#if alfred's problem is that he is an enabler but bruce's behavior is that of a nice non abusive father then ??

[laufire]

I never fail to roll my eyes when people say alfred is the one who put up jason's memorial in the case (I never fail to roll my eyes when people act like alfred, and not bruce, is the source of the bat clan's problems, period).

first of all, that memorial is painfully in-character for bruce, lbr. second of all, I'm gonna go blue in the face if I have to explain one more time that alfred has zero authority over batman-related matters (and a few others) in that household (bruce's household; the pater familias' property). third of all that was a throwaway moment written by geoff johns of all people (remember how he butchered jason's backstory with the teen titans), in a justice league cameo issue, where alfred was explicitly trying to get jason to look at bruce with better eyes, and thus likely to have lied out of his ass (iirc this is soon before bruce pulls the stunt of taking jason back to his place of death to trigger any repressed memories so. lol).

most importantly, remember batman: underd the hood? THEE jason todd run? issue 641 to be precise? how, after jason's identity (and living status) is confirmed, alfred asks bruce (because it is bruce's decision!) if wants him to take the memorial down? and bruce refuses because jason being back "doesn't change anything at all"?

[seekingxanadu]

On the issue of Alfred being a bad dad to Bruce, of Alfred enabling Bruce's bad behaviors:

I think the problem is modern Batman writers made the mistake of making Alfred a father figure to Bruce. An elderly employee can call his much younger perhaps-about-to-die employer "son" but that doesn't make them father and son. So when they get cute with the "aw Alfred is Bruce's papa" narrative, they end up making Alfred's character worse. Alfred's most consistent take has been that he is an employee and it is most visible with or around his interactions with Dick. Alfred seems to think of Dick as Bruce's employee. Again, it is a mentality from the 30s-40s when it was very natural for rich men to collect strays - I'll give you room and board, you will earn your keep by working in my land/business; to Alfred, Dick becoming Robin was to support Bruce's Batman in the field.

But modern Batman writers have woobified Bruce. He's not just the 35-40 year old wealthy businessman, scion of an old wealthy family, who has collected vulnerable youngsters around him and offered them a safe place. In the 30s and 40s, a 35-40 year old man was expected to be mature and a familyman. In the 90s and after, a 35-40 year old wealthy man isn't expected to be that anymore. Then again, it was the period that started to de-age Bruce. Because Dick, his first ward, was already an adult now.

So DC needed to make Batman younger and at least, deflect the idea of Bruce being a parental figure to a 20 year old man. So we started getting Alfred being Papa to Bruce, of Bruce and Alfred forming a family unit blurring lines of parent and employee. BUT Bruce was also the vanity projection of these Batman writers - they don't listen to their papas, so why would Bruce. Bruce was not Alfred's son, Alfred should know his place as employee. So we get Alfred written as just loyal employee who looks at Batman's allies as people serving Bruce. If Jason gets "a good soldier" plaque, Tim and Damian got Robin suits to just go backup Master Bruce already. And Dick?

Dick is a curious case with Alfred. Alfred clearly cares for Dick like a son. There is more familial closeness between Dick and Alfred than between Jason, Tim, and Alfred. Alfred has known Dick since he came to the manor as an 8 year old. It's a boy Alfred can claim to have raised- or at least, fed, cleaned, housed, medicated. Alfred knows Dick has Master Bruce's back in the field. In this regard, Dick is Alfred's extension. Alfred serves Master Bruce in his civilian life, Dick serves Master Bruce in the field. To be clear, I am assuming Alfred's thought process. Not Bruce's or Dick's. Sometimes, it feels like Alfred considers Dick another Wayne servant, equal to Alfred's rank.

All this rambling to say, I think Alfred is used as excuse to limit any blame that Bruce deserves for his bad decisions.

Just like some writers and stans make Dick apologise for Bruce's violence against him; we are now using Alfred as smokescreen to excuse Bruce's actions.

I am, by no stretch, saying Alfred is blameless. But Alfred is an employee, an old man probably very possessive of the Wayne scion who had only Alfred along during his growing years, and he is standoffish as any butler.

