Bruce Wayne (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
chiroptophobic) wrote2012-10-21 12:40 am
chiroptophobic) wrote2012-10-21 12:40 am
HMD - How's My Driving?
You know what to do. Comments screened, IP logging off, anonymous on.
You know what to do. Comments screened, IP logging off, anonymous on.
Re: Response to hmd 18/09/15
Now that would never happen with Gordon. Gordon to Bruce is a different animal. Gordon was the one person, in all the chaos and tumult and noise surrounding the Wayne's shooting, that offered Bruce any genuine compassion, and he held onto that throughout his life. He sought Gordon out (I want to mention here that his use of secret identities was supported during this section of the novelisation of Batman Begins, and yes I did marry the Matches ID across from comics canon, but that was as a personal nod toward it, not any subversion) and decided that he could trust him alone out of all the police in the GCPD. Gordon has never let Bruce down, and even when he does resort to guns they are a subsidiary measure and not the meat of the plan - for example when he fakes his own death during the parade in TDK, there are snipers in place but they are not the meat of his plan. Furthermore he listens to his insight and expertise, while Olivier was combative in their interactions, regardless of whether she knew she was speaking to Batman or not.
In short, the middle and both ends of it is that Olivier has never done anything to make him believe that she is anything but a military officer holding a civil position; one who would feel like discharging a rocket launcher at any kind of import affair might be something necessary, who is freakishly prepared even by his own standards, and thinks nothing of putting weapons (okay, tranquilisers in this case, but she had live arms available) in the hands of just anyone. When I wrote that Gordon would never do such a thing, I was encompassing all of this, but it's definitely my bad for shorthanding it into my smalltext without showing more context. For this I blame the aforementioned lots of Batman in a short time, and most of it has been planned and implemented only over the last few days with haste off the back of the crit issued above, that nothing was being done yet to resolve the Crane situation. I haven't (even at this point) had a lot of sleep, cramming it all in to fit the narrow time frame.
Regarding the use of guns: despite his acceptance at allowing police officers to use them, even arming his own vehicles, I do believe that this is a necessary effect of the world and time he lives in. They exist and he had to deal with their existence; that doesn't mean he has to like it. The fact is that the longer arcs of Bruce's development as a person come from gun related issues (the shooting of his parents/almost shooting their killer himself/walking into Falcone's club and pointing that same gun at him). Guns are no doubt something that exists as a trigger for him, but it is beyond that the power that holding a weapon gives someone over someone else that he studies. At the summit of his training with Ducard he is asked to kill, and it's not with a gun, and he recognises the power that he's been given, and the power lost, just as he recognised it when he was the one without power, and Falcone didn't need a gun to overcome him. None the less, his longest arcs, before that realisation, were directly gun related, and sent him on long, low, emotional searches for himself, damaged his relationships with other people and distanced himself from who he had been and the world that knew him.
You bring up that he's not against killing. I think you're talking about 'well why is he protecting Crane anyway?', given your later point, so I'll address it as though you were. The fact is Crane put him into a situation where he had to make a choice, to hand him over forthwith to a person he'd already openly said he may not cooperate with given his aforementioned doubts of them, or refuse to do so and make himself their enemy. I didn't linger too much on the psychiatrists topic - it hasn't come up ICly at any point, and therefore if you think it unimaginable I can drop it - but 'dragged in the middle of the night' was bad wording. I never meant it to imply that it was being used as a weapon, but that Bruce - between a rock and a hard place - was looking for a suitable advocate for Crane's mental state whom he could pass him to as an intermediary to hand him to RISE, and see that his greatest concerns about him getting fair treatment were addressed. (for the record, re. our discussions, Crane would have handed said psych's asses to them and left them humiliated, not the other way around). I understand that Nolanverse Batman has demonstrated an end of the line attitude to his villains, but here, he has no reason to wash his hands of Crane and let the devil take him. Crane is his responsibility, he believes, and the one true connection to his home, his Gotham, his future, and a possible end to his time as Batman, that he has left. I'm not saying it's a healthy connection, but it's the only one he has, and the fact is that in addition to that, seeing Harvey - a collected, capable, alive Harvey, no matter where his descent is leading him now - gave him a little bit of optimism.
