Batman stuff

You must kill what scares you and wear its skin. This is evident in the Hopi-Ket-Sina rituals. Hopi-boys, as they grow up, are tormented by these mask figures.

Into the unknowing pre-pubescent boy, he interprets these things as monsters and evil spirits. But in his coming of age, ritual, the climax is that these spirits who tormented him during his entire adolescence are revealed to be the other men of the tribe, his fathers take the mask off to reveal the identity of what he used to fear, and then they put the mask on the boy. And so not only is the illusion of fear dispersed, the boy becomes what he used to fear.

The only difference between a boy and a man is that a man becomes what he used to fear. The primary symptom of boyishness is to make decisions based on fear, rather than duty or obligation. Just as a mirage is the illusion of some good thing, fear is the illusion of some bad thing.

It's smoke and mirrors. It's refracted light and confusion. Donning the skin of the monster, the tormentor, and all of our myths, this is how boys become heroes.

Spider-man bit by the spider becomes the spider. Hercules in his first labor defeats the Nami and Lion. Then becomes the Lion, the berserker and the Ophednar, wearing the dogs skin to become dogs.

Bruce Wayne being terrified of bats becomes what he fears to scare the enemy. He becomes Batman, and Batman always plays with this idea of fear and of patrimony. Batman versus scarecrow.

Given the hope he ritual, the mask is the totem of fear, and it's passed from father to son. Fear is the inherited mask of an old man who loves you. As you see, Batman and Robin, Batman takes under his wing literally dig Grayson, but when he fails as in Jason Todd, Jason Todd is murdered by the Joker, and he comes back as the Red Hood, which was the Joker's initial identity.

And so the Red Hood is the murdered boy who has never accepted into the cult of the mask. He becomes a torment to society and to Batman. Boys who are uninitiated and unintegrated become villains themselves.

But of course when Batman heals the boy, heals the Red Hood, the Red Hood becomes the ally and the apprentice of the bat. Now when scarecrow confronts Batman, you know Batman has already trained himself to not succumb to the fear toxin. He says I'm not afraid.

And in the Arkham Night when scarecrow tries to retaliate, Red Hood snipes the gun out of his hand. Batman turns the fear toxin back on scarecrow. And so Batman and conquering a sphere has turned the scarecrow powerless.

And what is a scarecrow? It's a fake, it's a marionette, it's an unreal threat designed to scare birds away. A scarecrow is an illusion.

And when Batman doesn't succumb to the fear, he makes the scarecrow powerless. And so yeah, whatever scares you is your task, it is your inheritance. Fear is a mask.

Behind it is the man you're supposed to become.