This is also why the idea of Bat "family" is so flawed. They are not a family. They are a clan of allies. They are a disparate set of individuals operating under the Wayne umbrella. Alfred is not Bruce's papa. Dick and Jason are not brothers. Their time in Wayne manor did not even overlap. Same with Damian and Jason, Damian and Tim. Damian and Dick mirror Dick and Bruce of 20 years ago and those two dynamics are that of a familial unit (though Bruce breaks the tie with Dick multiple times).

[farshootergotme]

https://www.tumblr.com/ruestheday/765956792656265216/one-of-the-biggest-lies-the-fandom-will-tell-you

Opinions on this post?

I'd say that I agree with what this person is saying. As much as I give Bruce shit for his parental skills (which are flawed and shouldn't be overlooked, don't get me wrong), we can say Alfred is partially one of the main reasons why Bruce is the way he is.

I won't say anything about "Alfred should've/could've taken Bruce to therapy" because then we gotta consider a lot of things about the decade when Alfred was introduced and his age in-universe, as Alfred might've not lived in a period in which therapy was widely accepted and even recommended. But I won't dwell too much on that.

Now, I don't think Alfred is necessarily an evil person, but he can be quite selfish and a coward when it comes to facing consequences (which he rarely gets, if ever).

When shit hits the fan, he's the first one to back out. Why should he be responsible? He's only a mere butler (until he goes and calls Bruce "his son").

He's always detached just enough from the situation that nobody will look at him when looking for someone to blame for a problem that Alfred was most likely involved in.

Bruce might be the Batman, but it's Alfred who works from the shadows and leaves the responsibility of his decisions to the rest.

Does he do this on purpose?

Hard to say. I think he's in a way aware of his cowardice and harmful tendencies, but he doesn't have an active intention of hurting others. However, lack of intention does not mean lack of action, and despite whatever he might feel or believe, he does many things that end up in someone's hurt and even death.

And don't many consider it, but to me it doesn't come as a surprise that Bruce is so emotionally constipated and an unavailable father when he never had someone to learn from about proper parental skills.

Bruce never knew where he stood with Alfred, and Alfred didn't help to make it clear. At first, Bruce was just his master. A responsibility left behind by his parents, but still with the authority to order around the person who's supposed to be his caretaker. And Alfred? We know how much of an enabler he is, but also how inconsistent he can be when it comes to letting Bruce get away with things. And how confusing that must've been for a child? To never have clear boundaries to respect, rules to follow and his behavior corrected.

Kids learn from habit and patterns, and I don't believe he'd see much of that with Alfred, who jumps from his role as a father to his position as a butler way too often for a young mind to fully comprehend. Add to that the fact Bruce already had a position as a rich kid, which would've led to even more people forgetting to set boundaries with him due to his influence.

Now it's not so weird to see him getting away with his toxic behavior towards his children instead of confronting his mistakes like a parent should, right? But I digress.

So, moving onto the next point: child soldiers.

The post you sent mentions Alfred's involvement in the later creation of Robins. But how can he normalize sending kids out there to fight a war that isn't theirs? Well, that's when you remember Alfred joined the army at quite a young age, and there he must've seen even younger kids working as soldiers. What are the chances he has a messed up view on what children should and shouldn't (have to) do?

Subconsciously, he must've internalized this idea of children fighting for their country, and when he saw Robin for the first time, it might've brought back that idea and so he allowed this child to fight for a city that was not even his yet. And then came Jason, then Tim, then Steph, Cass, Damian, Duke... They just kept coming, and Alfred kept pushing this idea.

Jason died? That's a shame, but war is unrelenting, and soldiers are expected to die. It doesn't mean the rest should stop fighting, right?

"Jason Todd, a good soldier".

On top of all that, Robin is good for Batman. Robin is the light Batman needs. Robin can help Bruce, his boy. His son. And who's Alfred if not a messed up man? He'll put the children at risk if it means helping the boy he failed to help before. And when he gets attached to said children, it'll be too late to try pull them out, and then they'll be just another repetition of what Batman came to be when he allowed Bruce to leave.

As for Julia Pennyworth, Alfred was separated from Marie—his then partner—due to war, and found out about Julia's existence only two years after she was born. Their relationship had been distant since then. Julia didn't know about Alfred, but he requested a friend to take care of her and kept sending money all the years to come after making his friend promise not to tell Julia about him, his real father. Why didn't he ever go to see her? That's because, according to Alfred, he was afraid to disrupt her life. But if I'm being honest, I think he also didn't feel ready for the responsibility. And when he became Bruce's guardian, he still was not ready, but Martha and Thomas were his friends, so there must've been a sense of responsibility and guilt influencing his decision.