Furthermore, it serves his purpose to do so. As I've mentioned in one or two of my tags, he is acting in a revolutionary manner in this post and presently, acting deliberately outside the law, bringing down fire on himself the same way that he approached drawing attention to it with the corrupt Gotham PD. He's strung Falcone up, dropped Maroni off a balcony, tortured Flass for information, all in ways that were straight up vigilanteism, and I believe that for the right cause, he wouldn't hesitate to push those boundaries again. His actions - drawing attention to himself this way - reflect political motivations, but they are a hell of a lot more peaceful than the Joker's approach to finishing off corruption. This is a man who in a heartbeat accepts a string of murders to his name, I don't think this is vastly outside the realm of possibility.
Related to that previous point, as you say, is the "attempting to recreate his mythos" with Crane. I have to outright disagree with you on Crane not being terrified of Batman at the beginning of TDK. He gets a thrill out of Batman's arrival, versus those of the fakes that arrive shortly before. He's sassy, yes, he's beaming ear to ear, because Crane at the beginning of TDK is effectively a Crane that never recovered from his final experiences in Begins. He was exposed to a significant dose of his own medicine, and fear is - as has been stated in source material - his obsession. He feeds on it, delights on it, his own more than anyone else's. Furthermore, when Batman confronts Crane on the topic of Ra's al Ghul he drives him almost catatonic with terror, makes him disassociate (and in regard to your above point Bruce doesn't see any problem bending the rules of ethics to use Crane's exposure to his own drugs to terrify him there, or similarly with the Joker in TDK). Lisa and I have been back and forth over the topic over and over again between ourselves in the months since Bruce's identity came out, and fear of the Batman is something you should approach her on if you have concerns about it rather than me.
As for Bruce trying to rebuild it, it's far more about the power than the fear - as I touched on above, power and not a weapon - that he's trying to rebuild. Crane has lost all respect for him and that makes him more dangerous. Again, Lisa could reflect on that topic more. Now back to ooc logistics, since this comes into it: at the time of the fear in the Batman falling apart, Lisa was discussing the fact that in his contempt Crane has no reason to protect Bruce's identity, and in fact might blurt it spitefully, given that his pleasure at having fear in Batman was taken away from him. So we needed a solution. OOCly we needed a solution, because the IC consequences don't just effect me, they effect Alfred's player, Dick's player, anyone else who joins the game etc etc. The logistics of blowing Bruce's cover are huge compared to the logistics of bending his motivations just enough to let him believe regaining power over Crane is his solution. It wasn't the only one; Bruce could also have gone out on record and said it was a lie, but then it would have been public knowledge in game, and no amount of disputing it would alter that.
I will rewatch the movies again, as you suggest, and as a result of your crit take more care with my exposition, both to ensure it's exhaustive where needed and in place to highlight and support motives to specific things he says and does. It's been a significant change of pace for me, that I've delivered on very shakily, and I do believe that a refresher in voice would do me no small amount of good.
However, you do mention other concerns, so if you want me to expand on anything here or discuss those, please feel free to do so.
op here
(Anonymous) 2015-09-18 05:58 pm (UTC)(link)1) We’re of agreement in that Nolan’s Batman would not exist without the decades of mythos behind it. As an adaptation, that is the definition. My point referred more to the fact that Nolan’s (and Goyer’s) Batman is a different man from Morrison’s Batman or Miller’s or Snyder’s. The best example I can give is how many of the Batman writers portray Batman as the real face and Bruce as the mask; Nolan did the opposite. Bruce never stops being Bruce, as much as he would like to. This is especially obvious after Rachel’s death*.
Each creator brings something new to the character and visualizes him differently. Credit must be given too to the actor as Bale’s choices also informed Bruce’s and Batman’s development. Thus my point that while you can adopt certain things from another source like the Matches Malone identity just as an example, this would fall under head canon and it should be treated as such. It can and should supplement, but it should not be the characterization’s basis. When I read your threads, he sounds more like the Batman from preboot than the Batman from Nolanverse, which is what drove me to start there. But it’s good to hear you’re planning a rewatch!
