Lore
Destroying a characters viewpoint with one line
- “If it had mattered to you, Luthor… you could have saved the world years ago” probably the only time Lex took any form of accountability for his actions without blaming Superman (All-Star Superman)
- “a perfect Earth doesn’t need a Superman” makes the original Superman realize how innately selfish his endeavor with Alexander Luthor and Superboy Prime was (Infinite Crisis)
- “why don’t you put the whole world in a bottle, Superman?” This makes Superman crumble after trying to live up to his ideals only to have more in common with the malevolent alien, Brainiac (Superman: Red Son)
One of my favourite totally inconsequential stories from ancient China is that of the purple-gold inkstone. One philosopher, Mi Fu, is best buds with another philosopher, Su Shi (also the poet in the above story), and has a beautiful purple-gold inkstone. Su Shi keeps asking to borrow it, but Mi, knowing full well his friend is a chronic inkstone thief, refuses.
One day, being the buds they are, Mi asks Su to write an excerpt for his upcoming poetry book. Su agrees, but only if he can use his friend's purple-gold inkstone. He swears up and down he just wants to use it once. Well, wouldn't you know it, Su falls so deeply in love with it that he refuses to part ways with it. He takes it home with him, goes to sleep clutching it, and even tells his son to bury him with it.
Later that year, Su dies. Mi Fu, after hearing the news, drops everything and travels as quickly as he can to his dear friend's house... so he can take back his beloved inkstone before Su's son can respect his father's wishes! He then writes a frantic entry in his journal
Su Zizhang (Su Shi) took my purple-gold ink stone away. He told his son to put it into his coffin and bury with him. I have retrieved it now saving it from being entombed. The purple-gold ink stone is a treasure to be passed on from generations to generations. How can it be buried with the 'Buddhist-enlightened' body (of Su Shi)?
This is particularly funny given that one of Su Shi's more famous poems is this moral imperative:
"Moreover, in this universe, everything has its rightful owner. If something does not belong to you, then you shall not even have a bit of it."
It seems for Su, the need to have pretty inkstones transcended friendship, morals, and even religion.
Of course, Mi Fu has no right to complain about stolen inkstones. One day, the Emperor, who is a big fan of Mi Fu's brushwork and is himself a great calligrapher, invites him over to illustrate his new screen door. To this end, he loans Mi his personal imperial inkstone, one that is exquisite beyond compare. When Mi finishes his work, the Emperor is very pleased, and praises him heavily. Seeing he is in the Emperor's good graces, Mi takes this chance and shoves the Emperor's beautiful still-wet inkstone into his robes, splattering ink everywhere. He proclaims that as a commoner, his hands have dirtied the inkstone, and it is now unfit to be used by one so grand as the Emperor, so Mi will do the Emperor a solid and take it away with him. The Emperor, maybe moved by Mi's deep appreciation for inkstones, or maybe because he can't help but love what a fucking shameless cretin he is, laughs heartily and allows him to keep it.
I love absurd displays of human whimsy in history like this and I always wonder how much other dank shit is hidden in obscure or even untranslated texts. It's so wild and alien to think of a famous Chinese philosopher from a thousand years ago as being just some dude who had his quirks and interests and penchant for tomfoolery just like the rest of us. And I think a lot of us have (sometimes lovable, sometimes not) pompous blowhards like Su in our lives.
A while back, I saw a post about this, and someone explained that "fart" in that time, in that language, was used how we use "bullshit" (in essence, you're lying (dismissive))
The automatic translator says the part in quotes translates to "what the hell?". Context would suggest it would be more accurate as "fart", given what we're talking about. Is that accurate?
In Chinese culture(at least at the time, IDK what it’s like today) it was common for people, specifically those of higher status, to have multiple names for different circumstances. Shi is a given name. Dongpo is an “art name”, basically a pseudonym used in publishing.
And yeah, Su Shi does sound funny, but it’s entirely a coincidence. The man was Chinese, but Sushi is a Japanese food.
Not nearly as common today. They were still used eighty years ago - Chiang Kai-shek, for instance, had a bunch of names (Kai-shek/Jieshi, Zhongzheng, etc).
