#i say this as someone who likes alfred in all his terribad glory sometimes

[scintillyyy]

don't be fooled by alfred's snarkiness and/or pretense of disdain for vigilante life, that man is 100% also a vigilante in all but lack of code name, same as the rest of them. he is NOT a civilian side character or civilian life connector character, he is almost completely a vigilante life connector character.

leslie is a civilian life connector character. devlin davenport is a civilian life connector character. jack drake is a civilian life connector character. alfred, who has on multiple occasions dressed up as batman & once helped tim take down the joker, does shockingly little narratively to actually connect bruce to his civilian life outside of the occasional smarmy comment about bruce's lack thereof, unlike leslie who exists to connect bruce to what he can do for gotham as bruce wayne, not batman. but he is there to ensure tim stays connected to vigilante life/connect him to the batman part of bruce's life when he goes to boarding school with tim. you see what i mean.