To summarize, Alfred Pennyworth is an extremely flawed individual and he should not be absolved from any of his mistakes.

[bitimdrake]

Very unpopular opinion: I don't like Alfred. I can't handle the hypocrisy of canon and fanon treating him like he's some sort of angle while ignoring the bad stuff he's done and how he's an enabler, and that disconnect has him on the bottom of my ranking.

ohoho spicy. most unpopular opinions around here are still at least very popular among a small subgroup, but this is tasty, anon.

And you know what? I get it.

Alfred's an odd character narratively. He was surely never intended to be an enabler. He was a sort of "only sane man" snarky side character here to contrast with our lead, Batman, and point out all the ridiculous things Bruce did, but never have any true power to stop them.

Except. He does. Alfred's close relationship with Bruce, who values both his presence and his opinion, gives him a lot of power--and any modern version of the character, who was not just around since Bruce's childhood but very likely raised him for half of it, has even more.

So we ended up with this guy who is (Doylist) a side character and can't actually affect the story that much, but whose whole shtick is dryly pointing it stupid ideas and bad behavior. Which (Watsonian) leads to a man who is explicitly aware of all the bad stuff being done around him, and makes witty little comments, but doesn't actually do anything to stop it. And rarely even tries!

imo, Being an enabler is a core part of Alfred's characterization.

Which is one thing, and can be kinda entertaining, when what he's enabling is "man dresses like a bat to fight crime". Alfred, who pretends to be above it all and find it silly, but deep down believes in Batman despite himself and is just as crazy as the actual vigilantes? Lots of room to play.

But when what he's enabling is, say, his son-figure emotionally abusing his own kids, or putting overly high expectations on them, or kicking them out of the house...then it's a whole lot darker.

A lot of the fanon that turns Alfred into a perfect angel also turns Bruce into a good dad, avoiding that particular pitfall. But instead he gets treated as always knowing everything and always being liked by everyone, which (is boring as hell and) sends us right back to the "why isn't he doing anything??" problem whenever there is an issue that he is shown to definitely know about and know a perfect solution to, and yet...declines to solve it for some reason.

In the end, idk if I have a super strong opinion on Alfred overall. There are small ways to make him better or worse. But I do have a strong opinion that, damn, he is absofuckinglutely not perfect.

(Also, separately, you are so right about a disconnect being the most annoying thing about many characters. Most of my least favorite fictional characters are the ones who were blatantly favored by their creators and act stupidly/cruelly/whatever, but somehow get treated as the coolest and smartest anyway. Plus, who among us hasn't started to resent a character we were previously neutral about because of annoying fans?)

[whetstonefires]

new batman headcanon

So it occurred to me that, of course, part of Bruce’s dadfail is that his kids all desperately want him to notice them; they want to be acknowledged and appreciated and validated and assured of their value. And he does do that, but not as consistently as is often wished. Right?

My prevailing position has been that a lot of his failure in emotional availability can be attributed to Alfred’s weird, stoic butler-persona-always-on formal style of guardianship, and I still think that. Alfred wasn’t equipped to provide any significant emotional intimacy, and he modeled extremely unhealthy patterns of repression and avoidance.

(I love Alfred but seriously, even his habit of judging Bruce hard for letting the kids down and trying to cover his communication gaps vibes strongly of grandparent wanting to make up for all their mistakes raising the previous generation.)

But there’s this, too: I think Bruce often fails to meet that emotional need for validation because he doesn’t relate to it.

Now, some people headcanon that Bruce’s dad was never around because doctors are busy, which is fine, but I don’t; I firmly believe that the Waynes were the sort of people who fully appreciated the freedom their wealth gave them to shower their child in attention, because they didn’t have to spend any more time working than they damn well wanted to and they knew how lucky they were to have that.

So up until the age of eight (or twelve if you must) Bruce had two deeply involved attachment figures whom he loved and who adored him and responded to all his emotional needs, and validated him near-constantly.

And then they were gone. And he had Alfred, who wasn’t so emotionally available but was 100% invested in him. Who had no other commitments whatsoever.*

Post-Crisis, pre-Flashpoint canon showed that Bruce spent a lot of his tweens and teens actively shutting his guardians out. Because Alfred and Leslie weren’t his parents, and he couldn’t stand the thought of letting them replace them. And because they were rightfully worried about him, and wanted him to move through his grieving process and stop obsessing.

