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bigskydreaming · 4 years ago

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Lets imagine bruce is well written and in character as a good parent a while Do you think Dick would have the same abandoment inssues? If so, when do you think he developed it?

So, this is my main gripe with both a lot of the Bruce is a Good Dad stuff and the stuff that uses the fact that Dick loved his first parents to like, keep him from embracing/wanting Bruce to be his actual dad while at the same time not actually ACTING like Dick had any parental influences or issues beyond just Bruce.

Because Dick Grayson, even absent Bruce ever doing ANYTHING wrong while raising him EVER....is yes, absolutely STILL going to have abandonment issues.

Because he’s still someone whose parents were murdered when he was young, was taken AWAY from the home he was comfortable and familiar with and everyone else he knew and loved (which, even though THEY didn’t actually have a choice about him getting to stay, is still the kind of thing that absolutely can lead to abandonment issues in a child, because that distinction is one that requires a level of objectivity and awareness that just isn’t REASONABLE to expect a child that age and that traumatized to internalize)....

And whether you go with the juvie origin or just he was in an orphanage at first, like....regardless, he was very definitively cast into an uncaring system where UNTIL he ended up with Bruce PERMANENTLY....it would have been abundantly clear to a child as bright as he was that like....he was on his own, basically. None of these adults genuinely gave a fuck about him. He had, in comparison to his previous life of responsible, caring and PRESENT adults all around him....been abandoned.

Like, Dick was ALWAYS going to have massive abandonment issues, IMO, because its like right there on every page of his backstory.

And this is where we get into my gripe with a lot of the Bruce is a Good Dad stories....

Because its not that he can’t be, like I’m always saying. And its not that he isn’t ever, and its not that plenty of people don’t write him that way....

BUT.

When they do....there’s a HUGE tendency to just gloss over the likely ‘hard parts’ of Dick’s transition into Bruce’s life. At most he has some nightmares, where Bruce is perfectly adept at comforting him, and like. That’s not realistic, and it grossly undervalues the actual trauma Dick must have experienced....

FOR BRUCE’S BENEFIT.

Like what I mean is....a lot, a LOT of the stories about Dick as a young kid, when its just him, Bruce and Alfred, like....rather than an honest assessment of what that must have looked like, it feels like a lot of the time Dick’s written to be like....a prop, who really is only there to SHOWCASE Bruce being a good dad, and look how good he is with this poor orphaned child, y’know?

And its not that I think its intentional on peoples’ part, its just that thing I’m always talking about where people are so USED to seeing Dick in terms of how he’s CONVENIENT for various stories or plots or roles or dynamics....

And thus in the process, completely overlooking him as a CHARACTER rather than a means to an end.

I’d argue that any story about Dick as a young child new to Wayne Manor, that’s centered around HIM, is going to look dramatically different from any story about Dick as a young child new to Wayne Manor that’s centered around Bruce as a new dad/guardian.

Even - and especially - just in terms of how Dick himself is written behaving.

Because he’s a traumatized, grieving orphan with yes, MASSIVE abandonment issues, and every reason TO have them.

He’s not just going to have the occasional nightmare. He’s going to be moody. He’s going to have trust issues. He’s going to test boundaries. He’s going to need a lot of reassurance. He’s going to be upset at times without even knowing WHY. He’s going to be upset about the fact that he’s so often upset at all, cuz he just MISSES being happy and wants to go back to that but its not that easy.

He’s just NOT going to automatically or easily transition back into this laughing, happy little sprite of a kid who dotes on Bruce and is a testament to what a good parent he is.

Yes, I actually do believe that Bruce and Dick’s early relationship was great.

But that doesn’t mean it was SMOOTH.

It doesn’t mean Bruce never fucked up - not because he’s a Bad Parent, but simply because he was a NEW parent, who wasn’t even really thinking of himself in those terms yet, and he was dealing with a grieving, untrusting, traumatized orphan who had GREAT parents to compare him to and would have been an issue at times for ANY parent to deal with......because he needed a lot of help, a lot of work, a lot of EFFORT.

And we rarely ever SEE that effort in fics. We don’t see the bumps, we don’t see Bruce making mistakes with Dick, specifically, even though there are tons of fics examining how Bruce might have misstepped and fucked up with Jason in the early days with him.

We just see....Bruce being a great parent, as evidenced by what a great effect he had on Dick, who’s this great kid, and there’s no reason it should or would ever have been otherwise.

And past that, if you want to KEEP Bruce being a good parent as Dick ages....

You have to maintain the awareness - HIS awareness - that abandonment issues as deeply rooted (due to the trauma that instilled them) as I believe Dick’s must be....like, they’re never FULLY going to go away.

And that’s something a good parent absolutely needs to be cognizant of at ALL points in their son’s life....

Which is what makes the instances of Bruce firing Dick, kicking him out of the house after NTT #55, or just not contacting or reaching out to him the whole time Jason lived with him or even notifying him of Jason’s presence in their family now or REASSURING Dick that he was still considered family even though his eighteenth birthday had come and gone without a word from Bruce about the fact that Dick’s wardship legally expired that day and past that point they had literally nothing visibly connecting them any longer, not even steady communication or presences in each other’s lives....

This is PRECISELY why these issues bug me so much, as do the tendency to try and make them out to somehow be Dick’s fault or him being difficult or whatever, because no.

This is just Dick, a survivor of massive trauma of his own, with huge abandonment issues and related insecurities....being....for all intents and purposes....ABANDONED AGAIN, this time by the very person who’d SAVED him from his initial time of abandonment and said I’m going to make sure you never go through that again.

And then....he made Dick go through it again.

And people try to act like this is DICK’S fault, like this isn’t something Bruce should have always been keenly aware was going to be a potential issue for him and it was up to HIM, as the one who’d freaking VOLUNTEERED to step up as Dick’s guardian and de facto parent, even if the latter wouldn’t be formalized for years to come....it was always on Bruce and no one else, to try and steer Dick AWAY from things and times and instances that might have triggered his abandonment issues and dumped him right back in that same pit of despair and hopelessness Bruce pulled him out of in the first place.

NOT STEER HIM RIGHT INTO IT.

THAT’S what so much of fandom gets wrong IMO, about writing Bruce and Dick’s dynamic, particularly the early one.

Dick is NOT secure in his standing in Bruce’s eyes, as the golden boy, the favored son. And he never was!

And he was never GOING to be, considering where he came from and how he came to be in Bruce’s life.

And you can’t just...dismiss that. And yet. People constantly do.

Because keeping the Bruce is a Good Dad narrative consistent is more important for them than acknowledging when this theme of abandonment runs through the CORE of Dick’s entire character and the vast majority of his stories. Its central to him, IMO.

And that’s NOT Bruce’s fault, not innately. Dick’s abandonment issues always predated him.

But it IS Bruce’s fault and responsibility when he feeds into those very issues or gives them reason or cause to flare up in Dick all over again.

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