application: lastvoyages (updated: 11/01/2011)
Player Information
User Name/Nick: Jillian
User LJ: dayofjudah
AIM/IM: feverprophecy
E-mail: exprophet at gmail
Other Characters: none
Character Information
Character Name: Jason Peter Todd
Series: DC Comics
Age: 18 or 19 canon was not specific, but it is generally accepted that he is about 2 years older than Tim; however, Tim's age has been rolled back for editorial purposes (???). The amount of time he spent after coming back to life is about 1 year of brain damage and at least 1 year of training, though, so I would estimate he is actually 19.
From When?: After Batman cuts his throat open and the building explodes in "Under the Hood," plus the few months he spent on the Barge.
► Inmate/Warden: Inmate. Jason believes in killing a certain grade of criminal, and his sanity is on occasion questionable. It's "on occasion" because it seems to vary during his appearances. He can, under stress, become extremely irrational. Though Jason has a code dealers who sell to kids or sell poison, murders, rapists, people who abuse others in various ways he is very violent and has been shown to attack/kill people who weren't necessarily in violation of the code... which can be open to interpretation anyway. He also disdains most superheroes and the "cape and cowl scene," and will attack/kill people who he thinks are getting in his way; not least, his own "family," namely Bruce and Tim.
► Abilities/Powers: Jason is a talented, powerful fighter, highly trained in hand-to-hand (kuntao silat influenced, as opposed to Batman's more Japanese-influenced background and Dick's Capoeira-based style) as well as armed combat. He is proficient with all manner of guns and a great deal of weaponry (with a specialty in knife-fighting). He has canonically survived explosions and long falls. Among other skills and acquired knowledge, he knows the ins and outs of explosives, including how to disarm bombs, how to drive all sorts of vehicles, including flying ones, how to speak several languages fluently and/or conversationally (German, Russian, French, Spanish, Mandarin), how to read lips, toxicology, criminology, surveillance, sniping, acrobatics, and he is up to speed with modern technology and assorted gadgetry (well, modern of his earth, not... the Barge), though not as good with hacking/etc. as Tim or Oracle. When he knows a city well, as he knew Gotham, he is capable of immense influence on the criminal underground, setting up all sorts of highly implausible situations, controlling the flow of resources, and basically knowing what's going on. His tactical ability depended heavily on how well he knew Gotham, but he is capable of that kind of measured planning. It's just not a strong point without that in-depth knowledge.
► Personality: Jason Todd is an anti-hero of a contrary nature, possessing a perverse sense of humor. He's ruthless and violent, but we also see a part of him that greatly desires allies - somebody to understand the quest he's on, whether it's reaching out to Donna Troy, Mia, or even Tim, who he once beat up rather badly. Though strong and determined, he can also have moments of intense emotion that distract or undo him. It's speculated that being dunked in the Lazarus Pit (while Ra's al Ghul was sitting in it, even) may have adversely affected his sanity. Certainly, as Robin, Jason had what is persistently referred to as a "mean streak," but as a young adult, it seems to border sociopathic at times. However, Jason has a strong sense of what's morally right and wrong... it's just not the conventional sense of what's morally right and wrong. He won't abide murderers and rapists (despite the fact he himself has killed quite a few people, but he would tell you that they're all justified), and he'll use drug dealers to influence the underground as long as they don't sell to kids.
While his characterization suffers from inconsistent writing, it seems that Jason is depicted, prior to the publication "Lost Days" (a six issue miniseries detailing some of his exploits directly after his resurrection) in the following ways: a) an intelligent, dangerous opponent who isn't afraid to kill to accomplish his goals but ultimately only wants Bruce to kill the Joker b) an unstable, jealous young man who carefully makes sure the Titans cannot interfere while he confronts Tim, though in the end he develops a grudging respect for him c) an embittered and brutal vigilante who enjoys messing with his "older brother" and is apparently not phased by sprouting tentacles or eating people d) a grumpy, violent individual who is nonetheless capable of empathizing with and being romantically interested in Donna Troy e) a total nutbag. In my interpretation, Jason is still capable of all these things, but he must be pushed a lot before he achieves fucknuts crazy status. His general demeanor defaults to alternately grumpy and mocking, a blend of "Under the Hood" (a) Jason and "Countdown" (d) Jason. Even though many of these depictions haven't happened for him at the canon point I've taken him from, I think that if you don't have a certain amount of mellow, there's only so far you can get through a day without suddenly having Joker-like fits of crazy which would have made Jason far more visible than he was. He was fairly calm throughout most of "Lost Days," though much of that calmness was at least in part emotional deadness and not... actual serenity.
"Lost Days" covers an ambiguous amount of time from his resurrection six months after his death at sixteen to about nineteen years of age. The greatest addition it makes in terms of Jason's personality is the exploration of Jason's moral boundaries. After he poisons Egon, his assassin instructor, because he'd been trafficking in children sex slaves, he calmly drops the kids off at an embassy, then returns to burn the whole place down (Egon included). He and Talia have this conversation about it (important parts bolded): TALIA: This is an odd turn. I find you a teacher, and you murder him.
