I hate Bruce's "I don't kill because once I start, I wouldn't be able to stop"
Like I simply do not buy it. Murder is not a potato chip Bruce. I think he is full of shit and a messy bitch who lives for the drama. I am certain Bruce has some kind of valid reason for not killing, but I don't believe that this is it.
No no let’s dig into this. And let’s not go into the obvious of, “murders bad” or “he’d feel guilty” like let’s try to find another reason to why this bitch man doesn’t kill anyone, including his son’s murderer
So there are generally around 5-6 "big reasons" traditionally given for why Bruce doesn't kill his villains, many of which have been explored in comics and others of which have been discussed and debated ad nauseum around the internet. Here's the four I tend to find most compelling:
- Bruce's moral code that prohibits killing is ultimately what separates him from those he fights against. He follows a very strict deontological viewpoint of "killing is wrong, regardless of intentions or consequences." Jason, by contrast, has a "ends justify the means" consequentialist mentality of "if you kill a criminal, you prevent more crime, so the killing is justified." The ethical dilemma surrounding this issue is that who are you, random quasi-legal vigilante on a self-imposed quest to end crime, to decide when you are or aren't preventing "more killing/crime" by killing a criminal? What makes Bruce qualified to determine who should get to live and die? He doesn't think he is, so he's simply said "I don't have that right. I'll instead work to save everyone, regardless of who they are/what they've done (to me or anyone else)."
- Bruce's "if I start killing, I don't think I'd be able to stop" is less "murder is a potato chip" and more about the rationalization it would take to take that first step off the edge. Essentially, if he kills Joker, why not kill Two-Face? What makes killing Joker fundamentally different from killing Two-Face? From killing Penguin? From killing Harley, Ivy, Killer Croc, etc? Why is killing the Joker okay but killing say....Victor Zzasz isn't? When does a villain commit enough illegal and morally reprehensible acts that extrajudicial murder is an acceptable solution?
- Part of the point and purpose of Bruce being Batman in addition to Bruce Wayne, CEO of Wayne Enterprises, is the flexibility he has in pursuing justice, rehabilitation, and re-education. The entire point of Batman is preventing the Wayne Family Tragedy™ from happening to anyone else. Bruce's entire mission in life is creating a world where "no more children lose their parents to some punk with a gun." Batman is supposed to prevent more children from becoming orphans, more wives from becoming widows, more husbands from becoming widowers, more parents from losing their children. What does killing do except perpetuate that cycle of violence and undermine his core mission?
- How is Batman any different from the cops if he kills? Batman can't be a figure to inspire reform in the criminal justice system (and specifically the GCPD) if he kills, because how does that make Batman any better than the corrupt system he claims to want to make better? Batman killing doesn't inspire hope that there is a better way; it would just be an extension of how Gotham's "justice system" works anyway. By refusing to cross that line Batman as a symbol encourages Gotham to be better than they are.
As an expansion of #2, you could very reasonably make the point that "but it's the Joker! He's different!" But is he? Is he really? He's certainly done more permanent personal harm to the Batfamily than most other villains (Babs and Jason specifically), but what about Two-Face smashing Dick to pieces with a baseball bat in Robin: Year One? What about Black Mask torturing Steph to death during War Games? What about Shiva killing Cass in Batgirl (even if she brought her back)? What about Ra's nearly killing Tim in Red Robin? What about Talia murdering Damian by proxy (via Heretic) in Batman Inc.? What about Bane murdering Alfred in City of Bane? Where's the line?
Bruce has seen 3-4 people he's either legally or nominally responsible for die on his watch, another 3 tortured to near-death conditions on multiple occasions, 1 permanently injured, and had a villain murder the man who raised him and leave his body for Bruce to find, and yet the only thing anyone really ever talks about re: Bruce killing is Jason and the Joker. If the line is torturing one of his kids (or those flying under his banner) half to death, by all rights he should have killed Two-Face and Black Mask for what they did to Dick and Steph. If it's killing a 'family' member, he should have killed Joker, Black Mask, Bane, and Talia (also Lex Luthor and...technically Jacob Kane, considering everyone thought Tim was dead during the Rebirth arc).
It's not just the Joker at stake here: if we start saying "Batman should kill the Joker because of what he did to Jason [and everyone else]," you start getting into really thorny questions about well...a lot of Bruce's villains have done some ridiculously morally reprehensible stuff, including mass murder and irreparable personal harm to someone he considers family. What makes the Joker's mass murder different from Ivy's mass murder (and yes, canonically they are both mass murderers) that justifies the Joker's death but not Ivy's?
You can of course justify that by saying "but Ivy's not unredeemable! She can be reasoned with and rehabilitated!" but...what if Bruce had made the decision that she was unredeemable and worthy of death before her No Man's Land-era redemption arc kicked off? It loops back around to #1, that Bruce doesn't feel personally qualified to make that moral and ethical decision about who gets to live or die, because he thinks everyone has the personal capacity to change (and what right does he have to take that possibility away from someone?)
....also personally I think "they deserve to die" and "I deserve to kill them/let them die" aren't morally/ethically equivalent statements and Bruce can certainly think Joker deserves to die without also thinking he is morally allowed to kill him (or morally allowed to let someone else kill him when he has the ability to stop them).
There is going to be a time where the punishment does not fit the crime. Sure, Bruce could go out and systematically murder all his Rogues, but what would that fix?
It's not going to fix the broken justice system that might as well have created them in the first place. It's not going to fix the lacking mental health resources that could have saved these rogues a long time ago. You could have Bruce kill them all and then try to implement these changes, but why couldn't he have done it when they were still alive and could have possibly benefited from the help?
At what point is the line drawn? When you think about it, the earliest iterations of the Joker featured him as a campy burglar with a theme. That's all he was. But over time, his story changed and his crimes grew worse. But not every thief out there is going to turn out to be a terrorist the likes of the Joker. Yet are you willing to give them a chance and wait and see if they do? When there are so many lives at stake?
There is a lot of nuance to this argument that a lot of people ignore in favor of saying Bruce should have killed the Joker because Jason wanted him to.
But what about what Bruce wants? Jason can say what he likes but when it comes down to it, it's Bruce that has to live with these decisions for the rest of his life. It is not wrong for Bruce to refuse to kill.
If we think Bruce shouldn't push his morals on Jason, then Jason shouldn't push his on Bruce either.
Bruce has always been a compassionate man. This is the man that sat with Ace in her last moments. This is the man that visited his parents' murderer in the hospital and sat with him as he passed on. Just so that he wouldn't die alone.
If you want a character that kills in the name of 'justice', then you have Jason for that. Batman can only be Batman because he doesn't kill. That's what he represents. Someone who can defend the weak and powerless and doesn't stoop to the same level as those he protects people from.
At what point would changing that twist who Bruce is fundamentally? Bruce doesn't kill. Other heroes can, but Bruce personally cannot. And that shouldn't be as big as a problem as it is.
People talk about how characters like Dick or Tim put Bruce on a pedestal (which would be incorrect), yet they also keep Bruce to that same pedestal. In fact, they prop him up to higher expectations and then get frustrated when he can't meet those standards.
You think Bruce's morals are wrong? Then stop acting like his morals are the only ones that matter.
