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Chapter 7: A place like no other: Gotham’s defiance of category
As we have discussed over the course of this work, nearly all self-aware or otherwise intelligent locations fall into easily discerned categories. Lancre, a place that was already aware when it began to attract residents to its mountains and valleys,[1] has many distinct characteristics from the emergent consciousness of New York when avatars of the five boroughs incarnated.[2] The Appalachian mountains that serve as prisons for elder gods[3] exhibit characteristics that are diametrically opposed to that of the town of Innsmouth, which was created for the express purpose of welcoming Old Ones.[4] In the course of my extensive[5 on-site research, I have found little to no overlap between these types of living locations.
And then there’s Gotham.
Gotham defies all categorization—and indeed, all logic. It is once-shining spires built on foundations of mud. Its crumbling gargoyles and gothic crenellations are launchpads for high-tech drones and nanobot swarms. Its parks become jungles, where purported predators become prey. It draws the brightest minds of the world, geniuses in the fields of chemistry and physics and psychology and economics, and then plunges them into madness. It is home to one of the richest corporations in the world, owned by one of the richest men in the world, while also hosting three of the five most impoverished zip codes in the country. It hosts more galas per capita than any other city in the nation, while also having the highest rates of armed robbery, kidnapping and murder in this hemisphere. Its infrastructure is crumbling, except where it is cutting-edge. It is a city of solariums in a place where the sun seldom shines.
The city’s contradictions hold true in the case of Genii Locorum as well. According to my research, Gotham exists at a strange confluence of geological, socio-economic, spiritual and demonic forces, which provides[6] competing influences on the area.
Unnatural tension: Competing influence of The Green and The Rot
Although the mountains of the Northeastern United States have a reputation as the playground for the obscenely wealthy, they are, in fact, extensions of the impoverished Appalachian mountains that I covered extensively earlier in this work.[7] These mountains run through the northwestern corner of New Jersey, and the watershed that feeds Gotham runs from these hills. This brings the wild protective power of the Green into Gotham’s orbit.[8] This influence would suggest that Gotham should fall into the category I have dubbed “Landscapes as Lockups.”
The Green, as explored earlier, is an untamed, untamable, but largely benign protective force. In Gotham, this may be best exemplified by a personage known as Poison Ivy. And Poison Ivy is anything but benign.[9] I contend that is due to the competing influence of less salubrious locations. For example, the industrial hells of Trenton[10] and Bludhaven[11] leach poisons and ill intentions into Gotham Bay, while the fetid, bubbling mass of rot known as Slaughter Swamp is widely believed to be a portal to demonic realms. My own research in these sites yielded brimstone, spiritual malaise, and a persistent twitch in my right eyelid that did not abate until I was able to procure spiritual relief.[12] All of which puts Gotham firmly in the category I have named “Malign Metroplexes.”
These two classifications are diametrically opposed. They cannot exist in harmony. If Gotham is subject to both forces, how can it resist being torn apart?[13]
Dissociative identities: Two—or three—consciousnesses emerge
Stories of the demonic bat spirit Barbatos predate the founding of Gotham by centuries. This genius loci protected the trees, bluffs and rivers of the land that would become Gotham with a vengeance,[14] deterring the native Miagani peoples from hunting, farming or inhabiting this land. In fact, the entire acreage that makes up Gotham’s initial settlement was reserved exclusively as an area of punishment for the most severe crimes. Even that use was falling out of favor when the first European settlers arrived. In an inverse of the purchase of Manhattan, an early history reports that a delegation from the tribe delivered a bounty of skins, seeds and trade goods to the settlers in exchange for their promise to remain wardens of the land. This would classify Gotham as under the protection[15] of a “Classical Genius Loci.”
