Al Ghul.

P A R T Y  T I M E ! 

Paradox: Apex Legends Roleplay

Paradox is a semi-literate to literate roleplay server for canon and oc roleplay (npcs from the universe are also welcome, we currently have characters such as Blisk, and Mila), open to anyone 16-25 years old! We have lore separate from the universe within the server, active and prolonged events that take place to prompt interesting roleplays, and many brilliant roleplayers to interact with! Note: Mobile legends aren’t welcome as we’ve yet to include their lore within the server, and pilot ocs (Titanfall pilots) will be judged harshly.

Canon characters that are currently available or free to claim:

Gibraltar

Wraith

Mirage

Rampart

Horizon

Valkyrie

Ash

More information about our server and its details can be found here <3

If you’re interested drop me a message, I hope to hear from you.

I think Talia truly loves her father, and I think he loves her too. I think he is terrible, though. He’s a huge abuser, made Talia feel incapable her entire life, manipulated her into feeling beneath him. And with each use of the Lazarus, his mind becomes more and more decayed. His love for his daughter twists and corrupts. He sees her as more of a tool than a child. And she grows to resent this, but still loves him deep down. She wants to help him, but he will never accept the help. So she needs to go off on her own. As someone who kind of knows the position she’s in, it can be extremely hard to latch off of an abusive parent. Especially when you have a deep connection to the concept of family. Talia wants to stay as neutral as she can and play both sides but that physically isn’t possible with the boundaries set up by Bruce. Boundaries that he is absolutely right to put up.

so i started playing apex

The Psychology of Talia

For throwntotheair, who has a few questions about Talia. :) I’m grouping this under a few broad questions that should bleed into answering some of the others you mentioned.

The preface of this, of course, is that all of my answers are based in the character of Talia al Ghul prior to Grant Morrison writing her. So the 30+ years of content and development we had beforehand. Grant largely ignored the fundamental pieces of her character that were recurring themes over the years, turned her into an infanticidal rapist and, generally speaking, made her as 2-dimensional as possible. His interpretation also gave Talia wildly inconsistent motives, so he is not a good measure for delving into her character.

What are her motives?

Talia has always been motivated by one thing: love. Love for her father, love for Bruce, love for Damian. Even love for the planet (though less so than Ra’s). Each step of her journey has love somewhere in the why. The primary conflict for her, especially early on, was the tug-of-war between acting for good (because of her love for Bruce) or acting for evil (because of her love for her father). 

The animated series still gives one of the best summaries of Talia’s goals, too: she says that she believes in her father’s vision for the world, but not in his means (namely mass genocide). 

Even in dealing with Damian (Morrison, again, notwithstanding), I think she meant everything for love (I’ll explain more in the ‘why did she raise him this way’ section).

When she throws Jason into the Lazarus Pit in Lost Days, her letter to him says that she has done this “for love.”

Despite her badassery, Talia is actually a very loving, empathic person (though sometimes she denies it). Either way, love is at the core of what she does. For her father, that love spills over into loyalty…most of the time.

Why the loyalty to Ra’s (Why has she never stood against him?)

Wellllll this is two parts. The first question: love and indoctrination. The second question: she has.

First we have to understand that Talia is pretty much a psychological trainwreck. In Batman Chronicles #8, we see one of the only stories that’s specifically from Talia’s point-of-view. This and Lost Days are as close as we really get to such direct access to her thoughts.

Yeah. She’s messed up. We should note that Ra’s, despite his being just about Worst Dad Ever, does genuinely love Talia, in his own way.

Realize that Talia has been raised exclusively in Ra’s in environment (like Damian) and that the way she raised Damian was A LOT like she was raised. She’s in a place where he father is viewed as a deity, it’s this massive, powerful cult, and so there’s a level of indoctrination going on.

But that said…Even from the beginning, Talia was defying her father.

She thinks for herself and, growing through the years, she becomes increasingly agitated, worn down and plain ol’ fed up with her father. I would argue that in most cases, she betrays him for Bruce (or Jason, or Damian) because she knows he’s wrong.