JASON: "Murder" sounds a bit fancy. I didn't orchestrate whacking him over an inheritance. I spiked his bug juice because he was a dirtbag. He was a killer for hire who made more money on a single job than most people in the world will see in their lifetime. But he still thought he needed extra cash, so he kidnapped children and sold them as sex toys.
TALIA: Why not just walk away and call the authorities?
JASON: I heard stuff. He had connections to the cops. Had a few politicians who he did work for. He wasn't gonna get locked up. But he was greedy. No lieutenants. Just muscle. The operation went through him. So, if it was going to end, it had to end with him. I didn't "murder" him. You murder people. I... put this reptile down. Don't tell me the world isn't better off.
He goes on to kill a few more of his teachers: his surveillance instructor was a pedophile, the small arms expert sold bad drugs, his close combat master was planning on killing her husband and children, and the mercenaries he may or may not have been learning from were "scum." He shows no remorse for any of their deaths, or for beating up his demolitions teacher Shurik barely a day after he'd been amiably drinking with him. Nor does he give a crap about the Russian mobsters he manages to kill while in London. But all these deaths are tempered by his use of the code. He doesn't kill the helicopter pilot even though he's a mercenary because he's "just the driver." He kills the Russian mobsters only after he spends all day gathering and disarming the bombs they planted in a bid to make English security focus on a fake middle eastern threat, and then only because they attack him.
It should be noted that by the end of his training, however, he seems to have (selectively) changed his mind. Telling Talia about how he had the Joker at his mercy, but chose not to kill him, Jason says (important part bolded): "He would've been dead. A quick, agonizing death. And this world would have been a much better place for it. But I don't really give a crap about the world." It's at this point that his emotions, or rather, his desire to force Bruce to confront his decision not to kill the Joker, takes precedence over the code.
And though emotions do eventually run high during "Under the Hood," Jason is very much in control for most of it, squaring off against Batman, mocking him, challenging him, trying (in his own twisted way) to reach out to the man who taught him virtually everything he knows even though he also knows it'll be a cold day in hell before Batman changes his mind about how to deal with criminals. Part of Jason knows he is here to "replace" Batman, to be the "ultimate" crime fighter Batman "cannot" be, or rather, chooses not to be. Part of him wishes that they could find common ground. It is for them, however, impossible. By this point, Jason is no longer seriously considering killing Bruce as a solution, though he knows it's a distinct possibility. Even Talia tells Jason to "punish [Batman]", not kill him. In a way, this is the one of the worst punishments Jason can inflict upon Bruce the rejection of Bruce's principles, the alienation of their once close relationship, and forcing Bruce to choose the Joker over Jason all over again, but to call that a conscious decision is a little much. Jason was and is aware of how his changed choices hurt Bruce; still, he also believes in them. His choice in his lifestyle is thus part contrariness and rebellion, but also partly sincere. The ratio of each varies as he goes through canon, but by the end of "Under the Hood," it's clear to him that he has to, at least where it concerns actual interaction with Bruce, move on. He never talks to Bruce face to face again after that point in canon (disregarding Countdown, where he encounters other versions of Bruce). He does try to reach out to Dick, Tim, and Mia, but never Bruce again.
His first stint in LV saw him paired with Patrick Kenzie, who was actually a startlingly good balance in terms of morals and a laid back nature. Patrick did not rise to Jason's baiting, and met Jason's standards of what a "good person" was. He also wouldn't let Jason go through with his stupid FUCK BRUCE, ERASE MY MEMORIES plan, and made an effort to keep Jason busy and out of trouble. He had a troubling encounter with Bruce during a flood, when both of them had reverted to an earlier canon point, but he doesn't remember that very well (and also chooses not to remember it, as much as that's possible). He hadn't made many in depth relationships; he found Arthas compelling, in a weird way, because Arthas was intelligent, self-aware, funny, and WAY MORE IMMENSELY FUCKED UP than Jason. He'd talked a bit with Hayley and found her sort of interesting. And he'd participated in the time-honored barge tradition of mocking Hoffman.
► Path to Redemption: Jason is lonely and he does care about at least kids some of the time (he's not socially inclined to be a kid kind of person in any way, but he cares in that he recognizes they're usually a hell of a lot more blameless than people who would or should know better), even if he professes not to care about the world. The fact is, confronted with human life, human pain, and his ability to make a difference, it is very difficult for him to turn away or not act (though he can do it if pushed).
The path to redemption lies in changing his ideas of what kind of actions are appropriate. At the moment he favors a very direct route unless there are obvious complications that require more subtlety - he tends to eliminate the source of the problem quickly and brutally, or force/manipulate it into acting differently. Intellectually, he does know there's more to rehabilitating a city than just killing all the really bad criminals, but he views that part of the job as his. To convince him he's not only capable of doing more but personally obligated to do it would be useful in steering him away from focusing on just killing.
Getting him to acknowledge his own limitations, to come back down to a place where he realizes violence really does beget more violence, or to understand that "sometimes very bad things must happen to accomplish a great good" isn't just his decision to make would all go a long way to think about what he does. Of course, it is entirely arguable that "sometimes very bad things must happen to accomplish a great good" is, well, WRONG. Changing his mind on that front wouldn't be easy, but getting him to understand that it's questionable, that the consequences of living a philosophy like that are very, very heavy, would not be so difficult.
