Of course, I type up my long response without looking, and see then I see that @HubCityQuestion answered many of them similarly. 
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@Jay_Kay
I thoroughly enjoyed reading your elaboration on the matters at hand. I do agree that to an extent, Bruce is quite āfixatedā on death. And just as in our own reality, if you focus/meditate on any one thing long enough, you will notice that thing beginning to follow you.
So maybe the difference is views are actually the same.
Death seems to follow Bruce, because it Bruce follows it.
Perhaps the dynamic seems to perpetuate bc it is cyclical.
Death came knocking and ran. Bruce took off after it.
Focused. Persistent. Committed.
And because of this, Death kept coming.
Will he ever be happy?
I mean, sheesh.
Yeah, I hear you on the whole happiness is subjective thing. Very true.
But can anyone truly be āanyā form of happy, stuck in a cycle of death?
To one person, āthisā might be happiness, while to another, āthatā is.
But at what point does āthatā stop being a "just a different form of happiness and become what most would call āmiserableā - or in the least, āunhappyā?
@Vroom
If this is your view on the Batās idea of happiness, is this also to say that you believe the Bat doesnāt exactly have the same need or desire (or perhaps "reasonings
" is the word Iām looking for hereā¦?) behind the refrain of killing the criminals/villains they go after?
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@Kitty
That reminds me of that question, āWhich came first, the chicken or the egg?ā
Except I guess here itās kinda obvious that Death came first, whether weāre talking about Death itself or simply the death of Bruceās parents.
So, on that vein, it kinda sounds like Death follows The Bat.
It found him. And instead of moving on to the next unsuspecting victim, Bruce is chasing it around, and Death is after Bruce only in efforts to rip free and continue on being Death. Maybe Death hopes that maybe one of the many deaths of loved ones that followed the death of his parents would be the one to break him, or at least paralyze him long enough for Death to get away.
But Batmanās like, āNah, cuz. Come here!ā
Or at least, thatās how it goes in my head with Death being personified.
Now that I read my response over, I realize that it sounds like a pretty convincing case for Batman following Death, versus the urge away around. Lol
Regardless of which came first, batman does seem to be the one doing the chasing.
Death came and tried to leave but by batman choosing to avenge his parents death by nabbing similar criminals, he chose to chase the āideaā of deathā¦which I guess is the same as focusing or meditating on death.
Which, like kitty and hubcity said, is what keeps attracting death.
So maybe death isnāt following him.
Maybe he isnāt following death - technically.
But he sure is attracting it pointedly with his actions and attentions.
I guess thatās the difference between him and other superheros, Kitty.
They ask may be chasing criminals but the Batās the only one with a death-related motivation.
@Kitty, before I commit to any in depth reply, by chance could you reword your question? I re-read it a few times and Iām not quite sure what youāre asking. Are you asking if Batman would show restraint to enemies that he wouldnāt for Joker?
Just want to make sure I clearly understand your inquiry =)
I want to say that Death follows Bruce simply because of the life he leads. His parents were unfortunate, but he had no actual influence in that. But he made a decision that day, and itās been a butterfly effect ever since. The Deathās of all his allies and countless upon countless super villian victims would likely have never happened, simply because there was no batman to warrant them. For all the good bruce does as batman, he causes a lot more. To quote Dr. Bart Wolper from TDKR āBatmanās Psycho-erotic behavior pattern is like a net. Weak, egoed neurotics like Harvey Dent are drawn into corresponding, intersecting patterns.ā
Can He ever be happy just locking people away? No. Especially people like The Joker, Raās Al Ghul, Bane and Deathstroke, to name a few. People like Ivy and penguin can be reasoned with, Monsters like Croc and Grundy can be secured and left in a safe and healthy environment. But The far gone minds of arkhamās finest, The Polluted mentality of the Demon, and the horrible greed that haunts the souls of mercenaries is probably what keeps Bruce up at night (er. Day?). I believe he, as a character, would never be content until he stopped it. Permanent. But, much like his current war on crime, once you take out one, several more pop up in itās place. He would never quit.
Simply put to the last one, Bruce wayne can be happy. He has all he needs to be happy. Family, friendās, the ability to do damn near anything he wants. But Batman? No. Bruce can hang up the cape for years if he wants. But in the back of his mind, squealing and clawing, and flapping itās leathery wings away, the spirit of vengeance will always be present. And until crime itself is abolished, it will always be unsatisfied.
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Very well said, @Ravenboy!
I really love the psychoanalytic bit.
Surely individuals of a certain psychological makeup are attracted to his/her own counterpart.
And with just about every active cell of the Batās existence having been created in response to a death-related incident - with passions and emotional complexes rooted in a childhood, knee-jerk response to his parents death - he is left with very little room to experience much of anything unrelated to death.
He devoted his entire life to something borne of death.
