The Killing Joke - Tumblr Posts
My Thoughts on How Barbara Became Oracle.
I’ve seen people talk about this change and I wanted to join in since I have some thoughts too.
For the most part, I’m okay with the change the writers did. Young Justice is one of many DC universes so anything can happen. I applaud the writers for trying something new.
Though, I still have some problems with the change. It was pretty weird that Barbara automatically assumed Orphan never killed anyone before they met. I think the writers were trying to outright tell us that Cassandra’s story is widely different. I also would’ve preferred if Orphan made that decision not to kill or killing is bad on her own like what happened when she and her mother fought in episode 8.
I read Cassandra’s comic origins on her Wikipedia page and prefer how she decided to be a hero than YJ’s version.
Incase anyone is wondering about my thoughts on how Barbara became Oracle in the Killing Joke, I’m okay with this version. There are many people who said they didn’t like it because they believe Barbara was a consequence of Joker wanting to drive Gordon crazy. I can see where they are coming from but that was not my perspective.
From how I see it, what happened to Barbara was a devastating way to show the audience that heroes can face as much pain and tragedy in their civilian lives as them being superheroes. And that terrible things can indirectly happen to you.
I hope you liked my rant! Thanks for reading!
yeah
Supposedly in regarding the Killing Joke, Alan Moore himself actually expressed regret working on that one, in particular for what it did to Barbara. Thoughts on this?
I agree that everyone should be uncomfortable with how Barbara Gordon was used. She was objectified, pure and simple. After being Batgirl for a lot of years, she was stripped of any sense of strength and used solely as a victim.
There was almost nothing of Barbara Gordon here, just a female body being used as a tool.
It gets worse from there as Barbara is posed nude. Why? Because Jim Gordon needed to further traumatized? No, not really. Showing pictures of a bleeding, shot but clothed Barbara would have worked just as well.
Part of it was the time period in which the book was done (1988). This kind of semi-erotic pandering was still considered more or less acceptable then, particularly in an age when DC was trying to establish itself in the adult (as in grown ups with money to spend in their hobby) graphic novel market. That said, the sexual subtext was completely unnecessary to the storyline then and the passage of time has made it more inappropriate when looked at today.
It's ironic that this twisted rape fantasy gave rise to one of DC's strongest female characters - Oracle.
To be honest, I will always prefer Oracle to Batgirl but that doesn't make what happened right.
So yes, Alan Moore should feel bad about what he did to Barbara Gordon in The Killing Joke. DC took a capable female superhero and objectified her. It was wrong then and it's still wrong now.
still mentally here in case any of you were wondering
I am. So fucking tired of Batman being portrayed as a bad parent and a toxic person. And it’s so goddamn widespread. Fuck, it might be as bad as the whole “Superman being a kindhearted Boy Scout is boring” take.
I get it, the man’s not exactly stable, he watched his parents get murdered in front of him and spent years of his life training to fight crime dressed like a giant scary bat, of course he’s not perfect.
But to say that Bruce Wayne isn’t caring, isn’t empathetic, to call him abusive…it just misses the point of who the character is to me.
Why do you think he fights crime? Yes, part of it is because he’s bitter and sad because his parents were cruelly ripped from him as a child, and he’s lashing out against the corruption of his city. It’s arguably the focus of his earlier years. But he learns to become more than that. He learns to bring hope, a chance to be better.
Harleen Quinzel is the Joker’s right hand lady, but she’s also a victim of an abusive relationship and a woman with a surprisingly strong moral compass and a love for animals, and wants to get better.
Harvey Dent is a man who will decide someone’s fate on a coin toss(and a pretty inaccurate depiction of DID), but he’s also Bruce’s close friend who clearly needs help learning to live with his condition, rather than try to get rid of it, and someone who he still goes out of his way to visit, even after everything.
Victor Fries is a cold, emotionless man who will callously discard allies and blame them for being careless, but he’s also a man who’s either lashing out because he had the love of his life taken from him, or just desperate to make sure she isn’t taken from him, and is willing to do anything just to guarantee her survival.
Even the Joker, arguably one of the most morally bankrupt characters in all of fiction, is someone that Batman has offered a chance to. After the guy shoots the daughter of his friend, a girl he cared for like she was his own kid, and paralyzes her from the waist down, he tells the Joker that he doesn’t want to hurt him. He wants to get him help. He looks at this monster who has taken countless lives and says “You don’t have to be alone.”
For fuck’s sake, he sat with Joe Chill in his last moments so that he wouldn’t be alone. Joe Chill, the man who murdered his parents, who took so much from him, the person responsible for all of the misery and suffering he’s gone through. And he sits with the man to comfort him while dies.
And you’re gonna tell me the man who did that would abuse his kids?
That he’d hold up the young man whose death was his greatest failure, the boy he grieved, and say this?
That he’d look his goddamn son in the eyes and say this to him?
Why the FUCK do you think he took in Dick Grayson in the first place? It wasn’t because he saw the kid and thought “Ah. A potential soldier.”, it was because he saw a boy experiencing the same heartbreaking loss he had so many years ago, and wanted to make sure he didn’t end up as bitter and miserable as he was.
Why do you think he smiled when Tim Drake presented him a broken watch for Father’s Day? Because he was just happy to see the boy alive and safe.
DAMIAN LITERALLY POINTED AT A COW AND SAID “I’m keeping her. She’s Bat-Cow.” AND BRUCE JUST WENT WITH IT. DIDN’T EVEN NEED TO ARGUE WHY BRUCE SHOULD LET HIM KEEP HER. HE SAID “this cow is my pet now” AND BRUCE SAID “alright, bet”.
The thing about Batman is that he wants to make sure nobody else ends up feeling the way he does. That’s not just about stopping a mugger so a boy’s parents aren’t gunned down. It’s about giving his loved ones the support and care that he couldn’t have, because it was taken from him. It’s about comforting someone who just went through a traumatic experience and letting them know that they’re going to be okay. It’s about going to someone locked away in a cell who thinks that they’re a lost cause and a burden to society and telling them that he wants to help them get better. It’s about EMPATHY.
That’s what makes him a HERO. He’s meant to inspire us, to show us that we can have that same empathy for others around us, that we can turn our suffering into hope for a better future.
I just wish more people at DC would start recognizing that. But I might as well follow that example myself. Maybe through this struggle of having to see this hero mistreat the people around him and act like a grade-A jackass, people will start to recognize that missing empathy, and slowly but surely, it might come back. After all, what is this post, if not trying to bring attention to the matter in the hopes of fixing it?