As Batman, Alfred is Bruce’s #1 enabler, and I’m pretty sure that’s a behavior developed in part around the fact that those are the only terms on which Bruce would let him have access to his life, growing up.

Bruce doesn’t entirely understand what his kids need from him because he has never experienced having a parent figure who doesn’t consider him their whole world.

When he was their age, he spent a lot of time trying to get his parent substitute to butt the hell out. So he gives them that.

We see that a lot in the form of how one of Bruce’s greatest gestures of faith in one of his kids is to suppress his control issues and let them handle a problem entirely on their own, with no support they don’t specifically ask for.

A lot of the time this is honestly heartwarming, but it’s also somewhat messed up and it has definitely been known to be interpreted not-as-intended, and fuel insecurities.

Bruce knows that as a parent he has to provide both emotional support and discipline, and that Batman-and-Robin complicates both those things. He knows he often fails to say the right things or pay the right kind of attention at the right moments, because he’s overcommitted and sometimes super bad at communicating and feelings. He feels bad about that, but he also is clearly not sure how to fix it, or even what he’s done wrong a lot of the time since he often does say the right things but it doesn’t seem to work for long.

Because he does not actually grasp the element of ‘emotional support’ that is just affirming on an ongoing basis not just that he loves and believes in his kids but that they are, regardless of their achievements, important and special and he’s invested in them.

Because that’s one thing he has never in his life had to doubt; he doesn’t realize it’s something that needs communicating. That it’s something someone could yearn for. It’s like air. He’s always taken it for granted.

And that’s why he provides it so damn inconsistently.

*(Because the Nu52 thing where Alfred abandoned a wife and kid in England makes 0 sense chronologically or economically, and -80 sense in character terms, so nope. Also have you noticed how many bastard children are being retconned legitimate lately? Wtf DC??? What decade am?)

[batricide]

cool, okay, back on my bullshit with all my bat feelings. an anon asked if i’ve done this meta and i haven’t, so here it is.

so. there’s tension between damian and bruce from the get-go in injustice, and we’re never really told why. if we take cues from the game (though that entire scene doesn’t make sense) then it’s because bruce didn’t save jason, which fits in with my reordered robin theory in which tim and jason were switched, and jason has only recently died.

and damian? was close with jason. his death is the start of the crack of his relationship with this father, and every time bruce doubles down on his beliefs he shoves damian further away. 

damian is really empathetic. it’s easy to miss because he hides it underneath layers upon layers of armor. bruce’s lack of restraint or limitations on what he’s willing to do to someone horrifies him.  injustice’s version of bruce is someone who truly believes that the ends justify the means - which means he’s apt to do some heinous things to people until they see his side of things. installing viruses in cyborg, kidnapping hawkgirl and replacing her, beating people within an inch of their life - all of it is fine to him so long as they’re not dead.

but it’s not fine to damian. damian is afraid of his father. which is why he doesn’t go home until after he’s gotten the superpills. its important to note he’s not going with the intent to fight. if he was going to do that, he wouldn’t be doing this:

or respond like this:

or this:

he’s here to make amends, or at least try to. he still loves his father and he wants to be forgiven, this is something that will carry on ten years later in injustice 2. damian wants to come home. he comes to try to talk to his father honestly. but he’s terrified to do so and took the pill as a means of being able to defend himself from his father if it came down to it. 

damian is a highly trained fighter, but hes also a tiny thirteen year old boy who knows he can’t overpower a man twice his size and weight.

and bruce? gives him bullshit.

bruce’s entire argument really hinges on ‘you, my thirteen year old son, didn’t take my side in this argument’. because, i have to put this in bold, the league was not executing the criminals they were removing from arkham. they were just transferring them to a more secure facility. and as far as damian sees it, bruce doesn’t like it because it’s removing an element of his control.

it harkens back to the conversation bruce and dick have in the batplane. that bruce doesn’t talk to people, he doesn’t explain himself. he’s either right or you’re wrong and he won’t explain himself. he’ll just stop talking and leave until you agree.  there is no option where he sits and listens to an open and honest dialogue, no scenario where he entertains that he might be in the wrong or maybe things aren’t black and white.

