Up@dawn 2.0

Monday, May 1, 2017

Taylor Trombley
Batman Philosophy, Installment 2 Class #9
I will be continuing with what I was talking about in the last installment, Bruce Wayne’s life and how certain events shaped him into Batman along with his rules to live by and I got into the Joker. Now I will talk about the existentialism side of Batman. We all know that Batman refuses to kill anyone even the Joker. This is because he feels that everyone has the potential to grow and change their lives in any direction that they please, especially for good. Batman realizes that if you end someone’s life, you take away all hope of them benefiting the world and become a better person. It is a representation of Batman’s hope in Gotham and it leads to him believing that anyone even the Joker can take control of their life and change if they wanted to.If Batman were to take a life such as the Joker he would have to admit that there are some people in the world that I fully consumed by evil and have no ability to change, he refuses to believe that they cannot change. The Joker is what you would consider a nihilist because he seems to believe in nothing, he has no regard for laws, or moral obligations. Batman sees the good in everyone, even the joker. He even goes as far as reasoning with the Joker in The Killing Joke and tries to tell him that he can become a better person and wants to get him the treatment that is needed.

          



This is why Batman takes in underprivileged youth such as Jason Todd to become Robin. Even though Jason didn’t turn out exactly how batman wanted I’m sure he is just happy that Jason didn’t lead a life of crime and hatred. The Batman and Joker are very similar. Both of their lives truly ended and started a new with just one bad day this a core element of existentialism because they were able to choose the path that they wanted to travel down and the goals they wanted to complete. YoungBruce Wayne decided to use all of his resources for good and defend others after his parents were murdered by Joe Chill. He didn’t just become some billionaire snob that drank his sorrows away, he decided to make a difference and give his city what it needed. The Joker had his bad day when a corporate heist went wrong and he fell into a large vat of chemicals which resulted in him terrorizing the citizens of Gotham City. The view of Batman from a criminal perspective is that he is a sort of brutal creature that will swoop in and hurt them, but the citizens see him as their one true hope their guardian in the darkest of nights. Without really planning to Batman set a goal of building the youth so that they could live in a better future. When Batman started out he was brutal and vicious with criminals because he had so much pent up anger and only wanted to isolate himself from others so that he wouldn’t lose anyone else. Once he got a little older and more experienced he realized that he needed someone to carry on the legacy and keep the cities hope alive. So Batman took in a Bat-Family which consists of children and teenagers because they are the future of Gotham. He trained them the best he could and they have turned out to be better than him in some ways and they are the reason that he lives for. I believe that Batman is an existentialist and that he lives it every night by going out and sticking to his rules of not killing because he believes that anyone can change because they are in charge of their own lives, that people can redeem themselves  and even went so far as to say "Men are still good. We fight, we kill, we betray one another, but we can rebuild. We can do better. We will. We have to”. This shows Batman’s character and that he believes the world will become a better place.

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