SpeedballLives said:
Vain isn't so much as thinking your higher up than people, it's more like you focus on how you look, and you believe you look better than anyone else around you.
Being vain doesnt even have to involve you thinking you look better than others.
Someone can be vain and insecure at the same time, they usually are.
You can be vain about your own image and not give a crap about what others look like.
When I think of Dent I see his vanity coming from his insecurities not from him feeling superior to other people. He is insecure because of his past experiences in life which make his physical well being mean more to him. He knows he has never been secure in life with anything else. He knows there are ugly demons lurking inside him so his appearance is doubly important.
He has dedicated his life serving justice to criminals. Because he knows, in his deepest and darkest of thoughts, he could become one.
He blinds himself with naivety.
He cares what he looks like to people because he is in the public eye. His work depends directly on people judging him and what he represents at first glance.
When his face is ruined he feels he has nothing left to offer. His inner ugliness has finally surfaced. There is no longer anything standing in between him and the beast of his past. When he looks into the mirror and doesnt see the perfection he once did and instead sees he has transformed into that beast he has been hiding all these years it drives him mad.
He struggles with both sides because he is still both. He can still visually see both.
The world he wanted to perfect and the world that ruined him.
And thats that PPfffttt!
