Nice analysis.
As for Rachel Dawes, I was under the impression that TDK took place about a year after BB. All the same, I do agree with you that she was being unreasonable. At first, in Begins she was annoyed at Bruce for being a rich idiot with no day job rather than doing anything to help Gotham. Then she discovers that Bruce was doing everything to help Gotham—and she doesn't like that Bruce either. She strikes me as bordering on Lawful Stupid—she recognizes the usefulness of someone like Batman bending the law in pursuit of the greater good, but she doesn't understand how necessary Batman is. Just like she thinks a taser is sufficient protection against the mob's inevitable attempts to assassinate her.
I can't analyze nearly as well, but I have to say that the rest of my family doesn't like The Dark Knight because they found it (and, in particular, the ending) too dark and depressing, but a large part of the reason I liked it is because of the ending. It seemed to me that it was showing that there are some people who will do e right thing simply because they know that it's the right thing, regardless of how it'll hurt them, thus proving the Joker wrong.
Welcome to th:|Interesting analysis, but I believe you're wrong on at least a couple of points:
1. As Meta Four noted, I'm fairly sure TDK is set a year later. And its also easy to see why Rachel would fall in love with Dent. I don't understand why people bash Rachel, other than some people having a compulsive need to bash things.
2. I don't think I ever really took Gordon's "I have to save Dent!" as being a concern about PR.
What you can learn from The Dark Knight
1. Any idol worth anything will turn out the to be a dissappointment
2. A Hannibal Lecture will always work on anyone,except the arguably least sane person
3. Audiences no longer care about escapism or Suspension of Disbelief,no everything has to connect to the real world,hence why everyone loves this pretentious mess over the Darker Tim Burton films.
4. A good Batman/Bruce Wayne is played by someone who sounds sarcastic all the time and is the most predictable suspect to be Batman,instead of the person you wouldn't suspect who can actually act like he isn't (Hence why people have so easily forgotten Michael Keaton,despite arguably being the best)
5. The most trustworthy people,are the criminals in orange jumpsuits.The civilians will turn on you the moment they are threatened
6. A male DA who isn't all there will do more damage to the criminal empire than a completely straight female DA (Hence why Rachel Dawes couldn't get anywhere in Batman Begins and Harvey Dent got 500 people arrested)
7. People are more sacred of Hannibal Lectures and schemes that only fall into place by panic than tampered household chemicals that you cannot stop (Hence why Jack Nicholson isn't taken seriously anymore)
8. Always Love Makes You Crazy
9. It's better to not fold and get innocents hurt than turn yourself in
10. Movies are meant to be lessons first,entertainment later
Sorry,you can learn more real lessons from the Tim Burton films
Batman is about escapism,he and The Joker must only be explained to help the audience suspend disbelief.
The Dark Knight assumes that they must be explained all the time,and that everything they say has to be examined. It takes itself too seriously
For the record Iron Man was great,Spiderman was fantastic,even Superman Returns was decent.
The only thing that stops The Dark Knight from the just as bad put polar opposite of Batman And Robin is the fact that Heath Ledger hangs his tongue out a lot,Aaron Eckhart could act,and the Ensemble Dark Horse that is the bank manager at the beginning.
All '89 had to do was say that Bruce Wayne needs Batman,it is his only way to cope and he doesn't relish it and that The Joker does what he does just for the heck of it. What more explanation do you really need? (Alright fine maybe why a bat and not a cat).
And as for Rachel,she never liked how Bruce was a Rich Idiot With No Day Job or how he obsessed about his parents to the point of murdering the killer and all of that is justified. But obviously there were good things about old Bruce, hence why they were friends way back when. However when he became Batman he put all those good traits into Batman where she couldn't see them,and when he was Batman he couldn't be near her or wouldn't be focused enough. It was a lose lose for them,with Dent she could get all the good qualities of Bruce all the time,or so it would seem.
