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How often has Batman allowed criminals to die?

I think Two-Face in The Dark Knight is best explained by an episode of the cartoon series: there was at least one episode where both Talia Al'Ghul and some random villain are falling and he saves Talia (who in this episode was on his side). So he tackled both Two-Face and James Jr. over the side in order to save James, but since he couldn't save both was forced to save James Jr. and allow Harvey to fall. Basically if it's the villain's fault that they accidentally fall in a struggle and he just can't save them, he doesn't beat himself up about it too much.

Of course, none of this explains Begins (or the tail-end of TDKR...)

The episode of "B:TAS" you're thinking of, if memory serves, is "OFF BALANCE" where Batman saves Talia from Count Vertigo's collapsing castle. There was no time to save Vertigo, whose own weapon caused the collapse anyway.

For the record, while the animated Batman naturally avoided killing - it being a network kid's show - there are at least several occasions where he makes no attempt to save the Joker from something which by all rights should be fatal. The obvious examples being "MAD LOVE" (Batman punches Joker off a moving subway car into a factory smokestack many stories down) and "WORLDS FINEST, PART 3" (where Batman and Superman specifically save Lex Luthor and Harley Quinn from an exploding war plane and leave Joker to his fate. Batman even makes a dark joke about the low odds of Joker's survival). However, in all instances the Joker survives anyway. Hell, even in "MYSTERY OF THE BATWOMAN", Batman makes no attempt to save Bane as he plummets into the flames of an exploding ship - although in that case being pummeled nearly into unconsciousness helped.
 
He did more or less killed a dude in Detective comics 594. He kicked the guy in a safe and let him explode with his own dynamite. But he had to, or else the whole room would have exploded killing everyone.

I think Nolan's movies are interesting because it shows how it would be difficult not to break his rule, which is not to be "an executioner".
 
I think Nolan is such a genius that he basically planted this undertone in the entire trilogy. His whole approach was one of realism, and realistically, being a masked vigilante, people will die. The Question said it very well; how hard it is to be a real superhero was the most common thematic element in TDK. So I think Nolan completely understood the no kill rule but in order to create this world that you honestly feel like you could inhabit, I believe he made Batman's decisions and actions as ambiguous as ours are daily.

I don't know. Just my two cents.
 
Honestly if he was magically able to keep every criminal he fights from dying or ever being even tangentially responsible for their deaths just by virtue of trying to stop them, it would be unrealistic.

Probably what is needed are scenes where he questions his role in these deaths or examines his own culpability. We got a bit of that in The Dark Knight where he opines about how he was "meant to inspire hope, not madness, not death" but this is examining his entire mystique as Batman and whether that is a net positive or negative, although he does regret his inability to stop the Joker from blowing up Harvey Dent. I think the main problem is these scenes are short or glossed over--and in fact TDK lacks the kind of emotional epilogue Batman Begins had, by virtue of it ending in an action scene. Begins has a good seven minutes or so after R'as is killed with some scenes with Rachel where the actual value of Batman as a figurehead is discussed, which was better than nothing.
 
I was just reading "Bride of the Demon", Batman deliberately crashes a fighter jet into Ra's control room, killing at least one thug and attempting to kill Ra's. Several times through out the story he intimates or outright says he hopes Ra's is dead or will die.\

So...there's that, I guess.
 
As mentioned in Dark Knight Rises Batman KILLS the truck driver then continues to try and kill Talia. No letting him die, no I'm not trying to kill him.... he kills him. He's in the Batwing raining down bullets and missiles until one ends up in his chest and yes that is the end result of riddling munitions at live targets is they will eventually be killed... but that's what the circumstances called for. So at least in Nolan's version he will kill, just depends on what's going on, and yes it results in Talia's death but it is what it is, he won't kill... unless he has to. I would assume his rule will always be dictated and interpreted by the writer of the story at the time.
 
It was the same writer, though, right? I assume that was accidentally shot in such a way that we think Batman just straight up killed him, because yeah, as far as I can tell, he just straight up kills him, resulting in a plot hole--at least in the Dark Knight when the driver of the tractor trailer is killed, it's by falling debris, so Batman can rationalize in his mind that it was tangential to his intent. Probably the way he rationalizes Talia's death--he was trying to stop the truck, the fact that her back was broken (ironic?) and she died wasn't his intention. That's probably how Nolanverse Batman would rationalize it.

Plus what with how everyone else in the Nolanverse can survive long-distance falls she must have had the comic book movie equivalent of glass bones.
 

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