14 KiB
Rational Batman Fan Fiction
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Author: u/None *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/7oh308/rational_batman_fan_fiction/
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Score: 26
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Created: 2018-01-06T04:35:01
Post:
I’ve been wanting to write a rational Batman fan fiction that is a sequel to The Metropolitan Man By: Alexander Wales. Before I rush into writing, are there any cues that I should note or any ideas that y’all can suggest for me if anything? Thanks for hearing me out.
Comments:
u/ben_oni [+23] (2 hours later)
If this is a sequel to The Metropolitan Man, then I'd recommend writing from the perspective that the world is truly screwed. I view it this way: Superman was given to Earth to help guide civilization past the various pitfalls that are about to befall us. Such as a nuclear apocalypse or other Great Filter events. Since Lex Luthor decided that Superman was the greatest potential extinction event... now we have to go it alone, without help.
So, my advice would be figure out what the Kyrptonians knew that mankind really needs to know but doesn't, and use that to help support an overall plot.
u/None [+2] (13 hours later)
I kinda want to focus on Batman and his personal struggles and mind state at first and then have that projected out into Joker or some other villain.
u/ben_oni [+12] (14 hours later)
And that's very fine; in the art of storytelling, one often begins with the hero in their ordinary situations. Meanwhile, there should be other things going on behind the scenes with big reveals made in the final act. What I'm saying is that if this is a sequel to The Metropolitan Man, then it needs to link together. Not necessarily from the beginning, but by the end of the story, the audience needs to see the connection.
u/None [+19] (15 minutes later)
I've got a suggestion or two.
First up, I recommend reading the book "Becoming Batman" Link, loved that book, a nonfiction on just what it would take to become Batman in the real world.
Now- having read that- or at least thought about it- you have two choices in front of you I'd say.
Either make Batman more... power hungry than he is in the comics- that is, instead of putting villain's weapons and gears in a museum, he should have a team of engineers reverse engineering it and putting it to use, to give him a leg up- and having scientists study things like the Lazarus pits when Batman comes across those- as a priority since they literally bring you back from the dead- the potential as a medicine is amazing, if you can only get rid of the pesky part that makes everyone that takes a dip insane. Might be the most important discovery of the human race since fire.
And/or you could do a deconstruction. Have Bruce Wayne realize that becoming Batman is more than a life's work, and the cost of it- which is astronomical (and discussed in becoming batman, but there's also web articles about that), and that it would be better to start a security company or fund the police, or fund scientists studying meta humans and scifi weaponry from villains to better help regular cops do their jobs- better bang per buck.
I'd say have him just donate the same amounts to charities/start charities and such, but just that would make for a short oneshot I'd say, an interesting fic it does not make.
u/BigSmartSmart [+11] (8 hours later)
I like the deconstruction idea. Part of what made Metropolitan Man so fun was Lex and Clark each struggling to be rational, and questioning their own rationality. You could have a good story where Bruce tries to become Batman and has to confront the gap between his desire to have maximum positive impact and his desire to beat up criminals. Even if he decides in the end to stay Batman and keep beating up criminals, not because it’s what Gotham needs but just because he enjoys it, that journey to self-awareness could be fun.
u/RynnisOne [+5] (a day later)
Yeah, but if you're being rational, you first have to understand the rules of the universe it is set in.
Namely... do actual superpowered enemies, or rich "super-villains" similar to Batman himself, actually exist in the world?
Because, if so, you'd realize that just "Donating money to the police" isn't going to cut it in such a world. Sure, they might have SWAT teams that specifically exist to fight against those types, but that's the sort of thing the supervillains themselves will study and plan against.
You can do a fairly successful deconstruction followed by reconstruction of Batman. Batman doesn't beat up mooks because its fun (although that could be an added bonus), he has reasons for doing so.
I can think of two obvious reasons why he would do so.
The first is as a "weapons test". He can try out new techniques and gadgets on relatively "safe" opponents that aren't equipped as well or plan as well as he does. Thus he has a sort of controlled environment to practice. Sure, you could try that new Batarang against a gel target, but you get much more reliable data using it against a living thug.
The second is for what I've unofficially called the "honeypot" scenario. By beating up bad guys, he effectively serves as a lure for worse guys. The threat of his mere presence will damper some of the lesser crime in the area, pushing up the "value" or cost of the fruits of that crime. Thus, more capable criminals will move into the area or rise up from it in Darwinian fashion. Supervillains (or even just aspiring supervillains) from other locations looking to make a name for themselves by defeating the legendary Batman will come from far and wide to challenge him in some way, turning Gotham into a giant "Villain Roach Motel". This is basically what Batman does in most of the media he's featured in, though it's rarely directly stated.
u/Mingablo [+2] (4 days later)
The evolution of bad guys was stated in one of the arkham games. I think it was arkham city. Someone was blaming batman for the rise of supervillians and said exactly that.maybe it was the Dark knight.
u/DaystarEld [+11] Pokémon Professor (an hour later)
Have you read Batman: Extinction Burst? Pretty fantastic rational take on the world, might help give you ideas :)
u/alliteratorsalmanac [+5] (21 hours later)
Lot of grammar errors.
u/BigSmartSmart [+10] (8 hours later)
Part of what makes Metropolitan Man so great is that Superman is a radical departure from reality, just by his nature. Wales then asked, “how can I proceed as rationally and realistically as possible from here?”
