In a world where the police and judiciary are too incompetent to either keep the joker in jail or execute him, Batman's rule makes no sense. Joker has killed hundreds, if not thousands, and Batman just lets it continue to happen.
How do you feel about Batman's no killing rule?
- Thread starter DragonSJG
- Start date
not sure what this is for? Most of Batman's primary rogues gallery doesn't have superpowers. Joker/Harley, Penguin, Scarecrow, Catwoman, Twoface, Mr Freeze, Deadshot, Riddler, etc all use their intelligence, Science, or gadgets same as Batman.
Obviously you have others who are like Croc, Clayface and Ras but they aren't the majority.
It makes about as much sense as Arkham does. Every time they escape, they kill a bunch of folks and they just lock them up and they leave whenever they feel like it.
I haven't read the comics, so maybe I'm completely talking out of my ass, but it seems like the rule is a self-limiter to keep him from spiraling into becoming the Punisher, not because of some moral compunction against using lethal force against violent psychopaths.
Depends on what DC universe he's in. Animated Batman, yeah all his antagonists are whimsical and cartoony. But if we're going gritty where he lets them live and they get out to kill more civilians then probably not a smart code to live by.
In the real world it's a good philosophy. But in Batman's world, it's really dumb. He knows without a doubt that some of those villains have taken many lives, and will do it again when they inevitably break out of Arkham. Letting some of them continue to live is basically a crime at some point. He shouldn't kill the low level goons though.
- Psychopaths kill hundreds of people.
- Bruce stops them and takes them to Blackgate/Arkham.
- Villains breaks out.
Rinse and repeat.
This is Batman. A broken man that refuses to kill monsters because of his misguided sense of morality even though he's basically killing thousands of innocent people by letting them live.
- Bruce stops them and takes them to Blackgate/Arkham.
- Villains breaks out.
Rinse and repeat.
This is Batman. A broken man that refuses to kill monsters because of his misguided sense of morality even though he's basically killing thousands of innocent people by letting them live.
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Without Batman's moral code Jason Todd doesn't get beaten to death with a crowbar in the first place.
Batman isn't an assassin, he's a vigilante cop. He has blind faith in the justice system of Gotham, which continues to lock these villains up instead of putting them on death row. It's not terrible that he has this blind faith, as I think turning him into an assassin brings him down to the villain's level. But his black and white sense of no killing period dot no discussion is lacking, because he seems to not be able to let the criminal/villain die but is OK with all the civilians dying. It almost seems like if he has something difficult to choose, he'd rather let a villain kill someone than take the shot.
The whole all-life-is-equal idea just winds up with too many consequences. But it also makes sense, because then why not just give him a gun or a batarang that could kill on impact then?
The whole all-life-is-equal idea just winds up with too many consequences. But it also makes sense, because then why not just give him a gun or a batarang that could kill on impact then?
Cool. I was hoping for more of a story driven reason though but that makes sense.
His no-kill rule does not actually have to be a 100% good idea. It is just part of who he is.
Trying to argue away this rule is no more different than trying to argue why superman does not just lobotomize Lex Luthor and declare himself god emperor of earth. Or why real world cops don't execute terrorists they capture on the spot.
Expecting characters to do the most efficient and optimized thing in a particular situation is extremely myopic, and does not lead to better characters or stories. The kinds of characters they are and the kind of world they reside in factor heavily as well.
Trying to argue away this rule is no more different than trying to argue why superman does not just lobotomize Lex Luthor and declare himself god emperor of earth. Or why real world cops don't execute terrorists they capture on the spot.
Expecting characters to do the most efficient and optimized thing in a particular situation is extremely myopic, and does not lead to better characters or stories. The kinds of characters they are and the kind of world they reside in factor heavily as well.
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Bruce says about as much. If he lets himself go that far, even for someone like Joker, he'd never come back.
But yeah, Batman without his no-kill policy just feels wrong.