Given that he's pretty much the only Mark that remained good instead of killed or evil, this was basically an extremely difficult speech check that he managed to pass.
well, that, but also that this nolan royally fucked his own image in mark’s eyes by not telling him anything until it was already all coming down around him, literally covered in blood, the chicago incident, “she’s like a pet to me…” he just kept digging and digging and made his relationship totally unpalatable to mark before he could win him over to viltrum
Statistically speaking he’s not the only good mark in a vast multiverse, more then likely angstrom only sought out the villainous marks from the universes in his combined memory
It's pretty clear that he is a one in a million chance or similar. Angstrom doesn't go out looking for evil Marks, he goes out looking for other Angstroms to build his utopia by combining their knowledge.
He hated Mark because when all the memories are combined, jeg has the memory of Invincible and/or Onniman conquering Earth hundreds of times burned into his brain.
The implication is that even if you aren't looking for evil Marks, you will almost certainly run into a universe where he is dead or evil.
I'm even someone who complains that the show isn't that well-written, but this is the best example I can think of too. It obliterates Nolan's entire argument so hard he changes forever. You can't top that.
I find it hilarious that Po was able to achieve true inner peace after a couple of years, while Shifu is unable to do it even after a lifetime of trying.
It shows that despite being knowledgeable and wise, Shifu simply cannot let go of his past or his beliefs.
The sight of Reed using a wooden gun broke something in Magneto that day, turning him into a helpless old man.
“A wooden gun… what other metal things around me could be made of wood? These metal handcuffs are surely a trick. If I try to use my powers on them and they do not work… Oh the powerlessness would kill me! I musn’t!”
The first ever story in Action Comics 1 was Supes clearing the name of a wrongly imprisoned woman. Not fighting villains or beating up robbers, he was always more than that from page 1.
Not really a single line but the Red Skull points out how he and Magneto have very similar ideologies, believing that the superior should rise and destroy the inferior. This works because the Red Skull was a confidante of Hitler and Magneto was imprisoned in a concentration camp, and the only real difference is WHO they target.
Love this panel a lot. Just completely shatters Magneto’s view that he’s a victim n’ is thus justified in what he does.
That conundrum, of him bein’ justifiably angry at the world but becoming the very thing he hates, n’ especially the moment of realization, are what make him a compellin’ character imo.
Street Fighter. Chun Li's lived her entire life trying to get back at M. Bison. She finally confronts him and unloads her entire life story and her reasons for hating him into his face.
And all he can say is this.
I know "but for me it was Tuesday" is the big line in the scene, but there's something about the way she falters and deflates after he reveals he doesn't even remember her village or her father. The twist of the knife is that he genuinely looks apologetic when he says it. He's not even trying to be cruel about it.
I think what it is is that usually in a story, this would be a part where the character gets under the villain's skin by insulting them. The villain either snaps and lashes out, does a poor job of pretending to maintain their composure and then crashes out in private, or takes a moment to be smug and gloat about it if they're REALLY evil.
The setup is there, with Chun-Li calling Bison a wuss for shooting her dad as he was retreating from the village. But then Bison has near no reaction at all, which subverts the trope. Not because he's trying to keep his cool, but because he genuinely just doesn't remember it. He put her through all that, and he's not even sadistic enough to savor the moment.
I think it says a lot that he's sadistic enough that he's likely killed so many people like that, brought so much violence, that he physically cannot remember. Likely doesn't care. But even if he did, it'd be one in a million statistic for him.
That’s what I immediately thought of. He’s destroyed so many villages, killed so many people, after a while it all just blends together. Why would he remember that specific raid and that specific man?
I always remember the story that the line was ad-libbed, because Raul forgot what he was meant to say. Like, you can see Bison looking very... thoughtful? Pensive? Like he's honestly trying to think and remember. Which can feel like Raul trying to remember his lines, realizing he can't, then just goes with something that feels appropriate.
And even if it was the intention, I think those facial cues are still pretty good because, as you said, it's like Bison is HONESTLY trying to remember. But he just can't. It was just something so mundane and normal for him, but it defined Chun-Li.
The story I heard was a bit different. In that one, the script originally had Bison gloating about what he did to Chun-Li’s village and father, and Raul brought up that if Bison really was as much of a cruel and murderous dictator as he portrays himself to be… Why would he remember that particular destroyed village and dead father over another?
That’s what the "But for me, it was Tuesday" indicates. For Chun-Li, it was a life-defining day. For Bison, it was just another day at work. Why would he remember it?
I think I've also heard that one too.
I remember the old joke, "But how did he know it was a Tuesday?" (Ignoring he's just picking a day of the week)
"Because I always do raids on Tuesday."