So a great deal of it has to do with philosophy and making him face the more absolutist aspects of his beliefs. If/once he begins to accept that he's been too extreme, too harsh, the trick would be to have him take on more responsibility for his actions. It's one thing to come aross someone raping a woman and kill them outright; it's another thing to, say, stop the organized sexual abuse of children. Jason will die long before he kills all the pedophiles in Gotham, but if he learned to compromise - to have some inform on others in exchange for better sentences, for example - he'll have done more good than he would have just killing them.
While already existent family is still a factor, new friends/family (Patrick) are actually much more likely to reach him anyway despite his emotional walls. It's not like there are any kids on board (I don't think the HS characters would ping him the same way), but people who are seemingly more vulnerable than he is may achieve similar positive results in terms of trust or fostering a protective desire. He empathizes better with people from a similar socioeconomic background (poor/urban/somewhat criminal); traditional authoritative types will do poorly with him. He's not exactly a PUNK REBEL STREET KID RAWRRR but there is maybe a grain of truth in that depiction.
In addition, diverting his attention from vigilantism to something else would. Really help. It'd be NEXT TO IMPOSSIBLE but it would really help.
► History: The DCU is full of drama that spans many worlds, but Jason's personal drama the Batfamily drama occurs primarily on earth, primarily in Gotham City. ONCE UPON A TIME, there was a boy called Jason Peter Todd. His father, Willis Todd, was a petty crook who did not return to his family after serving a prison sentence (and was later killed by Two Face). His (adopted) mother, Catherine Todd, was a drug addict who died, leaving Jason alone at a very early age. Accustomed to ripping off car parts for cash, Jason, as an enterprising young man who knew an opportunity when he saw one, attempted to steal the tires off the Batmobile. He managed to get one before Batman caught him. Though he didn't have the first Robin's acrobatic skills, Batman saw that he could help Jason by channeling his anger and drive into crime-fighting. After six months of training, Jason became the second Robin. Also unlike the first Robin, Jason was a street kid whose attitude towards criminals was much darker. He was portrayed as the "rebel" of the Robins, prone to smoking and cursing and occasionally being headstrong. In one incident, it was actually highly ambiguous whether Jason may have caused the death of a serial rapist Felipe Garzonas fell 22 stories to his death, possibly because, as Jason said, "I guess I spooked him. He slipped." It was also possible that Jason let him fall, or actually pushed him, but the truth remains ambiguous. Jason also used excessive force on criminals, apologizing when it got in the way of investigation but maintaining that they deserved it.
And then he died.
The story behind it, involving his birth mother (who betrayed him), the middle east, and the Joker, was convoluted and honestly unimportant: the gist is that he had discovered that Catherine Todd was his adoptive mother, and, having been "benched" by Batman for a time due to one of their arguments about his crime fighting techniques, took off to a fictional country in the middle east to find his birth mother. It ended with the Joker beating him mostly to death with a crowbar, then leaving him next to a bomb which finished the job.
... for six in-continuity months, and then? Years and years (real years, not... you know, years within the context of the comic, which are so hard to track thanks for Batman NEVER AGING) of "ONLY JASON TODD AND BUCKY WILL NEVER BE RESURRECTED BLARGHLE HARGHLE BLUH" later, DC was like "welp!" and had Superboy Prime punch time (simultaneously, Marvel brought back Bucky. Why? Why not?).
Jason woke up six feet under, suffering from the injuries he'd sustained at the time of his death, screaming for Batman. He eventually managed to use his belt buckle to claw his way out of his coffin in a badass panel where of course it's storming because you totally can't come back to life during the day or whatever. This is where things get "bwuh?" - he then managed to stagger about twelve miles away from the gravesite before collapsing, being found, and spending a year in a coma. Then he woke up and... sort of just wandered out. Brain damaged. And spent a while being homeless and brain damaged in Gotham, until somebody sold him to Talia al Ghul, the daughter of Ra's al Ghul (the Arabic patronymic shouldn't work that way for Talia but I didn't make up their names) - "al Ghul" is actually ancient Arabic for "Creepyfuck" - who eventually shoved Jason in a Lazarus Pit which fixed everything else, and then Talia shoved him off a cliff into the water because Ra's was super mad.
One thing she had told him was NOT to contact Batman before he learned the truth - that he "remained unavenged." And when Jason found out that Batman hadn't killed the Joker for killing him, it kind of hurt. Stung. Little bit. He actually went back to Gotham and set up this elaborate situation and managed to plant a bomb on Batman's car, but at the last moment, decided not to detonate it, because Batman wouldn't have known it was him. He decided (with Talia's support) to set out on a global training journey similar to the one Batman undertook when he was first training to become Batman, learned all sorts of shit, and eventually came back to Gotham to... well, it's complicated and involves literally all the villains in Gotham, but suffice to say Jason's hair was randomly streaked with white. Basically, if you've ever tried watching an episode of Lost, and found yourself wondering just what the fuck is going on, welcome to what Jeph Loeb writes. Jeph Loeb also wrote this. Anyway, the "twist" in the Hush storyline was that "Jason" turns out to be Clayface. But the DOUBLE TWIST is that it really WAS Jason! ... Then, after a certain point in the fight, it was Clayface.