Which is why I've never killed anyone, one of many reasons I'm so much like Bruce Wayne.
There's a few facets to this:
1. Being a character that treads water and written by a hojillion writers means there needs to be some sort of status quo. So it often more feels like an editorial decision rather than a character one. Though this can be said about a lot of long running characters.
2. The people saying "he breaks their bones anyway" are being a bit too literal. While most of the Bat stories are about normal humans, this is still a heightened reality. Batman himself would probably be dead or crippled hundreds of times over from the beatings he takes, so applying the rules of logic to his willingness to hand out concussions is a bit silly.
3. The logical conclusion of the character, divorced of these trappings, seems like he would end up killing people to save lives, which is why we get it more in films and mini series rather than things that need to maintain canon. His villains themselves have heightened to new degrees of murderous tendencies depending on the writer. The audience has aged and the restrictions on comics have loosened so villains that might have just committed a robbery are now butchering people willy nilly.
I think if this were a character with a non-serialized never ending character arc, he either snaps and goes all fascist or retires before he can go too far.
1. Being a character that treads water and written by a hojillion writers means there needs to be some sort of status quo. So it often more feels like an editorial decision rather than a character one. Though this can be said about a lot of long running characters.
2. The people saying "he breaks their bones anyway" are being a bit too literal. While most of the Bat stories are about normal humans, this is still a heightened reality. Batman himself would probably be dead or crippled hundreds of times over from the beatings he takes, so applying the rules of logic to his willingness to hand out concussions is a bit silly.
3. The logical conclusion of the character, divorced of these trappings, seems like he would end up killing people to save lives, which is why we get it more in films and mini series rather than things that need to maintain canon. His villains themselves have heightened to new degrees of murderous tendencies depending on the writer. The audience has aged and the restrictions on comics have loosened so villains that might have just committed a robbery are now butchering people willy nilly.
I think if this were a character with a non-serialized never ending character arc, he either snaps and goes all fascist or retires before he can go too far.
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I like it, I think it makes things more fun for viewers and writers lol. It's way more interesting to watch a guy with a fucking tank car figure out a way to subdue criminals rather then kill them in-spite of his clear advantage.
Also maybe it's just me but Superhero's that kill their problems. Don't exactly feel all that "super".
Also maybe it's just me but Superhero's that kill their problems. Don't exactly feel all that "super".
Yeah, there is no happy ending to Batman:
1) - Is broken in body and or spirit: The Dark Knight Rises, Batman Beyond
2) - Goes crazy fascist: The Dark Knight Returns / Strikes Again
3) - Goes all police state on gotham: Kingdom Come
4) - Obsessively continues his mission without respite: The Batman
Is it incompetence or narrative conceit? The fact that Batman, every superhero in the universe as well as the justice system itself all seem to allow this points to the latter not the former.
Movie Batman rarely actually follows this rule. The only one is Nolan's and even then not really.
You have a better understanding of the character than many people who actually DO read the comics. More than some who occasionally write them too.
Right?
Not to mention, of his immediate circle, only Dick, Barbera and Tim actually seem to believe in the rule.
Jim, Damian, Alfred, Kate and Jason are all okay with wasting fools if the situation demands it.
It's a convenient plot device. It lets him keep his rogues' gallery around without them all being supernatural like Ra's. Yeah, it's a bit contrived and nonsensical, but that's kind of how comic book characters work.
I mean, the dude has bat-shaped throwing knives. The "I use theatrics to strike fear into the hearts of my enemies" line only goes so far, y'know? In reality, everything about Batman from his costume to his code isn't built with real world practicality in mind, it's built with audience appeal in mind.
And what really stretches my suspension of disbelief isn't why he hasn't killed Joker yet, it's how the heck Joker keeps escaping and wreaking so much havoc. The Joker's entire character is one big pile of nonsense: no powers, totally insane, no real goals outside of "be the bad guy," and wildly successful. In any reasonable reality he'd barely be able to rob a bake sale, yet here he is with an army of loyal henchmen and metric tons of customized smile-inducing nerve gas.
