He's a comic book character. He's exactly what the comics say he is.
Is Batman crazy?
- Thread starter xortex
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Yep, Crazy Steve and Dick Grayson Age Twelve.
Chill wasn't hired by the League of Shadows. In fact, according to Ra's monologuing at the end of Batman Begins, his murder of the Waynes counteracted the League's plan to drag Gotham down via the depression. He says something along the lines of "their deaths galvanized the rich and powerful, and Gotham has limped along since then" It was a bit of a tortured explanation...
My issue with Nolan's world is that - I like the more naturalistic take, but he had trouble making the Grand Batman Plan hold together. I mean, kudos to him for trying to create a Grand Batman Plan, since in the comics, Bruce Wayne's plan is "I will kick criminal ass", which might help to prevent moments of individual suffering, but does lack a systemic idea for improving Gotham's lot - which I think is people's objection to him donning cape and cowl rather than concentrating his energies on philanthropy and social change. Though, personally I find the idea that a single person, no matter how rich, could have a significant, lasting impact on the crime situation in one of the world's largest cities to be a bit ridiculous in its own way.
The ultimate flaws in the Nolan universe are regrettable - there was a good idea in the whole League of Shadows trying to destroy Gotham as part of their centuries old task to correct humanity's decadence. The problem was, with this as the justification for the story's main nemesis, Gotham should have been shown to be much more corrupt. Much as I think Frank Miller went off the deep end when it comes to Batman, he does understand one basic tenet in regards to the character. He once said "Batman works best in a world that's gone to hell." A vigilante is a hero when the systems of justice actually work to create injustice. If Nolan had been able to establish more of a completely rotten, corrupt system, the whole thing would have worked better. The trilogy would have really rocked if he could have managed to make it that the League was losing its reason for existence in the modern world, so Ra's was secretly creating corruption in order to bring it down and justify the League going on. Like, the League found and loosed the Joker on Gotham when it appeared that Batman was causing real change in the city.
Still would've needed a completely different 3rd film than we got. What a jumbled mess that thing was.
^You make some interesting points, but I think it would've been a terrible idea to make the Joker just a pawn of the League. The essence of the character, especially that version thereof, is that he's a complete wild card, a random force of chaos, answering to no one and having no history.
Rich people aren't crazy they are eccentric.
The fictional carrier Bruce Wayne was very rich.this is actually a bigger flaw for TDKR than for BB. In Batman Begins we ARE shown a city that is truly corrupt, from the cops to the judges to the politicians.(remember Gordon's line about "who's there to rat too, anyway?")
However, this is all fixed by TDKR. The Dent Act worked, Gordon's commissioner, corruption and crime are low. So the LOS' plan makes NO SENSE. They're destroying a city that's already been saved! It makes them look like Ras' justification in BB was all just a bunch of b.s., and really he was just leader of a bunch of nihilistic terrorists, but wanted to delude himself into thinking he had a cause.
Oh, and no, the LOS wasn't doing it because the Dent Act was built on a lie. Bane didn't know that until he found Gordon's speech.
It would have been better for Bane to have been an independent revolutionary unaffiliated with the LOS but truly committed by ideology to "giving Gotham back to the people."
But then Nolan couldn't have the "ticking bomb scenario" and a cardboard villain that he had instead.
I don't think Bane and Talia gave a crap about why Ras was trying to destroy Gotham, just that he was.
They can't really be decent and still be villains. It makes sense when villains have motivations that are villainous. You're not supposed to buy their justifications in the end. This is not one of those stories.
I don't mean "decent" in that sense, like a "decent Human being," I mean "decent" like well thought out.
And if Bane didn't understand why Ras was doing what he did or what motivated him, that makes him pretty lame.
They were well thought out.
You seem to be going around in circles now. First the problem is Ra's, now the problem is Bane. Ra's was motivated to destroy Gotham, Bane wanted to destroy Gotham. Ra's wasn't more sympathetic than Bane or else he wouldn't have been treated as the villain.
Well, he maintains control over his faculties on the whole, & living a double life does not equate to multiple personality disorder, & it would be a pretty big stretch to call him paranoid or delusional, because what he deals in is real. So by all rights, he is a sane individual
Does he suffer psychoses, or emotional disorders, perhaps even PTSD? Most assuredly so. In fact, he should get together with Frank Castle (The Punisher) and start a support group
Does he suffer psychoses, or emotional disorders, perhaps even PTSD? Most assuredly so. In fact, he should get together with Frank Castle (The Punisher) and start a support group
I am not going around in circles. Ras wanted to destroy Gotham BECAUSE IT WAS UTTERLY CORRUPT(and overrun by crime). By the time Bane came around, that was no longer the case. The city was largely "fixed" and was at peace, so the original motivation no longer makes sense. I cannot make this any clearer.
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Psychoses? No way. As I discussed above, psychosis means loss of touch with reality, and you just said that he's entirely in touch with reality and in control of his faculties. So by using that word, you're contradicting yourself. Behavioral or emotional disorders, possibly, but not psychosis.
And Batman would be too busy trying to put the Punisher in jail to want to go into therapy with him. Maybe some of the gross misinterpretations of Batman, like the Tim Burton version or the Frank Miller G*ddamn Batman, could be likened to Castle, but the real Batman is dedicated above all to fighting those who deal death casually and without remorse, like the man who killed his parents so randomly. The Punisher represents everything Batman despises and has sworn to fight against. Sure, the Punisher has a tragic past motivating his crimes, but so do Two-Face and Mr. Freeze and a number of Batman's other archenemies.
I don't think Burton's version was a "gross misinterpretation." His Batman would kill, but not as a regular tactic, only if he had to. And even a Batman who kills regularly isn't a totally invalid interpretation, since the original Batman, waaaay back in 1940 used a gun and killed.
I'm not saying Bane and Talia didn't understand why Ras was doing it, I saying they just didn't care and were more interested in revenge on Wayne.
sonak said:
You're conflating two issues here. Endemic corruption and the level of violent crime are not the same thing. In fact, Ra's's little speech wasn't primarily about crime. There is some evidence in the film that Bane's group sees the inherent power structure of the city as corrupt even in so-called "peacetime".
What's evidence? The existence of that dumb caricature evil business mongrel, Dagget? I've re-watched Rises a couple of weeks ago, and it seemed not to the case. If anything the way they portrayed Gotham in Rises, seemed to indicate that it had become a radically different place then before(granted not a utopia). If there was such thing as Bane seeing the power structure of Gotham as corrupt then that fact should have been properly realized on screen; actually show/portray the corruption within the power structure. Give credence to the character's motives. Begins managed to that for Ra's, do did Dark Knight for Joker but Rises didn't for Bane.
But nope! The mission has no ideological purpose anymore, no real sense of warped, demented righteousness. Bane didn't attack Gotham for any that deep sociopolitical stuff--he did it because he was Talia's bitch. Nothing less, nothing more. Bane's was nothing but a pawn in Talia's juvenile, twisted revenge game.