It's just unfair how everyone seems to hate Dawes,and honestly her characterization was a Missed Moment of Awesome.
Man, you're hilarious. It has been a long time since I had a good laugh. You sir would make an excellent comedian. Bravo, so bold and refreshing an individual that can compare The Dark Knight with Batman and Robin with a straight face. You are truly national treasure. I shall propose to have you cryogenically reserved so that you will continue to entertain our future generation until the end of time.
edited 8th Sep '11 6:41:44 PM by Nightwire
I learned that Eastern European Used Car Salesmen should NEVER get trusted. You'll lose all of your life savings on a Soviet knock-off of the Ford Pinto just because you trusted them. It was a good thing my Wife was out driving when it got rear-ended.
"Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person that doesn't get it."Oh thank you,thank you very much *bows head*
I do like it,it's definitely more than So Okay, It's Average but I can't say it's So Cool Its Awesome becuase it breaks my Willing Suspension of Disbelief by taking itself too seriously. If it wanted to be dark why couldn't it have the cynical comedy of the Burton films?
And the Fan Dumb and others who look too deeply into it are no help either.
Aha I just learned another lesson from watching it
Apparently on a regular school day in a line of buses,one of them could have a criminal driver.
edited 8th Sep '11 8:16:29 PM by terlwyth
Okay, I love how people who can't handle seriousness refer to serious films as pretentious.
And how people who prefer dark and depressing to Batman On Ice refer to camp and goofy as "Flippant and trifle." Or something.
Point is that we're two different breeds. Us serious men just happen to be a more mature breed.
"Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person that doesn't get it."Lesson 12 Pencils can be deadly,yet if you stake them through the eye,there won't be any blood.
Why does it have to be one vs the other?
With the exceptions of Batman: The Movie (which is NOT flamboyant) and The Dark Knight,they all at least had some offsets deviating from the norm.
B&R was camp and flamboyant the whole time,except the Alfred scenes which deserved a better movie
Batman Forever played the serious ball everytime the heroes were on screen until the tip end,yet the villains were at Ham-to-Ham Combat the whole time.
The Burton films were mostly pretty serious,and like I said before offset that with cynical comedy or Getting Crap Past the Radar
Batman Begins was arguably even more serious,but it snuck in some good lines for Morgan Freeman and that "pool regulation" scene was brilliant.
edited 8th Sep '11 9:08:32 PM by terlwyth
Ignoring everything from Post 7 on because stupid hurts my brain.
Malkavian, pretty sure I commented elsewhere, but let's just use this one here for this.
How do you see the Batman/Bruce Wayne dynamic in Batman Begins/The Dark Knight? How do you think they see themselves- does Batman see himself as Batman who just dresses like Bruce Wayne to pass for normal, or do you see Batman as an alter ego of Bruce Wayne, or what?
And I couldn't really get any of this from the movie. How much do you think Bruce Wayne himself is doing to help Gotham?
There are too many toasters in my chimney!Jesus Christ, guys. This is why we can't have nice things.
Cygan:
Well, the Bruce Wayne/Batman dynamic is pretty crucial to Begins and Dark Knight actually. This movie utterly rejects 'Bruce is the mask and Batman is the real him' idea that a lot of writers (and a thirteen year old Malk) loved. As has been said before it wasn't Thomas Man and Martha Man who were shot in front of their young son Bat. The first movie focuses quite a bit on the growth of Bruce Wayne so that he can become Batman. While he spends more time in the Batsuit in Dark Knight, the feelings of Bruce Wayne are still a strong driving force behind what he does. It's why it becomes "Where's Rachel?" and not "Where's Dawes?" Bruce Wayne is Batman and Batman is Bruce Wayne.
