The death of Robin was a central aspect of Batman's arc under Zack Snyder. A Robin having died off-screen in the DCEU is no secret, with a tarnished Robin suit bearing the taunting words of The Joker sprayed in graffiti seen in the Batcave in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Per the history of the various Robins in the comics, many fans assumed that this was the suit of the second Robin, Jason Todd, who was infamously murdered by The Joker, but during his social media teases of the Snyder Cut of Justice League, Zack Snyder took countless fans by surprise when he revealed the suit actually belonged to the first Robin, Dick Grayson.

Dick Grayson would eventually go off on his own under the new heroic guise of Nightwing, though he's always remained closely connected to Batman. Grayson's death in Snyder's continuity effectively rules that out, along with any major participatory role by Robin at all. When examining the totality (or what is known of it) of Snyder's DCEU story, intended to have unfolded over a five movie-arc, the true meaning of Robin's role and the fact that Dick Grayson was the one to die becomes a lot clearer.

RELATED: Justice League: How Batman Was Different In Zack Snyder's Original Cut 

Rather than showing an ongoing partnership, Snyder's version of Robin was meant to be more about the idea of Batman's younger ally. Snyder's Batman, at his core, is a spiritually and psychologically broken man, with his arc being one of his journey back to the hero he was by way of Superman and the Justice League. More to the point, how much Bruce Wayne had invested himself in Grayson's upbringing and how deeply his loss affected him was at the heart of the story of Bruce Wayne being portrayed by Ben Affleck, with Robin playing an emotional role in his story rather than a literal one.

Robin Is The Most Malleable Aspect Of Batman

Batman Robin

The fact that there have been as many Robin's as there have in the comics shows just how open the concept of Batman's sidekick is to being reworked, with Carrie Kelley of The Dark Knight Returns, in particular, Robin as a concept and how they relate to Batman. Moreover, in Batman's history in movies and television, Robin has actually been the subject of quite a bit of tweaking and alternative interpretations. This started out fairly small with Dick Grayson wearing the Tim Drake version of the Robin suit in Batman: The Animated Series and Batman Forever, while Marlon Wayans reportedly came close to playing the Boy Wonder in both that film and 1992's Batman Returns. 

Chris O'Donnell's Dick Grayson also blurred the lines between Robin and Nightwing in Joel Schumacher's Batman movies, namedropping his future solo title in Batman Forever and donning a clearly Nightwing-inspired suit for Batman and Robin. The Dark Knight Rises got especially creative, partnering Bruce Wayne with Joseph Gordon-Levitt's John Blake, a Gotham City cop with the legal first name of Robin who was essentially a Robin-archetype carrying certain character traits of different Robins. Though the streaming series Titans features overall more straightforward portrayals of both Dick Grayson and Jason Todd, the idea of a Robin who isn't strictly a recreation of Grayson or any other character to work alongside Batman is already a well-established one.

The Real Purpose Of Robin

Dick Grayson as Robin from DC Comics

When it comes to Snyder's take on Robin, something that can't be overlooked is the exact role Robin serves in the Batman mythos, and how this fits within the context of Snyder's story. With there having been a succession of numerous different characters in the role, Robin is Batman's vehicle to train younger apprentices to fight crime at his level. The time they spend in this role is also not necessarily meant to be in perpetuity, as Grayson's transition to Nightwing, Tim Drake's transformation to Red Robin, and Jason Todd eventually becoming Red Hood show.

The essence of Snyder's version of Dick Grayson as the fallen Robin is one of the many factors in Bruce losing his faith in the "beautiful lie" of Batman, with Ben Affleck's Bruce Wayne seeing himself as a failure that his apparently sole student died by The Joker's hand. In Snyder's story, Batman never had the chance to develop the same sense of idealism in mentoring a younger hero to fight by his side, and such a brutal loss is what begins his own fall in a symbolic sense. With the death of Dick Grayson, Snyder's version of Batman far more easily falls victim to, as the sagely Alfred Pennyworth puts it, "the feeling of powerlessness that turns good men cruel", which fuels his early distrust of Superman.