Id try to figure out how to do the same thing with Batman. Batman isn’t fundamentally impossible, just highly impossible, so it’s actually harder to proceed rationally from that premise.
One way forward might be to posit a world with lots of meta-human criminals which the police force can’t handle. That might make vigilantism more reasonable.
u/daytodave [+7] an altruistic conversion of calories to hedons (a day later)
a world with lots of meta-human criminals which the police force can’t handle
After a couple generations, that world might cut back their police more and more as it becomes accepted that ordinary humans simply can't fight metas, and eventually most people take for granted that crime fighting is the job of masked superheroes.
Maybe Bruce Wayne has to dress up and pretend to be a metahuman to be taken seriously as a crime fighter. Or maybe he really believes he has powers. In the comics he's shown as having incredible willpower and endurance, brilliant intelligence and charisma, and he must only be sleeping 4 or 5 hours a night to keep up that schedule.
None of those things is necessarily supernatural by itself, but to have all of them in a single person who also seems to have uncanny luck and things like Not Being Shot By Muggers and being Born A Billionaire? If he were a D&D character his lowest stat would be a 16. It could all just be training and luck, but Bruce might believe, or want to believe, that his abilities are better explained by a low level of super strength and speed, or intelligence, or subconscious magic. They might be rare, but he's heard stories of low-power metahumans, with abilities like telekinesis up to one foot range and half a pound of weight. Surely his mental and physical abilities are more impressive than that, right? Right?
u/lordcirth [+2] (a month later)
Maybe Bruce Wayne has to dress up and pretend to be a metahuman to be taken seriously as a crime fighter.
I love this so much. You could apply this to any number of settings. A rational protagonist, fighting with gadgets and planning, needing to pretend to be metahuman?
u/UltraRedSpectrum [+11] (a day later)
Begin by asking: Given that Batman exists, that he is not absurd, and something very important hinges on the choices he makes over the period of time covered by the story, what must also be true? That is to say, taking as absolute, ironclad fact that the world needs Batman, explain why this is the case.
u/None [+3] (a day later)
I wouldn’t say the world per say needs Batman’s as in my story he’ll be responsible for a lot of villains and increase in crime rate
u/EliezerYudkowsky [+23] Godric Gryffindor (a day later)
Then rational Batman stops doing it. Or he has different goals that make him not care, in which case he's not very Batman.
u/UltraRedSpectrum [+6] (a day later)
This is exactly what I'm warning you against doing. A Batman who only makes things worse is much harder to pull off gracefully than a Batman who, through great effort and personal sacrifice and with serious risk of failure, manages to cause a significant change in the world. The former is also somewhat out of keeping with Metropolitan Man, which accepts both Superman and Lex Luthor as they are.
u/dankuck [+4] Good Afternoon, Good Evening, and Goodnight (3 days later)
Is your objective to make him rational or to make the world more realistic around him?
u/GullibleCynic [+5] (12 hours later)
Obligatory link to previous threads on this topic: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/5xfmwq/rational_batman_story_brainstorming/
u/None [+2] (a day later)
Also:
https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/77u2lv/rational_batman_fic/
u/wren42 [+5] (3 days later)
why are you posting the exact same topic as 2 months ago, word for word?
https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/77u2lv/rational_batman_fic/
there's also extinction burst already looking into batman's inner mental state:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12275245/1/Batman-Extinction-Burst
u/nick012000 [+2] (a day later)
Well, off of the top of my head, I can't think of any Rational Batman stories, but there was that one Rational Lex Luthor fanfic that I read a while back, and there's the ongoing fanfic of With This Ring, wherein a self-insert wakes up on the moon with an Orange Lantern ring and proceeds to try to use it as rationally as possible.
u/alliteratorsalmanac [+3] (21 hours later)
I have my own ideas for how to do it, but I'm not telling.
u/fish312 [+6] humanifest destiny (a day later)
I have my own ideas for how to do it, but I'm not telling.
Not going to downvote, but how do you imagine this contributes to the discussion?
u/UltraRedSpectrum [+4] (2 days later)
Not the OP, but given that there's no scarcity of space, I enjoy knowing it, since it's a scrap of evidence in the great void that is What People Are Doing But Not Talking About.
u/alliteratorsalmanac [+1] (3 days later)
Well said, and thank you.
Edit: Also, it's an idea that I've never seen anywhere else, and I've looked, and I think it would great. Even if it wasn't executed particularly well it would be good.
u/alliteratorsalmanac [+1] (3 days later)
Another contribution could be that it provides motivation to think of ideas when you're told that there are great ideas that you don't know that are confirmed reachable (because someone already thought of them). Like in that Yudkowsky short story. http://lesswrong.com/lw/qt/class_project/
I know it's kind of obnoxious, I'm not usually obnoxious.
Edit: If you haven't read the short story before, read the ones that come first first.
u/alliteratorsalmanac [+2] (3 days later)
I'm like a shitty riddler. I have to leave clues, but they can be as opaque as I want them to be.
Edit: Not to be self-centered or overly dramatic about myself or anything, I'm just joking.
Edit 2: An actual contribution could be that the strong suggestion is that it provides motivation to think of ideas when you're told that there are great ideas that you don't know that are confirmed reachable (because someone already thought of them). Like in that Yudkowsky short story. http://lesswrong.com/lw/qt/class_project/
Edit 3: If you haven't read the short story before, read the ones that come first first.
u/fish312 [+1] humanifest destiny (3 days later)
Haha don't worry about it. The real riddler was pretty shitty with his answers too.