As for whether Batman's actually helping. I think the movie's ultimately arguing that he is. In fact, it seems to be an assurance in the second film, and the title "The Dark Knight Rises" seems to be a further assurance. When Bruce questions his effectiveness Alfred chastises him for not thinking there would be any fallout, and even in Batman Begins the problem of escalation is brought up. Dent reminds us that "It's always darkest before dawn" and cliche as that might be, it fits with the color patterns these films have had so far. Even in the end as he's becoming labelled a villain, Batman is still 'saving' Gotham by taking the blame and allowing Dent to maintain his white knight armor.
One thing that's also worth noting about Dent is that he's no Bruce Wayne. He faces a similar tragedy to Batman and just completely falls apart from it and becomes focused on revenge: something Bruce rejects in the first movies (after several years, sure, but still) You really have to give it to Batman for not just knocking the ass out when he demands 'Why was I the only one who lost everything?'. It ties in with the film's cameo of the Sons of the Bat: not everyone can be Batman.
"Everyone wants an answer, don't they?... I hate things with answers." — Grant MorrisonI agree with your sentiment, although I'm not really sure who Bruce sees himself as.
Is there any indication of how Bruce is helping Gotham, or is he placing all of his reliance on Batman? Is he using all that wealth of his to help improve the city?
I get the feeling he's not, though, from all the disparaging remarks everyone makes about him.
There are too many toasters in my chimney!I think Bruce is convinced that he's not going to be Batman forever (hurr hurr), but it's pretty clear Dawes thinks he's in denial and I agree with her on that. I mean, he's making sure that Batman has no limits. With every move he makes it's obviously he's playing an incredibly long game.
As for helping the city as bruce, you're right. They don't pay much attention to that, though one would assume that Bruce is picking up where Thomas Wayne left off, especially since he was the good plutocrat saving you plebians from the bad one who wanted the stocks to go into the hands of the public. The unethical bastard.
"Everyone wants an answer, don't they?... I hate things with answers." — Grant MorrisonHmmm...
The reason I'm asking is because I was just thinking about the duality within the films- how the characters compare and contrast with each other, and hold up in comparison.
The main sets I can think of are Batman/the villain-dude from the first movie (Ra's Al Ghul or whoever), Batman/Scarecrow, Batman/Two-Face, Batman/Joker, Batman/Gordon, and Bruce Wayne/Gordon.
The symbolism between Batman and Two-Face are pretty obvious- they are both dual characters; Harvey Dent and Two-Face, Bruce Wayne and Batman; two sides of the same coin. They both seek justice in their own way. The main difference is in both how they're portrayed and their methods- while Batman explicitly does not kill, Two-Face does, and it's that that seperate the two. Two-Face has spent more time in the darkness, staring into the abyss, while Batman strives to be as good as he can be while still being, well... a Dark Knight.
The Batman/Al Ghul thing should be pretty obvious, too. Both people using the same methods to achieve their ends.
Batman/Scarecrow is pretty obvious too. Both achieve their ends through fear. I think this relationship encapsulates this- power is neither good nor bad (and fear achieves power over those who are afeared), it depends on the person using it and what they're using it for.
Batman/Joker... Do I even need to say it?
Batman/Gordon is a more nebulous one. Gordon is a police officer- he's dedicated towards enforcing the law, doing good through the official channels, while Batman is more chaotic, doing good wherever he can without worry for laws or rules beyond his own ethical code. Batman operates outside of the law, while Gordon works within the system. Both are after the same thing.
Bruce Wayne/Gordon, though, is a really interesting dynamic. They're both people who are trying to help as much as they can, but they are both limited in what they can do.
The key difference, though, is in their support system and how it affects them. Bruce has none- they were killed while he was a child, and it is that that motivates him- to achieve justice for them, and to make the city that killed them better. Meanwhile, Gordon has a family- and it's his desire to protect them that motivates him.
Thoguhts on any of these?
There are too many toasters in my chimney!Great analysis but I disagree on one thing. Smallville's clark didn't became a hero for the glory. When he was the blur he in fact hided from all glory.But he learned that he neede to be a becon of hope hence the reason he became superman..