Then comes "Under the Hood," during which he used the identify of Red Hood, which the Joker's old persona (though there'd been others using that name since then). The Red Hood didn't come to Gotham to fight crime, but to influence it. He called a meet with the top street dealers in Gotham and informed them that he would be running the drug trade from now on. He did this by showing them the heads of their top lieutenants he had killed. The new rules were simple ones: he would get forty percent of the profit, and they would not sell to kids. If they broke that last rule, he would kill them. This was done to antagonize Black Mask (he did a lot of this), and actually did lower crime in Gotham for a while. Some time after this, Jason located the Joker and beat him almost to death, as the Joker had done to him. The Joker was part of his plan to make Batman choose between saving the Joker or killing Jason. This plan did not go well. :( Namely because you can't force Batman to do shit, and so instead of The Plan "I'm going to hold this gun to the Joker's head and if you want to stop me from shooting him you'll have to shoot me in my face!" (paraphrased) Bruce banked a batarang off a pipe and sliced Jason's throat open instead. Crushed emotionally, Jason then exploded the building.
Though he does survive, and goes on to have a handful of other adventures, that's the near death experience I'm taking him from.
► Sample Journal Entry: Clean line, no stitches. Just healed over, another scar. That's how I know this place is bullshit.
Part of me wonders if he had anything to do with it at all, because... look at this place. It's a giant fucking space asylum.
Oh, I can guess my role.
I'll even consider playing along. Let me guess: somebody's here to help me.
Well, doctor, let me tell you all about it.
► Sample RP: In his dreams, he couldn't open his eyes.
He'd pry at his eyelids with his hands, remembering a time when sleep was nothing but something to pass the time until waking hours. When he'd had dreams that had nothing to do with unrelenting black or six feet of upward fighting, breathing dirt like a new kind of animal. When he used to dream without knowing he was dreaming, without the aching disconnect of repeated failure to wake up.
Lucid dreaming was hell.
Jason didn't sleep very often.
He worked through the night, excavating small caches and planting a bomb inside each one before covering it all back up with brick. Life was a series of little preparations. Before you put on a show, you had to set the stage - strategically placed explosives as stage lights, surveillance cameras all primed in position, and it was almost time for action.
Gotham was unforgiving in the wee hours, and somewhere out there, Batman was disarming and neutralizing another crook, another gang or drug ring. Maybe he fought an enterprising metahuman, or perhaps he infiltrated the crew of an illegal arms dealer. The Joker had escaped again, but it was far too quiet for them to be tangling tonight. Jason leaned against the roof parapet, looking down below at the sparse traffic. Little people with their little lives, oblivious to an entire world above and beyond their little concerns. But that was okay. It was their right, their privilege, to live that way. And it was Jason's to protect them. (When he gave a shit.)
Sometimes, very bad things have to be done to do a great right.
Dawn came slow, dispelling his already scattered thoughts. Jumping off the roof onto a lower one, and across another and another, he gathered himself in mentally. Somewhere, Bruce drove the car back to the cave, and Alfred met him with food he would ignore until after the reports were written; the GCPD night shift was collecting zip-tied criminals from sidewalks. He should try resting or eating, but he was impatient for night to come again. In one of the crapholes he called bases, this particular one a riverfront warehouse stocked with weapons, he took off his mask and ran one gloved hand through his hair. It was probably a mess, but there were no mirrors and honestly, who gave a fuck? He checked his security, making sure he was alone and that no one had broken in while he was gone. Empty crates were stacked against one wall. He'd dragged a few of them over to serve as tables. One such table had the disassembled trigger mechanism for the bombs he'd planted tonight spread out on it. Another held a few extra bombs themselves, disabled. He placed his helmet on an extra crate and jogged up the stairs to the overhanging office. Inside comprised the more livable area of the warehouse - there was the couch he slept on when he did sleep, a mini fridge, a small television, and an actual desk with a computer. And a mini-bar, but he hadn't gotten much use out of that. It wasn't like molotov cocktails held much in the way of strategic destruction.
Taking water and a sandwich from the fridge (though he didn't feel hungry or thirsty), Jason leaned one hip against the desk and turned on the news while he checked his mail. Nothing from Talia as of late, and he wasn't surprised. Now that he was taking in fair amounts of money himself and firmly ensconced in Gotham, he didn't have to be a strain on her account and he didn't need her intel. They might have parted ways for now, but he would never forget her or what she'd done for him. She had helped get him this far. She had kept secrets for him. Defied her father for him. Sent him to Gotham at just the right time...
But such things were in the past. Now he was concerned with Gotham's future. Batman and Robin, too, were things of the past. The only road to salvation was through fire and blood, and while he found that he wished for an ally in all this, he knew he could do it alone. He was prepared for that. Still, a little hope remained - and why extinguish it? He had snuffed out so many others - a tiny feeling like roots tentatively shifting the soil. Hope that they'd come around, see the reality of the situation, and join him. A little bit of a dream, one he didn't want to wake up from, no matter how unlikely it was.
