A couple weeks ago, my collab channel did a theme week on our favorite superheroes, and mine was, unsurprisingly, Batman. I’m sure you’ve noticed his emblem in the background of a lot of my recent dorm vlog videos, as well as his mug on a teeshirt I often wear on camera. Yes, Batman is my favorite, and I want to tell you why.
First of all, Batman is just a normal dude. Alright, so he’s a super rich normal dude, but he has no physical or intellectual enhancements like a radioactive spider bite or super strength. By all accounts, he’s just a man. And I love that. It’s not that I find him realistic, although some people seem to, it’s just that it’s so much more impressive to me that one normal (albeit very fit and very rich) dude goes out and fights crime just because he can.
And on that note, I come to my second, main reason for loving Batman so much. It’s because he doesn’t have to do it. Most kids who lose their parents in a horrific way grow up to be serial killers, or at the very least deeply disturbed. I’m not saying that Batman (or Bruce Wayne, as you like) is the most emotionally stable person of all time, but think about it this way: he turned his personal tragedy into motivation to protect people. Protect people from having to feel the pain he felt. Superman was born with powers that would be useless if not used in crime-fighting, Spiderman was accidentally genetically enhanced and it’s the same kind of deal. Most other superheroes, tragic backstory or not, have way more business fighting crime than Batman does. But he does it anyways.
That strength of character is what has always drawn me to Batman, and it’s probably also what got me hooked on Doctor Who, because the Doctor exhibits many of the same characteristics. Both men (time lord, whatever) had deeply traumatizing personal tragedies and instead of succumbing to the fear and the sadness they save people. Instead of moping or turning to the easier emotion of rage, they make the world (or worlds, as the case may be) better for everyone else. And they don’t have to. No one ever asked them to do it, and no one had to.
Life is precious. Even if you can’t find it within you to live for the sake of living, the least you can do is make the world just that much more bearable for everyone else.
“Most kids who lose their parents in a horrific way grow up to be serial killers.” HAHA BOLD STATEMENT 🙂