Not because he wanted to be "popular"
Make your hearth shine through the darkest night; let it transform hate into kindness, evil into justice, and loneliness into love.Then, Dark Knight, Gotham is menaced by a nihilist clown who takes several days and a lot of explosives just to achieve a fraction of the chaos that the League of Shadows caused. (Granted, he comes a hell of a lot closer to breaking Batman himself than Ra's al Ghul ever did.) The various mobs are so scared of the law and the Batman that they're willing to work together. And Mr. Lau is the only person they can find who is willing to launder their money. Then the Joker kills Lau and sets the money on fire. And several of the mob's leaders (Sal Maroni, Gambol, the Chechen) are killed directly or indirectly by the Joker's rampage. And the mob's only moles in Gordon's major crimes unit were either outed or killed. It's entirely possible that Joker did more damage to Gotham's underworld than to Gotham itself.
I do hope that Rises continues this trend and successfully defies the Superhero Paradox. Though the teaser trailer seems to imply that, by the time of the film, Batman has been inactive for some time—who knows how much of an effect that would have.
You know,it's kind of sad, I agree with terlwyth on some of what he said, especially about how some people, the most vocal like 'realism', however I don't agree that it has anything to do with the Dark Knight. Trust me, I've seen some pretentious movies and met some pretentious people, however the Dark Knight is nowhere near being unbearably pretentious. In fact to me, it struck just the right degree of pretension, it discussed important themes in a way that was heartfelt and realistic without being super douchey,something for which that movie would always hold a special place in my heart.
To me, the thing the Dark Knight taught me is about the importance of the status quo and it's effect on people, both good and bad. The movie explores exactly what kind of effect it has. To start with, Harvey Dent represents the fact that the status quo is simply a dream that everybody agrees upon, and that if people move forward together, things that people believe are clad in iron can really be changed. As someone said earlier, the Joker is the opposite of Dent. The Joker's belief is that, yes, the status quo is a dream people agree upon, and without that dream, humans are all basically depraved. Seeing Dent fall is tragic because, as Batman said, "He's the best of us.", and that's the exact reason he fell. He tried so hard to push his status quo, to lead by example then when it was gone, when he couldn't believe in himself, he had nothing left to stand on, and fell to the vagaries of chaos and chance.
Batman is different, in that unlike Dent and the Joker, he wasn't specifically looking to change the status quo. He understood that what he did didn't make a wider difference, and that it was people like Dent who really change things. Yet he did it because it was something that needed to be done. In away, Batman represents how the status quo can tip to the state of good, how people can do good not for any great change, but simply for the sake of good, and how people can sacrifice for that good.
Thinking about that, it's almost as if Dent is the Messianic Archetype who fails because he isn't perfect and can't live up to the Incorruptible Pure Pureness, while Wayne is like Lelouch who makes himself a lesser evil to take on a bigger evil, thus setting a more human standard for himself. Ironically, it's Batman who ends up taking on false accusations, and thus succeeds (so far) in becoming a Dark Messiah.

Hello class. Malkavian: Professor of Batmanology here. Please take notes. There will be a test.
If there’s one thing on my mind right now, with all the hype about The Dark Knight Rises, it’s this soon-to-be trilogy. Recently I’ve rewatched Begins and only minutes before writing this sentence I finished rewatching The Dark Knight. It’s a pretty amazing experience, and while it was recently fashionable to bash this pair of films as over-rated, they really are top-notch. My mind reels every time I watch these films, because of what they have to say. This is a trilogy not just about good vs. evil, but about human beings.