on prime earth damian had to bend over backwards to prove to bruce that he wasn’t a monster. it was damian who spent months digging through the sewers for martha’s pearls. damian who had to prove he was capable of loving titus. damian who constantly had to show that he was capable of empathy and thinking of others - bruce did none of the heavy lifting in that father-son relationship, he made damian climb the entire hill and still continues to put little effort into it.

and injustice bruce is even less empathetic and expressive than prime bruce.  

which is why you get a confrontation like this:

this goes beyond dick’s accident and ties back into what clark said about bruce not tending to his son’s who are grieving because they lost friends in metropolis.  damian’s fed up with never meeting bruce’s expectations. but more than that, he’s fed up with his feelings coming second to bruce’s. 

and like bruce, he sits on them until they explode. but he does his best to convey his needs and what he wants and when he can’t handle something, and when people ignore them, that’s when he explodes.

that doesn’t justify any of the violent outbursts, but he was raised in a really unhealthy environment and was thrown into another one where negative feelings are dealt with by kicking the shit out of bad guys. not sitting down and sorting through them.

damian also has a thing about being touched. which, tying back into why he felt comfortable coming back here, probably ties in to his expectation that he’s going to get the lights knocked out of him. it’s what would happen in the league - we see that in the brief glimpses of how talia parents him and athanasia. toeing out of line is grounds for getting the shit beaten out of you, and while things should be different here. they aren’t.

and from how bruce reacts he’s not wrong to expect it.

so alfred nearly gets squished and damian runs over to him. and alfred’s first question is to ask for bruce. he apologizes and he means it.

and that seems to be grounds for damian to  just tap out and go.

damian deduces that hawkgirl isn’t hawkgirl, blows some stuff up, it’s a bad road. bruce calls after him because i honestly think he wanted to try to talk to him - not to have a serious heart to heart with him about what just happened, or what happened in arkham, but to try to manipulate him into taking bruce’s side. this is a theme moving forward. bruce will dangle forgiveness in front of damian, but only when it benefits him and can be used to control him.

i’ve read this issue like a million times but this is the first time i realized that this is where he takes dick’s suit. i think this was his way of telling bruce that he didn’t deserve to use dick’s memory the way he uses his parent’s death - as justification for what he does.  but damian also doesn’t do anything with it. he puts it in a box and doesn’t look at it, just shuts it away and moves forward with his life until dick passes the mantle to him in an attempt to steer him back on the right path.

so.

bruce is angry at damian for dick’s death but he won’t admit it. injustice’s bruce doesn’t really do feelings in the open, he just doubles down on his belief set and takes anyone who doesn’t agree with him as a traitor. he instead uses damian’s “betrayal” - ie, damian standing with clark instead of him - as justification for icing him out. that way he can ignore all the people who have reminded him time and time again that it was an accident.

he’s also really, really violent. the grab he makes for damian is really ugly and damian’s hesitance to come home and even try to make amends is explained right then and there. 

bruce loves his son. but bruce also can’t stand that damian won’t do what he says. so from here on out, bruce will ignore damian unless it benefits him.

alfred clearly loves damian and damian loves him fiercely in return, but alfred is blind to a lot of the terrible shit bruce does out of parental love.  he enables a lot of bruce’s shitty behavior without seeming to realize it. 

 if they’d just had an argument,  without someone there to take bruce’s side over damian’s, things might’ve gone better because at least they’d air it out - but it’s more likely bruce would’ve gotten fed up and walked away.

damian himself is a mess and this entire encounter just drives him further away from his father and further down the path he’s walking, because he’s just burned that bridge in a blaze of shitty parenting and borderline child abuse. the next issue damian’s discarded any notion that bruce is a good person or justified in anything he does. damian is done trying to reconcile with him because he knows it’s never going to happen, he’s seen how bruce sees him and wholeheartedly rejects it.

this isn’t to say that damian is a saint. he’s a very flawed, very broken person who went from one abusive parental situation to another, to another and he’s got bad habits from all of them, many of which he isn’t aware of or doesn’t think are a problem. because talia and bruce were controlling and physically abusive and were very upfront about the kind of people they are, whereas clark hides all his darkness behind that boyscout smile and telling damian he���s good and worthy of people loving him.

okay i think i’m done with words.