Maybe now he could sleep.
User Name/Nick: Jillian
User LJ: dayofjudah
AIM/IM: feverprophecy
E-mail: exprophet at gmail
Other Characters: none
Character Information
Character Name: Jason Peter Todd
Series: DC Comics
Age: 18 or 19 canon was not specific, but it is generally accepted that he is about 2 years older than Tim; however, Tim's age has been rolled back for editorial purposes (???). The amount of time he spent after coming back to life is about 1 year of brain damage and at least 1 year of training, though, so I would estimate he is actually 19.
From When?: After Batman cuts his throat open and the building explodes in "Under the Hood," plus the few months he spent on the Barge.
► Inmate/Warden: Inmate. Jason believes in killing a certain grade of criminal, and his sanity is on occasion questionable. It's "on occasion" because it seems to vary during his appearances. He can, under stress, become extremely irrational. Though Jason has a code dealers who sell to kids or sell poison, murders, rapists, people who abuse others in various ways he is very violent and has been shown to attack/kill people who weren't necessarily in violation of the code... which can be open to interpretation anyway. He also disdains most superheroes and the "cape and cowl scene," and will attack/kill people who he thinks are getting in his way; not least, his own "family," namely Bruce and Tim.
► Abilities/Powers: Jason is a talented, powerful fighter, highly trained in hand-to-hand (kuntao silat influenced, as opposed to Batman's more Japanese-influenced background and Dick's Capoeira-based style) as well as armed combat. He is proficient with all manner of guns and a great deal of weaponry (with a specialty in knife-fighting). He has canonically survived explosions and long falls. Among other skills and acquired knowledge, he knows the ins and outs of explosives, including how to disarm bombs, how to drive all sorts of vehicles, including flying ones, how to speak several languages fluently and/or conversationally (German, Russian, French, Spanish, Mandarin), how to read lips, toxicology, criminology, surveillance, sniping, acrobatics, and he is up to speed with modern technology and assorted gadgetry (well, modern of his earth, not... the Barge), though not as good with hacking/etc. as Tim or Oracle. When he knows a city well, as he knew Gotham, he is capable of immense influence on the criminal underground, setting up all sorts of highly implausible situations, controlling the flow of resources, and basically knowing what's going on. His tactical ability depended heavily on how well he knew Gotham, but he is capable of that kind of measured planning. It's just not a strong point without that in-depth knowledge.
► Personality: Jason Todd is an anti-hero of a contrary nature, possessing a perverse sense of humor. He's ruthless and violent, but we also see a part of him that greatly desires allies - somebody to understand the quest he's on, whether it's reaching out to Donna Troy, Mia, or even Tim, who he once beat up rather badly. Though strong and determined, he can also have moments of intense emotion that distract or undo him. It's speculated that being dunked in the Lazarus Pit (while Ra's al Ghul was sitting in it, even) may have adversely affected his sanity. Certainly, as Robin, Jason had what is persistently referred to as a "mean streak," but as a young adult, it seems to border sociopathic at times. However, Jason has a strong sense of what's morally right and wrong... it's just not the conventional sense of what's morally right and wrong. He won't abide murderers and rapists (despite the fact he himself has killed quite a few people, but he would tell you that they're all justified), and he'll use drug dealers to influence the underground as long as they don't sell to kids.
While his characterization suffers from inconsistent writing, it seems that Jason is depicted, prior to the publication "Lost Days" (a six issue miniseries detailing some of his exploits directly after his resurrection) in the following ways: a) an intelligent, dangerous opponent who isn't afraid to kill to accomplish his goals but ultimately only wants Bruce to kill the Joker b) an unstable, jealous young man who carefully makes sure the Titans cannot interfere while he confronts Tim, though in the end he develops a grudging respect for him c) an embittered and brutal vigilante who enjoys messing with his "older brother" and is apparently not phased by sprouting tentacles or eating people d) a grumpy, violent individual who is nonetheless capable of empathizing with and being romantically interested in Donna Troy e) a total nutbag. In my interpretation, Jason is still capable of all these things, but he must be pushed a lot before he achieves fucknuts crazy status. His general demeanor defaults to alternately grumpy and mocking, a blend of "Under the Hood" (a) Jason and "Countdown" (d) Jason. Even though many of these depictions haven't happened for him at the canon point I've taken him from, I think that if you don't have a certain amount of mellow, there's only so far you can get through a day without suddenly having Joker-like fits of crazy which would have made Jason far more visible than he was. He was fairly calm throughout most of "Lost Days," though much of that calmness was at least in part emotional deadness and not... actual serenity.
"Lost Days" covers an ambiguous amount of time from his resurrection six months after his death at sixteen to about nineteen years of age. The greatest addition it makes in terms of Jason's personality is the exploration of Jason's moral boundaries. After he poisons Egon, his assassin instructor, because he'd been trafficking in children sex slaves, he calmly drops the kids off at an embassy, then returns to burn the whole place down (Egon included). He and Talia have this conversation about it (important parts bolded): TALIA: This is an odd turn. I find you a teacher, and you murder him.