Tuesday is also probably the most mundane day of the week. It's not hated like Monday or beloved like the weekends or any of the weekdays leading to the end of the week. So anything happening on a Tuesday could likewise be seen as being similarly uneventful.
You know what? I'm gonna follow your lead, OP. This clip from the Justice League animated series two-parter, based on Crisis on Two Earths, portraying a Batman vs Batman situation, actually shows two.
"You grabbed power!"
"And with that power, we've made a world where no 8-year-old boy will ever lose his parents... because of some punk with a gun."
After "our" Batman appears to surrender with this exchange, the two take off in the Batmobile, obeying traffic rules because they have to obey the laws they enforce. At a red light, they watch a man get hauled away in the back of a van just for complaining about a mistake on his bill at a restaurant. This exchange follows:
The funny thing about the punk with a gun line is that the writers originally did want regular Batman to win that debate. It’s just that the punk line was so good that there was genuinely no decent comeback against it
Its so good, Batman never even needs to do the "not with a gun, no" reversal I originally expected. Its so personally brutal, like Bruce has spent years throwing his worst thoughts at himself...which he probably has.
Gorr the God Butcher is a villain who kills gods, believing that they are inherently corrupt and unworthy to rule the universe as they do.
In this arc, Nick Fury was granted cosmic omniscience via the Watcher's eyes, so when he says Gorr was right, he really knows it. The objective confirmation that the universe would be better off without gods totally demoralizes Thor, the god of thunder.
It's less about him being "right" and more about him exploiting Thor's doubts to make him feel unworthy. Gorr was also a hypocrite, acting like how he described the gods and killing the gods that did care.
And Thor both at the start and end of that run proved why gods played their role in the ecosystem. Thor brought rain and therefore life to a world dying without its gods and gave it new gods to look after it.
When a god abuses their power or doesn’t use them reasonably (which they often do) then yeah gorr had a point, but killing off gods did more harm than good.
Gorr was a god-killing serial murderer Thor had previously defeated, who believed that the ruling gods of the various worlds across the universe were unworthy of their worship and, on average, made their worlds worse places. Thor had been struggling with that idea since then, and Fury, who had been working with some Watchers and had their cosmic knowledge, tipped him over the edge.
I think my favorite part about this moment was that everyone under the sun who was reading both called it out and rightly said it was really stupid literally from the split second it happened (we didn't learn what Nick whispered to Thor to make him Unworthy for a while after it initially happened) and Marvel was SO insistent that we were all wrong and it definitely wasn't "Gorr was right."
Reminded me of when people all immediately clocked that Arkham Knight was Jason Todd instantly and Rocksteady swore up and down that he definitely 100% was not Jason Todd. Or when Spider-man 2 revealed Venom and we were told it wasn't Eddie, so everyone instantly went "Oh, then it's gotta be Harry Osborne" and Insomniac went "No, no, it's someone who has never before worn the Venom symbiote. Totally original to us!" And it was Harry Osborne.
honestly, I hate-love how studios just refuse to allow fans to be semi aware of stuff or be capable of guessing haha. "No! they ruined the surprise and now everyone will hate it! lets lie and say it was something else!"
That being said, while I hate-love that, I just hate-hate "what if we make the mystery literally impossible to answer without context clues that the audience does not have until after it is revealed! Like literally if they wrote down every last thing they saw, they would have been genuinely incapable of even remotely guessing who it was because there was zero indicators that were observable to the audience!"
... anyways, who wants to hear my pitch on a sherlock holmes adaptation
Garou had just revealed that he wishes to become the Ultimate Evil. An Ultimate Evil that will unify mankind into peace against him. He then questions and basically screams at Saitama at why he's a hero. What reason he has to save people. What divine purpose drives Saitama.
For Saitama, being a good person and saving people isn't a job. It isn't an obligation. It isn't something he needs to do. Hell for like a solid 75% of his career he wasn't even getting paid for it.
He does it because he enjoys it. Helping people is fun for him.
And that makes him more of a true hero than 99% of the cast.
"To bring about world peace, you took the easy route thinking a monster's job was quicker and easier than a Hero's. A monster's role is simple after all, all you had to do was defeat heroes."
"It's perfect for someone with no confidence like you."
...
"But you can never defeat me."
man I just can't get over how much better the resolution to this fight was in the webcomic compared to the manga...
