jason todd } the red hood (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
scathefires) wrote2018-07-30 06:48 pm
scathefires) wrote2018-07-30 06:48 pm
character info @ sixth iteration.
Name: Jason Peter Todd, aka the Red Hood. He may also give "John Doe" as his name, if he's feeling like being a complete shit.
Canon: DC Comics, broadly; specifically, the Batman: Under the Red Hood animated film.
Scrubs Color: Teal.
Visible Age:
Gender: He's a dude.
Height/Physique: 6 feet tall, about 200 lbs of solid muscle, and built like a linebacker from a hell dimension.
Hygiene: ... Average?
Hair: Dark and in a permanent state of disaster.
Eyes: Somewhere between blue and green.
Defining Marks: Nothing visible, but if you happen to catch him with his shirt off, there will be a fair number of old battle scars.
Accent/Speech: The dulcet tones of Jensen Ackles.
Bearing/Demeanor: Jason is, in a word, wary of others. He’s not exactly paranoid, but he doesn’t trust easily, either - he has been burned by some pretty significant people in his life (most notably Bruce Wayne, his surrogate father figure and mentor) and it has left him with some deep pain that he is currently Not Dealing With. He projects a certain base level of affability, mostly through dry wit and sarcasm, and he knows how to carry an amicable conversation, but he'll only let people in so far, and he’s a lot like a feral cat - his mood can shift on a moment’s notice. Jason also does not respond well to authority types, and he will have a sassy comeback for just about anything anyone says to him.
Habits: Violence counts as a habit, right?
Skills: Despite being a DC Comics character, Jason doesn’t possess any superpowers, per se, though he does have quite a few entirely human talents. He has an impressive physical presence, having been trained - and trained well - in hand-to-hand combat, martial arts, and acrobatics; he is also a skilled marksman and proficient in wielding a number of other weapons, such as knives, throwing stars, and explosives. In other words, in a physical fight, Jason’s able to physically handle himself and take care of others, if necessary.
Jason may not possess a genius-level intellect, but he’s no dummy - he’s been trained in the investigative arts by none other than the world’s (well - this world’s) greatest detective, Bruce Wayne, aka the goddamn Batman. Jason is also quick-thinking under pressure, resourceful, and a skilled strategist, as evidenced by the masterful manipulation he sets into play in order to get to the Joker via Black Mask, the only person in Gotham with the resources and connections to break him out of Arkham. He’s smarter than most people – himself included – give him credit for, and he can certainly use his brains in combination with or instead of his brawn to survive and thrive under pressure.
Jason’s survival skills in general are quite strong, displayed in how he lived on the streets of Crime Alley as a homeless child and took care of himself by ripping off car parts to sell before that fateful meeting with Batman. One of his less-obvious survival skills is a sense of intuition - being able to read people and guess at their intentions and how to proceed in any interaction. It’s not perfect by any means, but it does give Jason a sense of who can be trusted and to what extent, and it’s an important learned skill to have when placed in a high-pressure situation with other people.
PERSONALITY.
Fearless, arrogant, brash, gifted, and dangerous - quite a combination. Let’s take a closer look.
There’s no question about the levels of fearlessness Jason possesses - only someone with nerves made of solid iron would dare steal from Batman, a masked vigilante crime-fighter who has built his reputation on being the scariest bastard in town. Starting with his tenure as Batman’s junior partner Robin, Jason is shown running head first into danger, performing death-defying leaps from buildings at great heights, even charging unflinchingly at thugs firing bullets straight at him. It’s not recklessness, per se; his movements are both intentional and calculated. This tendency only intensifies when he takes on the moniker of the Red Hood; he goes toe-to-toe with Batman without even blinking, and we are treated to quite a few scenes of Jason performing breathtaking stunts like diving for a rooftop out of a free-falling helicopter and racing Batman and Nightwing around skyscrapers like they’re an obstacle course. He is a brave person, not afraid to take risks.
On the charge of arrogance - and stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before, Bruce - we can say Jason is guilty of believing, with deep conviction, that his methods and ideas are best, and that he is also incredibly strong-willed. As Robin, Jason doesn’t easily fall in line under Batman’s authority; they’re shown arguing post-dustup in which Bruce chastises Jason for his use of excessive force and Jason justifies his life choices by saying the criminal whose collarbone he shattered deserved it. Even once he has returned to Gotham as the Red Hood, Jason comes to verbal - and later, literal - blows with Bruce about whose methods of fighting crime are better:
You can argue about whether it’s misguided to take the law into your own hands, and that’s a tricky line to walk with Batman, of all people, but it’s another story entirely to decide you alone are fit to act as judge, jury, and executioner for criminals. Believing that you know what’s best for an entire city is the height of arrogance, and Jason demonstrates it in spades.