I rate my three favorite superhero films as Spider-man 2, Iron Man, and The Dark Knight. The thing about all those films is that they’re all actually about something. These are films that satisfy the frustrated teenager in me searching for meaning and kicks to the face while still satisfying the adult in me looking for a proper experience in the cinema. In Spider-man 2’s case, it was a story about responsibility, forgiveness, and love: morality on a personal level that trickles its way through all of society for the better. They’re rather Christian themes for the very Jewish Sam Raimi, but hey. Iron Man was about the systemic war machine and how much we needed to realize our (at the very least) complicity in such a world. The Dark Knight is about political realities in a post-9/11 world, the psychology of the fear experienced in such a time, and the reactions of the people trying to protect the innocents. The Dark Knight and Iron Man in particular arrived at just the right point for the social consciousness to react to them.
Not bad for movies with soft-science nightmares punching out genetic monstrosities.
One of the things that’s the most recognizable about The Dark Knight is how different it is from Batman Begins in Misc-en-scene. This a darker film. Blues to Batman Begin’s oranges, Midnight in winter to Begin’s Dusk in Autumn. It makes me wonder if there will be a dawn-oriented color-scheme to the (if so) appropriately named Dark Knight Rises. I have to wonder how much Nolan planned ahead of time, because that’s just one of the many ways the films transition into each other completely perfectly. Not just in mood, but in themes and story structure. I complain about Hollywood’s desire to make everything into a trilogy after the success of Star Wars, but Nolan’s Batman is actually moving in a direction where the progression makes sense.
Then there’s the cast. Were it not for the fact that the protagonist of the film dresses up like Dracula to beat up clowns, this film would probably have been accused of being Oscar bait. Even the weakest link, Maggie Gyllenhall, is only great. To be fair, the fault is more that she is easily the weakest part of a very strong script than anything to do with her acting. Even at its lowest accent-breaking, all of these actors present highly effective and moving melodrama that marks what superhero fiction at its height can accomplish.
We obviously need to start with Christian Bale’s Batman. There have been some complaints about him, mostly to do with the voice, but I quite frankly see him as the best Batman yet. An important aspect of Nolan’s Batman in both films is that he is completely ego-less. Batman is willing to demonize himself both as a superhero and as Bruce Wayne to save lives, made apparent in the Begins where he pretty much pisses on Thomas Wayne’s grave and makes an ass out of himself to get people to leave his mansion and thereby save their lives. The theme only continues in The Dark Knight. As Bruce Wayne he makes a consistent fool of himself in public. He even makes Harvey Dent, the man he pins as Gotham City’s hope for a brighter tomorrow, think him a complete upper-class twit through his showboating. Even in saving the life of the man who was about to reveal his secret identity, Bruce Wayne goes out of his way to make himself look like an idiot drunk driver. Incidentally, this scene also shows how much Bale and Nolan can do with a single shot in which simply by looking at this lawyer who was about to sabotage everything he was working for, Bruce Wayne assures the man that nothing bad is going to happen to him. It’s an important part of Batman as a person: even those who consider themselves his enemies are not below his protection. This is a theme that actually becomes the crux of the climax of the film. As Batman, he also acts in no regard to popularity or image. Batman Begins ends with the ever-important exchange where Gordon says he never got to thank Batman. Batman replies that he will never have to. It’s an important insight into Batman’s relationship with Gordon and by extension Gotham City. There is no reward in this for Batman, other than preventing potential Joe Chills from creating more little Bruce Waynes and the importance of this line is ironically echoed at the end of Dark Knight. When Gordon is announced to be dead, Batman is there to take the hatred from Gordon’s wife because he’s the best candidate whether or not he deserves it. When Gordon comes back though, Batman is nowhere to be seen, because the glory belongs to the white knights. So important is Batman’s dedication to protecting the city that in the end, he’s willing to be labeled as the villain. Unfortunately, this also leads to the biggest problem of the film for me, but we’ll get to that later. In a weird way, this actually gives Nolan’s Batman more in common with the Adam West series than it does with Tim Burton’s film. While Tim Burton seemed to be avoiding the idea of a superhero and implying Bats is just as crazy and damaging to Gotham as the Joker. By contrast, both West and Bale as Batman are bright symbols of hope for the city, and in both interpretations Batman’s theatricality works to save Gotham. The main difference, obviously, is the type of criminal they end up of having to fight. It really separates him from a lot of modern heroes, perhaps typified by Smallville’s Clark, whose search for heroism comes not from a desire to do good but for acceptance and to be lionized. Batman doesn’t want your respect. He just wants you safe.
