#catholicism symbolism and jason todd | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

glitter-stained · 11 days ago

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But while I don’t share the vision on catholic!jason todd, I do love to consider his character in the context of, if not Catholicism, at the very least Christianity (the mythos, the lore, the themes) as an extradiegetic framework for analysing his character and his relationships, if that makes sense?

I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned that before (/s) but I like the art in Red Hood!Lost Days, I think it’s an amazing example of comic book storytelling and how utterly incomplete it is if you only base yourself on the narrative and what is explicitly said and shown when so much of what we see of the character’s worldview and perspective and what the artist is telling us about the character comes from colours, symbolism, etc. Lost Days, amongst other great stuff, does have a lot of very blatant Christian symbolism, it feels a lot like a dark retelling (see the cover art of Talia holding Jason in her arms like the Pitia, Jason’s posture when falling in the pit, etc. And on top of that, in Lost Days, we also have some of the chapter titles that I think reflect that.) Anyway so there are some angles I really love with that:

-Jason as a christic figure (which again, is supported by the text), puts himself in a confrontation with Bruce, who he idealizes so much to me it’s clear Bruce is God, and the Joker, basically the incarnation of chaos and evil incarnate in dc, which I would definitely see as the figure of the devil; so we have a trinity (and both UTH and Lost Days in particular insists on the importance of this trinity) but it’s not the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit… it’s the Father the Son and the Devil, and the Son is Doubting and the Son is asking the Father to break his Holy Law. (I like to visualize the Holy Spirit as Robin, and the issue being that Robin died so the Holy Spirit is lost, the Devil won over the Holy Spirit and this is why the trinity is unbalanced.) It’s a very fun way to view that triad imo and especially to analyse the sentence “And now the Son has lost his Father”.

-I need to make a bigger post about the concept of ordalia (which apparently translates to “trial by ordeal”? => to verify), but Bruce as God is so interesting to analyse the confrontation at the end of UTH as ordeal. Basically ordalia comes from the old practice of determining a person’s innocence via a dangerous situation, and depending on the religious context it was often considered as “put the judgement in the hand of God”. You know the “trial by fire” thing? Basically the idea, at least in Christian western-european middle-age where I heard of that practice, was that you’re gonna risk burning yourself (what I knew is for example you’re gonna grab a fistful of burning embers with your hand and if a miracle happens and your hand doesn’t get burnt, then that means God has intervened to prove your innocence (which is, btw, the origin of the phrase “meter/poner la mano al fuego” “putting one’s hand to the fire”, idk if there’s an English translation for that one? Reverso tells me it says “to eat one’s hat”.) Anyway in psychology, ordalia has a different meaning nowadays when we use it to refer to understand the psychology of risk-taking (and esp why it spikes in teenage years). In this context, ordalia refers to putting your life in the hands of a vague, powerful entity (the nature of which depends on the system of beliefs of the person: faith, luck, life, etc.), which includes but is not limited to God, and let it basically decide if you live or die (that’s something we often see in dangerous games such as train-dodging or breathing games). This functions as both a reinforcer of a sentiment of immortality and the sentiment that this powerful entity decided you deserved to die, which people with self-esteem/suicidal ideation issues consider a confirmation/ an out to their ambivalence on whether they should live or die. This is, btw, why Bruce is talking about how Jason is being reckless and suicidal because his mental health is crumbling, and Jason, after taking a super dangerous risk on the field, replies “life is a game”, those mechanisms of both “I test whether I should live and get confirmation that I deserve to live” and “I’m reevaluating that the danger wasn’t that big/I get a sense of immortality from having survived that risky experience” interacting. I’ll let you ponder the implications of a teenager getting brutally murdered and then brought back to life through opaque (to them) otherworldly means, who views his father as some kind of extremely powerful, amazing entity capable of anything if only he would just do those things, orchestrating a test and telling them to choose who dies between them and their killer, through that frame of ordalia and Bruce as God. And then the Father killing the Son. And the Son being brought back, again. Truly fascinating.

-Bruce and Jason both want to be a saviour but disagree on what a saviour means which I find so fascinating, especially since UTH is, in parts, a criticism of Bruce’s philosophy and a story about the philosophical conflict between deontology and utilitarianism (I maintain that the final confrontation is a trolley problem that refuses to allow you to disregard the emotional, empathetic and personal dimension of morality), which makes a catholic analysis so coherent since the philosophy of deontology as developed by Kant in its historical origins is so inherently linked to catholicism.

-also big fan of the analysis of original sin in the context of Jason’s parentage and/or Garzonas’ death, esp in the context of Starlin’s, um, doubtful morals, and the plot of UTH being a direct response to Starlin’s run and being entirely about Jason putting Bruce (God’s) judgement (law) of what is right and wrong (sin) in question.

-also big fan of the concept of religious doubt as an analysis for the mutual doubt that fragilized the relationship between the Father and the Son (Jason doubting Bruce’s reliance on the system and his ethics in dumpster slasher and diplomat’s son leading to Jason doubting that Bruce would help him in aditf, and Bruce doubting whether or not Jason pushed Garzonas in diplomat’s son) and how this doubt fragilizing the relationship between the two leads to the Devil winning against the Holy Spirit (and it’s so interesting that Bruce has and keeps a monument of the dead robin, because Jason came back but Robin didn’t, the Son is there but the Holy Spirit is lost and that’s the difference between the doubt and death and resurrection of Jesus and the death and resurrection of Jason.)

you may have answered this before but: thoughts on the catholic jason hc?

Alright so my answer is in two parts. Me personally, I have a complex, very ambivalent relationship with Catholicism as a practice (I won’t go in the details because that’s personal but it’s simultaneously a large frame that very heavily influenced my life, some elements that I in parts worked to deconstruct and a lifestyle I was kept removed from -very vague but yeah, a lot of complex emotions). It’s not something that I’m necessarily interested in exploring with Jason’s character (there are certain types of catharsis that you get through different characters, and I don’t necessarily like the emotional freedom I find in my fandom experience wrt Jason to be associated with the emotions and frame I associate to Catholicism, if that makes sense? So I don’t personally like catholic!JT as in, the headcanon of Jason being catholic, esp in practice, but also like totally respect your vision, the way you experience and conceptualize the culture belongs to you (generally speaking I don’t tend to consider headcanons to be fundamentally bad or wrong since it’s a very personal way to experience the story, even if it contradicts canon, I’m like it’s a confrontation of your personal experience with your idea of canon (ie the comics you’ve read or not, etc.) that I don’t have access to, I don’t know what’s going on in your head, so I try not to judge headcanons, just evaluate whether I share them or not. There are some exceptions where I will make assumptions based on the hc and bear a judgement on that, ie if someone is hc-ing poc characters as white, though I still try to tone that down (hey what do I know maybe they saw the way the character is drawn in comics (esp with how art often tends to whitewash characters). Anyway, I digress but yeah, fully respect the headcanon.)

#red hood lost days #under the red hood #jason todd meta

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