Did Tim “kill” King Snake and does Bruce know?
In Tim’s first solo min, he goes to Paris to learn martial arts and get that “edge” he thinks he needs to properly assume his role as Robin. He ends up on the tail of British Lord, Hong Kong-based heroine kingpin, leader of the Ghost Dragon gang, Sir Edmund Dorrance AKA King Snake (who is blind, which will be important later). Tim’s only companions on this world tour are Lady Shiva, who wants to defeat Dorrance to prove herself stronger, and ex-DEA agent Clyde Rawlins, who wants revenge against Dorrance for Dorrance’s reprisal killing of his family.
Robin I #4 -- the dream team, I love them
The trio catch up to Dorrance in Hong Kong, where he’s waiting for them in what seems to be the top suite of his skyscraper, 50 stories up.
In this final confrontation with Dorrance, Tim takes full advantage of a crucial moment of distraction to kick Dorrance out of the window. Dorrance ends up clinging to a ledge, hanging on for dear life.
Shiva then appears to order Tim to kill Dorrance, presumably by kicking him off the ledge. (It becomes clear then that this is how Shiva intends to prove herself stronger than Dorrance: she trained Tim and therefore Tim is her weapon and an extension of herself. If Tim defeats Snake, she defeats him by proxy).
Tim refuses and walks away. All we see is him listen as Dorrance falls to what Tim explicitly assumes is his death, 50 stories down.
Robin I #5
So, while Tim isn't directly responsible for Dorrance's death, he was the one to put him in that position and then left him there to fall.
It’s unclear how Tim conceives of his actions here and how we are supposed to interpret them, especially in light of Tim’s refusal to kill in earlier chapters in this arc (and after).
Robin I #2
Robin I #4 -- I love Shiva
He stopped Rawlins from shooting and killing gang members, but then points to the danger Rawlins might have put them in by accidentally shooting crates containing plague (please read this arc it’s really fun despite suffering from uh. severe written in the 90s syndrome) and then explicitly restates his vow not to kill.
AND THEN, the plot thickens!!!
Dorrance did not actually fall to his death; he caught himself on a ledge below, where he believes Tim came down to taunt him. He came away from his fall with a fear of Tim and an obsession with killing him to purge himself of that fear. (anyway Sir Edmund Dorrance walked so Ra’s could run)
Batman (1940) #468
Batman (1940) #469
Dorrance moves to Gotham with the Ghost Dragons and takes over Chinatown (which. Who decided to put, a British lord, what boils down to an allegory of British colonialism in Hong Kong as the head of Chinatown? I have questions – anyway crimelord Lynx ftw)
In the course of his pursuit of Robin, it is revealed that Bruce believes “it was Lady Shiva that caused Dorrance to plunge to his death”—that Tim told him this.
Batman (1940) #469
This is clarified a bit more later, when Bruce confronts Dorrance.
#469
Dorrance explicitly accuses Tim of murder. He outlines the incident leading up to his fall—that Tim tricked him and attacked him from behind (he did, we saw this), that Dorrance was left dangling, and that Tim then caused him to fall.
Bruce refutes this accusation by claiming that it “wasn’t Robin who left you for dead. … Robin spared you. It was Lady Shiva who threw you to your death.”
From this, we can assume that in the moments after Tim refused Shiva and walked away, Shiva threw Dorrance down, which he didn’t realize because, as Bruce claims, he is blind and was likely traumatized by the incident. We can’t know this for sure, however—that Shiva threw him down—for exactly those reasons. Bruce is working off what Tim apparently told him, but we—and Tim—did not see this happen.
Bruce’s explanation of what actually happened also calls into question what exactly Tim told him about what happened.
It’s unclear what exactly he is refuting by: “It wasn’t Robin who left you for dead.” Does he not count Tim leaving Dorrance hanging as “leaving him for dead” or is the implication that Bruce thinks Shiva was the one who both threw Dorrance out the window and off the ledge? We never actually see what Tim told Bruce.
This leaves us with some possibilities:
that what Tim did by leaving Dorrance to dangle, by leaving him to Shiva, does not count against Batman’s no-killing rule.
Perhaps that Bruce does not feel that he could have expected or wanted Tim to step between Shiva and her target, Dorrance
that Bruce does not actually know what really happened—that Tim kicked Dorrance out the window, which in turn implies that either Tim may have stretched the truth or Bruce misinterpreted (purposefully?) what Tim told him
These all seem inconsistent, however, with incidents further down the line, with Cluemaster for example, and then when Tim rebukes Azbats for leaving Abattoir to die. A core tenet of Tim’s characterization is his sometimes frustrated but dedicated adherence to the no-kill rule (im beating anyone who cites the league bases at me away with a stick). So I don’t know what to do with this. Maybe it’s just comic inconsistency. Chuck Dixon, what are you doing?