Perhaps Batman āisā Death.
Maybe that night, the killer of Bruce Wayneās parents didnāt get away.
Maybe as Bruce Wayne watched his parentsā physical killer disappear down the dark alley, he saw Death try to slither off into the dark, grabbed it by the neck, snapped it in half, and became Death - swearing to avenge his parents Death!
Too much?
Ok, sorry.
I seem to always develop a flair for the dramatic at night time.
Seriously, though.
He might as well be Deathā¦
All he needs is a different mask.
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@LW, your literary appreciation tomes are wonderful. Just literary catnip. Keep it up.
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@LW
Lol Itās ok. I definitely understand.
But that is a very interesting conclusion to think on!
This is dumb, but you know how Morrison retconned āZur-en-arrhā into an alternate personality? Batman itself is one of these. THEORY: Bruce was so shaken up by what he saw as a kid that he went completely nuts, and was shipped to Arkham. Thatās why all his villains are imprisoned there. He created an entire (DC) universe in his head as a revenge fantasy on the abusive doctors of the asylum.
@Vroom
Goodness, that was a jumble of words. I may or may not have been sleep-talking by that point.
I think what I meant to ask was, "If this is your view on the Batās idea of happiness, is this also to say that you believe the Bat has different reasons for why he - like all true superheroes - refrains from killing the criminals he captures?
Especially the ones that he has very real reasons for wanting to kill.
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Batman is a hero. Itās not much more complicated than that.
Brice Wayne experienced a massive trauma, and devoted his life to get revenge on the criminal element that cost him his parents and his childhood.
But something changed along the way. Batman discovered that he didnāt fight for himself: he was fighting for others. More than anything, he wanted to prevent what happened to him from happening to anyone else.
Thatās one reason Robin (whichever one it may be) is so important. Batman wants to help Dick cope with his parentsā deaths, help Jason become something better than he was before he met Batman, help Tim hone his talents and desire to be a hero, and help Damian with his darker urges. In a way, all of the Robins represent a part of Bruceās life and personality.
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āBruce.ā Dang it.
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@VengeanceNightBatman
No worries. Weāve all been thereā¦lol
I think the mere fact that Batman has the capacity to care enough to be so shaken at the succession of deaths in his life, in addition to the additional fact that he spends each day of his life hunting down wrongdoers, is telling of the kind of person he is.
And I like that you point out how key it is that he realized he was not just fighting for himself, but for others. That he wanted to prevent his fate from becoming the fate of others. Because this is clearly at the heart of why he does what he does. It explains a lot about why there always ends up being another Robin. Training and caring for āRobinā is just like taking down criminals, in that it is a form of preventing others from having to go through what he went through.
The perpetuated existence of Robin makes a lot of sense, because it is pretty much a direct representation of the āextentā or ādepthā of the trauma that Bruce experienced with the loss of his parents.
In the context of cause & effect, the effect (Batman choosing and raising Robin after Robin) is just as hefty as the cause (Bruceās parents being snatched from him at a young age).
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@Batwing52
ā¦how much do I love ideas like this.
Iām gonna be thinking about this all night now.
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@DECE
Contentment is Stagnation.
Thatās definitely one way to look at it.
In many ways, it truly does seem that ācontentmentā doesnāt really seem to be in the books for anyone calling themself a superhero/ine.
Superheroes want justice, and as long as there is crime in the world, there is a reason to want justice.
As long as the need for justice exists in the world, the absence of contentment will live on in the lives of superheroes.
@DECE
"Stare long enough into the abyss and the abyss stares back at you."
Sounds like another cycle in the Batās life.
Or in the least another facet of THE cycle that is the Batās life.
His loved ones (parents) die > He vows to avenge their deaths/prevent anyone else from meeting the same fate by hunting down criminals > he indirectly attracts exactly what he is chasing down by doing so > he is propelled into another lap of the same circuit.
How long can a person go through this type of cycle before they come face-to-face with āthe abyssā? Before they start feeling like the monsters they are chasing are beginning to look more and more familiar?
Doesnāt mean these were their intentions.
ā¦Just part of the gig?
Or just part of the gig for the Bat?
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Soā¦ Has anyone read, āThe Priceā yetā¦? 
Apparently, it centers around a newish character called Gotham Girl who has a past similar to Bruceās.
And while both Flash and Batman try to play knight in shining armor, it was just interesting to note that a big theme in this 4 part crossover addresses the more negative aspects of trying to āhelpā or āguideā someone.
But I wonder how deeply Bruce considered the adverse effects of the whole āRobinā thing he keeps doingā¦ āRobbinā the cradleā comes to mind and feels accurate.
Minus the phraseās connotation, of course.
Anyway, this mini-series seems to touch on a couple of interesting themes. I would like to get my hands on it one of these days!
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