Yes, I confess to holding back
The Dark Knight from reaching it's full potential as a block-buster. But I finally joined rank and coughed up $6 (matinee price) today to see the arresting and adumbral flick (thanks Thesaurus.com).
So many ideas, so, so many thoughts. Here's the question that struck me most: Why do we love dark heroes? There's been no shortage of them -- Dirty Harry, Lieutenant Spears (Band of Brothers), Hellboy, Spawn, The Punisher, William Munny (Unforgiven), the Hulk, Danny Archer (Blood Diamond), Michael Corleone, Paul Kersy (Death Wish), Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), "V" (V for Vendetta), Wolverine, and perhaps the greatest of them all, the Batman.
So what generates their appeal? Here's a guess -- they can do bad-guy stuff and maintain (more or less) good-guy status. They channel their anger, vengeance and destructive power into a good cause. I think many of us have these impulses at times, but we can't indulge them. How many of you have patched a hole-in-the-wall or two? You may even imagine the satisfaction of punching some idiot's lights out occasionally. If you doubt the truth of my suspicion, I have three words for you: N - F - L. Even you girls have to admit that you played
Rockem-Sockem Robots as a kid. We love vicarious violence. Watching Batman bring the full measure of his fury down on some crook's jaw is soooo satisfying.
Unfortunately, aside from the futuristic, military-doesn't-even-have-that-technology-yet body armor and Batmobile, this is all sadly out of touch with reality. You just can't do bad-guys stuff and stay good. All these stories get it dangerously wrong. Know who got it right? You guessed it: George Lucas. In his saga, the anti-hero is slowly but steadily ruined by his fits of rage and uncontrolled passion. But in The Dark Knight, Batman is able to do what Annakin could not -- he uses the Dark Side of the force without being consumed by it.
But we all know that Yoda and Aristotle are right. Doing evil, even for good reasons, does damage to your soul, and repeated evil doing will eventually make you evil. So, as badly as we want there to be Dirty Harrys and Wolverines, as badly as some of us want to be such characters, you simply can't have your proverbial cake of violence and eat it too. You can't continuously perform evil actions and still be the hero.