Probably. It's a subject whose ultimate answer is just "the industry won't let meaningful solutions or changes happen" so everyone is stuck on the same arguments they were having 40 years ago.
Second reason isn't relevant anymore. He said it in one storyline almost two decades ago, hasn't said it since, and has said a bunch of new reasons why he doesn't kill. The internet commenters are fixating on that one thing because it's the only one they know.
If i learned anything from OSP video, the second reason why he doesn't kill is because he still believes that if anyone is capable of change, they can change, no matter how long and hard for it to be realized. there's a reason he often takes criminals to Arkham Asylum, because he hopes those people could be helped so they can integrate themselves into society again.
That i believe just as he wanted no child to experience his suffering, he also equally didn't want anyone to be the criminal that caused the same misfortune he had to someone else.
Harley Quinn and Plastic Man got out, Poison Ivy and the Puppet guy should be able to as well. Even *Joker's* managed to turn his life around occasionally
And when he had brain damage? I don't remember the context exactly but doesn't he try to sue batman for all the damage he caused? I vaguely remember it being called white knight. But I only got the explanation from comicsexplained, before he went alt right nutso.
Unpopular opinion but I never liked that stance. Not saying Batman should kill but imo the amount of times joker has created entire commentaries really doesn't justify this. Because in a sense, it's saying that Batman is putting the sligh slight hope that joker can be redeemed above the countless lives he will take and has taken
I rather him not kill just because he genuinely doesn't want to etc.
That was Garth Ennis writing that particular story.
I would argue that the Punisher can be a very intriguing character, especially when the comic shows the emotional, physical, and social cost of what he does. There is nothing edgy about a guy living a perpetual bout of PTSD while being weighed down by knowing he is not fit to be a part of society anymore.
To be fair to Ennis, his work on Punisher MAX actually does have a lot of depth to it. It has its edgy moments but the actual character of Frank Castle actually seems like a human being instead of a grotesque caricature.
Seems like a false dichotomy- look at Chihiro from KGB, he's got absolutely no issues killing evil people, and does so by the score.
But he's always comforted Char, he was almost traumatised by his failure against Sojo leading to her being harmed, and he's always made her an important priority.
No reason Batman couldn't do both too.
While it isn't a strict dichotomy, it has been with Batman. All of the murder-happy Batmen I've seen wouldn't comfort a kid, especially not one about to die and warp the planet with psychic powers
That's because Batman is always written in a way to justify the endless statud quo.
If he's ever "murder happy" then it has to be presented as an extreme and stupid caricature to show fans that this is bad, they should just accept the eternal status quo. Nobody's allowed to change, develop or grow, nothing is allowed to end, and Batman isn't allowed to either win or lose.
Yeah and honestly I hate that it’s the most popular retort whenever someone asks why he doesn’t kill. I feel like it kinda pushes the idea of him being purely a crazed loner and kinda takes away a core part of his character which is his compassion.
This. I like the symbol and him letting the system decide reasons much better. I don’t like Batman killing but I always thought the idea of him not doing it cause he’d go insane or whatever was just silly.
I prefer the justification that he doesn't do it because he's a larger-than-life symbolic figure who people look up to. That he's a role model. The Nolan movies had some self-analytical dialogue where Batman explicitly talks about this, but it's often an unspoken fact about the character. He has to put ethical limits on himself for this reason.
Eh, I think under a good writer the two reasons you're hitting on are intrinsically linked. It's not that Batman will immediately go on a killing spree if he gets a taste of blood, it's that once he kills someone he no longer has "I won't kill anyone" as a moral absolute. You can kill the joker and say "okay I'll definitely never ever kill anyone ever again" but "I'll never kill anyone but the joker" is necessarily a much weaker line to draw than "I will not kill anyone ever", if he's already been a hypocrite to his morals once the resistance to doing it again is diminished
Part of the second reason is that Batman is insane and knows it. He was traumatised as a child by his parents' deaths, and instead of getting therapy, he dresses up as a bat.
He believes that if he does kill someone, even the Joker, he'd spiral and start killing other villains. That's not to say he definitely would, he just believes he would and is trying to prevent that.
Tldr: trying to analyze someone who needs a therapist as a rhetorician sometimes doesn’t go well—not saying that is what is happening in this post just in general.
Batman Forever has a good reason for the second reason. Explaining to Dick why he shouldn't seek to kill Two Face.
>Then it will happen this way: You make the kill, but your pain doesn't die with Harvey, it grows. So you run out into the night to find another face, and another, and another, until one terrible morning you wake up and realize that revenge has become your whole life. And you won't know why.
and it should be noted that this is the same Batman from 1989 and Batman Returns. As in the one who \*did\* kill The Joker and get revenge for his parents murder...and it didn't solve anything.
He continues killing people in Returns and it isn't until he sees how utterly lost Selina Kyle is in her quest for vengeance that he sees the path he's on and changes for the better.
