Sooo, Batman and his 'one rule'...

[Trekker4747]

Agreed the killing of Harvey Dent in "TDK" came as a result of, you know, stopping Harvey from shooting a child in the head. I think we can let Batman slide on that one.

But I think "not saving" Ra's is just as bad as killing him yourself.

Really how could these two conversations go?

"So, Harvey Dent is dead?"
"Yeah, he was about to shoot a kid in the head so I tackled him. We both went over the ledge, I managed to grab onto something but he fell to the ground."
"Well, that's a shame. But you saved a kid's life."

---

"So, Ra's al Ghul is dead?"
"Yeah he was up there on the train, so I bailed."
"... "

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

The shocking moment when you realize that the ONLY film Batman has not committed a homicide in is Batman & Robin 1997.

The 1966 movie Batman did not kill anyone. The henchmen dies as a result of the Penguin's experiments, but Batman himself never killed.

 

[B.J.]

At least in the movies and cartoons, there's always one huge inconsistency glaring at me about this. Batman doesn't (usually, as pointed out) kill and doesn't carry a gun. Unless he's in one of his vehicles. Those things are armed to the teeth! In the 1989 Batman, how many rockets/missiles/bullets did he shoot at Joker? (And missed....) Don't tell me he wasn't trying to kill him then.

It seems every single Batmobile and Bat Jet/Batwing, etc. has at the very least high-powered machine guns. How does he justify those if he's not in the killing business?

 

[Silvercrest]

Rubber bullets. Honest.

 

[Set Harth]

So that's sort of the problem with him letting Ra's die in Returns. Not saving someone who's going to die is just as bad as killing him yourself.

And Talia supports this two films later when she states flat out that Wayne killed her father with no trace of equivocation or hairsplitting.

I don't remember Batman intentionally killing anyone in any of the movies.

He killed Harvey - narratively speaking, the whole endpoint of the "one rule" dialogue and its role in the film.

In TDKR he can be fairly said to have killed the truck driver, if not Talia as well.

And that's just in the Nolan films.

 

[urbandefault]

So that's sort of the problem with him letting Ra's die in Returns. Not saving someone who's going to die is just as bad as killing him yourself.

And Talia supports this two films later when she states flat out that Wayne killed her father with no trace of equivocation or hairsplitting.

I don't remember Batman intentionally killing anyone in any of the movies.

He killed Harvey - narratively speaking, the whole endpoint of the "one rule" dialogue and its role in the film.

In TDKR he can be fairly said to have killed the truck driver, if not Talia as well.

And that's just in the Nolan films.

No malice, no murder. If a bad guy dies in a fight? Too bad, so sad. No tears shed here.

 

[Trekker4747]

Again we can give him something of a pass on Dent in TDK. Surely Batman understands the difference between killing out of anger, revenge, mallice or other "dark" means and causing a death when acting in defense of yourself or others in a far grayer if not out-right white area.

Dent was going to shoot a child in the head, I don't think we can blame Batman for causing Dent's death. Saying he "killed" Dent also implies some level of intent. Batman may have just planned to tackle Dent to the ground, mis judged, and went over the ledge. He may also have thought he could hold in to Dent when going over the edge and couldn't.

There's a lot to go into with intent and motive when it comes to a death. So there's a difference between tackling someone about to kill a child off a ledge and making an active decision to not save someone from an impending collision.

 

[AgentCoop]

Again we can give him something of a pass on Dent in TDK. Surely Batman understands the difference between killing out of anger, revenge, mallice or other "dark" means and causing a death when acting in defense of yourself or others in a far grayer if not out-right white area.

Dent was going to shoot a child in the head, I don't think we can blame Batman for causing Dent's death. Saying he "killed" Dent also implies some level of intent. Batman may have just planned to tackle Dent to the ground, mis judged, and went over the ledge. He may also have thought he could hold in to Dent when going over the edge and couldn't.

There's a lot to go into with intent and motive when it comes to a death. So there's a difference between tackling someone about to kill a child off a ledge and making an active decision to not save someone from an impending collision.

This. It's pretty clear to me that Batman's only concern when tackling Harvey was to save the child's life. I doubt he intended for Dent to die, but it was his only option given the circumstances.

The same applies, more or less, to the Joker's death in Burton's Batman. Batman tethers the Joker to the gargoyle simply to keep him from escaping. It's the Joker himself who stupidly won't let go of the rope ladder. We'll never know if Batman would have tried to save him, because Batman was occupied with keeping Vicki Vale from falling to her death. Again, I don't see any intent to kill.

But he chooses to let Ra's Al Ghul die. We know this because he says it. That's intent to kill and that, to me, is not Batman.

 

[the G-man]

My thoughts on the whole topic:

First off, there are so many different versions of Batman in various media at this point and the character has been rebooted so many times even within the comic books, that it's nigh-impossible to say what his rule is any longer.

Even in the comic books we've hard the Golden Age Batman who killed people, the silver and Bronze age Batman who didn't and the post-Crisis one who supposedly only killed in self defense (there was a Jim Starlin-written issue where Bruce and Jason had a conversation where Bruce explicitly acknowledged having done so).

But we also had Denny O'Neil, arguably the most influential Batman writer in the character's history, in one of the most seminal Batman stories in history--Daughter of the Demon--tell Ras point blank he was going to kill him if he had to.