JASON: "Murder" sounds a bit fancy. I didn't orchestrate whacking him over an inheritance. I spiked his bug juice because he was a dirtbag. He was a killer for hire who made more money on a single job than most people in the world will see in their lifetime. But he still thought he needed extra cash, so he kidnapped children and sold them as sex toys.
TALIA: Why not just walk away and call the authorities?
JASON: I heard stuff. He had connections to the cops. Had a few politicians who he did work for. He wasn't gonna get locked up. But he was greedy. No lieutenants. Just muscle. The operation went through him. So, if it was going to end, it had to end with him. I didn't "murder" him. You murder people. I... put this reptile down. Don't tell me the world isn't better off.
He goes on to kill a few more of his teachers: his surveillance instructor was a pedophile, the small arms expert sold bad drugs, his close combat master was planning on killing her husband and children, and the mercenaries he may or may not have been learning from were "scum." He shows no remorse for any of their deaths, or for beating up his demolitions teacher Shurik barely a day after he'd been amiably drinking with him. Nor does he give a crap about the Russian mobsters he manages to kill while in London. But all these deaths are tempered by his use of the code. He doesn't kill the helicopter pilot even though he's a mercenary because he's "just the driver." He kills the Russian mobsters only after he spends all day gathering and disarming the bombs they planted in a bid to make English security focus on a fake middle eastern threat, and then only because they attack him.
It should be noted that by the end of his training, however, he seems to have (selectively) changed his mind. Telling Talia about how he had the Joker at his mercy, but chose not to kill him, Jason says (important part bolded): "He would've been dead. A quick, agonizing death. And this world would have been a much better place for it. But I don't really give a crap about the world." It's at this point that his emotions, or rather, his desire to force Bruce to confront his decision not to kill the Joker, takes precedence over the code.
And though emotions do eventually run high during "Under the Hood," Jason is very much in control for most of it, squaring off against Batman, mocking him, challenging him, trying (in his own twisted way) to reach out to the man who taught him virtually everything he knows even though he also knows it'll be a cold day in hell before Batman changes his mind about how to deal with criminals. Part of Jason knows he is here to "replace" Batman, to be the "ultimate" crime fighter Batman "cannot" be, or rather, chooses not to be. Part of him wishes that they could find common ground. It is for them, however, impossible. By this point, Jason is no longer seriously considering killing Bruce as a solution, though he knows it's a distinct possibility. Even Talia tells Jason to "punish [Batman]", not kill him. In a way, this is the one of the worst punishments Jason can inflict upon Bruce the rejection of Bruce's principles, the alienation of their once close relationship, and forcing Bruce to choose the Joker over Jason all over again, but to call that a conscious decision is a little much. Jason was and is aware of how his changed choices hurt Bruce; still, he also believes in them. His choice in his lifestyle is thus part contrariness and rebellion, but also partly sincere. The ratio of each varies as he goes through canon, but by the end of "Under the Hood," it's clear to him that he has to, at least where it concerns actual interaction with Bruce, move on. He never talks to Bruce face to face again after that point in canon (disregarding Countdown, where he encounters other versions of Bruce). He does try to reach out to Dick, Tim, and Mia, but never Bruce again.
His first stint in LV saw him paired with Patrick Kenzie, who was actually a startlingly good balance in terms of morals and a laid back nature. Patrick did not rise to Jason's baiting, and met Jason's standards of what a "good person" was. He also wouldn't let Jason go through with his stupid FUCK BRUCE, ERASE MY MEMORIES plan, and made an effort to keep Jason busy and out of trouble. He had a troubling encounter with Bruce during a flood, when both of them had reverted to an earlier canon point, but he doesn't remember that very well (and also chooses not to remember it, as much as that's possible). He hadn't made many in depth relationships; he found Arthas compelling, in a weird way, because Arthas was intelligent, self-aware, funny, and WAY MORE IMMENSELY FUCKED UP than Jason. He'd talked a bit with Hayley and found her sort of interesting. And he'd participated in the time-honored barge tradition of mocking Hoffman.
► Path to Redemption: Jason is lonely and he does care about at least kids some of the time (he's not socially inclined to be a kid kind of person in any way, but he cares in that he recognizes they're usually a hell of a lot more blameless than people who would or should know better), even if he professes not to care about the world. The fact is, confronted with human life, human pain, and his ability to make a difference, it is very difficult for him to turn away or not act (though he can do it if pushed).
The path to redemption lies in changing his ideas of what kind of actions are appropriate. At the moment he favors a very direct route unless there are obvious complications that require more subtlety - he tends to eliminate the source of the problem quickly and brutally, or force/manipulate it into acting differently. Intellectually, he does know there's more to rehabilitating a city than just killing all the really bad criminals, but he views that part of the job as his. To convince him he's not only capable of doing more but personally obligated to do it would be useful in steering him away from focusing on just killing.
Getting him to acknowledge his own limitations, to come back down to a place where he realizes violence really does beget more violence, or to understand that "sometimes very bad things must happen to accomplish a great good" isn't just his decision to make would all go a long way to think about what he does. Of course, it is entirely arguable that "sometimes very bad things must happen to accomplish a great good" is, well, WRONG. Changing his mind on that front wouldn't be easy, but getting him to understand that it's questionable, that the consequences of living a philosophy like that are very, very heavy, would not be so difficult.
