yicruz48:

intrusively-remus:

Is his abuse the reason he’s a jerk to the other past robins? yicruz48: Things I Wish Writers Would Explore More with Damian -> His outstanding drawing skills. -> The fact that he was apparently a “natural” at acting. -> His love for animals. I DEMAND YOU BRING GOLIATH BACK YOU COWARDS. -> Cheese Viking obsession or game geek side. -> More missions/habits connected to his chinese/arab ethnicity. -> His fascination in magic. ->His surgical skills. ->His love for literature. Give me more of that Batman #666 reciting pieces of literature (although I don’t want him to be the next Batman in the future, I just like him reciting literature). ->How incredibly wise he is for his age. ->Explore the truama of his early childhood indoctrination and abuse. Damian has been through alot, I would like to see Damian dealing with that truama to make it more realistic.

I don’t know if this is a genuine question or attempted jab at us Damian fans, but I am going to answer this as a genuine question anyhow.

Well, first, you may be asking, what kind of of abuse did Damian endure?

There is probably many, many more examples but these are ones I most recall:

-> Growing up in the League of Assassins Damian was forced to kill animals and humans alike.

-> Every second of his life till the age of 10 was filled with constant fighting, extreme studying and killing. Damian was neglected of having a proper childhood.

-> He was groomed to be a weapon for the league. He didn’t have a choice in what he wanted to do, in other words, his basic rights were snatched from him.

-> Even at a young age he had to teach other assassins how to kill despite being a child.

-> He saw his grandfather die multiple times.

-> He was killed by his older twin brother in the most cruel way possible while protecting Nightwing. Even worse, before he died in the pages right before he screamed at his mother and father to stop fighting. Damian bravely jumped in front of Nightwing but died terrified. And to make the situation worse Damian went to hell even though leading up to his death he had done many good things.

Its hard to really say to what extent this affects him now. But I think these panels do a great job at giving us some insight.

-> When Damian recently moved with Bruce he would draw very violent drawings in order to tame his anger and urge to kill that was instilled in him since he was young. You could say that it was his way of coping with his trauma.

-> Damian was expected to go straight to studying after missions. Despite there being a beautiful landscape in front of him to paint, Damian drew everything gloomy. Damian was not happy and he looked exhausted.

-> Damian still has nightmares of his past that haunt him and continue to haunt him.

-> Damian puts up this annoyingly overconfident facade in order to hide how worthless and insecure he feels. Damian has been shown to have suicidal tendencies and symptoms.

-> As you saw with his confrontation with Deathstroke, every time Slade asked what they did to him in the league he diverted the conversation and joked around. He didn’t want to be vulnerable and admit what they did to him.

-> Damian doesn’t know how to be a kid. An issue of Batgirl demonstrated this when Damian was unable to play with kids his age. It took him awhile to play video games without it feeling like it was below him to do so.

-> Before Damian died he was learning how to act ‘normal’ by Carrie. In other words, Damian doesn’t think of himself of normal and is bad at it which is why it was hard for him to go to a public school with Jon.

Sadly, his trauma didn’t end after leaving the League of Assassins. It continues, the most recent example is seeing Alfred die in front of him. Damian feels responsible for his death despite Bruce being the one who sent him into the city to confront Gotham Girl.

Damian has also being neglected since the beginning of rebirth by Bruce. Bruce is barely making an effort to check on his son after years have past.

And now that I’ve given you some background, now lets answer your question. Does his abuse and trauma justify him being a jerk to the Robins?

-> Simple answer: No it is not justifiable, but you can understand where he comes from.

-> Longer answer: Due to the trauma of the abuse Damian suffered as a child and continues to suffer Damian has a hard time of communicating his feelings in the right way. He has a hard time being emotionally vulnerable. Damian inflates his confidence and puts himself above others so they are less likely to realize he is very insecure and feels like his postion in the batfamily is always threaten by rest of the family members. This is why he is always trying to prove himself.

Damian really only shows his true self to Dick. I wrote a post about that here.

He is emotionally-complicated. Which means that the emotions he demonstrates on the outside most likely don’t match with what he is feeling in the inside. If he looks mad or frustrated he is most likely sad, feeling insecure or terrified.

Again, if you ask all Damian fans if we think his rude actions are justifiable, we will mostly no depending on what situation you are referring to (if a bat family member prompted him first) but we will say its understandable why he acted that why.

We don’t love Damian just because he appears to be snarky and makes good comebacks. We love him for his imperfections. Damian is FAR from a perfect character, which makes him a very interesting character. We are always rooting for his improvement and development.

And most of us want to see Damian develop his trust beyond Dick. We want him to be close to other batfamily members especially Tim.

Sorry if this was really long but I am Damian-centered blog so I can’t help but to over-explain lol.