After watching batman throw around explosives left and right I no longer believe batman doesn't use guns because of some sort of moral quandary but rather he just prefers the challenge.

Daft_ish@lemmy.world to Showerthoughts@lemmy.world – 275 points –
32

Bruce Wayne is just another billionaire who likes to get dressed up in leather and beat the underprivileged of gotham. The problem is guns are too quick. He needs to teach these people the lesson that it's wrong to be poor. And he needs to teach that lesson through pain and permanent physical disfigurement. All whilst bruce's erection slowly wears its way through his cod piece, beating after beating, suit spunk after suit spunk.

Do people genuinely think this about Bruce Wayne or just fucking around? I honestly can't tell anymore.

Alan Moore's brand of nihilist contrarianism has really done a number on the discussion.

I think people are questioning the ethics of Batman more these days given how discussions around poverty and crime has changed. Given how crime is more often than not a result of poverty and a lack of social safety net than greed or lack of morals, the ethics of Batman bypassing the justice system^1^ and beating the shit out of henchman comes into question.

My exposure to this line of thinking was FD Signifier's video on edge lords, but I haven't seen other people talk about it until now.

1. the justice system also fails these people but we'll ignore that for the sake of argument

In early depictions of Batman, there were times in which he freely killed criminals and times where he was an officially deputized state agent. In contrast, most depictions since at least the late 80s and 90s were much more progressive, with Bruce Wayne being the biggest philanthropist in Gotham, helping to provide low cost housing and healthcare, as well as funding criminal rehabilitation and direct job placement for ex-cons with Wayne Industries. Writers were aware of the other aspects of justice that Batman needed to embody long before it was trendy on the internet to edgily portray Batman as a billionaire who enjoys beating people up for fun.

Plenty of people will say that. This is a really good dismantling of the whole concept by thoughtslime, where he basically points out how contradictory and malleable the entire character is, and he can be written as an authoritarian but usually isnt, plus some other stuff I don't remember: https://youtu.be/73M2sq9zK-I?si=GoJ4paPDgqBskdos

Also it's unlisted because it's in the raft of videos thoughtslime has decided are outdated, bad, or have problematic elements. Idk what it is about this video that got it on the list, but I feel it's important to mention.

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He also probably holds a large stake in Arkham. Every criminal he sends is money the city puts into his deep pockets

Wasn't his mother from the Arkham family?

Only in The Batman, that's not cannon to any other incarnation.

Non-cannon doesn't exist in the DC multiverse.

Since every iteration is just a different universe. All of them are cannon.

Yes, even the Batnippels one.

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He doesn't use guns because he specifically doesn't like them. If it were just about killing, he'd use nonlethal bullets. The no killing rule is a separate but related phenomenon.

As for explosives, he generally only uses flash bangs, but when he's fighting someone who can clearly take it (like Superman or Darkseid) or a robot that it's okay to kill, then he uses more lethal bombs.

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It's more of a moral and emotional reason. His parents were killed with a gun. Guns are designed to kill. So he's not a fan of guns.

There's more fear in getting mutilated by Batman than getting headshotted from the shadows

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He has deep seeded trauma about guns that make him think about himself as the same type of murderer that killed his parents, whenever he thinks about using a gun.

Well, everyone in modern society knows that only hunters, farmers and shit-scared fuckin cowards own guns so maybe batman is European?

Doesnt switzerland have a shitonne of guns?

It looks like that because Switzerland has mandatory military service and after that people keep their service rifle at home (without ammunition). But it's not at all comperable to the gun situation in America.

Actually thats the funny and really sad thing. America has guns as they copied the swiss system of an armed militia then kept the guns and abolished the militia creating the basket case they have now with a shitonne of guns and not enough people trained to be safe with them.

Half the white people: Yee haw, I'm gonna shoot some minorities! I'm in a militia!

Other half of white people: Don't worry, the police will protect you. No militias gangs allowed!

Uh oh. Guess I'm getting my white card revoked. I don't like cowboys or cops.

So does Finland and some other Nordic countries, yep.

What incarnation are you talking about where he throws "explosives" out left and right? Not every explosive is lethal. A smoke bomb is technically an explosive.

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I think guns are too violent for TV. They mostly used ropes and physical combat

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