So a great deal of it has to do with philosophy and making him face the more absolutist aspects of his beliefs. If/once he begins to accept that he's been too extreme, too harsh, the trick would be to have him take on more responsibility for his actions. It's one thing to come aross someone raping a woman and kill them outright; it's another thing to, say, stop the organized sexual abuse of children. Jason will die long before he kills all the pedophiles in Gotham, but if he learned to compromise - to have some inform on others in exchange for better sentences, for example - he'll have done more good than he would have just killing them.
While already existent family is still a factor, new friends/family (Patrick) are actually much more likely to reach him anyway despite his emotional walls. It's not like there are any kids on board (I don't think the HS characters would ping him the same way), but people who are seemingly more vulnerable than he is may achieve similar positive results in terms of trust or fostering a protective desire. He empathizes better with people from a similar socioeconomic background (poor/urban/somewhat criminal); traditional authoritative types will do poorly with him. He's not exactly a PUNK REBEL STREET KID RAWRRR but there is maybe a grain of truth in that depiction.
In addition, diverting his attention from vigilantism to something else would. Really help. It'd be NEXT TO IMPOSSIBLE but it would really help.
► History: The DCU is full of drama that spans many worlds, but Jason's personal drama the Batfamily drama occurs primarily on earth, primarily in Gotham City. ONCE UPON A TIME, there was a boy called Jason Peter Todd. His father, Willis Todd, was a petty crook who did not return to his family after serving a prison sentence (and was later killed by Two Face). His (adopted) mother, Catherine Todd, was a drug addict who died, leaving Jason alone at a very early age. Accustomed to ripping off car parts for cash, Jason, as an enterprising young man who knew an opportunity when he saw one, attempted to steal the tires off the Batmobile. He managed to get one before Batman caught him. Though he didn't have the first Robin's acrobatic skills, Batman saw that he could help Jason by channeling his anger and drive into crime-fighting. After six months of training, Jason became the second Robin. Also unlike the first Robin, Jason was a street kid whose attitude towards criminals was much darker. He was portrayed as the "rebel" of the Robins, prone to smoking and cursing and occasionally being headstrong. In one incident, it was actually highly ambiguous whether Jason may have caused the death of a serial rapist Felipe Garzonas fell 22 stories to his death, possibly because, as Jason said, "I guess I spooked him. He slipped." It was also possible that Jason let him fall, or actually pushed him, but the truth remains ambiguous. Jason also used excessive force on criminals, apologizing when it got in the way of investigation but maintaining that they deserved it.
And then he died.
The story behind it, involving his birth mother (who betrayed him), the middle east, and the Joker, was convoluted and honestly unimportant: the gist is that he had discovered that Catherine Todd was his adoptive mother, and, having been "benched" by Batman for a time due to one of their arguments about his crime fighting techniques, took off to a fictional country in the middle east to find his birth mother. It ended with the Joker beating him mostly to death with a crowbar, then leaving him next to a bomb which finished the job.
... for six in-continuity months, and then? Years and years (real years, not... you know, years within the context of the comic, which are so hard to track thanks for Batman NEVER AGING) of "ONLY JASON TODD AND BUCKY WILL NEVER BE RESURRECTED BLARGHLE HARGHLE BLUH" later, DC was like "welp!" and had Superboy Prime punch time (simultaneously, Marvel brought back Bucky. Why? Why not?).
Jason woke up six feet under, suffering from the injuries he'd sustained at the time of his death, screaming for Batman. He eventually managed to use his belt buckle to claw his way out of his coffin in a badass panel where of course it's storming because you totally can't come back to life during the day or whatever. This is where things get "bwuh?" - he then managed to stagger about twelve miles away from the gravesite before collapsing, being found, and spending a year in a coma. Then he woke up and... sort of just wandered out. Brain damaged. And spent a while being homeless and brain damaged in Gotham, until somebody sold him to Talia al Ghul, the daughter of Ra's al Ghul (the Arabic patronymic shouldn't work that way for Talia but I didn't make up their names) - "al Ghul" is actually ancient Arabic for "Creepyfuck" - who eventually shoved Jason in a Lazarus Pit which fixed everything else, and then Talia shoved him off a cliff into the water because Ra's was super mad.
One thing she had told him was NOT to contact Batman before he learned the truth - that he "remained unavenged." And when Jason found out that Batman hadn't killed the Joker for killing him, it kind of hurt. Stung. Little bit. He actually went back to Gotham and set up this elaborate situation and managed to plant a bomb on Batman's car, but at the last moment, decided not to detonate it, because Batman wouldn't have known it was him. He decided (with Talia's support) to set out on a global training journey similar to the one Batman undertook when he was first training to become Batman, learned all sorts of shit, and eventually came back to Gotham to... well, it's complicated and involves literally all the villains in Gotham, but suffice to say Jason's hair was randomly streaked with white. Basically, if you've ever tried watching an episode of Lost, and found yourself wondering just what the fuck is going on, welcome to what Jeph Loeb writes. Jeph Loeb also wrote this. Anyway, the "twist" in the Hush storyline was that "Jason" turns out to be Clayface. But the DOUBLE TWIST is that it really WAS Jason! ... Then, after a certain point in the fight, it was Clayface.