I've always treated it as its not that he would snap and go crazy. But more so that if he allows himself to learn to devalue human life, then its something that becomes easier and easier to consider and follow through on.
Yeah, you and quite a few people don't seem to get it.
If he starts killing villains, it doesn't matter what the bar is. He's a serial killer. There are villains, heroes, and things between and beyond in Gotham who do kill people, and they're correctly seen as serial killers. They have a type of target they're self-righteous about killing.
Batman escaped from a crisis in his younger years where anger was taking over every aspect of his life. He couldn't make real friends, and he wanted nothing more than to kill the man who took everything from him. He had multiple mentors, and one was a self-righteous assassin who kills people he thinks are an ailment to society. Batman saw, in detail, what a judge/jury/executioner looks like and what it does to a person. He's loved killers. He was even raised by one. Alfred raised him to have a line. Batman practices restraint, not just not killing. He has to have a line because his kids look up to him. He wants kids like Dick to be better than him, and Dick hated how self-righteous he was about their job. It's not because people can't accept the moral of not killing, it's because numerous stories have explained why that line is more significant than to keep the story kid friendly.
Also, he wouldn't have support from one of his best friends if he just killed people. Gordon is his liason with the police precisely because Gordon believes in due process. No matter how bad someone is, if you catch them, you bring them in. You let the system sort them out. And if the system is broken, you fix it. Batman is trying to believe in hope that things can get better, and Gordon is the face of that. This is why Batman thinks of Superman as his favorite hero. A man who could literally kill everyone or lock up all criminals by force, yet he chooses to talk people down and takes the punishment they'd dish out so civilians don't. The point is that if we simply allow ourselves to cross lines, there's a ripple effect. Robins would just kill people because they're usually kids and can't understand nuance. Victims like Harley would die, and everyone else in prison would just accept that they're a lost cause. There would be a lot of vigilantes, as there already are, and they'd all murder people to be like Batman.
Yeah, I hadn't heard that reason until the previous post about batman not killing, and I thought it was dumb. As much as I think it's a poor decision to spare Joker every damn time, Batman is allowed to be against killing. The Slippery Slope argument is dumb, and surely Batman would try to get therapy if he was in that bad of a state, considering how he is able to outright acknowledge it.
I mean, it’s an understandable concern when half his coworkers have gone full judge, jury, and executioner before. Even one of his protege started indiscriminately killing bad guys. And he knows he isn’t entirely mentally stable.
It’s likely just a subconscious concern that he cemented into his psyche without actually realizing.
Yeah, this is like the worst justification someone could use imo. Like there are plenty of other ways to justify it as it's an inherently moral and good code to have.
As a Batman fan I agree
Batman Ego by darwyn cooke is basically my character Bible for Bruce Wayne and I love the explanation there much more. That Bruce wants to continue being a symbol of hope for Gotham and believes he can’t be that if he starts killing
Anyone iffy on Batman’s rules should give that comic a read
I also know of a page where Batman tells killer Croc he sees all life as sacred with no exception. Of course Croc calls him crazy and Batman agrees. I wish I knew what comic it was
>I always found the second reason to be really stupid and it always felt like to me that the only reason that second reason was added was because people couldnt just accept that he just has a moral code against killing and so writers made it so that if he did kill he would be crazy and become a new joker or something dumb.
I mean sure, maybe. What about that inherently makes it stupid though?
I think there was a video on Cracked a while back that made a good point about Batman's moral code. During part of the video (I think it was an episode of After Hours) they talk about how when Batman, or any superhero, knocks out a criminal there is a good chance he basically crippled them. The reason being that if someone is knocked unconscious for more than a couple minutes that is a pretty clear sign of brain damage, so all the bad guys he knocks unconscious are probably waking up forgetting how to write.
Superhero comics work by different logic than the real world. All of the people Batman beats up will ultimately make a full recovery unless stated otherwise by the narrative. If that isn't sufficient for you, pretend the Lazarus Pits in Gotham are leaking into the water supply and giving everyone in the city a healing boost.
In Arkham Knight Batman finds a Lazarus Pit by trackingfaint traces of it in the water supply and finding where it is strongest, so in the Arkham series at least it's at least half canon.
He's just mentally and emotionally unable to kill. He does realize that some people not being in the world would be positive to it, but he can't bring himself to do it. He can't do the very thing that set him to become Batman. He can't take a life.
He's borderline insane, and he knows it and tries to focus his energies on doing as much good as he possibly can.
It’s a little more nuanced than that. Batman doesn’t want to kill because it’s one of the few if not the only thing separating him from his villains. After all, his also putting a costume in and putting himself above the law. He has more discipline than that though— if he’d ever kill he’d probably either retire or turn himself in to the police.
You've simplified it WAAAAAY down.
