Originally Posted by
dietrich
Damian and Identity
So, in the newest issue of Teen Titans, Alfred tells Damian this.
“You have the distinct privilege of knowing who you are and how you fit into this life, as you bear the name Wayne.”
For context, he’s explaining to Damian why he’s protecting Jason and trying to get him to talk to Jason rather than fight him. All that’s fair enough, but this description of Damian seems highly inaccurate to me.
Damian has a lot of privileges, wealth being the obvious one, but I always thought that the central conflict of his character was that he didn’t know who he was. Damian’s whole identity has been fed to him by his mother and, now that he’s left her, he’s trapped between the ideologies of his mother and father. One of them is an assassin, the other a thou-shall-not-kill vigilante. Choosing between those two lives is, essentially, choosing between his parents. He’s always seemed somewhat insecure of his position in Batman’s family, which makes sense because he is the only biological child of Bruce Wayne, which makes him the odd one out, and the only one who came to him as an unrepentant killer. He was also rejected by Bruce a number of times early on, including when Bruce first came back to find that Dick had made him Robin.
Here are a few good examples of Damian’s insecurities:
In Batman and Robin (2009), Damian worries that when Bruce comes back, he and Dick won’t get to be Batman and Robin anymore. Being Robin is something that, to him, means he belongs, and he’s afraid that Bruce will take it away.
In Red Robin (2009), Tim’s inclusion of Damian on a list of heroes he’s made plans to take down sets Damian off as he sees it as a rejection, not only of him, but of the effort that he’s put in to respect and follow the values of the vigilante side of his family. (It’s worth noting that Damian had tried to kill Tim before. Twice. At least.) After this incident, Dick says of Damian, “He practically bleeds the need to be accepted.”
In Batgirl (2009), Damian tries to convince Stephanie that Bruce has time for him. Stephanie doesn’t buy it.
The War of the Robins arc in the New 52, in which he tried to defeat all of the Robins. He outright stated that he wanted to prove he was the best “to you, to him, to me.”
The Nightwing Must Die arc, in which he worries about Dick having a child as he thinks that that child would effectively push him out of the relationship he has with Dick.
His issue of Batman: Prelude to the Wedding focuses on his fear of Bruce and Selina having a child because, again, he fears being replaced.
Damian has a lot of bravado about being Bruce’s blood son, but that’s all it is. Bravado. He’s terrified of being replaced. Terrified of rejection. After all, his mother rejected him for embracing his father’s ideals, so where will he go if they decide that they don’t want him either? To say that Damian, who was raised with opposite ideals to the entire Batfamily, knows where he belongs in the vigilante world simply because his surname is Wayne is just bizarre.
It is, admittedly, not the first time I’ve side-eyed Damian’s portrayal in the current Teen Titans run. The secret prison still seems out of character to me, especially as Damian recruited Djinn by talking about redemption and how he’d done bad things too. This is character whose focus was redemption from pretty much the moment he came in up until the end of the New 52 (it’s the entire point of Robin: Son of Batman). It doesn’t make sense for him to decide that villains cannot be redeemed. I suppose, an argument can be made that Damian was raised to be bad and that he could see adult villains as people who’ve chosen evil, but I can’t find a textual basis for that level of nuance.
The secret prison is something I can see Damian doing. Imprisoning someone doesn't automatically mean he believes they can't be redeemed.