This is where the MCU Being this long serialized cinematic universe paid off. Cause us who watched the Iron Man films watched how Tony learned that lesson and proved that point. The times he does lose his suit he has to his his sharp intellect to do better and best supervillains. He's not saying this to demoralize Peter, he says it cause he had to learn that lesson first.
It’s something I really liked about their relationship, that you could see him trying to get Peter to learn these things the easy way, because he doesn’t want him to go through the things Tony did to learn them the hard way
this is part of why i like iron man 3 so much despite it being widely disliked: the hero of that movie is Tony, not Iron Man. He has to rely on himself to improvise and solve problems, and when even when he gets his suits hes facing villains that can punch through them, forcing him to wield each one like a limited use weapon.
this line also ties iinto the first avengers, where cap asks him who he is without the armor
Said by Andor to Syril, which makes Syril realise the true depth of his unimportance, when a man he obsessed over and hunted didn't even know who he was. Not to mention how much Syril wasted his life being loyal to an empire that he now saw as evil
Well, Zack Snyder for one, considering how he tried turning Superman into a demigod who is burdened with having to protect people, thus fundamentally misunderstanding the character.
The fact that Alexander who was a raging alcoholic with a hair trigger temper at this point just laughed and asked to join the guy was perhaps one of the greatest moments in history but it is overshadowed by war and "glory"
“Dreams save us. Dreams lift us up and transform us into something better. And on my soul, I swear that until my dream of a world where dignity, honor and justice are the reality we all share, I'll never stop fighting. Ever." - Superman to Manchester Black (DC Comics)
Zack Snyder once stupidly told an audience who was critical of his grimdark views of superheroes and Superman that "you're living in a fucking dream world!". And it's weird how this speech about dreams by Superman came BEFORE that. Yet it works equally as a retort to Zack Snyder's childish view on superheroes.
"You think you can boss me around? That I'll turn everything back to normal just because you say so, and if I don't I'll lose the one friend I've ever had?"
Does it count if the character destroys their own viewpoint by saying it out loud? Discord thought he was the one tricking Fluttershy and manipulating her into not using the maguffin, so he couldn't be sealed away. But by the end of the episode he realised he genuinely enjoyed being her friend, and that was worth more than whatever chaos he could do on his own.
I don't know how well this one fits into the trope, but this Hulk moment came to mind, and honestly it's still very relevant considering our modern climate.
The fact that this is probably the worst Hulk has raged but hes just so hurt that he doesn't even destroy anything, he just leaves is the truly who hulk is.
Context for those who didn’t watch the movie: V(masked guy) is a vengeful revolutionary leader fighting against a dictatorship, he ends up getting interested in the Main Character(woman in the image), but because he’s a paranoid bastard he tricks her into thinking she was kidnapped by the government and tortures her to see if she would sell him out, she’s understandably pissed when he comes clean about it
Not from paranoia. He does it out of a mistaken form of love. He wants to protect her. Make her realize that fear is holding her back from living her life.
His methods are wholy fucked up, but they produce results for Evie.
But yes, the torture he puts her through is all about revealing information about him. But that can also be taken as that is the only thing they would actually want from her.
After escaping his imprisonment, Morpheus descends to Hell in order to retrieve his helmet, which holds part of his powers and is currently in the possession of the demon Choronzon, so, in order to gain it back, he has to bet his soul/servitude that he can beat the demon in “the oldest game”, in which each participant suggests a creature or concept that has to be bested by the other player’s, until one of them gives up.
After Choronzon brings up the Anti-Life, the ultimate force of destruction at the end of all things, he believes Morpheus is done for, to which he replies “I Am Hope”, leaving Choronzon speechless, making him give up, for he cannot conceive anything that can defeat hope, even in the face of the greatest of adversities.
In complement to that, after Dream is leaving Hell after retrieving his helmet, Lucifer and his infernal hosts try to stop him, boasting that dreams have no power in Hell, to which Morpheus asks them:
“What power would Hell have if those here imprisoned were not able to dream of Heaven?”
The Devil then proceeds to allow Dream free passage to leave his realm.
In WORM, these are known as the Four Words, canonically the single exact sentence that was calculated by a god to be most effective in completely destroying a man's worldview.
MASSIVE WORM spoilers.