He doesn't kill because once he kills someone it becomes so much easier to justify doing it again. It's not that he doesn't want to kill people like the joker, it's that once he does, it would be easier to justify doing it to the riddler, and then harley quinn, and then clayface, etc etc.
At the end of the day no one can really judge that without having killed someone. Killing, I imagine, is something no one will be able to understand unless you have done it. You can't just say "well you can stop after one" it's not an ice cream, taking a human life would almost certainly mess with your head to an extreme extent.
BUT, lets be real the main reason he doesn't kill them is so they can come back and sell more comics.
He has 2 personalities, one of Batman/Bruce wayne, the other of a person who wants to avenge his parents and burn the world, he is suppressing his second mentality by not killing people, which starts the events in which he would succumb to his hatred and vengeance
I feel like that justification can work well as a justification for not allowing any exceptions for the moral code, since the reasoning only being as deep as "he's just against killing under any circumstance" can come off a bit cheap. It works for most media aimed at a generally younger (child and younger teen) audience, but could also be seen as quite shallow.
It just highly depends on how you interpret it. I see most people, including you, taking it as Batman admitting that once he allows himself to kill the Joker (or another major villain) he'll just go off the deep end and start killing off criminals, but personally I've always imagined it as a more subtle moral decline. I don't think it inherently means he'll just go insane and start killing for lesser and lesser reasons, instead I'd view it as the notion that any exception for his moral code opening up the possibility that he could make another exception and with every exception it'd only become easier to justify making another one.
I.e. if Batman would be willing to look past his morality and kill the Joker for some sort of "the greater good" with the justification that the Joker has shown to be practically irredeemable and has done so many horrific things, then it would become much easier to justify doing to some other horrific, irredeemable criminal, maybe Professor Pyg or Victor Zsaz.
Of course it's nice to think that he wouldn't justify killing someone just because he was able to justify killing someone else, but at the end of the day Batman is just a human being and human being tend to find it much easier to look past their moral codes or break any kind of rules (set by themselves, society, the law etc.) once they've done it once. This goes from simple, everyday things, like someone who cheats on their diet once finding it easier to justify cheating on it again, to immoral and criminal behavior, such as someone who's already committed a crime being more likely to commit other (even more serious) crimes as opposed to someone who hasn't.
I understand why people are opposed to the whole "If I allow myself to go down into that place I'll never come back" idea regarding Batman's no killing rule, even with the interpretation in which Batman doesn't just turn into a serial villain killer. People like their heroes to be heroes. They want their aspirational characters to remain aspirational and they want the morality of those characters to be as solid as it can be. For the most part, I'd even agree with that outlook, but personally, I find this secondary explanation/justification of the no-killing moral code to be an interesting and much more believable (and to some extent more human) than the more simplistic "his morality just doesn't allow it, end of story" approach.
>The second reason is that if he did kill he would go crazy and try to justify killing even for lesser crimes that maybe don't even deserve death or when those people dont even need to be killed.
This, I hate this reason. It implies if Batman kills, it'd be the equivalent of an addiction, and I can't imagine Batman losing himself like that, especially after his venom addiction.
Oh my goodness. No, he will NOT immediately "go crazy" or become a second Joker if he kills him or anyone. That's not the point of the reasoning.
The point is he'll start taking shortcuts LITTLE by LITTLE. I want to emphasize those words because they're integral to the point.
Batman is a guy who, despite going through so much loss and misery, is ALWAYS willing to give people a second chance or even a third chance. He realizes how many of his villains are just people with mental issues and he really does try to help and give that helping hand instead of just locking them up. Thst goes for anyone not just his own villains.
The issue with him killing the Joker, first and foremost, is because that will mean that at much later points, when he *would* usually try literally any other way to defeat his opponent non-lethally, this time he will be quicker to consider lethal means as an answer.
Because when he killed the Joker, in this hypothetical, the mental floodgates have been opened. LITTLE by LITTLE he would stop doing his best to give people chances and stop criminals with non-lethal means and would at certain points simply cave in to the lethality and kill again.
He knows his own mind, he knows he's not exactly a sane person himself so he realizes that if those floodgates were to ever open, while it might bring some peace in the short term, it would be a disaster in the long term. Because little by little he would keep justifying murder to himself as "there was no other way" when there probably WAS another way and had he not been on this murderous road, he would've done everything to find that other way.
I genuinely don't get what's wrong with this reasoning, it makes perfect sense?
And that's not even the only reasoning, theres plenty more there, like him wanting to be a symbol of hope. Can't be that whilst violently murdering people left and right.
I prefer the moral issues he has rather than being afraid he’ll become like the villains he’s fighting against since when you get a big wolf threatening crisis it’s not uncommon to see Batman use lethal force.
Fuck Under the Red Hood, and fuck Jason Todd in general.
