Jason Todd’s (post Crisis) Early Time With Bruce Is A Really Interesting Time Period Especially When

Jason Todd’s (post crisis) early time with Bruce is a really interesting time period especially when you look at the fandom’s response to canon.

Most people familiar with this bit of Comic history will tell you Jason was really good with academics and really invested in school and would be super involved in extra curriculars if he could, especially theater. And I don’t disagree but I would argue that this period of Jason’s life was a period of post traumatic thriving and that toward the end of his tenure as Robin, the C-PTSD he’d acquired throughout his childhood was catching up with him.

Like that thing with Filipe? His responses to the kiddie porn ring they ended up dealing with? The whole situation with Nocturna. The way he behaved in these situations it’s clear he’s been destabilized.

The role that at first seemed to be helping Jason is doing the exact opposite by forcing him into situations where he’s flooded with triggering stimulus in an uncontrolled environment which shoves him back into the trauma of his past. And Bruce is grappling with that. Because this worked for him. It worked for Dick. But he and Dick had singular traumatic experiences. Jason’s had an entire childhood of one trauma stacked on top of the other. Bruce has no idea how to handle him.

But I would argue further, that even if Bruce had not made Jason Robin. Even if Bruce wasn’t Batman and he brought Jason in just to give him a home, the trauma would have caught up once Jason felt safe. Because that’s what trauma does.

I don’t think Jason would be able to get a full ride to college. I think he’d start high school strong, then get wrapped in his trauma, graduate with a c-d average, take a few gap years, go back to community college and then get into the college of his dreams. Because education is really important to him, that much is clear, but trauma doesn’t just let go of you because you had a few good years.

Post Traumatic Thriving is not the same thing as recovery and it only lasts so long. Once that period is over, suddenly doing all the things you could then is a monumental, Sisyphean task. And I think it would eat Jason up even more because as the neglected kid, he’s good at things. He’s more competent than even his parents. His inability must be laziness. What’s wrong with him? Which I believe would start a spiral of self loathing that would take years to climb back out of, leaving him ‘behind’ in life. Forcing him to enter college late. Forcing him, ultimately, to realize he’s not in control of himself and undermining the sense of security he had once he moved into the manor.

Trauma isn’t neat. Even if Jason had never died, had never been Robin, his life still would have been messy and if he had managed to get that full ride, he’d have ended up loosing control in college and flunking out. Which would probably be worse. Like… let’s not reduce the difficulty that is living with so much bad shit on you slate, all this fucking baggage.

Let’s not flatten Jason into the Good Kid, the Good Student, the Valedictorian. It’s just as bad as flattening him into the Bad Kid, the Bad Student, the Street Rat.

Hard lives don’t just suddenly turn easy because you catch a few lucky breaks.