If anyone has any thoughts about how to reconcile all this!! Please grant me peace
ADDENDA
i.e. stuff that I can’t possibly expect to be addressed in comics, but that I think about anyway
Related to this arc—a point is made a few issues later that Tim at this time doesn’t really have anyone to confide in. He can't really talk to Batman, isn’t close to Dick at this point, and while he is willing to work with Alfred and ask for help with Bat-related things, they’re not yet emotionally close. This isolation is poignantly demonstrated by him confessing his troubles to his still-comatose father.
Robin II #2
WHOM then would he have talked to about all that happened on his little “world tour”? No one? Besides whatever happened with Dorrance and brutal training and isolation, he also had to deal with the fact that Clyde Rawlins—whom he presumably developed some sort of camaraderie with (it’s tim ;-; he forms connections) was killed by Dorrance while working this mission with him.
We know that he had no one to talk to about all that. Did Tim linger on Rawlins????? On the fact that Shiva called him her weapon?? My boy is 13 ;-;
I also love that the whole buildup to Tim’s debut as Robin is Bruce agonizing about whether he should allow another boy to assume the position that cost him his son, and is then followed by plenty of moments after of Batman being overprotective.
Batman (1940) #468
And yet, when Tim is like “I need an edge to be Robin” presumably Bruce?? although this is never explicit connects him with a martial artist in Paris and sends him off on his own. It’s also possible that Tim is the one who comes up with this given that he agonizes a bit over whether he’s doing right by choosing his own path
Robin I #1
Either way, Tim goes to Paris Alone and essentially Unsupervised.
This lack of supervision is further emphasized by the fact that he goes to hunt down a king pin all the way to Hong Kong with Lady fucking Shiva and an ex DEA agent and no other back up. And Bruce presumably doesn’t find out until Tim runs into the hitman Henri Ducard in Hong Kong, who is apparently Batman’s acquaintance. (#5)
I have so many questions. I know that the actual reasoning is probably “oh we want to give this new character a little mini adventure arc on his own!!! To showcase how cool and independent the new robin is” but STILL
(also tim immediately getting himself a little team :’) I lub him)
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Good omens season 2 spoilers!
I don't usually get meta out of my brain semi-coherently but I'm seeing a lot of people misunderstanding Aziraphale's intentions in those final 15 minutes and I'm here to swing for my boy
I think one thing people might be missing the undercurrent of is the offer to make Crowley an angel again
It's not just an ooh we'd be on the same side, the good guys, and we'd be allowed to be together, though of course that is some of it
Aziraphale thinks he's being offered the chance to grant Crowley, who he knows has been tortured and almost killed by Hell, who risks punishment to disobey Hell's orders when they ask him to be cruel, divine forgiveness
That's kind of a big deal when Falling is the worst thing that can happen to an angel, besides being erased from existence
It's a way to get Crowley out of a job he hates and the persistent threat of torture, give him the freedom to be kind, as Aziraphale really believes he is deep down, underneath the obligations of being a Demon, without worrying about being punished for it
Of course he would want that for Crowley, that's not out of character at all
Aziraphale doesn't even want to go back to Heaven until it's stated that he can take Crowley with him, that Crowley can be an angel again
Crowley can be safe, and free from the trauma/repercussions of Falling, and they can be together forever in a real partnership
Why wouldn't he see it as a perfect solution?
He genuinely doesn't understand why Crowley doesn't want that
He's been given a chance to give Crowley salvation and protection from harm, and it's so shocking and confusing and upsetting that Crowley doesn't want to be saved, such a sting of rejection that he'd choose remaining Fallen on Earth over being an angel again with Aziraphale in Heaven, that in his heartbreak he ends up agreeing to go without Crowley despite Crowley being the only reason he considered it in the first place
Here's where I want to point out that I don't think Aziraphale understands how the Fall actually did change Crowley quite a bit. From Aziraphale's point of view, Crowley as an Angel and Crowley as a Demon are the same person just with different jobs. He's not entirely wrong about that, and given how often he's seen Crowley do the 'right' thing he's got evidence to back it up
But I'm not sure he knows what Crowley was telling Gabriel, that his own memories from before the Fall are hard to access and he did in essence have to start from scratch and build up a whole new sense of self
And besides that, being cast out of Heaven is a horrific abandonment. You don't just get over something like that when they invite you back - and you don't just get over seeing firsthand that they almost destroyed the love of your life without remorse only to turn around and ask him to run the place now (or all the other cruelty you've seen committed on their orders.)
Crowley has learned that kindness is not inherent in Heaven and having once been an angel has nothing to do with what he believes is right, while Aziraphale is still idealistic about good and evil (tbh Aziraphale admitting that Heaven needs to change is already a huge step in the right direction, it just wasn't enough)
From Crowley's pov Aziraphale is choosing an unjust and abusive workplace over the life they already have together, and asking him to change because he's not good enough as he is, even though that's not how Aziraphale means it at all.
I'm sure the Metatron knew that Crowley wouldn't go for it for precisely those reasons, but I don't think he needed to do anything more than make the offer to cause a rift
Tl;dr I vehemently believe Aziraphale wasn't poisoned he's just a well-meaning moron and the true villain here is miscommunication
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