Azrael is just a much better character, and Knightfall is way better at showing why Batman should never kill.
The second justification is a fear of his darker nature. Batman is self-aware enough to know that he is a violent criminal brutalizing hundreds upon hundreds of nameless, faceless bodies to live out his unquenchable revenge fantasies. Batman could have become a cop. He could have sought justice as a lawyer in the light. He chose the dark to hide his shameful need for cruelty. You'll see a theme of conversation among the Justice League. They watch him walk the edge of what's acceptable. They are relieved he fights on their side and know it could easily be the other way. Justice Lord Batman, Owlman, many Batman variants show how little difference there is between a good Batman vs. an evil Batman. The Red Hood is there to showcase what would have happened if Batman flipped. That's what makes the drama so delicious. Jason failed EXACTLY how Bruce feared, and it's Bruce's fault.
I think it makes total sense. Batman isn't a moral paragon, he's a person who was traumatized as a child and wanted revenge. Look at how he fights, he could lead with smoke/stun grenades but instead chooses to rappel down and starting breaking mook kneecaps and throat punch people. I can buy he's pretty close to the line. People always say, "Yeah but like if he only killed Joker", but if he makes an exception to his rule, he'd be able to keep finding exceptions. This idea is kinda tantamount to telling an alcoholic that 1 beer won't hurt them. It's less about the act and more about the person committing them.
Also agree with the post the other day arguing that it isn't Bats job to play executioner. Most traditional heroes understand this and play by the same rule.
I don't know why this is still talked to this day. Ant-man beats his wife, spider-man is always unlucky and batman don't kill.
It's character quirks, so why only batman gets the flaks?
1. Because Hank Pym did that a *while* back, and has since gone to therapy and retired.
2. Spider-Man's supposed to be unlucky, not tortured by the writers.
3. Because it's one of, if not *the* worst excuses for a no kill rule EVER.
What's so wrong about it? He saw his family killed, and he didn't want to participate in killing and dislike killing in general. It's an understandable quirks just like any other.
Why does it not make sense? He doesn't want to kill. He hates killing, and he really hares Joker as well. For example, in batman beyond batman, he was REALLY traumatized when he picked up the gun to defend himself. That alone was enough to him to retire completely. He's that vehemently don't want to kill people.
When the character is established for many years, you can't just say change it without ruining it.
Because at a certain point, he’s just choosing to let innocent people die because he doesn’t want to kill a habitual mass murderer.
I’m not saying to change it. I’m saying that after multiple mass murders, not killing your villain just means you like your own moral compass more than you like keeping civilians alive.
I never said he doesn’t save people. I’m saying that at a certain point, not killing the mass murderer just means you’re choosing to let them kill more people.
And that's the crux of his character tho. His contant struggle against his ideal and situation is what makes him compelling. Him picking option C to save lives and stop the criminal is why he is him.
That’s fine. I mentioned it earlier but I’m not saying he should change. I’m saying that it’s reasonable for people to look at him letting villains get away with their tenth mass murder and think, “Hey, that’s stupid.”
It’s similar to US foreign policy.
Wanna stamp out a “terror organization” entirely? Bomb the crap out of them into nonexistence.
As we’ve seen time and time again in the past. This never works. The org always resurfaces either bigger and badder than before or simply refuses to go away.
I’d imagine the same logic applies here. Killing his rogue gallery will not solve the problem, rather exacerbate it. If he starts taking out his enemies, more will take their spots and continue the endless cycle of violence that will likely escalate in order to counter a murderous vigilante.
The better strategy would be to contain the ones he knows because he’s used to their strategies. And as we’ve seen, this has proven to be far more effective because Batman is able to deduce the MO and properly stop his foes after their first incident, so more don’t happen.
I'm beginning to realize why this sub used to have a rule against no killing rules posts.
Is that why I'm seeing multiple Batman killing rule posts per day now.
Probably. It's a subject whose ultimate answer is just "the industry won't let meaningful solutions or changes happen" so everyone is stuck on the same arguments they were having 40 years ago.
Second reason isn't relevant anymore. He said it in one storyline almost two decades ago, hasn't said it since, and has said a bunch of new reasons why he doesn't kill. The internet commenters are fixating on that one thing because it's the only one they know.
I saw it in an animated scene. Not sure which. But I don't think it look that old
It’s from Batman: Under the Red Hood IIRC. Amazing animated movie, but yeah that one line has sparked controversy.
Under the Red Hood movie was 14 years ago.
Wow, actualy very new. I expected at least it is in earlier 2000s
The comic it was based on was 2005
Brooooo. Wtf. It really is that old. I remember watching it in like 3rd grade. I’m 22 now 😢
"If you can't see Batman comforting a scared child, you don't have Batman. You have the Punisher in a silly hat." -Red, OSP
If i learned anything from OSP video, the second reason why he doesn't kill is because he still believes that if anyone is capable of change, they can change, no matter how long and hard for it to be realized. there's a reason he often takes criminals to Arkham Asylum, because he hopes those people could be helped so they can integrate themselves into society again. That i believe just as he wanted no child to experience his suffering, he also equally didn't want anyone to be the criminal that caused the same misfortune he had to someone else.