(Prior this panel, Batman asks why Talia is betraying Ra’s, and if it’s because she loves him:)

Doesn’t she seem to be lacking independence?

Here’s where I think there was a massive missed opportunity. Talia, after being shot for betraying her father in Tower of Babel, nopes out and goes off on her own. She’s fed up with both Bruce AND Ra’s.

Ra’s shows up and has Talia kidnapped to bring her back. She winds up rescuing Bruce one more time before leaving BOTH of them and heading off to Hong Kong, where she becomes a successful businesswoman in her own right.

At the time, Lex Luthor is about to run for president. He shows up at her door:

Talia becomes CEO of LexCorp. I wish so much that more happened in this era for her. She butts heads with Superman a few times (and even teamed up once and it was awesome), but it was so under-utilized. In the end, though, she runs the long con on Luthor, willfully bankrupts LexCorp and sells off the assets to Wayne Enterprises. Mostly just to spite him.

She hates Lexcorp mostly because she’s an environmentalist. And because Luthor.

So she’s this awesome independent businesswoman who manages to trick one of the smartest men in the DCU.

Unfortunately, her half-sister shows up during this era in Death and the Maidens. She kidnaps and tortures Talia by murdering her over and over and bringing her back with her Lazarus Pit. This goes on until Talia’s psyche shatters.

Nyssa brainwashes Talia, first with intent to kill Ra’s. Ra’s eventually kills Talia.

When Nyssa kills Ra’s, she and Talia both continue with Ra’s mission (with Nyssa as the Demon’s Head until her death). Then Talia, still brainwashed, becomes the Demon’s Head and leads into the modern area (as with Villains United which ran pretty close up to the New 52).

Why did she raise Damian in that environment?

To put it short: because it was how she was raised and because she knows it’s the only way for him to survive. When Talia was 18 (her first appearance) she was kidnapped by an enemy of her father. Her entire life has been violence, danger and bloodshed. Her father is a powerful, dangerous man in a dangerous world.

If Damian had not been trained, in her mind, he would not have survived. I think she believes it was the best way for him to be able to protect himself. Some indoctrination bleeds through (as her raising him would be post-brainwashing, though the timeline is a bit wonky). 

I hope that helps! I’ve got a lot more essays in on my blog, plus one that’s a comprehensive account of Talia’s history.

Lighthearted Talia hcs rq

Her public image is drastically different from what is known underground. To most, she is seen as a figure of royalty. Daughter to the leader of a mysterious country. Equivalent in popularity to a real life royal, like Rania Al Abdullah. Much more popular in Africa/Middle east/Asia than the Americas, so when she’s over there on a public outing with Bruce Wayne people are often unaware of her status. Though the way she carries herself is certainly a tell, as everything she does is done with an air of regalia. Of course every world leader has secrets that few actually know.

Talia is a philanthropist through and through. She dedicates time and money to various projects that work towards a better world. She is often traveling the world rather than staying in one place because of the amount of sanctuaries she needs to check in on. She’ll often invite Bruce to these places for romantic getaways.

She is a Jack of all trades. Her intellect matches her strength, she’s witty and flirty, but stoic and serious when she needs to be. A master of traditional and modern weaponry and fighting styles (a more in-depth analysis of this coming soon.)

She goes against traditions much more than Ra’s. Where he strictly only uses weaponry like swords, Talia stays strapped when she needs to be. Where he almost always wears cultural clothing, Talia switches styles often.

My Talia is tall, like 6ft but always in heels because she can pull it off. So she’s practically Bruce’s height most of the time. She does love to look down at him.

I thoroughly enjoy the comparisons of Talia to Morticia Addams with Bruce being Gomez and Damian being Wednesday. It is very much canon to me. I love when Batman is written as a super simp because some of his old comics with Talia or so sweetly written and their interactions are so cute.

This timeline is killing me chat

me irl

“hahaha why are you so small”

alternatively: POV you just got ur butt kicked in the apex gym and the two jocks loom victorious over you also ur bi or something. what do you do

[ leave a tip / other sites i’m at]

made some more talia al ghul art!