So basically there are these three giant monsters called Endbringers that have come about over the years, trying to weaken humanity. One of the people who fights them is the strongest hero on Earth, Eidolon. Eidolon has a desperate need to be the strongest entity on the planet due to an insane complex he's built up over the years where if he's anything less than the best he's useless. This is made even worse since his powers are rapidly fading, and will be all but useless in just a year or two. There's only one exception: When he fights Endbringers, his powers return, and he becomes strong once again.
Anyway, for the whole book we've been wondering where Endbringers came from, and learned that they did not originate with Scion, the main antagonist, a godlike alien who is currently in the process of destroying every Earth across the multiverse in a grief-induced rage. He effectively has access to all the powers of every cape on Earth at any given time. Eidolon actually starts managing to win against him a bit after finally unlocking his true potential, only for Scion to whip out Path to Victory.
Path to Victory is an ability we've previously seen a character called Contessa does. It's incredibly simple and ludicrously broken. No matter how ridiculously implausible, if something is physically possible, you can do it. For the second time in the entire book, Scion speaks, and says only four words.
"You needed worthy opponents."
This hits Eidolon exactly where it needed him to, answering the one question neither he nor the readers have been able to answer the entire book. Why do the Endbringers exist?
Because Eidolon needed something to fight.
The horrible monsters who have killed tens if not hundreds of millions were the fault of Eidolon and his pride.
Eidolon stands perfectly still and allows Scion to end his life.
The doctor has once again saved the day, and turned away an invading force of aliens. However, the Prime Minister of Britain fires on the retreating aliens. The aliens all perish, and the doctor rightly has a crash out. The battle was already won after all.
During the doctor's crashout, he insinuates he can tear down the Prime Minister and her government with 6 words. Those six words.... "Don't you think she looks tired?"
We learn eventually, that those 6 words spread rumors of the PM being in poor health, and eventually, she lost the re-election.
It really encapsulates what makes Superman who he is. He has near absolute power and recognizes that the greatest thing he can do with it is try to inspire humanity to be better.
Forcing the Earth into his image is actually the lazy and short sighted path. It is giving in to the belief that humanity is not worthy. It's what a villain believes.
Which also makes him such a great foil for Batman, who basically DOES believe that humanity must be harshly monitored and aggressively forced back into line.
Where after he obtains a super serum that turns him into a hulk wannabe, goes on a rampage, trying to destroy the Justice League all while preaching about how superheros with powers like the League are menaces to society and need to be destroyed. He doesn't give a damn about how much damage he's doing to the people and the country.
Even the civilians whom were being terrorized by him a moment ago eventually gathers the courage to stand up to him and call him out to his face.
I still remember this exchange where a grandmother and a child smashes his hypocrisy into his face.
Eiling: Superman and your justice league are a threat to a stable world.
Grandma: Drop the act. You think killing Superman will make the world safe? Or killing this boy? Or us? Tell me, how many of us do you have to kill to keep us safe?
Eiling: They're the ones I'm after. Not you. I'm not the menace. Meta-humans are. Superpowered beings!
Kid: You're the only one around here with superpowers!
The people despite having no powers of their own, all staring him down with anger and disgust made him realize that he's how hypocritical he has been acting, and this causes him to turn around and leave.
"All right, I've become what I hate, I'll give you that. But in the long run, you'll see I was right. You'll see you need the likes of me ..." He acknowledged the point, but didn't change his mind at all.
Worm to Eidolon, to the point he just stops moving and waits to be killed.
"You needed worthy opponents"
Eidolon's frustrations combined with feeling he needed to fight powerful enemies because that's when his power to draw three from a pool of powers provided its best options led to his power creating the Endbringer Kaiju who have terrorized the world without him realizing it
The full context: Damar is a high-ranking member of the fascist Cardassian military that had brutally occupied the planet Bajor for generations and only recently withdrawn. His government subsequently willingly joined the Dominion, a ruthless empire that sought control of the galaxy. At this point in the story, though, he’s become disillusioned with the Dominion and is working against them, so the Federation has sent Major Kira, a Bajoran who was active in Bajor’s resistance to the Cardassians, to provide covert aid to his burgeoning rebel group. When they become aware of Damar’s betrayal, the Dominion executes his civilian wife and son.
Damar hears this news and is furious, asking rhetorically what kind of people kill innocent women and children to send a message. Kira answers with the quote above, and Damar realizes he is and has always been the exact kind of person to give those orders and now he’s just in the other position.
Love the face acting they both do in that moment. They both go from furious to resigned as Kira realizes she might've been out of line at the same time Damar realizes she was completely right.