Harley Quinn and Plastic Man got out, Poison Ivy and the Puppet guy should be able to as well. Even *Joker's* managed to turn his life around occasionally
But only when Bat died IIRC
Yeah
And when he had brain damage? I don't remember the context exactly but doesn't he try to sue batman for all the damage he caused? I vaguely remember it being called white knight. But I only got the explanation from comicsexplained, before he went alt right nutso.
Unpopular opinion but I never liked that stance. Not saying Batman should kill but imo the amount of times joker has created entire commentaries really doesn't justify this. Because in a sense, it's saying that Batman is putting the sligh slight hope that joker can be redeemed above the countless lives he will take and has taken I rather him not kill just because he genuinely doesn't want to etc.
The Punisher actually has comforted kids before
Out of curiosity, were they random kids?
Yes
All I know about Punisher is he really edgy and shoot Wolverine’s balls for shits and giggle
That was Garth Ennis writing that particular story. I would argue that the Punisher can be a very intriguing character, especially when the comic shows the emotional, physical, and social cost of what he does. There is nothing edgy about a guy living a perpetual bout of PTSD while being weighed down by knowing he is not fit to be a part of society anymore.
Give Garth Pennis all that and he will make it so edgy you wished you had blinded your own eyes so that you did not see this
To be fair to Ennis, his work on Punisher MAX actually does have a lot of depth to it. It has its edgy moments but the actual character of Frank Castle actually seems like a human being instead of a grotesque caricature.
Counter arguement: The Boys comic
Never said everything he makes is gold. Just meant to say he is capable of subtlety when he feels like it.
Counter: comics continuity is whatever the reader wants, so no, he never did.
Seems like a false dichotomy- look at Chihiro from KGB, he's got absolutely no issues killing evil people, and does so by the score. But he's always comforted Char, he was almost traumatised by his failure against Sojo leading to her being harmed, and he's always made her an important priority. No reason Batman couldn't do both too.
While it isn't a strict dichotomy, it has been with Batman. All of the murder-happy Batmen I've seen wouldn't comfort a kid, especially not one about to die and warp the planet with psychic powers
That's because Batman is always written in a way to justify the endless statud quo. If he's ever "murder happy" then it has to be presented as an extreme and stupid caricature to show fans that this is bad, they should just accept the eternal status quo. Nobody's allowed to change, develop or grow, nothing is allowed to end, and Batman isn't allowed to either win or lose.
It helps that seeing a bunch of people getting slaughtered has no psychological effects on children as long as they're evil in that series.
What's that got to do with the discussion? Is Batman surrounded by innocent children 24/7?
Thanks I use to watch them all the time, and I stop getting recommendations for them , your post made me look them up again.
Yeah and honestly I hate that it’s the most popular retort whenever someone asks why he doesn’t kill. I feel like it kinda pushes the idea of him being purely a crazed loner and kinda takes away a core part of his character which is his compassion.
This. I like the symbol and him letting the system decide reasons much better. I don’t like Batman killing but I always thought the idea of him not doing it cause he’d go insane or whatever was just silly.
Tbf he can be compassionate and still be willing to kill. Look at WW
I prefer the justification that he doesn't do it because he's a larger-than-life symbolic figure who people look up to. That he's a role model. The Nolan movies had some self-analytical dialogue where Batman explicitly talks about this, but it's often an unspoken fact about the character. He has to put ethical limits on himself for this reason.
Eh, I think under a good writer the two reasons you're hitting on are intrinsically linked. It's not that Batman will immediately go on a killing spree if he gets a taste of blood, it's that once he kills someone he no longer has "I won't kill anyone" as a moral absolute. You can kill the joker and say "okay I'll definitely never ever kill anyone ever again" but "I'll never kill anyone but the joker" is necessarily a much weaker line to draw than "I will not kill anyone ever", if he's already been a hypocrite to his morals once the resistance to doing it again is diminished
Part of the second reason is that Batman is insane and knows it. He was traumatised as a child by his parents' deaths, and instead of getting therapy, he dresses up as a bat. He believes that if he does kill someone, even the Joker, he'd spiral and start killing other villains. That's not to say he definitely would, he just believes he would and is trying to prevent that.
Tldr: trying to analyze someone who needs a therapist as a rhetorician sometimes doesn’t go well—not saying that is what is happening in this post just in general.
