"Many people would say that resilience was Jason Todd's defining trait. I wouldn't deny that. A difficult upbringing naturally gave him greater endurance than most.
That endurance didn't mean he was insensitive to pain; otherwise, it would have become numbness. But there was very little avoidance or numbness in Mr. Todd's personality, far less than in most people. He always faced difficulties head-on, pinpointed solutions, and rarely relied on familiar paths. That had something to do with his intelligence, but even more with his powerful inner drive and surging emotions.
I believed that whatever formed that inner drive was the key to shaping his personality. At first glance, I thought his drive came from Self-Perception. He refused to remain trapped here, refused to be ordinary, so he fought desperately to rise. That was a common driving force among intelligent people at the bottom of society.
Because they were smart enough, they could understand things more deeply than others. They were less satisfied with their circumstances and wanted to see a wider world and live a better life. It was so common that it had practically become a rule. But I didn't think Jason Todd was like that.
Jason's inner drive came from his empathy. In other words, his desire to improve himself didn't arise from Self-Perception, but from feeling the plight of those around him. More precisely, it came from feeling the hope others placed upon him, which gave rise to his powerful inner drive.
He was a born revolutionary, and revolutionaries were always suffering and impassioned. Their suffering came from this: revolutionary spirit was more like a curse that made them unable to stand by and ignore others' pain, forcing them to shoulder the responsibility of leading others out of hardship. It urged revolutionaries to become protectors, leaders, a