Batman: Friend or Foe?
I absolutely love and adore Batman. My childhood was filled with watching reruns of the 1960’s Adam West Batman television series, with me legitimately becoming invested in the cheesy situations and characters. Back when Blockbuster and Hollywood video still existed, my family and I would always pick out a few movies to rent over the weekend, and you could guarantee that at least one of them would be a Batman movie. The Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy is by far my favorite movie series, and to this day I rewatch and analyze those movies at least once a month if not more often. However , I have found that the more Batman I experience, the more familiar I become with him and the various villains and supporting characters, I am forced to come to the conclusion that Bruce Wayne is just as insane and unreasonable as his Rogues Gallery of villains.
Now, as my introduction illustrated, there have been more portrayals and versions of Batman than I can count, so while making my case for Batman’s mental instability, I’m going to limit my evidence to character traits and actions that would be considered to belong to Batman’s core character. However he is being portrayed, there are traits that are considered quintessential Batman, if you will. Namely, Batman does not kill villains except in the most rare and extreme cases, Batman is a master strategist with a plan for almost any conceivable situation (and plenty of inconceivable ones as well), and the traumatic murder of his parents is the main driving force behind almost all of his actions.
Of those character traits, the part about having a plan for everything is very important. Batman has shown time and time again that he can anticipate his enemies’ moves before they have even decided on making them. He is first and foremost a detective and tactician. However, this leads to a rather interesting implication. Batman knows that the villains will break out of whatever prison they are sent to and he knows exactly the kind of chaos, death and destruction these villains can and will cause. And yet he time and time again spares them and sends them to prison. He is more than aware that his actions are futile, and yet he continues. While some would call his actions admirable, an attempt at staying morally white and pure, I posit that they are in fact the opposite. If he could prevent the deaths of innocents by ending the lives of the villains and he doesn’t, then he is at least partly responsible for those deaths.
Now why would a seemingly heroic and good man allow this? To answer, I present to you the Hero Disorder. Someone with the Hero Disorder will intentionally create dangerous situations so that they can then come in and save the day. This is usually done because that person craves attention and validation, and Bruce Wayne fits this perfectly. His parents were murdered in front of him when he was a child, and in almost every version, it was indirectly his fault that his parents were walking down Crime Alley to begin with. This means that not only did Bruce grow up without parents to love him and be proud of him, but that he has to live with the guilt of having caused their deaths due to his own inadequacies. Suddenly the idea that Batman has a mental disorder doesn’t seem so far fetched.
Now what Batman does suddenly makes sense. He fights criminals using only hand to hand combat and simple gadgets because he doesn’t want everyone to be completely safe. This is a man with billions of dollars, which he could easily use to clean up the city legally. He owns several mechanical suits capable of giving him the power to go toe to toe with Superman, yet he almost never uses them, even though they would allow him to be a far more effective crime fighter. Batman lets people like the Joker live even though he would be well within the law to kill him in defense of himself or one of the thousands of innocents that the Joker has maimed or killed, but he doesn’t because then he wouldn’t have a way to save everyone and be the hero.
While normally I would end with a warning to my readers about not being tricked by the author or creator of something, this time I will instead simply ask that you don’t be deceived by yourself. Batman was always intended to be dark, conflicted, and crazy. He is not someone you are supposed to emulate, or at least that was what his original creator Bill Finger intended. For Pete’s sake the man takes children dressed in brightly colored suits on stealthy fighting missions; the man is clearly not right in the head.