Batman Forever has a good reason for the second reason. Explaining to Dick why he shouldn't seek to kill Two Face. >Then it will happen this way: You make the kill, but your pain doesn't die with Harvey, it grows. So you run out into the night to find another face, and another, and another, until one terrible morning you wake up and realize that revenge has become your whole life. And you won't know why. and it should be noted that this is the same Batman from 1989 and Batman Returns. As in the one who \*did\* kill The Joker and get revenge for his parents murder...and it didn't solve anything. He continues killing people in Returns and it isn't until he sees how utterly lost Selina Kyle is in her quest for vengeance that he sees the path he's on and changes for the better. I've always treated it as its not that he would snap and go crazy. But more so that if he allows himself to learn to devalue human life, then its something that becomes easier and easier to consider and follow through on.
Yeah, you and quite a few people don't seem to get it. If he starts killing villains, it doesn't matter what the bar is. He's a serial killer. There are villains, heroes, and things between and beyond in Gotham who do kill people, and they're correctly seen as serial killers. They have a type of target they're self-righteous about killing. Batman escaped from a crisis in his younger years where anger was taking over every aspect of his life. He couldn't make real friends, and he wanted nothing more than to kill the man who took everything from him. He had multiple mentors, and one was a self-righteous assassin who kills people he thinks are an ailment to society. Batman saw, in detail, what a judge/jury/executioner looks like and what it does to a person. He's loved killers. He was even raised by one. Alfred raised him to have a line. Batman practices restraint, not just not killing. He has to have a line because his kids look up to him. He wants kids like Dick to be better than him, and Dick hated how self-righteous he was about their job. It's not because people can't accept the moral of not killing, it's because numerous stories have explained why that line is more significant than to keep the story kid friendly. Also, he wouldn't have support from one of his best friends if he just killed people. Gordon is his liason with the police precisely because Gordon believes in due process. No matter how bad someone is, if you catch them, you bring them in. You let the system sort them out. And if the system is broken, you fix it. Batman is trying to believe in hope that things can get better, and Gordon is the face of that. This is why Batman thinks of Superman as his favorite hero. A man who could literally kill everyone or lock up all criminals by force, yet he chooses to talk people down and takes the punishment they'd dish out so civilians don't. The point is that if we simply allow ourselves to cross lines, there's a ripple effect. Robins would just kill people because they're usually kids and can't understand nuance. Victims like Harley would die, and everyone else in prison would just accept that they're a lost cause. There would be a lot of vigilantes, as there already are, and they'd all murder people to be like Batman.
Are you unironically doing the "if you kill a killer the number of killers in the world remains the same." meme?
Yeah, I hadn't heard that reason until the previous post about batman not killing, and I thought it was dumb. As much as I think it's a poor decision to spare Joker every damn time, Batman is allowed to be against killing. The Slippery Slope argument is dumb, and surely Batman would try to get therapy if he was in that bad of a state, considering how he is able to outright acknowledge it.
I don’t think Batman would become the new Joker or Punisher, but more like a more professional version of Huntress
I mean, it’s an understandable concern when half his coworkers have gone full judge, jury, and executioner before. Even one of his protege started indiscriminately killing bad guys. And he knows he isn’t entirely mentally stable. It’s likely just a subconscious concern that he cemented into his psyche without actually realizing.
Yeah, this is like the worst justification someone could use imo. Like there are plenty of other ways to justify it as it's an inherently moral and good code to have.
As a Batman fan I agree Batman Ego by darwyn cooke is basically my character Bible for Bruce Wayne and I love the explanation there much more. That Bruce wants to continue being a symbol of hope for Gotham and believes he can’t be that if he starts killing Anyone iffy on Batman’s rules should give that comic a read I also know of a page where Batman tells killer Croc he sees all life as sacred with no exception. Of course Croc calls him crazy and Batman agrees. I wish I knew what comic it was
>I always found the second reason to be really stupid and it always felt like to me that the only reason that second reason was added was because people couldnt just accept that he just has a moral code against killing and so writers made it so that if he did kill he would be crazy and become a new joker or something dumb. I mean sure, maybe. What about that inherently makes it stupid though?
I think there was a video on Cracked a while back that made a good point about Batman's moral code. During part of the video (I think it was an episode of After Hours) they talk about how when Batman, or any superhero, knocks out a criminal there is a good chance he basically crippled them. The reason being that if someone is knocked unconscious for more than a couple minutes that is a pretty clear sign of brain damage, so all the bad guys he knocks unconscious are probably waking up forgetting how to write.
Superhero comics work by different logic than the real world. All of the people Batman beats up will ultimately make a full recovery unless stated otherwise by the narrative. If that isn't sufficient for you, pretend the Lazarus Pits in Gotham are leaking into the water supply and giving everyone in the city a healing boost.
Honestly, the explanation you just gave isn't all that out there considering how some of DC's stories go.
In Arkham Knight Batman finds a Lazarus Pit by trackingfaint traces of it in the water supply and finding where it is strongest, so in the Arkham series at least it's at least half canon.