I mean, the dude has bat-shaped throwing knives. The "I use theatrics to strike fear into the hearts of my enemies" line only goes so far, y'know? In reality, everything about Batman from his costume to his code isn't built with real world practicality in mind, it's built with audience appeal in mind.
And what really stretches my suspension of disbelief isn't why he hasn't killed Joker yet, it's how the heck Joker keeps escaping and wreaking so much havoc. The Joker's entire character is one big pile of nonsense: no powers, totally insane, no real goals outside of "be the bad guy," and wildly successful. In any reasonable reality he'd barely be able to rob a bake sale, yet here he is with an army of loyal henchmen and metric tons of customized smile-inducing nerve gas.
They do. He doesn't choose not to kill because it helps him in crime fighting
That's why he has the rule though, he understands that regularly committing acts of brutal violence is a slippery slope, so he drew himself an arbitrary line he refuses to cross. He sees that doing things the "right" way hasn't been effective at deterring crime, but while he's willing to be a vigilante he doesn't want to be singularly responsible for deciding whether people live or die.
It seems like an integral part of the character to me. I don't read many comics, if there's situations where thousands of deaths could be prevented if he killed one person I agree that's ridiculous, but I'd say that those scenarios are just poorly written.
It's absurd as sometimes like the Shadow War example brought up. Batman shouldn't be the Punisher. But he should be more like Daredevil or Cyclops who kill when the situation requires it and don't regret it afterwards. I mean Cyclops has said that he doesn't take killing lightly, but if someone poses a threat and he has to kill, he'll do it and won't waste tears over it. If a villain is beaten and subdued, then there is no need to kill. But if killing is the only way to stop them, then it should be done.
Not in the way that people want Batman to kill.
When people say that, they pretty much mean they want Batman to execute his villains: Joker, Riddler, Poison Ivy, etc.
Pretty much no actual DC hero does that. Either because they have explicit rules against it or because the stories are literally not written to allow them to.
He is also the only one most people complain about.
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It's pretty lame. He does horrid shit all the time and breaks laws all the time because the police and justice system are inept. He lives in a city with a prison system that is equally inept and yet he trusts it fully and never murders depriving the prison of their prisoners. It's written that way to keep story lines going indefinitely, but Batman the character just does not make sense in Gotham city.
Gotham City makes just as little sense as Batman. If they villains keep on escaping and going on massacres, why not change the rules and execute them?
Also, why are is Lex Luthor still around? Why hasn't some country already executed Deadshot?
The ultimate "last Batman" story (such as The Dark Knight Returns) should end with Jim Gordon putting a bullet through the Joker to save Batman and his family.
It keeps his rogue gallery alive because it's overwhelmingly mortal. It's lame but I get why it's there.
His "no kill" rule is a lie. It's at best some surface level drama where you cannot permanently end the bad guy. If you want to have a hardset rule as nuanced as "no killing" then you best be ready to answer some other questions.
Either way, Batman is a sociopathic 1%er who funnels cash towards private military projects to help make himself more a god when he beats down street criminals. That never changes if he doesn't kill or not.
Either way, Batman is a sociopathic 1%er who funnels cash towards private military projects to help make himself more a god when he beats down street criminals. That never changes if he doesn't kill or not.
A Batman that kills is literally just a very wealthy, resourceful man playing judge, jury, and executioner and that's frightening. It's just a rich white dude really flexing his power and resources, and he feels like he has to wear a bat suit to do it..........
It is far more compelling and morally sound to me that he doesn't kill as a rule.
fucking get outta here with that garbage
It is far more compelling and morally sound to me that he doesn't kill as a rule.
Makes perfect sense to me. No way Gotham or Commissioner Gordon would let him operate if he was killing.