mm, very interesting... haven't read this one, but it sounds good...
ignorantly tossing in a few cents of my own...
i think dick, especially at 18, might have consciously, even, thought, 'gee, if bruce is a spoiled twit, who's gonna help me out when my folks die?' but he's just not that selfish. subconsciously, that might still play a factor, but dickie is really not the type to let others suffer for him.
i wonder if dick might have felt differently were nontragic!bruce not so much of a brat. if he felt like bruce was going to grow up to be a worthwhile contributer to society, he might have weighed the good that batman does vs. the good that bruce wayne, philanthropist does, but if he was thinking that all of bruce's good traits were inspired by that one shattering moment in his life...
also, dick is far more pragmatic than bruce is. ^_^ dick isn't deluding himself into thinking he can fight 'crime' as an abstract, nor does he think that he can clean up an entire city, and leave it, one day, free of all 'bad' people. he's pragmatic enough, in fact, to understand that you have to suffer in life sometimes. i think, given the same opportunity, he likely would have said 'no.' i think he's explicitly stated in canon at some point (don't remember where) that as much as he wishes he had his parents still, he loves his life, and he really wouldn't change much.
that's the key, tho, isn't it? dickie loves his life, not all the time, but he loves what he does, and even if he is driven (differently, but still...) to do the mask thing, he's not bitter about it. he enjoys being him. bruce would never be able to feel that way, even on his best day, so he would feasibly make the choice to watch the world slip away, if he could just recapture what he lost.
interesting stuff. (sorry for blathering in your journal...)
no subject
ignorantly tossing in a few cents of my own...
i think dick, especially at 18, might have consciously, even, thought, 'gee, if bruce is a spoiled twit, who's gonna help me out when my folks die?' but he's just not that selfish. subconsciously, that might still play a factor, but dickie is really not the type to let others suffer for him.
i wonder if dick might have felt differently were nontragic!bruce not so much of a brat. if he felt like bruce was going to grow up to be a worthwhile contributer to society, he might have weighed the good that batman does vs. the good that bruce wayne, philanthropist does, but if he was thinking that all of bruce's good traits were inspired by that one shattering moment in his life...
also, dick is far more pragmatic than bruce is. ^_^ dick isn't deluding himself into thinking he can fight 'crime' as an abstract, nor does he think that he can clean up an entire city, and leave it, one day, free of all 'bad' people. he's pragmatic enough, in fact, to understand that you have to suffer in life sometimes. i think, given the same opportunity, he likely would have said 'no.' i think he's explicitly stated in canon at some point (don't remember where) that as much as he wishes he had his parents still, he loves his life, and he really wouldn't change much.
that's the key, tho, isn't it? dickie loves his life, not all the time, but he loves what he does, and even if he is driven (differently, but still...) to do the mask thing, he's not bitter about it. he enjoys being him. bruce would never be able to feel that way, even on his best day, so he would feasibly make the choice to watch the world slip away, if he could just recapture what he lost.
interesting stuff. (sorry for blathering in your journal...)