Then there’s Harvey Dent. We’re set to love this guy from minute one and it totally works. In his first minute of screen time, he knocks out a guy for pulling a gun on him (a chinese one, which prompts Dent to lecture the thug to buy American) and then decides to continue his prosecution because he is Just That Awesome. He’s brazen, intelligent, charming, and patriotic. There’s no question as to why people in Gotham love him. In every way he does things, he’s a crowd-pleaser which instantly separates him from Batman. He really is the very image of a modern white knight, which shows how everything down to the title ties itself together perfectly. One of the major ways that The Dark Knight differs from many Batman stories is that it’s Harvey and not Batman who is the polar opposite to the Joker, the force of radical order against the force of radical chaos. This is ultimately what makes his inevitable fall so tragic and forceful. Nolan creates a character we want to see win. Even his coin starts out as a dark mirror of what Dent will become; from someone who believes that you make your own luck in the world to someone who sees the world as an uncaring ball of chance. In the end, Batman decides to further stain his own armor to keep Dent’s spotless when he falls. I have to question what Nolan means here. Is he saying that a being of pure nobility is the most corruptible? It seems like Batman was incorruptible not despite but especially because he stares into the abyss.
Jim Gordon perhaps stands out in the cast in that he’s perhaps the only human not being a symbol. He’s in the most ‘real’ position. A cop and authority figure watching a city descend into near-anarchy. He’s the one who also becomes the most frantic and loses control. He’s the happy medium between Dent and his perfect image (“I don’t get points for being an Idealist”) and Batman and his complete disregard for PR. (“We have to save Dent! I have to save Dent!”) Part of why Gordon is so much of a focus isn’t just because of Oldman’s fantastic performance. He’s the tether caught in the middle, not just symbolically but in that he’s the very way Dent is a contact to Batman. Gordon takes pages from both Batman’s and Dent’s books, employing deception to catch the Joker but also knowing the value of how people see him. In the end, his ability to mix realism with idealism is what makes him one of the few people in the movie that doesn’t let Batman down.
Then there’s the weak link: Rachel. I’ve long decried Rachel as something of a callous bitch and that still stands, since Begins ends with her telling her she’ll be there for Bruce. It couldn’t have been more than a month between the two films and already she’s dating this Harvey Dent dude. That weakness aside, her important point is in how she’s both an anchor for Batman to the real world but at the same time she’s his weakness. This isn’t the near-sociopathic and broken Batman that Frank Miller is in love with. He’s still a very strong human being and Rachel is a sign of it. It’s the very reason that when Batman stops screaming “Where’s Dent?” and starts screaming “Where’s Rachel?” that the Joker realizes he has a weapon with which to hurt Batman. Even in death though, she remains an anchor for Batman to be a better person despite his erroneous belief that Rachel chose him causes him anguish. Alfred realizes that it’s a ‘truth’ he needs, especially in the wake of what happened to Dent and lets the lie slip. (Once again, we’re moving into that big problem I have with the movie)
The last character we’re going to cover is none other than The Joker. Let’s not mince words: we lost what I think is one of the world’s best method actors. Make all the Joke Bat Mountain jokes you want, but this is a pitch-perfect Joker for this story. Ledger’s Joker is both funny and scary. Nicholson could only occasionally manage the first and while Hamill had the chops for both and it showed, he was limited by the demographic of the animated series. I still maintain to this day that The Dark Knight deserved an R rating and its all thanks to this hilarious, frightening transvestite clown. Like I said, this Joker is really funny. If nothing else, the countless reaction images and .gifs the internet has produced of him should be proof of that. This Joker has deadpan comments, great one-liners and does it all while shoving a pencil into a man’s brain. This is the crux of the Joker: he’s unpredictable. You could even make an argument for magical realism as the Joker really does seem like a monkey’s paw for the criminals of Gotham: a demon summoned a collective unconscious ritual chanted by the scum of Gotham. A common criticism of this Joker is how he insists he doesn’t have a plan while having everything planned out: a character trait established with his initial bank heist. Here’s a hint: THE JOKER LIES. The fact that he lies is a commonly established fact, from the scar stories to the fact that he switches the locations of Rachel and Dent when he tells Batman. A lot of people were shocked and disgusted at the people championing the Joker but it makes perfect sense to me. The Joker is a charismatic sociopath and he’s the best kind of liar: The kind that uses truth to tell his lies. His lies are filled with personal tragedies meant to appeal to our rage at systemic injustice, all meant to encourage chaos and destruction. The film doesn’t refuse to choose sides, though. While Batman may break some pretty big rules (as pointed out by God himself, Morgan Freeman) there’s no question who the villain is and who needs to be stopped. In fact what stops him in the end is that the only aspect of human psychology he does not understand is altruism.