Then comes "Under the Hood," during which he used the identify of Red Hood, which the Joker's old persona (though there'd been others using that name since then). The Red Hood didn't come to Gotham to fight crime, but to influence it. He called a meet with the top street dealers in Gotham and informed them that he would be running the drug trade from now on. He did this by showing them the heads of their top lieutenants he had killed. The new rules were simple ones: he would get forty percent of the profit, and they would not sell to kids. If they broke that last rule, he would kill them. This was done to antagonize Black Mask (he did a lot of this), and actually did lower crime in Gotham for a while. Some time after this, Jason located the Joker and beat him almost to death, as the Joker had done to him. The Joker was part of his plan to make Batman choose between saving the Joker or killing Jason. This plan did not go well. :( Namely because you can't force Batman to do shit, and so instead of The Plan "I'm going to hold this gun to the Joker's head and if you want to stop me from shooting him you'll have to shoot me in my face!" (paraphrased) Bruce banked a batarang off a pipe and sliced Jason's throat open instead. Crushed emotionally, Jason then exploded the building.
Though he does survive, and goes on to have a handful of other adventures, that's the near death experience I'm taking him from.
► Sample Journal Entry: Clean line, no stitches. Just healed over, another scar. That's how I know this place is bullshit.
Part of me wonders if he had anything to do with it at all, because... look at this place. It's a giant fucking space asylum.
Oh, I can guess my role.
I'll even consider playing along. Let me guess: somebody's here to help me.
Well, doctor, let me tell you all about it.
► Sample RP: In his dreams, he couldn't open his eyes.
He'd pry at his eyelids with his hands, remembering a time when sleep was nothing but something to pass the time until waking hours. When he'd had dreams that had nothing to do with unrelenting black or six feet of upward fighting, breathing dirt like a new kind of animal. When he used to dream without knowing he was dreaming, without the aching disconnect of repeated failure to wake up.
Lucid dreaming was hell.
Jason didn't sleep very often.
He worked through the night, excavating small caches and planting a bomb inside each one before covering it all back up with brick. Life was a series of little preparations. Before you put on a show, you had to set the stage - strategically placed explosives as stage lights, surveillance cameras all primed in position, and it was almost time for action.
Gotham was unforgiving in the wee hours, and somewhere out there, Batman was disarming and neutralizing another crook, another gang or drug ring. Maybe he fought an enterprising metahuman, or perhaps he infiltrated the crew of an illegal arms dealer. The Joker had escaped again, but it was far too quiet for them to be tangling tonight. Jason leaned against the roof parapet, looking down below at the sparse traffic. Little people with their little lives, oblivious to an entire world above and beyond their little concerns. But that was okay. It was their right, their privilege, to live that way. And it was Jason's to protect them. (When he gave a shit.)
Sometimes, very bad things have to be done to do a great right.
Dawn came slow, dispelling his already scattered thoughts. Jumping off the roof onto a lower one, and across another and another, he gathered himself in mentally. Somewhere, Bruce drove the car back to the cave, and Alfred met him with food he would ignore until after the reports were written; the GCPD night shift was collecting zip-tied criminals from sidewalks. He should try resting or eating, but he was impatient for night to come again. In one of the crapholes he called bases, this particular one a riverfront warehouse stocked with weapons, he took off his mask and ran one gloved hand through his hair. It was probably a mess, but there were no mirrors and honestly, who gave a fuck? He checked his security, making sure he was alone and that no one had broken in while he was gone. Empty crates were stacked against one wall. He'd dragged a few of them over to serve as tables. One such table had the disassembled trigger mechanism for the bombs he'd planted tonight spread out on it. Another held a few extra bombs themselves, disabled. He placed his helmet on an extra crate and jogged up the stairs to the overhanging office. Inside comprised the more livable area of the warehouse - there was the couch he slept on when he did sleep, a mini fridge, a small television, and an actual desk with a computer. And a mini-bar, but he hadn't gotten much use out of that. It wasn't like molotov cocktails held much in the way of strategic destruction.
Taking water and a sandwich from the fridge (though he didn't feel hungry or thirsty), Jason leaned one hip against the desk and turned on the news while he checked his mail. Nothing from Talia as of late, and he wasn't surprised. Now that he was taking in fair amounts of money himself and firmly ensconced in Gotham, he didn't have to be a strain on her account and he didn't need her intel. They might have parted ways for now, but he would never forget her or what she'd done for him. She had helped get him this far. She had kept secrets for him. Defied her father for him. Sent him to Gotham at just the right time...
But such things were in the past. Now he was concerned with Gotham's future. Batman and Robin, too, were things of the past. The only road to salvation was through fire and blood, and while he found that he wished for an ally in all this, he knew he could do it alone. He was prepared for that. Still, a little hope remained - and why extinguish it? He had snuffed out so many others - a tiny feeling like roots tentatively shifting the soil. Hope that they'd come around, see the reality of the situation, and join him. A little bit of a dream, one he didn't want to wake up from, no matter how unlikely it was.
Maybe now he could sleep.