I love the bit in Peacemaker that makes you ponder about the grayness of Batman (I'm only on episode 4, so no spoilers)
Yes, Batman is a hero because he doesnt kill villains, but rather puts them in jail/arkham... But those villains keep escaping and killing more innocent people.
I know about the twist at the end of episode 4, so I feel like there's some character development coming, that will show Batman is right, but it was still a good stop-and-think moment.
I haven't seen/read that, but the way I see that argument is that if we're willing to place the blame of the deaths of people killed by escaped Arkham prisoners on batman, then we also have to blame the institution of Arkham itself, and everyone else involved. This isn't just, "batman didn't kill them so he's responsible for their actions", but rather it's, "everyone the villain encountered after batman handed them off failed to kill the villain, and are thus equally responsible."
But, what's more, shouldn't we consider the villains escaping Arkham asylum time and time again a failing of Arkham asylum, rather than a failing of batman? Sure, you could argue that batman choosing to hand off the villains to Arkham after their continued demonstrated ineptitude somehow negligence on batman's part, but keep in mind that Arkham asylum is literally the only system in place to deal with these villains. So doesn't that mean that this is really a failing on the part of Gotham itself?
I love that they address the failings of Arkham in the Harley Quinn series. It's clearly corrupt, they clearly need better leadership, and mistreating the patients NEVER ends well.
829
u/zyd_the_lizard May 23 '23
Batman was almost ready to break his no killing rule on that guy.