It’s why the movie has such an accusation of plutocratic conservatism, and those arguments are really hard to rebuff. In actuality Begins was worse about this. While it did try to address class issue with criminals (and did pretty well) it still featured a plutocrat securing control of a megacorp for the good of the plebians, though the other plutocrat who was going to take control was a jackass so that’s all right then. The Dark Knight is actually willing to ask the question of how far you’re willing to go to fight the madness. Nolan’s answer seems to be ‘It’s Just This Once’ which also seems to be the answer many conservatives have.
People ignore a much more important part of the film, though: a part that not only betrays further liberal sensibilities but also reflects important themes of Batman as a character and myth. This scene is none other than the Joker’s ‘social experiment’ with the boat. One one side we have the cream of Gotham’s crop: upstanding citizens. On the other we have the scum: murderers and rapists. It touches on an important theme of Batman, ever since he decided not to take revenge on Joe Chill in 1941: Every life is sacred and no matter how heinous the crime you have committed, nobody has the right to take if from you. (except God, and we’ll get into that latter) The words of the citizen who decides that they have the right to execute the criminals because ‘they made their choice’ rings hollow because he is making the exact same choice. In the end, he cannot bring himself to become like them and have the weight of human beings on his soul. We’re left to wonder if it’s because of his nobility or his cowardice: most likely a combination of both. The second lesson we learn on the boat from a roughed-up convict who immediately knows what to do with it. He throws it out the window and absolves all the criminals of any potential guilt. This is another important theme of Batman: No one is beyond redemption. There are echoes of The Killing Joke where its shown that what Batman wants more than anything else is to cure the Joker. Both the moral and practical reasons for the sanctity of human life is made clear here: you never know what good they can be capable of.
There are arguments about whether these films are optimistic and pessimistic about human nature and personally I think it’s a blend. While The Joker is brought down by his very pessimism, so too is Batman by his belief in humans. Only four people (Gordon, Rachel, Alfred, and that black guy on the boat) end up living up to his expectations and they are rightly galvanized for such. Such is Batman’s dedication to these people that he decides to ‘reward’ their belief by preserving Dent’s image into a christ-like figure. Belief is a very strong recurring role in these films. The rant of the shotgun-wielding bank teller even feels like a zealot’s rant. “What do you believe in?” is a recurring theme in this film. Batman makes it clear that he doesn’t believe in truth, or at least he believes in it less than he believes in security and the faith of the people. It’s that reason that he takes the blame and makes himself the Devil in place of the Joker, so that Dent may maintain his sainthood.
Once again, not bad for a movie about a guy in Dracula cosplay beating up Bozo the clown.
edited 7th Sep '11 12:03:24 AM by Malkavian
"Everyone wants an answer, don't they?... I hate things with answers." — Grant Morrison