So, I saw Batman Begins with Mikix tonight. Verdict? It was pretty damn good. But that’s not the point of this post. All throughout the movie I found myself analyzing the alignments of some of the main characters. When I say alignment, I refer to D&D alignment, a two word description of a person’s morals. I will warn you that there are movie SPOILERS ahead and so now you know. Honestly, if you haven’t seen the movie, this post is probably going to be meaningless to you anyway. Also if you don’t play D&D this is probably going to be pretty stupid. Yay ridiculously niche audience!
I was faced with a tricky decision when analyzing some of the characters’ alignments. The concept of Lawful versus Chaotic gets kind of blurry when the law is corrupt. Since “justice” is a major theme in the movie, and the movie’s definition of justice seems to refer to ideology and not written law, I went with that definition for Lawful.
Bruce Wayne / Batman: This was the hardest character to figure out. He’s always at odds with the police, has a secret personality, and fights for his own beliefs no matter what the price. This leans toward Chaotic. However, he is primarily motivated by revenge against criminals and a desire for justice, which are fairly Lawful. Since I’m using the ideological definition of Lawful, I decided that’s where he fits. On the Good/Evil scale, he is clearly Neutral. He’s a decent guy, and he genuinely wants to clean up Gotham, but he’s not above busting a few heads while doing so. Verdict? Lawful Neutral
Rachel, the District Attorney: Clearly Lawful Good. She has strong ideals and will not be threatened or bribed. She and Batman want the same thing, justice, but work for them in different ways.
Carmine Falcone, the mob boss: Clearly Chaotic Evil. He loves power and will do anything to keep it, including drug trafficking, extortion, and bribing the local government. He also has no qualms with killing those that stand in his way.
Ra’s Al Ghul, leader of the League of Shadows: He has the same ultimate goal as Bruce and Rachel, to rid the world of criminals. His strong devotion to justice made him see eye to eye with Bruce for a while, as both are devoutly Lawful. However, planning to wipe out an entire city is rather Evil. Ra’s Al Ghul and his minions are all Lawful Evil.
Jonathan Crane / The Scarecrow: Preying on the fears of your opponents is a rather Evil act. Crane is just as corrupt as anyone in Gotham, and works directly with the League of Shadows in their plan to destroy the city. However, he doesn’t give a damn one way or the other about the criminal underworld or about the League’s ideals. The Scarecrow just loves being Evil, plain and simple, and he deserves the Neutral Evil award.
Several remaining characters in the movie are Neutral Good, including Bruce’s butler Alfred, Lucius played by Morgan Freeman, and Bruce’s cop friend whose name I think is Jim. They are generally good guys who want to help, but don’t mind winding up on the wrong side of the law to do so.
This concludes my ultra-geeky analysis of Batman Begins.
Did Ra’s Al Ghul really have the same goal as Batman? I thought he just had determined that humanity had gotten too full of itself in some ineffable way.
I mean, he didn’t rid the world of criminals at all. Wasn’t his plan to fill Gotham with criminals so that it would crumble? He just wanted to destroy big metropolises.
He tried to destroy the city by disrupting its economic flow and by filling it with crime. Sounds more like a Chaotic to me? I don’t know. These things are confusing.
They seemed pretty anti-criminal. Like how they wanted Bruce to slay that petty thief they caught. And I thought they wanted to destroy Gotham because it had gotten too corrupt for them to save.
Hmmm… Well, Wikipedia says that Ra’s al Ghul is an ecoterrorist in the comics who want to destroy most of humanity to stop their ecological destruction. That would fit well with destroying cities. In that case, I don’t think he would qualify as Lawful.
I’ll admit he didn’t really seem portrayed as such in the movie. But there was stuff about him that they didn’t explain that seems to come from the comics (longevity mainly). So, I’m inclined to think they tried to stick with his comic origins.
Maybe he used the talk of justice as a ruse to get Wayne to help him? Maybe they changed his motives for the movie? He didn’t explain very well what he wanted, besides to destroy Gotham.
I maintain that releasing criminals and intentionally destabilizing a city’s economics are Chaotic actions.
Whoops, I didn’t read far enough. The Wikipedia page notes: “In the film, the agenda of Ra’s al Ghul’s organization differs slightly from that of the comic book version. In the film, Ra’s explains that the League of Shadows is an ancient group dedicated to preserving what it perceives as justice, by violent means as necessary (up to the killing of an entire city).”
So, Wikipedia confirms that in the movie he does want justice… But his actions don’t really coincide with that I feel. It’s not clear that his charactarization of Gotham as Evil is accurate.
I haven’t seen Batman Begins yet. Your spoilers ruined the movie and also ruined D&D.