RELATED: Ben Affleck Is Breaking A Live-Action Batman Record 

No One Robin Needs To Be "The One Who Died"

Nightwing, Red Hood, Robin, and Damian Wayne looking in the same direction

With Dick Grayson going on to become Nightwing and Jason Todd's death being equally renown, Snyder deciding to have the former be killed by The Joker in his continuity breaks with the established comic book canon, but this is also an overly simplistic analysis. Simply boiling Jason down to being "The Robin who died" places a barrier on not only his own significance to Batman but also for his fellow Robins. Like most comic book movie filmmakers, Snyder is adapting elements of different stories, rather than entire stories outright, and reshaping them to the needs of the story he has planned.

In the case of Batman, it's the concept of a Robin dying that Snyder is putting to use, rather than the death of Jason Todd himself. The list of where comic book characters have had their stories retooled, rewritten, or merged with other characters in other superhero films would surely be a long one, but this just goes to show whichever Robin is the one to die simply comes down what the story is that's being told, and the fact that Jason Todd is the Robin most famous for dying in the comics certainly doesn't mean he's the only one that's allowed to. At this point, quite a bit is known about both the Snyder Cut and Zack Snyder's intended five-movie arc, and a lot can be inferred about what role Robin played in the overall plan.

How Robin Fits Into Snyder's Planned Batman Story

Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne with Robin Costume in Case in Batman v. Superman Dawn of Justice

Snyder's DCEU story included such elements as the death and resurrection of Superman, the formation of the Justice League, the invasion from Apokolips seen in the Knightmare, Batman's battle with Deathstroke (in the case of the solo movie Affleck had originally planned), and The Dark Knight himself making the ultimate sacrifice. Adding in the fact that Affleck's Batman was specifically intended as a 20-year veteran Caped Crusader, and it's debatable whether there'd even be room for any Robin as an active hero. Though Snyder has namedropped Carrie Kelley, it's also not entirely clear where she'd fit into the story he was crafting.

With the details that have been made public about Snyder's five-movie arc, what is clear is that Robin was meant to be more of an aspect of Bruce's past than a full-fledged character. Snyder's Batman story was one of redemption, and for Bruce Wayne's rise from the darkness and eventual heroic death to truly mean something, his fall had to be a brutal one. With Dick Grayson as the character most closely associated with the Robin mantle, the impact of Bruce losing him is not only a profound one from an audience's perspective, but shows how poisoned with self-doubt and paranoia Affleck's Batman had become from it. The Batman of the DCEU began his career believing in the difference he could make, only for his optimism to die with his first student. As Snyder describes it, Bruce Wayne is a broken and jaded person, but he thought he could make Dick Grayson a better Batman. Only, when Robin's faith in humanity is ultimately what gets him killed, it only drives Bruce further down that hole to believe his darkness and pain is the only thing that makes Batman work. Of course, it takes a sacrifice from an alien he once saw as his enemy to rise out of that darkness. Through it all, Robin's role was as a symbol both of what Bruce lost, and what he was able to rediscover.

In the larger lexicon of the Batman canon, Robin is Bruce Wayne's chosen avatar for building up-and-coming heroes to their greatest potential under his tutelage, and this gets right at the essence of Robin's role in Snyder's DCEU story. Dick Grayson, long known as Batman's student and ally, is instead his greatest tragedy, with Batman going into a downward spiral that is only stopped when he finally sees another true force for good in Superman giving his own life. Bruce's return to heroism in Batman v Superman and his return to leadership in Zack Snyder's Justice League show a different Batman than previous portrayals, and Robin's death is at the center of his story, not as his trusted fellow crime fighter, but as a symbol of the loss and the redemption seen in his journey.

NEXT: How Zack Snyder Finally Got Batman Right

Key Release Dates