Me every moment Battinson was on screen in The Batman (2022): GIVE THIS MAN A CHILD! THE SMALLER AND SPUNKIER THE BETTER! THIS MAN ABSOLUTELYNEEDS A SMALL CHILD WITH HIM AT ALL TIMES!
(Spoilers ahead)
If the Mayor’s wife had also died, you know he would have adopted that boy. THE SCENE WHERE HE RAN TI SAVE HIM PLEASE
Seriously tho-
The Batman takes place in Year Two. Dick Grayson becomes Robin in Year Three. I am begging for a sequel. I genuinely believed there was gonna be post credits about Alfred asking Bruce to go to a circus or something, but alas.
In this film we see Bruce realise he needs to be a symbol of Justice and Hope rather than Vengeance. That Batman should not be darkness, but rather a light leading the way in darkness. People forget that Batman is also a symbol of Hope, not just Superman. As said by @ascender56inthis amazing post explaining the two heroes, Batman is “the moon at night, a beacon of light in the darkness”. We actually see this metaphor physically in the film when Bruce leads people through the water with a Flare. He was literally leading them with a light through the darkness and for the first time in this movie, we see Gotham’s citizens feel safe and protected by him rather than fear him. The first person we see him save in this film literally says “Please don’t hurt me”, showing us that Gotham’s citizens didn’t feel safe or protected by the Batman, because at that point he was Vengeance. The minute Batman jumps onto the cable to stop the people in the water from being electrocuted, and the moments later where he leads them to safety, is the minute we see Gotham’s people start to trust him, to have faith in him and their Hope restored. It’s the moment Batman goes from a vigilante to a hero and the beacon of light and Hope they had been waiting for. We see him go from a person who Gotham feared, to one where they finally feel safe with him, where someone being taken away on a helicopter to seek medical attention asks him to hold them for just a second longer, to ask for support and protection. And he gives that to them, because that’s why he started this. It was always about protection, never vengeance. Because he wants to give people the protection he didn’t get in that alleyway. It’s why he ran to save the Mayor’s son in the funeral scene. It was always about protecting those who couldn’t protect themselves, it was always about Hope.It just took him until the end of the movie to realise that, because people used his own fear tactic against him and were hurting people with methods he inspired, which is never what he intended.
My point is, Bruce is at the perfect point in his arc to bring in Dick Grayson. We saw how he looked at the Mayor’s son, and I know for a fact that if his mother had died, he would’ve taken in that boy, because he knew exactly what he was feeling and what he needed (Though he wouldn’t have been as prepared to do that as he is at the end of the film). We see him take Alfred for granted until he nearly loses him, and realise how important it is for a child to then have a guardian like that. Meaning that he would be in a position now to do the same that Alfred had done for him.
My theory is that he’s going to start rebuilding Wayne Manor. For those of you that don’t know/Haven’t read the context book they made for this film, Wayne Manor was made into an orphanage (The Orphanage the Riddler was raised in and that he burned down). He’ll bring back those foundations, new foundations for his family legacy to restart on (Perfect for a new generation of Waynes too), and he’ll start doing more as Bruce Wayne, such as actually getting involved with WE, and opening orphanages that actually help kids, so there’ll be no more of them that are abandoned by the system like Riddler was as a child, no more chances of that happening ever again. He’ll donate towards relief and rebuilding after the floods. Rebuild hopitals and make them better hospitals. Start things like The Martha Wayne foundation and such. He’ll try to support Arkham and provide resources and funding so that patients can get real help, for people who are struggling like how his mother did all those years ago. He’s on track to not just being Batman, but being Bruce. To fighting within the daylight as well as the night, which will be healthy and refreshing for him, healing.
So when Bruce Wayne, who has been trying to prove the Wayne family still stands for good and has seemingly come back into society after the flood to help rebuild the city (At least from the point of view of people in Gotham), hosts a charity cirucs, and sees it end nothing like he thought it ever could, when he sees his worst fear and the worst moment of his own life happen all over again in front of him, when he sees that lone little boy who just lost everything the same way he had, he knows exactly what to do. And through taking in Dick, it furthers that healing in the light he had just started to do on his own, because he gets to stop that child from falling into the darkness like he had. He couldn’t save himself, but in saving this child, maybe he could finally start too, and they can heal together. Batman may be Gotham’s light, but Dick Grayson becomes his. Batman and Robin. The Moon and the Star, the first of many stars that will come, the first in a long line of children Bruce Wayne brings into his family, into the Wayne legacy, a new generation brought into a rebuilt home, on new, stronger foundations, that had been broken for too long, both physically and metaphorically. And together, they will be Gotham’s beacons of Hope.
Hey you can’t just hide things like this in the tags!