However, according to colonial diaries and town records, early settlers felt the land call to them, enticing them into residing in specific locations. Those same original sources report that the founding families of Gotham discovered it was difficult to leave. From the Wayne’s position on the bluffs of what would become Bristol, to the Cobblepot’s beachhead[16] at a bend of the Gotham River, to the Arkham’s isolated island estate, members of these founding families still reside in the same general locations. Letters of Obedience Crowne dated to 1685 relay that when the family attempted to move their estate away from the relatively poor farming land that would later become the Narrows, they experienced a plague of increasingly ominous events that prevented them from doing so:
Barrels spilled their contents, wheels fell from their axles. The horses lamed, and the cows gave no more milk. Our hens ceased producing—the only egg that was laid hatched into a loathsome specimen with two heads. Trees fell across our road, and the normal ford we used to cross the creek became clotted with a sucking mud. In desperation, Father attempted to send word by pigeon, but the goats escaped their pen and, bypassing the wholesome forage they normally pursued, consumed the letter of offer he had written to purchase our new estate. At this, Father tore at his hair and lamented our fate. And so we remain here, in Gotham.
Later generations found that some members of the family were able to leave their original land, particularly if they were marrying into other Gotham families. But at least one member of each of the families remains at or near their ancestral homestead.
This history clearly implicates Gotham as an instance of “Sentience, then City.” Something in the land itself drew, and then trapped, the original families of Gotham.[17] How, then, do we explain the emergence of the avatars that clearly sprung from an entirely different consciousness? For when Gotham reached a critical mass, be it of residents, of self-regard, or of tragedy, new actors emerged from the shadows.
The most notable of these is the Batman. This shadowy figure could be read as a new incarnation of Barbatos, but its motivations and morality seem to contradict those of the fabled bat demon. Barbatos was a figure of death and terror. The Batman seems to abhor killing. Statements and eye-witness accounts claim that he[18] protects residents from the scourge of crime and emergent forces of chaos. This would evidently act at cross purposes to the force that terrorized early settlers.
However, other statements and eye-witness accounts paint a very different picture of the Batman. In these accounts, it[19] is an implacable force of violence that afflicts some of the poorest and most desperate residents of Gotham. By this telling, he[20] uses overwhelming force to prevent relatively minor crimes, crimes that are committed by those with no other recourse. It[21] may not kill, but he[22] leaves his victims permanently disabled and suffering chronic pain, often unable to find legitimate employment and thus confined to the underground economy that made them prey to the Batman in the first place. This activity lends credence to the theory that the Batman is simply Barbatos in modern drag.[23]
But then… how do you explain the Robins? These young people[24] are seen as forces of hope and light in Gotham, and they accompany the Batman. In some cases, these young heroes specifically protect the poorest and most miserable residents, those residing in what is colloquially known as “Crime Alley.”[25] But the Robins are changeable, morphing between heights, ages, and in some cases gender presentation. Are these avatars that emerged to serve the Batman, or to oppose him?
And don’t even get me started on the villains. I’ve already talked about Poison Ivy, and she’s done some real damage.[26] But she’s also protected children, and her aim is to heal the environment. She just… occasionally kills people to do it. But that’s nature, right?[27]
Other so-called villains also straddle the line between good and evil. The Riddler’s traps are basically just escape rooms now,[28] and Clayface has been spotted assisting the Batman and his … brood?[29] Accomplices? Attendants? I have first-hand accounts of the being known as Killer Croc assisting addicts, along with stories of him eating actual people. What am I supposed to do with him? Or Catwoman! She’s a thief, and she sometimes gets violent, but a good portion of what she steals ends up repatriated to the countries they’ve been looted from. Suspiciously large donations to aid organizations are consistently made soon after her major heists. Where did she come from? Did she spring from the mind of Gotham, or is she just some thief that showed up because of all the rich people who still live in Gotham despite the crime? What is with these people?
Oh! And another thing! What the hell am I supposed to do with the Joker? That guy is so obviously insane that I think he’s gone straight back around to completely coherent and intentional. And the interviews I’ve done said he used to just do kind of funny/maybe mean-spirited jokes, and all of a sudden he’s gassing whole populations and killing neighborhoods? And he became a foreign leader and got nukes? How is that a thing? Rumors are he killed one of the Robins, but he’s still walking around? Does that mean he’s an avatar of Gotham, and the Robins—and maybe the Batman—are interlopers? Or are the Bat people are the ones supposed to be here, and the Joker is a transplant? Or do they both represent different aspects of Gothams, or different Gothams entirely?
You know that Gertrude Stein quote, “There is no there there”? There’s too much there there. Or maybe here here? Hear hear! A toast! To the city that broke my fucking brain!
