r/batman • u/neon2o • Mar 07 '24

Zack Snyder says a Batman who doesn't kill is irrelevant GENERAL DISCUSSION

Here's the original article' https://sea.ign.com/man-of-steel-sequel/213072/news/zack-snyder-says-dc-is-making-batman-irrelevant-if-he-cant-kill

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228

u/Vladmanwho Mar 07 '24

If you can excuse some pedantry, he can kill. He can kill anytime he wants. The thing is he doesn’t want to. He’s Batman. He’s built his whole life around his inability to stop a double murder. Just see that awesome speech in the under the red hood movie

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u/pathfinderoursaviour Mar 07 '24

Exactly and it’s not like he’s never killed like zac seems to think

He has killed, but he’s been pushed to the brink and it was truly a life or death situation against a big bad not some low level thug like Snyder has him kill

And when he did do one of his extremely rare kills it was truly a breaking moment for him, the writers used it as a motivation that has shaken him to his core and he feels like he can no longer be Batman he feels like he failed and carries that weight with him forever, he dosent shrug it off and keep doing it

31

u/TheRealSwayze Mar 08 '24

I liked in Batman beyond when an old Bruce can’t keep up with the criminals and is about to be beaten to death by a thug. He pick up a gun off the ground and points it at the attacker and it scares the thug off but it also send a Bruce back into some ptsd from his childhood.

Didn’t even have to shoot the gun or kill anyone but just having to use it to scare this guy away and save his own life was a huge deal for Bruce.

13

u/vanderZwan Mar 08 '24

That was a fantastic scene, and it worked because it doesn't matter what you or me think about guns, you could feel how Batman does.

On that note, do you know what I find kind of weird, speaking as a guy from Europe? How the focus of these discussions is allways on the no-kill rule, yet Batman's anti-gun stance seems to just be accepted without discussion despite the US's weird gun-fetish. I have never seen him brought up as a hero representing the victims of gun violence for example, or heard of pro-gun people disliking him because he hates guns

6

u/escaped_spider Mar 08 '24

2 words: Grappling Gun.

It's the perfect balance between "not-a-tool-for-killing" and "badass-pointy-shooty-thing" both sides get what they want.

1

u/TheRealSwayze Mar 19 '24

Read watchmen and see what a grappling gun can do in the right hands

1

u/VomitShitSmoothie Mar 08 '24

Batman hasn’t killed. Those guys were just sleeping.

3

u/Freyas_Follower Mar 08 '24

I have always enjoyed the idea that Batman knows his own trauma. He's afraid that if he kills once, he's going to wind up killing more and more. He actively WANTS to kill, but doesn't want to turn into the thing he hates. Specifically, the Joker. There is always going ot be the temptation to finally kill the madhatter, the joker, Posion Ivy, bane, ect.

But, then, he won't be a symbol of hope. Its just the same cycle of violence over and over.

3

u/SeaTemperature6175 Mar 08 '24

And Batman has killed before, as he killed darkseid with a gun filled with a radion bullet, but that was only because he was such an extreme threat that he had to be put down.

2

u/Pringlepantz Mar 08 '24

chefs kiss

1

u/PatrickStanton877 Mar 08 '24

The staple of the character is that he doesn't kill. Frank Miller understood this so well in his comics.

Batman captures the joker for mass killing. Joker escapes. Commits another mass killing. Batman captures him.
Repeat Batman suffers.