It seems to me, however, that a variation of the "I won't kill you but I don't have to save you" is pretty much the standard for every era of Batman. For example, all the way from the 40s to the 70s, you'd have stories where a villain (often the Joker) would seemingly plunge to his death into a river or something similar. Batman often didn't jump in after him, which means he didn't even try to save him. Conversely if Batman could save somebody he would, but only if doing so didn't immediately endanger an innocent person.

That doesn't mean he walks away from someone he could save without much effort. It just means he is sometimes realistic as to what trying to save a villain would mean.

 

[Snaploud]

I think Batman's rule is less about morality and more about keeping the last shred of sanity he has left. Batman is dealing with some major psychiatric issues.

 

[AgentCoop]

I think Batman's rule is less about morality and more about keeping the last shred of sanity he has left. Batman is dealing with some major psychiatric issues.

This is another good point, although I do think morality has a lot to do with it. Batman posesses almost supernatural self-control, because he knows he needs it. There are undoubtedly times when he wants to kill someone like the Joker, but what then? Gotham is filled to the brim with dangerous crazies, not to mention your more run-of-the-mill criminals. If he kills the Joker, why not kill Two-Face? If he kills Two-Face, why not the Penguin? Or the Riddler? Or that punk mugging old ladies for drug money? Or that jaywalker? At what point does that version of Batman stop being a vigilante (because he's not a super-hero anymore) and become a serial killer? He's not Batman any more, he's Dexter!

 

[JoeZhang]

This. It's pretty clear to me that Batman's only concern when tackling Harvey was to save the child's life. I doubt he intended for Dent to die, but it was his only option given the circumstances.

The same applies, more or less, to the Joker's death in Burton's Batman. Batman tethers the Joker to the gargoyle simply to keep him from escaping. It's the Joker himself who stupidly won't let go of the rope ladder. We'll never know if Batman would have tried to save him, because Batman was occupied with keeping Vicki Vale from falling to her death. Again, I don't see any intent to kill.

But he chooses to let Ra's Al Ghul die. We know this because he says it. That's intent to kill and that, to me, is not Batman.

Odd to me you focus on the Joker moment when earlier Batman kills a load of people with Bombs and tries to kill the Joker with machine guns just before the end of the film.

 

[AgentCoop]

^I never said the Burton films were portraying Batman properly as far as killing goes. In fact, even though I love both of those movies, they're pretty terrible in that regard. I was merely using that one scene as an example of how the villain can still die even with no apparent intent to kill on Batman's part.

 

[Anwar]

You can see it as character development.

Remember that speech Kilmer gave in Batman Forever about how revenge just takes over your life? He could be speaking from experiences of what he did in the Burton movies.

 

[M'rk son of Mogh]

I think the Burton movies are closer than we give them credit, as it shows us Batman's first story mimicking some of the tone of Batman's real first stories in the golden age, where Batman had no problems killing.

It's all about context, and less about "well, but THIS is the version of the character I personally like."

You can almost see the movies progress as though they're mimicking the full Batman timeline, complete with golden age origin, campy sci fi 50's/60's stuff via Forever and Batman and Robin, then the 80's Miller stuff and modern take with what we're seeing presently.

 

[the G-man]

I think the Burton movies are closer than we give them credit, as it shows us Batman's first story mimicking some of the tone of Batman's real first stories in the golden age, where Batman had no problems killing.

It's all about context, and less about "well, but THIS is the version of the character I personally like."

You can almost see the movies progress as though they're mimicking the full Batman timeline, complete with golden age origin, campy sci fi 50's/60's stuff via Forever and Batman and Robin, then the 80's Miller stuff and modern take with what we're seeing presently.

Considering the films in question span three different directors and at least two different continuities I fail to see how any such "progress" or "mimicking" can be anything but coincidental.

 

[JoeZhang]

Plus if you sit down and watch the Burton films again with the benefit of time you realise that aside from some aesthetic choices of set design they are just as camp if not more than the 1960s series.

 

[the G-man]

Plus if you sit down and watch the Burton films again with the benefit of time you realise that aside from some aesthetic choices of set design they are just as camp if not more than the 1960s series.

Yeah. Especially "returns." That "penguin for mayor" plot wasn't just camp it was a rip off of an actual episode of the Adam West series. And don't get me started on the trained Penguins with rockets strapped to them. That was right up there with "exploding octopi" and "the nobility of the almost human porpoise..."

 

[Anwar]

Well, it's Tim Burton. He's always been doing SOME kind of camp.

 

[suarezguy]

I think the Burton movies are closer than we give them credit, as it shows us Batman's first story mimicking some of the tone of Batman's real first stories in the golden age, where Batman had no problems killing.

It's all about context, and less about "well, but THIS is the version of the character I personally like."

You can almost see the movies progress as though they're mimicking the full Batman timeline, complete with golden age origin, campy sci fi 50's/60's stuff via Forever and Batman and Robin, then the 80's Miller stuff and modern take with what we're seeing presently.

Considering the films in question span three different directors and at least two different continuities I fail to see how any such "progress" or "mimicking" can be anything but coincidental.

I think the executive producers Melnicker and Uslan, though, at least tried to justify the Schumacher films going light/silly by arguing that there were comics of that kind (which followed the original dark ones) and it also seems intentional that the Nolan films tried to follow the O'Neil/Miller (plus some Loeb) approach.

Plus if you sit down and watch the Burton films again with the benefit of time you realise that aside from some aesthetic choices of set design they are just as camp if not more than the 1960s series.

Burton did regard the concepts and films as partly if not mostly fantastic but I don't think they were to the point of silliness (Penguins with rockets being an exception).