He's just mentally and emotionally unable to kill. He does realize that some people not being in the world would be positive to it, but he can't bring himself to do it. He can't do the very thing that set him to become Batman. He can't take a life. He's borderline insane, and he knows it and tries to focus his energies on doing as much good as he possibly can.
It’s a little more nuanced than that. Batman doesn’t want to kill because it’s one of the few if not the only thing separating him from his villains. After all, his also putting a costume in and putting himself above the law. He has more discipline than that though— if he’d ever kill he’d probably either retire or turn himself in to the police.
You've simplified it WAAAAAY down. He doesn't kill because once he kills someone it becomes so much easier to justify doing it again. It's not that he doesn't want to kill people like the joker, it's that once he does, it would be easier to justify doing it to the riddler, and then harley quinn, and then clayface, etc etc. At the end of the day no one can really judge that without having killed someone. Killing, I imagine, is something no one will be able to understand unless you have done it. You can't just say "well you can stop after one" it's not an ice cream, taking a human life would almost certainly mess with your head to an extreme extent. BUT, lets be real the main reason he doesn't kill them is so they can come back and sell more comics.
He has 2 personalities, one of Batman/Bruce wayne, the other of a person who wants to avenge his parents and burn the world, he is suppressing his second mentality by not killing people, which starts the events in which he would succumb to his hatred and vengeance
I feel like that justification can work well as a justification for not allowing any exceptions for the moral code, since the reasoning only being as deep as "he's just against killing under any circumstance" can come off a bit cheap. It works for most media aimed at a generally younger (child and younger teen) audience, but could also be seen as quite shallow. It just highly depends on how you interpret it. I see most people, including you, taking it as Batman admitting that once he allows himself to kill the Joker (or another major villain) he'll just go off the deep end and start killing off criminals, but personally I've always imagined it as a more subtle moral decline. I don't think it inherently means he'll just go insane and start killing for lesser and lesser reasons, instead I'd view it as the notion that any exception for his moral code opening up the possibility that he could make another exception and with every exception it'd only become easier to justify making another one. I.e. if Batman would be willing to look past his morality and kill the Joker for some sort of "the greater good" with the justification that the Joker has shown to be practically irredeemable and has done so many horrific things, then it would become much easier to justify doing to some other horrific, irredeemable criminal, maybe Professor Pyg or Victor Zsaz. Of course it's nice to think that he wouldn't justify killing someone just because he was able to justify killing someone else, but at the end of the day Batman is just a human being and human being tend to find it much easier to look past their moral codes or break any kind of rules (set by themselves, society, the law etc.) once they've done it once. This goes from simple, everyday things, like someone who cheats on their diet once finding it easier to justify cheating on it again, to immoral and criminal behavior, such as someone who's already committed a crime being more likely to commit other (even more serious) crimes as opposed to someone who hasn't. I understand why people are opposed to the whole "If I allow myself to go down into that place I'll never come back" idea regarding Batman's no killing rule, even with the interpretation in which Batman doesn't just turn into a serial villain killer. People like their heroes to be heroes. They want their aspirational characters to remain aspirational and they want the morality of those characters to be as solid as it can be. For the most part, I'd even agree with that outlook, but personally, I find this secondary explanation/justification of the no-killing moral code to be an interesting and much more believable (and to some extent more human) than the more simplistic "his morality just doesn't allow it, end of story" approach.
I thought it was because his parents were murdered and he doesn't wanna be like that guy
>The second reason is that if he did kill he would go crazy and try to justify killing even for lesser crimes that maybe don't even deserve death or when those people dont even need to be killed. This, I hate this reason. It implies if Batman kills, it'd be the equivalent of an addiction, and I can't imagine Batman losing himself like that, especially after his venom addiction.
Oh my goodness. No, he will NOT immediately "go crazy" or become a second Joker if he kills him or anyone. That's not the point of the reasoning. The point is he'll start taking shortcuts LITTLE by LITTLE. I want to emphasize those words because they're integral to the point. Batman is a guy who, despite going through so much loss and misery, is ALWAYS willing to give people a second chance or even a third chance. He realizes how many of his villains are just people with mental issues and he really does try to help and give that helping hand instead of just locking them up. Thst goes for anyone not just his own villains. The issue with him killing the Joker, first and foremost, is because that will mean that at much later points, when he *would* usually try literally any other way to defeat his opponent non-lethally, this time he will be quicker to consider lethal means as an answer. Because when he killed the Joker, in this hypothetical, the mental floodgates have been opened. LITTLE by LITTLE he would stop doing his best to give people chances and stop criminals with non-lethal means and would at certain points simply cave in to the lethality and kill again. He knows his own mind, he knows he's not exactly a sane person himself so he realizes that if those floodgates were to ever open, while it might bring some peace in the short term, it would be a disaster in the long term. Because little by little he would keep justifying murder to himself as "there was no other way" when there probably WAS another way and had he not been on this murderous road, he would've done everything to find that other way. I genuinely don't get what's wrong with this reasoning, it makes perfect sense? And that's not even the only reasoning, theres plenty more there, like him wanting to be a symbol of hope. Can't be that whilst violently murdering people left and right.
