The Need For A Symbol
21 July 2008 
Those who have seen Chris Nolan's recent take on the Batman franchise will agree with me on this one: the movie wasn't about Batman nor was it about the Joker (although both hero and villain were not disappointments to say the least).
The movie was about Harvey Dent.
Yes, Harvey Dent, the young ambitious district attorney of Gotham City who pledges to clean up Gotham's crime-ridden streets within the bounds of the legal system–something neither Batman nor his ally James Gordon admitted was even possible. The movie begins with Harvey, and ends with Harvey–or at least what Harvey becomes (long-time Batman fans already know this bit of trivia).
The movie has the ingredients of a great tragedy: on the part of Batman, of Gotham, of the Joker, but more than all these sordid stories combined is the tragedy of Harvey Dent–the tragedy of a white knight, a symbol of hope and of righteousness, and how the realities of Gotham or any aspect of human society, can warp and twist such a symbol.
Harvey Dent echoes this pathos in one memorable line:
either you die a hero, or you live long enough to become the villain.
Nietzche has a similar cynical take on this:
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
By the end of the movie, Batman's last act of heroism isn't what people expects. This is a heroism not of the direct conventional kind–but of the kind that has deeper implications to society. How important is a symbol that one would have to sacrifice oneself to uphold that symbol? Is a symbol more than man's action?
Watch The Dark Knight and answer this for yourself.
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