I feel like Nolan’s Batman actually has moral dilemmas beyond the no killing rule.
In Batman Begins, you can clearly see he doesn’t even like living as Bruce Wayne. When he sees his childhood friend Rachel and says “this is not all that I am. Inside, I am more…” or whatever he said, you could tell he felt embarrassed about flexing his billionaire lifestyle, which he was only doing because Bruce Wayne needed to occasionally be visible in society, otherwise things would get suspicious.
He clearly realized that A) Law Enforcement and the DA’s office needed a lot of help in Gotham and B) He needed to help them arrest and prosecute people legally, rather than having himself, one rich dude, be judge, jury and executioner. This is why he cooperated with Jim Gordon
In cases of particularly dangerous people like Ra’s Al Ghul, he committed manslaughter, potentially murder, because he knew they’d endanger more people otherwise. At the same time, I think he realized Ra’s Al Ghul had a bit of a point, that the rich and powerful had fucked Gotham up so bad it would almost be best to destroy it altogether. Still, he can’t agree with it because even letting it happen would mean the blood of millions of people on his hands.
While he’s doing a lot as Batman, the Wayne foundation is trying to actually improve society - and while this is feeding into the old libertarian narrative that individuals doing charity is better than government spending to improve society, it becomes clear to him at some point that this is not really working either.
I feel like Nolan’s Batman actually has moral dilemmas beyond the no killing rule.
In Batman Begins, you can clearly see he doesn’t even like living as Bruce Wayne. When he sees his childhood friend Rachel and says “this is not all that I am. Inside, I am more…” or whatever he said, you could tell he felt embarrassed about flexing his billionaire lifestyle, which he was only doing because Bruce Wayne needed to occasionally be visible in society, otherwise things would get suspicious.
He clearly realized that A) Law Enforcement and the DA’s office needed a lot of help in Gotham and B) He needed to help them arrest and prosecute people legally, rather than having himself, one rich dude, be judge, jury and executioner. This is why he cooperated with Jim Gordon
In cases of particularly dangerous people like Ra’s Al Ghul, he committed manslaughter, potentially murder, because he knew they’d endanger more people otherwise. At the same time, I think he realized Ra’s Al Ghul had a bit of a point, that the rich and powerful had fucked Gotham up so bad it would almost be best to destroy it altogether. Still, he can’t agree with it because even letting it happen would mean the blood of millions of people on his hands.
While he’s doing a lot as Batman, the Wayne foundation is trying to actually improve society - and while this is feeding into the old libertarian narrative that individuals doing charity is better than government spending to improve society, it becomes clear to him at some point that this is not really working either.
I do like how Nolan showed that most of the police department was dirty and couldnt be trusted. Spot on.
Until the third one, where it was a bit of an about face in cheering on the Gotham police
:-(