*Related to this (and tucking it here so as not to interrupt my explanation) is another of your points which is that in Rises Bruce has given up on the hope of returning the city to its former glory. Actually, Gotham is doing fantastic at the beginning of Rises and has been for eight years. Based on his canon point of course your Bruce would not know this. But in Rises, Bruce was burying himself alive because the city no longer needed Batman, but he could not move on from Batman. This on top of his grief and guilt and anger relating to both Rachel’s and Harvey’s deaths which is all something else.
2) If I came across as doubting why he would protect Crane at all then that’s my mistake. Bruce gives people more chances than they probably deserve. My doubts ran closer to the way he is doing so in which he has basically appointed himself Crane’s defender. When he took the blame for Dent’s murders, he did so so knowing that if Dent was known to be a murderer all of the cases he had been working on would be dropped. All of those thieves, murderers, drug traffickers, money launderers, etc free to go. But more than that, Dent had come to represent hope for Gotham. So he took the fall to preserve that.
Which is where I hope you can understand why there is so much confusion in this case. He is taking on an ideological stance, yes, but the way he is going about it seems counterproductive. As you brought up, he is prone to dramatic examples. But these always have a reason whether it’s announcing himself, creating a reputation or old-fashioned intimidation. In this case, it tends to read like he is shooting himself in the foot for the sake of shooting himself in the foot (which I understand is not your intent! But to give you an indication of how it can come across.)
3) The ethics I spoke of are in reference to the psychiatrists. If confidentiality laws exist in game too, they have exceptions. So chances are any good, sane, ethical psychiatrist would have been calling the police like ten minutes after they walked in because that is the law. Something to keep in mind if you both choose to go that route.
Re: op here
Regarding *, I was actually referring to his fall in the middle of the film, after his fight with Bane, as his moment of losing hope and needing to rally. I also flashed back on him turtling in on himself as a way of dealing with his problems, but that was regarding a different point, and I didn't mean to blur them together. You are absolutely right that Gotham is doing better by then, but it doesn't effect Bruce's mindset presently, because despite suffering all the same losses, he has no idea about how that future will turn out.
Regarding 2. This is really more of a logistical point that has taken a rushed and thin IC justification as a point. I was trying somewhere to accept this as a flaw, but I don't know if it made it across. Situation: Bruce has Crane, wants to hand him over, but doesn't trust the police. The original conclusion was to be spread out over more time, allowing better development of the conflict of RISE, stoked by Crane, but that didn't happen - couldn't happen - since as pointed out in the other piece of crit Crane's egging on the network drew attention, made him an ever more frustrating target, and would get him if not caught by RISE then hunted by someone else. That means that every minute he was in Bruce's basement we were blocking legitimate, IC development from other people. So we put together a solution on the fly that we hadn't thought so far toward yet, and Bruce's motivations are prototypical as a result of that.
Honestly my greatest concern from the beginning of this plan was that him making a public post at all, sensationalising it like this, and if he did giving more than one word answers, just isn't Batman-like at all. To play him in a game I already have to adapt him to be more engaging and less independent. It is flawed, by miles, but it had to happen for the sake of progressing the plot more swiftly. In effect for me it's been backwards 'this is what needs to happen, now justify it', and it's been less effective than some of my other attempts to do so.
I'm attempting, through his continued communication, to scrape himself a save of face, and in some respects it's working where his original post may have faltered. I do ask that in this case you just bear with me, because being so deep into this plot as we are, going through is the only option and changing tack at this point, mid conversation, would be a thousand times worse. I have to have a certain faith and commitment to my characterisation to follow through.
In regard to your third point, that makes sense, and regarding it Lisa and I have agreed to drop it in its entirety. No psychiatrists. I'm not sure if that makes Bruce a better or worse person, but it's a suitable solution to the problem you pose.
This is a lot more meta than I write in a day so excuse me if I trip over or repeat myself at any point.