Fridge / The Changeling Sequence

• Damian's induction in the Wayne family dynamic is wildly different from canon, yet it makes perfect sense when closely examinated:
  • He lost his mother in dramatic circumstances and had to drop everything he knew when he was brought to Gotham. The Batfamily as a whole is a sucker for tragic orphans.
  • Jason introduces him, not Talia. Because there was no Red Hood, Jason's coming back is an unmitigated happy occasion, and Damian by association benefits from the Bats' good will.
  • The kid is still reeling from too many changes in his life, so he's not throwing tantrums right and left. A Spoiled Brat tends to quickly exhaust people. A reserved child tends to make people worry.
  • Damian is obviously fond of Jason, which is proof he's not The Sociopath in spite of being raised by the League of Assassins. With heroes so big on redemption and second chances, they naturally notice that and want to encourage the kid to care.
• Fridge Tearjerker: Damian obviously favours Jason over Dick. That's because he got to know him while he still lived with Talia, right before everything turned upside-down and he was forced to adapt to a brand-new existence. To Damian, Jason is his last reminder of Talia.
• The first story in the sequence is quite heavy on the Fairy Tale Motif, when thinking about it:
  • Jason wakes up imprisoned and alone in a strange country - the hero finds himself isolated/captured/distressed. He meets Damian - finds the Living MacGuffin, more useful to the plot than as a character. He escapes and has to cross Europe and the Atlantic while protecting his brother - endures trials and tribulations to prove he's worthy to keep the Living MacGuffin. He's reunited with his family - Happily Ever After.
  • Damian as the "changeling". He does come out from the blue, and his morality is twisted enough to be fey. But Bruce's immediate thought when meeting him is that he doesn't want a Replacement Goldfish for Jason - in the classic myth, the fairies would leave a changeling after stealing a human child to distract the parents. And just like in the myth, Damian's apparition is not enough for Bruce to cease wanting Jason back.
• Damian's Adaptational Personality Change:
  • A kid raised amongst assassins would consider death as cavalier, something undeserving of fuss. Until Damian loses his mother, which forces him to realize that yes, death can be something awful.
  • He's following Jason's lead. For all his temper and abrasiveness, Jason is still socially well-adjusted and Damian is both a child and an assassin: both categories are very observant. Jason being polite works, so the kid mimicks him.
  • His lack of hostility towards Tim: here, they started on the wrong foot because Tim being Robin was upsetting to Jason, but when Tim "made amends" by creating the Red Robin persona only for Jason, it helped Damian to forgive his "crime". Also, Tim explicitly was outside the Batclan since he lived with his father, so he wasn't a rival for Bruce's affection. Mr Drake's murder occurs several months later, so Damian had enough time to grow secure in his dad's love for him and as such doesn't feel threatened by Tim moving into the Manor.
  • Canon Damian's only way to relate to his father was through Robin, as all Bruce's wards had been Robin and as such the boy was desperate to gain love by proving he was the "superior" sidekick, which made him act out and agressive. He didn't have Jason's assurance that Bruce would love him no matter what, just for being Damian.
• Jason refusing to give into anger in front of Damian — his birth dad was an abusive shit, and Jason is scared of mimicking Willis by letting a kid see the ugliest part of him.
• Dick appears pretty careless when he opens his door to Damian, since he's currently living in Bludhaven, but it's actually the trope on which the entire CHERUB Series is based on: people instinctively trust children. Of course the big, mean vigilante is going to crumple in front of a crying kid begging for help because his big bro just got shot.