#i love having strong opinions abt things that don’t matter 😋

[toytle]

Hi! I love your art style it's like. Breathtaking. And your hcs on barry are some of my favourites of all time?

What do you think of "The Ballad of Barry Allen by Jim's Big Ego as an analysis of Barry's character?

are you asking or are you telling me 🤨 lol THANK YOU i put all my headcanon power into him <3

for the ballad, i love their song stress, and this isn’t bad at all as far as fansongs go. but there’s a reason i don’t include it in my barry playlist, and it’s ultimately bc it doesn’t fit my narrative haha

the song was made in 2003 and i haven’t read many comics before then, so idk how well it aligns w barry’s characterization prior to flashpoint, but i’m basing my playlist off post-flashpoint, so that’s where a lot of the differences will lie

for starters, the song only includes one half of barry’s relationship to his superspeed, and it’s important to me that a barry interpretation includes both sides of that coin. instead, it’s playing on the idea of the dark side of the hero fantasy, an inherently optimistic genre. which, fair, being a superhero sounds like a nightmare, but that angle is less novel to me when that’s the extent of the analysis (and i’m a little over the whole “i hate being a superhero” storyline in general, personally). the song is basically abt how much it would suck to have superspeed bc the world slows to a crawl and you’re left behind bc no one else can keep up w you. and it’s true, that is a very real setback! especially for someone like barry who’s already prone to self-isolation and time management issues! but what does the song actually have to say abt him as a character?

the thing is, barry isn’t a “i wish i wasn’t a hero” kind of guy. he’s a “could i be so strong [to give up the flash]? or do i love the thrill of these powers too much?” kind of guy. he’s a “knowing what i know now… if i could go back in time… maybe i would’ve been somewhere else the day lightning struck my lab and electrified those chemicals, ready and willing to forfeit a life of dodging deathtraps and battling villains… who am i kidding? there’s no going back. no do-overs. like everyone else, superheroes can only follow the path destiny has laid out for them, whatever lies ahead.” kind of guy. yes, barry is caged by his superspeed, but it would be misleading to not present it first and foremost as the very thing that frees him. it’s a double-edged sword that gives him purpose, and that freedom in obligation is what motivates him to keep going. as a wise man once said, “all you can do is go forward.” (“thanks.” “superman is pretty smart isn’t he.” “hm.”)

i think the real kicker for me was this lyric: “i’ve got time to think about the past… how my life was so exciting before i got this way.” my sincerest apologies to mr. allen, but he does not feel complete to me without his mother’s death or his father’s false imprisonment. this backstory contextualizes everything for me. his life was NOT exciting before his superspeed, it was lonely and full of escapism, either in his sci-fi/comics or his dedication to finding justice. i am of the belief that barry didn’t truly start living until he got his superspeed, over 2 decades of waiting around before he rly understood freedom and what it meant to live for himself. i get what they’re trying to do here, but this is what i mean when i say it feels like the song characterizes barry around the concept of his speed rather than how barry’s speed defines him as a person

ik i can’t expect a 4min song to include every aspect of a character’s timeline/development/nuance (esp before some of that even existed lol), but my issue isn’t that it doesn’t cover enough ground—it’s not bad that they had a theme and stuck by it, i actually love the lyrics from a speedster perspective. my issue is that i don’t think this is a good framing for barry’s character as a whole. for all his regrets and suffering, barry is optimistic to the point of denial. choosing this to be The theme to represent barry just. doesn’t feel like barry to me. it’s more like barry is the placeholder subject as an excuse to sing abt superspeed

if this was somehow less overtly a “BARRY ALLEN FANSONG” and maybe more metaphorical or even non-fandom, then it would be a dif situation and i might have dif opinions. at the end of the day, this has more to do w my pickiness than the quality of the song, and the fact that it even exists is so exciting for me as a barry allen enjoyer first, human second. but if you’re going to call smth a character study, i Will be getting my hopes up