Look, Professor Kham, I appreciate you being my thesis advisor, but the direction you’ve pushed me in is not working. Gotham can’t be explained. Not by physics, not by political science, not by philosophy, and certainly not by an independent-study humanities student at Gotham University who just wants to graduate and get the hell out of here.
You know I’m seeing shadows following me? I can’t tell if it’s bats, or supervillains, or hell, sometimes I think they’re ninjas. I wasn’t like this before your class. I went to student health for counseling, and they told me the waiting list is 36 months. I’ll have graduated and hopefully gotten a job in Chicago or California or Bumfuck, Iowa by then, and I’ll never come back to this place again! Thinking about Gotham this much is not healthy for anyone!
I need this course to graduate. The rest of my research is good, and makes sense! Even the stuff in Appalachia, which was fucking terrifying, by the way, there was the ghost of a kid with a lantern and town on fire and a really creepy guy in a suit, and also fantastic pie, but anyway, I could build a dissertation out of that alone. Why do I have to add Gotham? Can’t I just make this chapter “LOL NOPE” and move on with it?
I’m losing sleep, losing hair, and losing all will to live. You can see that I can’t wrap my mind around Gotham. I’m betting no one can. This place is fucking cursed, with earthquakes and plagues and both a Batman and a Man Bat and what sort of city does that?
Let me make my thesis six chapters. Let me end it there. I’m fucking begging you.
REVIEWER’S NOTE: K., I’m disappointed in you. I think you’re onto something with the Gotham research. I wouldn’t be doing my job as an educator if I let you quit when the intellectual going got rough. You have the makings of a brilliant scholar. You just have to push through.
I wouldn’t be so quick to write off Gotham. I feel you have a place here. If you give it a chance, you’ll feel just as attached to it as I am.
— Professor R. Kham
Footnotes
1 Pratchett, T., Wyrd Sisters↺
2 Jemison, N. K., The City We Became ↺
3 Shell, S. and Collins, C., Old Gods of Appalachia↺
4 Lovecraft, H.P., The Shadow Over Innsmouth↺
5 Also perilous. ↺
6 Or maybe inflicts?↺
7 Oh, sure, rich people say they’re summering in the Catskills or the Poconos or the Alleghenies, but they’re really hanging out in Appalachia. This makes me giggle.↺
8 The forces of the Green are the hedge witches, conjure women and moderately terrifying meemaws that keep the evil of the world, as exemplified by the mining magnates and railroad barons and horrifying eldritch manifestations of chaos and destruction, in check. See Old Gods of Appalachia. ↺
9 See research notes 21c through 27a, and damaged receipts submitted to the committee for reimbursement.↺
10 Motto: “Trenton Makes, the World Takes.” Really.↺
11 Motto: “At least we’re not Gotham” or “What do you mean we’re worse than Gotham?” depending on how things are going at the time.r↺
12 See reimbursement request for holy water and mandrake root↺
13 Or maybe that’s what the whole earthquake thing was about? Dammit, that’s another avenue of research.↺
14 And with extreme, bloody prejudice.↺
15 Or maybe thrall.↺
16 See receipts front he Iceberg Lounge. Those drinks were a necessary research expense.↺
17 The one exception: The Crowne family, which continued to suffer misfortunes, and eventually died out. ↺
18 Or maybe it? ↺
19 Or maybe he?↺
20 He feels wrong. How can I judge the gender expression of a potential cryptid in a bat suit?↺
21 But most people I interviewed say “he,” and he does go by “BatMAN”...↺
22 Screw it, I’m calling him “he” from now on. If the Batman has a problem with it, he should change his name.↺
23 Interesting aside: Does that mean that the Batman is a bat in a human suit? Or a human in a fur suit? That’s an avenue for further research—but not by me.↺
24 More like kids. What the hell, Gotham?↺
25 And the real estate brokers must love THAT. “We have a lovely little two bed/one bath in Crime Alley—where are you going?”↺
26 See receipts for replacement laptop, pants and underwear.↺
27 Nature green in tooth and claw…↺
28 Escape rooms that occasionally kill people, but doesn’t that just add to the fun?↺
29 You know what? Fuck footnotes. I’m pretty sure I’m formatting these wrong anyway.↺