Jason definitely has a strong personality, and that’s where Alfred’s description of brash shows best. Jason doesn’t mince words; he is as much a verbal bulldozer as he is a physical one, saying exactly what he means and doing exactly what he wants, regardless - or perhaps in spite of - the consequences. He has the outright nerve to sass Bruce goddamn Wayne; he spits blood in the Joker’s face, during a brief intermission of being beaten to a bloody pulp with a crowbar, and grins about it; he has a quip ready for every criminal, assassin, and opponent who crosses his path.
Gifted is probably the most complimentary of the handful of words Alfred uses to describe Jason. He is, without a doubt, good at what he does, and whatever he puts his mind to, he ends up accomplishing, even if it is something like an elaborate murder/potential suicide revenge plot. Even as a child, Jason had “potential and power,” as Bruce says, which is ostensibly why he recruited Jason to fight crime by his side as Robin - because Bruce saw that potential in Jason, saw his gifts of both body and mind, and wanted to put them to good use.
Let’s move on that last descriptor, though - dangerous. It seems almost like an understatement, given Jason’s actions, to call him dangerous. As the Red Hood, he is lethal, an unrepentant murderer, viewing the other criminals in Gotham as nothing more than “scum” and entirely expendable pieces in his own private war against Black Mask, Batman, and the Joker. His own body count throughout the film is impressive, if that’s the sort of thing that impresses you; he also shows complete lack of disregard for public safety, whether it’s by leading Batman on a merry high-speed car chase through the streets of Gotham, dropping a helicopter full of weapons from a great height onto the population below, or blowing up a building in his quest for revenge. Jason favors utilizing excessive force, dating as far back as his Robin days; his methods of violence are more often brutal than not, as in the example where he takes a taser to an assassin’s cybernetic face mask, causing the electronics to short out and the assassin’s head to literally explode. He is ruthless, and while he doesn’t lack empathy entirely, he applies it selectively, to those he deems worthy - which excludes criminals.
Bruce could see early on that Jason’s potential and power could easily be turned toward a life of crime, and he did try to mold Jason into something better. However, Jason chose to follow his darker impulses. He is deeply flawed and terribly misguided, but he isn’t irredeemable.
more.
Compassionate: One might think that a brutally violent criminal/antihero with a large kill count like Jason would lack compassion entirely, but it’s actually one of his greatest strengths, although he’s selective in how he extends it to others. Even before he became Robin, Jason displayed a desire to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves, like his drug-addicted mother, and once he became a vigilante, he also became a champion of the disadvantaged, such as women and children, as well as victims of crimes like sexual assault. As the Red Hood, he mercilessly targets and eliminates criminals who prey upon those who are unable to defend themselves, seeking to help those who have been in a similar disadvantaged position as himself.
Determined: Jason possesses an ironclad will and a resourceful attitude, and once he sets his mind to a task, there’s very little that will stop him from achieving it. This die-hard work ethic means he gets the job – any job – done, and he gets results, though it’s sometimes questionable as to whether those results or the any-means-necessary path he takes to achieve them are right.
Passionate: Jason has strong feelings about a lot of things; he’s a person who, in general, feels pretty intensely. That intensity is what drives him to action, what keeps him going when others in his position might give up, what fuels the decisions he makes and the beliefs he holds, even though he often hides his true feelings under a shell of dry sarcasm and snarky bantering. Jason is a particularly striking example of the “’I don’t care,’ I say, caringly, as I care deeply” meme.
● weaknesses:
Emotionally volatile: The flip side of having intense, unchecked feelings is that Jason’s emotions are extremely volatile. He is frequently angry, and never developed good coping skills for dealing with his rage at the world and his place in it, his parental abandonment, his death and subsequent replacement, and the continued, compounded injustices he sees. He’s like a walking raw nerve, and he (mis)manages his anger by lashing out with brutal violence. Jason’s emotional volatility also often makes him and his (re)actions to emotional distress difficult to predict, which makes him a dangerous opponent and sometimes places him in unpleasant situations.
Stubborn: Where Jason’s determination is a strength, it turns into a weakness in the form of stubbornness. Jason can be extremely bull-headed when he’s got an idea in his mind, accepting no compromise, such as his stance that repeat criminal offenders should be killed rather than left to slip through loopholes in the criminal justice system. Time and again, he’s butted heads with Batman over such issues, and neither of them is willing to back down, which is one of the roots of their contentious relationship. He also uses any methods necessary to achieve his goals, even illegal and arguably immoral ones, and fails to consider the costs of his actions, especially for himself.
Impulsive: Although Jason is entirely capable of strategizing, he often acts impulsively instead, with his heart instead of his head, especially when it comes to anything concerning his family, either birth or adopted.