t a situation that occurred out of necessity, his parents chose to do this: they could have chosen to use a net when they started involving Dick in their act, but they didn’t.  They could have chosen to wait until Dick was older and more able to make a call about what risks he could and couldn’t take, but they didn’t.  When the options were to adapt their act to protect their son or to keep it as they wanted to, they chose the latter – and I would say because the act wouldn’t be the same if they did.  I very much doubt it’s because they didn’t realise the risk involved, and rather that it wasn’t enough to get them to make changes. 

And so, you have an 8-year-old Dick Grayson who has likely been training for years under the knowledge that if he doesn’t get things perfect – if he makes a mistake – he and his parents could/would die (and it would be his fault).  You have an 8-year-old Dick whose parents are willing to risk his well-being for the ‘greater good’, and he sees this as normal – this is how families are, the payoff is worth it. You have an 8-year-old Dick who likely doesn’t value his own life quite as much as he probably should, because his parents didn’t exactly appear to, either.  You have an 8-year-old Dick Grayson dealing with adult responsibilities and adult consequences. 

This is all drummed into Dick at some level before Bruce even enters the picture. It helps explain why young!Dick struggles to understand why he shouldn’t be able to fight at Bruce’s side – his parents included him in situations that could (and did) turn deadly, and they didn’t feel the need to include a physical or metaphorical safety net.  This is going to sound really harsh, but I think it’s also kind of true: they didn’t value Dick enough to. The act was more important, and the show must go on.

I don’t doubt at all that his parents loved him.  In some ways, it’s even worse that this comes from a place where there is likely love because it gets as deeply ingrained as those healthier, positive parental elements.  However. There is an interesting prioritising of their act over Dick, and I’d love to see this explored more.  Less the perfect, untouchable parents and more the actually somewhat morally grey parents who had both a positive and negative impact on their son.

(or: we really throw the cat amongst the pigeons and hypothesize that the reason they don't use a net with Dick is because it is part of his preparation for the Court of Owls, but that is not simply taking off the rosy glasses but smashing them completely!)