**** This troper disagrees, the boat experiment really was about the people on the boat, not Batman. If he was successful, an entire boatful of people would have killed another boatful of people. That would have been a wonderful validation of the Joker's beliefs and ethos, and showed to a boatload of people how monstrous they really were. That's his philosophy as presented in the movie, to show how people really -are- when they're pressed. Allowing one boat to kill the other will show that sticking by "nobility" will get you killed by those who are more "honest." But having a boat's passengers blow themselves up would allow the surviving boat's crew to appear noble, uncorrupted, and rewarded for taking the high moral ground, just what the Joker despises. He lets those who have been corrupted and become raw and pure in his eyes to go, while killing those who resist baser instincts.
***** This is one reason why he doesn't kill Harvey Dent in the hospital, because as Two-Face, Harvey is a pure expression of the true violent self we try to hide under a veneer of nobility. Releasing Dent will show the people in the city that even the noblest will turn to murder and hatred.

16th Apr '13 12:49:47 PM MatthewTheRaven

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16th Apr '13 12:49:32 PM MatthewTheRaven

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16th Apr '13 12:21:43 PM calikk26

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