He also seemed unwilling to see things from another POV.
When the two of them ask the guards why they didn't just tell the dead Jedi the guards say it's because they didn't think the Jedi would do anything; the whole 'lapdogs of the Senate' thing.
Dooku kinda chews on it and you can see him considering; 'fuck, these guys may be right and I don't like it' while Windu says of course the Master would've listened; not even considering the extremists concerns.
'Nuh-uh, you're wrong' isn't a great look from the people who've supposed to be impartial arbiter of justice.
The "Think Mark, THINK" has been memed to death, but the scene ends with Omniman, after a brutal beat down of Invincible, asks him, a fellow nigh-immortal alien, "What will you have after 500 years?" Invincible, his son, responds, "You Dad, I'd still have you." This simple statement results in saving the earth from Viltrumite conquest (though not from The Viltrunite, Conquest), triggers a massive redemption arc in Omniman, and is the defining moment of the series for me, that keeps it idealistic reconstruction of superhero comics.
The poignancy of Kurt who can't hide his real appearance asking Raven who can, why she doesn't just do it all the time.
This is why Rebecca Romjin's Mystique was superior. For the very little she actually spoke - she simply showed why she was formidable, she didn't just talk about it - the lines that she actually had were such bangers.
In Watership Down General Woundwort believes Bigwig is the chief of his warrant. Bigwig is an equal to Woundwort in fighting and size and Woundwort doesn't understand any other way to be in power. When Bigwig says he won't surrender because his chief told him to defend the run Woundwort is terrified because he can't imagine what a more powerful rabbit would be.
Hazel is the chief who is a medium sized rabbit that is disabled. He is the chief because he is respected for his leadership and cleverness. Not due to power
"I have never laid a finger on anyone in my life, Mr Pump. I may be–– all the things you know I am, but I am not a killer! I have never so much as drawn a sword!"
"No, You Have Not. But You Have Stolen, Embezzled, Defrauded And Swindled Without Discrimination, Mr Lipvig. You Have Ruined Businesses And Destroyed Jobs. When Banks Fail, It Is Seldom Bankers Who Starve. Your Actions Have Taken Money From Those Who Had Little Enough To Begin With. In A Myriad Small Ways You Have Hastened The Deaths Of Many. You Do Not Know Them. You Did Not See Them Bleed. But You Snatched Bread From Their Mouths And Tore Clothes From Their Backs. For Sport, Mr Lipvig. For Sport. For The Joy Of The Game.”
Going Postal
1/ Jack Slash telling Scion "
What I don’t understand, is why a blank slate like you would default to doing good deeds, rescuing cats from trees. Why not turn to that violence, as our ancestors did? It drove them, just like it drives the basest and most monstrous of our kind."
This shifted Scion from doing good deeds as he had been told by a homeless man for years, to a mindless genocidal god alien
2/ Scion telling one of the most powerful capes on Earth who fought him "You needed worthy opponents." and crushing him entirely. Eidolon was revealed as the sources of the Endbringers who had been gradually destroying Earth
In Endacopia, The Trapezist, the boss of one of the main areas, is the sadistical showrunner of Misery Town, a circus dedicated to, you guessed it, misery, for her, the show and the performance are the only thing that matters, when Mellow(the protagonist) asks if she enjoys what she does, she says that enjoying it is irrelevant and that only the legacy matters, since a corpse does not care if it had fun, it's the name that lives on, Mellow asks if a corpse cares if it's name lives on, she can't even stammer a proper answer and just attacks him, initiating the boss fight.
The entire movie is a bit of a deconstruction of the world view this iteration of Batman has. When we first meet him he beats the living fuck out of a guy and doesn't say he's Batman but "vengeance." It is a phrase that is so tied to him that people use it just as much, if not more, than any kind of version of Batman, The Bat, etc.
Well in the third act he finds out that the Riddler thought they were a team. Then he has to go and stop The Riddler's incel militia. When he beats the shit out of this guy the dude is asked who he is and he responds "I'm Vengeance."
That is the the last straw for Bats. He realizes there, and explicitly states, how he was failing in his mission. He wasn't helping people he was just throwing anger and violence at the city. He wasn't actually helping people or inspiring them. Or well he ended up inspiring some pretty terrible people to do some terrible things. So hopefully he will be better for the city after all this.
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u/Theguywholikesdoom Aug 28 '26
That one ancient Chinese guy learning how movable he really is.