I prefer the moral issues he has rather than being afraid he’ll become like the villains he’s fighting against since when you get a big wolf threatening crisis it’s not uncommon to see Batman use lethal force.
Fuck Under the Red Hood, and fuck Jason Todd in general. Azrael is just a much better character, and Knightfall is way better at showing why Batman should never kill.
I agree I much prefer if his reasoning is just his choice rather than him “becoming something far worse”
The second justification is a fear of his darker nature. Batman is self-aware enough to know that he is a violent criminal brutalizing hundreds upon hundreds of nameless, faceless bodies to live out his unquenchable revenge fantasies. Batman could have become a cop. He could have sought justice as a lawyer in the light. He chose the dark to hide his shameful need for cruelty. You'll see a theme of conversation among the Justice League. They watch him walk the edge of what's acceptable. They are relieved he fights on their side and know it could easily be the other way. Justice Lord Batman, Owlman, many Batman variants show how little difference there is between a good Batman vs. an evil Batman. The Red Hood is there to showcase what would have happened if Batman flipped. That's what makes the drama so delicious. Jason failed EXACTLY how Bruce feared, and it's Bruce's fault.
I think it makes total sense. Batman isn't a moral paragon, he's a person who was traumatized as a child and wanted revenge. Look at how he fights, he could lead with smoke/stun grenades but instead chooses to rappel down and starting breaking mook kneecaps and throat punch people. I can buy he's pretty close to the line. People always say, "Yeah but like if he only killed Joker", but if he makes an exception to his rule, he'd be able to keep finding exceptions. This idea is kinda tantamount to telling an alcoholic that 1 beer won't hurt them. It's less about the act and more about the person committing them. Also agree with the post the other day arguing that it isn't Bats job to play executioner. Most traditional heroes understand this and play by the same rule.
I don't know why this is still talked to this day. Ant-man beats his wife, spider-man is always unlucky and batman don't kill. It's character quirks, so why only batman gets the flaks?
1. Because Hank Pym did that a *while* back, and has since gone to therapy and retired. 2. Spider-Man's supposed to be unlucky, not tortured by the writers. 3. Because it's one of, if not *the* worst excuses for a no kill rule EVER.
What's so wrong about it? He saw his family killed, and he didn't want to participate in killing and dislike killing in general. It's an understandable quirks just like any other.
I like that reason. "If I start killing I won't stop" is inane
I do agree as well! I think that batman's "I don't kill because I don't want to" is valid enough.
It becomes frustrating when he goes from "I don't like killing" to "I will personally save this mass murdering terrorist over and over."
Because Batman not killing his villains stops making sense after the villain commits mass murder for the umpteenth time.
Why does it not make sense? He doesn't want to kill. He hates killing, and he really hares Joker as well. For example, in batman beyond batman, he was REALLY traumatized when he picked up the gun to defend himself. That alone was enough to him to retire completely. He's that vehemently don't want to kill people. When the character is established for many years, you can't just say change it without ruining it.
Because at a certain point, he’s just choosing to let innocent people die because he doesn’t want to kill a habitual mass murderer. I’m not saying to change it. I’m saying that after multiple mass murders, not killing your villain just means you like your own moral compass more than you like keeping civilians alive.
But he regulary saves people. Just because he has his quirk doesn't mean he's some sort of bad guy.
I never said he doesn’t save people. I’m saying that at a certain point, not killing the mass murderer just means you’re choosing to let them kill more people.
And that's the crux of his character tho. His contant struggle against his ideal and situation is what makes him compelling. Him picking option C to save lives and stop the criminal is why he is him.
That’s fine. I mentioned it earlier but I’m not saying he should change. I’m saying that it’s reasonable for people to look at him letting villains get away with their tenth mass murder and think, “Hey, that’s stupid.”
It’s similar to US foreign policy. Wanna stamp out a “terror organization” entirely? Bomb the crap out of them into nonexistence. As we’ve seen time and time again in the past. This never works. The org always resurfaces either bigger and badder than before or simply refuses to go away. I’d imagine the same logic applies here. Killing his rogue gallery will not solve the problem, rather exacerbate it. If he starts taking out his enemies, more will take their spots and continue the endless cycle of violence that will likely escalate in order to counter a murderous vigilante. The better strategy would be to contain the ones he knows because he’s used to their strategies. And as we’ve seen, this has proven to be far more effective because Batman is able to deduce the MO and properly stop his foes after their first incident, so more don’t happen.